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, «. Kc:-. c/. (1985) 12, 161

TURNING A BLIND EYE: THE COVER UP FOR OEDIPUS

JOHN STEINER, LONDON

My dear, I am sorry to say this, but no-one hasunderstood before now that 'Oedipus' is not about therevelation of truth but about the cover up of truth.Everybody knows who Oedipus is from the start andeverybody is covering up. Just like Watergate. Just likeall through history—the lie is what societies are basedupon. And it has nothing to do with the OedipusComplex because Oedipus never had a complex(Pilikian, 1974).

In recent years it has become evident that ourcontact with reality is not an all or none affair andpsychoanalysts have become particularly in-terested in situations where reali'.y is not simplycv,.:ded but is in addition distorted and mis-•-..presented (Money-Kyrle, 1968; Bion, 1970;josepl', 1983). In this paper I want to considerone such situation, namely that in which we seemio have access to reality but chose to ignore itbecause it proves convenient to do so. I refer to•his mechanism as turning a blind eye1 because Inmk this conveys the right degree of ambiguityas to how conscious or unconscious the know-ledge is. At one extreme we are dealing withlimpie fraud where all the facts are not onlyuocessible but have led to a conclusion which isthen knowingly evaded. More often, however, weare vaguely aware that we chose not to look att'v fa'cts without being conscious of what it is we;<re evading. These evasions may lead to a senseof dishonesty and to various manoeuvres whichdeny or conceal what has happened by creating acover up.

We; are familiar with the idea of gradations inour sense of awareness because we recognize that'jlife rent mechanisms of defence affect our con-tact with reality in different ways. In repressionfor example, a synbolic connexion with reality is

retained even if the actual material which led tothe conflict is unconscious. With projectiveidentification, contact may be completely lost ormay be vicariously retained through the realitysenss of another person. In some instancesknowledge of reality may be fragmented throughpathological splitting and in others the verystructures required to perceive reality are at-tacked and impaired (Bion, 1957). Turning ablind eye seems to be more complex and trickyand probably involves the operation of severalmechanisms which I will only be able briefly totouch on later in this paper. I will mostly beconcerned to show how it operates in the dramaof Oedipus and how we can learn to recognize itin our clinical work.

Acknowledgement of the reality behind theOedipus complex involves the recognition, fust ofthe parents as a sexual couple, and then of theconsequent jealous feelings which in phantasylead to murderous and incestuous impulses. Thetraditional view is that we are unconscious ofthese impulses just as Oedipus was unconsciousof his actions. If, however, insight is available butturned away from and misrepresented we have avery different situation. It is then not only theoedipal configuration of impulses and anxieties,but also the cover up through which these are

1 This phi j sc seems to date from tlw occasion during theBaltic ^ar.ipaign o!' 1801, when Lord Ne.son refused to obeySir Hyde Parker's signal of recall in the middle of battle. He,;ui his telescope to his blind eye ami declared that he could

not sec the order to retire (Hannay, 1911, p. 357). Thephrase, turning a deaf ear, seems to be considerably older(O.E.D., 1927).

162 J O H N STEINER

evaded, which has to be examined and under-stood.

The quotation at the beginning of this paperwas taken from a newspaper interview with arather unusual theatre director. It made an impacton me because it seemed to represent a new viewof the play which exactly paralleled a view of theOedipus complex in which turning a blind eyeplays a significant role. I later discovered thestudy of Oedipus Tyrannus by Philip Vellacott(1971), which presents a similar but more subtleand scholarly view and which forms the basis ofthe present paper. Before discussing the play indetail I will briefly describe some clinical material.I hope to be able to show that a study of themechanisms at work in the play helps us torecognize similar mental mechanisms as theyappear in the consulting room and deepens ourunderstanding of the Oedipus complex.

CLINICAL MATERIAL

My patient was a 40-year-old doctor whopresented himself as an innocent victimdominated by forces which he could neitherunderstand nor control and which led to repeatedexperiences of failure and humiliation (Steiner,1982). As the analysis progressed it became clearthat he understood a great deal about his situationand knew what he was getting himself into. Thisinsight, however, made no difference to hispropensity to repeat actions which led to familiarpainful outcomes and I was forced to concludethat he was ignoring the insight he had.

He was talented and intelligent but led anisolated and impoverished life. Much of the timehe presented himself as successful, always aboutto have a break -through in his work or with a girl-friend, and he treated me with superiority andcondescension. It was clear, however, that heknew that this view of himself was false. He couldsometimes admit his sense of loneliness and coulddescribe how he was excluded by his owndesperate shyness from the things he valued inlife. This latter view seemed to correspond to apsychic reality which he mostly found intolerableand which he consequently decided not to look at.

Some way into the analysis an exciting butplatonic relationship ended when his girl friendtold him that she was having a serious affair withanother man. He continued to be interested in her

and would imagine what she was doing andwonder if she still thought of him. He thenreported a dream in which he broke into her flat,knowing where the key was kept, and got into herbed while she was out. When she returned withher boy-friend, he called out to warn her of hispresence and the boy-friend came into thebedroom. The dream faded out with the feelingthat he knew that he would soon be asked toleave.

