Authors: RENÉ GIRARD
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
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if the son wants to replace his father "everywhere," it follows that he would want to
replace him in regard to the mother. But this apparent triviality in phrasing conceals an
important point. As we have seen, it is impossible to elucidate Freud's theory of
identification without encountering a mimetic mechanism that makes the father into the
desire-model. It is the father who directs the son's attention to desirable objects by desiring them himself; thus, the boy's desires are inevitably directed toward his own
mother. This much is clearly implied by Freud's text, yet these conclusions are never
made explicit. Of course, it is possible that they never took shape in his mind, though
they must surely have hovered there in some form when he was writing the opening
passages of chapter 7, "Identification." Having first implied a mimetic interpretation,
Freud then rejected it, also by implication, with the phrase "his mother as well." Such is
the hidden meaning of that "as well." The two words retrospectively neutralize any
mimetic interpretation of identification, at least in regard to the object of primary
importance -- the mother.
Freud's eagerness to dispel the mimetic elements that were impinging on his Oedipus
theory can readily be discerned in his later work. Here, for instance, is his definition of
the Oedipus complex as stated in
The Ego and the Id
( 1923):
At a very early age the little boy develops an object-cathexis for his mother . . .; the boy
deals with his father by identifying himself with him. For a time these two relationships
proceed side by side, until the boy's sexual wishes in regard to his mother become more
intense and his father is perceived as an obstacle to them; from this the Oedipus
complex originates. His identification with his father then takes on a hostile coloring and
changes into a wish to get rid of his father in order to take his place with his mother.
Henceforward his relation to his father is ambivalent; it seems as if the ambivalence
inherent in the identification from the beginning had become manifest
. 4.
At first glance this looks like a faithful resume of the concepts set forth in
Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
. A further examination reveals certain
differences that, though apparently minor, are in reality very important. My previous
analysis dealt specifically with the mimetic elements to be found in the earlier text. It is
precisely those elements, relegated to the shadows in that earlier description of the
Oedipus complex, that are banished entirely from this later definition.
In the earlier text Freud insists on the anteriority of the identification with the father. In
the later text he does not explicitly repudiate this
____________________
4. Freud,
Standard Edition
, vol. 19,
The Ego and the Id
, 31-32.
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doctrine, but he gives first mention to the son's sexual attraction to the mother. In short,
he discourages us from thinking that one and the same impulse -- the wish to take the
father's place
everywhere
-- stimulates identification with the model and directs desire
toward the mother.
That this inversion of the original order is not a matter of chance becomes abundantly
clear when the process is repeated a little further on. In the second text, we find that the
formulation of the "complex" is preceded by the reinforcement of the sexual wish; but
instead of presenting this reinforcement as a consequence of the boy's first identification
with the father, Freud inverts the order of the phenomena, thereby formally rejecting the
cause-and-effect relationship suggested initially. This reinforcement of the libido is now
totally lacking in motivation. The effect is retained, but because it now precedes the cause, neither cause nor effect seems to make much sense. As we can see, in
The Ego
and the Id
Freud makes a clean sweep of all mimetic effects, but in so doing he
sacrifices some of the most trenchant insights of
Group Psychology and the Analysis of
the Ego
and some of his coherence as well.
Why did Freud banish mimesis from his later work? The best way to reply to this
question is to continue along the path abandoned by him, to discover where he might
have gone had he chosen to be guided by those mimetic effects that abounded in his
earlier analyses but that were swept away as if by magic the instant they were found to
cast doubt on his Oedipus complex. We must, in short, return to that phrase that is
surreptitiously contradicted and canceled out by "the mother as well." To identify with
the father, Freud informed us, is first of all to want to replace him: the little boy "would
like to grow like and be like him, and
take his place everywhere
[italics added]."
In order to exclude the mother from this "everywhere," it is necessary to assume that the
son is already conscious of the "law" and that he conforms to it without any prior
instruction; for in principle it is the father who is supposed to teach him. But to exclude
the mother is in actuality to assert that the Oedipus complex is already in operation; if
that is not true the mother should be included, and that is what Freud has done --
initially. The comprehensiveness of the statement that the son wishes to take his father's
place "everywhere" is wholly appropriate, for the son cannot have a clear and distinct
impression of his father's objects -- including the mother -- insofar as they are indeed his
father's. In short, if the son turns toward his father's object, it is because he is following
the example of his model, and this model necessarily turns toward his
own
objects --
those that are already in his possession or that he hopes to acquire. The disciple's
movement toward the objects of his model, including the mother, is already accounted
for by the concept of identification as defined by Freud. Far from discouraging such an
interpretation, Freud seems initially to have encouraged it.
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Because disciple and model are converging on the same object, a clash between them is
inevitable. The resulting rivalry appears "Oedipal," but it takes on a wholly different
meaning. Because it is predetermined by the model's choice, there is nothing fortuitous
about it; nor is it, strictly speaking, a question of one person's usurping what belongs to
the other. The disciple's attraction to the model's object is wholly "innocent"; in seeking
to take his father's place with his "mother as well," the son is simply responding in all
candor to a command issued by the culture in which he lives and by the model himself.
