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The pessimist of the oral type is a person who is in continual fear of
being duped. He avoids being duped by anticipating disappointment. He is fixated to disappointment and continually on the chase after it. A part of the satisfaction of this attitude is to be found in the wish to put the (phallic) mother in the wrong. This thesis is illustrated from the life of C. D. Grabbe. It shows the results of his oral fixation in his fate, character and writings. The pessimist of the oral type is more fully alive to the dark sides of life than the normal person; the latter meets the disappointments of life by the creation of certain fictions, which he is able to maintain by his capacity for cathecting new objects with libido, when the objects which he has had hitherto fail him.