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O' M O D ERN INC EST HER 0 ES
647
conjurer.'s .trick to put· down the ghosts and 'quiet the turbulence
below. .
(In .
crude analogy with the therapeutic effects of interpre–
tation.) . If-a writer wishes to produce the emotional effects of an
incestuous conflict he will do much better with the conjuring tricks
of his trade than those of the psychoanalyst. If he can conceal
and disguise the conflict and smuggle it past the cold clinical eye
of the modern reader the story may get through and surprise the
unguarded regions of emotion. But if he writes a psychoanalytic
version of an incestuous conflict he runs the risk of creating a
clinical document.
In the case of the classic incest drama, the tension is sustained
through the device of "not knowing," that is innocence of motive.
And if
Oedipus Rex
has lost none of its power over a modern
, audience, even one that "knows" the internal motive, it is because
we have entered the dramatist's conspiracy not to know, that we
accept for this moment the conventions of both the drama and
another time and suspend beliefs that might interfere with en–
joymenL .... '.
. But
a
psychoanalytic 'version of 'Oedipus 'leaves the writer with
no place ·to hide .the motive. The play can't be written without the
play-within-the-play and when the motive of unconscious seeking
enters
'the
story it has the effect of dissolving the tension.
If
dread,
horror, and shame are the emotional concomitants of incest they
are
best sustained in a narrative in which the internal motive is
concealed, For . emotion is reinforced and heightened by the con–
tributions of energy from unconscious sources. It is the unknown
danger that raises the intensity of feeling. In the case of incest ·the
, unknown danger is the wish, and if a modern writer lays bare the
unconscious motive in his 'narrative he will reduce the intensity of
feeling. In this way the identification of motive has the same effect
upon the narrative as the. interpretation of a dream, i.e., when the
motive is brought into consciousness the accompanying effects are
diminished.
..
Even D. H. Lawrence could not extricate himself from this
dilemma. All · the fine prose and the marvelously wrought flower
imagery in
Sons and Lovers
cannot overcome the clinical drabness
of the mother-son love. And while Paul's later sufferings and
failures in love are given complexity and texture by the device of
