4.Universal truths? Discuss the role of Greek myth in modern theory.

With some sort of cunning, inventive

Beyond all expectation

He reaches sometimes evil,

And sometimes good.

        in foregrounding man’s potential and the essential duality of his nature, while the abstract nouns, “cunning, inventive” imply motive that is both conscious and unconscious.  Sophoclean additions to the myth of Oedipus in Oedipus Tyrannus compound the horror of his unwitting parricide with incest, leading to his self-discovery. Freud was one of the most influential of the modern theorists, whose reading of this version of the Oedipus myth, reflected that “irresolvable conflict and unsatisfied desire are not temporary conditions but make up the very substance of what it is to be human.”  His interpretation contributed to the development of psychoanalysis. For Freud the Oedipus myth embodied universal truths that he sought to use in his study of the unconscious and the conscious mind; later refined as ego, super-ego and id.  His investigation of dreams was essentially a scientific study in which the myth functioned as a dream of its author. Caldwell also argues for the “fundamental similarity between myths and dreams in regard to both function and form.”  While Freud’s lack of empirical rigour militated against the reception of his argument and contributed to the subsequent criticism of it, Caldwell supports his correlations between myth, dream and psychoanalysis. In some ways one could argue that Freud’s study was in itself reflective of a myth-making style. Despite the criticism it remains a seminal work on the nature and meaning of dreams.  Moreover, his recognition of the importance of context in formulating an interpretation of the components of any dream allowed for some convergence between structuralism and the Freudian which Caldwell develops in his essay.

Freud’s theory on dreams derives from his investigation of what he established as  “dream-work” in which he explores the “manifest” content (surface or literal meaning) and “latent” content (embedded or figurative meaning). The “latent” content is, according to Freud, created through condensation (such as, double entendre, pun, metaphor), displacement (as in the trope, metonymy) and symbolism (conventional application of meaning) in dreams.  In exploring displacement, Freud argues for “a causal connection between the obscurity of the dream-content and the state of repression” which he translated into his concept of “dream-distortion.” In his interpretation of the Greek myth of Oedipus, Freud acknowledged its universality, as evidenced in the way that successive audiences respond to it, which supported his theory of unconscious wish-fulfilment as a universal truth. Thus, the unconscious actions of Oedipus are translated into a representation of man’s earliest sexual impulse for his mother, which renders his father his rival.  This realisation of unconscious action formed the basis of Freud’s exploration of the layers of meaning in dreams. His understanding of the myth as an expression of repressed ideas (hence the Oedipus complex) established the concept of the unconscious psyche and a key developmental process in a child’s growth to autonomy.   Yet, while Freud forms an important connection between dreams and myths, his paradigm cannot cover all myths. Caldwell, however, writes a compelling argument in support of the psychological functions of myth, recognising the role of Freud. 

For Carl Jung, who had collaborated with Freud in his work, it is the symbolism of a word, image or object which is most important in connoting meaning and function. Jung extended Freud’s theories through his concept that dreams and art were the source of universal images which belonged to a “collective unconscious” too long repressed by civilisation – which Freud had described as the “products of ethnic imagination”. In many ways Jung was less negative than Freud in exploring archetypes and “archaic” patterns in myth which he described as “unconscious images of instincts themselves” of primordial man.  These he argued were the traditional symbols that society has come to depend on like the persona/ self (character of an individual), the animus and anima (man’s soul image of woman and woman’s soul image of man respectively), the shadow, the old wise man, and so forth. This concept of the unconscious mind’s primitive mentality of ancestry is one of his most original contributions to psychology and further investigations of the psychic tendencies of societies.  Jung argued that “myth-forming structural elements must be present in the unconscious psyche”.  While Freud and Jung may have explained the significance of myth in different ways, “They foregrounded the primal power of stories such as Oedipus,” seeing them as universal symbols which were essentially transhistorical. Moreover, Jung emphasised the psychological dependence of both primitive and sophisticated societies on their traditional myths.

While Freud and Jung look at characters and events of myth to analyse the workings of the mind, Levi-Strauss appreciates the overriding similarity between myths despite their originating in very different and widely separate cultures and taking this as his starting point, analyses their structural sameness.  Like Freud he selected the Oedipus myth and applied linguistic analysis using a structuralist, deductive method rather than explore characterisation and events which could vary. To support his argument he affirmed that myth was a language, attributing to it the same structure that Saussure had attributed to language, but Levi-Strauss argued that it was of a higher order. Thus, he accepts Saussure’s distinction between “langue” and “parole;”  embodying both the synchronic, ahistorical structure (like the grammar of a language) which is the unchanging element in the study of myth and the specific diachronic details within the larger structure. He adds, however, the concept of reversible and non-reversible time, respectively, and extends this to a third level of absolute entity, using the example of the French Revolution to elucidate his point. He refutes Jung’s archetypes but acknowledges Freud as a myth-maker like Sophocles. This leads Levi-Strauss back into his consideration of myth which he sees as “functioning on an especially high level where meaning succeeds practically at “taking off” from the linguistic ground.”  As Dowden notes, “Myth for [Levi-Strauss] was a sort of language which raised cultural problems and alleviated them.”  As an anthropologist, Levi-Strauss was concerned with a greater understanding of cultures and the symbolic interaction within these. Thus, he analyses the motifs and key elements in myths by exploring their relationships to one another not as isolated relationships but linked. He systematised his analysis of myth by proceeding through a series of antitheses which could be reduced to mathematical formulae or a diagrammatic representation. He treated the myth like an orchestral score reducing it to its smallest component parts or mythemes which are then arranged to be read diachronically and synchronically. Using this method, the following chart demonstrates the structural links Levi-Strauss established in the Oedipus myth which he used as a concrete example for his hypothesis:  

