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In this presentation I shall describe the features of a recurring image in literature, myth, and folk tales. I shall propose that these features are representations of a particular fantasy characterized by the presence of an image of a maimed avenger. I shall follow with a clinical description indicating the presence of such a fantasy in the mental life of a patient, and conclude with some hypothetical assumptions regarding the fantasy.
To introduce the topic, I shall refer first to the familiar image of the one-eyed or amputee pirate. Pirates were a source of fascination and fear from time immemorial. The sea plunderers traveled the Mediterranean as early as 1200 B.C., and their presence persisted for more than thirty centuries. Their merciless greed and unusual cruelty became the stuff of legends.
During the nineteenth century, the images of the pirates became a subject of romance. Elements of myth were added generously to the real adventures of prior centuries. The skull and crossbones flag was invented, the notion of walking the plank was introduced, and stories of marooning people on desert islands abounded. Most of these activities never took place in historical reality.
It was during this period that an interesting feature was introduced to the image of the pirates. Even though most of the well-known pirates of past centuries were able-bodied men, their image in literary descriptions and pictures appeared as maimed, amputated, scarred, or blinded, at least in one eye.
I would like to focus on two of the great villainous pirates of familiar literature, Captain Hook of Peter Pan (Barrie, 1904) and Long John Silver of Treasure Island (Stevenson, 1883).