In this seminar with Dr. Todd McGowan we get an analysis of lack contrasted with loss, in an attempt to demonstrate how these two concepts differ in how Freud and Lacan conceive subjectivity. For McGowan, when we start with lack, the nature of desire changes, in the sense that we lose any illusions that our identity will ever fully coincide with itself. Throughout the seminar Dr. McGowan illustrates this point with reference to Hamlet and specifically emphasising that the structure of lack is ubiquitous throughout the narrative, for helping us think how subjectivity works.