The Dance of Death
August Strindberg
Captain - Edgar
Objective data:
He comes from a poor family with lots of siblings.
He is ugly.
His father was incompetent and lazy.
Due to the absence of fatherly support, he was forced by his mother to work from a very young age in order to support the family (he was giving lessons).
He endured and suffered in order to support the family (when he was young he did not wear a coat during the winter with 25 degrees minus zero, while his sisters wore warm woolen coats).
He claims that his childhood was always bizarre, cruel and hostile.
His perception of life can be described in one word: deletion.
He finds his whole life horrible. He does not know the meaning of happiness and feels “autumn” inside.
He believes that he was surrounded by enemies throughout his whole life, but that was something, as he claims, that did not harm him but on the contrary, it helped him move on.
He believes that whatever he acquired in his cruel life, he earned it through struggling.
He wears a worn out military uniform and riding boots with spurs. He does not take the boots off during the whole play, not even when he lies down in bed ill.
He does not admit he fears even when his fear is obvious.
He is afraid of dark.
He refuses to admit that he gets old. He is not familiarized with the ravages of time and death.
When he comes in contact with the fear of death, he hopes that this will not be the end and speaks about the immortality of the soul.
He believes that during his life he has not received the recognition that he deserved.
He seeks for moments of acceptance, even if they are fictitious, that is why he is flattered when corporals, soldiers and musicians of the band send him bouquets of flowers, telegrams and letters.
He believes he kept a dignified attitude under all conditions in life.
He lives in an illusion which is something he admits at the end of the play.
He considers himself as a celebrated author of school textbooks. In fact he has only written one book called “Shooting lessons”, which it was once taught in military schools and has now been substituted.
He argues that the reason he remained Captain is that he did not want to become a Major.
He enjoys smoking cigars and drinking whisky. He does not want to hold himself back as regards to alcohol, as it is not worth otherwise.
Smoking is for him “his only pleasure”.
When the doctor forbids smoking and drinking, he wonders whether it is worth living without these two pleasures.
He believes Alice is a good woman “despite her foibles”. He claims that she has been a faithful spouse and a perfect mother but she has a “devilish temper”.
He accepts Alice’s accusation that he tried to kill her by pushing her into the sea.
He admits it was a mean act that felt normal at the time and for which he has never regretted. He recognizes that Alice took revenge in full measure for what he did and finds it equally “normal”.
His opinion about his children is that they are two very good kids.
He believes his son is of rare intellect.
He has a soft spot for his daughter, Judith.
He argues that he has enough money to take care of his family even though the objective circumstances show that his financial situation is not satisfactory.
He believes that both his children and wife exploit him financially. He believes that, if at some point he becomes unable to financially provide for his wife, she will abandon him. Piano is for him “the last resort”. He enjoys listening to his wife playing the march “The Entry of the Boyars”. When he listens to the march, he dances. Moreover, the sound of the piano brings him round, when he faints.
He believes that his wife chooses to play dead marches and mournful songs to show how unhappy she is and what a lousy husband she has.
He considers Kurt responsible for his getting acquainted with Alice and their unhappy marriage.
His attitude towards Kurt presents ambivalent mood swings.
On the one hand, he argues that Kurt is “a nice guy” and he enjoys discussing with him while on the other hand, he thinks he is a frivolous and irresponsible husband and father, because he has been divorced and his wife has been awarded with the custody of his children by a court order. He accuses him of abandoning his children, thus losing his honor and reputation.
He considers himself the master of the island, irreproachable and fearless. Even when he is ill, he deludes himself by thinking that he is the one giving orders on the island and Kurt is accountable to him.
He is contemptuous of other people on the island and does not associate with them. He thinks they are all tyrants, rascals, insidious, and crooks.
He is in bickering with everyone and has no intercourse with them.
He believes there is not even one man on the island who can understand him. He thinks they all are a community of idiots.
His getting in contact with his reality (at the end of the play) differentiates his attitude towards Alice, Kurt and the community on the island since he finally realizes his parental projections on them ( he asks Alice to tidy up, he wants to celebrate their silver weddings, he urges Alice to forget what happened and move on).
Psychic structure:
The mother was, not only in reality but also emotionally, non-existent.
During pregnancy his mother’s womb was hard and cold as the stone fortress in which he resides.
Darkness causes him fear because it regresses him into the womb.
When he was born, his mother would abandon him in his crib where he was experiencing endless hours of loneliness waiting for her to come and take care of him.
The abandonment by his mother and the endless loneliness in the crib regressed him into the womb where he was experiencing not only the fear of death but also “the absolute nothing”, as he claims. In his adult life he revives the same endless loneliness by living in the fortress.
Both situations (abandonment-loneliness) caused him anxiety (fear) of survival which in his adult life is revived in the question whether there is life after death.
When his mother used to abandon him, he was experiencing desperation, which in his adult life led him to regression into abandonment by his mother and desperation when his mother’s project object abandons him.
The non existence-absence of his mother caused him enormous pain.
The introjected mother has been recorded as non-existent, resulting in the revival of her existence during his adulthood through his preference for annihilation after death, namely he revives the emotional recording not only in the womb but in the crib as well (“whatever remains is a barrowful of manure for the garden”).
The abandonment in the crib by his mother led him to the belief in his adult life that he is familiarized with loneliness.
The regression from the crib to the womb made him steadfastly believe that his death will come instantaneously and without pain like the sudden coldhearted abandonment in his crib by his mother and later on his impending regression into her womb.During his adulthood, the fear of death makes him wonder what the purpose in a life like his, is. He admits that he looked for it but did not manage to find it because the question appears while he is in regression thus making it impossible to accept this ascertainment unaffected.
Because of his mother not coming to his crib, he developed a peculiar logic for his tragedy. If he does not adhere to this defence (peculiar logic) then he regresses to the emotional charging (fear of death and pain) which he was experiencing in the womb. In his adult life when he regresses from the crib to the womb, he experiences misery everywhere around him which makes him believe that misery attracts misery and happy people avoid unhappy people. This is how he explains the fact that he and Alice do not see anything but misery around them.
Since his mother’s presence was perceived through the cold womb while he was an embryo and through his abandonment in the crib while he was an infant (womb/crib = tomb), in his adulthood he revives his mother’s presence through the belief that he is not happy with his life and he will be happy on the day of his death.
When his mother looked after him, she did it impassively. The misery she was experiencing in her marriage and her exhaustion due to her taking care of many siblings, deprived her of the appropriate emotional background for profound care. This lack of care led το the creation of an oral fixation, which he covers during his adulthood with his cigar, the lack of measure as regards with drinking and the constant culinary pursuits (his most significant recollection of his five trips to Copenhagen is the lamb "Navarin aux pommes”).
The lack of motherly care coincides in his adulthood with lack of care for himself, namely by wearing constantly the same much-worn military uniform.
When his mother cared for him, he would put the emotional energy himself, thus having as a result to experience life during his adulthood as a never-ending struggle with short expiration date.
In the army environment he revived his birth conditions and he was faced with financial hardships, namely he was deprived of care just like when there was lack of motherly care.
The mother while taking care of the infant by giving him milk, she felt disgust. The newborn felt the same disgust for his mother’s care and milk and he did not actually liked milk throughout his life, projecting the motherly care on it.
For a newborn, his relationship with his mother becomes the whole world. During adulthood the relationship with one’s mother revives in the relationship with the outer world. The Captain revives the anger and disgust towards his mother by considering the island’s residents insidious, crooks, tyrants and a community of idiots.
He cannot stand crowds around him because of the existence of many siblings in the parental family.
In his regression to his primitive trauma during adolescence, his mother entrusted him with the role of her husband, namely that of the protector of the family (when he listens to Alice playing a march on the piano, he becomes emotionally charged because he is experiencing the presence of his introjected mother.)
