The Infernal Machine, Hamlet, and Ernest Jones

THE INFERNAL MACHINE, HAMLET, AND ERNEST JONES IN 1923, ERNEST JONES PUBLISHED "A Psycho-Analytic Study of Hamlet ," the first chapter in his Essays in Applied Psycho-Analysis.1 Two years later, Jean Cocteau completed a French adaptation of Oedipus Rex; ten years later, Cocteau used the same Sophoclean material as a basis for his own play, The Infernal Machine. The latter has since become a classic among modem adaptations of the myth of Oedipus. In constructing this new version, Cocteau drew chiefly, but not solely, upon the original myth. He fused the myth of Oedipus with that of another great tragic hero--Hamlet. Considerable internal evidence in The Infernal Machine points to the conclusion that Hamlet as well as Oedipus was in the mind of the author when he wrote the play. Cocteau did not, however, draw upon the myth of Hamlet as we usually conceive it; he reflects one particular interpretation, that made by the eminent English psychoanalyst, Ernest Jones. Consciously or unconsciously, Cocteau looked at Hamlet through the eyes of this critic. The consequence-The Infernal Machine-is a play about Oedipus the King, originally adapted from Sophocles, with overtones and undertones of Shakespeare's Hamlet as psychoanalyzed by Ernest Jones. That Cocteau used certain theatrical devices out of Hamlet is readily apparent.2 The Infernal Machine, like Hamlet, opens upon a scene on the battlements. Most of the paraphernalia of Shakespeare's opening scene is there: soldiers on guard, sounds of revelry below. crowing of the morning cocks. Cocteau introduces, in direct imitation of Hamlet, the troubled, half-articulate ghost of the murdered father who tries in vain to deliver a· warning. These imitations of Hamlet are obvious. Less obvious are other Hamlet-like elements whose subtle transmigrations into The Infernal Machine have been well disguised. These elements are present, however, and pervasive. They are always 1 This thesis had previously been published in January. 1910. under the title "The Oedipus Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery" in The American Journal of Psychology. Ernest Jones. Hamlet and Oedipus, London, 1949. p. 9. 2 "The scene on the battlements is of course a reminder of Hamlet. . .." W. M. Landers, introduction to La Machine InfeTTUlle, by Jean Cocteau. London. 1957. p. xxvi. . 72 1963 COCTEAU, SHAKESPEARE, AND ERNEST JONES 73 in tenns of Jones' analysis of Hamlet, and they exercise a profound effect upon Cocteau's whole treatment of the Oedipus myth. First of all, the selection of episodes out of the life of Oedipus and the relative position of those episodes in Cocteau's play may be best understood in the light of Jones' commentary on Hamlet. Cocteau chose certain dramatic moments out of his hero's past, rejecting others. For example, he passed over such dramatic potentialities as the dinner at which a drunkard brands Oedipus a bastard, or Oedipus' visit to the oracle. Cocteau selected instead Oedipus' encounter with The Sphinx and the wedding night of Oedipus and Jocasta. The latter is the central, climactic scene in the play. Besides affecting the choice and relative importance of dramatic episodes, Jones' analysis of Hamlet may also have had a bearing on character treatment. Cocteau wrought significant changes in character against the Sophoclean version of the myth. He introduced a totally new personage-The Sphinx-and elevated the roles of J ocasta and Tiresias to unusual prominence. Jocasta, for example, figures prominently in the beginning, the middle, and the end. A case could even be made for Jocasta as the chief protagonist. Cocteau also altered the basic characterizations of Sophocles in a manner that is puzzling and provocative. gehind all of Cocteau's innovations lies one fundamental thesis "Gout the character of the hero Oedipus. This idea, consciously conceived by Cocteau, is exactly the same as that which Jones attributes to Shakespeare's unconscious mind as revealed through Hamlet. Both authors-Cocteau and Shakespeare, according to Ernest Jones-depict protagonists driven by the mechanism of the Oedipus Complex. According to Jones, Hamlet suffers from deeply repressed feelings of sexual love for his mother; the repression of these feelings accounts for his misogyny, paralysis, and remorse. In Hamlet and in Shakespeare himself the Oedipus Complex is...