Latent Lust in The Last Ride Together A Study in...

The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1865 – 1939) had been a tremendous cultural influence during the twentieth century, especially during its first half. Freud’s path-breaking work The Interpretation of Dreams came out in 1900, at the fag-end of the Victorian period. Subsequently, Freudian theories and ideas were employed to trace novel interpretations of pre-existing as well as newer literary texts. In the 1970s Freud’s thought was revised by Jacques Lacan from a linguistic standpoint. It was also during this time that the deconstructionist approach – the strategy employed by the poststructuralist school – was popularised by Jacques Derrida. This approach proposes to read a text against itself, bringing out its inherent†¦show more content†¦Jacque Lacan (1901 – 1981), the French Psychoanalyst who attempted to revise Freudian ideas, opines â€Å"desire is not a relation to an object but a relation to a lack†. As the Oxford Guide edited by Patricia Waugh elaborates: this â€Å"relation of being to lack†¦will inextricably be linked in its purest state (i.e. when no obstacle is placed on its course) to the drive toward destruction – is not the best way to possess your object to destroy it, so that it won’t escape you?† In another Browningian monologue ‘Porphyria’s Lover‘, the speaker does choke his beloved to death in order to possess her with a finality. Even as the speaker in â€Å"The Last Ride Together† does no such thing, he nevertheless wishes for annihilation of the world: â€Å"Who knows but the world may end to-night?† (22) The speaker himself must know at the back of his mind that the world is most unlikely to end ‘to-night’. So this is an unconscious wish rather than a proposition. The ‘id’ and ‘pleasure principle’ constantly run beneath the surface. The flow of eros is palpable throughout the third stanza. Even the western cloud is â€Å"billowy-bosomed†. The beloved is now â€Å"looking and loving best† to the speaker. How can the beloved â€Å"love best† now? After all, she did not return his love. One may think that this â€Å"loving† is predominantly physical, as the narrator goes on to say