INTRODUCTION

As a prestigious novelist who wins the Nobel Prize of literature and a twice winner of the Booker Prize, John Maxwell Coetzee (1940— ) seems to have arrived at what saints call a highly virtuous state when he starts to write this book at the age of seventy. In the novel, Simon and David are new to this living environment after crossing the sea. They wear the borrowed cloth without any food to fill the stomach. They may also be the ones who have experienced separation and death in the past and come here as refugees. Simon, the old man, vows to take care of the boy, David, until the last. In this unacquainted and seemingly ideal city, Novilla, they are put into a fresh journey of life to find their own identities aiming to get rid of refugee status. Firstly, they are assigned to a new name, a new birthday. Then, Simon approaches docks for a job with diligence and spends two days to settle down. A regular tour accidentally renders David encounter his real mother as a result of a kind of familial relationship being established. Thus, in this new temporarily dwelling, Simon and David meet several people---Ana, Elena, Ines, Fidel, Alvaro. Under the influence of these people, Simon becomes both a stevedore on the docks and a financial earner, as well as a nominal father to the family he establishes with David and Ines. David’s identity is also superimposed in varying degrees. He is the son of Simon in Ana’s eyes, he is a treasure for Ines and he is a good friend of Fidel, El Ray and Alvaro. However, it is precisely because of the interlaced appearance of these others that Simon and David have doubts and uncertainties about these identities. David is forced to go to a special school because of his misfit at school for refusing to play the normal role of being a student. This family chooses to leave Novilla. Previous reconstructions of Simon and David’s identities remains only as the members of a restructured family and refugees escaping in a car at last.

As mentioned above, the protagonists confront with diverse people in different places to promote the formation of a variety of identities. In the novel, David and Simon, both as two subjects and others, have never had a stable and accepted identity in Novilla. Lacan ( Jacques Marie Emile Lacan, 1901—1981) , a French structuralist psychoanalyst, whose work has an extraordinary influence upon many aspects of recent literary theory, makes prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy. From Lacan’s point of view, the other is the locus in which is situated the chain of the signifier that governs whatever may be made present of the subject---it is the field of that living being in which the subject has to appear. It is because of the other that subject perceives his own existence and learn his identity through what others say.

Lacan’s ideas are merely abstract and need to be understood by our grasping core concepts. On the one hand, Lacan analyses unconscious through the gap between the signifier references preferring to linguistics, believes that unconscious has the structure as the language. The signifier is placed in a crucial position, which can influence the signified and becomes another level of signifier to form various signifier chains. On the other hand, based on the fundamental concept of unconscious, Lacan deduces a topology intended to account for the constitution of the subject. In fact, the basic condition for the existence of a language is to have an interlocutor; when the subject speaks, he seeks a response from others. “ In language our message comes to us from the Other” ( Lacan, 1977, p4). Lacan believes that it is impossible to gain any sense of selfhood and identity without the relationship with other people:

before the sense of self emerges the young child exists in a realm which Lacan calls the Imaginary, in which there is no distinction between self and other and there is a kind of idealized identification with the mother. ( Barry, 2009, p73)

The human being has always to learn from scratch from the other what he has to do. Children firstly yearn for contacting with their mother. Then between six and eighteen months comes what Lacan calls the mirror stage, infants begin to see themselves as a unified being, separate from the real world, notice that mother’s desire points to their father. They begin to identify with their father and enter into the symbolic stage. From the stage of imaginary to the symbolic, what Lacan believes is that Oedipus complex which happens in infancy, is the trigger for the children to know themselves, the world, even others, to assist them to be clear of their standards in family. Then the subject appeals to something by language in the real, but the other may just give what he needs, which brings a minus or a lack to turn to desires in theses dialogues. The subject and the other have a reciprocal relationship:

as circular between the subject and the other---from the subject called to the other, to the subject of that which he has himself seen appear in the field of the other, from the other coming back. ( Lacan, 1998, p207)

To sum up, the subject is the product of others and lives in others’ construction. In the mirror stage, the subject begins to perceive the independent existence of the self as distinct from the external world; and then in the symbolic stage, the language reconstructs the universal function of the subject, shaped by the discourse of the other; the subject actually realizes himself in the real stage but this is never achieved because of the others’ effect. As Lacan declares, all statements of identity in the symbolic sense of the subject indicate that “ I is an other.” ( Ibid. p96) In the novel David and Simon lack identity and recognition of others. Therefore, in this journey, they make friends, establish families, seek jobs and find opportunities to have close contact with women, all of which are to change themselves under the influence of others in the past and become others in the new world. But do they succeed? The answer is no. They cling to the past and are not satisfied with the present, so their searching for identity must be influenced by others and must never stop their search for identity. At the end of the story they are going to leave again and continue to be the others in another world.

