Not being able either to cover a lot of Lacanian ground or to claim complete mastery of his theories, I wish to focus here on the Lacanian gaze.

Lacan's work is notoriously intractable and wonderfully wide in its potential applications. Jacques Lacan as a cane, something to lean on while we interpret a work or works of literature, this is my subject. On the other hand, French does contain the feminine word 'canne,' which among other things means a cane, a reed, or a walking-stick. 'In the psyche, there is nothing by which the subject may situate himself as a male or female being' (Four Concepts 204). Nicely, we might say 'Lacan' contains its opposite, its other the male has its female self and vice versa. For example, French, as far as I know, does not contain the word 'can,' but if it did I suspect the word would be masculine, not feminine as in la/can. He prompts us to think of language as endlessly inventive, crossing borders, squiggling out of our control. Lacan fits our moment of fin de siècle uncertainty because of his nicely intricate and infinitely regressive style. And fashion is what Lacan amounts to, if by fashion we mean that which both shapes. Those who use Lacan as a theoretical walking-stick do so after their own fashion. I say 'kick' because writing about Lacan ought to allow one to get one's kicks, to kick ideas about, to kick against the pricks.

'Much more effective as a plague than Freud ever was, Lacan is everywhere and nowhere, like a contagion.'

The Ghost Dance Caper by Monica Hughes