Content area
Full Text
The way through the world
Is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.
- Wallace Stevens, "Reply to Papini"
BY THE END of a tragedy the tragic hero discovers that he had the wrong picture of his satisfaction; or, rather, that is what is revealed about the tragic hero whether or not he realizes it himself. There was something he believed would satisfy him - something that, in the most fundamental sense, he wanted, or believed he wanted - and in the pursuit of it he destroys himself and wreaks general havoc. Lear, Othello, and Macbeth are stark instances of individuals who are, as Wittgenstein described it, bewitched by a picture. It is impossible to have a wish without having a picture of its satisfaction; desire always comes with this picture attached, although the picture is often tacit, unconscious. Satisfaction has always happened in our minds before we are satisfied. It is as though, in fantasy, wanting brings with it a guarantee, not that satisfaction will be achieved but of what that satisfaction will be like. Or, rather, what the satisfaction will be like -for example, what Oedipus and the state will be like after the criminal has been found - is taken for granted. Satisfaction is an assumed good. Our doubts tend to be about whether we can get the satisfactions that we seek, not about the nature of these satisfactions. Othello is particularly interesting in this regard because no one in the play doubts what it is they want; they only doubt whether they have the wherewithal to get it.
Desire is inextricable - inconceivable and unintelligible -without an imagining of its possible satisfactions, even though states of satisfaction are peculiarly resistant to articulation. The language of satisfaction is notably impoverished, riddled with clichés and exclamations. But one of the strange things about satisfaction is that its anticipation precedes its realization: satisfaction happens twice - first wishfully (in fantasy) and then in reality (if one is lucky). We have the experience of satisfaction in our minds before we have the experience itself, and this process of looking forward to it makes all the difference to what can happen. When we wait too long for someone we look forward to seeing, we...