THE TRAUMA IMPRINTED ON THE SUBJECT BY THE OTHER IN THE PAST: THE IDENTITY OF REFUGEES

The subject is constructed by the other. In accordance with the law of speech, it is in him qua other that the subject finds his own identity in order to maintain his own being there. In the beginning of the novel, the subjects are presented as refugees carrying with the manifestations and characteristics of their identity made up of the others in the past. We hardly imagine what David and Simon experience on their journey across the ocean. But we can see the trauma in the conversation between these two people, or in some kind of identification, such as the letter that has once hung around David’ s neck. The trauma of the past has not been erased easily because both of them are the others for each other in the old days. The subject will always be affected by the others’ discourse. Here is a dialogue between David and Simon about a nightmare of David implying some negative effects from the past:

“ Have the bad dreams gone away?” “ I dreamed about the boat.” “ which boat? ” “ The big boat. Where we saw the man with the hat. The pirate.” “ The pilot, not the pirate. What did you dream? ” “ It sank...The fishes came.” ( Coetzee, 2014, p172, Subsequent references only display pages about this novel.)

David, at about the age of five or six, has clearly entered what Lacan calls the symbolic stage. He has acquired some language skills, the ability to distinguish the outside world and communicate with others. Based on this conversation, these images told by him reflect a shipwreck when they were on the ocean---the waves overturned the boat and the pilot crushed the people like a bandit. The sinking ship symbolizes that the dead are being eaten by the coming fish. In fact, the impact from the others in the past is more than a shipwreck for him. The nightmare of this experience sticks in his mind, emphasizing his refugee status. In addition, he never eats fish, he is afraid of death when Alvaro is injured by Daga, he keeps asking Simon if he would die and he even tries to save the dead horse, El Ray. All these others-influenced past makes David sympathetic to everything, even as a refugee.

An indication of David’s refugee identity is the letter. The letter is originally prepared for David by his mother. On the way to runaway, it is inevitable to be bumped by the crowd, and the letter becomes the only thread to connect his mother with him, the only link to contact with the others in the past. Unfortunately, when he meets Simon, his mother has already disappeared and the letter is lost. Every time mentioning the letter, it is often used by Simon as an explanation for what might be mistaken for a father-son relationship with David. The exact content of this letter is unknown, but the existence of the letter can prove the influence of others on David in the past. He thinks about the role of mothers and fathers because his real mother leaves him, which makes it difficult for him to easily accept the relationship between father and mother and renders him always deny his present mother, Ines. It also leaves him wondering if they are his real mother and father. This seems to have created a cognitive impairment for David. He hopes to disentangle himself from the role of refugee, too. From the text, the description of the letter described by Simon is :

Aha, that letter!... the letter was lost before we came ashore. It was lost during the voyage. I never saw it. It was because he had lost the letter that I took on the responsibility of helping him find his mother. (p248)

Despite the loss of the letter, he meets Simon at last. With the appearance of Simon, this different other in the voyage changes David to some extent. After his mother leaving, Simon seems to be David’s only dependence. He attempts to observe the new place, Novilla, makes friends with others and searches for the missing part between the subject and the other. In the stage of growth, David seems to prefer new identities. After all, he is still innocent compared to the senior, he will develop multiple identities, he can imagine his own future. Of course, this cannot be done without the guidance of others.

