The interpretation of dreams

S Freud - Literature and Psychoanalysis, 1983 - degruyter.com
S Freud
Literature and Psychoanalysis, 1983degruyter.com
IF THE Oedipus Rex is capable of moving a modern reader or playgoer no less powerfully
than it moved the contemporary Greeks, the only possible explanation is that the effect of the
Greek tragedy does not depend upon the conflict between fate and human will, but upon the
peculiar nature of the material by which this conflict is revealed. There must be a voice within
us which is prepared to acknowledge the compelling power of fate in the Oedipus, while we
are able to condemn the situations occurring in Die Ahnfrau or other tragedies of fate as …
IF THE Oedipus Rex is capable of moving a modern reader or playgoer no less powerfully than it moved the contemporary Greeks, the only possible explanation is that the effect of the Greek tragedy does not depend upon the conflict between fate and human will, but upon the peculiar nature of the material by which this conflict is revealed. There must be a voice within us which is prepared to acknowledge the compelling power of fate in the Oedipus, while we are able to condemn the situations occurring in Die Ahnfrau or other tragedies of fate as arbitrary inventions. And there actually is a motive in the story of King Oedipus which explains the verdict of this inner voice. His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him. It may be that we were all destined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and violence toward our fathers; our dreams convince us that we were. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laius and wedded his mother Jocasta, is nothing more or less than a wish-fulfillment—the fulfillment of the wish of our childhood. But we,
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