'shape' as signified

Shape and hole are signifiers, but if you think about it their signified is quite hard to grasp. Especially for shape. Maddie is looking for a shape that will restore her. Rudimentary shapes. But what is a shape? It isn’t a space. It can be a thing, but with the number of “things” out there we’d be hard put to find which one (which might precisely be Maddie's dilema). Or maybe many things of the same shape? Or maybe just the way something is supposed to be? A shape containing an idea and/or a structure. Something tangible that one can put one’s finger around, hold and feel.

If a crazy woman is searching for a shape to redeem her, “who’s bare insistence will restore her” (Stone, 8), how are we to think of “shape”? Something you can hold but that won’t hold you. That will cause her to be recognized, the her inside her skin. Except, to herself, or to others?

“At market, shapes sound through her fingers. (…) Measured and marked, the butcher passes the shape. The pound, just so” (Stone, 9). The weight of shape, and the shape of weight.