In the dream both views of himself wererepresented. On the one hand he was aware of theexistence of a couple from which he was excludedand where his presence was not wanted, like asmall boy conscious of his parents' relationshipwith each other. On the other hand, when Iinterpreted this, he became evasive and defensive,not so much denying the existence of suchfeelings as denying their significance, so that theybecame something he could ignore. He had manysuch dreams and also many phantasies with asimilar structure, and from these I knew that hewould tell himself that when his girl-friend foundhim in her bed she would realize now desirable hewas and what a mistake she had made, so thaishe would send her lover away and welcome himback. He knew this was false, but he used theremote possibility that it could happen as acomforting argument to cover up his awarenessof the reality of his loneliness and this seemed tohelp him cope with his feeling of exclusion.

Such phantasies were associated with excite-ment both in the moments of triumph which heargued might after all materialize despite theodds, and in the experience of humiliation whenas inevitably happened, the triumph collapsed. In.the transference this would be experienced as anexcitement when he felt he had drawn me into acollusion with his view of himself as successfuland desirable but also if 1 helped him to acceptthe reality of the actual world. He would thenclaim that I was trying to humiliate him byexpelling him from the dream world where hecould at least enjoy comforting phantasies.

These phantasies made it difficult for him tolearn from experience. For him the real worldwas a quite awful place which he was ready toignore under the sway of powerful and per-suasive arguments. One could not, however, saythat he was completely ignorant of the reality hewas evading, and I do not think mechanisms such

T U R N I N G A BLIND EYE 163

as splitting or repression were at work. I think heturned a blind eye and then tried to maintain acover up as he became superior and morallyrighteous. It was therefore of great interest to meto discover that Sophocles seemed to recognizesomething similar at work in his hero Oedipus.

THE STORY OF THE PLAY

You will remember that the tragedy of Oedipusbegins when Laius, King of Thebes, is told by theOracle of Apollo that his fate is to die at the handof his son. In order to avoid this prophecy, Laiusand his wife Jocasta pierce the feet of thenew-born baby and give him to a shepherd to beleft to die in the neighbouring mountains ofCithaeron. The shepherd takes pity on the child,and saves his life so that Oedipus finds himselfbrought up in the royal court of Corinth as theson of the childless King Polybus and his QueenMerope. As a young man, he attends a banquetwhere someone drinks too much and suggests heis not the true son of his parents. Oedipus, notsatisfied by their reassurance, goes to seek thetruth from the Oracle at Delphi.

The Oracle is evasive over the question of hisorigins, but, instead, repeats the prophecy madeearlier to Laius, and warns Oedipus that he isfated to kill his father and marry his mother. Inorder to avoid this fate and to preserve Polybusand Merope, he decides never to return toCorinth, and, setting off in the opposite direction,he comes to a place where three roads meet, andthere confronts a carriage preceded by a heraldwho pushes him out of the way. In anger he hitsback, and when the occupant of the carriagestrikes him, he retaliates by killing the man a.idhis four servants; one man only escapes to taxethe news back to Thebes. Oedipus continues onhis way and arriving at Thebes he finds the citytyrranized by the Sphynx who strangles all thosewho fail to guess her riddle.

The riddle goes as follows: 'There is on earth athing two footed and four footed and three footedwhich has one voice ... but when it goes on mostfeet then its speed is feeblest'. Oedipus accepts thechallenge and solves the riddle, perhaps helped bythe fact that the word for two footed is di-pouswhile his own name Oedipus means swollen feet,and refers to the injury inflicted by his parents.The answer he gave was that a man crawls on

four feel as an infant, walks on two as an adult,and hobbles with the help of a stick in old age.The defeated Sphynx commits suicide and thegrateful city offers Oedipus the recently-vacatedcrown of Thebes and the recently-widowedJocasta as Queen.

Oedipus rules Thebes for some seventeen yearsuntil the city is once more afflicted with disaster inthe form of a plague, and once more the oracle isconsulted. This is the point at which Sophocles'Oedipus begins. It opens with the people pleadingwith Oedipus to help them in their suffering fromthe plague. Jocasta's brother, Creon, interruptsthem with the long-awaited message from theOracle which states that the city is polluted by thecontinuing presence of the murderer of Laius.Oedipus swears to find and banish the wrong-doer, and the ancient soothsayer Teiresias is sentfor to identify the guilty man. This he at firstrefuses to do, but when Oedipus becomeschildishly abusive, Teiresias gets angry and tellshim in plain terms first that he, Oedipus, is thekiller of Laius and next, by clear implication, thathe is not the son of Polybus and Merope as heclaims, but of Jocasta and Laius. It is he,therefore, who is 'the unholy polluter of the land... living in shameful intercourse with his nearestof kin'.

To these accusations Oedipus replies with moreabuse and begins to accuse Crcon of plotting tooverthrow him. Jocasta enters and Oedipus heedsher appeal and becomes more reasonable. Whenshe discovers that he is accused by Teiresias ofkilling Laius, she reassures him that prophets arenot to be trusted, as was clear in the prophecygiven to Laius, which she explains was evidentlyfalse because first, Laius' son was exposed andleft to die, and second, Laius was killed bybandits at a place where three roads meL Oedipusis disturbed and begins to question Jocasta aboutthe details of the King's death. How was heattended? What did he look like? Who broughtthe news back to Thebes? Then, explaining hisforebodings, he gives an account of his origins inCorinth, his doubts about his parentage, hismessage from the Oracle, and finally a des-cription of the slaying of the man at the placewhere three roads meet. If the man he killed wasLaius, he is doomed. The witness, at the time,however, stated that Laius was killed by a band ofrobbers, and although the evidence pointing to

164 JOHN STEINER

Oedipus seems inescapable, there is just a chancethat the witness will stick to his story of robbersand everyone agrees to suspend judgment untilthey have interrogated him. The issue of Oedipus'parents is also left unspoken, despite Jocasta'saccount of the prophecy given to Laius, Oedipus'account of that given to him, and the unspokenevidence known to Oedipus and surely to Jocastaof the scars on his feet.

