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(1944). Psychoanalytic Review, 31:211

Wertham, Frederic. Dark Legend. [New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1941. Pp. 270. $2.75.]

A. N. F.

This is a study of the murder of his mother by a seventeen-year-old youth. Dr. Wertham pronounced him insane. Subsequently his story was obtained. The murder was one of great violence and involved numerous stab wounds while the victim was asleep. She awakened as the murder was being committed. He felt his mother had dishonored the family by her affairs with other men subsequent to the father's death. The crime had been conceived five years before. The first reaction after the crime was one of satisfaction with the deed. Sorrow only appeared much later. The psychological material is studied at great length. Numerous comparisons are made to the stories of Orestes and Hamlet. It is said that hostility against the mother based on excessive attachment to her can be designated as the Orestes complex. The differential diagnosis in the case is given and the conclusion the author arrives at is that the youth had a catathymic crisis. Wertham says, “I could say with assurance that Gino after his ‘realization’ had recovered fully, that he would never again constitute a menace to society or himself.” The volume contains an appendix of notes and a bibliography. It represents a valuable contribution to the study of matricide.

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