Your Friendly Neighborhood Death Drive

Peter Parker’s Three Fathers in Spiderman: Homecoming

Kaiser Augustus
Jul 10, 2017 · 17 min read

The following contains spoilers.

Overview

In Spiderman: Homecoming, Peter Parker tries to improve his standing with Tony Stark so that he will have the opportunity to join the Avengers. Peter believes himself capable, given that he already spends his time patrolling New York for petty crimes and other menial good-doing (including giving old ladies directions). Tony is skeptical and instead gives him a suit that covertly monitors his activities.

Although ostensibly a movie about the journey of a superhero towards self-understanding (which already puts the movie above other superheroes films that focus solely on quips, violence, and effects), the movie has an unexpected aspect: The underlying subtext of Peter’s Oedipal drama as it plays out after the death of Uncle Ben. The “homecoming” referenced in the title is therefore not only a reference to the homecoming that takes place in Peter’s school, but also to the fact that, as Freud used to say, the subject is not even the “master of his own house”: The Subject is in fact influenced, to varying degrees, by the unconscious, and by the repetition compulsion, and the movie is Peter’s journey towards overcoming this “unhomeliness” (unheimliche).

The primary focus of the movie, although it may not seem to be apparent, is the nature of the father: What is the responsibilities of fathers towards their children, and up to what extent should these responsibilities be fulfilled?

The movie features three types of fathers: The father who will do everything for his family, Vulture, the villain of the film; the father who allows exceptions to the rule, Tony; and finally the least obvious one, the absent father, Uncle Ben, who exists in the film only implicitly, as the moral agency that propels the actions and heroic efforts of Peter. We shall see later that these three correspond to the Real father, the Symbolic father, and the Imaginary father.

The conflict of the film presents a question, a moral question. Although the most immediate one may be a question of Peter’s abilities, that is to say whether he is capable of joining the Avengers, the most fundamental one is actually a straightforward question: What makes a good father?

In in the superhero genre, the theme of the father is an important one. Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Thor, among others, present complex relationships with their fathers that affect their psyche in varying ways at various extents. But the most interesting case is Spiderman, because of the particular circumstances of his (step)father’s death. Uncle Ben leaves him with a superegoic injunction, a kind of Kantian categorical imperative that has become so popular that it has entered the “collective unconscious”: With great power comes great responsibility.[1]

The Father’s Command

One of the greatest merits of the film is that it never utters this, nor does it present the circumstances for Superman’s heroic beginnings. All of these things are assumed and, in turn, relegated to the unconscious. The film is what follows the internalization of the injunction, the actual playing-out of the Oedipal trauma suffered by Peter Parker.

This “playing out” manifests in Peter’s obsession with the Stark internship and the opportunity to join the Avengers. He is familiar with his great power, repetitively telling Tony that he is perfectly capable of becoming an Avenger and displaying his prowess with self-indulgent quips, but is bound by his uncle/father figure’s injunction to at the same time obtain a corresponding “great responsibility.”

His failure to do so is what gives Peter his neurotic disability to solve his social problems. Why, for example, does he think it is stupid to come to a party as Spiderman and tell everyone that he is friends with Peter Parker, thereby removing his status as a loser and perhaps even succeeding with his love interest? Nothing is inherently terrible about this: He is, in fact, Spiderman. But it is his internalized guilt at not obeying the injunction of the superego that prevents him.

Even at face value, there is an obvious gap between Peter’s actual prowess and his social status. He is obviously intelligent, kind, handsome, and athletic. He is one of the most important members of his academic decathlon team. Later, his love interest even turns out to be quite aware of his attraction to her, and even provokes him to ask her to prom. Yet, he is treated as a loser, primarily because of his own self-sabotage.

Thus, early in the movie, when he mulls over whether he should enter the party of his love interest as Spiderman and reveal to everyone that he is “friends” with Peter Parker, he is only too happy when he sees a commotion in the distance. He wants nothing more than to escape the scenario in which he could finally unburdened by the Father’s command.

The Father in Lacanian Psychoanalysis

For Lacan, the father plays an important role in the Oedipal drama, which begins when the child realizes that he or she is a separate entity from his or her mOther/er[2], and that he and the mOther are not only different and separated but also lacking. The child, for example, needs the mOther to feed him or her. At the same time, the fact that the mOther separates from the child means that the mOther requires something from an entity that is not the child and so is lacking as well.

This at first translates into a desire for the mOther and, by extension, the fullness that being united with her brings. However, the Father enters into the equation as the figure/function that denies the child full possession of the mOther: The Father is not necessarily a person, but a function, although the paternal function is usually played by the actual father in everyday experience.

