In order to fully understand what Hermann is suffering it is necessary to elucidate on what is meant by ‘idealized ego-image’. He constructed an Idealized ego in which he views himself as a figure of stability, fortitude, and perseverance. “Economy, temperance and industry: those are my three winning cards; by means of them I shall be able to double my capital—increase it sevenfold, and procure for myself ease and independence" (Pushkin 13). As a military officer born into wealth, Hermann is eternally enamored by the qualities and traits he projects onto himself and will do everything in his power to maintain the ideal. Lacan infamously coined this phenomenon ‘The Mirror Stage’, the point in a child’s life where he sees himself in the mirror for the first time: “a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation - and which manufactures… the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality” (Lacan 4). In Lacanian terms, Hermann is intoxicated with the false reflection he sees in the mirror. Success and resoluteness are fictional traits, permanently out of reach of the beholder. Hermann is striving to achieve the elusive qualities his ego has mistaken for truth, when in reality his self is ‘fragmented’, that is, not in accordance with his conscious self-image. For Lacan the truth lies in the unconsciousness where Hermann is a gambler at heart and he, repressed by his ego-ideal which forbids such indulgences, fosters a strong passion for game and chance (Pushkin 12). The point to understand from Lacan in this stage is the role identification plays in psychological development. Humans attach themselves to labels and names which almost always represent an unattainable ideal because the imago itself is a fabrication of the imagination; the actuality of one’s self is drastically different than it’s phantasmical counterpart. Unity through identification is impossible because of the fundamental split between truth and ideation. Once the fable of the countess was introduced to Hermann, it provided an easy out for him to keep pursuing the ego ideal: to gamble without actually gambling, to be the honorable, rational, independent man he wanted to be without acknowledging his own inconsistencies and contradictions. Hermann holds onto the ideation to the very end where he will attain the imago and ultimately identification, symbolized by the card of highest value: the ace. The madness that ensued was not divine retribution, hamartia, or even a petty mistake: it was the moment in which the unconscious made itself and its radical split from the ego-ideal known. As his identity shatters, Hermann’s true self is revealed, not through unity with the ace, but through desire with the queen.