These are only brought into the open with thearrival of the shepherd from Corinth whoannounces the death of Polybus. Oedipus andJocasta rejoice at this news as if it should be asource of reassurance, proving again the false-ness of prophecies. Oedipus then raises theabsurdly remote danger that he may still in-advertently marry the aged queen of Corinth andJocasta repeatedly tries to reassure him. TheCorinthian shepherd, apparently amazed thatthey know so little of the truth, explains hisparentage to Oedipus, having himself been theman who handed over the baby to Polybus.Finally, the Theban shepherd who witnessed thekilling of Laius appears and proves to be the sameservant who saved Oedipus as a baby.

Jocasta now realizes the whole truth and,becoming increasingly distraught, pleads withOedipus not to pursue the matter further.Oedipus, however, continues with the denial andeven introduces a new argument. If he is not theson of Polybus, he is possibly not royal at all,probably the son of a slave girl, and that is whyJocasta is making such a fuss. Jocasta rushes outand under the threat of torture the shepherd tellsthe whole story. The mood changes and Oedipusin a truly heroic acknowledgement proclaims, 'Alltrue, all plain, fulfilled to the last word. Oh light ofday, now let me look at you for the last time. I amexposed, a blasphemy is being born. Guilty in herI married, cursed in him I killed'. This is theclimax of the play, and is followed by adescription from a messenger of events whichtook place out of sight within the palace. Oedipusfinds Jocasta has hanged herself and taking herbrooches, he blinds himself with them. The playends with Creon in control and Oedipus expectingto be banished.

VELLACOTT'S INTERPRETATION

Phillip Vellacott suggests that in this play,which must rank among the half-dozen master-

pieces of world literature, the playwright offers hisaudience two simultaneous interpretations. Thefirst or traditional interpretation is that Oedipus isan innocent man caught in the trap of relentlessfare. Oedipus himself offers this view whenhe says, Then would it not be a just esti-mate of my case to say that al this was thework of some cruel unseen power?' You willrecall that this is the view asserted by my patient.It is also the view espoused by Freud when hediscovered the Oedipus Complex, and described itin terms of moral conflict. Unconscious in-stinctual forces, like the fate prescribed by thegods, drive us in ways which seem incom-prehensible. In this view, the play is about thegradual uncovering of the truth as Oedipusruthlessly searches to expose it, and Freudhimself has likened this to the course of ananalysis where the unconscious is graduallyrevealed to the patient (Freud, 1917).

Although this classical interpretation of theplay is undoubtedly the one most easily accessibleto the audience, Sophocles at the same time,intends another interpretation to be availablewhich is perhaps only obvious to the carefulreader, although influencing all of us, andaccounting for the dramatic power of the play. Inthis interpretation, we see Oedipus as having beenaware of his true relation to Laius and Jocastaever since the time of his marriage. There isevidence in the text to suggest that certainlyTeiresias, but also Creon, and even Jocasta,knew, or at least suspected that it was Oedipuswho killed Laius, and perhaps also that he wasJocasta's son and about to marry his mother. 1believe one can argue further that each of theparticipants in the drama, for their own reasons,turns a blind eye to this knowledge, and that acover up was staged which held for seventeenyears until the plague erupted to reveal thecorruption on which the society of Thebes wasbased.

On the traditional reading, the play, in fact,hardly qualifies as a tragedy, since it is little morethan an account of a sensational disaster fallingupon an innocent man. If, however. Oedipus wasaware, then the tragic qualities of this master-piece become understandable. I believe one cansuggest that the fascination of the play derivesfrom the exposure of the cover up for Oedipusrather than from the exposure of the crime ofOedipus.

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Sophocles may have expected us to recognizethat Oedipus acted with knowledge, but this viewwould not have been accepted by the majority ofthose who saw his play and indeed seems not tohave been accepted by most of the scholars whoread Vellacott's book. To me, however, it is mostconvincing, but as a theme which is to coexistwith the traditional view, not to replace it. We aremeant to accept the idea that both can besimultaneously true, that he knew and at the samelime did not know. It is this which I mean toconvey when I suggest that he turned a blind eyeto the facts.

In the same way a modern view of the Oedipuscomplex would not replace the classical Freudianview but complement it. Put very crudely, thecomplex can be thought to result from the moralconflicts which arise when murderous and in-cestuous impulses are evoked in a child's re-lationship with his parents and siblings. I amemphasizing here that these conflicts are uni-versal and do not in themselves account for thepathological forms of resolution of the Oedipuscomplex. We have, in addition, to look at thosesituations which arise when the psychic reality ofthese impulses is denied and a cover up of aperverse kind is staged.

I will explore this theme further by usingVellacott's observations of the play to examinethe role which the principal characters may haveplayed in such a cover up. I shall then try to linkthem back to the mental mechanisms at work inthe individual patient when he is struggling withthe conflicts surrounding the Oedipus complex. Iwill emphasize the way chance is used to justifyturniug a blind eye to the evidence, and howcollusion between individuals enhances the powerof the resulting evasions and misrepresentations.

