The Metaphorical Structure of the Text

텍스트의 은유적 구조

In Lacanian terms, the real, which is a non-representative Ding an sich, is indirectly approachable only in and through language. This 'speaking of the real' is made possible through a restoration of the missing link between one signifier, S1 and another signifier, S₂, as is manifested in the Lacanian formula of metaphor. In Freudian terms of textual metaphor, the missing link is restored by substituting a new edition for an old edition of one's historical text of life. This is what this essay means by the metaphorical/dualistic structure of the analytic/literary text. And this is a way of talking about an intertextuality between literature and psychoanalysis in the sense of the 'text as psyche' and the 'psyche as text.' Applying the 'signifying substitution' to the Oedipus complex, the Oedipal child can find a meaning(s), "my erotic indulgement with my Mom is wrong" by metaphorically substituting S₂: the Name of the Father for S1: the Desire of the Mother. This meaning leads to the constitution of the human subject and the formation of the incest taboo, one of the most significant distinctive features of the human being as distinguished from the animals. We can see a similar metaphorical structure of S1-S2 taking place in the literary texts such as Macbeth and "Dover Beach": in the course of the stage of life being substituted for the primal scene in the former, and the plain of Tucydides for a bed scene in the latter, respectively.