ABSTRACT
Adultery and infidelity are complex matters. In analysis, people sometimes see patients filled with anxiety because they cannot decide between two loves; however, in actual fact, it is much more common to see patients who have been betrayed and are unable to make rhyme or reason of it. In Theodore Fontane's novel Effi Briest, the author condemns Effi first to being disowned and then to an early death. A stifling sense of duty forcefully imbues the novel in many places, as the moral element infringed by infidelity. Shakespeare's sonnet describes delicately but precisely through the metaphor of the sun how the state of mind of people who have been betrayed, and who then succeed in working through the infidelity in a mature manner, alters. Imitation seems to be an essential element of the structure of identification, as is introjection, but it expresses a basic disposition towards the object, which should be distinguished from that of introjection.