In order to cope with the role entrusted to him by his mother, that is to support the family, he had to be robust at all times, resulting in his adulthood in a denial of being sick and in the need to always feel poised (he always wears his combat boots) in order to be able to experience the presence of his introjected mother.
When the two maids abandon him and Alice, he regresses to his parental family, revives the emotional charge he felt back then and feels like a servant, namely that he is called to serve by taking care of and supporting.
When he asks to be taken care of from the object onto which he projects his introjected mother, this object does not take care of him either because it does not want to (Alice) or because it cannot (Judith, who does not manage to visit him due to bad weather) thus resulting in a feeling of frustration as regards his desire to be taken care of.
The projection objects of his introjected mother do not recognize his needs the way he perceives them and they reject them causing him to feel that they do not understand him (Judith:” Dad, do not drink much”).
Because he was deprived of motherly care, in his adult life he refuses to offer (emotionally or materially) even to his beloved ones, denying to be bequeathed.
In his attempt to recognize his mother’s mood when she got close to take care of him so as not to get hurt when she abandoned him, he developed an incredible talent to sense her disposition which resulted in his adult life in an incredible talent to sense other people’s secrets.
Mum was miserable in her marriage and felt anger towards her husband. The Captain, being the son of her husband, formed the transfer object of the anger towards her husband.
While mum was taking care of him, he felt anger and disgust. In his adult life he is experiencing the existence of the introjected mother by becoming himself the object of anger and disgust for others (the others take his mother’s role).
Mum used to feel anger towards the Captain because he constituted an extra burden in her life. In his adult life, he revives the presence of the mother not only through Alice, who is angry at him because she is experiencing him as a burden, but also through his children, at whom he is angry since he is experiencing them as a burden (his phrase towards Kurt in respect with his children proves that: “You are lucky that you got out of that mess”).
He felt great anger towards his mother, because she was neglecting him. He could not, however, express this anger, because he feared that if he expressed it, he would destroy his mother and thus he would die as well since there would be no one to take care of him. The result of this fear was to repel (block) fear.This suppressed anger manifests itself destructively,when he tears to pieces and drops Allice’s picture on the floor while he appears to be blocked when he does not throw the laurel wreath out of the window.
His mother when taking care of him, she did it with anger. He, as a newborn, responded to his mother’s anger by feeling anger towards her and wanted to make her suffer. Because as a newborn, the possibility to harm his mother would have consequences for him as well, he had to find a mechanism to justify his desire to make his mother suffer. The mechanism which he developed was to feel that mom had to take revenge for this desire of his. When he pulls out the sword to kill Alice, because Judith is the projection object of his mother, he asks from Judith to take revenge from him because by killing her mother (Alice) , Judith will suffer.
As a newborn, he felt anger towards mom, because his love was not capable of driving her away from this inefficient (dishonest and unrespected) husband resulting in their staying in a horrible relationship which constituted a source of unhappiness for both of them. In his adult life he considers as his duty to pull Alice away from this theatre (because I love you I will save you from this bad husband/theatre).
He expresses this anger towards Alice, onto whom he projects his mother (Alice does not give him what he wants and she takes care of him impassively because that is how it happened and she should bear him), when he tries to push her into the sea so as to get drowned.
The possibility that mom suffers from depression exists since she did not try to put an end to this stagnated marriage.
His father was non-existent and had abandoned his children. The Captain projects his introjected father on Kurt by considering him frivolous and an irresponsible husband and father and accusing him of abandoning his children thus losing his honor and reputation.
Relationship between mom- dad:
Mom was always angry with dad and was verbally abusive towards him. In his adult life the Captain dances when listening the march “The Entry of the Boyars” since through dancing he is experiencing his mother’s presence that attacks dad. Dad responded to mom’s aggressiveness by retreating to depression, which was interpreted as incompetence and laziness. In this confrontational relationship there was no space left for him and his siblings just like in his relationship with Alice there is no space for their children.
He reproduces this confrontational relationship of his parents himself by having conflicts within his family.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of loneliness, which will bring about death because he regresses to the crib and then to the womb.
Desire to be taken care of from others, whom –though- he is experiencing as a threat (when his mother takes care of him she does it impassively - his siblings drain him away-mom shouts at dad).
Anger towards mom’s projection objects because they do not give him what he deserves, and fear of loneliness when the objects are driven away.
Pompous effort to escape the trauma’s pain, which leads him to loneliness (his pretentious self- importance shows in his opinion about his children and the book he has written).
His traumatic pain is related to the emotional abandonment which he experienced as regards his mother, not only in the womb but in the crib as well. He always seeks for this emotional abandonment unconsciously so that he can experience the presence of the introjected mother (fortress- residence, crib, womb: everything emotionally hard, cold).
He feels unsupported, because dad was absent and he tries to rely on persons who do not want or cannot support him. Many times he has caused other people not wanting to support him (doctor) because of his attitude and behavior.
He is derogative, just like his mother towards his father, and judgmental, and through this he revives the presence of the introjected mother.
He does not assume responsibilities, like his mother did in her marriage and stayed with this unworthy husband whom she devaluated.
Basic defense of the ego: repression (deletion).
He comes from a poor family with lots of siblings.
He is ugly.
His father was incompetent and lazy.
Due to the absence of fatherly support, he was forced by his mother to work from a very young age in order to support the family (he was giving lessons).
He endured and suffered in order to support the family (when he was young he did not wear a coat during the winter with 25 degrees minus zero, while his sisters wore warm woolen coats).
He claims that his childhood was always bizarre, cruel and hostile.
His perception of life can be described in one word: deletion.
He finds his whole life horrible. He does not know the meaning of happiness and feels “autumn” inside.
He believes that he was surrounded by enemies throughout his whole life, but that was something, as he claims, that did not harm him but on the contrary, it helped him move on.
He believes that whatever he acquired in his cruel life, he earned it through struggling.
He wears a worn out military uniform and riding boots with spurs. He does not take the boots off during the whole play, not even when he lies down in bed ill.
He does not admit he fears even when his fear is obvious.
He is afraid of dark.
He refuses to admit that he gets old. He is not familiarized with the ravages of time and death.
When he comes in contact with the fear of death, he hopes that this will not be the end and speaks about the immortality of the soul.
He believes that during his life he has not received the recognition that he deserved.
He seeks for moments of acceptance, even if they are fictitious, that is why he is flattered when corporals, soldiers and musicians of the band send him bouquets of flowers, telegrams and letters.
He believes he kept a dignified attitude under all conditions in life.
He lives in an illusion which is something he admits at the end of the play.
He considers himself as a celebrated author of school textbooks. In fact he has only written one book called “Shooting lessons”, which it was once taught in military schools and has now been substituted.
He argues that the reason he remained Captain is that he did not want to become a Major.
He enjoys smoking cigars and drinking whisky. He does not want to hold himself back as regards to alcohol, as it is not worth otherwise.
Smoking is for him “his only pleasure”.
When the doctor forbids smoking and drinking, he wonders whether it is worth living without these two pleasures.
He believes Alice is a good woman “despite her foibles”. He claims that she has been a faithful spouse and a perfect mother but she has a “devilish temper”.
He accepts Alice’s accusation that he tried to kill her by pushing her into the sea.
He admits it was a mean act that felt normal at the time and for which he has never regretted. He recognizes that Alice took revenge in full measure for what he did and finds it equally “normal”.
His opinion about his children is that they are two very good kids.
He believes his son is of rare intellect.
He has a soft spot for his daughter, Judith.
He argues that he has enough money to take care of his family even though the objective circumstances show that his financial situation is not satisfactory.
He believes that both his children and wife exploit him financially. He believes that, if at some point he becomes unable to financially provide for his wife, she will abandon him. Piano is for him “the last resort”. He enjoys listening to his wife playing the march “The Entry of the Boyars”. When he listens to the march, he dances. Moreover, the sound of the piano brings him round, when he faints.
He believes that his wife chooses to play dead marches and mournful songs to show how unhappy she is and what a lousy husband she has.
