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[[Lacan]] stresses the importance of the signifying [[structure]] in [[fantasy]]. He takes as his starting point the [[matheme]] <img src="lacansem1b1.gif" valign="bottom" height="11" width="12">&lt;&gt;<i>a</i>, which is the [[logical]] articulation of fantasy. The matheme was already introduced in <i>Les [[formations]] de l'[[inconscient]]</i>, in the [[graphs]] of [[desire]], and was later developed in 1960 in "The [[subversion]] of the [[subject]] and the [[dialectic]] of desire in the [[Freudian]] [[unconscious]]" (<i>[[Écrits]]: A Selection</i>) as the first [[topology]] of [[The Subject|the subject]].<br>

<img src="lacansem1b1.gif" valign="bottom" height="11" width="12"> represents the [[division]] of the subject [[barred]] by the [[signifier]] that constitutes him. The [[sign]] &lt;&gt; enunciates the relation either of inclusion/implication, or of [[exclusion]] between the two [[terms]]. It's a binary [[system]] where the verb as such [[disappears]] to leave room for the [[algebraic]] sign of a pure relation. Definitions of <i>[[objet]] a</i> will vary over the years; to [[understand]] it here, one should go back to the part [[object]] of <i>[[La relation d'objet]] et les [[structures]] freudiennes</i>, and then address its [[analysis]] in <i>L'[[angoisse]]</i> and <i>L'objet de la [[psychanalyse]]</i>. In 1960, however, Lacan mentions the [[fascination]] of the fantasy in which "the subject becomes [[The Cut|the cut ]] that makes shine in its inexpressible oscillation".<br>

The <i>[[objet a]]</i> would be the [[primal]] object, forever lost, the [[remainder]] or the product, which cannot be assimilated because it is [[real]], of the cut operated by the primal signifier engendering the subject when it repeats itself in absolute [[difference]] (<i>L'[[identification]]</i>). "If <i>a</i> is the [[frame]] of the subject, this frame falls at the level of the most fundamental act of [[life]], [[The Act|the act ]] in which the subject as such is engendered, i.e the [[repetition]] of the signifier." This is the [[symbolic]] paternal mark or the [[phallic]] mark since there is no signifier of [[sexual]] difference: "The [[phallus]] alone is the sex-[[unity]]." The <i>objet a</i> creates a [[hole]] constantly filled, in the [[partial]] frives, by the different <i>objets a</i>, the [[breast]], [[feces]], the [[penis]], the [[gaze]] or the [[voice]], [[objects]] that are in themselves caught in [[imaginary]] substitutions. To understand fantasy, one should try to determine the logical status of <i>objet a</i>, which can only be accomplished by way of a topology dealing with gemetrical [[figures]]. Is <i>objet a</i> situated on the side of the [[drive]] or of desire of which it is the [[cause]]? Is it [[born]] out of the [[separation]] from the placenta as a part of the [[body]] proper or from the division from oneself from the signifier, the cost that the [[speaking]] [[being]] has to pay to become a subject? Is there really an alternative? Lacan talks of a surface where "desire and [[reality]]" are "the [[right]] and the wrong sides"; however, the passage from one side to the [[other]] is unnoticeable, as if there were only one side, because "the relation of [[texture]] does not entail any break." Might the fantasy allow oneself to go from the drive to desire and from desire to the drive, to link [[them]] or to disjoint them?<br>