The Voice and Silence of the Nameless One

The subject believes that he is powerless to know, guaranteeing the Other the position of one who can know instead of him. And yet, by turning to the Other, the subject also questions the unknown dimension of the Other's desire, where language is marked by incompleteness. This lack returns to him, according to the retroactive logic of the signifier, so that he becomes aware of his own loneliness; but this time not without the Other. At this moment, the binding operates: the subject can talk about himself (which no one else can do instead of him); but he does so by taking an implied risk in the face of radical non-response. At this point, the Other can only acknowledge what the subject alone can articulate, taking all the risk of his message.

The existence of the "I" would imply that the subject does not remain an assigned voice in place, but speaks to it. What the subject of the Nameless One strives for seems to him rather to be a false attachment; we are talking about who the voice is speaking to and about. Thus, he imagines that he can accept an utterance from the position of voice, and also talk about himself (to be). This would mean positioning itself as a singularity, conveying an interiorized (subjectivized) voice and placing itself on the level of “one among others.” But the construction described by the narrator represents the opposite of the expressing I: the latter remains unimaginable and inaccessible. The narrator in no way evokes the construction based on the retroaction of the signifier, which consists of telling the Other about himself. On the contrary, what he describes remains in the field of this gaping and insurmountable hole: to show. Thus, on the one hand, mastery of speech continues to manifest itself, revealing the commanding power of the voice, and on the other, absolute silence.

#reading Samuel Beckett's "Nameless"

Voice and Silence