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Over forty years ago, in a paper entitled The Spider as a Dream Symbol (1), Abraham stated that “the significance of the spider in folk psychology has not been sufficiently considered from the psychoanalytic point of view.” Abraham's article seems to be the beginning of psychoanalytic recording of spider symbolism.
According to folklore, the spider serves both as a good and a bad omen and may be regarded as the object of generally widespread ambivalence: there is no doubt that it produces a feeling of uncanniness in many people.*
Despite an abundance of spider legends and stories, few contributions on the subject are to be found in psychoanalytic literature. This paper does not attempt to undertake a comprehensive and systematic organization of all available material, or to offer a detailed analysis of each element in spider folklore. This analysis focuses on the oral aggressive aspects of these problems.
In another paper (14), I have reported the analysis of a patient, whose many spider phobias supported the concept that the spider may be symbolic of an oral castrative mother. This concept is supported by the biological observable fact that, when spiders have captured their prey, they slowly proceed to suck the life juice leaving only a shell of what was once a living organism. These oral aspects of the spider's life history are enlarged in this presentation.
Another frequent theme prevalent in spider folklore is the constant conflict between male and female as exemplified in the biology of the black widow spider, which kills her mate and eats him after copulation.
In this article, I will discuss selected spider folk tales, phantasies, and legends from various cultures, with emphasis on the oral aggressive elements and the conflicts between man and woman.