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Thanks to him, we literally meet face to face with our double; it is in every home, but its role in our lives is still mysterious. Culture expert Maria Ron tells about our relationship with the mirror, behind the looking glass and ourselves.
Psychologies: Why, besides the purely utilitarian, do we endow the mirror with a variety of meanings?
Maria Ron: The mirror belongs to special, significant objects that reflect something more than they are: they carry an idea. The book reflects the idea of transferring knowledge, the doll reflects the idea of modeling and educating the personality, the clock embodies our idea of time. You can also name a vessel, a table, a house, a bed… The mirror belongs to this series of cultural universals. The history of humanity’s attitude to it is the history of understanding the idea of reflection. Mirror reflection clearly illustrates the idea of the duality of being. There is a world of material reality in which we live. And there is an unreal world. Someone will call it sacred, supernatural. Someone – the spiritual world, the world of ideas or the ideal. This is probably why the conversation about the mirror is interesting, since the question “what is a mirror?” you can hear different answers. For some, this is an ordinary thing with optical properties, for others it is a tool for self-knowledge, for others it is a magical object that can open the door to the other world, revealing the secrets of the past or influencing the future.
“WE ARE LOOKING IN THE MIRROR FOR A REFLECTION OF NOT ONLY OUR BODY, BUT ALSO OUR SOUL, WE LOOK FOR OUR INNER “I” IN IT”
How did you become interested in this phenomenon?
MR: At the university, for a long time I could not choose the topic of my term paper and unexpectedly stumbled upon the book of the philologist Abram Vulis “Literary Mirrors”*. My supervisor jokingly suggested: apparently, the young lady took such a topic because she could not tear herself away from her reflection! In response, I suggested that he check if I have a mirror in my purse (it was not there and still is not there). In fact, at first I was struck by the variety of meanings and meanings of the image of a mirror in the art and literature of different eras. And then I got carried away with mythology, understanding mirroring … It turned out that the topic is inexhaustible. The first mirrors were made of obsidian, later bronze was invented. They gave a cloudy image, but they reflected light and therefore were associated with the solar disk, with the idea of fertility and were used in various magical rituals. Later, convex glass mirrors appeared: they distorted the image, like a drop reflecting the world – hence the symbolism of the mirror as the all-seeing divine eye. The plane mirrors familiar to us were invented in the XNUMXth century. The most mysterious in them is the image of a different reality, so similar to ours, so reliable …
her way
- 1976 Born in St. Petersburg.
- 1998 Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Russian State Pedagogical University. A. I. Herzen (St. Petersburg).
- 2004 She defended her Ph.D. thesis on the topic “Metamorphoses of the image of a mirror in the history of culture.”
- 2006 Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and History of Culture, Russian State Pedagogical University. A. I. Herzen.
Is it still illusory?
MR: Yes, because we cannot touch it, hear it, smell it. For the Slavs and Western European peoples, the mirror is the border between the real world and the other world, the dangerous world of spirits, the world of death. Hence the tradition of hanging mirrors in front of the deceased, or the idea that breaking a mirror is a bad omen. Interestingly, there were a number of taboos for a woman: she could not look in the mirror when she was pregnant, during menstruation, during a thunderstorm – it was believed that the world behind the looking glass could negatively affect her. These prohibitions developed during the patriarchal period, when a man was associated with strength, stamina, and a woman was perceived as weaker, and therefore vulnerable. However, in the East, the symbolism is more benevolent: a mirror is more often associated not with the border of the other world, but with the sun, fertility, therefore it can bring happiness, help in the appearance of offspring, serve as a talisman.
An inversion occurs in the mirror: the right and left are reversed. This is also important, isn’t it?
MR: Today we rarely think about it, but earlier such an inversion caused anxiety and fear: the “second reality” was perceived as a deceptive, lurking threat. The fact is that in the European tradition the concepts of “right” and “left” have a value meaning. The right is associated with the righteous, good, right, and the left with false, evil. To change their places means to disrupt the world order, the world. That is why in the Christian tradition there was an attitude towards the mirror as something dangerous, diabolical. In particular, the mirror could not be hung next to the icon, so that it would not be reflected in it and thereby not be distorted.
How do we perceive our reflection?
