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PAGE 95
EXPLANATION OF HAMLET'S MYSTERY
gaiety called forth by the happy event. When a child, on
being told that the doctor has brought him another playfellow,
responds with the cry "Tell him to take it away again," he
intends this, not, as is commonly believed, as a joke for the
entertainment of his elders, but as an earnest expression of his
intuition that in future he will have to renounce his previously
unquestioned pre-eminence in the family circle, a matter that
to him is serious enough.
The second matter, on which there is also much misunder-
standing, is that of the attitude of a child towards the subject
of death, it being commonly assumed that this is necessarily
the same as that of an adult. When a child first hears of any
one's death, the only part of its meaning that he realises is
that the person is no longer there,1 a consummation which in
many cases he fervently desires. It is only gradually that the
more dread implications of the phenomenon are borne in upon
him. When, therefore, a child expresses the wish that a given
person, even a near relative, would die, our feelings would not
be so shocked as in fact they are, were we to interpret this
wish from the point of view of the child. The same remark
applies to the frequent dreams of adults in which the death of
a near and dear relative takes place, for the wish here expressed
is in most cases a long forgotten one, and no longer directly
operative.
Of the infantile jealousies the one with which we are here
occupied is that experienced by a boy towards his father. The
precise form of early relationship between child and father is
in general a matter of vast importance in both sexes, and plays
a predominating part in the future development of the child's
character; this theme has been brilliantly expounded by Jung2
in a recent essay. The only point that at present concerns us
is the resentment felt by a boy towards his father when the lat-
ter disturbs his enjoyment of his mother's affection. This feel-
ing, which occurs frequently enough, is the deepest source of
the world-old conflict between father and son, between the
young and old, the favourite theme of so many poets and writers.
The fundamental importance that this conflict, and the accom-
panying breaking away of the child from the authority of his
parents, has both for the individual and for society is clearly
stated in the following passage of Freud's:3 "The detachment
of the growing individual from the authority of the parents is
1See Freud: Traumdeutung, 1900, S. 175.
2Jung: Die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen.
Jahrbuch f. psychoanalytische u. psychopathologische Forschungen.
1909, Bd. I, Ie Hälfte.
3Personal communication quoted by Rank, Der Mythus von der
Geburt des Helden, 1909, S. 64.
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