The Metaphorical Conceptualisation of Emotions as Weights and the Identification of a Sinthome in George Saunders’ "Sticks"

This article offers a dual-perspective reading of George Saunders' short story "Sticks" (1995/2018) by combining Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) with Lacanian psychoanalysis. The study identifies a dominant metaphorical pattern whereby emotions are conceptualised as physical weights that must be externalised. The father’s ritualistic behaviour of decorating a metallic pole in the yard frame joy, guilt, grief and love as tangible burdens offloaded through acts of dragging, suspending and fastening. Through Lacan’s distinction between symptom and sinthome, the father’s idiosyncratic relationship to the pole is interpreted not as a symptomatic expression of repressed desire, but as a sinthomatic practice, a singular knotting of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real that sustains his psychic survival. In this light, "Sticks" emerges as a focused depiction of a sinthome based on the metaphorical conceptualisation of emotions as weights.