SOURCE: “‘We are Only Seeking Man’: Gender, Psychoanalysis, and Stanislaw Lem's Solaris,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 19, Pt. 2, July, 1992, pp. 167–77.

In the following essay, Helford draws upon Alice Jardine's concept of “gynesis” and the psychoanalytic theory proposed by Jacques Lacan to elucidate metaphorical representations of gender, sexual identity, and psychic alienation in Solaris.

We think of ourselves as the Knights of Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors.

(§[6]:72)

In this brief passage from one of SF's [science fiction's] most popular and powerful novels, Lem describes much of what is both important and misleading about efforts (literary or actual) to achieve human/alien contact. He recasts astronauts and scientists as medieval knights on religious pilgrimages, men who quest to assert cultural dominance over new realms. They seek only to encounter that which will prove the significance...