melancholic

is marked by necessary dissimulation, secretiveness, feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself. These can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation.

Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself these can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation.' Susan Sontag, Under the Sign of Saturn: Essays

is not aware of what he has lost in the lost object.

According to Freud, the melancholic is not aware of what he has lost in the lost object one has to introduce here the Lacanian distinction between the objet a as the cause of desire and the object of desire: while the object of desire is simply the desired object, the cause of desire is the feature on account of which we desire the desired object (some detail, tic, which we are usually unaware of and sometimes even misperceive it as the obstacle, as that in spite of which we desire the object). This gap between object and cause (Zizek 'how to read lacan' : 57)

is a cynic who is incapable of opportunism.

melancholic, n.All

melancholic