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In both of these recently translated books by Kristeva, the question of revolt is cast as a question of civilization. Inspired by Freud, Kristeva views the work of civilization as tied to an overcoming of the archaic, in particular, the archaic mother. Indeed, as her arguments develop in these works, it becomes clear that she understands revolt in decidedly paternal terms. Kristeva tells us that in order for revolt to be effective in securing freedom, there must be a confrontation with an obstacle, a prohibition, a struggle with authority and the law (SNR 7). Referencing Freud in Totem and Taboo, revolt's success comes through a displacement of the father's authority on to the sons, and the formation of a symbolic pact which protects the sons from the impurity of the maternal space (SNR 21-24).
There are, however, two fathers for Kristeva, one imaginary and the other oedipal, and both are necessary for revolt, both necessary in securing a space of separation from the mother. The imaginary father is the father of identification and idealization, one who, through the effect of the mirror, presents the subject with an image of the ego that allows a space from the maternal container. Kristeva is at pains to emphasize the importance of this formation of the narcissistic ego for aesthetic representation, and surprisingly, for the emergence of the death drive. By loving itself, an image of itself, the subject engages in a kind of deeroticization, a disengagement from the drive of eros, thus exposing itself to the death drive. Kristeva comments that “we invest not in an erotic object (a partner) but a pseudo-object, a production of the ego itself, that is quite simply its own aptitude to imagine, to signify, to speak, to think” (SNR 55). In its narcissistic withdrawal, the ego makes use of the negative, assumes the risk of the death drive, and forms a new object, which is not mommy or daddy, not an external object, but an internal object that is then capable of producing spe