《亨利亞當斯的教育》這部自傳體於1906 年面世，而作者亡妻克洛弗亞當斯在書中卻未被提及。在經歷了15 年的婚姻生活之後，克洛弗選擇了自殺以離開人世。然而，在亞當斯對歷史演進中的奢侈損耗所進行的書寫中，克洛弗是存在著的。亨利亞當斯認為現代社會發展中的無盡耗費猶如自然現象中的熱氣蒸發，而克洛弗之死則顯然超越於此類現實觀。如斯拉沃熱‧齊澤克所描述的拉康式「缺失」，逝去的克洛弗不再是哀痛的焦點，卻已幻化為作者文字中昇華的記憶。

The 1906 nonfictional work The Education of Henry Adams is noteworthy for its author never mentioning his deceased wife, Clover Adams, who committed suicide after the couple had been married for 15 years.However, Clover is textually present in Adams’s attempt to create a dissipative theory of history that likens the development of the modern world to thermodynamic heat-death. The fact that Clover’s suicide cannot be compartmentalized in such a theory of history is an example of a Lacanian “lack” as described by Slavoj Žižek, and ultimately means
that Clover exists as a sublime object in the text rather than a focus of mourning.