complex declines); in other words, he may be able actively to enter the Other qua
language despite his inability to enter the Other quaSymbolic. It must, however,
be noted that, strictly speaking, for Lacan, the full structuration of speech in the
individual is always brought about by the resolution of the Oedipus complex: lan-
guage as speechis fully structured for the child only when he has properly located
himself in the symbolic order.
As we saw in Chapter 2 , the less language is symbolized, the more it remains at
the level of the letter. This remark is particularly useful in describing the original
position of the child with respect to the Other: before his active entry into the Sym-
bolic through the (resolution of the) Oedipus complex, the child is in relation to
language as letter, the Real-of-language. One is obliged to conceive a primordial
point at which he is fullyalienated in language, like a pet. Although this represents
a merely mythical beginning, it is nevertheless the case that the child continues to
be spoken by language (as letter) even after he begins to learn how to speak. It is
useful to compare the situation in which children can speak without their speech
being properly symbolized with that of the psychotic subject, who can also usu-
ally speak. As we have seen, even in the latter case there is in fact a privileged rela-
tion with letters. In psychosis, language materializes itself as letter—for example,
in the guise of auditory hallucinations—insofar as symbolization has not suc-
ceeded; unsurprisingly, Lacan thinks that psychosis is due to the foreclosure of the
signifier responsible for resolving the Oedipus complex, the Name-of-the-Father.
When we attempt to delineate the crucial distinction between the Other qualan-
guage and the Other quaSymbolic as experienced in the child’s early years, we must
always remember that the same language perceived by the child as letter—even
when he is partially capable of mastering it in a protosymbolic way—constitutes,
at the same time, a fully articulated symbolic system for the adults who surround
him. The parallel with hieroglyphics is very useful here: we could suggest that the
child has to decipher a series of hieroglyphics as enigmatic letters. Their overall sig-
nification may remain obscure to him even after he has detected some clear pat-
terns and is able to replicate them (by speaking). In other words, the child from
very early on begins to suppose that what appears to him as language qualetter is
actually a fully articulated symbolic system for the Other—for example, as I will
show in greater detail later, this occurs when he questions himself after his appeal
to his mother has been neglected. However, it is absolutely vital to underline once
again how these early stages of symbolization can be defined as symbolic only in a
retroactive way: the child cannot, strictly speaking, question “himself,” since his
questioning is not yet symbolically individuated.... What at the outset should be
considered as virtuallysymbolic for the child—and is actuallysymbolic for the Other
that surrounds him—will have becomeactually symbolic for the child after the reso-
lution of the Oedipus complex.the subject of the symbolic (other)