For Simon, the influence on the subject is more profound from the other in the past and his refugee status is not only reflected in the external expression but also in his internal desire. Although Simon is willing to take this responsibility voluntarily because the child is helpless, this letter becomes an excuse for Simon to shake off the shackles of this responsibility in an instant due to his past, when the boy does not show up beside him. Simon explains to the people in there with regard to the relationships with David that “ he is neither my grandson nor my son. He and I are not kin. We were brought together by accident on the boat...” (p95) He, as an old man over fifty years old, is more deeply impressed by the other in the past than David. Also as a refugee, Simon wallows in memories. When he talks about human nature with Elena, he asks her and also himself. “ Is it not in our nature to crave something more tangible? ” ( p67) The presence of the tangible object also becomes the manifestation of the other influencing the subject. However, the lack of existence is also the source of desire. Desire is basically about filling in the gap and restoring the being of existence. Even if the appeal to desire completeness is expressed as a demand for love or sex, the symbolized expression is not the original need of the subject. This need has been spoken for by others for a long time. Simon, himself, as a grown man, stays in the symbolic stage for ages and still needs to be accepted. He desires to have sex with women, however, such desire yet is not fully satisfied. He is longing for youth, health and freshness that radiate from one woman. Even if he has immigrated to Novilla, an superficial Utopian place, he does not give up allurements from the younger’ s energy and urban city’s life style. For example, he will ask questions such as “ Is there someplace one can get a cup of tea? ” (p17), which astonishes his fellows in the docks. Apparently, he loses himself in desires beyond his age which are desires for the other in the past.

Simon tries to achieve that past existence by saying that he never built a kin relationship with the boy. His desire, however, is made stronger by its inability to reach, so that it is obviously impossible to satisfy him completely. He denies his responsibility as an adoptive father but he always surrounds this boy who becomes the reason he resists difficulties hanging on there. The past of the other changes him with lust or material desire. Whereas when he acquaints himself with David and the others, his dissatisfaction with reality turns into acceptance, and he tries to break away from the influence of the past and learn from Elena’s manner of speaking to persuade Ines to give up the Gypsy life. When he first arrives Novilla, he, like David, does not intend to survive as a refugee.

SEARCHING THE LACK IDENTITY UNDER THE CONSTRUCTION OF OTHERS IN A GRAND NEW ENVIRONMENT

As we mentioned, both subjects are trying to shed their refugee status in search of a new identity recognized by others. Because the realization of the subject depends on others from the mirror image, the gap of signifier chain in the symbolic stage and the real stage in Lacanian theory. It is the gap that arises the desire, when the appeals transfer to the needs. This gap or lack is named by Lacan the “ objet a ”, the object a in English , the cause and the realm of desire. Identity, also as an object a, is a lack between the subject and the other, thus searching the lack identity means desiring the object a but never possessing an integrated identity.

Based on Lacan’ s understanding of subject, a gap is generated on the field of the other who can tell that the subject in The Childhood of Jesus is missing. Unfamiliar people and new environment strike Simon and David. Take a dialogue from the text as an example. “ It’ s dark, ” says the boy, “ I can’t see anything. Am I inside the mirror? ” (p317)  Prior to these words, the little boy, David, sprinkles the magic powder which is actually magnesium powder. David dresses a black satin gown, stands in the front of the mirror and plays as a magician. When he gets hurt, no wonder how dark in his world following Senor Daga’s words, he is convinced of the magical power of the surreal, David can not wait to put on his shawl in the hope that it would give him a new identity, a magician. Senor Daga as the other adds another dimension to David’s perception of the subject. This “ magic cape” reminds David of Daga’s strength and his fight for freedom. He believes that with a cloak of mystical power, he is only one step away from freedom and will be able to realize his desire to become invisible. He touches the things that belong to one profession and imagines that he is the one who truly will be, like after he meets his kin friend Fidel, hoping to be a violinist.

