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PARTISAN REVIEW
respect it duplicates the "primal scene," the original investigation of
the parents' sexual relations. The looking, the secrecy, the mixture
of fascination and horror, the ambivalence about whether one will
"find anything," the feeling of being alone and betrayed when one
docs find what underneath one did expect-all the characteristics of
the prototype experience are echoed here.
Although only the unconscious is likely to perceive it, in the last
analysis both "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and "I Want to
Know Why" are stories of a boy's relationship with his father. Both
describe more or less universal phases of the process of growing up,
although, as in great fiction generally, the actual events are so altered
that they may not be consciously recognizable, and so telescoped and
heightened that they arouse even profounder affects than the less
dramatic and more gradual experiences they draw upon and evoke.
"My Kinsman, Major Molineux" concentrates on the young man's
rebellious and hostile feelings toward an authoritative image of the
father-an image which must be destroyed in the course of achieving
independent adulthood. "I Want to Know Why" describes the frus–
tration of two dear but unfulfillable wishes of the adolescent boy.
The first wish is to deny the sexuality of the parents in order to avoid
competition with the father. This wish is incompatible with what one
inevitably learns in growing up and on some deep level already
knows. The second wish is for a love relationship with the father
which, though idealized in some respects, is still so heavily cathected
with libido that its satisfaction would involve both continued de–
pendence upon the father and a proprietary right to his affection.
Although both stories refer ultimately to emotions felt by sons
for their fathers, it is interesting that in each case the feelings are dis–
placed onto surrogates. In "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" the ad–
vantage of the alteration is evident: it facilitates the expression of
hostility. "I Want to Know Why" is probably both more realistic
and more moving because the immediate object of the hero's feelings
is just such a man as Jerry Tillford. By the time a boy is fifteen the
feelings of affection for the actual father are usually too admixed
with other elements, the disillusionment too advanced, to permit the
sharp contrasts of hopes raised and abruptly deflated upon which
the structure and impact of the story depend.