He considers Kurt responsible for his getting acquainted with Alice and their unhappy marriage.
His attitude towards Kurt presents ambivalent mood swings.
On the one hand, he argues that Kurt is “a nice guy” and he enjoys discussing with him while on the other hand, he thinks he is a frivolous and irresponsible husband and father, because he has been divorced and his wife has been awarded with the custody of his children by a court order. He accuses him of abandoning his children, thus losing his honor and reputation.
He considers himself the master of the island, irreproachable and fearless. Even when he is ill, he deludes himself by thinking that he is the one giving orders on the island and Kurt is accountable to him.
He is contemptuous of other people on the island and does not associate with them. He thinks they are all tyrants, rascals, insidious, and crooks.
He is in bickering with everyone and has no intercourse with them.
He believes there is not even one man on the island who can understand him. He thinks they all are a community of idiots.
His getting in contact with his reality (at the end of the play) differentiates his attitude towards Alice, Kurt and the community on the island since he finally realizes his parental projections on them ( he asks Alice to tidy up, he wants to celebrate their silver weddings, he urges Alice to forget what happened and move on).
Psychic structure:
The mother was, not only in reality but also emotionally, non-existent.
During pregnancy his mother’s womb was hard and cold as the stone fortress in which he resides.
Darkness causes him fear because it regresses him into the womb.
When he was born, his mother would abandon him in his crib where he was experiencing endless hours of loneliness waiting for her to come and take care of him.
The abandonment by his mother and the endless loneliness in the crib regressed him into the womb where he was experiencing not only the fear of death but also “the absolute nothing”, as he claims. In his adult life he revives the same endless loneliness by living in the fortress.
Both situations (abandonment-loneliness) caused him anxiety (fear) of survival which in his adult life is revived in the question whether there is life after death.
When his mother used to abandon him, he was experiencing desperation, which in his adult life led him to regression into abandonment by his mother and desperation when his mother’s project object abandons him.
The non existence-absence of his mother caused him enormous pain.
The introjected mother has been recorded as non-existent, resulting in the revival of her existence during his adulthood through his preference for annihilation after death, namely he revives the emotional recording not only in the womb but in the crib as well (“whatever remains is a barrowful of manure for the garden”).
The abandonment in the crib by his mother led him to the belief in his adult life that he is familiarized with loneliness.
The regression from the crib to the womb made him steadfastly believe that his death will come instantaneously and without pain like the sudden coldhearted abandonment in his crib by his mother and later on his impending regression into her womb.During his adulthood, the fear of death makes him wonder what the purpose in a life like his, is. He admits that he looked for it but did not manage to find it because the question appears while he is in regression thus making it impossible to accept this ascertainment unaffected.
Because of his mother not coming to his crib, he developed a peculiar logic for his tragedy. If he does not adhere to this defence (peculiar logic) then he regresses to the emotional charging (fear of death and pain) which he was experiencing in the womb. In his adult life when he regresses from the crib to the womb, he experiences misery everywhere around him which makes him believe that misery attracts misery and happy people avoid unhappy people. This is how he explains the fact that he and Alice do not see anything but misery around them.
Since his mother’s presence was perceived through the cold womb while he was an embryo and through his abandonment in the crib while he was an infant (womb/crib = tomb), in his adulthood he revives his mother’s presence through the belief that he is not happy with his life and he will be happy on the day of his death.
When his mother looked after him, she did it impassively. The misery she was experiencing in her marriage and her exhaustion due to her taking care of many siblings, deprived her of the appropriate emotional background for profound care. This lack of care led το the creation of an oral fixation, which he covers during his adulthood with his cigar, the lack of measure as regards with drinking and the constant culinary pursuits (his most significant recollection of his five trips to Copenhagen is the lamb "Navarin aux pommes”).
The lack of motherly care coincides in his adulthood with lack of care for himself, namely by wearing constantly the same much-worn military uniform.
When his mother cared for him, he would put the emotional energy himself, thus having as a result to experience life during his adulthood as a never-ending struggle with short expiration date.
In the army environment he revived his birth conditions and he was faced with financial hardships, namely he was deprived of care just like when there was lack of motherly care.
The mother while taking care of the infant by giving him milk, she felt disgust. The newborn felt the same disgust for his mother’s care and milk and he did not actually liked milk throughout his life, projecting the motherly care on it.
For a newborn, his relationship with his mother becomes the whole world. During adulthood the relationship with one’s mother revives in the relationship with the outer world. The Captain revives the anger and disgust towards his mother by considering the island’s residents insidious, crooks, tyrants and a community of idiots.
He cannot stand crowds around him because of the existence of many siblings in the parental family.
In his regression to his primitive trauma during adolescence, his mother entrusted him with the role of her husband, namely that of the protector of the family (when he listens to Alice playing a march on the piano, he becomes emotionally charged because he is experiencing the presence of his introjected mother.)
In order to cope with the role entrusted to him by his mother, that is to support the family, he had to be robust at all times, resulting in his adulthood in a denial of being sick and in the need to always feel poised (he always wears his combat boots) in order to be able to experience the presence of his introjected mother.
When the two maids abandon him and Alice, he regresses to his parental family, revives the emotional charge he felt back then and feels like a servant, namely that he is called to serve by taking care of and supporting.
When he asks to be taken care of from the object onto which he projects his introjected mother, this object does not take care of him either because it does not want to (Alice) or because it cannot (Judith, who does not manage to visit him due to bad weather) thus resulting in a feeling of frustration as regards his desire to be taken care of.
The projection objects of his introjected mother do not recognize his needs the way he perceives them and they reject them causing him to feel that they do not understand him (Judith:” Dad, do not drink much”).
Because he was deprived of motherly care, in his adult life he refuses to offer (emotionally or materially) even to his beloved ones, denying to be bequeathed.
In his attempt to recognize his mother’s mood when she got close to take care of him so as not to get hurt when she abandoned him, he developed an incredible talent to sense her disposition which resulted in his adult life in an incredible talent to sense other people’s secrets.
Mum was miserable in her marriage and felt anger towards her husband. The Captain, being the son of her husband, formed the transfer object of the anger towards her husband.
While mum was taking care of him, he felt anger and disgust. In his adult life he is experiencing the existence of the introjected mother by becoming himself the object of anger and disgust for others (the others take his mother’s role).
Mum used to feel anger towards the Captain because he constituted an extra burden in her life. In his adult life, he revives the presence of the mother not only through Alice, who is angry at him because she is experiencing him as a burden, but also through his children, at whom he is angry since he is experiencing them as a burden (his phrase towards Kurt in respect with his children proves that: “You are lucky that you got out of that mess”).
He felt great anger towards his mother, because she was neglecting him. He could not, however, express this anger, because he feared that if he expressed it, he would destroy his mother and thus he would die as well since there would be no one to take care of him. The result of this fear was to repel (block) fear.This suppressed anger manifests itself destructively,when he tears to pieces and drops Allice’s picture on the floor while he appears to be blocked when he does not throw the laurel wreath out of the window.
His mother when taking care of him, she did it with anger. He, as a newborn, responded to his mother’s anger by feeling anger towards her and wanted to make her suffer. Because as a newborn, the possibility to harm his mother would have consequences for him as well, he had to find a mechanism to justify his desire to make his mother suffer. The mechanism which he developed was to feel that mom had to take revenge for this desire of his. When he pulls out the sword to kill Alice, because Judith is the projection object of his mother, he asks from Judith to take revenge from him because by killing her mother (Alice) , Judith will suffer.
As a newborn, he felt anger towards mom, because his love was not capable of driving her away from this inefficient (dishonest and unrespected) husband resulting in their staying in a horrible relationship which constituted a source of unhappiness for both of them. In his adult life he considers as his duty to pull Alice away from this theatre (because I love you I will save you from this bad husband/theatre).
