Self-recognition of identity division is what kills Narcissus and fixes him in nature

Evidence

There is a moment of exquisite anguish before the boy can describe his predicament: et placet, et video; sed quod videoque placetque, I non tamen invenio (M, 154, lines 446-47) (It pleases, and I see it; but I cannot reach what I see and what pleases). In his description, it is clearly knowledge of the division in identity that kills and inscribes him in nature. He points and declares, iste ego sum: “I am that… I now know my image… I have what I desire. Strange prayer for a lover, I would that what I love were absent… Death is not serious for me for in death I will leave my sorrow” (M, 156, lines 463-71). — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1481

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Spivak strategic-essentialism arc: the self constructed as object of knowledge, and whether knowing one’s identity kills or fixes it — parallels the bind of holding an essential identity knowingly. — connects to: Full self-knowledge is bound up with death for Narcissus; The narcissist’s self-relation is doomed because no double exists — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834

Broader Connections

• The narcissist’s self-relation is doomed because no double exists #complicates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834