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From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3517

   It is a most important fact that
some contemporary phantasies of quite another kind came up as well
in the patient’s memory. The content of these was of boys
being chastised and beaten, and especially being beaten on the
penis. And from other phantasies, which represented the heir to the
throne being shut up in a narrow room and beaten, it was easy to
guess for whom it was that the anonymous figures served as
whipping-boys. The heir to the throne was evidently he himself; his
sadism had therefore turned round in phantasy against himself, and
had been converted into masochism. The detail of the sexual organ
itself receiving the beating justified the conclusion that a sense
of guilt, which related to his masturbation, was already concerned
in this transformation.

   No doubt was left in the analysis
that these passive trends had made their appearance at the same
time as the active-sadistic ones, or very soon after them.¹
This is in accordance with the unusually clear, intense, and
constant
ambivalence
of the patient, which was shown here
for the first time in the even development of both members of the
pairs of contrary component instincts. Such behaviour was also
characteristic of his later life, and so was this further trait: no
position of the libido which had once been established was ever
completely replaced by a later one. It was rather left in existence
side by side with all the others, and this allowed him to maintain
an incessant vacillation which proved to be incompatible with the
acquisition of a stable character.

  
¹
By passive trends I mean trends that have a
passive sexual aim; but in saying this I have in mind a
transformation not of the instinct but only of its aim.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3518

   The boy’s masochistic
trends lead on to another point, which I have so far avoided
mentioning, because it can only be confirmed by means of the
analysis of the subsequent phase of his development. I have already
mentioned that after his refusal by his Nanya his libidinal
expectation detached itself from her and began to contemplate
another person as a sexual object. This person was his father, at
that time away from home. He was no doubt led to this choice by a
number of convergent factors, including such fortuitous ones as the
recollection of the snake being cut to pieces; but above all he was
in this way able to renew his first and most primitive
object-choice, which, in conformity with a small child’s
narcissism, had taken place along the path of identification. We
have heard already that his father had been his admired model, and
that when he was asked what he wanted to be he used to reply: a
gentleman like his father. This object of identification of his
active current became the sexual object of a passive current in his
present anal-sadistic phase. It looks as though his seduction by
his sister had forced him into a passive role, and had given him a
passive sexual aim. Under the persisting influence of this
experience he pursued a path from his sister
via
his Nanya
to his father - from a passive attitude towards women to the same
attitude towards men - and had, nevertheless, by this means found a
link with his earlier and spontaneous phase of development. His
father was now his object once more; in conformity with his higher
stage of development, identification was replaced by object-choice;
while the transformation of his active attitude into a passive one
was the consequence and the record of the seduction which had
occurred meanwhile. It would naturally not have been so easy to
achieve an active attitude in the sadistic phase towards his
all-powerful father. When his father came home in the late summer
or autumn the patient’s fits of rage and scenes of fury were
put to a new use. They had served for active sadistic ends in
relation to his Nanya; in relation to his father their purpose was
masochistic. By bringing his naughtiness forward he was trying to
force punishments and beatings out of his father, and in that way
to obtain from him the masochistic sexual satisfaction that he
desired. His screaming fits were therefore simply attempts at
seduction. In accordance, moreover, with the motives which underlie
masochism, this beating would also have satisfied his sense of
guilt. He had preserved a memory of how, during one of these scenes
of naughtiness, he had redoubled his screams as soon as his father
came towards him. His father did not beat him, however, but tried
to pacify him by playing ball in front of him with the pillows of
his cot.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3519

   I do not know how often parents
and educators, faced with inexplicable naughtiness on the part of a
child, might not have occasion to bear this typical state of
affairs in mind. A child who behaves in this unmanageable way is
making a confession and trying to provoke punishment. He hopes for
a beating as a simultaneous means of setting his sense of guilt at
rest and of satisfying his masochistic sexual trend.

   We owe the further explanation of
the case to a recollection which emerged with great distinctness.
This was to the effect that the signs of an alteration in the
patient’s character were not accompanied by any symptoms of
anxiety until after the occurrence of a particular event.
Previously, it seems, there was no anxiety, while directly after
the event the anxiety expressed itself in the most tormenting
shape. The date of this transformation can be stated with
certainty; it was immediately before his fourth birthday. Taking
this as a fixed point, we are able to divide the period of his
childhood with which we are concerned into two phases: a first
phase of naughtiness and perversity from his seduction at the age
of three and a quarter up to his fourth birthday, and a longer
subsequent phase in which the signs of neurosis predominated. But
the event which makes this division possible was not an external
trauma, but a dream, from which he awoke in a state of anxiety.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3520

IV

THE
DREAM AND THE PRIMAL SCENE

   I have already published this
dream elsewhere,¹ on account of the quantity of material in it
which is derived from fairy tales; and I will begin by repeating
what I wrote on that occasion:

   ‘"
I dreamt that it
was night and that I was lying in my bed. (My bed stood with its
foot towards the window; in front of the window there was a row of
old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and
night-time.) Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I
was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big
walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of
them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or
sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their
ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In
great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I
screamed
and woke up. My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what
had happened to me. It took quite a long while before I was
convinced that it had only been a dream; I had had such a clear and
life-like picture of the window opening and the wolves sitting on
the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as though I had escaped from
some danger, and went to sleep again.

