‘He that speaks here, conversely, has done nothing so far but reflect: a philosopher and solitary by instinct, who has found his advantage in standing aside and outside, in patience, in procrastination, in staying behind; as a spirit of daring and experiment that has already lost its way once in every labyrinth of the future…’  Preface, Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power

To reflect on reflection is like being in reflection with an anticipation to reflect on the act of reflecting. The word reflection comes from Late Latin reflexionem (nominative reflexio) which literary means ‘a bending back, a turn away’. From 1670s, its meaning denotes, ‘remark made after turning back one’s thought on some subject’.  In what follows, I attempt to reflect on the significance of reflection (प्रतिबिंब) in reflecting (as described above) on the formation of reflection in general.

The act of reflection is equivalent to be in reflection, as in seeing one’s reflection or reflection of one’s thoughts through a medium of something that tends to produce reflection, namely a mirror or an act of thinking or apperception. It is almost a colloquial information that the mirror creates a likeness (image of an object), which is formed and carried by the light. The image can be seen in the mirror because the light reflected from an object falls on the mirror and it is reflected. In short, light incident on the smooth shiny surface like mirror bounces back into the same medium. The image in a plane mirror is conventionally the same size and colour as that of the object; unless the size of the mirror varies or the distance between the object and the mirror is more than average. In thinking of reflection, then, one may reach its image, its likeness that may appear to be the same in ‘size and colour’ (but it is not necessarily of same size and colour). Before we move ahead, a disclaimer: the one that speaks here does nothing but reflect.

Let us begin with reflecting on the different treatments of reflection in some narratives respectively by Ovid, Hesiod, Grimm brothers, and J. K Rowling.

In Greek mythology, as Ovid tells us, there is a story of Narkissos (Narcissus in Latin) who rejected many admirers, men and women alike, including Echo. The goddess of retribution and revenge, Nemesis learned what had happened and decided to punish Narcissus for his behaviour. She led him to a pool and as he was leaning over a woodland pool to drink, he fell in love with his reflection (Pic.1). He remained forever at that spot, unable to tear himself away until he died from exhaustion and unsatisfied desire. Echo, who witnessed his hopeless passion, re-echoed his sighs and laments. It is noticeable that both Narcissus and Echo engage with the act of reflection in two modes, that is through visual and aural. (Hard, 2004)

Another instance is in the legend of Medusa and Perseus. As described by Hesiod, Polydektes sent Perseus to fetch the head of one of the three Gorgon monsters. Perseus chose Medusa, since she was the only mortal amongst the three sisters. Medusa’s origin story differs, but most paint her as a beautiful maiden, who was punished by Athena and turned into a monster with live snakes for hair (Pic 2).  Whoever looked into her eyes was turned to stone. Perseus assisted himself by observing Medusa’s reflection in the polished surface of his bronze shield and cut her head off. It is important to remember that, he used Medusa’s head as a weapon to turn Polydektes into a stone.      

More familiar and clichéd example of a reflection being instrumental appears in the story of Snow White from Grimm’s fairy tales: The magic mirror of the Evil Queen (Pic.3).  Every day, she asks one question to the Magic Mirror, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”  To which the mirror replies, “My Queen, you are the fairest of them all”. The Queen is flattered with the reply because the mirror never lies. This response of the mirror changes when Snow White reaches the age of seven; when the Queen asks the same question, the mirror replies, “My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you”. The rest of the story unravels the Queen’s attempts to kill Snow White and so on. 

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 12 has an interesting take on the reflection. The mirror called ‘Erised’ is known to show the deepest and most desperate desire of the heart of the one who stands in front of it (Pic.4). The name ‘Erised’ is ‘desire’ spelled backwards, as if reflected in a mirror. The inscription on the mirror ‘erised stra ehru oy tube cafru oyt on whosi’ must be read backward to show its true purpose: I show not your face but your heart’s desire. It is noticeable that many of the desires it reflects are impossible.

In the first narrative, the reflection of Narcissus’ beauty as reflected in the water incites feelings of love and remorse. Narcissus falls in love with his reflection and cannot see anything but his reflection. In a way, he becomes blind as he is stuck in the world of reflection (of self). However, the likeness in the reflection of Narcissus is tainted by feelings of amour; it shows something more than what is there to see. In the second legend, the reflection functions as both harm and cure. The reflection in Medusa’s eyes turns people into stone whereas the reflection in the shield helps Perseus kill her. It is the exact likeness visible in the reflection that turns people into stone and saves Perseus from the same. There is a likeness as it is; and the likeness in its reduced form. In the third story, reflection is considered as a corroboration of truth. The answers mirror gives are taken to be true statements followed by actions. Lastly, in the context of Harry Potter, even though it seems simple, the mirror’s powers to show one’s desire meddle with the conventional notion of reflection. It shows something extra, something that is there and not there in the physicality of the object it reflects. These narratives indicate that reflection is neither a repetition nor reduplication and far from ‘same size and colour’. The reflection functions as a site where it’s object encounters one’s own extended versions. These versions are not reduplicated but re-contextualized. Narcissus’s self-love, Medusa’s curse, The Queen’s affirmation and Potter’s desire are the connotations of the reflection they encounter. It extends the site of perception based on the act of seeing something that cannot be seen empirically. The reflection moulds the conventional meaning of seeing into the act of reflecting.

