The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 21, 1952, No. 2: Joel Friedman and Sylvia Gassel. 'Odysseus: The Return of the Primal Father.'

In this paper Friedman and Gassel continue their studies of the heroes of Greek mythology, in which they attempt to reconstruct a scheme of the mythcreating community's unconscious attitudes as reflected in the Hero's story. It requires to be read in conjunction with their previous studies of Oedipus and Orestes. It is the authors' contention that a definite evolution of the collective unconscious can be deduced from the myths of the three Heroes, Oedipus, Orestes, and Odysseus. Whereas the stories of Oedipus and Orestes both centre round the son's reaction to the primal father (positive and negative Oedipus complex, parricide and matricide respectively), the myth of Odysseus represents a shift from the conflicts of the son to the psychology of the father and can be interpreted as representing the return of the primal father. In the Odyssey Totem and Taboo are neither affirmed nor denied; they are taken for granted. Odysseus is not motivated by guilt, his wife is faithful, his son is obedient to him and shows no sign of incestuous attachment to his mother. The underlying motive of the Odyssey is that Odysseus by his trials and wanderings has to prove his worthiness to become king and to re-establish the rule of the primal father. As Zeus says at the end of the Odyssey:

… Since the admirable Odysseus had his revenge on the Suitors, let them make a treaty of peace to establish him as king in perpetuity, with an act of oblivion, on our part, for the slaughter of their sons and brother. Let the mutual will of the old days be restored, and let peace and plenty prevail.