pound of flesh

The “pound of flesh” is a partial object that can stand for what is “in me more than myself.” The book uses the expression to explain a specific operation of perversion: a part that functions symbolically is taken as a literal piece of the body. The phrase thus marks a collapse between a bodily object and the excess meaning it represents.

The Literalization of a Partial Object

Perversion appears when the partial object is treated as though it were the whole transaction rather than a sign within it. The example makes the distortion brutally concrete: in a short story by Patricia Highsmith, a father interprets a suitor’s request for his daughter’s hand literally. He cuts off her hand with a knife and sends it to the suitor in a package.

The Story’s Reversal

The suitor is surprised, and the father answers, “Oh, you wanted all of her, not only her hand? Why didn’t you say so, then?” The reply exposes the grotesque mismatch between the conventional request and its physical enactment. Instead of recognizing the hand as a figure for marriage, the father supplies the body part itself, turning an expression of relation into a mutilated object exchanged between men.

Figurative Meaning and Bodily Consequence

The example clarifies why the partial object can stand for more than its material presence: its force depends on not being reduced to the literal fragment. The same mechanism, in less violent form, appears when “My heart belongs to you!” is read as a statement by a potential heart donor. In both cases, a familiar expression is stripped of its figurative register and made to designate an organ. The contrast between symbolic meaning and bodily literalization gives the expression its critical force.