You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
After tracing the main elements leading Freud to introduce the concept of the death drive in 1920, the paper dwells on the outcome that this concept suffered in psychoanalysis. Freud's need to think the concept in light of a compulsion to repeat (Wiederholungszwang) is analyzed in depth to circumscribe what Freud pointed out as the most essential side of the drive: the impossibility of its ever reaching absolute satisfaction. The result of Freud's understanding of repetition, it is argued, establishes this phenomenon as part of the overall structure of the human subject.
The second half of the paper examines Jacques Lacan's reinterpretation of the question of the death drive. For Lacan, death and its symbolism are related not so much to biology but to our insertion into the world of language and to the work of the signifier. The signifier, argues Lacan, introduces a negativity that is ultimately productive despite borrowing from destruction in that it offers man the possibility of creating and engaging in a fresh start. Lacan's interpretation of Freud's concept of the death drive not only helps to dismantle the illusion of ego psychology but also contributes to emphasizing just why the unconscious, structured around castration and the Oedipus complex, remained central to Freud.