Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (X)

We’ve begun to interpret a passage that summarizes three theoretical points of reference — three positions regarding the origin and function of symbols — which form relevant background to Klein’s argument in “Symbol-Formation.” The passage, again:

“[1] [Sándor] Ferenczi holds that identification, the forerunner of symbolism, arises out of the baby's endeavour to re-discover in every object his own organs and their functioning. [2] In [Ernest] Jones’ view the pleasure-principle makes it possible for two quite different things to be equated because of a similarity marked by pleasure or interest. [3] Some years ago I wrote a paper, based on these statements, in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220, bracketed numbers mine)

In the last entry, I quoted some material from Ferenczi’s essay, “Symbolism” (1912) that both amplifies and complicates Klein’s attribution here. In particular, we examined the special meanings of both “identification” and “symbolism” for Ferenczi (hardly obvious from Klein’s paraphrase), and hence the peculiar way in which identification could be a “forerunner” of symbolism. We saw that, in its technical, psychoanalytic sense, a symbol inherently involves the repression of whichever item (idea or thing) has been “symbolized” — hence the (seemingly irrational) affective “charge” that accrues to the symbol itself. In his essay, Ferenczi provides the following straightforward illustrations of this idea:

“Originally penis and tree, penis and church-steeple, were consciously equated; but only with the repression of the interest in the penis do the tree and church-steeple become invested with inexplicable and apparently ungrounded interest; they become penis symbols” (280)

In this entry I’d like to say something about [2] and [3]. The references are to Jones’s comprehensive (and lengthy) essay, “The Theory of Symbolism” (1918), and to Klein’s “Infant Analysis” (1923). To begin with [2]: “In Jones’ view the pleasure-principle makes it possible for two quite different things to be equated because of a similarity marked by pleasure or interest.” Where in Jones’s essay does he propose this view? What we find when we turn to the text is remarkable. For while Jones elaborates upon this theme for significant stretches of the essay — i.e. the relation of symbol-formation to the pleasure principle — he appears to credit the basic claim to Ferenczi himself. Indeed, not only does Jones credit this claim to Ferenczi; he quotes from the very same text — “Symbolism” — that Klein herself draws upon a moment earlier. So, from “The Theory of Symbolism”:

“The point is clearly put by Ferenczi, who writes: ‘One was formerly inclined to believe that things are confounded because they are similar; nowadays we know that a thing is confounded with another only because certain motives for this are present; similarity merely provides the opportunity for these motives to function.’” (203)

It is true, as Klein’s words indicate, that Jones develops Ferenczi’s suggestion — that “motives” enable the “confounding” of one thing with another — in terms of the “pleasure principle.” And in any case she must have felt some responsibility to provide a reference to Jones’s innovative work in this area.

Nonetheless, I wonder if there isn’t some additional reason why Klein links this idea to Jones, rather than assigning precedence to Ferenczi. Perhaps her motivation is personal. To see why, consider the following passage from “Infant Analysis” (1923), in which Klein — again — attributes this thesis to Jones’s “The Theory of Symbolism.” “[T]he process of identification,” she writes, is one in which,

“according to Jones, the pleasure-principle allows us to compare two otherwise quite different objects on the basis of a similitude of pleasurable tone, or of interest. But we are probably justified in assuming that on the other hand these objects and activities, not in themselves sources of pleasure, become so through this identification, a sexual pleasure being displaced on to them…” (96)

In other words, in this place, immediately after making the same attribution to Jones, Klein radically qualifies his idea — nearly to the point, it seems to me, of undermining it. The very position that she assigns to Jones and that ostensibly forms the basis of her own innovations is, she has just indicated, only half correct. Perhaps a similarity of pleasure or interest accounts for the equation of otherwise-dissimilar things; but it is also the case that “objects and activities, not in themselves sources of pleasure, become so through this identification, a sexual pleasure being displaced on to them.”

This amendment evidently begs the original question. For if not for any similarity — at least initially — in the pleasure yielded by dissimilar things, then by virtue of what quality are the two things equated in the first place? One may perhaps respond that some surplus of pleasure “overflows” from the original object and attaches to some other object, associatively, in the vicinity of the experience. In that case, however, one is left with the conclusion that the process of identification is essentially arbitrary. One object is first “equated” with a second object, and only then does one speak of a “similarity” between the two.

Yet this doesn’t seem to be Klein’s view, either. She seems rather to recognize that symbols do possess a certain objective “aptness” vis-à-vis the things they symbolize. All of which raises the question: why should Klein attribute to Jones a view that (a) belongs originally to Ferenczi (at least some iteration of it) and (b) she doesn’t actually accept without (to put it mildly) strong caveats? Here I would cautiously propose that the question answers itself. It is precisely because she is ultimately so critical of the view that she prefers to attribute it to Jones, rather than Ferenczi. The latter was her analyst, after all (as was Karl Abraham). Perhaps on some level she felt an impulse to protect him from her negative judgment.