Freud and Fiction

Freud and Fiction Sarah Kofman

Translated by Sarah Wykes

Polity Press

r

First published as

Quatre romaflS allalytiques ©

This English translation

©

Editions Galilee, 1974.

Polity Press, 1991.

Contents

First published 1991 by Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell Editorial office: Polity Press, 65 Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1 UR, UK Marketing and production: Basil Blackwell Ltd 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN () 7456 0627 X British Library Cataloguing ill PlIblicatioll Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in 11 on 13 pt Be-mbo by Graphicraft Typesetters Ltd ., Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by Billing and Sons Ltd., Worcester

Acknowledgements Translator's Preface On the Analytic Novel

Freud the novelist Freud and philosophy Aristotle and the 'presocratics' Freud and Empedocles

A seductive analogy The privilege of myth Speculation . On the intere st of Empe docle s for psych oanal yst s Love and strife, Eros and the death instin cts The style of the analogy Freud's fantasy Judith

The taboo of virginity The Judith 'theme' The biblical Judith Hebbel's Judith

VIl VIl1

1 3 8 9 21 23 25 28 34 39 50 51 53 55 62 64 66

VI

C011tents

Summarize, Interpret (Gradiva) A dangerous short cut Transformations The symbolism of Pompeii The plurality of codes Double meanings

83 85 91 99 104 108

Acknowledgements

The Double is/and the Devil The Uncanniness of The Sandman (Der

Sandmann)

Unity, multiplicity of the uncanny The impasses of a thematic reading: the example of The Sandman The writer's eye-glass: the imaginary and the real The animate and the inanimate: diabolical mimesis Primal scene and satanic sorcery: the devil's artifices Voyeurism: the devil' s eye The figures of the devil Postscriptum

1 19 121 128 1 32 14 1 145 151 1 54 1 58

Notes

163

Index

191

The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright mate­ rial. Basic Books, Inc. for extracts from Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers, Volume 4, translated under the supervision of Joan Riviere, by arrangement with The Hogarth Press, Ltd and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London; The Hogarth Press for extracts from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of S(�mutld Freud, edited and translated by James Str achey, 1 953-66; Penguin Books Ltd for extracts from Tales of Hoffmann, translated by R. J. Hollingdale with Stella and Vernon Humphries, and Sally Haywar d (Penguin Classics, 1 982), copyright © Stella and Vernon Humphr ies, Sally Hayward and R. J. Hollingdale, 1 982; Princeton Uni­ versity Press for extracts from Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translations, edited by Jonathan Barnes, Bollingen Series 7 1 , copyright © 1 984 Jowett Copyright Trustees; Unwin Hyman Ltd for extracts from 'Delusion and Dreams in Jensen's Gravida' from Complete It1troductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis by Sigmund Freud. Every effor t has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

Translator's Preface

My particular thanks go to Marian Hobson Jeanneret and Chris Johnson

for their encouragement

and

advice,

to

Jonathan Simon for his typing and to Lucy King. I would like to dedicate this translation to my family and my friends, without whose support it cDuld not have been finished.

If in making these statements I have provoked the criticism, even from friends of psychoanalysis and those who are ex­ pert in it, that I have written a psychoanalytical novel I hloss cillell psyc/w(/II(/lytisc/iCII ROII/(/1I
Freud claims to give a biological basis to the duality of the Empedoclean cosnlic principles and particularly to the prin­ ciple of strife 'by tracing back our instinct of destruction to the death instinct, to the urge of what is living to return to an inaninlate state' (ibid. ) . Some o f these differences can, however, b e reduced. T he Empedoclean cosmos, though eternal, is a living entity con­ ceived on the model of an individual living organism, and the two governing principles of the universe, love and hate,3 locked in eternal conflict, are neither intelligent forces with a conscious purpose nor purely nlechanical. In fac t, they can be conlpared to biophysical instincts. According to Freud they are 'natural forces operating like instincts ' . Moreover, i n fornlulating his theory o f the existence of a universal death instinct, one which would be in existence prior even to life itself and which would be revealed by physical phenonlena such as the repulsion of bodies, Freud gives his own theory a cosnlic dinlension. The reduction of Enlpcdocles' cosmic theory to a biological level and the theoretical extension of Freud 's theory from a biophysical to a cosmic level bring the two even closer together, and lead Freud to conclude that 'no one can foresee in what way the nucleus of truth contained in the theory of Empedocles will present itself to later understanding'.

