'There is no Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship': Lacanian Principles in Iris Murdoch's The Sea The Sea.

Iris Murdoch, the English philosopher and writer, and Jacques Lacan, the French philosopher and psychoanalyst, tried to depict the human relations in a questioning way in the twentieth century. In this respect, their ideas frequently meet on the fields such as philosophy and psychoanalysis. This paper will handle Murdoch's well-known novel The Sea The Sea in terms of its protagonist's, Charles Arrowby's unconscious motivations in connection with his obsessive love for Hartley. When Charles's sexual and emotional relationships, such as his relationship with Clement who is old enough to be his mother, his obsession for his first love who is married to another man, his will to steal women from their husbands, and his references to his strict mother are considered, he seems more as a representative of Lacanian subject of the unconscious. In this sense, the references that direct the readers to Charles's unconscious motivations demonstrate in particular his own but in general everybody's paradoxical desire to attain the absolute jouissance which is lost in the symbolic order in Lacanian terminology. Charles's quest for jouissance is presented by his sexual relationships, namely Lacanian object petit a's. However, the impossibility to attain jouissance is also reflected by those of love failures. As Lacan theorizes, all sexual relationships are illusions and fantasies that cannot ensure jouissance for human being, here for Charles. However, Lacan mentions that "courtly love" lacking sexuality and providing a continuous pleasure (nearly jouissance) by keeping the subject's desire alive is a significant alternative to sexual relationship. In this respect, this study will examine The Sea The Sea in relation to Lacanian "There is no such thing as a sexual relationship" principle in terms of Charles's unconscious motivations and his obsessive courtly love fantasy that is "the possibility of love in the form of a pure deep affectionate mutual respect" with Charles's own words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]