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Julius Caesar 73
17. I am suggesting only that the explicit task of analogizing
the individual mind with society founders. Civilization and
Its Discontents, focusing on the difficulties of civilized group
behavior, represents the further development of the argument
Freud is at pains to establish in Totem and Taboo.
18. I quote from A.A. Brill’s translation rather than the Strachey
version in the Standard Edition, because Brill reserves more of
what Bettelheim calls “the essential humanism” (4) of Freud’s
style, which figures in this text as a preference for “psychic”
where Strachey translates “mental,” “cultural” where Strachey
puts “civilized,” and as a retention of Freud’s first-person
pronouns at several points that are important to my argument.
19. As René Girard remarks, in another, more general, connection:
“Ambivalence, it would appear, is good for patients, but of no
use to psychoanalysis” (185).
20. Because of its sociological dimensions, Julius Caesar corresponds
more closely to Totem and Taboo than does Oedipus the King, the
“conspicuous” absence of reference to which Girard finds “an
act of censorship pure and simple” (208, 209), necessary because
Freud failed to realize the centrality of the sacrificial act. Since
Oedipus already served as Freud’s model for “unconscious
desires” (209), to present him also as model for the actual
parricidal act would “undermin[e]” the standard interpretation
upon which psychoanalysis built its case. Girard is building the
case for his own theory of mimetic desire, which would demote
the father from the position of eminence, as the end toward
which Freud strives unavailingly in Totem and Taboo.
21. “Nicht wir, die Überlebenden, freuen uns jetzt darüber, dab
wir des Verstorbenen ledig sind; nein, wir trauern um ihn . . .”
(Totem und Tabu 73).
22. “Wenn wir aber der durch die Psychoanalyse—an den
Träumen Gesunder—gefundenen Tatsäche Rechnung tragen,
dab die Versuchung, den anderen zu töten, auch bei uns
stärker und häufiger ist als wir ahnen, und dab sie psychische
Wirkungen aubert, auch wo sie sich unserem Bewubtsein nicht
kundgibt. . . .” (Totem und Tabu 80–81).
23. I would like to express thanks to Marsha Walton and John
Traverse for useful comments about this paper, and to Horst
Dinkelacker for help with translations.