Talk:Metaphor (Lacan)

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In Lacanian psychoanalysis, metaphor (métaphore) designates a structural operation of language by which meaning emerges through the substitution of one signifier for another within a signifying chain. Far from being a merely stylistic or rhetorical device, metaphor names a fundamental mechanism of the unconscious, essential to the formation of symptoms, the articulation of desire, and the production of subjectivity itself.

For Jacques Lacan, metaphor is one of the two primary mechanisms governing the unconscious, the other being metonymy. Drawing on structural linguistics, especially the work of Roman Jakobson, Lacan reinterprets metaphor as a signifying substitution that produces a new signification by replacing a repressed or barred signifier with another that takes its place. This operation is decisive in the symbolic organization of experience and plays a privileged role in neurosis, fantasy, and the paternal function.

Conceptual origins

Linguistics and Jakobson

Lacan’s theory of metaphor is grounded in structural linguistics, particularly Jakobson’s distinction between the metaphoric (selection/substitution) and metonymic (combination/contiguity) axes of language.[1] Jakobson demonstrated that disturbances in language could be classified according to impairments on one or the other axis, a distinction Lacan adopts and radicalizes.

Lacan maps this linguistic distinction onto Freud’s account of the unconscious, identifying metaphor with condensation (Verdichtung) and metonymy with displacement (Verschiebung).[2] In doing so, he situates metaphor at the heart of unconscious formations rather than treating it as an ornamental figure of speech.

Freud and the unconscious

Although Sigmund Freud did not theorize metaphor explicitly in linguistic terms, his analyses of dreams, slips, and symptoms already implied a logic of substitution and overdetermination. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud describes condensation as a process whereby multiple latent thoughts are expressed through a single manifest element.[3]

Lacan formalizes this Freudian insight by identifying condensation with metaphor: a signifier replaces another, and meaning arises from this substitution rather than from reference to an external reality.

Metaphor as signifying substitution

The primacy of the signifier

Central to Lacan’s reformulation is the principle that the signifier has primacy over the signified. Meaning does not precede language; it is produced retroactively through the play of signifiers. In metaphor, one signifier comes to occupy the place of another that has been repressed or barred, producing a new signification that exceeds both terms taken separately.[2]

Lacan formalizes metaphor as:

S / S′ → S(+)

where one signifier (S) substitutes for another (S′), generating a surplus of meaning. This surplus is not reducible to reference or intention; it is an effect of the symbolic structure itself.

Metaphor and repression

Metaphor is inseparable from repression. The signifier that is replaced does not disappear; it persists in a latent position, exerting effects through the substitute. This is why metaphor is a privileged mechanism of symptom formation: the symptom speaks by saying something else.

In this sense, metaphor is not a voluntary act of expression but a structural necessity of speaking beings. The unconscious “speaks” through metaphor insofar as it cannot speak directly.

Metaphor and the symptom

Symptom as metaphor

For Lacan, the symptom is fundamentally metaphorical. A symptom is a signifier that stands in for another signifier that has been excluded from conscious articulation. It condenses a conflict, desire, or trauma into a form that can be borne by the subject, albeit at the cost of suffering or repetition.[4]

In neurosis, symptoms function as metaphors that encode unconscious meaning. Analysis aims not to abolish metaphor but to read it—to allow the subject to encounter the signifying logic that structures their symptom.

Metaphor and interpretation

Psychoanalytic interpretation often operates by intervening at the level of metaphor, displacing fixed meanings and revealing the underlying signifying substitutions at work. Interpretation does not supply a hidden meaning but modifies the subject’s relation to the signifier.

This is why Lacan insists that interpretation should be brief, equivocal, and punctual: it must touch the signifier rather than appeal to understanding or explanation.[5]

The paternal metaphor

Definition

The most famous and structurally decisive instance of metaphor in Lacanian theory is the paternal metaphor (métaphore paternelle). This operation describes how the Name-of-the-Father substitutes for the enigmatic desire of the mother, producing the symbolic law and instituting the subject within the symbolic order.[6]

Formally, the paternal metaphor can be written as:

Name-of-the-Father / Desire of the Mother → Phallic signification

Through this substitution, desire is symbolized, prohibition is introduced, and the subject gains access to meaning, difference, and social order.

Metaphor, law, and desire

The paternal metaphor does not repress desire; it structures it. By introducing lack and prohibition, it makes desire possible as desire rather than as unmediated demand or engulfing jouissance. The phallus here functions not as an organ but as a signifier of lack, organizing sexual difference and symbolic exchange.

Metaphor and psychosis

Foreclosure and the failure of metaphor

In psychosis, Lacan argues, the paternal metaphor fails due to the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father. Because the key signifier is excluded from the symbolic order, metaphorical substitution cannot operate in the same way.[4]

As a result, signification collapses or becomes unstable, and the subject may experience hallucinations or delusions as attempts to compensate for the missing metaphorical structure. Where neurosis is governed by metaphor, psychosis is marked by its structural failure.

Metaphor and metonymy

Structural distinction

Metaphor must be distinguished from metonymy, though the two are inseparable. Metaphor operates through substitution and condensation; metonymy operates through contiguity and displacement. Metonymy sustains desire by deferring satisfaction along a chain of signifiers, whereas metaphor produces meaning by interrupting that chain.

Lacan emphasizes that desire is metonymic, while symptom and meaning are metaphorical.[2]

Later developments

Beyond classical metaphor

In Lacan’s later teaching, particularly from the 1970s onward, metaphor loses its central explanatory privilege as Lacan turns toward topology, the real, and the sinthome. Nevertheless, metaphor remains indispensable for understanding the classical clinic of neurosis and the linguistic foundations of psychoanalysis.

As Dylan Evans notes, metaphor remains “one of the key mechanisms by which Lacan links language to the unconscious.”[7]

Influence and significance

Lacan’s theory of metaphor has had a profound impact beyond psychoanalysis, influencing literary theory, semiotics, philosophy, and cultural studies. Its most enduring contribution lies in demonstrating that meaning is not a property of words or speakers but an effect of symbolic structure, governed by substitution, lack, and desire.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Roman Jakobson, “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,” in Fundamentals of Language, The Hague: Mouton, 1956, pp. 55–82.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Jacques Lacan, “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,” in Écrits, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York: Norton, 1977, pp. 146–178.
  3. ↑ Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Standard Edition, vol. IV–V, London: Hogarth Press, 1953.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar, Book III: The Psychoses (1955–56), trans. Russell Grigg, London: Routledge, 1993.
  5. ↑ Jacques Lacan, The Seminar, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964), trans. Alan Sheridan, London: Hogarth Press, 1977.
  6. ↑ Jacques Lacan, The Seminar, Book IV: The Object Relation (1956–57), Paris: Seuil, 1994.
  7. ↑ Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 115–117.
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