The Call from Afar: A Heideggerian–Lacanian rereading of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea

Abstract

The Lady from the Sea, written in 1888, is a compelling portrayal of fin-de-siecle marital existence and structured like a therapy, featuring Ellida Wangel as a ‘patient’, haunted by reminiscences concerning a mysterious sailor and tormented by desire for a different mode of existence, closer to the sea. Although the therapeutic design is clearly present, another possible reading shifts the focus from front-stage to backdrop and from the therapeutic talking sessions to the ambiance: not the decor (the Norwegian coastal-provincial scenery, the panoramic landscape), but rather that which lies beyond it: the invisible, un-representable, unseeable sea. What is the ‘sea’ in Ibsen’s play? And what exactly is this fatal attraction to which Ellida has fallen victim? To address these questions, Ibsen’s play will be subjected to three subsequent readings. The first one focusses on the play as therapy, directed at strengthening Ellida’s ego in confrontation with the Id (‘Es’). Subsequently, the play will be read from a Heideggerian perspective. The reading direction will be reversed, from the (successful?) therapeutic outcome to the chronic discontent pervading the drama from the very start, and from modern human existence to primordial nature. The focus will be on what Heidegger thematises as the Call of Conscience in Being and Time, and in his later writings as the Call of primordial Nature. Finally, a Lacanian reading allows me to bridge the Freudian and the Heideggerian approaches, presenting Ellida as an ‘amphibian’ (divided) subject, who not only produces an intriguing parable concerning our amphibian origins (as an explanation of pervasive human discontent), but eventually comes face to face with the ultimate object-cause of her desire: the Stranger’s uncanny, mesmerizing eyes: an encounter at the edges of the symbolic order, challenging her to come to terms with the unsettling Real.