The lack of identity is further illustrated that the absence of the subject is a result of division. The quotation from the book is relevant here. “ Yes. That is where ( in Belstar) they gave us our names, our Spanish names.” ( p3) In Lacanian theory, the subject has no definable substance and cannot be expressed in words. With the intervention of the other, the subject can be discussed as much as possible, but the subject will never become its own master because it is in the chain of the signifier of the other, and the signified that really represents the subject is also fictional being proved in mirror stage. The subject can only constantly find identity recognition from the other. The identity is passively accepted. David is forced to eliminate his own existence, avoids contradiction and obtains meaning and is suggested appearing in a mirror. The symbols render him imaginary in a meaningful world. In fact, because David in a certain condition-missing, he must be filled, otherwise the structure of subject will be in danger:

“ What are we here for, Simon? ” he asks quietly... “ No, I mean, why are we here?” His gestures take in the room, the Centre, the city of Novilla, everything.”... “... We are here for the same reason everyone else is. We have been given a chance to live in and we have accepted that chance. It is a great thing, to live. It is the greatest thing of all.” (p21)

Simon answers David’s question deeply. Thus it is the beginning of the construction of I in the symbolic world. The child questions the way of living and endeavors to understand the world besides himself, expresses cognitive needs. The acceptance of new conditions in this place comforts both of them, forgetting the past and falling deep in the gap.

One desiring subject, David, chooses to give no reply because the self is not complete when he first meets Ana. He becomes kind and warm after he is accepted by Fidel, Elena and Ines. He enters the roles of friend and a son. When El Rey ( a horse in the docks) dies, he cries a lot and strives for bringing it back to life. His friendship with El Rey enables him to integrate into the outside world. As a subject, each of us possesses a similar spirit as that of David. We wish to understand the world around us from our own perspective, to transform the world with our own efforts, and to help the weak with our own abilities after blending into the Symbolic stage which we have to get used to. All of these hopes are the ideas of interacting with the others.

Another subject with desire, Simon is one more such example. As a senior, obviously, Simon in a mental exercise, tries to see the world through David’s eyes when he is in hospital with nothing else to do. Therefore, in a dreamlike, half-awake state, he has a dream about David. Here are the words about his dream:

... he sees a two-wheeled chariot hovering in the air at the foot of his bed. The chariot is made of ivory or some metal inlaid with ivory, and is drawn by two white horses, neither of whom is El Rey. Grasping the reins in one hand, holding the other hand aloft in a regal gesture, is the boy, naked save for a cotton loincloth. (p281)

First, we need to learn the context in which the dream is happening. In Coetzee’s more realistically linear narrative of this novel, a family is facing legal threats from the school to send David to a special school because of his uniqueness. In fact, David is not accepted by the society because of his unusual wisdom. Simon borrows an illustrated Children edition of Don Quixote from the library in order to teach him to read. For a child of David’ s age, it is a little harder to understand the plots in Don Quixote. But because of this book, David’ s imaginary world is completely opened up, there are cracks between the numbers, and people will fall like Don Quixote’ s expedition. These magician’ s rich imaginations also influence Simon. In addition, this dream depicts David in words as heroic as the king David, the biblical ancestor of Jesus. He rides in a chariot, like a messianic figure trying to summon him. As an other, David always influences Simon with his words. The metaphor of this ancient symbolic image foretells the deep meaning of the relationship between David and Simon: Simon as the guardian of David’ s duty and David as the inspiration of Simon’ s spiritual realm. The dream also indicates that David needs him, the father in name, and even though he rides in the carriage with great force, David still requires Simon’ s help. This dream implies a reciprocal relationship between the subject. Simon as the subject is reconstructed by the other, David.

What Simon expects is finding who really he is with philosophical thoughts. Lacan claims that desires can never be filled and the subject keeps desiring other’ s desire, when you as an individual live in the real world. “ Nothing is missing.” (p75) Simon searches himself in a way of conversations between women and Alvaro. Ana, Elena and Ines all challenges his memories. Alvaro told him that:

It is the only world. Whether that makes it the best is not for you or for me to decide... everything is ruled by laws, that nothing happens by chance. Therefore, “ perhaps, in this world that is the only world, it would be prudent to put irony behind him.” (p51)

At first, Simon “ starved of beauty” and expected “ gratitude—gratitude at one’ s great good fortune to be holding in one’ s arms a beautiful woman.” (p164) Finally, he kindly burdens responsibility of making the world beautiful. He persuades Ines to accept David just as Elena persuades him and is obliged to help the mother and child. In Lacan’ s view, this is the purpose of establishing a relationship between the subject and the other in order to achieve social identity.

