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To date few articles have been published about possible interpretations of the symbolism of bullfights from the psychoanalytic point of view.
William H. Desmond3 emphasized the idea of parricide in the quasireligious ritual that takes place during a bullfight. The bull lives ambiguously both as God and as Man. The matador, in turn, represents the leader of the primitive horde who sacrifices the father to be devoured. This ritual can be traced back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Crete and Greece.
In a later article, W. Hunt10 tried to develop some aspects of this theme, although he was unable to explain why this rite occurred only in Spanish-speaking countries.
Martin Grotjahn8 conceived of the bullfight as a symbolization of a Christian festival, almost a modern Passion Play. The bullfighter represents and acts as the seductor of the aggressor. In the end, the perfection of the tragedy, the unity between the attacker and defender, between father and mother, parent and child is reestablished. Bull and bullfighter become one in a ballet-like dance.
John Ingham,11 in an extremely original article, bases the existence of bullfighting in the Hispanic world on race and family structure. The father is a man who usually abandons the mother, or who remains absent from his home; thus, the development of a bullfight would agree with a negative Oedipus situation. The bull then would be the aggressive, masculine element, with phallic attributes. The bullfighter would represent the feminine element, as his clothes (light colors, stockings, ballet slippers), as well as his poses befit a woman rather than a man.