Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 43

The Prisoner and TheX-FUes

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There is another possible relationship to the Other, that of
the psychotic. For our purposes, psychosis may be seen in a limited
sense as an insistence on Oneness. With the psychotic, everything is
part and parcel of a single unit which explains the purpose of the
positioning of the parts. In paranoia, this becomes evident when
some happening cannot be sufficiently explained outside of a Master
Plan. The psychotic sees everything in terms of the One Truth about
the universe, to which (s)he may (not) be privy. It is this insistence
on its place in the One of every phenomenon that is the hallmark of
the psychotic position in regards to the Other. The Other is
subsumed by the psychotic subject ("I am It") or the subject identifies
her/himself as holding a place in the Other ("I am lost inside It").
IV. Names, faces, answers, and other missing things or we hear what
we're told
We have said that it would not be fruitful to psychoanalyze
the characters of a given series. However, it is our hope that certain
structures apparent only in terms of Lacanian psychoanalysis will
explain the appeal of these shows to the viewing public. With this
in mind, we may look at the episodes as discourse models illuminated
by a psychoanalytic approach.
Agent Mulder and the unnamed Prisoner, both seem to be in
the position of separation; they recognize that something is missing
in the Other. Agent Mulder refuses to accept the limits imposed on
him by his superiors; he is convinced that there is a Truth beyond
that to which he is privy. His trauma seems to be the abduction of
his sister. He is convinced that as a child he witnessed her
kidnapping by Otherworldly Agents for reasons he has dedicated
himself to discover. This reason, the missing Cause or Truth behind
the abduction, is the object a. Likewise, the Prisoner, who refuses the
designation Number Six by sa)dng, "I am not an number; I am a free
man" (in effect, refuses a signifier with which to orient himself in
terms of the Other), is looking for the Cause, or the performer, of his
torture, the elusive Number One.
The Truth that each character seeks is concealed from them
through government conspiracy. Agent Mulder is denied access to
certain files and has evidence taken from him that indicates
government involvement in what ultimately could lead to the Truth
behind his sister's absence. This motif is evident in the opening