He expresses this anger towards Alice, onto whom he projects his mother (Alice does not give him what he wants and she takes care of him impassively because that is how it happened and she should bear him), when he tries to push her into the sea so as to get drowned.
The possibility that mom suffers from depression exists since she did not try to put an end to this stagnated marriage.
His father was non-existent and had abandoned his children. The Captain projects his introjected father on Kurt by considering him frivolous and an irresponsible husband and father and accusing him of abandoning his children thus losing his honor and reputation.
Relationship between mom- dad:
Mom was always angry with dad and was verbally abusive towards him. In his adult life the Captain dances when listening the march “The Entry of the Boyars” since through dancing he is experiencing his mother’s presence that attacks dad. Dad responded to mom’s aggressiveness by retreating to depression, which was interpreted as incompetence and laziness. In this confrontational relationship there was no space left for him and his siblings just like in his relationship with Alice there is no space for their children.
He reproduces this confrontational relationship of his parents himself by having conflicts within his family.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of loneliness, which will bring about death because he regresses to the crib and then to the womb.
Desire to be taken care of from others, whom –though- he is experiencing as a threat (when his mother takes care of him she does it impassively - his siblings drain him away-mom shouts at dad).
Anger towards mom’s projection objects because they do not give him what he deserves, and fear of loneliness when the objects are driven away.
Pompous effort to escape the trauma’s pain, which leads him to loneliness (his pretentious self- importance shows in his opinion about his children and the book he has written).
His traumatic pain is related to the emotional abandonment which he experienced as regards his mother, not only in the womb but in the crib as well. He always seeks for this emotional abandonment unconsciously so that he can experience the presence of the introjected mother (fortress- residence, crib, womb: everything emotionally hard, cold).
He feels unsupported, because dad was absent and he tries to rely on persons who do not want or cannot support him. Many times he has caused other people not wanting to support him (doctor) because of his attitude and behavior.
He is derogative, just like his mother towards his father, and judgmental, and through this he revives the presence of the introjected mother.
He does not assume responsibilities, like his mother did in her marriage and stayed with this unworthy husband whom she devaluated.
Basic defense of the ego: repression (deletion).
Alice
Objective data:
She comes from a family with many wealthy relatives.
The only element mentioned in the play regarding her family is that she has a brother.
She was an actress. She deserted her art when she got married to the Captain.
She is ten years younger than the Captain.
She plays the piano.
Comment:
Alice’s objective data originate mainly from her personality attributes which are closely related to the way she perceives reality, behaves and thinks. Consequently the presentation of the remaining objective data will be based on the categorization of the beliefs, behaviors and thoughts under discussion.
Psychotic Core
She claims that her children would rarely play.
She believes that their two children died due to an illness caused by the lack of light in the house which in the past served as a prison.
She feels that she lives under the Captain’s supervision and subsequently feels as a lifelong prisoner in the house.
According to her, the main reason why the Captain is afraid of death is because he fears that she might get married again.
She argues that she got married to her husband because he seduced her. She thought that his position had a lot of “gold” and would be the means for her to climb the social ladder. She feels cheated though by her husband’s promises for there was no gold except only on his uniform.
She believes that Kurt “got her married” with the Captain, a fact that she characterizes as recklessness on Kurt’s part for which she has paid the price, devoid of a brilliant career as a leading actress in theatre.
She accuses the Captain for the destruction of a promising, according to her, career in theatre.
She believes that misery exists in the life of all people; just not everybody speaks of this, like her and the Captain.
She feels surrounded by enemies.
She accuses the Captain of the fact that everyone avoids them.
She believes that she is in no need of forgiveness and lenient treatment since she always plays her cards straight and has nothing to hide
She confuses the telegraph key with the handle of a coffee mill, confusion which denotes her primitive aggressiveness. She confuses the cracking of the coffee beans by the mill with the teeth crushing during biting. Her biting is so strong, namely her aggressiveness (hatred) is so strong, that can cause the pulling out of the tooth.
Her hatred for the Captain is being directly expressed in several parts of the play. She argues that she has always hated him and continues to hate him beyond all bounds so that his death would cause her to laugh.
She desires and wishes for the Captain’s death several times.
Taking revenge on the Captain is not enough for her, she also wants to make a fool out of him by appearing along with Kurt at the theatre in public view.
She tries to make the Captain feel guilty by saying that if the maids leave, she will be the maid again and do all the work and that would spoil her hands.
She feels happy with the news that her daughter will not come to visit her father during his illness.
She states that when she first saw him, his ugliness repelled her.
She considers him to be an insignificant Captain who did not even make it to the rank of Major.
She accuses him of their bad domestic economy and thinks that he has always been stingy to her.
He calls him a “despot with a nature of a slave”.
She says scornfully that he does not dare to be a tyrant in the house.
She mocks him when non-commissioned officers send him flowers because she thinks that such gestures are not genuine.
She accuses him of despising the doctors and their work just as he looked down upon her work and everybody else’s. That everything is useless to him but his rifles and guns.
She criticizes him because he is afraid of the dark.
She calls him rascal, arch-liar, talebearer, intriguer and self-conceited
She gets annoyed when he yawns in front of her.
She argues that he boasts more of it than he really drinks.
She exposes him by saying that whenever the fight becomes too much for him, he lets his wife cover his retreat.
She devalues him when she says that she was forced to borrow money from the maid in order to send her children to the city.
She belittles him by telling him that he uses her good taste to brag of to others. Moreover, that her main recollection from the trips to Copenhagen was the concerts at the Tivoli while his is the lamb "Navarin aux pommes”.
At the end of the play, she represses her laughter when she accepts her husband’s proposal to celebrate their silver weddings while at first she had her objections.
She criticizes him by saying that it was inconsiderate on his part to abandon his children.
Manipulative Behavior
-she will obey his orders since he only thinks about what is good for them (thus making him feel like she grants him the power).
-she fears the Captain’s anger when he finds out that there is nothing to eat in the house and that’s why she desperately asks him not to leave her alone.
-she agrees that Kurt looks after her, provided that the Captain will not learn of it because he will kill her.
-in her life she has learned to wait.
-she plays horrid melodies on the piano because the Captain likes them despite the difficulty since her hands are worn out by the chores.
-she neglects to dye her hair for as long as the Captain is ill (“…it has long been gray, and I have simply neglected to darken it since my husband is as good as dead. Twenty-five years in prison”).
-she and the Captain belong to a cursed race. What they are living is not a life but an eternal torment. She hopes that life will begin when death comes. They are chained together and cannot break away. She does not know the cause of the hatred they feel for each other. They are condemned to live together until death liberates them.
-if the Captain had always kept sober he would have been a menace to humanity but through his whiskey he made himself ridiculous and harmless.
-her only advantage in the “long struggle” with the Captain was that she had always been sober.
-the presence of their two living children should be a blessing of the home but instead it became a curse that brought the couple apart. She and the Captain set the children against them and in order not to spoil them completely they sent them to the city. When the time comes for the children to go out into the world they will be two people “lonely” and “cruel” like herself and the Captain.
She tries to take Kurt on her side and set him against the Captain, by saying that the Captain:
-is a vampire and a cannibal who is being fed on other people’s lives because his own life is empty.
-believes that the politeness shown by others is fake.
-is too much of an egoist to be jealous of her.
-can show himself both kind and susceptible to sentiment but if you have him as an enemy he is a monster.
-is being seen as a stranger as strange as he was to her twenty-five years ago. She is afraid of him.
-tried to murder her by pushing her (a real fact).
-has been beating her twenty-five years even in the presence of the children (she had previously stated that he has never laid hands on her for he knew that if this happened she would have left him, because she has to preserve her pride).
-is responsible for her loneliness (she also admits that she is responsible for the Captain’s loneliness).
-drives himself crazy with arrogance when someone flatters him, that’s the reason why she refuses to say a single word of praise to him.
-is an ingrate since he never acknowledged the help offered by some of his wealthy acquaintances in his first tough years as a new officer.