The observer who stops to consider the eventsof the play is likely to ask himself first of all,'Why, if these things can be brought to light now,were they not discovered seventeen years ago?'Oedipus himself asks why there was no enquiryand is told that the preoccupation with theSphynx led the elders to turn their eyes awayfrom such mysteries as the murder of their king.'What about Teiresias? Why wasn't he sum-moned and asked to identify the murderer then?Why did he stay silent for seventeen years if heknew all the time?' Creon simply answers, 'I don'tknow. In matters I do not understand I prefer tosay nothing'. There was a witness, but he says

they were attacked by a band of robbers, and assoon as he saw Oedipus offered the crown and thehand of Jocasta, he asked the queen to send himto the country as far from Thebes as possible. It isclear that we are meant to realize that herecognizes Oedipus and fears that the truth maybe got from him.

THE ATTITUDE OF OEDIPUS

Vellacott points out that from the play, it iseasy to reconstruct the state of mind of Oedipusas he arrived at Thebes. As he walked the streetshe must have heard everyone talking about thedeath of Laius. He had just killed a man togetherwith his servants, and it is hard to imagine that hedid not ask where King Laius had been killed,how he was attended, whether there was a herald,whether the king rode in a carriage, what age hewas, and what he looked like. If he receivedanswers to these questions, could there have beenany doubt in his mind? When he hears thesedetails seventeen years later he can only say,'Alas, now everything is clear'.

The text indicates even more self-knowledgeto have been almost inevitable. The memoryof the words of Apollo's priestess: 'You shallmarry your own mother and breed children fromher, and your own father who gave you life, youshall kill', might be expected to be still very alive.This is the fate he was trying to avoid, so that weare surprised if he killed a man that his thoughtsdid not connect the murder with the prophecy,and if he did not ask, 'Could this man be myfather?' Of course he argues that he believedPolybus to be his father, but he very recently hadreason to question this, and had had his doubtsreinforced by the Oracle. After his triumph overthe Sphynx, Oedipus married the widow of aman, similar to the one he killed, who was oldenough to be his father, and he did this within avery short time of being told by the mostimpressive of all authorities that he was destinedto kill his father and marry his mother. And theman who acted in this way was no fool, but giftedwith adequate reasoning power.

The tragedy of the play is made poignant, notonly by the fact that he was led first by rage, andsecond by ambition, to these two crimes, but thathe was persuaded to turn a blind eye to what hewas doing. How could he have lived with suchknowledge? Sophocles and Vellacott show us the

166 JOHN STEINER

plausible facade which he erected to cover up thetruth, and which he persuaded himself and othersto accept.

This version said that on hearing the prophecyhis one concern was to get as far from Corinth aspossible to avoid his parents; the knowledge thatPolybus was probably not his father wassuppressed. This version said that when hereached Thebes, it did not occur to him toconnect the man he had killed on the road withthe King of Thebes, in spite of the herald; or toconnect the widowed Jocasta with the widowedmother Delphi had assigned him as wife, in spiteof the doubt cast on his parentage in Corinth. Theversion said that he had never thought ofcomparing his age with the time that had passedsince Jocasta had married her first husband, andinsisted that the one thing that he must fear wasgoing back to Corinth, killing Polybus andmarrying Merope.

Vellacott shows how easy it must have been toget away with this story because we too are ableto read and see the play, and accept it un-critically. We collude in the cover-up as did theother characters in the drama. What allows us todo so is the element of chance. All the evidencepoints to Oedipus, but the case is not yet proved;it is just possible that we are mistaken. PerhapsOedipus himself argued in the same way. When ahomeless young man is offered a kingdom and awife, he might well be persuaded not to ask toomany questions.

JOCASTA'S ATTITUDE

Let us briefly consider what Jocasta's state ofmind might have been when Oedipus arrived atThebes. She had, a few days earlier, been told ofthe death of her husband, and all we know of theirrelationship is that, because of the prophecy, heavoided her sexually, and when she did have achild, he cruelly ordered its death. In the play, sherepeatedly expresses her anger and contempt ofprophecy, and is obsessed with a hatred oforacles. She is more emotional and less logicalthan Oedipus, and some of her attempts atreassurance are quite foolish. For example, sheseems to say, 'Even if you are proved to havekilled Laius and hence will be accursed andbanished from Thebes, take comfort in the fact

that the 35 year-old prophecy that he would bekilled by his son is false'. If Oedipus was born inCorinth, this can be of little interest to him, butthe queen is clearly preoccupied with the fatefulprediction, because again when they hear thatPolybus is dead she tells him, 'At least yourfather's death is a comfort'.

It is interesting to look at the way shepropounds the philosophy of chance. She assertsthat: 'Our mortal life is ruled by chance. There isno such thing as foreknowledge'. Her reassur-ances all seem to reveal the dream world sheinhabits, and she is even led to say, 'To live atrandom, as one can, is the best way. As for yourmother's bed, have no fear on that score; many aman has dreamt he found himself in bed with hismother. But the man to whom these things countfor nothing, bears his life most easily'. Thisphilosophy is an essential ingredient of theattitude of turning a blind eye. All the evidencepoints to one conclusion, but it does not proveit—there is just a chance that it is otherwise, so itis wisest to ignore it. 'The man to whom thesethings count for nothing, bears his life mosteasily.'

