ABSTRACT
In order to connect 'the buried', the 'disqualified', and the 'yetto-come', one must come to terms with the repressed, the feared, and the desired, with that which is unknown because outside the dominant signifying order. This is as true for postmodernism as it is for feminism, and in both a shift away from theories of roleplay, self-as-agent, actualization, to an exploration of the unconscious and the irrational, has emerged strongly in the last ten or so years. Again, there are significant differences. Postmodern fiction has appeared to explore and been theorized in terms of the alienated, fissured subject of Lacan, whose aim is to dislocate not simply the subject as centre, but the very concept of 'centring' itself as the locus of significance and value:
But where does this being [the subject], who appears in some way defective in the sea of proper names, originate? We cannot ask this question of the subject as T . He lacks everything needed to know the answer, since if the subject T was dead, he would not, as I said earlier, know it. (Lacan 1977, p. 317)
Here, the liberal subject has disintegrated into the postmodern subject, caught up in the systems of language and exchange, betrayed by the category of 'experience'.
