424
MARK SHECKNER
The ubiquitous Dr. Spielvogel, who is Tarnopol's analyst too,
sees things differently. What Tarnopol had taken for cultural coercion,
he sees as the victim's collusion, as the "acting out" of his ambiva–
lence, narcissism, and a libidinized aggression that was initially
di–
rected toward a "phallic mother" but subsequently displaced onto a
wife. Indeed, so taken is Spielvogel with this diagnosis and the insight
it gives him into the creative personality that he writes it up as a paper
which he publishes while Tarnopol is still under his care. Speaking in
his own voice, Spielvogel sounds like this: "Since in his case a mother–
child relationship was definitely established, the writer, during his
early years, was able to use narcissism as a defense against anxiety en–
gendered by separation from the mother." He goes on in this vein:
"Submission seemed to be the price for love both vis-a.-vis his mother
and his wife. His way of avoiding a confrontation with his feelings of
anger and his dependency needs toward his wife was to act out sexually
with other women." At first glance, such awfu l clinical prose is dis–
heartening; here, if anywhere, is interpretation by catchphrase, and
Tarnopol is rightly outraged to discover himself, not only written up,
but turned to jargon. But behind the wooden diagnostic prose is some
ordinary sense about the place of the family in Tarnopol's emotional
failures that makes his lament about the fifties and the moral decep–
tions of Conrad and Flaubert sound like pop sociology.
What Spielvogel sees in this marriage is not a man victimized by
an era that placed a premium on self-sacrifice and moral accountabil –
ity but a tactical arrangement between two people who were out to
enjoy some serious punishment. Behind his jargon is the suggestion
that the marriage hadlts purposes for Tarnopol and that Maureen's
duplicity not only posed a threat to him but opened up some oppor–
tunities as well. On Maureen's part, the signs of wanting something
more than an Eddie Fisher-Debbie Reynolds version of " true love" are
there from the start: she courts punishment with all the enthusiasm of
a journeyman welterweight who is out
to
take a convincing dive. Even
before the marriage, when she attacks Peter with her purse and he
threatens, in his harmless way, "Clip me with that purse, Maureen,
and I'll kill ,you," she responds, "Do it! Kill me! Some man 's going
to-why not a 'civilized' one like you!"
Of course it is not really possible to disentangle complicated mo–
tives at this level; it is only worth pointing out that Maureen 's invita–
tion to Peter to kill her is deeply felt on her part and Peter, in marrying
\
