Victor Hugo's Identifications

A wit once claimed that psychoanalysis has done no more than modify the familiar rule of thumb, “Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are,” into “Tell me with whom you unconsciously identify and I'll tell you what you have become.” In groping for his point, the jokester overlooked only three factors: Eating (that is, incorporating) has deeper connections with identifications than he assumed; identifications per se explain nothing unless the inner conflict preceding the identification is clarified; identfications are of different types: “leading” and “misleading.” (1)

The futility of mechanically hunting down a specific person's identifications in the vain hope of thus “explaining” that individual is demonstrated once again in Andre Maurois' recent biography of Victor Hugo, OLYMPIO (Harper, 1956).

The book's jacket informs the reader that he holds in his hand “a magnificent, full-blooded” biography. Actually, the book consists of a collection of facts unilluminated by any trace of understanding. But from these facts the analytically informed reader can cull certain recognizable identifications and repetitions in the life of the greatest of French poets, even though these repetitions are “slippery,” to say the least.

Here are some of these “obvious” repetitions:

The marriage of Hugo's parents was a peculiar one. After his parents had spent only a few years together, his mother refused to fulfill her marital duties. From this time on, his mother and father lived apart, although there was never a