*the (m)other

In graduate school I had to take a class on Literary Criticism. The professor was a little crazy and very obsessed with the theories of Jacques Lacan - I can still hear his super thick accent - LacAH (how do you write out that nasal sound?) Anyway, I wrote a whole paper using this theory but I pretty much didn't know what I was talking about then and certainly don't now. What I do remember is that there is a moment when a baby sees herself in the mirror and realizes that she is herself, and that the mother is someone else: an other [or (an)other - I loved getting to write it that way]. There's some sort of split in the "self" and the result is a bunch of post-freudian junk (I really don't get it). Anyway, Vera has been fascinated with her image in the mirror for a long time - it's a sure way to get a smile out of her. I wonder when she saw her image and realized that she and I weren't one and the same?