Week 2 - Lacan's Mirror Stage

Jacques Lacan deals with the language of the world - how we understand the world around us from a linguistic viewpoint. He looks at the signified [an image] and the signifier [a concept] and theorises on the arbitrary relationship between the two. He tells us that there is no natural connection between the signified and the signifier - this is established simply by 'convention of language [1]'.
It is, however, impossible to step outside of language, to scrutinise the image or concept, since we are bound within this binary completely by our own visual and verbal apparatus - there is no transparency between the signifier and the signified.

I found the idea of the 'mirror stage' as an interesting way of breaking down this quite difficult concept. Lacan describes it as occuring between the age of 6 and 18 months, and that it is the moment at which the child recognises itself and realises it is an 'independent' being. However, this causes a rupture in the child's persona, splitting the self from the realm of images. This, Lacan tells us, marks the development of the subconscious, since the split is repressed and not reconciled.

[1] Lacan, Jacques, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan, Hogarth Press 1977