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25

The privilege of myth

But why does Freud place so nluch emphasis on this link with Empedocles? Is it simply the case that, having encoun­ tered resistance to his new theory of the lnstincts in his immediate circle, he draws comfort fronl finding it express­ ed elsewhere? Or does his insistence stem from a concern for intell ectual integrity? In effect, he states on several occ a­ sions his indifference to questions of priority and originality and mentions that his theory can be found already formu­ lated in the work of philosophers suc h as Plato, Schopen­ hauer and Nietzsche. But he does so only to claim that this

27

Freud mId Empedocles

Freud and Empedocles

is why he has avoided reading these philosophers - to avoid any fornl of bias and to ensure that his speculations are based on the results of enlpirical observation alone . 'It is of no concern to us in this connection to inquire how far, with this hypothesis of the pleasure principle, we have approached or adopted any particular, historically estab­ lis hed philosophical systenl. We have arrived at these s pe­ culative assunlptions in an attenlpt to describe and to account for the facts of daily observation in our field of study . ' 4

constructions , the latter are the projection of unconscious instinctual drives into external forces . Thus Freud defines metapsychology as an attempt to correct metaphysical con­ structions :

26

I

believe that a large part of the mythological view of the

world, which extends a long way into the most modern religions, is lIothill,\? but psychology projected i11to the extemal

world. The obscure recognition (the endopsychic projection, as it were) of psychical factors and rclations in the uncon­ scious is mirrored . . . in the construction of a sllpematllral

Even when I have moved away from observation

I

have

reality, which is destined to be changed back once more by

carefully avoided any contact with philosophy proper. This

science into the psychology of the IUlCOIISC;OllS

avoidance has been greatly facilitated by constitutional in­

venture

•

•

•

One could

to transform metaphysics into metapsycllOlogy. 7

capacity . . . The large extent to which psychoanalysis coin­ cides with the philosophy of Schopenhauer . . . is not to be traced to my acquaintance with his teaching.

I read

Schopenhauer very late in my life. Nietzsche, another philo­ sopher whose guesses and intuitions often agree in the most astonishing way with the various findings of psychoanalysis, was for a long time avoided by me on that very account; I was less concerned with the question of primacy than with keeping my mind unembarrassed. :;

Thus the importance Freud attaches to Empedocles seems exceptional, privileged and, by the sanle token, problema­ tic. In my view the fundamental reason behind Freud's interest is that he sees the possibility of making the Empe­ do clean myth play an exenlplary role: it would be to his third theory of the instincts w hat the Oedipus myth was to his second topic. Indeed, according to Freudian interpreta­ tion, the Empedoclean myth results from the unconscious projection of the instincts, both unconsious and dis torted by dis placement fronl a biological to a cos mic level. Freud 's theory of the instincts would reduce the cos mic and nlythi­ cal content to its psychic reality. 6 Freud would merely be applying to the specific case of Empedocles his general interpretation of rnyth and speculative metaphysical or reli­ gious constructions . Like superstitious or certain paranoiac