When Oedipus was offered her hand as part ofhis reward for freeing the city of the Sphynx, hewas a popular figure, similar in appearance butnearly twenty years younger than her husband,and the marriage offered her the chance tocontinue to be Queen of Thebes, and to bearchildren. I think we are intended to suppose thatthese advantages led her to turn a blind eye to thetruth and to collude in the cover up.

CREON'S ATTITUDE

In a similar way, we can examine the dilemmaCreon was placed in when he held responsibilityfor the city after the death of Laius. He claims tohave no love of responsibility and since he isin any way consulted on important issues, has nowish to be king. Thebes needs a leader, and if hecan get a young man on the throne who will beadvised by the more experienced Jocasta and him-self, he can retain his influence. Throughout theplay he is reticent and curt. 'I prefer to say nothing'is hi? reaction, as we have seen. Moreover, heshows no surprise when told of Teiresias' accu-sations. Because of their terrible import, he should

TURNING A BLIND EYE 167

surely be horrified that tragedy was about to strikehis family, but all he says is,'If Teiresias says that,you know best'. Moreover, he knew both Laiusand Oedipus and must have noticed the resem-blance which Jocasta speaks of. The quarrelbetween Oedipus and Creon is made to appearfoolish and trivial, both of them speaking inanger. However, if a cover-up had taken place, itmakes sense if Creon tries to deny his complicity.Oedipus certainly cannot be saved, but Creoncould and, in fact, does come out of it unscathed.Oedipus is angry at this, but Creon seems to besaying, 'It was your affair. You married my sisterand took the crown when it was offered. I wascontent to have the power without kingly trapp-ings. All I did was to keep quiet, and this is what Iwill continue to do'.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE ELDERS

Finally, we need to consider the role of thechorus of elders who are on stage throughout theunfolding of the drama. Although usually spokenas dialogue between the characters, many of thearguments seem to be directed to the chorus, andin the traditional reading of the play they appearto act as a kind of jury of respected citizens. Theyare, however, very clearly concerned with theirown interests, and with great subtlety, Sophoclesshows us how difficult it is for the ordinarycitizens to speak out as they begin to suspect thatall is not well with Oedipus.

At first, they elaborate on their distress at thesuffering caused by the plague, and display anunquestioning religious fervour, which contrastswith the angry disrespect shown by Oedipus toTeiresias, and the scepticism of oracles voiced byJocasta, They are loyal, but do not want the pastinvestigated too closely. When Oedipus pro-claims that he will find the guilty man, they assert,'I did not kill Laius, nor can I point a finger to hiskiller. As for an inquiry, it is Phoebus (i.e. theOracle) who can tell us'. They thus prefer divineknowledge to that arrived at by investigatingreality.

Although they are present throughout theinteraction between Teiresias and Oedipus, theyat first avoid all reference to the accusationsmade. Indeed, they speak of an unknown robberwith bloodstained hands who has committed the

most unspeakable of unspeakable crimes, andrefer to him as trying to keep at bay the prophecyspoken at the earth's centre. It is evident that theyhave something terrible in mind but they prefernot to be specific, and speak as if the wrongdoeris at large roaming the countryside.

Eventually, they admit, 'Certainly what thelearned augurcr told us is disturbing, deeplydisturbing', but they prefer to suspend judgment.'We cannot accept it, we cannot refute it; we donot know what to say.' Their real reliance isneither on Teiresias nor on rational possibility,but on public opinion, the nationwide reputationof Oedipus. They decide to ignore everything—the challenge is too much for mortals and must beleft to the Gods. They thus assert their piety butthey also give space for a cautious concern withtheir own interests. Although piety would leadthem to side with Teiresias, he, like the Sphynx,represents the unseen world, and Oedipus, theyremind themselves, was clever enough to over-come that challenge and may even win again.They thus affirm their loyalty and say, 'Oedipuswon his throne by his services to Thebes. I willnever think evil of him without proof. We mightadd, not when there is a chance that he mightsurvive the crisis.

Their next major intervention occurs after theyhave heard Jocasta and Oedipus give all thedetails which they have intelligence enough tointerpret. They are aware that something terribleis happening and are in mortal fear. They havebeen the close associates of Oedipus in govern-ment, and they know that when the gods destroya sinner those nearest to him are engulfed in thecataclysm. They, therefore, begin with a hymn inpraise of the Olympian laws and a prayer forinnocence and purity for themselves. They pleadwith Zeus to punish the wrongdoer, and thus touphold religion and reverse the decline of respectfor the oracles and for the gods. Finally, when thetragedy is revealed in its full horror, they can onlywish that they had never known Oedipus andseem overwhelmed by the catastrophe.

THE DEPRESSIVE POSITION AND THE OEDIPUS

COMPLEX

What then is the psychic reality of the Oedipuscomplex"} Freud showed us that oedipal impulses

168 J O H N STEINER

arc part of everyone's reality so that in phantasywe have ail killed our fathers and slept with ourmothers. If we do not evade the reality of theseimpulses, we will confront their consequences,and experience the 4fcar and the guilt whichnecessarily follow from them. If persecutoryanxieties predominate, facing reality involvesfacing the threat of retaliation sometimes ex-pressed as a castration threat. If depressiveanxieties are active, facing reality involves facingthe catastrophic loss of the parental couple onwhich the patient depends. If this reality can befaced it can lead to an experience of loss whichenables mourning to take place, and which ushersin the experiences which Melanie Klein describedunder the heading of the depressive position(Klein, 1935, 1940). These involve internaliza-tion, symbol formation and the drive to makereparation which enables the parental couple tobe more realistically installed as symbolic figuresin the internal world. In this way, growth andlearning from experience is made possible.

