Lettere di sfida all’Altro

Letters are always written for the Other. More specifically, they are addressed to the inconsistency of the big Other, as a protest against its powerlessness. The childish complaint aimed to the Other’s evanescence, in accord with Lacanian psychoanalysis, can be understood in terms of perversion, particularly in its masochistic variant. When Kafka blames his own father for having used rude educational means, he actually blames him for not being powerful enough: according to Slavoj Žižek, this can be ascribed to a perverse strategy which tries to restore the Other’s power in order to reanimate the Self.