Euripides, Freud, and the Romance of Belonging

2. Competing Accounts

c h a p t e r t w o Competing Accounts All that I mean to say is this: scenes, like this one in my present patient’s case, which date from such an early period and exhibit a similar content, and which further lay claim to such an extraordinary significance for the history of the case, are as a rule not reproduced as recollections, but have to be divined—constructed—gradually and laboriously from an aggregate of indications . . . . I am not of the opinion, however, that such scenes must necessarily be phantasies because they do not reappear in the shape of recollections. It seems to me absolutely equivalent to a recollection, if the memories are replaced . . . by dreams the analysis of which invariably leads back to the same scene . . . f r e u d , ‘‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’’ ‰Ivn• gh̃w ƒ ar≤ ēkpéfuka mhtrów; Joũyow• oū pédon tíktei tékna. ‰Ivn• pṽw Ω an oß un eƒ ihn sów; Joũyow• oūk oß id≤, ānaféfv d≤ ēw tòn yeón. ‰Ivn• fére lógvn ăcv́mey≤ ƒ allvn. Joũyow• toũt≤ ƒ ameinon, ß v téknon. Ion: Was I born from the earth as my mother? Xouthos: The ground does not bear children. Ion: Then how can I be your son? Xouthos: I don’t know; I refer it to the god. Ion: Come, let’s get hold of different accounts. Xouthos: That’s better, my son. e u r i p i d e s , Ion But it is interesting that he should have said, ‘‘Don’t criticize, don’t reflect, don’t look for contradictions, but accept what I tell you, and improvement will come by itself.’’ That’s how he succeeded in bringing about a total transference to himself. Is that a good thing, do you suppose? t h e w o l f m a n ( s e r g e i p a n k e j e f f ) The romance of belonging destabilizes attempts at an authoritative account of its operation and goals; its outcome immediately obscures the process. Yet the desire to belong needs this obscurity, because it makes the resulting identity seem inherent and tidy. Freud’s ‘‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’’ and 58 Euripides, Freud, and the Romance of Belonging Euripides’ Ion both suggest that belonging desires simplicity but the process makes it impossible. In both texts there is a longing for a simple account and an anxiety about it. The turmoil and conflict of the Wolf Man’s childhood are to be understood through the single prism of the primal scene, whose very existence is confirmed most of all by the fact that it accounts for everything in ways that other explanations do not. Yet phantom recreations of that scene haunt the case history and confound the image of the single parental embrace that is supposed to explain everything. Meanwhile, such is the nature of abandonment that to wonder about Ion’s origins is to find the possibilities endless. The abandoned infant can become anything—a temple slave, food for birds, or a king’s son—and these fates conceal his natal origin in such a way that other constructions of his past become plausible. Abandonment is a slippery vehicle on which to build an authoritative account of the founding of Athens. This chapter studies how constructing a narrative of primal identity troubles lines of authority, whether that narrative explains a patient’s childhood trauma or a hero’s abandonment. The romance of belonging establishes identities for its figures—father, mother, and child—either within the structure of family or deliberately outside of it. The process is an alchemic blend of reality, in the form of a choice, and fantasy, to manage the consequences of that choice. Can a theoretical framework account for the relationship between memory and construction? Freud provides one in a scene whose oedipal nature insists on natal identities. He begins his understanding of the primal scene by girding it to the familial structure , which serves both his therapeutic goals and his efforts to cement his control over psychoanalysis; he can then work backward to prove that construction confirms memory. In the process Freud sets up a scene that proves inherently unstable . Because the primal scene holds both construction and memory, both fantasy and reality, its contours can be constantly recreated or restated. Freud...