ABSTRACT
In this chapter the importance of humiliation as a feature of disillusion is examined. Feelings of inferiority arise because disillusion is always experienced as a fall downwards from a state of perfection to an inferior position. In Paradise Lost the fall is accompanied by feelings of shame as Adam and Eve become embarrassed at their nakedness.
It is chiefly as a defence against humiliation that the facts of life are distorted and misrepresented. These misrepresentations may make use of perverse mechanisms in which the truth is neither accepted nor fully denied. When disillusion is experienced as a betrayal thwarted desire is transformed into hatred and wish for revenge.