-had a rough childhood and she sympathizes with him for that.
-has made a perfect copy of him out of his daughter and has trained her in order to use her against her mother (to the extent, as she claims, that her own daughter raised her hand against her).
-misused Kurt’s trust (when Kurt sent him to make peace between himself and his wife, he made love to her instead and taught her the trick to take the children from him).
She reminds him that when they were small they acted as engaged.
When she decides to revenge the Captain, she feels free, strong and flirts with Kurt. She tells him that she was a slave and he set her free.
When Kurt lifts his hand as if to strike her, she asks him to get on his knees with his face down and kiss her foot.
She refers the original sin to Kurt with a sexual hint.
-she is annoyed by Kurt who has not called on them upon his arrival on the island.
-she knows very well the “Shooting Lessons” this celebrated, unsold textbook while she takes aim at him with her sunshade.
-Kurt is her lover (she kisses him in front of the Captain).
She fears his anger and tries to soothe him by saying that:
-he is a man after all as opposed to Kurt who is the worst rascal because he left them.
-Kurt tempted her while she was trying to put the Captain in prison.
-if he forgives her, she will look after him and love him and become his nurse since she has no other choice.
Psychic Structure:
We cannot be absolutely accurate on the introjected parents, because as mentioned before, there is a lack of data on her childhood.
She has experienced rejection (from both parents) not only in the womb but also right after her birth.
As a newborn she experienced emotional abandonment from both parents.
She compromised with the incomplete- perfunctory care and support provided by her parents so as to be able to survive.
To bear the pain caused by rejection and her fear of death she developed a psychotic core, with its characteristics being hallucinations, persecution complex, a sense of greatness, manipulation, vindictiveness and disdain.
She experiences reality through her own hallucinatory perception.
Borderline personality (goes over the limits), in and out in madness, she makes paranoid thoughts, she perceives as real nonexistent situations.
Dark glance- blur- black.
Unsatisfied chaos. Constant sense of unsatisfied. Unorgasmic.
In constant hyperstimulation. Bad tempered.
Pleasure from revenge.
Resourceful (perceptive – intelligent) at finding well documented reasons to prove she is right to feel unsatisfied.
She is never pleased with anything. She uses everybody and everything with manic energy in order to achieve what she is after, but even when she gets it she is never satisfied.
She wants others to be submissive and to have full power over them.
Rambling way of thinking, she can think of many things at the same time and be good at everything.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death as a result of rejection. A sense of chaos when others reject or leave her so as not to feel any pain.
In her adult life, when she feels fear of rejection or abandonment (in real time or in regression) she enters chaos. Chaos leads her to actions which result in the rejection and abandonment by others in a way that her scenario repeats itself.
She feels accepted when others behave exactly the way she wants, namely when they do exactly what she wants and give her exactly what she wants.
In her attempt to feel accepted, namely the others to be the way she wants them and treat her the way she wants, she leads them to chaos causing them to reject and abandon her and so we have a repetition of her scenario.
Every time she makes concessions in her adult life or feels she makes concessions, she revives the pain of her injury and enters chaos.
She comes to terms with the given facts (people- situations) in her life which at the same time considers unworthy on the grounds that she feels trapped in them and this causes her pain.
Every compromise regresses her to the compromise she made with her parents in order to survive. Her contempt is being experienced by the object (people) as rejection having as a result the rejection by the object thus repeating her scenario.
Her pain of the injury stems from her into the womb rejection and her abandonment as a newborn.
She comes from a family with many wealthy relatives.
The only element mentioned in the play regarding her family is that she has a brother.
She was an actress. She deserted her art when she got married to the Captain.
She is ten years younger than the Captain.
She plays the piano.
Comment:
Alice’s objective data originate mainly from her personality attributes which are closely related to the way she perceives reality, behaves and thinks. Consequently the presentation of the remaining objective data will be based on the categorization of the beliefs, behaviors and thoughts under discussion.
Psychotic Core
- Hallucinations
She claims that her children would rarely play.
She believes that their two children died due to an illness caused by the lack of light in the house which in the past served as a prison.
She feels that she lives under the Captain’s supervision and subsequently feels as a lifelong prisoner in the house.
According to her, the main reason why the Captain is afraid of death is because he fears that she might get married again.
She argues that she got married to her husband because he seduced her. She thought that his position had a lot of “gold” and would be the means for her to climb the social ladder. She feels cheated though by her husband’s promises for there was no gold except only on his uniform.
She believes that Kurt “got her married” with the Captain, a fact that she characterizes as recklessness on Kurt’s part for which she has paid the price, devoid of a brilliant career as a leading actress in theatre.
She accuses the Captain for the destruction of a promising, according to her, career in theatre.
She believes that misery exists in the life of all people; just not everybody speaks of this, like her and the Captain.
She feels surrounded by enemies.
She accuses the Captain of the fact that everyone avoids them.
She believes that she is in no need of forgiveness and lenient treatment since she always plays her cards straight and has nothing to hide
She confuses the telegraph key with the handle of a coffee mill, confusion which denotes her primitive aggressiveness. She confuses the cracking of the coffee beans by the mill with the teeth crushing during biting. Her biting is so strong, namely her aggressiveness (hatred) is so strong, that can cause the pulling out of the tooth.
- Vindictiveness
Her hatred for the Captain is being directly expressed in several parts of the play. She argues that she has always hated him and continues to hate him beyond all bounds so that his death would cause her to laugh.
She desires and wishes for the Captain’s death several times.
Taking revenge on the Captain is not enough for her, she also wants to make a fool out of him by appearing along with Kurt at the theatre in public view.
She tries to make the Captain feel guilty by saying that if the maids leave, she will be the maid again and do all the work and that would spoil her hands.
She feels happy with the news that her daughter will not come to visit her father during his illness.
- Disdain
She states that when she first saw him, his ugliness repelled her.
She considers him to be an insignificant Captain who did not even make it to the rank of Major.
She accuses him of their bad domestic economy and thinks that he has always been stingy to her.
He calls him a “despot with a nature of a slave”.
She says scornfully that he does not dare to be a tyrant in the house.
She mocks him when non-commissioned officers send him flowers because she thinks that such gestures are not genuine.
She accuses him of despising the doctors and their work just as he looked down upon her work and everybody else’s. That everything is useless to him but his rifles and guns.
She criticizes him because he is afraid of the dark.
She calls him rascal, arch-liar, talebearer, intriguer and self-conceited
She gets annoyed when he yawns in front of her.
She argues that he boasts more of it than he really drinks.
She exposes him by saying that whenever the fight becomes too much for him, he lets his wife cover his retreat.
She devalues him when she says that she was forced to borrow money from the maid in order to send her children to the city.
She belittles him by telling him that he uses her good taste to brag of to others. Moreover, that her main recollection from the trips to Copenhagen was the concerts at the Tivoli while his is the lamb "Navarin aux pommes”.
At the end of the play, she represses her laughter when she accepts her husband’s proposal to celebrate their silver weddings while at first she had her objections.
- Towards Kurt
She criticizes him by saying that it was inconsiderate on his part to abandon his children.
Manipulative Behavior
- Self victimization in front of Kurt
-she will obey his orders since he only thinks about what is good for them (thus making him feel like she grants him the power).
-she fears the Captain’s anger when he finds out that there is nothing to eat in the house and that’s why she desperately asks him not to leave her alone.
-she agrees that Kurt looks after her, provided that the Captain will not learn of it because he will kill her.
-in her life she has learned to wait.
-she plays horrid melodies on the piano because the Captain likes them despite the difficulty since her hands are worn out by the chores.
-she neglects to dye her hair for as long as the Captain is ill (“…it has long been gray, and I have simply neglected to darken it since my husband is as good as dead. Twenty-five years in prison”).
-she and the Captain belong to a cursed race. What they are living is not a life but an eternal torment. She hopes that life will begin when death comes. They are chained together and cannot break away. She does not know the cause of the hatred they feel for each other. They are condemned to live together until death liberates them.
