Fantasy and Coping with the Middles

I’m interested in how fantasy relates to the construction of reality (or that which stands in for it) in the novel. In the postmodern world, is the invention or creation of a fantasy in which to live viable, even necessary, for the individual to order and make sense of the world which surrounds him or her? Or is the real simply all an elaborate hoax, concentric circles within concentric circles, inescapable labyrinths of artifice? It is of note that fantasy is associated specifically with male characters: Dr. Hilarious and Mucho Maas in particular. For Dr. Hilarious, a fantasy is somehow linked to stability, and is something to be cherished, held onto—he warns Oedipa not to “let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out,” for if fantasy is lost one begins “to go over by that much to the others…[to] begin to cease to be” (113). This conception of fantasy places it in an antagonistic relation with once stable signifiers of the real (psychologists, pharmacists, etc.), or those who we identify as typically assisting an individual suffering from mental illness. Additionally, fantasy is described in terms that give it an organic, living quality—something which could be susceptible to poison.

            But what of Mucho Maas? Mucho, we learn, has been prescribed LSD by Dr. Hilarious, who has begun to include suburban husbands in his study (this certainly seems to throw into question Hilarious’ previous statements). Mucho’s identity is disintegrating, becoming general; his supervisor at the radio station characterizes him as “full of people…a walking assembly of man” (115). Mucho’s fantasy is of a different character than Hilarious’, however. Mucho, rather than envisioning himself the target of a vast conspiracy, simply believes he can visualize universal harmony and the general unification of things, especially as it is expressed in music. Mucho’s revelations serve only to alienate him from Oedipa, herself struggling to differentiate between coincidence, fantasy, and the deep connections which appear to be present between instances naturally unrelated. Who is right? There is no easy answer, or, for that matter, any answer at all. However, that which is to be navigated is characterized in the final pages of the novel. Oedipa, again dislocated, wandering on a train track (she so often seems to be moving in transient spaces: freeways, hotels, a rental car) muses on that which so troubles, the perennial condition which serves as the ignition of fantasy: “[the] excluded middles; they were bad shit; to be avoided” (150). These middles are, however, what we must traffic in, forcing us, it seems, into fantasy, paranoia, or something which remains indefinite, amorphous.