ABSTRACT
Freud's work only provides a very basic idea of the structure of perversion. He explains the mechanism that he calls Verleugnung, translated into English as "disavowal", in his 1927 paper "Fetishism" and subsequently in his 1938 paper "Splitting of the ego in the process of defence", yet Freud's explanations in these texts merely constitute a beginning, a way in to the issue of perversion as structure. Lacan emphasizes that the essential problem raised by Gide concerns "the relationship between man and the letter", which subsequently prompts him to change Buffon's famous aphorism "Style is the Man Himself" into "Style is the Object". The lengthy development of Lacan's argument concerning Gide's style culminates when he deciphers the crucial importance of Gide's letters to his wife Madeleine and attributes to these letters the status of fetish.