 

In investigating this model of bundles (Levi-Strauss’ term) and binary oppositions, he looked for the constant, the universal in their symbolic interaction. He argued that the individual tale (the parole) from a cycle of myth did not have a separate, inherent meaning but could only be understood through its relationship within the whole cycle. In his analysis he placed Oedipus’ tale in the context of all the tales connected with the city of Thebes and explored their repeated motifs:

Thus in the Oedipus myth, “Oedipus marries his mother”, like “Antigone

buries her brother contrary to Creon’s edict,” shows the over-rating of

blood relationships; whereas “Oedipus kills his father” and “Eteokles

slaughters his brother Polyneikes” show the opposite. 

In this way myth could be seen to classify, demarcate and establish connections between categories which Hall terms, “taxonomy in narrative form,”   that had archetypal resonance. He used his analysis in drawing parallels between the common features of column four with three and two with one to explain the origin of human life and reflect on man’s essential condition. Thus, he argues that myth is concerned with:

… The inability, for a culture which holds the belief that mankind is

autochthonous. ..to find a satisfactory transition between this theory

and the knowledge that human beings are actually born from the union

 of man and woman.

Levi-Strauss uses the Greek myth like a logical tool to get at universal truths through his construct of “the structural law of the myth,” taking all known versions of the myth into account. He even suggests a formula to formulate the law of the group.  In describing the contradictory growth and static nature of myth, he uses the scientific term of “molecules” which foregrounds his attempt at scientific method and affirms how, “Myth brings into operation a form of logic which we may describe […] as logic of the ambiguous, the equivocal, a logic of polarity…” which is in some respects similar to the Marxist theory of alienation and as Caldwell points out allows for some overlap in the function of myth in structuralist and psychoanalytical theory.  Both

The poststructuralist, Jacques Lacan, however, repudiated the notion of universal symbolism of all kinds, arguing that any sign is unstable and elusive and, therefore, lacking in essential meaning. He cites condensation (puns/metaphors etc.) and displacement (one item stands for another) in his psychoanalytical study of Antigone which focuses primarily on the eponymous heroine. In Lacan, she no longer represents the clash of the social against natural moralities as in Hegel’s dialectic study.  Hegel translated the Antigone myth into a series of binary oppositions of the conflict between family and the state; the individual and the polis.   While Lacan interprets Antigone as the image of the aesthetic by making her the voice of unconscious ethics, he confirms the Hegelian dialectic he wished to subvert. Consequently, as Caldwell argues, the ways in which myths function in modern theory is not as mutually exclusive as theorists may argue.

In many ways modern theories are woven into one another through the mythical allusions and dramatically represented in Brian Friel’s Translations. As a play of ideas and of staged inaction, Friel explores the Odysseus/ Ulysses and Oedipus myth through the stories of Jimmy Jack Cassie and that of Manus, the lame schoolmaster, recollecting the essential meaning of the name, Oedipus, foregrounding the meaning of names such as Manus. In Act Two the crossroads alludes to that of the Oedipus myth reinterpreted as a metaphor for Ireland with its reflection on history and identity set against the potential for change. It may, also, symbolise the philosophy of the age as the stasis at the crossroads may be seen as a reflection of Barthes’ claim that the purpose of myth is to “immobilise the world.” Friel’s reconfiguring of myth in his drama emphasises both the myths and the theories in which they operate to convey universal truths about identity and culture.

Bibliography

Brown, Sarah Annes, “Hail, Muse! Et cetera,” in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. by Roger D. Woodard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Dowden, Ken, “The Uses of Greek Mythology”, (London: Routledge, 1992), pp.25-33

Edmunds, Lowell, “Approaches to Greek Myth,” (London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1990)

Eliade, Mircea, 'Toward a definition of myth' in  (London: University of Chicago Press, 1002)

Felski, Rita, ed. “Rethinking Tragedy” (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,2008)

Freud, Sigmund, “On Dreams,” from “The Essentials of Psycho-analysis” (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1986) pp.114-185.

Grene, David & Richard Lattimore, ed., Greek Tragedies. Volume 1: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides p.195.

Griffin, Jasper, “The Mirror of Myth” (London: faber and faber, 1986), p.9.

Hall, Jonathan M.  “Politics and Greek Myth” in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. by Roger D. Woodard (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2007) p.332.

Jung, Carl, “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious,” in The Achetypes and the Collective Unconscious (London: Routledge, 1980), p.

Levi-Strauss, Claude, “The Structural Study of Myth,” in Structural Anthropology (Allen Lane: London, 1968), pp.109-231.

Williams, Raymond, “Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society” (London: Fontana, 1976), p.176-78.

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