Talk:Gaze
In psychoanalytic theory — particularly in the work of Jacques Lacan — the gaze (French: le regard) is not simply the act of looking or being seen, but a structural element of subjectivity linked to desire, lack, and the Real. The gaze is that which disturbs the field of vision, revealing the subject’s division and its exposure to the Other’s desire.
Rather than being equated with the eye or optical perception, the gaze for Lacan becomes an object — more precisely, a manifestation of the object a — within the scopic drive.
Sartre and the Phenomenology of the Look
Lacan’s early reflections on the gaze begin in reference to Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of “the look” in Being and Nothingness. Sartre uses the term le regard to describe the moment when the subject apprehends itself as being seen by the Other, becoming an object in the Other’s field of vision.
“My fundamental connection with the Other-as-subject must be able to be referred back to my permanent possibility of being seen by the Other.”[1]
This encounter induces shame and discloses the Other’s subjectivity. Sartre emphasizes that the gaze need not involve actual visual contact: a shifting curtain or a rustling sound may suffice to evoke the Other’s presence.[2]
Lacan initially concurs with Sartre’s view of the gaze as a site of subjective decentering.[3] But from 1964 onward, with the introduction of objet petit a, Lacan sharply redefines the gaze within a distinct psychoanalytic framework.
Lacan’s Theory of the Gaze
In contrast to Sartre’s mutual gaze between subjects, Lacan conceives the gaze as decoupled from the eye. The gaze does not belong to the subject who looks; rather, it is on the side of the object. It is the point from which the object seems to “look back” at the subject, exposing the subject’s lack.
“You never look at me from the place at which I see you.”[4]
This asymmetry between seeing and being seen reflects the split within the subject. The gaze marks the intrusion of the Real into the field of vision — an encounter with that which cannot be fully symbolized.
Gaze as Object a and Scopic Drive
Lacan identifies the gaze as an objet petit a, the object-cause of desire in the visual register. Within the logic of the drive, the gaze functions not as the goal of vision but as a leftover, a remnant that cannot be assimilated. It is that which the subject both seeks and flees in the act of looking.
The scopic drive circles around the gaze, not to grasp it, but to sustain a relation to what cannot be seen. In this sense, the gaze provokes anxiety, since it threatens the illusion of coherence and mastery in the visual field.
The Gaze and the Real
In Lacanian terms, the gaze is an index of the Real — that which resists symbolization and disrupts the smooth functioning of the Imaginary and Symbolic orders. The gaze reveals the subject’s exposure to the desire of the Other, its lack of control over how it appears.
This is why the gaze is not simply a matter of perspective, but a structural effect that points to the subject’s objectification, alienation, and vulnerability in relation to the Other’s field.
Film Theory and Conceptual Confusions
The concept of the gaze was taken up by 1970s psychoanalytic film theory, particularly in the work of Laura Mulvey and feminist critics who developed the notion of the “male gaze.” These theories examine how spectatorship positions viewers and subjects within visual regimes of desire and power.
However, much of this literature conflates Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the gaze with Sartre’s phenomenology and Foucault’s notion of panopticism, leading to conceptual confusion. Lacan’s gaze is not equivalent to surveillance, social control, or simply “looking with desire.” It is a structural position — a blind spot that conditions the subject’s relation to seeing and being seen.
Clinical Implications
In the clinic, the gaze may manifest in phenomena of shame, exhibitionism, voyeurism, or in transference as the sense of being watched, judged, or exposed. The analytic setting itself stages a visual asymmetry — the analyst sees but is not seen, occupying a position analogous to the gaze.
Understanding the gaze helps illuminate how visual experience is bound to the subject’s castration, lack, and relation to the Other’s desire. It also situates the gaze within the broader structure of the drives and the fantasy.
See Also
References
- ↑ Jean-Paul Sartre. Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes, Methuen, 1958, p. 256.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 257.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p. 215
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 103