fundamental fantasy, functions as a precursor of such an S1. In addition to this, we
have also already analyzed the relation between the Name-of-the-Father as the
signifier of signifiers and the phallus as the signifier of the signified as such. Against
the background of our attempt to read Freud’s notions of primal repression and
primal scene together with Lacan’s notion of primordial frustration, we should
now finally focus on the exact nature of the signifying function of the Desire-of-
the-Mother.( 1 ) Desire-of-the-Mother is, for Lacan, a generaldesignation for the protosymbolic
relation child–mother as a whole—or, better, for the protosymbolic “signifiers”
that constitute and are constituted in such a relation.
( 2 ) Desire-of-the-Mother is a flow of oppositional “signifiers” which have not yet
been organized or grouped.
( 3 ) More precisely, these “signifiers” correspond to the (ever-changing contin-
gent stand-in for the) metonymic object of the mother’s desire: as Lacan says, “the
subject identifies imaginarily with it in an absolutely radical way.”^202 Consequently,
they can be understood as oppositionalinsofar as any object that temporarily occu-
pies the place of the metonymic object is given—precisely because it is already ex-
perienced as a symbolic object—against a background of absence. In parallel, they
can be said to represent a flowsince, despite not being grouped, they neverthe-
less form a metonymic chain: such a flow is sustained by the perpetual dissatisfac-
tion of demand. Grouping will then be brought about by the primordial paternal
metaphor.
( 4 ) Primordial signifiers are, first and foremost, imaginary signifiers and, as such,
signs.If, on the one hand, their oppositional aspect—accompanied by vocalizations
such as the Fort!–Da!—is what allows us to consider them as “signifiers,” on the
other, they are also signs (Zeichen) precisely in the sense of Freud’s ideational rep-
resentatives. Primordial signifiers that compose the Desire-of-the-Mother are, ac-
cording to Lacan, nothing but representatives of (the child’s) need in the domain
of images. For the same reason, these imaginary signifiers/signs equally mark the
moment of primal repression as inscription: insofar as the child articulates his need
in demand, and demand creates imaginary signifiers, he undergoes repression.
From this, we can conclude that for Lacan, unlike Freud, allideational representa-
tives are, as such, necessarily repressed/inscribed in the proto-unconscious. Once
the unconscious is properly distinguished from self-consciousness by the action
of the paternal metaphor, such an incessant inscription of ideational representa-
tives will continue: this is why we can state that, for Lacan, after primal repressionoedipus as a metaphor