DOSTOEVSKI AND PARRICIDE
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father in the Oedipus complex are not exhausted by the foregoing
observations.
A new factor is that the identification with the father ultimately
-
~
compds for itself a permanent place in the ego.
It
IS
adopted into the
ego, but it there appoints itself a special instance for the rest of the
content of the ego. We call it the super-egC2, and ascribe to it, the
inheritor of the parental influence, the most important functions.
If
the father was hard, violent, and cruel, the super-ego takes
these characteristics from him, and in its relation to the ego, the
passivity which was supposed to have been repressed reestablishes
itself. The super-ego has become sadistic, the ego becomes masochistic,
that is to say, fundamentally assive like a
~n:...
The ego has a
great craving for punishment, which is partly provided by fate
and partly finds satisfaction in ill-treatment' by the super-ego (con–
sciousness of guilt). Every punishment is at bottom castration, and,
a,s
such, a fulfilment of the old passive attitude to the father. Even
fate is ultimately only a later father projection.
The normal processes in the formation of the conscience must
be similar to the abnormal ones described here. We have not yet
succeeded in fixing their boundaries. It will be noted that ultimately
the largest share is ascribed to the passive component, the repressed
femininity. Moreover, as an accidental factor, it is of importance
whether the father, who is feared in any case, was in reality especially
violent. This is true in Dostoevski's case, and we shall trace back both
his extraordinary sense of guilt and masochistic conduct to a very
strong feminine component. Thus the formula for Dostoevski is as
follows: a person of particularly strong bi-sexual predisposition, who
can defend himself with special intensity against dependence on an
especially hard father. The character of bi-sexuality we add to the
earlier-mentioned components of his nature. The youthful symptom
of the death-like seizures is thus explained as a father identification of
the ego, admitted by the super-ego as a form of punishment. You
wished to kill your father in order to be your father. Now you are the
father, but the dead father. The ordinary mechanism of hysterical
symptoms. And further: Now your father kills you. For the ego the
death-symptom is a phantasy satisfaction of the male wish, and, at
the same time, a masochistic satisfaction; for the super-ego, it is a
punishment satisfaction, that is, a sadistic satisfaction. Both of them,
the ego and the super-ego, carry on the role of the father. To sum
up, the relation between the person and the father object, by retain–
ing its cont.ent, is transformed into a relation between the ego and
the.super-ego, a new setting on a fresh stage. Such infantile reactions