If the oedipal crime is not acknowledged tohave taken place, but is misrepresented, distortedor covered up, then there is nothing to mourn,and the reparative processes associated with thedepressive position cannot operate. There is alsonothing to fear because no crime is acknowledgedexcept, of course, the fear that the cover-up willbe exposed. The result is that the external coupleis not attacked as it would be if psychic realitywas acknowledged but instead the attack ismounted against an internal representation of agood intercourse, namely one in which truth isrespected. The external status quo is apparentlypreserved but there is an inner corruption which isrepresented by the plague in the play andspecifically confirmed by the oracle. The person-ality is then felt to be based on an insecurefoundation and the need to cover up leads tofurther evasions and distortions. It is this kind ofevasion of reality which Vellacott's interpretationof the play allows us to examine.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHANCE IN THE

MECHANISM OF TURNING A BLIND EYE

Further work is needed to understand whatmechanisms are involved in turning a blind eye. Itis, however, occasionally possible to observe asequence which may account for some instances.

We sometimes notice a patient who seems to be infull contact with reality and makes an observationor reaches a conclusion which demonstrates this.Then it not infrequently happens that we listenwhile he begins to mount an argument whichgradually convinces him that his original obser-vation is false or at least not necessarily true.These arguments often involve considerable in-genuity and are sometimes greatly admired by thepatient who may become increasingly excited bythem as they proceed. They may function likepropaganda and eventually convince the patientthat his original observation need no longer betaken seriously Chance seems to play an impor-tant role in this process as if it forms the vital flawthrough which the truth can be attacked. Every-thing may point to the initial truthful observationbut it has not been proved beyond doubt; there isstill a chance that it may be wrong. The decisionto evade reality therefore involves a gamble andthis may be connected with the addictive holdwhich some of these mechanisms have on thepersonality; it is not uncommon to meet patientswho appear to continue to turn a blind eye whenit no longer seems to lead to any advantage.

This philosophy of chance is most clearlypropounded by Jocasta, but espoused by Laiusand Oedipus as well. Laius ignored the warningand allowed the fateful intercourse withJocasta—there was a chance that it did notmatter. There was a chance that the prophecycould be avoided and this justified killing his sonand turning a blind eye on the consequences tohis wife and to himself. Even the exposure ofOedipus has to do with chance, since to kill one'sown son is certainly a pollution, but to exposehim leaves the possibility, unlikely as it is, that hewill survive. Guilt is thus evaded. For Oedipustoo, there was a chance that Polybus was his truefather, and to preserve this belief he had to turn ablind eye to the evidence of the scars on his feet,to the accusation at the banquet in Corinth, to thelack of reassurance from the Oracle, and laterwhen the accusations actually began to be made,to the words of Teiresias and the gradualaccumulation of the evidence throughout theplay. Knowing that he was destined to kill hisfather, he could still take a chance and concludethat the man he killed may not be his father andthe widow he married may not be his father'swidow.

T U R N I N G A B L I N D EYE 169

At some point, perhaps when the plague madehim aware of the internal corruption, he begins torealize that the cover-up cannot last, and heshows an impressive determination to face reality.His resolve was, however, difficult to sustain, andthroughout the play we see the struggle betweenthe wish to continue the cover-up and the wish tomake a clean breast of it and face the full truth.Finally when he can evade the truth no longer hetakes full responsibility for his actions and in atruly heroic moment he faces his guilt. Sophocles,however, goes on to show us how impossible it isto sustain this degree of self-knowledge. Even theself-blinding seems to be a partial retreat fromtruth. The elders and, no doubt, the audienceexpect suicide and Oedipus justifies himself byexplaining, 'When 1 come to the land of death—ifI could see, I do not know with what eyes Ishould face my father or my unhappy mother,since against them both I am guilty of sins tooblack for strangling to atone'.

This point is even more striking when we meetOedipus in Sophocles' final play, Oedipus atColonus. Here Oedipus goes back on his admis-sion of guilt completely. In what seems to be anabsurdly illogical series of denials he asserts thathe feels no guilt because, first he did not knowthat the man he killed was his father, second thatthe man struck the first blow so that he killed inself defence, and finally that since his father hadtried to kill him as a baby he was perfectly rightto avenge himself. I cannot unfortunately discussthis play further here but it presents a fascinatingstudy of the retreat from t ruth into omnipotence(Vellacott. i'r/8).

COLLUSION

There is, however, a second factor in thecrention of such illusory worlds where we believesomething against the evidence of our sensesbecause it suits us to do so, and that is the factorof collusion. A cover-up requires conspiratorswho agree either covertly or tacitly to col-laborate. If Creon had called for a properenquiry, the witness would have been interrogatedand the truth would have come out. If Jocastahad not ignored the oracle which she so hated anddespised, she might not have turned a blind eye tothe scars on the feet of her young husband, to the

way he resembled Laius or to the fact that his agewas precisely that which her son would be, had helived. If the elders too had been more vigilant andnot so concerned to back the winning party, theymight have demanded an enquiry, or at least sentto Corinth for references about the origins andcharacter of the new king. The cover-up couldonly take place because it suited several parties atthe same time, and thus enabled the participantsto be of mutual service to each other.