   ‘"The only piece of
action in the dream was the opening of the window; for the wolves
sat quite still and without making any movement on the branches of
the tree, to the right and left of the trunk, and looked at me. It
seemed as though they had riveted their whole attention upon me. -
I think this was my first anxiety-dream. I was three, four, or at
most five years old at the time. From then until my eleventh or
twelfth year I was always afraid of seeing something terrible in my
dreams."

   ‘He added a drawing of the
tree with the wolves, which confirmed his description (Fig. 1). The
analysis of the dream brought the following material to light.

   ‘He had always connected
this dream with the recollection that during these years of his
childhood he was most tremendously afraid of the picture of a wolf
in a book of fairy tales. His elder sister, who was very much his
superior, used to tease him by holding up this particular picture
in front of him on some excuse or other, so that he was terrified
and began to scream. In this picture the wolf was standing upright,
striding out with one foot, with its claws stretched out and its
ears pricked. He thought this picture must have been an
illustration to the story of "Little Red
Riding-Hood".

  
¹
‘The Occurrence in Dreams of Material
from Fairy Tales’ (1913
d
).

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3521

Fig. 1

   ‘Why were the wolves white?
This made him think of the sheep, large flocks of which were kept
in the neighbourhood of the estate. His father occasionally took
him with him to visit these flocks, and every time this happened he
felt very proud and blissful. Later on - according to enquiries
that were made it may easily have been shortly before the time of
the dream - an epidemic broke out among the sheep. His father sent
for a follower of Pasteur’s, who inoculated the animals, but
after the inoculation even more of them died than before.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3522

   ‘How did the wolves come to
be on the tree? This reminded him of a story that he had heard his
grandfather tell. He could not remember whether it was before or
after the dream, but its subject is a decisive argument in favour
of the former view. The story ran as follows. A tailor was sitting
at work in his room, when the window opened and a wolf leapt in.
The tailor hit after him with his yard - no (he corrected himself),
caught him by his tail and pulled it off, so that the wolf ran away
in terror. Some time later the tailor went into the forest, and
suddenly saw a pack of wolves coming towards him; so he climbed up
a tree to escape from them. At first the wolves were in perplexity;
but the maimed one, which was among them and wanted to revenge
himself on the tailor, proposed that they should climb one upon
another till the last one could reach him. He himself - he was a
vigorous old fellow - would be the base of the pyramid. The wolves
did as he suggested, but the tailor had recognized the visitor whom
he had punished, and suddenly called out as he had before:
"Catch the grey one by his tail!" The tailless wolf,
terrified by the recollection, ran away, and all the others tumbled
down.

   ‘In this story the tree
appears, upon which the wolves were sitting in the dream. But it
also contains an unmistakable allusion to the castration complex.
The
old
wolf was docked of his tail by the tailor. The
fox-tails of the wolves in the dream were probably compensations
for this taillessness.

   ‘Why were there six or
seven wolves? There seemed to be no answer to this question, until
I raised a doubt whether the picture that had frightened him could
be connected with the story of "Little Red Riding-Hood".
This fairy tale only offers an opportunity for two illustrations -
Little Red Riding-Hood’s meeting with the wolf in the wood,
and the scene in which the wolf lies in bed in the
grandmother’s night-cap. There must therefore be some other
fairy tale behind his recollection of the picture. He soon
discovered that it could only be the story of "The Wolf and
the Seven Little Goats". Here the number seven occurs, and
also the number six, for the wolf only ate up six of the little
goats, while the seventh hid itself in the clock case. The white,
too, comes into this story, for the wolf had his paw made white at
the baker’s after the little goats had recognized him on his
first visit by his grey paw. Moreover, the two fairy tales have
much in common. In both there is the eating up, the cutting open of
the belly, the taking out of the people who have been eaten and
their replacement by heavy stones, and finally in both of them the
wicked wolf perishes. Besides all this, in the story of the little
goats the tree appears. The wolf lay down under a tree after his
meal and snored.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3523

   ‘I shall have, for a
special reason, to deal with this dream again elsewhere, and
interpret it and consider its significance in greater detail. For
it is the earliest anxiety-dream that the dreamer remembered from
his childhood, and its content, taken in connection with other
dreams that followed it soon afterwards and with certain events in
his earliest years, is of quite peculiar interest. We must confine
ourselves here to the relation of the dream to the two fairy tales
which have so much in common with each other, "Little Red
Riding-Hood" and "The Wolf and the Seven Little
Goats". The effect produced by these stories was shown in the
little dreamer by a regular animal phobia. This phobia was only
distinguished from other similar cases by the fact that the
anxiety-animal was not an object easily accessible to observation
(such as a horse or a dog), but was known to him only from stories
and picture-books.