Let me take a chance of alluding Descartes’ insight on the act of seeing which may help in the present context:

‘when looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street, I do not see them but infer that what I see is men… and what I do, I see from the window but hats and coats which may cover automatic machine?  Yet I judge this to be men’ (Descartes, 1998, p. 113)

Here according to Descartes, we use word seeing in different senses. The right word would be we ‘judge’ these moving figures to be men. However, this judgment is not presented with furnished proof provided by one’s (‘I’ in the above context) eyes. When I look through the window, I see men, which means I judge/ consider/ assume/ think that what see is men. It is noteworthy, that the judgment/ consideration/ assumption and thought comes from a rapid reflection on what ‘I’ sees. Thus, seeing/ judging/ reflecting is in a way seeing but with the mind’s eyes rather than physical eyes. The men are visible to my mind’s eyes but invisible to my physical eyes. The notion of reflection, as discussed above, requires such reasoning based on judgment than empirical cognition. 

Thus, one can argue that reflection, because of the sense of likeness or image, creates an ‘ideal I’ for the ‘eye’ that perceives itself through the ‘I’. Jacques Lacan calls it méconnaissance, meaning misrecognition or misconstruction. In his theory of Mirror Stage (Lacan, 2006, pp. 93-100), he emphasizes that the image we see in the mirror does not correspond to the actual physical reality of the experience of the self [i]. Narcissus and the Queen’s narrative has this misrecognition of self. Both the narratives portray an individual who sustains its sense of singularity, self, ego, or autonomy through an on-going misrecognition of the actual conditions of its existence. With Medusa, the reflection projects as well as weakens this sense of misrecognition. Lacan’s theory further asserts that an individual and its existence depends on the ideal likeness created through the others and the symbolic system of cultures, which provides it with a source of reflection. In the narrative of Potter, the mirror contextualizes his desires and shows something more than what should have been visible. Thus, the space/ site of reflection, there, is more like utopia. It is important to note that, the word utopia literally means nowhere (from Greek ou ‘not’ + topos’ ‘place’).

Generally, one describes a site by looking for the set of relations by which a given site can be defined. For instance, describing the set of relations that define the sites of transportation i.e. streets, trains, buses or sites of temporary interactions like café, cinema, beaches, etc. Similarly, one can describe them through a cluster of relations like closed, semi-closed, holy, private, or public. However, certain spaces have a curious property of being in relation to all the other sites in a manner that neutralizes the conventional set of relations and invents new ones. The mirror or reflection is such a site. The reflection shares this simultaneous relationship with the remaining sites. It is a relation of either linking or contradiction. In its utopian sense of no-space, the mirror creates a direct or inverted analogy of the real space (i.e. society if we may call it so). The reflection formulates/expresses a ‘present’ experience of reality. Such experience is either turned upside down or presented in a perfected form; in any case, the space of reflection is fundamentally unreal. It is a space in which ‘I’ see myself there where I am not; in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface of the mirror. I encounter a shadow that gives me visibility to myself; it enables me to see ‘me’ there where I am absent.

This further could be elaborated with the help of, the French philosopher, Michel Foucault’s insights on sites in his essay ‘Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias’. According to Michel Foucault, in every culture, some places are like counter-sites, a somewhat effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted. Places of such kind are outside all spaces, even though it may be possible to indicate their location. These are the space he calls Heterotopia [ii] (Foucault, 1984, 1967, p. 3). The space of reflection is heterotopia, as in the mirror (the point of reflection) exists in a reality as a counteraction on the position that I (the object of reflection) occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror, I espy my absence from the place where ‘I am’ since I see my reflection from there. The virtual space of reflection on the other side of the glass makes me comprehensible to myself. ‘I come back to myself. I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself in my singularity there where I am’ (Foucault, 1984, 1967 , p. 5) (although it is misrecognition). It makes the place I occupy at the moment when I look at my reflection as absolutely real, connected with all the spaces those surround it and as absolutely unreal. Since to be perceived, it has to pass through this virtual point which is ‘there’- in the mirror. The mechanism of reflection encompasses a simultaneously mythic and real contestation of the space in which we live as dividuals[iii] (the divided singularity) and not individuals. All the four narratives mentioned above address this dividuality as the reflections in them show more than what the subjects are supposed to see. The reflections divide these subjects in a self and an extended/ desired self. The function of reflection thus unfolds between two extreme poles: ‘either its role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space or on the contrary, to create ‘other’ real space that is as perfect as the real one is messy’. (Foucault, 1984, 1967 , p. 7)