It is clear that Vellacott's Oedipus is a reluctanthero who does not face reality until circumstancesmake it difficult to evade it any longer. I believethis is how many of us come to analysis, delayingit until our symptoms can no longer be ignored.Moreover the struggle to evade reality continuesthroughout the analysis and the retreat intoomnipotence is a characteristic feature of negativetherapeutic reactions. Nevertheless the fact thatwe do sometimes face the truth however im-perfectly, is a considerable achievement, and thisis also the case with Oedipus.

DISCUSSION

(a) Social and political implications.The social and political implications of turning

a blind eye are too complex and too important tobe discussed here. I will however, simply mentionthat I believe we turn a blind eye to a number ofdangers which threaten our society and ourfuture. Unemployment at home, and poverty andstarvation in the third world are examples, but itseems to be above all the build up oi nuclearweapons which poses such a throat that neitherwe nor our leaders can properly comprehend it.Yet all the information pointing to the serious-ness of the situation is available and we seem tohave to avoid drawing the unhappy conclusionswhich a realistic appraisal would demand. Wecan only carry on our lives as normal by turninga blind eye.

(b) Clinical implications.1 introduced the fragment of clinical material at

the beginning of this paper to illustrate how apatient who is evidently not psychotic, and fullycapable of observing reality, can neverthelessmisrepresent it to himself and to others andconsequently live in an unreal world of phantasy

170 JOHN STEINER

and illusion. Although we all do this to a worryingextent, the problem becomes tragically disablingin those patients who seem unable or unwilling toemerge from this state. Elsewhere I have charac-terized it as a borderline attitude to reality inwhich truth is neither fully evaded as it may be inpsychosis, nor for the most part accepted as itmay be in neurosis, but is rather twisted andmisrepresented (Steiner, 1979, 1984).

These patients feel they need to use suchmisrepresentations to maintain their equilibriumand they often come to treatment when for onereason or another their defences are unable tosustain the status quo. In treatment they seem toseek only to regain their balance and are,therefore, against understanding which they feelwould only undermine their defences further(Joseph, 1983). It is not simply that they use thisor that defence mechanism which could beworked on and understood to their advantage.They use a whole organization of defences andfear that if any part of it is examined, the wholeedifice will collapse.

In the case of my patient, I think we can seehow the unreal world he lived in and themechanism he used to maintain it are illuminatedby the discussion of Sophocles' play. In hisphantasy world he imagines how he can defeat hisrival and share his girl-friend's bed, and couplesare of such importance to him because he hasprojected on to them internal objects whichrepresent his parents. These deeper oedipalconflicts have not been resolved by allowing theestablishment of an internal parental couple uponwhom he could depend. Instead he has inphantasy repeatedly triumphed over his fatherand felt himself to be his mother's favourite.

But he has never faced the consequences of hisactions and he nev^r, or at least only very rarely,acknowledges the reality which the phantasyworld denies. This reality involves an awarenessof his childish incompetence and his consequentdependence on his parents. It involves facing thefact that it was their intercourse which broughthim into existence and their parental care whichallowed him to survive and develop. It is thisreality to which he turns a blind eye, and he isconsequently sentenced to relive his oedipalstrivings in a perverted -form. Thus he is seducedinto situations where gratification is derived eitherfrom objects which collude with his phantasy and

gratify him in his illusion or if as more oftenhappens, reality thwarts his ambitions, fromobjects who provide him with masochisticpleasure.

The two views of himself which he seemed tohold, appeared to coexist rather in the way Freudsuggested when he wrote; 'We may probably takeit as being generally true that what occurs in allthese cases is a psychical split. Two psychicalattitudes have been formed instead of a singleone—one, the normal one, which takes accountof reality, and another which under the influenceof the instincts detaches the ego from reality. Thetwo exist alongside of each other' (Freud, 1940,p. 202). It is important to note that this kind ofsplit is rather different from the splitting describedby Melanie Klein (O'Shaughnessy, 1975). It wasfirst elaborated by Freud in his discussion offetishism (Freud, 1927) and is I think charac-teristic of the type of situation which I connectwith turning a blind eye. I think it is intimatelyconnected with various forms of dishonesty andperversion.

My patient seemed to get drawn into acover-up of the truth which involved a con-spiracy in which that side of himself which wascapable of facing reality and which wanted to livein the real world was afraid to speak out. Heseemed to deal with it by using his own weaknessand need, to persuade it that a cover up wasnecessary. In the transference, 1 was often draw",into various manoeuvres to prevent the cover-upfrom being exposed and was often in danger offinding reasons of my own for turning a blind eyeto uncomfortable facts. I believe we have first tostruggle to deal with some of our own inclinationsto collude, like many of the figures in Sophocles'play, so that we may then be able to help ourpatients to begin to face their internal, as well astheir external reality.

SUMMARY

Philip Vellacott's study of Sophocles andOedipus is used to suggest that both the play andthe Oedipus complex need to be understood attwo levels simultaneously. In the classical viewOedipus is a victim of fate and bravely pursuesthe truth. Freud likened this to the course of ananalysis where the unconscious is graduallyrevealed to the patient. At the same time

TURNING A BLIND EYE 171

Sophocles seems to intend us to understand thatthe chief characters in the play must have beenaware of the identity of Oedipus and realized thathe had committed parricide and incest. There issome ambiguity about the degree of awareness ofthis knowledge and in the paper I put forward theview that each of the participants, for their ownreasons turned a blind eye to it so that a cover-upwas staged.