As the uncons cious proj ection of the instincts , distorted by displacement, into the external world, the Empedoclean myth would simultaneously reveal and conceal psychic truth. Freud, by giving the myth a biops ychic basis , effec­ tively operates an inversion from the exterior to the interior and, by the same token, passes fronl myth to science. Empedocles ' cosmological myth testifies to the natural char­ acter of culture and in it culture finds its conditions of possibility in such a way that Freud can read it in the back-proj ected light of what it itself has allowed. Henceforth it is eas y to understand why Freud favours Empedocles . What is determining here is the nlythical ele­ ment. In as far as every myth contains a psychic truth, a mythical philosophy is more symptomatic, more revealing of the unconscious and closer to primary processes than a purely s peculative philosophy would be, since the latter is the product of more sophisticated secondary rationaliza­ tions , speaking the language of the secondary processes, and claiming to voice the truth clearly and distinctly. By con­ cealing, myth reveals more than the supposed conceptual clarity of the philosophers . And if Freud selects Empedocles from all the mythicizing philosophers, preferring him to, for example, Plato, to whom he makes several references

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Freud and Empedocles

Freud and Empedocles

(and always to the nlythical aspects of his WrItIng, in par­ ticular to the myth of A ristophanes in the Symp osium) , it is primarily because Empedoc1es is the only one to ascribe a double causality to all things. But it is also because E mpedoc1es ' writings have survived only in a fragmentary form. In fact, of the 5000 verscs he wrote, only 400 verses of the Physics and 1 20 verses of his Katharmoi have been preserved. 8 This fragmentary character is itself, in effect, already an inlage of the lacunal character of the psychic self. Finally, the very duality of the work, which is composed of two poenls, onc seemingly scientific, the other quasi-mystical, expressing perfectly the duality of the instincts and the essentially ambiguous personality of Empedocles, could not fail to fascinate Freud. In Analysis Terminable and bllermin­ able, Freud j ustly emphasizes Empedocles' ' many-sided pcr­ sonality' : Empedocles was at once an investigator and a thinker, a prophet and a magician, a politician, a philan­ thropist and a doctor versed in the natural sciences . Exact and precise in his research into physics and physiology, yet at the sanle tinle mystical, obscure, fond of popular super­ stitions and religion, believing in an aninlate universe and the transnligration of souls. 'J

in which each is the verification of thc other: a circularity in which each retains its hypothetical character. Freud makes it clear that myth is used as a substitute for science in Beyond the Pleasure Principle: 'What we cannot reach flying we nlust reach limping' (SE, p. 64) . Frcud's recourse to myth signifies that the radical confl i ct at the root of psychic life can never be directly perceived, that it only reveals itself obliquely, through, for exanlple, the confl i cts between the psychic agencies. The underlying cause of all conflicts and of their continued existence, which is forever irreduciblc, this antagonism is itself without rational explanation, PU l', brute fact which cannot be ex­ plained by any rational concept. The recourse to nlyth re­ veals the mystery of this antagonism, which can be posited only as an anhypothesis beyond which it is impossible to go, a foundation without foundation, unless it be mythical. In effect, speculation of a scientific or economic nature is of little help in this case. In Analysis Terminable and Imermitl­ able Freud shows that m.asochism, the negative therapeutic reaction, and the sense of guilt found in neurotics, prove that the pleasure principle alone cannot sufficiently account for all the phenonlcna of mental life. These phenomena lead him to postulate the existence of a force which he calls, in view of its aims, the instinct of aggression or destruction. This instinct derives its source from the death instinct in­ herent in living matter: 'Only by the concurrent or mu­ tually opposing action of the two primal instincts - Eros and the death instinct - never by one or the other alone, can we explain the rich multiplicity of the phenomena of life' (Analysis Terminable and Interminable, p. 243) . Freud then asks himself how elements of these two kinds of instinct combine to carrv out the various vital functions, how such combinations a ;e formed or dissolved and what kinds of disturbance ensue from these changes. Taking bisexuality as an example, he shows that an economic explanation could be envisaged: there may be only a certain amount of libido available and the two opposing tendencies nlust struggle for it. In effect, in certain instances it seems as if the libido is