The Lacanian Father is the function that halts the child’s attempts at being voluntarily swallowed up by the mOther’s desire, his “No!” both castrating the child (i.e. forcing him or her to forego the fullness promised by uniting with the mOther[3]) and ushering the child into the symbolic order, the order of language and therefore law, logic, and morals.

In the Spiderman mythos, the particular circumstances of Peter Parker’s Oedipal trauma in the beginning prevents Peter from full accepting castration. He does not sufficiently feel the Father’s threats because of his superhuman capabilities: He continued to pursue the phallus, in his attempts at becoming a wrestler and tv star, the highest point of his disconnection with law (and therefore betraying the lack of the paternal function in his unconscious) is when he refuses the basic moral plea for him to stop a burglar (even if he knows he has superpowers).

The paternal function was only instituted later, when Uncle Ben was shot by the same burglar Peter ignores and he utters his famous maxim. Uncle Ben’s death served to castrate Peter, as it served to show him that he was in fact not omnipotent: He could not save his uncle.

Uncle Ben’s famous utterance coincides with Peter’s entrance into the symbolic order and is what Lacan calls a paternal metaphor, which substitutes the Name-of-the-Father (nom-du-père) for the desire of the mOther, the first metaphor that institutes the languages through the first act of signification.

Moreover, the paternal functions as a kind of induction into the law, in terms of making the child understand the nature of limitations: The father does not allow the child to pursue the mother, but can instead find enjoyment in others. Similarly, the child is also taught from there that he or she cannot eat chocolate for breakfast for example, but can eat it after dinner. Uncle Ben’s death instills in Spiderman the lesson that he can have great power, but only if also burdens himself with “great responsibility.”

Following this, the utterance becomes important to Peter insofar as it is the utterance that is the origin of all his moral agency. The injunction is non-negotiable, as it is the foundation upon which all signification lies. The failure of the paternal metaphor is what leads to a condition Lacan calls psychosis, in which an individual is “shut out” from signification, in the sense that they are unable to substitute signifiers for signifieds.

The Superego and the Repetition Compulsion

Although Freud developed the superego as the moral agency of the subject, so that the ego is bombarded with moral commands, Lacan says that the subject is actually commanded by the superego to “Enjoy!” How can we account for this apparently crucial difference?

For Lacan, the paternal metaphor as the moment when the subject enters the symbolic order means that the superego is intrinsically tied to signification. The enjoyment that the superego requires is the enjoyment of signification, to continue with the process instated by the paternal metaphor.

The paternal metaphor and the Oedipal drama participate in what Freud call the repetition compulsion: The tendency of people to repeat past traumas. It is in this that the two concepts are used to analyze people. They have a lasting influence on individuals because of the compulsion whereby they are relived over and over, like patients reliving a car crash or a murder, in a manifestation of the death drive.

Just as the paternal metaphor brings about the superego and his command to enjoy, so does it bring about the death drive, which is the manifestation of the repetitious command to enjoy even when this enjoyment becomes excessive enough to become painful. Consider, for example, someone who enjoys eating but keeps on eating even after they are full, so that they begin to suffering a stomachache. Or, for example, someone who engages in numerous sexual trysts, even if as a result the complications of being in so many such relationships begin to become a burden.

This is the death drive, according to Lacan: The continuous and perpetual movement towards enjoyment, even at the detriment of the subject, not so much a wish for death as the mindless repetition that has no regard for anything, without purpose or consideration.

The Imaginary Father

The movie can be separated into three quite neatly, although the three layers take place at the same time and affect each other. Lacan would say, the three are knotted together. First, there is the story of Peter’s attempts to capture the Vulture. Second, there is the story of Peter’s attempts to prove himself to Tony Stark. Finally, there is the story of Peter’s attempts at becoming a good friend, a good student, a good son, and (briefly) a good date.

In the movie, all three stories involve a father, although Uncle Ben only exists as a memory or trace. Nonetheless, he exerts a very important influence and is part of the story, especially in Peter’s day to day life. For example, when Peter begs Ned not to reveal his identity, he brings up the fact that his Aunt May had already been through too much. That is to say, the trauma of Uncle Ben’s death remains effective in his psyche and is the reason why he cannot completely assume the role of Spiderman, by stopping school, relinquishing his former self, and simply living off of the fact that he is superhuman.

In this way, we can consider Uncle Ben as the Imaginary father Peter Parker attempts to appease. The Imaginary father exists in the realm of images, of the collected ideas about what an “ideal” father should be. While we can accept Peter’s excuse that he doesn’t let go of his original life (and identity) despite his powers, we can also see it as a way for Peter to keep Uncle Ben (and his injunction) alive.