In the same way, a modern view of the Oedipuscomplex would not replace the classical view butcomplement it. Oedipal conflicts are universal anddo not in themselves account for pathology. Theview is put forward that a pathological resolutionof the Oedipus complex arises when the psychicreality of these impulses is denied and a cover-upof a perverse kind results.

It is suggested that turning a blind eye is animportant mechanism which leads to a mis-representation and distortion of psychic reality.

TRANSLATIONS OF SUMMARY

L'etude de Phillip Vellacott sur Sophocles et Oedipeest employe pour suggerer que le theatre aussi bien quele Complexe d'Oedipe ont besoign d'une comprehensiona deux niveaux simuitanes. Selon le point de vue classique,Oedipe est une victime du destin et poursuit la veritecourageusement. Freud a associe ceci avec le cours de1'analyse ou 1'inconscient est graduellemcnt decouvertau patient. En meme temps, Sophocles semble avoir1'intention de nous faire comprendre quc les caracteresprincipaux dans le theatre ont du etre conscients de1'identite d'Oedipe et ont pris conscience qu'il a commisde parricide et de 1'inceste. II ya une certainc ambiguitea propos due degre de conscience sur ce savoir etdans ce rapport je mets en evidence le point de VUB quechacun des participants, a cause de raisons personnelles,refusent a voir ce fait de facon qu'une couverture estmise en scene.

De la meme fac.on, un apercu moderne du Cotrplexed'Oedipe ne pourrait pas remplacer le point de vueclassique mais c'est un complement. Les conflits oedipienssont universels et par leur seule presence, ne rendent pasraison dc la pathologic. Ce point de vue est mis enevidence par rapport a une resolution pathologiquedu Complete d'Oedipe laquelle se produit lorsque larealite psychique de ces instincts est refoulee et est unecouvcrture de rcsultats de type perverse.

Oi suggere quc refuser de voir quehtue chose est unmechanisme important qui conduit a une fausse inter-pretation et une deformation de la realite psychique.

Philip Vellacotts Arbeit iiber Sophokles und 6'dipuswird verwendet um darauf hinzuweiscn, dass beide,das Stuck und der Sdipuskomplex, auf zwei ver-schicdenen Ebenen gleichzeitig vcrstanden werden miissen.In der klassischen Sicht ist Odipus ein Opfer desSchicksals der tapfer nach der Walrheit sucht. Freudhat dies mit dem Verlauf einer Analyse verglichen,in der das Unbewusste dem Patienten langsam offenbartwird. Gleichzeittg scheme Sophokles uns zu verstehenzu gefcen, dass die Hauptpersonen des Stiicks, von derIdentitat Gdipus wussten und ihnen ausserdem bewusstwar, dass er Inzest und Vatermord begangen hatte.Wie tief dieses Wissen in ihr Bewusstsein eindringt,wird offen gelassen, und in dieser Arbeit vertrete ichdie Ansicht, dass jeder der Teilnehmer, aus bestimmtemihm eigenen Grunde, ein Auge zudriickte, so dass dieTatsache verdeckt wurde.

Ahnlicherweise wiirde eine moderne Sicht des 6'dipus-komplexes, die klassische Sicht nicht crsetzen, sondernerganzen. Odipale Konflikte sind allgemein vorhandenund konnen nicht in sich als die Ursache von Pathologienbetrachtet werden. Es wird hier angenommen, dass einepathologische Losung immer dann auftritt, wenn diepsychische Realitat dieser Impulse verneint und aafperverse Weise verdeckt wird.

Es wird vorgeschlagen, dass ein Auge zuzudrucken einwichtiger Mechanismus ist, der zur falschen Darstellungund zur Entstellung der psychischen Realitat fu'hrt.

Basandose en al estudio que Phillip Vellacott hizo deSofocles y del Edipo, se llega a la conclusion de quetanto la obra como el complejo de Edipo se han deentender simultnneamente a dos niveles. Segiin el puntode vista clasiwO lidipo es victima del destine y persiguela verdad. Freud asemejo esto al curso del analisis,en donde el inconscients se va revclando gradualmenteal paciente. Pero lambien ss cierto que Sofocles parece dara endender que los personajes principales de la obraconocian la identidad de Edipo y sabian que habiacometido parricidio e incesto. Hasta que punto eranconscientes de que lo sabian no esta del todo claro.Segiin el autor de este articulo, cada uno de ellostenia sus razones para hacer como si no lo supiera yechar tierra al asunto.

El punto de vista mas actual sobre el compleio deEdipo no desplaza al clasico sino quc lo complerntnia.Los conflictos edipianos son univcrsales, y por si solosno resultan en algo patologico. Segiin el autor el Edipodesemboca patologicamente cuando se niega la realidadpsiquica de estos impulses y se encubre de forma perversa.

En opinion del autor, haccr como si uno no viera es unimportante mecanismo que lleva a la falsa representationy distorsion de la realidad psiquica.

REFERENCES

BION, W. R. (1957). Differentiation of the psychoticfrom the non-psychotic personalities. Int. J.PsychoanaL 38: 266-275.

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FREUD, S. (1917). The development of the libido and