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PARTISAN REVIEW
near the Ligurian Sea and not in the Dolomites.
Interpretations that founder on factual mistakes cannot be cor–
rected. A proposed interpretation of the Wolf Man's words fails, if
English was not his childhood language; commonly available facts
defeat the suggested interpretation of Freud's text. Such defeats have
a pernicious secondary effect: our attention shifts from what is inter–
preted to the interpreter.
While Abraham and Torok failed in interpreting Freud's or the
Wolf Man's words, I believe, their work fails also as literary criti–
cism. We cannot argue that the interpretations proposed are about
the words and actions of literary characters , which they have
created. For just as psychoanalytic interpretation must hit its target ,
literary criticism cannot replace the interpretation of a literary
character's words and deeds by the creation of another literary
character whose words and deeds are interpreted.
Still , even if Abraham and Torok's interpretations must be re–
jected, an interpretive method paying attention to words , their
translation, synonyms , rhymes, deserves a hearing. For interpreta–
tions can neither establish nor defeat interpretive methods - which
can be validated only in practice : their hypothesis of a Rift in the
Ego and a corresponding split in the Unconscious may provide bet–
ter interpretations and a more useful therapy than the competing
practices. Cryptonymy , therefore , deserves to be taken as seriously
as its rivals.
LAURENT STERN
THE FAMILY AND ITS CRITICS
DOMESTIC TYRANNY: THE MAKING OF AMERICAN SOCIAL
POLICY AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM COLONIAL
TIMES TO THE PRESENT.
By
Elizabeth Pleck. Oxford University
Press. $24.95 .
Elizabeth Pleck's book charts and analyzes the vicissitudes
of American social policy on domestic violence. According to Pleck,
the underlying cause of violence is the inherently tyrannical struc–
ture of the nuclear family. Because the nuclear family is sacrosanct
the tyranny is entrenched, and the result is a general indifference to
