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Chapter B the Signfication of the Phallus .tr.\lll( \ll()\(,1 llll I'lt\l ll\ ).).) ;lt)(tttt;tlvlry wlrirlr ;r ltrttrr;rtrlrt:irrg ilssulnes "the attributes of' llri,s/lrt'r'lscx orrly rhrouqh a threat-the threat, indeed,of their ;rriv;rtirrr"(1977, p. 281/685)?Are we to admit with Freud ,,a tlisturbanceol'human sexuality, not of a contingent, but of an t'ssentialkind" (1977, p. 2Bl/GBs)?This much is certain: the grroblem is "insoluble by any reduction to biological givens,, Chapter B (1977, p.282/686). It must be approachedin terms of the,,clin- ical facts," and these Phallus "reveal a relation of the subject to the TheSignfication of the phallus that is established without regard to the anatomical difference of the sexer" (1977, p. 282/686). The interpretation of this relation presents difficulties, of course, especiallyin the caseof women, whether in terms of the little girl's feeling that she has been deprived of a phallus, or in the fantasy of the mother as possessinga phallus, or in terms of the mother's presumably having been deprived of the phallus- for that matter, the whole raisond'ahe of the "phallic stage,,in the sexual development of women. OvrRvtrw Having thus indicated his own intention to addressthe is- sue of the relation This essaydates from the same year as the preceding one (1958) of the subject to the phallus "without regard to the and therefore represents a corresponding level of development anatomical difference of the sexes,"Lacan indulges in a polemic in Lacan's thought. In fact it complements the former insofar section where he pays his contentious respecrsto other writers as, for Lacan, the essentialfunction of the phallus is to be the who have dealt formally with the phallic stage of devel- opment. signifier of desire, whose importance in the treatment process In particular, "the most eminent" (Helene Deutsch, Karen we have just seen. Both themes received full discussion in the Horney, and Ernest Jones) receive honorable mention, with Melanie Klein seminar of 1957-1958on "The Formations of the Unconscious," slipping in through the back door. Jones is singled out and the essayscrystallize the results of that effort. As in the pre- for specialattention - praised for his introduction of the notion vious essay,so here, the available text cries for glossesthat only of aphanisis(the disappearanceof sexual desire) into the psychoanalytic ,,the the seminar can give. But such is Lacan'Smanner, and we sim- debate, since with this he suggests rela- tion between ply have to live with that fact, settling for what provisional sense castrationand desir." ( lg77 , p. 283/6Bi), but crit- rcized for resorting we can make out of what he actually says. to the notion of part-object (a Kleinian term that "has never The present essay is mercifully brief (is this because the been subjected to criticism since Karl Abraham introduced original lecture was delivered in German?). It begins with a it" [1977, p. 283/687]). The latter notion leaves referenceto the importance of the castration complex for tradi- Jones victimized by a Kleinian perspective. Lacan's whole cri- tique of object tional psychoanalytic theory, both in terms of eventual symp- relations theory as developedby Melanie Klein is implicit tom formation and in terms of the unconscious dimension of here and must be left for fuller discussion elsewhere. For the moment, sexual identification. For how are we to understand the strange we may expect the brunt of that critique to fall 332 '.1:l+ .\Nl) L\c,,\N r.,\N(;1,,\(;r; \l(,\lll( \ll()\ ()l llll. l,ll.\l lts :f:t5 on the failure of this school,with its heavy emphasis()n tht'r'r,h' ( ()nri('iorrsin tlrt'srrlr.jt'r't'ssllt:t:r:h is to gain some appreciationof of fantasy, to take sufficientaccount of the function ol'tht' svnr- tlrr'lirtrrlittttt'tttalrlivision in the subjectthat is ingredient to his bolic order. \'('r'y<'onstitution. It was Freud's grasp of the functioning of the symbolic or'- 'l'his now brings us at last to the role of the phallus in this der (despitethe absenceof adequateconcepts of linguistics)that constitution, and now the waters muddy. For the phallus, ac- Lacan, as we know, seesto be the most significant aspect ol' t'ording to Lacan, is neither a fantasy, nor an object, nor an or- Freud's "discovery." This implies not only the distinction bt:- uan (whether penis or clitoris), but a signifier- indeed the signi- tween signifier and signified but the conception "that the signifi- lier of all signifiers, "intended to designateas a whole the effects er has an active function in determining certain effects"in what o{'the signified [we understand: of the whole processof significa- is to be signified (i.e., the "signifiable").The signifier is deter- tion], in that the signifierconditions them by its presence[i..., minative to the extent that the signified is accessibleonly through its function] as a signifie."