ABSTRACT
There are two forms of guilt, which I shall term ‘persecutory’ and ‘depressive’. They operate according to quite different logics. Relations between all parents and children have two emotional axes, those of power and love. It is the power axis that lies behind persecutory guilt, and the love axis behind depressive guilt. When the infant, later the child, restrains its aggression out of fear of physical retaliation it will suffer from persecution anxiety. Aggressive impulses are sent back in a sadistic form against the self. The intensity of persecution fears is shown in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, who suddenly finds a benign mother figure, her grandmother, transformed into a wolf threatening to devour her.
Defences are built against persecution anxiety. They include projecting the persecutor onto an outside person or group; splitting the persecutor into good and evil parts, as in fairy tales between the good mother and the wicked witch; and, most commonly and successfully, the sublimation of anxiety into culture-creating activity.
Persecutory guilt is common in literature. There are five basic family stories: Oedipus – that of son against father, winning mother; Cain – son craves father’s love; Jane Eyre – wife castrates husband in order to love him; Cinderella – daughter against mother, wins father; and the Amazons – mother destroys son.