-if the Captain had always kept sober he would have been a menace to humanity but through his whiskey he made himself ridiculous and harmless.
-her only advantage in the “long struggle” with the Captain was that she had always been sober.
-the presence of their two living children should be a blessing of the home but instead it became a curse that brought the couple apart. She and the Captain set the children against them and in order not to spoil them completely they sent them to the city. When the time comes for the children to go out into the world they will be two people “lonely” and “cruel” like herself and the Captain.
She tries to take Kurt on her side and set him against the Captain, by saying that the Captain:
-is a vampire and a cannibal who is being fed on other people’s lives because his own life is empty.
-believes that the politeness shown by others is fake.
-is too much of an egoist to be jealous of her.
-can show himself both kind and susceptible to sentiment but if you have him as an enemy he is a monster.
-is being seen as a stranger as strange as he was to her twenty-five years ago. She is afraid of him.
-tried to murder her by pushing her (a real fact).
-has been beating her twenty-five years even in the presence of the children (she had previously stated that he has never laid hands on her for he knew that if this happened she would have left him, because she has to preserve her pride).
-is responsible for her loneliness (she also admits that she is responsible for the Captain’s loneliness).
-drives himself crazy with arrogance when someone flatters him, that’s the reason why she refuses to say a single word of praise to him.
-is an ingrate since he never acknowledged the help offered by some of his wealthy acquaintances in his first tough years as a new officer.
-had a rough childhood and she sympathizes with him for that.
-has made a perfect copy of him out of his daughter and has trained her in order to use her against her mother (to the extent, as she claims, that her own daughter raised her hand against her).
-misused Kurt’s trust (when Kurt sent him to make peace between himself and his wife, he made love to her instead and taught her the trick to take the children from him).
- Flirt with Kurt
She reminds him that when they were small they acted as engaged.
When she decides to revenge the Captain, she feels free, strong and flirts with Kurt. She tells him that she was a slave and he set her free.
When Kurt lifts his hand as if to strike her, she asks him to get on his knees with his face down and kiss her foot.
She refers the original sin to Kurt with a sexual hint.
- Towards the Captain
-she is annoyed by Kurt who has not called on them upon his arrival on the island.
-she knows very well the “Shooting Lessons” this celebrated, unsold textbook while she takes aim at him with her sunshade.
-Kurt is her lover (she kisses him in front of the Captain).
She fears his anger and tries to soothe him by saying that:
-he is a man after all as opposed to Kurt who is the worst rascal because he left them.
-Kurt tempted her while she was trying to put the Captain in prison.
-if he forgives her, she will look after him and love him and become his nurse since she has no other choice.
Psychic Structure:
We cannot be absolutely accurate on the introjected parents, because as mentioned before, there is a lack of data on her childhood.
She has experienced rejection (from both parents) not only in the womb but also right after her birth.
As a newborn she experienced emotional abandonment from both parents.
She compromised with the incomplete- perfunctory care and support provided by her parents so as to be able to survive.
To bear the pain caused by rejection and her fear of death she developed a psychotic core, with its characteristics being hallucinations, persecution complex, a sense of greatness, manipulation, vindictiveness and disdain.
She experiences reality through her own hallucinatory perception.
Borderline personality (goes over the limits), in and out in madness, she makes paranoid thoughts, she perceives as real nonexistent situations.
Dark glance- blur- black.
Unsatisfied chaos. Constant sense of unsatisfied. Unorgasmic.
In constant hyperstimulation. Bad tempered.
Pleasure from revenge.
Resourceful (perceptive – intelligent) at finding well documented reasons to prove she is right to feel unsatisfied.
She is never pleased with anything. She uses everybody and everything with manic energy in order to achieve what she is after, but even when she gets it she is never satisfied.
She wants others to be submissive and to have full power over them.
Rambling way of thinking, she can think of many things at the same time and be good at everything.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death as a result of rejection. A sense of chaos when others reject or leave her so as not to feel any pain.
In her adult life, when she feels fear of rejection or abandonment (in real time or in regression) she enters chaos. Chaos leads her to actions which result in the rejection and abandonment by others in a way that her scenario repeats itself.
She feels accepted when others behave exactly the way she wants, namely when they do exactly what she wants and give her exactly what she wants.
In her attempt to feel accepted, namely the others to be the way she wants them and treat her the way she wants, she leads them to chaos causing them to reject and abandon her and so we have a repetition of her scenario.
Every time she makes concessions in her adult life or feels she makes concessions, she revives the pain of her injury and enters chaos.
She comes to terms with the given facts (people- situations) in her life which at the same time considers unworthy on the grounds that she feels trapped in them and this causes her pain.
Every compromise regresses her to the compromise she made with her parents in order to survive. Her contempt is being experienced by the object (people) as rejection having as a result the rejection by the object thus repeating her scenario.
Her pain of the injury stems from her into the womb rejection and her abandonment as a newborn.
Kurt
Objective Data:
He is Alice’s cousin.
He was married with two children, but he is divorced and his wife has been awarded with the custody of the children by the court.
He has been living in America for many years, where he made a fortune.
He is about to settle down on the island as the new Master of quarantine. His superior is the doctor.
He has not seen the Captain and Alice for fifteen years.
At the end of the play he chooses to go and leaves the couple.
Comment:
The objective data related to Kurt originate mainly from his thoughts and behaviors, which later on, they are categorized.
Bipolarity
He claims that in some bright moments in his life he was made to believe that the meaning of life is, that we do not know its meaning and this is something we need to accept.
He believes that even in postmortem life there will be “battles and storms”.
He believes that “sometimes not seeing everything is happiness”.
Discussing loneliness with the Captain, he claims that “one can get used to anything”.
He considers forgiveness and love towards the enemy as leniency, which we all need.
He gives up the effort to steadily adhere to his view that he is not responsible for the couple’s marriage.
He does not side with either of them (Alice or the Captain) and claims that he thinks about their welfare.
According to him neither of them is right, but he empathizes enormously with them both (maybe a little more with the Captain).
In his conversations with the Captain he keeps a low profile, even when he is annoyed by the Captain’s insults towards Kurt’s ex wife and America.
He claims to have gotten used to insults, however he is hurt by the unjust accusation of the Captain that he abandoned his children.
When the Captain is in need of help, he offers to help him.
Despite the fact that he finds out that the Captain flirted with his wife, he states that he will keep his promise to him to take care of his children, if he dies (and says in a hypomanic way “So I may consider myself revenged without any revenge”).
When Edgar asks him for forgiveness, he denies that there is something to forgive, since he has realized that he has a “bad” part himself.
Through his last conversation with the Captain he realizes that he does not understand either people or himself.
Initially he is attracted by the idea to cooperate with Alice on her revenge plan but afterwards he backs away with the excuse that “in the end justice is done anyhow”.
He thinks Alice’s attempt to find out who is culpable for her lousy marriage is frivolous and meaningless. He believes that Alice will be relieved only when she quits wondering and regards it as a fact, as a trial she needs to endure.
He obeys Alice’s order to kiss her foot (he submits to her).
He believes that reneging on a social obligation towards a superior (appearance at the doctor’s reception) will bring about “consequences”. He is however easily convinced by the couple not to attend the reception.
The social intercourse with the locals on the island constitutes an obligation for him because of his new position as a master of quarantine. This intercourse does not please him but he considers it necessary, a necessary evil (“for no matter how little you care to get mixed up in other people's intrigues, you are drawn into them just the same”).
He believes that both the Captain and Alice are pitiful but no one can do something about it.
He claims to have come to the couple’s house with no malice in him believing that he is a little better than them but now he realizes that he is the vilest of all.
When describing the atmosphere of the fortress to Alice he says that “there is a smell as of poisonous wall-paper, and one feels sick the moment one enters. As if there are dead bodies beneath the flooring, and the place is so filled with hatred that one can hardly breathe”.
