Thermodynamics and the Death Drive

We have already noted the rather circuitous path toward death taken by Alain in Will 'O The Wisp. While it is certainly evidence of premeditation, and possibly even rationality, his final peripeteia seems to me more than either a desperate attempt to find a reason to continue living or a last round of goodbyes. It seems absolutely necessary for him to do. It called to mind the passage in Beyond the Pleasure Principle where Freud says of life's inevitable path toward death - as the organism becomes more complex, the path becomes increasingly circuitous and these detours are what we know as life. This would imply that we cannot fight the death drive head-on, but that the best we can do is to divert it from us. This dynamic system seems to be a perfect parallel to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e. the Law of Entropy. That is, in any given system, in the absence of energy input from outside of it tends inevitably toward greater disorder and lesser energy over time, eventually reaching zero, or death. Does the psyche operate according to this law? Does life? Life is physical in basis, so I tend toward answering in the affirmative, myself.

This perspective certainly has implications for our understanding of the novel and the issues at work. If disaster means disorientation, then in a sense it means disorder, so how to conceive of disaster in these terms? One final note, all of this called to mind a quote from William S. Burroughs, though I can't find it for the life of me, but he writes of the junkie seeking cold, an absolute zero. So perhaps Alain's use of heroin could find new meaning in this view.

I yield the floor to you