This thesis takes a critical look at a complicated notion in Lacanian psychoanalysis: namely, what is structurally entailed in the child's first relationship with his or her caregiver, and the way in which this is critical for understanding the structure of subjectivity. The way I approach this assessment is by taking a close look at how Lacan's complicated theory is represented in the "graph of desire" included in "The Subversion of the Subject." By analyzing not only the graph's articulation of the infant's acquisition of language, but also its representation of how the child, in this process, is dependent on the mother, who, in turn, becomes the child's first Other, I ultimately argue that the graph represents the subject that emerges here as a split subject.
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