Lacan points out that if one can identify his desires only on the level of the desires of the other, there must be something that presents as a barrier to prevent his disappearance, where his desires are not verified at all. In this story, Novilla seems an Utopian place, where every new immigrant who relocates here can be provided housing arrangement. On the docks, as long as you work hard, you will get paid. Children accept free education provided by the government at the age of six. The institute ( a kind of adult school) offers not only all kinds of knowledge, but also supplies free food. In a word, this new place is full of “ goodwill ” and “ benevolence ”. In this rational world that values philosophical speculation, Simon and David are profoundly influenced by this environment, gradually they become less attached to the past. He insists to the universal over the personal with less self-interrogation any more. Regrettably, because of David’ s education problem in the real, they have to leave there because of intrinsic dystopian revealed by some negative aspects, for example, the absence of modern civilization, the repeated tedious administrative procedures and the lives of local people without desires. In this symbolic world, they do not really fit except to find several companions. The identity they seek here is fading away. Simon is no longer a docker, nor David is a friend of Fidel and others any more. In the construction of the subjects by others, some identities will be preserved, such as kinship among David, Simon and Ines. Some identities are discarded, such as romantic lovers between Elena and Simon. “ Good morning, we are new arrivals, and we are looking for somewhere to stay. ” “ That’ s all. Looking for somewhere to stay, to start our new life. ” (p329) They begin a new life for continuing to search themselves in a new environment and this Novilla will be the past, not only for David, but for all of them.

CONCLUSIONS

Lacanian theory subverts the Cartesian transparency of subject, and promotes the development of psychoanalytic theory. From the theory of the unconscious subject to the desire subject, Lacan reveals us the concept of the subject, he advocates and explains the nature and constitution of the unconscious by introducing the linguistic dimension. By elaborating the desire of the subject in the mirror stage and the symbolic stage, Lacan expounds from different levels that one desires the desire of others. This paper regards the subject’s searching for identity as a desire, which is expressed and constructed by others. Through the simple language and dialogue of this novel, the identity is conveyed in the form of dreams— the cracks of the protagonists’ existence with the memory of the signified on the chain of past signifier. In the meantime, as the evidence of identity, the letter is potentially symbolic of an ambiguous impression in real. The desire of the subject is searching for an identity. At first, they arrive at Novilla alone and gradually strive to realize their own part in the process of communicating with others. David’s fascination with the magic world and Simon’ s desire for sex are both subversive ways to express their understanding and love of the real world.

In this novel, homeless Simon seeks a mother for David, the little boy, and in the process as being father and mother, acting as the child’s guardian. Both of them are in searching identity under the effect of the other, the social context. Their relationship is not that of a father and son in a practical sense, but is in a way of tenderness and attachment, their words and care, are very moving parts of the novel. At last, entangled with others in this new place searching himself, David’ s story ending with an evacuation, dressed in a cloak of invisibility, the protagonist takes his adoptive father, his adoptive mother, his beloved dog and the friends he meets on the way to a new life without borders. In the next new journey, it is not anticipated whether David’s wisdom will be accepted by others. It will be a long time before the search for the self-identity is realized in an unfamiliar environment, for desire is always comforted by the substitution of the object a, but in fact there will always be a cut. For Lacan, the journey that is about to begin only turns into a process of the aspiration to be compensated. Before coming to Novilla, Simon and David characterize as refugees. Influenced by others in the past, the two subjects, David and Simon both have some traumas---David’s cognitive impairment and Simon’ s anxiety about reality. After coming Novilla, they have more identities under the construction of others---relatives, friends, lovers, students and so on. When they leave Novilla, like the Gypsies in Ines’ s words, they are free from rules and laws, and they embark on a new journey as the father, mother and son they used to be identified. They will also have new identities in a new place, but we can not expect which identity will be achieved. The subject does not find a complete identity, for he is constructed by others in one signifier chain, and can be deconstructed by others in another signifier chain. The lack will always exist so this journey of David and Simon’ s searching for identity must be endless and tough.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I owe my gratitude to Ma Lili, Professor of English in College of Foreign Languages, Hebei Normal University, who guides me to explore interesting works of Australian literature and gives me lots of encouragements and suggestions to accomplish this paper. Thanks for her patience and generosity.

REFERENCES

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