fantasy attempt to formalize such a relationship while at the same time showing
how it intersects with the imaginary order.
( 3 ) From yet another complementary perspective, the fact that real otherness en-
ters into contact with the symbolic Other entails that there is no such Thing as a
“pure” real otherness, that absolute otherness is, after all, not absolute.... Point
( 3 ) actually represents a supplement of point ( 2 ). Point ( 3 ) means that there is
no “purely” real Other of the symbolic Other. In other words, the fact that the ob-
ject aholes the Symbolic means that there is no whole Real. In this sense, the state-
ment “There is no Other of the Other” can be read in two different but perfectly
compatible and complementary ways. It can indicate both that there is no self-
contained Symbolic andthat there is no purely external, whole Real which sur-
rounds it. There is no Symbolic without the Real, and no Real without the
Symbolic. The Name-of-the-Father which guaranteed symbolic self-sufficiency
was at the same time preserving intact the mirage of a Real “outside.”
If the Symbolic is symbolic only insofar as there is a Real-in-the-Symbolic, and the
Real is real only insofar as it is the Real-of-the-Symbolic,^68 how should we under-
stand that which lies outside the interpenetration of these two orders? I suggest
that we call it the “undead.” Such a definition is derived from Lacan’s own recur-
rent references to the notion of the “closed world” of the animal as that which is
always “already dead” from the perspective of the individual and “immortal” from
that of the species or nature.^69 I take the undead to correspond to both the “pure”
Real and the “real-ized” Symbolic; the undead is a “not-One,” a Real which was
and will be barred in itselfbefore and after the presence of the signifier. Here I am
tempted to introduce a new algebraic sign: the R barred.^70 This of course, does not
exclude the possibility that the undead could be regarded as—in Lacan’s par-
lance—having “no fissure.” The undead, however, is not some-thing that is sub-
stituted for the positivity of the pure Real that the Other of the Other implicitly
presupposed, a notion of a negatively substantial Real: it is, rather, the pure Real to
be considered as purely barred in itself. More precisely, the undead corresponds to
both the mythical extrasymbolic not-One which is deceivingly postulated from the
standpoint of the symbolic order as being the One par excellence,and what actually
preceded and will succeed the interpenetration of the Real and the Symbolic,
namely, the opposite of history. It is therefore extremely important to distinguish
the Real(-of-the-Symbolic), the object a,from the undead: the former is some-
thing as lack, the latter is no-thing. In other words, the Real-of-the-Symbolic is not
“a piece” of the undead: although we perceive the object aas “the piece of the
Real” that is left to us, this partial remainder actually amounts to allthe Real that
there ever was, is, and will be.