MR: We do not see our face, we cannot see our whole body until we are in front of a mirror. It gives us a view of ourselves that we lack. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote that every child between the ages of 6 and 18 months goes through a “mirror stage,” that is, self-recognition. This time is the first step towards the formation of his self-consciousness. But for this step to have a meaningful effect, it is necessary for the adult to explain what is happening. Psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto wrote that mothers at this point often make the mistake of pointing their child at a mirror and saying, “Look, it’s you.” While it would be correct to say: “You see, this is your reflection in the mirror, exactly the same as my reflection next to him” **. She also clarified that the other must be near and so that the child, observing in the mirror the reflection of an adult, different from his own, discovers that he is a child. As we grow older, we look in the mirror for a reflection of not only the body, but also the soul, we look for our inner “I” in it. But here there is a split. There is a self-subject (I know my inner world and do not know my body). There is an I-object (the reflection shows me my body, but it is devoid of an inner world). The image we are trying to analyze turns out to be alien. Our inner world is not reflected in our bodily appearance. There is a feeling of “being outside” – this is how the philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin called this conflict with a double, a dialogue with which is impossible.
Why can’t we recognize (recognize) our “I” in a double?
MR: When we look at our reflection, we try to imagine, voluntarily or involuntarily, how others see us, their reaction to us. These are our thoughts, experiences that rush through our heads, change our appearance, make it a stranger. We involuntarily put on a mask and stop seeing ourselves as true. Therefore, Bakhtin and other philosophers, psychologists, and writers did not believe in the possibility of self-knowledge in front of a mirror. We can only see ourselves through the eyes of another, in dialogue with the other.
About it
Jacques Lacan’s Mirror Stage Victor Mazin
A Russian psychoanalyst publishes and comments on Lacan’s famous article “The Mirror Stage as Forming the Function of the Self as Revealed to Us in Psychoanalytic Experience” (Aletheia, 2005).
And how does our perception of ourselves in the mirror differ from our relationship with our own photo and video images?
MR: When we are in front of a mirror, this is an eye-to-eye look, this is a dialogue and observation of our double in the present time. A photograph captures the past moment; it is a frame taken out of context. At the same time, it makes it possible to see oneself through the eyes of another person to a greater extent. Video filming reveals this image even more clearly, showing us our plasticity, facial expressions, allowing us to hear our voice. On the one hand, technical means give us useful experience, open up some part of our “I”. But the human psyche is so arranged that we do not always agree with what we see and hear. Dissatisfaction, “unrecognition” of ourselves continue to haunt us.
Has our time brought something new to the relationship with the mirror?
MR: I think yes. For example, now mirrors surround us everywhere, and not only in the interior, but also on the street. Shop windows, house cladding, car windows – mirrors multiply our world at every step. This set symbolically reflects the desire to duplicate (increase) beauty, wealth (it is not for nothing that the buildings of banks and large companies most often sparkle with mirror cladding). But the mirror boom can also be a symptom of our insecurity, loss – to such an extent that we seem to need to confirm our own existence all the time and at the same time constantly control, recheck ourselves. Sometimes a mirror can also serve as protection. Remember, not so long ago, mirrored glasses were in fashion? You look a person in the face, but you see not his eyes, but yourself. Their owner, in fact, is hiding behind these small mirrors. This is also a manifestation of the vulnerability of modern man.
Are there still mysteries associated with the mirror for you? Or have you answered all your questions?
MR: Knowing yourself in front of a mirror – in this matter there is a depth and complexity that has not yet been fully comprehended. We all feel it. After all, every person at least once in his life looks in the mirror with a searching look.
1 A. Vulis “Literary Mirrors” (Soviet writer, 1991).
2 F. Dolto, J.-D. Nazio “Mirror Child” (Per Se, 2004).
“It’s me!”
What happens when a child sees himself in a mirror for the first time? About this is the documentary film “Holy” by Viktor Kosakovsky (2005). The director conducted an experiment and filmed it: his son had never seen a mirror until he was two years old. And here it first appears in the field of view of the child. The kid goes to the mirror, is perplexed, surprised at a strange boy, tries to play with him, babbles something and shouts to him. Finally, he realizes that the stranger is copying his movements, that he has the same toys and the same backpack, looking for him behind the mirror. Then comes the understanding that the twin boy is unavailable for contact – the child is puzzled, angry, despairing of the unsolvability of the riddle, crying. But this is followed by a happy revelation. “I AM!” he beams, pointing at his reflection. So before our eyes a person makes one of the main discoveries of his life.