“The father comes in the place of the mother, S in the place of S′, S′being the

mother insofar as she is already linked to something which was x,that is the signi-

fied in the [child’s] relation to the mother.”^165 During the Oedipus complex, the

child’s relation to his mother is marked by a basic question: “What does her desire

want (so that I can be it)?”; the signified of the mother’s desire—which is the sig-

nified of what the child desires, since he desires what she desires—is an enigmatic

x,an unknown signification. This question can be answered only when the Name-

of-the-Father, the Law of the +/−which allows sexuation, comes into play: at this

stage, it becomes clear for the child that “the signified of the mother’s coming and

going is the phallus.”^166 By substituting itself for the Desire-of-the-Mother, the

Name-of-the-Father actualizes for the child the phallus φas the object or signified

of the former:

that is:^167

What can invariably be deduced from both schema 3.4and Lacan’s statement

quoted above is that, as a result of the paternal metaphor, the phallus finds itself

in the position of a signified. The phallus here is the imaginary φ, the signified of

the signifier Desire-of-the-Mother which has contemporaneously been substi-

tuted. In a sense, the paternal metaphor causes the substituted signifier (Desire-

of-the-Mother) to “fall” to the level of the signified (the imaginary phallus): in

parallel, the substituting signifier (Name-of-the-Father) could be said to signify

the original substituted signifier (Desire-of-the-Mother). As we will see later in

more detail, this is a specific feature of the paternal metaphor; in general, in

metaphor, the substituting signifier does notsignify the substituted signifier, the

signifying effect is created by the substitution itself—in between the two

signifiers—and not by the substituting signifier. Three further points should be

made apropos the imaginary phallus as the signified of the Desire-of-the-

Mother:

the subject of the symbolic (other)

Schema 3.3

Schema 3.4

⋅

Name-of-the-Father

Desire-of-the-Mother

Name-of-the-Father

Desire-of-the-Mother

Signified for the subject

Other

(Phallus (

⋅ → ( (

S

S′

S′

x

S^1

s′