(1977, p.2851690). But what precise- the signifier, i.e., "appearsas submitting to its mark" (1977, p. ly is the import of this? 2841688)in such fashion that we are forced "to accept the notion Let us begin by asking: What are the effects of the signify- of an incessantsliding of the signified under the signifier" (1977, ing system?First of all, that the needsof a human being must be p. 154/502).Moreover, when "the signifier" is concatenatedinto channeled through the order of signifiers (i.e., the symbolic or- a chain of signifiers, this chain is governed by the laws of der) by the very "fact that he speaks"(1977, p.286/690). When language. Thus we must acknowledge "a new dimension of the these needs become articulated through speech and thus take human condition in that it is not only man who speaks, but the form of demands, they undergo a certain alienation from . in man and through man it speaks(ga parle)." The "it" here is the subject, if only because turning them into "signifying form" to be understood as the "structure of language," that is so woven already submits them to exigenciesthat belong to "the locus of through man's whole nature as to make it possiblefor speech"to the Oth.r" ( 1977, p. 286/690). resound" in him (1977,, p. 2B4l688-689). Now this "alienation" "constitutes" a form of "repression" in What is at stake here, we know, is not "language as a social the subject. How? We know that the dynamic thrust that initial- phenomenon" but language in the senseof "the laws that govern ly took the form of need now must be channeled through the or- that other scene" (for Freud, the "unconscious"), operating as der of signifiers. To the extent that signifiers are able to articu- they do in the "double play of combination and substitution" on late this thrust, the result is a seriesof demands. To the extent which metonymy and metaphor (those "two aspectsthat gener- that they cannot, the dynamic movement remains operative but ate the signified") are based (1977, p. 2851689).Ar such, these is now subject to a continual displacement whose pattern is un- laws play a "determining" role in the "institution of the subject" consciously structured, and it is in this form that it goes by the - but we shall return to this later. Let it sufficehere to observe name of "desire." Its shunted movement is, of course, governed that when Lacan says that"It speaksin the Other," we take him by the laws of combination and selection, i.e., "the play of dis- to mean that the laws of language function in such fashion that placement and condensation to which [the subject] is doomed in it is these that are evoked when two subjects engage in speech, the exercise of his functions" (1977, p. 2871692).If it escapes thesethat permit the signifying process,"by means of a logic an- formulation in demand, it may nonethelessemerge in "the para- terior to any awakening of the signified"(1977, p.285/689), to doxical, deviant, erratic, eccentric, even scandalous character emerge in the first place. To recognizethe dimension of the un- by which [desire] is distinguished from need"(197 7 , p. 286/690). :J:J (i LA(ir\N n NI) L,\N(l(',.\(;1, \l(,\ll l( \ ll(l\ ( tl llll l,ll \l l t \ .r.\/ It is the extent to which desire is forced underqroun(l irrxl rrrq lof tlr(' sulrjcrt I irr tln' urt,t:rdrtingt(primally repressed)finds filtered through the symbolic system that we understand it to lrt' rtssir{rrilit'r' lly rt't't'ivinqthc mark of'the Verdriingung(repression) "repressed."And it is the extent to which the process is funda- ,l'tlrt' phirllus"(1977, p.288/693). With this the subjectis initi- mental to the developmental cycle, constituting initiation int<r ;r(t'tlinto the symbolic order, and this brings with it the bar be- the symbolic order, that this repression legitimately n,ay be twt't:n signifier and signified, so that "the subject designateshis called "primal" (Uruerdriingung)(r977 , p. 286lGg}). It should be lrt'ine only by barring everything he signifies" (1977, p. 2BB/ noted that repressionin this sensealso constitutesa "splitting" of (;{)3). Now if the the subject between the unconscious signification of desire (i... , phallus is signifier of desire, and if, as we have the dynamism submissive to the laws of language) and the above- sccn already (Chapte, 7), desire is desire of the Other, then "it is ground chains of signifiers that operate on the level of conscious I the] desire of the Other as such that the subject must recognize, signification.
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