Re-reading The Purloined Letter - Alternation Journal

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Re-reading The Purloined Letter
Derrida (1987:444) draws attention to the one element of
commonality between Bonaparte and Lacan, in that for both of them the
castration of the woman is the final sense, what The Purloined Letter means.
At the same time Derrida states that Bonaparte does what Lacan does not:
she relates The Purloined Letter to other texts by Poe. Derrida believes that
this operation is an internal necessity. According to Derrida (1987:439) The
Purloined Letter belongs to a trilogy along with The Murders in the Rue
Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget. The Seminar does not mention
anything about the Dupin trilogy. Derrida (1987:446) notes that it is obvious
when reading the Seminar that Lacan has read Bonaparte, but, he fails to
name her. Derrida remarks scathingly that Lacan is always so scrupulous
about debts and priorities, yet, he fails to acknowledge an explanation which
orientates his entire interpretation.
Derrida (1987:446) finds it unacceptable that Lacan, who is a
psychoanalyst, should state that the question of whether Dupin seizes the
letter above the mantelpiece, as in Baudelaire’s translation, or beneath it as
in the original text ‘may be abandoned without harm to the inferences of
cooking’. Derrida finds it incredible that Lacan should consider this to be
without harm. Lacan is also accused by Derrida of failing to pick on
significant details like the ‘brass knob’ of the fireplace which symbolizes the
clitoris. Derrida (1987:448) states that Bonaparte is never tempted to grant
Dupin the position of analyst, not even in order to watch over him with
another kind of mastery. By implication he lashes out at Lacan whom he sees
as wanting to assume the role of master.
Derrida (1987:453) sees Dupin as occupying a ‘median position’. He
contends that from the outset Dupin acts with his sights set on the letter, on
possessing it in order to return it to its rightful owner (neither the King, nor
the Queen, but the Law which binds them). In his Seminar Lacan used the
image of ostriches, and Derrida purloins this image to ridicule Lacan by
saying that there are only ostriches, no-one can avoid being plucked, and the
more one is the master, the more one presents one’s rear, which would be the
person who identifies with Dupin.
For Lacan, as analysed by Derrida, castration is the sign of the
simultaneous presence and absence of the phallus: the object of desire is
always a substitute for something that was never present (the mother’s
phallus). This is expressed in Lacanian terms as a phallus always both