If you Give a Mouse a Cookie...

                                   

Over determination, metonymic chain of desire, condensation, latent and manifest content, metaphor, displacement. Sigmund Freud, Millicent Bell, Kate Chopin, Saussure, and Hawthorne all represent these literary and psychoanalytic terminologies. These authors are world famous, their ideas and philosophies have transcended generations and fresh waves of thinking. Upon first learning about these terms in relation to these authors, I was challenged and thought far too hard about how these terms relate to my life. Then the proverbial light bulb went off. I had a stunning realization that these terms and ideals have been a part of my literary (thus personal) experience since before I could read. Another author had reached me far earlier than Bell, Saussure or Hawthorne. This author? Laura Numeroff in her best selling work: If you Give a Mouse a Cookie. Numeroff relates the tale of a young boy and a small mouse, and the metonymic chain of desire the boy is forced to fulfill for the meaning of the mouse’s day.

Kate Chopin's “Silk Stockings” reminded me of another work by poet C.P. Cavafy. The poem is called “Waiting for the Barbarians”.

           

Waiting for the Barbarians

Why this sudden bewilderment?

This sudden confusion?

Why are the streets and squares emptying

so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thoughts?

Because night has fallen

and the Barbarians have not come.

And some of our men, just in from the border,

say there are no Barbarians any longer!

Now, what is going to happen to us without

the Barbarians?  They were, those people, after all,

a kind of solution.

     C. P. Cavafy:  Selected Poems

This poem presents the chaos and confusion that arises from an interruption in this metonymic chain of desire, in the over determination that we have created. I learned of this poem in terms of security. We seek and desire security, but if we live in a society that seeks to attain security, we constantly need an enemy—an Other. What happens, then when the enemy no longer exists? What happens is not security, but a dysfunctional group that has lost its connection to one another for the bond that has joined them (fighting the enemy) has disappeared. They no longer share the same metaphorical “meaning” to their lives. The manifest content of this poem demonstrates the interruption in a way of thinking and the confusion that arises when our metonymic chain of desire disappears. The latent content of this poem demonstrates the trivial nature of living a life centered around displacement (the barbarians as a constant “Other” and enemy) and the emptiness that arises from living in a constant state of want.

            Then we must discuss the ideas of the signifier, the signified, and the referent. Hester Prynne, in the Scarlett Letter, is the culture’s scapegoat. She is the one that is forced into Other-ness, into separation, one who meant to be forced out of the culture’s totality. Just in recent history, C.P. Cavafy’s poem is highly relevant. The United States fought Germany, fought Communists, fought the Middle East, the Axis of Evil. Each “enemy” took the place of the previous one, for the United States needed a barbarian, an Other, a scapegoat. Here, in Puritan society, Hester Prynne is forced into this role. She is forced to wear an “A” on her shirt. This is the signifier, the word. This “A” is meant to hold a connotation of shame and dishonor, the signified. This is meant to create a separation and removal of Hester from the town. This is the referent. Hester destroyed this alleged process by transforming her mark of shame into a badge of honor—she destroys the Puritan belief that language and creation are one. Hester instead reinforces Saussure’s philosophy that there is a huge divide between language and objects. Saussere thinks that language is not fixed, that words are not generated from the referent. I think Hawthorne seeks to portray the disillusion the Puritans lived in, that they believed they controlled creation with their words.

            Author Naomi Klein of No Logo writes that corporations (houses of displacement) have the power to take things that are meaningful and turn them into something that is not. For instance, she presents the example about grass roots construction projects going corporate or the Nike or Tommy Hilfiger logos transforming from inner city pride to main stream logos that fed society’s metonymic chain of desire. In this way, I think Klein is right. These houses of displacement separate us from the meaning in things, we focus instead on the factory or author rather than the content. However, I am confused in this idea because I think more focus should be paid on the factory, especially in terms of Nike. Where are the products coming from? Who is making them? If the answers are not something I agree with, then I do not want to support the content, whatever it may be.