However, he does so not for the typical sentimental reason, for “keeping Uncle Ben’s memory alive,” &c., &c. Rather, Peter is unable to let go of his past identity because it is the source of the superego’s injunction to “Enjoy!” That is to say, that without the separation between his past life and his superhero life, he will not be able to enjoy the signification of being a superhero, which involves some type of “secret identity.”

The Symbolic Father

The function of the Symbolic father, which Uncle Ben only played through the instating of the paternal metaphor during the last moments of his life, switches to Tony Stark in the movie. Stark is seen as the figure that explicates the Law in the movie, in imbuing Peter with the values that are expected of him, especially given his extraordinary circumstance to which only Tony and a few superhumans can relate.

The conflict of the film at this level depends on the injunction from Uncle Ben, so that Peter is obsessed with the idea of finding some “great responsibility” to go with his “great power.” Moreover, at the level of psychoanalytic theory, in doing so he is also attempting to pursue his enjoyment, going further and further into his signification as a “superhero,” this time doing so by attempting to become one of the Avengers, the superhero group par excellence.

In the film, this is precisely the main conflict that ties together all three “fathers.” Peter pursues the pleasure of signification, continually attempting to find his “great responsibility” at great cost, without reference to his ability or indeed the reason for why he is doing it.

When Peter accidentally splits a ferry in half and fails in his attempts to saving the passengers, Iron Man comes to his aid and confronts him on the recklessness of his actions. He has no excuses apart from his contradictory, repetitious pleas that he is capable (even after his failure) and that he just wants to become a superhero.

True to the paternal function and the symbolic, Tony takes away the suit that increases Peter’s capabilities: Peter can wear the suit, but he must not engage in any risky activities. Having broken this rule, he again castrates him, removing the phallus of his suit, the thing which functions as the signifier of his lack: According to Peter, without the suit, he is nothing.

The Real Father

The true crux of the film, however, is presented only during the third act, when we are faced with the Real father in the form of the Vulture. The Real Father, in Lacan, is the function that is the epitome of the castration that takes place during the final phase of the Oedipal complex. And in the film, Peter is truly “castrated” when he realizes that he has met his match in the figure of Vulture (who is also the father of his love interest, and therefore in a sense the master and owner of the desired Other).

Peter meets the Real, in the final act of the film, through the realization that he has truly met his match and through going beyond the laws of the Symbolic — that is to say, when he has truly pursued his enjoyment until it brings him nothing but pain. The encounter with the real, for Lacan, is always a traumatic experience. Not only are we presented with ruinous excess, but we realize that such excess gives no rewards: There is destruction as well as an absence of the satisfaction we were hoping to achieve.

Peter Parker thus realizes his limitation as a human being and the necessity of limiting his pursuit of the Other. This important scene takes place when the Vulture uses his mechanical wings to destroy pillars in the building where Peter has confronted him so that Peter is buried under the rubble of the collapsing building.

He screams for help but no one arrives. For a moment he appears as if he is ready to give up, but he sees his reflection in the water that has pooled on the ground in front of him. Half of his reflection is obscured by his mask, so that the two coincide, while he recalls Tony’s words that he must be something before he can have the suit, and here he gains the strength to free himself.

That is to say, Peter here finds the strength to truly begin confronting the Real via signification, via “draining away the Real” through the Symbolic (a process that also takes place during analysis).

The importance of this scene does not rely on the fact that Peter finally realizes the importance of Tony’s words: Tony could have uttered anything, absolutely anything, and this moment of self-realization would have been the same. Rather, the importance of this scene lies in the way that the traumatic past — the trauma of the sinking ferry, of his suit being taken away, of the Vulture — finally gains meaning at this point, like a period bringing closure to a sentence and bringing retrospective meaning to the preceding words.

Traversing the Fantasy

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the analyst does not attempt to “cure” the analysand in any way. That is not the promise the analyst makes when one enters analysis. Rather, the analysand undertakes the process so that he or she will be repositioned vis-à-vis the Other, from the position that he or she had been prior to analysis as a result of the machinations of the Oedipus complex. The analysand gains new knowledge (savoir), namely that of his or her own position as subject.

This process of subjectification is the true goal of analysis, so that the Subject obtains the dialectical knowledge of his or her own selfhood, in relation, but not dependent on, the Other. Thus, in the film, after defeating Vulture, when Tony asks Peter to become one of the avengers, presenting him with a new suit and the opportunity to address a room full of reporters as the new Avenger, Peter turns down the opportunity for further enjoyment, believing that it was a “test.” Of course, it turns out to not be a test at all, showing that the paternal function, and the function of the three fathers, are not to be conflated with the actual father, or any actual person. Rather, it is a logical process undertaken by the parlêtre, the “speaking-being.”

