( 2 ) The object can now be considered as an object of satisfaction in twodifferent
ways: as real, it satisfies the child’s biological need; as symbolic, “it symbolizes a
favorable power”^18 which dispenses gifts.
( 3 ) It is only by becoming symbolic that the real object actualizes its earlier virtu-
ality and turns into an object of everyday reality. “A real object acquires... its sig-
nification [only] as symbolic, as being part of the love object.”^19 The virtual Real
precedes the Symbolic, but it can be actualized only by the Symbolic.^20 The real object of the child’s
need can be perceived as such only after he has confronted himself with a lack of ob-
ject,having realized that the object may notbe donated; the relation subject–object
is clearly based on the productivity of the lack.^21
( 4 ) Lacan calls this first form of the lack of an object frustration. More specifically,
he defines frustration as the imaginary lack of a real object whose agent is sym-
bolic. It should be clear by now in what sense the object is real and the agent sym-
bolic. But why is the lack imaginary? Here it is sufficient to recall that, as we saw
in Chapter 1 , all relations that the subject establishes with objects in everyday real-
ity are always filtered through imaginary introjections and projections: the Real
quaobjectified everyday reality is essentially imaginary. As a consequence, it is also
the case that the child–object relationship inaugurated by primordial frustration
should be considered as fundamentally narcissistic. This explains why Lacan thinks
that frustration is lived by the child as “imaginary damage” (“What is not given to
me, belongs to me and therefore has been stolen from me—I want it back!”).^22
3.3 The Dialectic of Frustration, or, the First
(“Pre-Oedipal”) Stage of the Oedipus Complex
Primordial frustration establishes a productive dialectic between the child, the
mother, and that which keeps her busy when she cannot answer the child’s ap-
peal. Lacan calls this phase both the “dialectic of frustration” (in Seminar IV) and
the “first stage [temps] of the Oedipus complex” (in Seminar V). Since it concerns
primarily the relationship between the child and the mother, this stage clearly over-
laps with what was traditionally designated by psychoanalytic theory as the “pre-
Oedipus.” This does not, however, constitute a contradiction for Lacan, since, as
we have seen, he affirms that the “pre-Oedipus” acquires its symbolic significance
only retroactively, after the resolution of the Oedipus complex (in its third stage):
Lacan acknowledges the existence of a specific triadic phase which is not yet ex-
plicitly Oedipal, yet he concedes that it is meaningless to consider it per se,inde-
pendently of the Oedipus complex. “The triangle [child–mother–what prevents
her from answering the child’s appeal] is, as such, pre-Oedipal. Nevertheless, it