Zizek Imaginary Level

The imaginary portion of the big Other is what the people and things in society look like. Zizek compares the imaginary portion of society to a game of chess explaining that the symbolic level is different than the imaginary level. Zizek writes “this level (the symbolic level) is clearly different from the imaginary one, namely the way in which different pieces are shaped and characterized by their names[...]” (Zizek pg 8). In society, the imaginary level represents each individual’s appearance and names, along with the things around them. Each individual in society has a name which happens to be who they are on an imaginary level. Physically, things have appearances that we recognize them by. Such as a chair has an appearance that allows