Graph of desire

File:Graphdesire.jpg

Pictured above is Graph II in the series of four graphs that make up Lacan’s topology of desire (taken from Zizek The Sublime Object of Ideology 103). Before laying out how the graph depicts the movement of desire, I will first take a moment to define the symbols it uses. On the far left of the graph is the term "Signifier," designating the starting point of the act of signification and proceeding to the "Voice," which is the final outcome of the process of signification. At the bottom left hand corner of the graph is the symbol I(O), indicating the ego-ideal, the imaginary version of itself with which the ego would like to be identified. Further up on the left hand side is "e," designating the ego itself, caught halfway between the signifying chain ("Signifier" to "Voice") and the ego-ideal. On the bottom right hand side of the graph is "S/" (S with a bar through it), designating the barred subject, the subject split by his or her entry into the symbolic and finally never coincident with its own signification. Immediately above the barred S is a delta which feeds directly into the parabolic line which ends at I(O). This delta is the Lacanian algebra for "the prelinguistic mythical subject of pure need" which must "pass through the defiles of the signifier" in the course of producing the barred subject (Evans 76). That is, the delta designates the embryonic subject prior to the intervention of the paternal interdiction ("the defiles of the signifier"), after which time it simply denotes desire, the urge to return to the time and place preceding that rude awakening. Midway up the right hand side of the graph is the symbol "i(o)," designating the specular image which the ego encounters in the mirror stage and throughout life; it is non-coincident with either the ego or the ego-ideal, though it is more accurate than the ego-ideal. Everything in the lower half of the graph, below the signifying chain, is located firmly in the imaginary order. The two circles at the points where the trajectory of S/<-> I(O) are points de capiton, points at which the signifying chain is anchored to the imaginary by the crossing trajectories of desire and signification. Within the left point de capiton is the symbol "s(O)," the signification of the other, the temporally prior point in the act of signification that bears the meaning of the Other (language) but does not yet articulate it. Inside the right point de capiton is the symbol "O," indicating the Other itself, language in its ever-expanding entirety. The appearance of the Other at this point retroactively punctuates the temporally precedent s(O), allowing it to bring forth its meaning as a particular portion of the "‘treasure of the signifier’" (Bowie 190) which it guards. As the points de capiton, these two intersections represent the arbitrary but stable points in the signifying chain at which meaning appears to dangle vertically from the process of signification as well as inhering in its syntactic or horizontal movement.

In terms of its movement, this graph displays the oscillating movement between I(O) and S/ as the fundamental movement of desire from the initial imaginary encounter with the specular image to the formation of the ideal-ego and on to the foundation of the barred subject. Crossing that trajectory from left to right is the signifying chain, from Signifier to Voice as an instance of the speech which makes of the subject a "parlêtre." This movement is only provisionally unidirectional, however; between the points de capiton there is a retrogressive movement by which the punctuation of the Other fixes the meaning of the signification of the other in the particular utterance. This fixation is also a deflection, however, as it interferes with the direct path between the subject and the ideal-ego. Furthermore, the placement of the arc of this deflection above the signifying chain reveals that it is an unconscious process, since though we may be aware of the temporal construction of meaning in the linear development of grammar, its effect on our psyche is one of an always-already established meaning. Finally, the two smaller cells contained in the lower half of the graph play on the analogy between the imaginary identification between the specular image (i(o)) and the ego (e) and the way in which the signification of the Other (s(O)) is never quite coincident with the Other itself (O); both are imaginary relations. The first short-circuits the symbolic order by refusing to articulate its processes of identification, while the second represents the imaginary aspect of the signifying chain, the realm of the signified as the arbitrary sound-images which lend some semblance of coherence to the symbolic order. As a final addition to this graph, we might position the objet a at the center of it all as the absent still point around which the machinery of desire, signification, and identification turns in the psychic life of the subject.

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The graph of desire is a conceptual tool from the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan.