In Thomas Ligotti's short story, "The Town Manager," the idea of the Lacanian Real as it relates to history is explored, most evidently in its conclusion. An important aspect of the "Real," as defined by Lacan, is that it is something which is pervasive yet intangible. It is all-encompassing and can be felt everywhere, yet it is something which defies categorization or description. Famously, it is known as that which "our structures cannot structure” (Savoy 169).
The most common example of this concept is history. The American Gothic views history as something which cannot be put into little boxes, as opposed to what conventional knowledge would dictate, but which engulfs humanity and which has more control over the actions and ideas of people than the actions and ideas of people have upon it. Often, this characteristic is demonstrated through history's cyclical repetition, so that it does not even conform to chronology, but constantly returns to haunt the present generation. This is the example which Ligotti uses in the conclusion of "The Town Manager."
The narrator of this story lives in a strange town whose managers regularly disappear only to be mysteriously replaced by new ones, each one having bizarre new plans for how to improve the place. By the story's end, the narrator has lost hope in the town and whatever future management if may have and leaves, searching for an escape from this rotating roster of managers, only to find more and more towns “managed according to the principles of [his/her] old home town” (Ligotti 35). He or she (the narrator's gender is left ambiguous) eventually comes to a realization that the only way to escape this cycle is “to make an end of it” (Ligotti 35). This affirmation brings about some resolve in the disillusioned narrator, but this resolve vanishes when one stranger offers the narrator a little, yet enticing, job in "[t]own management” (Ligotti 36).
How does the narrator, whose wish in the second half of the story has been to escape the cycle of town mismanagement which further degenerates the town involved, respond to this offer? He/she says, “Tell me more” (Ligotti 36).
Despite all the attempts and intentions to do otherwise, the narrator is still caught back into the cycle of bizarre town management, leaving behind the past of “Funny Town” for a future very similar, only with him/her on the other end of the power dynamic. No matter how many “towns, as well as large cities” the narrator passes through and the distance between him/her and his/her personal history, it manages to find him/her once again, dragging him/her inexorably back into its grip (Ligotti 35). This leads right into the Lacanian Real; that this history is not contained to a specific location or chronology, but reaching out across vast distances and repeating upon itself. That it is not controlled by the actions of people such as narrator, but which controls the actions of those such people.
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WORKS CITED
Ligotti, Thomas. “The Town Manager.” Teatro Grottesco. 2006. London: Virgin Books Ltd, 2008. 22-36. Print.
Savoy, Eric. “The Rise of the American Gothic.” Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed. Jerrold E. Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 167-188. Print.
The most common example of this concept is history. The American Gothic views history as something which cannot be put into little boxes, as opposed to what conventional knowledge would dictate, but which engulfs humanity and which has more control over the actions and ideas of people than the actions and ideas of people have upon it. Often, this characteristic is demonstrated through history's cyclical repetition, so that it does not even conform to chronology, but constantly returns to haunt the present generation. This is the example which Ligotti uses in the conclusion of "The Town Manager."
The narrator of this story lives in a strange town whose managers regularly disappear only to be mysteriously replaced by new ones, each one having bizarre new plans for how to improve the place. By the story's end, the narrator has lost hope in the town and whatever future management if may have and leaves, searching for an escape from this rotating roster of managers, only to find more and more towns “managed according to the principles of [his/her] old home town” (Ligotti 35). He or she (the narrator's gender is left ambiguous) eventually comes to a realization that the only way to escape this cycle is “to make an end of it” (Ligotti 35). This affirmation brings about some resolve in the disillusioned narrator, but this resolve vanishes when one stranger offers the narrator a little, yet enticing, job in "[t]own management” (Ligotti 36).
How does the narrator, whose wish in the second half of the story has been to escape the cycle of town mismanagement which further degenerates the town involved, respond to this offer? He/she says, “Tell me more” (Ligotti 36).
Despite all the attempts and intentions to do otherwise, the narrator is still caught back into the cycle of bizarre town management, leaving behind the past of “Funny Town” for a future very similar, only with him/her on the other end of the power dynamic. No matter how many “towns, as well as large cities” the narrator passes through and the distance between him/her and his/her personal history, it manages to find him/her once again, dragging him/her inexorably back into its grip (Ligotti 35). This leads right into the Lacanian Real; that this history is not contained to a specific location or chronology, but reaching out across vast distances and repeating upon itself. That it is not controlled by the actions of people such as narrator, but which controls the actions of those such people.
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WORKS CITED
Ligotti, Thomas. “The Town Manager.” Teatro Grottesco. 2006. London: Virgin Books Ltd, 2008. 22-36. Print.
Savoy, Eric. “The Rise of the American Gothic.” Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed. Jerrold E. Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 167-188. Print.