When Alice manipulates him by sending him away and telling him “You had better take up with them in the end you will return to us, for here you find your true friends” , he unconsciously gets angry and answers back “Is it not dreadful to be alone among a lot of enemies, as you are?”
When Alice begs him to try not to grow tired of them, he tells her: “I have seen one marriage at close quarters…. Mine… And it was dreadful - but this is almost worse!”
He devalues the female sex by saying to Alice, “You are the first woman who ever inspired me with compassion all others have seemed to me to deserve their fate”.
When Alice flirts with him, he responds by biting her neck so that she screams.
Responding to her flirt, he says “Since I first saw you in all your odious nakedness and since my vision became warped by passion, I have known the full strength of evil. What is ugly becomes beautiful; what is good becomes ugly and mean… Come here and I'll choke you… with a kiss!”.
When Alice describes him her plan to take revenge from the Captain, Kurt with an intoxicated look in his eyes (according to the writer) keeps repeating that she is a devil.
Discussing with Alice about the Captain, he claims that “He is actually the most conceited person I have ever met. I am ; consequently God must be(…) He would be comical were he not so tragical, but there are traces of greatness in all his narrow-mindedness”.
He mentions to Alice that when the Captain felt his life slipping away, he grabbed hold of his and began to stir in his affairs as if he wanted to crawl into him and live his life.
He gets angry at the Captain when he accuses him of abandoning his children (it shows in his face according to the writer), however, he does not express his anger.
When the Captain, while being ill, asks him whether he believes that he is going to die, he answers him back “You as well as everybody. There will be no exception made in your case”.
Upon hearing the news that the Captain arranged to transfer Kurt’s son on the island he gets agitated, he calls the Captain a cannibal and feels an irresistible impulse and a duty to hate him.
He finds the Captain “calm, reserved and considerate” since he quitted drinking and cut down on food and thinks that from the moment that death put its mark on him he developed a certain dignity.
Psychic Structure:
Incomplete – unhealthy symbiotic relationship (mom- newborn). While the pregnancy was desirable, none of his needs was covered after his birth for reasons which cannot be traced from the objective data.
His certainty that none of his needs will be covered, led to the development of a mechanism which blocks his desire.
Mom had a depression background which obliged him to emotionally nourish her in order to be looked after by her. During his adult life, he shows interest in other people so as to be able to coexist with them.
Anger towards mom (because she does not cover his needs), which he represses because he fears that if he expresses it, he will lose her and there will be no one to look after him. In his adult life he gets angry when he feels that his needs are not being covered (whether that is an objective fact or he experiences it as such), but his anger is repressed. If it expresses itself, it is being done in a hypomanic way, having as a main instrument of expression the mouth, namely by biting with words.
The pleasure of breastfeeding is being experienced not only through his anger towards mom, who does not want to feed him but at the same time through mom’s anger towards him because she feeds him without wanting to. During his adult life he expresses hypomanic anger by biting, when he expresses sexual passion.
When he was a newborn he manipulated his mother emotionally so as to evoke her interest. As an adult when he feels the need to be taken care of (an adult’s or a child’s need), he manipulates people and circumstances so as to get this care because it has been recorded that mom does not want to take care of him. Moreover, when someone tries to manipulate him, he revives the emotion (anger) mom felt towards him while looking after him, which leads to him getting angry and thus reviving the presence of the introjected mom.
He was consuming a lot of energy in order to be able to receive mom’s care while his mom was angry because she was looking after him. As an adult he draws anger from others when he is asking for their care so as to revive mom’s presence. If the other person has psychotic or borderline personality features, in his attempt to make him angry so as to feel mom’s presence, he leads him (the other) to madness.
When mom was looking after him, he felt like he sucked up all her energy. As an adult when he asks to be looked after by others, they feel that he sucks them up. But, because the roles go two-ways, when others are in a weak state and seek his care, he revives the introjected mom and feels like others are sucking up his life.
He gets angry in front of the needs of others, especially when these arise from a state of weakness because he regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom, in which he was in a state of weakness, thus reviving the presence of the introjected mother.
Mom was getting angry at him when she was obliged to look after him. What has been recorded is that if I express desire, mom will get angry. As an adult he believes that the expression of desire means punishment.
When an adult expresses his interest, he (Kurt) regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom and feels that the other person is trying to manipulate him and because of that he gets angry at him.
While mom was looking after him he found the courage to forgive her because he hoped that her attitude has changed, that is why as an adult he considers forgiveness and love as essential.
He felt disgust for his mom’s care which was perfunctory, thus making him as an adult feel disgusted with symbiotic relationships.
He would devalue mom in an attempt to handle his anger towards her and in the same way he devalues the female sex as an adult.
Dad did not provide mom with support so as to emotionally enable her to look after Kurt. Moreover, he was not interested whether his son was being looked after or not. Mom had resigned herself to the irresponsible and uncompassionate attitude of dad. As an adult Kurt is in no contact with the true reality of life, he does not stand for his interests and appears to be submissive to every form of power, real or fictional.
In order not to see his parents’ cruelty and irresponsibility, he would blur their image by rationalizing them having as a result his compromising, retreating and not taking a firm stand as an adult.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death because of abandonment, namely because of lack of care.
Despair because of abandonment.
Hatred towards the one who abandons him.
Repression of hatred and manipulation so as to be looked after and eventually survive.
Compromise with any kind of care which would ensure his survival.
Desire for a symbiotic relationship which would cover his incomplete egocentric part. Anger towards anyone who expresses adult care since his desire is for his childlike needs to be met.
Attraction to people who cannot or do not want to look after him in a way that the scenario repeats itself.
Fear of expressing desire because of its definite frustration.
Hatred and anger towards anyone who frustrates his desire, either the frustration is real or he is experiencing it as such.
Repression of hatred and anger by using the defense of rationalization.
Hypomanic unconscious expression of hatred and anger. He unconsciously provokes the anger of others towards him, anger which he cannot comprehend since he is not in contact with his own hatred and anger which had evoked the anger of others in the first place.
Anger from people from whom he seeks care and anger towards people who seek care.
Introjected mom, discouraging, punitive , compromised , submissive.
Introjected dad, irresponsible, indifferent.
The pain of the injury was created because of the initial emotional abandonment.
He is Alice’s cousin.
He was married with two children, but he is divorced and his wife has been awarded with the custody of the children by the court.
He has been living in America for many years, where he made a fortune.
He is about to settle down on the island as the new Master of quarantine. His superior is the doctor.
He has not seen the Captain and Alice for fifteen years.
At the end of the play he chooses to go and leaves the couple.
Comment:
The objective data related to Kurt originate mainly from his thoughts and behaviors, which later on, they are categorized.
Bipolarity
- Feebleness (Compliance– Compromise)
He claims that in some bright moments in his life he was made to believe that the meaning of life is, that we do not know its meaning and this is something we need to accept.
He believes that even in postmortem life there will be “battles and storms”.
He believes that “sometimes not seeing everything is happiness”.
Discussing loneliness with the Captain, he claims that “one can get used to anything”.
He considers forgiveness and love towards the enemy as leniency, which we all need.
He gives up the effort to steadily adhere to his view that he is not responsible for the couple’s marriage.
He does not side with either of them (Alice or the Captain) and claims that he thinks about their welfare.
According to him neither of them is right, but he empathizes enormously with them both (maybe a little more with the Captain).
In his conversations with the Captain he keeps a low profile, even when he is annoyed by the Captain’s insults towards Kurt’s ex wife and America.
He claims to have gotten used to insults, however he is hurt by the unjust accusation of the Captain that he abandoned his children.
When the Captain is in need of help, he offers to help him.
Despite the fact that he finds out that the Captain flirted with his wife, he states that he will keep his promise to him to take care of his children, if he dies (and says in a hypomanic way “So I may consider myself revenged without any revenge”).
