Samira Pourak - MA in English Literature, the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Pyeaam Abbasi - Associate Professor of English Literature, the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Using Jacques Lacan’s theory of subjectivity provides a ground for a different understanding of Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child. Lacan states that all human beings are born with a feeling of incompleteness and a fundamental lack. To explain the subject’s desire to fulfill the inherent lack, he employs the concept of objet petit a, as the subject complement. In addition, Lacan postulates the concepts of imaginary order and the mirror phase, presenting subjectivity as a reflective image and symbolic order and the Other theorizing subjectivity as an entity that directs itself through language. Accordingly, the fundamental concepts of the Other and objet petit a seem helpful in a Lacanian reading of Lessing’s novel, where the exploration of subjectivity has a lot to offer. This study's significance is to substantiate how the Lacanian subject and objet petit a are connected and in what manner Lessing uses them in her novel to discuss the dilemma of subjectivity in different characters. Central to this article's analysis is the probing into a collapse in the formation of subjectivity in Lessing’s novel in which objet petit a has a pivotal role, resulting in a new vision

Jacques Lacan, Doris Lessing, subjectivity, “Other”, objet petit a