Theory of Character and Characterization
since reality is the result of naming ‘the real’ by language and can thus be thought and talked about Fink, 1956: 25.
In those phases, there are some parties who are included. They are mother and father. In this point, Lacan presented a different definition and understanding
of terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’. According to Freud’s thought, ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are defined as biological parents that a person has. Differently, Lacan
erased the sense of ‘biological’ in his own definition of those terms. To Lacan, what to emphasize more is the function of ‘mother’ and ‘father’. Therefore, they
might be anything. As mentioned briefly earlier, mother is the first individual from whom a
baby separated a self. Based on this statement, term ‘mother’ might be understood as the person who gave a birth to the baby. However, in some cases Lacan also
called a ‘babysitter’ as a mother. Essentially, ‘mother’ is the person who intensively takes care of the baby. “The mother manifests herself in the real as the
primary caretaker of the infant” Evans, 1996: 121. Lacan’s ‘father’ appears in more various forms. Playing a role as a father
in Lacan’s thought means separating the baby from the mother and teaching languages. Teaching languages in this context means showing how a reality
speaks and then teaching the way to respond it. Thus, Evans also mentioned that a father ‘makes possible an entry into social existence” 1996: 62. While the term
‘mother’ is commonly used in many contexts without being different in meaning, Lacan’s concept about ‘father’ includes three terms: the real father, the imaginary
father, and the symbolic father. In An Introductory Dictionary to Lacanian Psychoanalysis, the real father is the man who is said to be subject’s biological
father Evans, 1996: 63. The imaginary father could be defined as the ideal figure of father that a subject has. This figure is commonly omnipotent and an all-
powerful protector 1996: 63. “The symbolic father is not a real being but a position, a function, and hence is synonymous with the term ‘paternal function’”
1996: 63. This paternal function is what has been explained before about father’s role. In other term, the symbolic father is also called ‘the name of the father’.
In relation to mother, father is the one who runs the function of giving other versions of reality to be seen by the subject out of subject’s own mother’s
version of reality. Therefore, father usually does an action of repression in order to make the subject able to comprehend the reality. Father needs to teach the subject
to repress subject’s desire which usually is related to a bond to the mother by setting a condition for a subject to do something before gaining pleasure from it.
A common example of it is the requirement to get parents’ appreciation by leading education as high as possible.