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Estrangement from the Deed and the Memory thereof: Freud and Jung on the Pale Criminal in Nietzsche's Zarathustra
Author(s) -
Bishop Paul
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1999.tb00296.x
Subject(s) - psychoanalysis , philosophy , psychoanalytic theory , unconscious mind , nazism , zoroaster , depth psychology , german , psychology , theology , linguistics
The figure of the Pale Criminal is delineated by Nietzsche in the first part of Also sprach Zarathustra , and both Freud and Jung discuss this figure in their writings on psychology. In his Einige Charaktertypen aus der psychoanalytischen Arbeit (1916), Freud relates the Pale Criminal to his discovery that many of his patients found a sense of relief when confessing to crimes committed in puberty, and he suggests that behind this lies a sense of (Oedipal) guilt which preceded their specific criminal deeds. For C. G. Jung in Nach der Katastrophe (1945), on the other hand, the Pale Criminal was a useful image to explain the alleged collective guilt which the Germans experienced after the Second World War, although his analysis serves to reveal his own unconscious complicity. By examining what Freud and Jung say about the Pale Criminal, I argue that we can arrive at a better understanding of Nietzsche's figure as well as an original perspective on the relative interpretative strengths and weaknesses of two psychoanalytic schools.