describes this rupture and metamorphosis as it occurs in Antigone. She appears to mutate and take on an avian existence, attested to by the “bird-like cries that” she “emits on learning that her brother’s body has been re-exposed after the first burial” (Copjec, 43). For Lacan it “is this wild tearing away from herself, this inhuman rather than heroic metamorphosis,” (Copjec, 43) that illustrates the ethical nature of Antigone’s action. She acts in accordance with Lacan’s ethical imperative, to never give “ground relative to one’s desire” (Lacan, 321). Rather than sacrificing the near satiation of her desire, through the sublimation inherent in loving, for “the good,” Antigone persists in desiring and remains free from the tyranny of “the good.” Antigone is ethical because unlike Creon, who attempts to serve “the good,” the ideal form proffered by the community, Antigone rejects the pursuit of the good and continues loving and morphing. She attests to the understanding of ethical action as “a matter of personal conversion, of the subjective necessity of going beyond oneself” (Copjec, 43). Thus, the notion of autonomy presented here in terms of ethical action is a radical reformulation of the concept. Rather than characterised by self-rule, detachment, and individuation, this reconceptualisation of autonomy attests to the ethical necessity of lawlessness, self-rupture, and love.
VVVIBoth Copjec and Young-Bruehl turn to Freud to draw out the independent yet receptive nature of the loving and affectionate ego in relation to the demands of civilizational history and the superego. Copjec returns to Lacan’s ethical imperative, which suggests the necessity of going beyond oneself, to illustrate how Freud’s account of the ego allows for this type of ethical mutability. Copjec argues against the claim that Freud adheres to an understanding of the ego as determined by historical inheritance and as driven to return to its initial state. Freud actually rejects such claims, and asserts, contrary to his disciple Jung, that all inheritances present in the id must first pass through the “ego, which is the representative of the external world to the id” (Copjec, 43). He asserts, “it’s not possible to speak of direct inheritance in the ego,” as, “it is here [in the ego] that a gulf between an actual individual and the concept of a species becomes evident” (Copjec, 43). This gap allows the subject a degree of autonomy, and “Freud argues…it is the very maintenance of this gap that prevents the individual subject from being annihilated by the history she inherits” (Copjec, 44). Because the historical inheritance contained in the id is mediated through the partially non-determined ego, whether it passes down as the law of the species, the community, or the family, the subject maintains a degree of freedom. The existence of the excess of the law that is rendered inarticulable by the ego entails that the subject will “carry out the law or carry on the family name without simply repeating in the present what has already been dictated in the past” (Copjec, 44). Thus, due to the undetermined nature of the ego, Antigone is not necessarily destined to repeat the tragic fate of her incestuous family.ntioned, Lacan describes this drawing close to satisfaction, this “near coincidence, of the drive with its object” as love, or “the illusion of love” (Copjec, 41). The autonomy in this account of love derives from the indifference of the lover towards the loved object. The sublimation inherent in loving, the “satisfaction of the drive by sublimation,” “testifies to the autonomy of the subject, her independence from the Other” (Copjec, 44). However, this independence or indifference is not directed towards the loved object as beheld in the lover’s eyes, but as the object is defined by external criteria. Antigone’s love for her brother epitomizes this specific form of indifference towards external law and active receptivity towards the loved object. Copjec describes Antigone’s indifference as directed towards what is defined as possible within the community. She states “whereas Hegel focuses on the merits of Antigone’s act of installing Polynices as ‘a member of the community…which sought to destroy him,’ Lacan views the act of the loving sister as a definitive break with her community.” In other words, the deed Antigone undertakes traces the path of the criminal drive, away from the possibilities the community prescribes…”(Copjec, 38). In her actions, Antigone is autonomous; she “is indifferent to external criteria, such as the good opinion of others” (Copjec, 40). While Antigone is indeed indifferent and autonomous with respect to moral laws, she is not apathetic or closed off from the capacity to love.
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