Speculation

But there is another reason why Freud refers to a mythical philosophy, to Enlpedoclcan doctrine in particular, and why he does so each time he explains his theory of the instincts. For whilst it is indeed the case that psychic reality is the true content of the myth, it could also be said that the Empedoc­ lean myth serves as a substitute, a possibly provisional sub­ stitute, for a completely rational basis to Freud's final theory of the instincts . This can be imagined as a circle: the theory of instincts establishes the truth of the Empedoclean myth, which in turn acts as proof of the validity of the former. There is a reciprocal relationship between myth and theory

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Freud and Empedocles

divided without conflict. The question then arises of why this is not so in every case. Freud concludes that 'the ten­ dency to a confl i ct is something special . . . irrespective of the quantity of libido' (ibid. , p. 244) . Henceforth, the notion of psychic conflict must be com­ pletely rethought. It is only comprehensible if inscribed into the life instinct is its opposite, its other, its negativity: what Freud calls the death instinct, of equal force to Eros, a principle of internal inhibition. Previously, Freud's dualisnl was located at the level of the aims and obj ects of the instincts, not within the instincts themselves . With the theory of the death instinct, this dualism becomes radical: 'Our views have fronl the very first been dualistic and today they are even n10re definitely (selleirfer) dualistic than before - now that we describe the opposition as being not between ego instincts and sexual instincts, but between life instincts and death instincts' (Beyond the Pleasllre PritlCip le, SE, X VIII, p. 53) . Between Freud's initial dualisnl and his final version it is not sin1ply a question of a difference in degree, but of a difference in kind: with the theory of the death instinct, Freud reveals the very root, the foundation, of all duality, all conflict and of their irreducible nature. But this anhypothetical hypothetical explanation is itself n1ythical, in the sense that the death instinct can never be perceived directly, but only indirectly, through observation and clinical facts: for which in the final analysis other ex­ planations can always be found. In effect, the death instinct is a subterranean force; it operates in silence and n10st of the time it cannot be distinguished from its opponent, Eros (inexhaustible source of tensions, operating in 'the clanlour of life') 10 , so much so that for a long time it successfully eluded Freudian vigilance: 'The instinctual forces which seek to conduct life into death n1ay also be operating in protozoa from the first, and yet their effects n1ay be so conlpletcly concealed by the life preserving forces that it nlaY be very hard to find any direct evidence of their presence. ' I I

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Freud and Empedocles

31

The death instinct is mute, or speaks obliquely via signs: expressions which are only its partial and inadequate repre­ sentatives. In the New In troductory Lectures Freud describes the 'mute and uncanny activity of the death instincts' (p. 109); in A tl OlltliHe of Psye/zoallaiysis he adds: ' So long as that instinct operates internally, as a death instinct, it re­ n1ains silent; it only comes to our notice when it is diverted outwards as an instinct of destruction' (p. 1 50) . For this reason Freud speaks of death instincts, in the plural, rather than of a death instinct: the latter cannot, so to speak, even be named. Its most obvious derivations and representatives are the tendency to inertia and to repetition, in this sense the general form of all instincts, the instinct of aggression, negation. Negation, which according to Freud in Die Vemeil1lHl,f( 12 'belongs to the instinct of destruction', seenlS, on the level of the secondary processes of the con­ scious, to be the least reducible to any other explanation and the nlost revealing about the nature of the death instinct as a principle of negativity internal to the instinct, one which, by this very fact, can only be read as the finitude of a certain positivity or in the infinitude of desire which is its anti­ cathexis. Thus we begin to understand why Freud avails hinlself of the Empedoclean myth at the nlonlent when he expounds his new theory of the instincts and in particular when he is outlining his notion of the death instinct. To this a final reason n1ust be added: the Enlpedoclean n1yth pro­ vides a model for the extension of his hypothesis into all domains of the biological l J and the physical 1 4 world, giving it a cosmic dinlension that is not j ustified by any real scien­ tific evidence. The changes in the Freudian tenl1inology are characteristic in this respect: Eros is a tenn which has n1uch greater significance than libido, &V&)' KTJ is the principle of necessity he borrows directly fronl Empedocles . However, if he does not speak of e& v<x1'o