ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of triangularity in envy. The theoretical question of whether envy always involves a primitive form of triangularity to some extent is a complex one. Othello, Shakespeare's great tragedy of domestic violence, provides the most powerful example in literature of how destructive envy involves a triangular situation in which the envious self is the tormented outsider and consists in an attack the aim of which is to obliterate love itself. In the case of little Erna, first described in 1924, Melanie Klein places great importance on oral envy of the primal scene. Petot, in his scholarly exposition of Klein's theory, does an excellent job of disentangling the various changes and developments in the theory of envy since 1928. According to Klein: Excessive envy interferes with adequate oral gratification and so acts as a stimulus towards the intensification of genital desires and trends.
