Objet Petit A - The Hierarchy of object A

The Hierarchy of object A

Speaking of the "fall" of the a, Lacan noted that 'the diversity of forms taken by that object of the fall ought to be related to the manner in which the desire of the Other is apprehended by the subject.' The earliest form is 'something that is called the breast...this breast in its function as object, object a cause of desire.'

Next there emerges 'the second form: the anal object. We know it by way of the phenomenology of the gift, the present offered in anxiety.' The third form appears 'at the level of the genital act... Freudian teaching, and the tradition that has maintained it, situates for us the gaping chasm of castration.'

Lacan also identified 'the function of petit a at the level of the scopophilic drive. Its essence is realized in so far as, more than elsewhere, the subject is captive of the function of desire.' The final term relates to 'the petit a source of the superego...the fifth term of the function of petit a, through which will be revealed the gamut of the object in its - pregenital - relation to the demand of the - post-genital - Other.'