The Parallax View: Anita Desai‘s In Custody

The Parallax View: Anita Desai‘s In Custody

Author Name : Prof. Rajbir Singh

In what is arguably his magnum opus, The Parallax View, philosopher Slavoj Žižek borrows the notion of parallax from physics (or astronomy, or what he later calls as the ‗stellar parallax‘) into philosophy. Parallax is usually defined as an ‗apparent displacement of an object… caused by a change in observational position‘. Žižek, however, extends the scope of parallax while introducing it into philosophy: he suggests that there is not only a displacement perceived by the subject, but there is a change in the subject itself, or as he puts it, ‗subject and object are inherently ―mediated‖‘. 1 This notion is then expanded onto different ontologies: parallax of the quantum physics (wave/particle), parallax of neurobiology (brain as collection of neurons and as the seat of consciousness), parallax of unconscious (interpretation of Freudian unconscious and theories of drive).