Freud: Dude, my mom, are you serious? -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 19:45:13 04/06/08 Sun
Author: Hwaet!
Subject: Freud: Dude, my mom, are you serious?

Q. Why does Freud seem way off in asserting the child�s desire for his mother? Isn�t he just taking the incestuous desire of a few anomalies and applying it humanity?

A? Since desire is mimetic, it makes sense that hating one�s father seems more plausible than desiring one�s mother. The father is a rival from the first moment the child imitates one of his father�s desires. The father�s desire for the mother is but one of many desires which the child may imitate; nothing suggests which desires the child will adopt, and nothing suggests that the child will adopt all of the father�s desires. Girard�s explanation of metaphysical desire reminds us that the object often disappears, because it is inconsequential. If the child does acquire dad�s desire for mom, but the desire for his mom disappears, then of course we will not see it, of course it will seem absurd, for it seems to us that it never existed, or that it exists only in anomalies�freaks and crazies (some of whom may in fact be more conscious of their rivalry, and of the origin of their desires, than sane people).

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