A very interesting depiction of the Foucauldian heterotopic nature of reflection could be seen in a painting attributed to Spanish painter Diego Velázquez called Las Meninas (The Ladies in Waiting).

In principle, Las Meninas represent a seemingly normal scene of a domestic interior in the royal household. The princess (fig.1), surrounded by her maids of honour (Las Meninas) (fig.2 & 5), the court dwarfs (fig.8 & 9) and a sleepy mastiff (fig.10). Behind them are the princess’ chaperone (fig.6), a bodyguard (fig.7) and the royal chamberlain (fig.4). At far left is the painter (fig.1) himself with a brush and a pallet in his hand. His stare, alike a few other figures (3, 4, 7, 8 & 9), is directed at a particular point. This point of staring, although invisible, we as a spectator can assign to certain objects. Initially, the object of stare seems to be us. As if, the figures are looking at us. The object of the painter’s stare is not present in the painting hence, it is invisible. However, since we, as spectators can assign ourselves to be that object, we become part of that invisible visibility. The eyes of the figures make us aware of our visibility from the space in the painting that indicates invisibility (Foucault calls it doubly invisible, (Foucault, 1989)).  The invisibility of the object could be revealed if we could look at the painting he is making (fig 12). Nevertheless, the play of gazes creates a reciprocal reflection of us, the spectators, in the spectacle. The spectator thus is both the spectacle and the spectator; the one who looks and the one who is being looked at. This dismissive [iv] and reciprocal reflection through gaze also makes us aware of our space outside the spectacle as a spectator and a spectacle.

 As one observes further, we come across a mirror in the centre-left (fig.11). In the mirror, one can see a reflection of two figures: plausibly the subjects of the portrait that is being painted in the picture. It is the subject whose space we had occupied so far as spectators/ spectacle. The mirror reflects nothing that is there in the picture as itself. It reflects the transitory heterotopic space (or non-space) occupied by a flux/ movement. It expresses sheer indifferent objectivity to the event happening in the room. However, it still orients the meaning of the painting. From the position we occupy, it should have been our reflection in the mirror but it is not. We conceive our reflection from the eyes of the figures and the reflective object i.e. mirror shows us something that is there and not there at the same time. The mirror does not replay, duplicate, or repeat what we see in the picture but makes visible the invisible. Here, the reflection is saying nothing that has been already said. It restores visibility of the object around which the stare is focused; the object that resides outside all views. It dismisses our position as spectacle and limits our view as a spectator, making us aware of our space. It reflects that at which the select figures (1, 3, 4, 7, 8 & 9), within the painting, are looking.  It is therefore what the spectator (us) would be able to see if the painting is extended further, or if we had access to the canvas on the left. The reflection in the mirror provides certain visibility that affects both the space represented in the painting and its representation outside itself perceived by us.

The heterotopia of reflection, as described earlier, creates this space outside all other spaces that further creates a chain of reflections and invites us in the act of reflecting. We encounter our own extended versions or see something detached from our point of reference. It gives us certain objectivity to reflect on the reflection which is stripped of the likeness. In our daily routines, such sites of reflection are available in the form of a library, cinema, theatre, or art, in general. These heterotopic/ heterotopological sites contain their temporality, reality, and history put in counteraction with the ‘real’ spaces like society. For instance, the moment we enter a library we face so many counter-realities on shelves. These realities are the sites of interaction as well counteracti. These sites with multiple possibilities make me see where ‘I am’ by reflecting on the point where ‘I am not’ or where ‘I could be’.  The notion of reflection in its generality is not to be pinned down to just a singular notion of mirror or a flat surface with a capacity to reflect. One cannot hold reflection in words, for it suspends the act of definition and reveals itself only in the act of reflecting. As Foucault in his analysis of the same painting asserts, ‘it is in vain that we say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say. And it is in vain that we attempt to show by the use of images, metaphors, or similes what we are saying.’ (Foucault, 1984, 1967, pp. 7-8) Therefore, as we have already said, while talking about reflection, one does nothing but reflect. Such act of reflecting requires a pretension to not to know what is being reflected in the depths of the reflection and thus interrogate reflection in itself.