Desire for Object moving towards Desire to be the model -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 16:43:24 03/02/08 Sun
Author: JPJ II
Subject: Desire for Object moving towards Desire to be the model

I was reading some Girard this weekend (surprise!!!) and I came across something I didnt understand (...gasp).

So, desire proceeds from mimesis, from imitation, right?

But "everything begins in rivalry for the object"(294 -Things Hidden)

so, at least in the beginning, things are more object oriented in Interdividual Mimesis. I thought I'd post, as I understand it, how the transition takes place between what is on the surface an object-oriented desire to a blatant desire for sameness with the mediator.

With our handy triangle we learn that as the Model and Subject approach closer and closer to undifferentiation, the model puts up opposition to the subject. The subject in turn feels the hostility of the model, and, resenting this, puts up his own hostility (reciprocating hostility leading to eventual violence, etc). The subject, unable to see the source of that resentment as mimetic, believes the model to think low of him.

Now, the subject resents the model for this perceived resentment, but because he has picked the model AS his model, he cannot help but appropriate what he believes to be the models view of himself. Now he is left in a bind, both loving and hating the model, and loving and hating himself (Underground Man). The subject believes the perceived persecution of himself by the model to be warranted, and that the Model must in fact be a 'better', existing on a higher plane than he (morally or otherwise).

At this point, the desire for the object is amplified not only because both parties are mimicking the other party's desire for that object, but because the subject then believes said object to be the only thing separating himself from the existential state of the model; the object is the only thing keeping the the subject from "being" the model.

The object now moves from something thought to bring pleasure to something of a hurdle between the subject and the finish line: the object is still sought after, but only because it will (in the mind of the subject) bring the subject to the level of the Model. The object acquires what Girard calls "Metaphysical" worth(294-296 Things Hidden). The desire now moves towards being centered around the model explicitly rather than on the object

Am I misreading something here?

It seems as though he's saying that, in the beginning, one appropriates a desire, but only because he DOES believe that the attainment of the object will bring happiness, and that after the effects of time have been allowed to escalate the rivalry, that the object has been transformed from an end in itself to a stepping stone towards sameness with the model. OR Is that the rivalry itself replaces the object, as seen in Regan and Goneril ?

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