Powers of Horror; An Essay on Abjection

SOMETHING TO BE SCARED OF 41
Through the mouth that I fill with words instead <strong>of</strong> my
mother whom I miss from now on more than ever, I elaborate
that want, and the aggressivity that accompanies it, by saying.
It turns out that, under the circumstances, oral activity, which
produces the linguistic signifier, coincides with the theme <strong>of</strong>
devouring, which the "dog" metaphor has a first claim on. But
one is rightfully led to suppose that any verbalizing activity,
whether or not it names a phobic object related to orality, is
an attempt to introject the incorporated items. In that sense,
verbalization has always been confronted with the "ab-ject"
that the phobic object is. Language learning takes place as an
attempt to appropriate an oral "object" that slips away and
whose hallucination, necessarily deformed, threatens us from
the outside. Sandy's increasing interest in language, in propor-
tion as her phobia grows, the verbal games in which she in-
dulges, are on a par with the intense verbal activity <strong>of</strong> little
Hans, which I discussed.
One might contrast with this relation between phobia and
language in the child the commonplace observation on adult
phobic discourse. The speech <strong>of</strong> the phobic adult is also char-
acterized by extreme nimbleness. But that vertiginous skill is
as if void <strong>of</strong> meaning, traveling at top speed over an untouched
and untouchable abyss, <strong>of</strong> which, on occasion, only the affect
shows up, giving not a sign but a signal. It happens because
language has then become a counterphobic object; it no longer
plays the role <strong>of</strong> an element <strong>of</strong> miscarried introjection, capable,
in the child's phobia, <strong>of</strong> revealing the anguish <strong>of</strong> original want.
In analyzing those structures one is led to thread one's way
through the meshes <strong>of</strong> the non-spoken in order to get at the
meaning <strong>of</strong> such a strongly barricaded discourse.
The child undergoing a phobic episode has not reached that
point. His symptom, because he utters it, is already an elabo-
ration <strong>of</strong> phobia. By means <strong>of</strong> the logical and linguistic work
he undertakes at the same time, his symptom arrives at a com-
plex and ambiguous elaboration. The phobic hallucination then
stands halfway between the recognition <strong>of</strong> desire and counter-
phobic construction: not yet a defensive, over-coded discourse
that knows too much and manipulates its objects wonderfully