Abstract
Is there more powerful revenge narrative in contemporary popular culture than that of all-time über-nerd, Carrie White? For Carrie is a figure of abjection nonpareil, one who is, routinely, subjected to ongoing and intensifying humiliations. Given this treatment, it should come as no surprise when, finally, the tormented Carrie turns the tables, quite spectacularly, on her tormenters – and everyone else who gets in her way. A catastrophic state of affairs that Carrie so clearly ‘enjoys’, embodying what might be called revenge’s jouissance. Utilising a perspective that is broadly psychoanalytic, this article will take up Carrie’s jouissance of revenge, situating it in terms of three registers: phallic jouissance, juris-jouissance and feminine jouissance. All, with this end in sight: nothing less than the re-inscription of feminist connection and, with it, the possibility of forgiveness – instantiated in Carrie as victimised outlier and victimising jouisseuse – at the very centre of the Law’s psychic subjectivity and social bond.