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Now, Lacan argues that the Oedipus complex will result in the child's entering the symbolic circuit and moving away from the immediate relation with the mother. This relation, however, is not a dual one. It does not involve simply mother and child. (There are three terms present: the mother, the child and the object of the mother's desire - what Lacan calls "the phallus".) (However much the mother loves her child, there will always be some margin, something to indicate to her child that what she desires is beyond it. The child realizes that he or she is not identical with what his or her mother desires.) Once this triangular structure is established, the child can try, with the many games of seduction that children are so good at, to become this third term, the object of the mother's desire. ''It is an attempt to be the phallus for the mother'', to incarnate the phallus in whatever form is particular to the individuals in question.
=====EditThe Symbolic Network=====[[Lacan]] argues that this [[imaginary]] [[object]] of the [[child]]'s games must be transported to the [[symbolic]] [[level]]. ''The [[images]] which the [[child]] uses to entice the [[mother]] must be given up'', marked with the [[sign]] of [[prohibition]]. Now, this is where the [[anthropological]] stress on the role of [[giving]] in [[society]] becomes so important. (If the symbolic network of a community is constituted by the exchange of gifts... and if the imaginary object of the child's games with the mother can be linked to this circuit, then the child will be able to leave the initial triangular regulation with the mother.) He or she will be able to leave the universe of the mother to take on a place in the larger universe of the symbolic world. The imaginary object must take on the value of a gift, and hence the crucial time of the Oedipus complex will involve establishing this new signification. ''The phallus will be the object promised to the child for use in the future'', it will become the object of a pact. (Some day, this will all be yours...) This promise supposes, of course, that what will be returned in the future has been taken away first. Assuming a sexual position thus supposes an initial loss or subtraction. Lacan's theory of the Oedipus complex will be reformulated later on his his work, as we shall see.
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