From Gradiva to the Death Instinct

Sigmund Freud's “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (6) introduced the death instinct. It led to controversy and confusion among analysts. His theory remained a side-issue in the last 45 years and did not affect basic concepts since the majority of analysts do not accept it and hardly discuss it. There are some who do and who have revised their theoretical thinking accordingly. (30) There are others who feel that the theory helped to clarify the concept of aggression by recognizing the existence of an independent destructive drive. The clearest formulations were developed by H. Hartmann, E. Kris and R. Loewenstein. (27)

Fenichel's “Critique of the Death Instinct” (3) summarizes well the objections. According to Fenichel it is neither necessary nor useful to accept the theory of the death instinct despite the existence of ambivalence toward love objects. He does not believe that we are dealing with two different instinctual qualities, but with a contrast between two forces which originally had a common root.

It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the validity of the death instinct theory. Rather, an attempt will be made to explain the development of the death instinct in Freud's life and theoretical thinking. In recent years publication of material from three different sources makes such a study feasible: Freud's letters to W. Fliess; (16) S. Bernfeld's extensive research; and the biography of Freud by Ernest Jones. (29)

Freud's book Delusion and Dream in Jensen's “Gradiva” (7) appeared in 1907. Jones comments that Freud greatly enjoyed writing this book: “The Gradiva book is one of three of Freud's writings to which the word ‘charming’ can most fittingly be applied, the other two being, in my opinion at least, the book on Leonardo (12) and the essay on the ‘Three Caskets.’ (19) It is written with such delicacy and beauty of language as to rank high and compel admiration for its literary qualities alone.” (29) Freud gave the impression that W. Jensen's novel was bea