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Thus, the central role, played by the repetition of the repressed in the transference cannot not be limited to lived experiences for it pertains to psychic reality which comprises unconscious desires and the fantasies that are attached to them – the latter are “indestructible” while repetition in the transference justifies the prominence given to the compulsion to repeat as defined already in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (Freud, 1920). II. B. Oedipus and Hamlet, two faces of the human experience in transference. Freud considers that the Oedipus Complex is deeply rooted in tragedy, an inevitable and deadly fate which lurks in human experience. ‘Oedipus Rex is what is known as a tragedy of destiny. Its tragic effect is said to lie in the contrast between the supreme will of the gods and the vain attempts of mankind to escape the evil that threatens them’ (Freud, 1900, p. 262). The gods represent the all-powerful parents, to whom the infant acknowledges his own helplessness. Tragedy refers to the feelings of human beings as they experience this complex, and describes the essence of its constitution. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex refers to the inclination towards incestuous and parricidal actions to which all individuals are prone as a result of their archaic heritage. Freud claims that there must be a voice within us, which is prepared to acknowledge the compelling power of fate in the Oedipus. ‘His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours—because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him.’ (ibid.). The Oedipus’ fable is fantasy’s response to those typical dreams (murdering the father, wedding the mother) and in the same way as adults experience them with disgust, the saga must also include horror and self-punishment. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex the basic wish-fantasy of the child is brought to light and realised as it is in dreams, whereas in Shakespeare’s Hamlet it remains repressed, and ‘—just as in the case of a neurosis—we only learn of its existence from its inhibiting consequences’ (Freud, 1900, p. 264). We know that Hamlet was written immediately after the death of Shakespeare’s father (in 1601) and therefore – we have a right to suppose – in the midst of grief, while Shakespeare was re-experiencing his own infantile feelings towards his father. It is also known that one of Shakespeare’s sons, who died prematurely, was called Hammet (which is identical to Hamlet). (See Freud, Dreams of the death of beloved persons, in The Interpretation of dreams , V, 1900). Oedipus and Hamlet provide an example of two aspects present in transference: Hamlet , of the criminal parricidal impulse which, as a result of repression, turns into self-reproach, and Oedipus , of the inevitability of a deadly fate which attempts to consummate incest and parricide.
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