ABSTRACT
Freud lost his father in 1896. He tells us that the death of the father is the most important occurrence in a man's life. 1 While the father still lives, the son is his child, and therefore remains a child. When the father dies, the son himself becomes a father, no matter whether he has children or not. From the father we take over the germ-plasm, the immortal part in us, whose mortal guardian we are for the brief span of life. As a rule, we do not enter into effective guardianship of this property until after the decease of the former guardian of the entail. As long as the father lives, we remain linked to the earlier generations, to the past, and therefore to childhood. An invisible umbilical cord connects us with the father until he disappears into the tomb. But at this turning-point in life the tie with the past is suddenly broken, and our gaze is henceforward directed towards the future, towards future generations—towards the sun. From of old, the sun has been the symbol of the father.