According to Lacan, the singular ethical injunction that arises from the lessons of psychoanalysis is that one must not give ground relative to one’s desire — one must not betray one’s desire. The trap is to conflate desire and enjoyment: By emphasizing the role of desire, Lacan takes the position that the subject must never acquire the object-cause of desire (the objet petit a), and in analysis even realize its non-existence. In the film, the object-cause of desire is becoming an Avenger, and the phallus, the signifier of the Other’s lack, is the suit itself.

If this is so, what should we make of the fact that, in the end, Peter still wears the suit, and is in fact caught by his Aunt May wearing it? The easy (and less substantial) reading is that he still retains his past desire to obtain the phallus, and that no person can truly escape the compulsion to repeat. While this is true, it can be read in a better way that will enlighten us on the workings of the unconscious.

In the end of analysis, one does not so much “escape” or get rid of the compulsion to repeat: One does is not released from the Symbolic order. Rather, one is more deeply embedded in it, is more capable of understanding and going against it, if need be, but also more capable of accepting it and dwelling in it.

In the end, Peter does not necessarily give up or continue the search for the burden of a great responsibility. If he continues, then he does so for his own purposes, rather than because he feels the need to prove himself to the Other: He truly did not care, in the end, if Tony was testing him or not. He was already walking away when he asks Tony to confirm whether it was. Rather, he was informing Tony that, regardless of whether it was a test or not, he had accepted his position as the “friendly neighborhood Spiderman,” without regard for Tony’s approval and despite what Tony wants of him.

What Makes a Good Father?

Ultimately, the question that lies at the heart of the movie is the moral question of what makes a good father. The question is most apparently asked in the figure of the Vulture, who turns out to be the quite “normal” father of Peter’s love interest. Is he a good father for doing even the unspeakable to protect his family?

Less obvious is the figure of Tony Stark, who acts like a father figure to Peter Parker. Is he a good father for ensuring Peter’s safety by limiting his abilities and advising him to remain a “friendly neighborhood” Spiderman, as opposed to an Avenger, while he is not ready?

And least obvious of all is Uncle Ben, whose injunction for Peter that with great power comes great responsibility haunts him?

The lesson of the film is that there is no such thing as a successful father: All fathers are, at some level, bound to fail. The “flip side” of the Vulture is not an accident; he is not an exception in that he is, on one hand, a loving father in, on the other hand, a villain. On the contrary, all fathers, as a matter of the function for which they stand, are threatening, ominous, and evil. If the only “good” in psychoanalysis involves never betraying your desire, the paternal function is that which asks you to betray it, by commanding you to enjoy, to move closer and closer to the object of desire — and nothing snuffs out desire than getting what you want.

Thus, in the final scene, when Tony presents Peter with the opportunity to become an Avenger, he too shows Peter that, despite his advice and his thoughtfulness, he fails as a father, that he all too willingly also invigorates Peter’s Death Drive by pushing him closer towards betraying his desire, and therefore in this sense “evil.”

In Spiderman: Homecoming, the ultimate lesson is that all fathers are failures, insofar as the father must establish the child within the symbolic order. A part of the subject always longs for Other, the repressed always accompanied by the return of the repressed, and always pushing the command of the Father to enjoy far enough that the subject occasionally brushes against something that is outside of signification, the Thing (das Ding) that is traumatic, inexplicable, terrible.

But it is possible to traverse the fantasy, to accept one’s position relative the Other, to know that the Other is not actual but only a psychic necessity. It is possible to gain knowledge of the repetition compulsion, to become aware of its influence, and so resist or accept it. In short, that subjectification is possible — that although Spiderman is not the master of his own house, he can finally come home to his own neighborhood.

[1] He does not say this in the original comic, in Amazing Fantasy #15, but instead appears in a panel. However, later stories present Uncle Ben as saying this line in his last conversation with Peter.

[2] Bruce Fink renders the maternal Other as the “mOther(er)” insofar as the Mother in psychoanalysis is a function, rather than an actual person, that fulfills a role in the unconscious. See Fink’s The Lacanian Subject and A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis.

[3] This child is also “castrated” in the sense that he is perpetually cut-off from the “phallus,” which is what the child imagines is what the mOther desires and as a result separates from the child. It is therefore the signifier of the mOther’s lack. According to Lacan, “The demand for love can only suffer from a desire whose signifier is alien to it. If the desire of the mother is the phallus, the child wishes to be the phallus in order to satisfy that desire.” See Lacan’s The Signification of the Phallus.

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