A note about names

Birth of the (m)Other

Homage to Birth of the Other, by Rosine Lefort, a Lacanian psychoanalyst.
According to Lacan, the Other imposes language on the child. Babies are born helpless, at the mercy of their parents and language. She must address her need to her primary caretaker, the (m)Other, in the form of a demand. Needs can never be fully satisfied, however, or even fully expressed-- language imposes limits. What the child demands is not just satisfaction-- when the child cries in hunger, she is crying for unconditional love as well as food. This need/demand for love is never satisfied. What's left perpetually unsatisfied is desire.


Navigating desire

Homage to my senior thesis in college: Lacan, the Buddha, and the Self: Navigating Desire and the Human Condition.
Desire is crucial in Lacanian theory. A child's first desire, born of the unsatisfying response to the demand, is to become what the Other desires. A child notices that the (m)Other's desire goes beyond the child, that the mother has a lack, and she seeks to become that very lack. At some point, the child must be given a firm no-- you cannot become exactly what your mother desires; you cannot fill that lack. This shifts the discourse to the child's own desire.
To vastly oversimplify Lacan's sexuation theory: A woman must choose either to attempt to become the complement to a man's lack (much like the baby tries to become the mother's lack), to become his fantasy, or she can acknowledge her innate aloneness (the Other can never satisfy her, and she will never be the perfect complement, because it is impossible) and navigate desire in her own unique way.


Violet

I'm not set on Violet; I may change it at some point. I first came across the name in Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved; I fell in love with the name and dreamed of bestowing it on my daughter. However, my husband wasn't fond of the name and in the end, neither was I-- it's the name of a character, not a real person. It makes for a decent pen name, I think.