has ever been able to stick a signification to a signifier”;^188 on the other hand, it is
possible to “stick a signifier to a signifier” in order to produce a metaphor. The fact
is that, at this stage, Lacan is primarily interested in explaining the notion of the
(Name-of-the-)Father in terms of a paternal metaphor, and detaching it from the
simpler idea of quilting point. However, he does not seem to fully acknowledge
that the Father as a metaphor is no less a sign than the Father as quilting point. This
is clear from schema 3. 5 , which he himself contradictorily provides straight after
the above quotation: one can easily glean from it the fact that the signifying chain
S/s is nothing but the bi-univocal signified of the signifier (of signifiers) Name-
of-the-Father.
Should we consequently understand all (unconscious) metaphoric substitu-
tions as signs, or is this the prerogative of the paternal metaphor as the metaphor
on which all other metaphors rely? On one level, it is possible to propose that all
metaphors function as signs insofar as they all entail a bi-univocal relation between
the substitution of one signifier for another and the effect of signification that such
a substitution causes; it is only in this precise sense that Lacan can claim that meta-
phors correspond to vertical quilting points. One must, however, emphasize the
fact that the paternal metaphor as primordial metaphor is at the same time differ-
ent from all others: the signifier Name-of-the-Father generates (phallic) significa-
tion by replacing the signifier Desire-of-the-Mother, but, unlike all other signifiers,
the Name-of-the-Father is the “signifier of signifiers”—and, in the first instance, of
the Desire-of-the-Mother as the anomalous signifier that precedes it. The signifier
Name-of-the-Father directly signifies the (substituted signifier) Desire-of-the-
Mother, while in all other metaphors it is the substitutive operation between two sig-
nifiersthat bi-univocally signifies a certain effect of signification: it is only in this last
sense that all metaphoric substitutions correspond to vertical quilting points.
Lacan repeatedly suggests that the Desire-of-the-Mother is a signifier:^189 in-
deed, one can generally admit that the child first enters symbolization precisely by
confronting the mother’s presence and absence as an alternating +/−. Given the
ultimate impenetrability of this “coming and going,” however, the Desire-of-
the-Mother fully becomes a signifier only retroactively, after it has been replaced
by the Name-of-the-Father. In other words, in the paternal metaphor, the Name-
of-the-Father bi-univocally signifies an enigmatic “What does she want?,” the Real
of a trauma which the child had not thus far been able to symbolize (completely):
as we have seen, despite attempting to satisfy the Desire-of-the-Mother by identi-
fying with its various concrete objects, the overall signified of such a signifier re-
mains an inscrutable xfor him. For this reason, the paternal metaphor is not only
the point at which the dimension of the signifier inextricably overlaps with that of
the sign: it is also the locus where the Symbolic and the Imaginary are themselves
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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