When Edgar asks him for forgiveness, he denies that there is something to forgive, since he has realized that he has a “bad” part himself.
Through his last conversation with the Captain he realizes that he does not understand either people or himself.
Initially he is attracted by the idea to cooperate with Alice on her revenge plan but afterwards he backs away with the excuse that “in the end justice is done anyhow”.
He thinks Alice’s attempt to find out who is culpable for her lousy marriage is frivolous and meaningless. He believes that Alice will be relieved only when she quits wondering and regards it as a fact, as a trial she needs to endure.
He obeys Alice’s order to kiss her foot (he submits to her).
He believes that reneging on a social obligation towards a superior (appearance at the doctor’s reception) will bring about “consequences”. He is however easily convinced by the couple not to attend the reception.
The social intercourse with the locals on the island constitutes an obligation for him because of his new position as a master of quarantine. This intercourse does not please him but he considers it necessary, a necessary evil (“for no matter how little you care to get mixed up in other people's intrigues, you are drawn into them just the same”).
- Hypomania (Latent aggressiveness)
He believes that both the Captain and Alice are pitiful but no one can do something about it.
He claims to have come to the couple’s house with no malice in him believing that he is a little better than them but now he realizes that he is the vilest of all.
When describing the atmosphere of the fortress to Alice he says that “there is a smell as of poisonous wall-paper, and one feels sick the moment one enters. As if there are dead bodies beneath the flooring, and the place is so filled with hatred that one can hardly breathe”.
When Alice manipulates him by sending him away and telling him “You had better take up with them in the end you will return to us, for here you find your true friends” , he unconsciously gets angry and answers back “Is it not dreadful to be alone among a lot of enemies, as you are?”
When Alice begs him to try not to grow tired of them, he tells her: “I have seen one marriage at close quarters…. Mine… And it was dreadful - but this is almost worse!”
He devalues the female sex by saying to Alice, “You are the first woman who ever inspired me with compassion all others have seemed to me to deserve their fate”.
When Alice flirts with him, he responds by biting her neck so that she screams.
Responding to her flirt, he says “Since I first saw you in all your odious nakedness and since my vision became warped by passion, I have known the full strength of evil. What is ugly becomes beautiful; what is good becomes ugly and mean… Come here and I'll choke you… with a kiss!”.
When Alice describes him her plan to take revenge from the Captain, Kurt with an intoxicated look in his eyes (according to the writer) keeps repeating that she is a devil.
Discussing with Alice about the Captain, he claims that “He is actually the most conceited person I have ever met. I am ; consequently God must be(…) He would be comical were he not so tragical, but there are traces of greatness in all his narrow-mindedness”.
He mentions to Alice that when the Captain felt his life slipping away, he grabbed hold of his and began to stir in his affairs as if he wanted to crawl into him and live his life.
He gets angry at the Captain when he accuses him of abandoning his children (it shows in his face according to the writer), however, he does not express his anger.
When the Captain, while being ill, asks him whether he believes that he is going to die, he answers him back “You as well as everybody. There will be no exception made in your case”.
Upon hearing the news that the Captain arranged to transfer Kurt’s son on the island he gets agitated, he calls the Captain a cannibal and feels an irresistible impulse and a duty to hate him.
He finds the Captain “calm, reserved and considerate” since he quitted drinking and cut down on food and thinks that from the moment that death put its mark on him he developed a certain dignity.
Psychic Structure:
Incomplete – unhealthy symbiotic relationship (mom- newborn). While the pregnancy was desirable, none of his needs was covered after his birth for reasons which cannot be traced from the objective data.
His certainty that none of his needs will be covered, led to the development of a mechanism which blocks his desire.
Mom had a depression background which obliged him to emotionally nourish her in order to be looked after by her. During his adult life, he shows interest in other people so as to be able to coexist with them.
Anger towards mom (because she does not cover his needs), which he represses because he fears that if he expresses it, he will lose her and there will be no one to look after him. In his adult life he gets angry when he feels that his needs are not being covered (whether that is an objective fact or he experiences it as such), but his anger is repressed. If it expresses itself, it is being done in a hypomanic way, having as a main instrument of expression the mouth, namely by biting with words.
The pleasure of breastfeeding is being experienced not only through his anger towards mom, who does not want to feed him but at the same time through mom’s anger towards him because she feeds him without wanting to. During his adult life he expresses hypomanic anger by biting, when he expresses sexual passion.
When he was a newborn he manipulated his mother emotionally so as to evoke her interest. As an adult when he feels the need to be taken care of (an adult’s or a child’s need), he manipulates people and circumstances so as to get this care because it has been recorded that mom does not want to take care of him. Moreover, when someone tries to manipulate him, he revives the emotion (anger) mom felt towards him while looking after him, which leads to him getting angry and thus reviving the presence of the introjected mom.
He was consuming a lot of energy in order to be able to receive mom’s care while his mom was angry because she was looking after him. As an adult he draws anger from others when he is asking for their care so as to revive mom’s presence. If the other person has psychotic or borderline personality features, in his attempt to make him angry so as to feel mom’s presence, he leads him (the other) to madness.
When mom was looking after him, he felt like he sucked up all her energy. As an adult when he asks to be looked after by others, they feel that he sucks them up. But, because the roles go two-ways, when others are in a weak state and seek his care, he revives the introjected mom and feels like others are sucking up his life.
He gets angry in front of the needs of others, especially when these arise from a state of weakness because he regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom, in which he was in a state of weakness, thus reviving the presence of the introjected mother.
Mom was getting angry at him when she was obliged to look after him. What has been recorded is that if I express desire, mom will get angry. As an adult he believes that the expression of desire means punishment.
When an adult expresses his interest, he (Kurt) regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom and feels that the other person is trying to manipulate him and because of that he gets angry at him.
While mom was looking after him he found the courage to forgive her because he hoped that her attitude has changed, that is why as an adult he considers forgiveness and love as essential.
He felt disgust for his mom’s care which was perfunctory, thus making him as an adult feel disgusted with symbiotic relationships.
He would devalue mom in an attempt to handle his anger towards her and in the same way he devalues the female sex as an adult.
Dad did not provide mom with support so as to emotionally enable her to look after Kurt. Moreover, he was not interested whether his son was being looked after or not. Mom had resigned herself to the irresponsible and uncompassionate attitude of dad. As an adult Kurt is in no contact with the true reality of life, he does not stand for his interests and appears to be submissive to every form of power, real or fictional.
In order not to see his parents’ cruelty and irresponsibility, he would blur their image by rationalizing them having as a result his compromising, retreating and not taking a firm stand as an adult.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death because of abandonment, namely because of lack of care.
Despair because of abandonment.
Hatred towards the one who abandons him.
Repression of hatred and manipulation so as to be looked after and eventually survive.
Compromise with any kind of care which would ensure his survival.
Desire for a symbiotic relationship which would cover his incomplete egocentric part. Anger towards anyone who expresses adult care since his desire is for his childlike needs to be met.
Attraction to people who cannot or do not want to look after him in a way that the scenario repeats itself.
Fear of expressing desire because of its definite frustration.
Hatred and anger towards anyone who frustrates his desire, either the frustration is real or he is experiencing it as such.
Repression of hatred and anger by using the defense of rationalization.
Hypomanic unconscious expression of hatred and anger. He unconsciously provokes the anger of others towards him, anger which he cannot comprehend since he is not in contact with his own hatred and anger which had evoked the anger of others in the first place.
Anger from people from whom he seeks care and anger towards people who seek care.
Introjected mom, discouraging, punitive , compromised , submissive.
Introjected dad, irresponsible, indifferent.
The pain of the injury was created because of the initial emotional abandonment.
Theatrological Elaboration: Maria Kyriakoglou
Psychotheatrological Analysis: Maria Kyriakoglou/Panos Mavitzis
Psychotheatrological Analysis: Maria Kyriakoglou/Panos Mavitzis