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Examination of the very comprehensive Psychological Abstracts back to 1927 uncovers only one article on bullfighting. It is surprising that so dramatic and anachronistic an institution has not received more attention from psychological writers, and particularly from psychoanalysts. The one article, however, is of considerable interest and in fact the present paper may be considered an extension of the line of reasoning developed therein. The article is by William H. Desmonde and appeared in this journal in 1952. Dr. Desmonde's central thesis is that the bullfight represents the ritual murder of the father by the son. He developes this idea from a wealth of historical and anthropological data and traces the continuity of bull-killing rituals from primitive occurrences, through the once widespread religion of Mithraism, to the modern bullfight.
My own reflections were occasioned by seeing several contemporary bullfights and were formulated before I had any knowledge of the historical background of the spectacle. Looking at the bullfight as one might look at any work of art, noting its symbolism and the emotions it arouses, I came to the same conclusion as that reached by Desmonde via an historical approach, namely, that in its central unconscious significance the bullfight is an Oedipal drama which portrays the victory of the son over the father. In this paper we will examine the structure of the modern bullfight in more detail, considering the unconscious meaning of the proceedings, and with special reference to the question of how guilt for the parricidal impulses is avoided.
People have difficulty knowing what to call the bullfight. It has been variously considered as a sport, a festival (fiesta), an art, a drama (always a tragedy), and a ritual. There are