Chimpanzees
The foundational essay for which Lacan is famous is his explication of his concept of the "mirror-stage" of development. The imagery he utilizes to describe this is fraught with the appearances of chimpanzees placed in juxtaposition to human infants:
"The child, at an age when he is for a time, however short, outdone by the chimpanzee in instrumental intelligence, can nevertheless already recognize as such as his own image in the mirror."
The Language Barrier
Imagery is important in constructing for the reader an understanding of what Lacan terms the "language barrier." The imagery is far more comprehensive than the example extracted here, but this fragment gives a strong indication of how the overall imagery is used:
"Here we are then, at the foot of the wall, at the foot of the language barrier. We are in our place there, that is to say, on the same side as the patient, and it is on this wall--the same for him as for us--that we shall try to respond to the echo of his speech. Beyond this wall, there is nothing for us but outer darkness."
Freudian Unconscious
Lacan relies upon imagery especially to help convey the sense of what Freud means when he discusses the idea of the unconscious. Because the unconscious is a dark mysterious place, so is the imagery which Lacan relies upon:
"Here all is substance, all is pearl. The spirit that lives in an exile in the creation whose invisible support it is, knows that it is at every instant the master capable of annihilating it."
The Ego
The imagery which Lacan turns to in his attempt to describe the complex reality of the ego is odd and surprising. And yet, ultimately, it does finally hit the point home:
"As to the knowledge on which the desire of these objects depends, men are far from confirming the expression that wishes that they should see further than the ends of their noses, for, on the contrary, their misfortune wishes that the worlds should begin at the ends of their noses, and that they should be able to apprehend their desire only by the same trick that enables them to see their own noses, that is to say, in a mirror. "
