Conflict Resolution in Hesse's Fiction

Freud's formulation of the Oedipus complex in “The Ego and the Id5 contains three related but distinct propositions: (1) cathexis of the mother (2) rivalry with the father, and (3) identification with the father as the typical form of conflict resolution. One of the important outcomes of such identification is the formation of the superego via sublimation, as described by Freud in “The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex,” and in “Female Sexuality.”7 In the former essay Freud distinguished between neurotic repression of the complex—with the potentiality for later reactivation—and the “normal” extinction of the complex, based on the renunciation of the incestuous love-object in the face of the castration threat.

The present paper addresses itself particularly to the role of repressed oedipal strivings as expressed in fictional conflict resolution. The extinction of the oedipal conflict, in this connection, entails the reordering of actual or symbolic allegiances and identifications, and the recasting of attitudes toward real or symbolic adversaries. That this process does not cease once and for all during childhood, or even adulthood, is clear from Freud's “A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men,”3 in which he speaks of “the need for an injured third party.” Broadly speaking, the processes that different kinds of boys and men use to deal symbolically with their oedipal rivals can be illustrated by reference to the writings of Hermann Hesse. In particular, Hesse's earliest short stories and novels, reflecting the author's own oedipal struggles, illustrate universal coping mechanisms found in Western cultures.

Insofar as Hesse's fiction, by his own admission, is almost invariably autobiographical, the history of his emotional growth is mirrored in the conflicts of his male protagonists. Nowhere is this parallelism more clearly evident than in Hesse's Stories of Five Decades.8 This collection consists of twenty-three sketches and short stories written