Le choix du cid and our metonymic unconcious.

In the 17th century, famous French dramaturge Pierre Corneille wrote his famous adaption the Spanish fable, which he titled Le Cid. The play covers a broad range of issues which reflected French society in the 17th century. Through the piece, we see the emergence of the ideas of Absolutism, inspired by Cardinal Richelieu, conflicts of court dueling, conflicts of familial honor, and one of the most tragic tales of love that has ever been written.

To give you a general sense of the story, the play opens with the leading lady, Chimene, in her room with her lady-in-waiting. She is the daughter of the Count, who is the champion of the king. She talks about how excited she is to marry a man named Don Rodrigue. The set-up seems like everything will be happy between the two families. Perhaps it would have, but in an audience with the Count, Don Rodrigue's father, who was a military hero in his younger days, is insulted. Unable to defend his honor, the father asks Don Rodrigue to avenge him, and return honor the the family name. Torn between his love for Chimene and his need to regain his honor, Rodrigue challenges Chimene's father to a duel (which at the time were strictly forbidden, due to the loss of life of so many members of high-ranking society) which results in the death of the Count. Despite her fierce love for Rodrigue, Chimene is forced to demand justice from the King, in order to restore the tarnished honor of her family. Throughout the story, we get glimpses, from both characters, that they both love each other and that, in choosing these terrible actions, they are really trying only to be worth of the love of the other. Thus, the primary conflict in the story is how one balances love and honor. Evidently, the choice is not easy. If you would like to read more on the story (which is relatively short and extremely interesting) a somewhat good translation can be found here. Although its hard to tell by reading it in English, the actual French version is very lyrical, with non-stop rhyme throughout the entire piece.

So how might we interpret this classic tale of love and loss in terms of literary criticism? In his essay, Agency of the letter in the unconcious, Jacques Lacan argues that our human desires are metonymy, that is, something that is meant to represent a part of the whole. What he describes with this idea is that we are never truly satisfied by whatever it is we want, and in fact, we always tend to want more. One interpretation of his essay might assert that what we really want is to want something. In Le Cid, this idea manifests itself in what became known as le choix du cid, or "the choice of the cid," an expression which describes a situation where one loses everything no matter which action is taken. In the play, this is Rodrigue's decision between killing Chimene's father and losing her love, or losing his honor and being unworth of her love. What le choix du cid means in terms of Lacan is that not only do we lose no matter what we choose, but our choice will still render us unsatisfied and wanting. For example, after the death of her father, Chimene seeks the death of Rodrigue from the king. Although she claims to staunchly desire this, it is evident that she does not really know what she wants, and is really only pursuing what she thinks she wants, driven by societal context. And certainly, no matter what action is taken on her part, she will still be left wanting when all is said and done. I wont spoil the ending for you, but I will suggest to you that the final resolution itself is the epitome of this idea of "desire=metonymy." What makes Corneille's work so interesting and so well-studied, and what makes Lacan's work so conflicting, is that there really is no solution. The characters in Le Cid do not have any good option laid before them. We, as desiring human beings have no real solution to our endless desires. But is that really a bad thing? One could say that our obsession with material things makes us petty and shallow. I would assert that it is rather what makes our lives interesting. We always have something to strive for, even if we really don't know why we strive for it. Le Cid would be a wholly uninteresting bit of literature if there was no struggle for what the characters really want. Desire is the spice of life, after all.