Powers of Horror; An Essay on Abjection

SOMETHING TO BE SCARED OF 3 5
From archaic fears to those that accompany language learning,
at the same time as familiarization with the body, the street,
animals, people. The statement, "to be afraid <strong>of</strong> horses," is a
hieroglyph having the logic <strong>of</strong> metaphor and hallucination. By
means <strong>of</strong> the signifier <strong>of</strong> the phobic object, the "horse," it calls
attention to a drive economy in want <strong>of</strong> an object—that conglom-
erate <strong>of</strong> fear, deprivation, and nameless frustration, which,
properly speaking, belongs to the unnamable. The phobic ob-
ject shows up at the place <strong>of</strong> non-objectal states <strong>of</strong> drive 3 and
assumes all the mishaps <strong>of</strong> drive as disappointed desires or as
desires diverted from their objects.
The metaphor that is taxed with representing want itself (and
not its consequences, such as transitional objects and their se-
quels, the "a" objects <strong>of</strong> the desiring quest) is constituted under
the influence <strong>of</strong> a symbolizing agency. That symbolic law is
not necessarily <strong>of</strong> the superego type, but it can also seep into
the ego and the ideal <strong>of</strong> the ego.
PHOBIA AS ABORTIVE METAPHOR OF WANT
Metaphor <strong>of</strong> want as such, phobia bears the marks <strong>of</strong> the frailty
<strong>of</strong> the subject's signifying system. It must be perceived that
such a metaphor is inscribed not in verbal rhetoric but in the
heterogeneity <strong>of</strong> the psychic system that is made up <strong>of</strong> drive
presentations and thing presentations linked to word presen-
tations. The infancy <strong>of</strong> little Hans does not entirely explain the
frailty <strong>of</strong> the signifying system that forces metaphor to turn
into drive and conversely. One must also conclude, and phobic
adults confirm this, that within the symbolic law accruing to
the function <strong>of</strong> the father, something remains blurred in the
Oedipal triangle constituting the subject. Does Hans' father not
play a bit too much the role <strong>of</strong> the mother whom he thrusts
into the shadows? Does he not overly seek the surety <strong>of</strong> the
pr<strong>of</strong>essor? If phobia is a metaphor that has mistaken its place,
forsaking language for drive and sight, it is because a father
does not hold his own, be he the father <strong>of</strong> the subject or the
father <strong>of</strong> its mother.
Freud understands this perfectly. After the first accounts by