If we pause to consider closely the model-disciple relationship, it should become clear
that the so-called Oedipal rivalry, reinterpreted in terms of a radically mimetic situation,
must logically result in consequences that are at once similar to and quite different from
those attributed by Freud to his "complex."
Earlier on I defined the effects of mimetic rivalry and affirmed that they invariably end
in reciprocal violence. This reciprocity is the result of a process. If there is a stage in
human existence at which reciprocity is not yet in operation and at which reprisals are
impossible, that stage is surely early childhood. That is why children are so vulnerable.
The adult is quick to sense a violent situation and answer violence with violence; the
child, on the other hand, never having been exposed to violence, reaches out for his
model's objects with unsuspecting innocence. Only an adult could interpret the child's actions in terms of usurpation. Such an interpretation comes from the depths of a
cultural system to which the child does not yet belong, one that is based on cultural
concepts of which the child has not the remotest notion.
The model-disciple relationship precludes by its very nature that sense of equality that
would permit the disciple to see himself as a possible rival to the model. The disciple's
position is like that of a worshiper before his god; he imitates the other's desires but is
incapable of recognizing any connection between them and his own desires. In short, the
disciple fails to grasp that he can indeed enter into competition with his model and even
become a menace to him. If this is true for adults, how much truer it must be for the
child experiencing his first encounter with mimetic desire!
The model's very first no -- however softly spoken or cautiously phrased -- can easily be
mistaken by the disciple for an irrevocable act of excommunication, a banishment to the
realms of outer darkness. Because the child is incapable of meeting violence with
violence and has in fact had no real experience with violence, his first encounter with
the mimetic double bind may well leave an indelible impression. The "father" projects
into the future the first tentative movements of his son and sees that they lead straight to
the mother or the throne. The incest wish, the patricide wish, do not belong to the child
but spring from the mind of the adult, the model. In the Oedipus myth it is the oracle
that puts such
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ideas into Laius's head, long before Oedipus himself was capable of entertaining any
ideas at all. Freud reinvokes the same ideas, which are no more valid than L aius's. The
son is always the last to learn that what he desires is incest and patricide, and it is the
hypocritical adults who undertake to enlighten him in this matter.
The first intervention by the model between the disciple and the object is a traumatic
experience, because the disciple is incapable of performing the intellectual operation
assigned him by the adult, and in particular by Freud himself. He fails to see the model
as a rival and therefore has no desire to usurp his place. Even the adult disciple is unable
to grasp that conflict with the model is indeed rivalry, is unable to perceive the
symmetry of their situation or acknowledge their basic equality. Faced with the model's
anger, the disciple feels compelled to make some sort of choice between himself and the
model; and it is perfectly clear that he will choose in favor of the model. The idol's
wrath must be justified, and it can be justified only by some failure on the part of the
disciple, some hidden weakness that obliges the god to forbid access to the holy of
holies, to slam shut the gates of paradise. Far from reducing the divinity's prestige, this
new attitude of vengeful spite serves to increase it. The disciple feels guilty -- though of
what, he cannot be sure -- and unworthy of the object of his desire, which now appears
more alluring than ever. Desire has now been redirected toward those particular objects
protected by the
other's
violence. The link between desire and violence has been forged,
and in all likelihood it will never be broken.
Freud, too, wants to show that an indelible impression is made on the child when he first
discovers his own desires overlapping those of his parents. But because he eventually
rejected the mimetic elements that had initially intrigued him, he takes a different
approach. To appreciate this difference, let us look again at that crucial passage in
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
: "The little boy notices that his father
stands in his way with his mother. His identification with his father then takes on a
hostile coloring and becomes identical with the wish to replace his father in regard to his
mother as well."
If we are to believe Freud, the little boy has no difficulty recognizing his father as a rival
-- a rival in the old-fashioned theatrical sense, a nuisance, a hindrance, a terzo
incomodo. But even if this rivalry were provoked by something other than a desire to
imitate the father's desires, a child would be unaware of this. We have only to look at the
numerous everyday displays of envy and jealousy to realize that even adults never
attribute their mutual antagonisms to that simple phenomenon. Freud is thus conferring
on the child powers of discernment not equal but superior to those of most grown-ups.
Let me make myself clear. I am not objecting to certain basic Freudian
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assumptions, such as the attribution to the child of libidinal desires similar to those of
adults, but rather to the bold and surely untenable assertion, which stands at the very
center of his system, that the child is fully aware of the existing rivalry, of "the hostile
coloring."
Undoubtedly I am flying in the face of psychoanalytical orthodoxy, denying the alleged
evidence of "clinical findings"; and before the doctor's scientific mystique the layman
can only bow. But the texts we have been examining are based on no specific "clinical
findings." Their speculative character is obvious, and there is no more reason to treat
them as holy writ (as some have done) than to try to sweep them under the carpet. In
either case we would be depriving ourselves of some valuable insights (even if the
object of these insights is not always what Freud takes it to be) and depriving ourselves
as well of the fascinating spectacle of Freud's intellect at work, of the gradual and