Freuds Theory and the Book of Samuel

Freud sees the mind as having two distinct parts: the conscious and the unconscious.
The conscious mind is related to our awareness and the unconscious mind includes all things
of which we are not aware. Things as wishes, desires, hopes and some emotional past
experiences are part of the unconscious and may influence our behaviour and our daily
decisions. Our mind can be seen as an iceberg: the top of the iceberg that can is visible
represents the conscious and the larger part that is hidden underneath the water is regarded as
the unconscious mind. In addition, the unconscious is like a prison which consists the
repressed desires.
Every individual generally goes through five stages. All stages together consist the
development of a person. The first stage is the oral stage and on that time the child is focused
on oral pleasures such as sucking. Either too much or too little gratification can have bad
effects on ones development. The anal stage is more about recognizing and retaining human
faces. The phallic stage is related to the Oedipus Complex. The Oedipus Complex comes
from a Greek mythology figure who accidentally killed his father and after he married his
mother. For Freud, the Oedipus Complex is the childhood desire to sleep with the mother and
to kill the father. The age when it happens is between three and six and the pleasure switches
to the genitals. During the phallic stage, boys are really desperate and they consciously want
to sleep with their mothers. But because they fear to lose the mother they refute these desires;
in fact they create a prison within their minds for these unacceptable desires. The sons
become rivals with their parents and see this situation as a competition for affection. Boys
also develop a fear that their father will punish them for these feelings towards their mothers.
During the latency stage the sexual urges are repressed and children usually play with their

peers. The genital stage is the start of puberty and the primary focus of pleasure is the
genitals.
However, it is impossible for someone to pass through the first four stages perfectly.
No one could arrive at puberty without any continuing attachment to any prior stage at all.
So every person remains attached, more or less, to one of the four stages. For example, an
adult male neurotic may be still stuck to the Oedipal stage and might go through life always
challenging either an younger or an older male in authority, so that he cannot approach the
female he wants; hence, that male is a substitution for the father figure. The same thing
happened to Amnon. The true reasons behind his incest are probably unconscious, due to
something from his childhood perhaps he hated his father and wanted to kill him by
disobeying and making him feel ashamed.
Amnon, Davids son, feels attracted to his sister, Tamar. This thought becomes an
obsession for him. He is a neurotic. He thinks so much about it that even his friend Janadab
noticed it. Finally he lies to his father in order to meet Tamar and to with her for few
moments. In the beginning, although she do not want to sleep with him, he forces her to
commit incest. After that, he begins to hate her and she regrets it a lot. She feels so ashamed
that she puts ashes on her head. The incest was highly forbidden on that time, it was a taboo:
In almost every place where we find totems we also find a law against persons of the same
totem having sexual relations with one another1.
Even though Freud asserts that the sons are seeking sexual intercourse with any
women of the horde and would also happily have sex with women from any other horde, he
actually means that the sons are seeking sex with their mothers, who are simply among the
women. The only thing is that they are not conscious of it. Perhaps this was the unconscious
reason that leaded Amnon to do such that taboo. Perhaps Tamar looked like his mother or at
1 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, p. 6

least he saw her like it. However, Amnon could not indulge his strong Oedipus desire; it was
all-powerful and he could not control it. For normal people these desires go away, only
neurotics continue to have them.
When his father, King David, hears it, he is very angry. It could be because he wants
that all the women from his house to obey him completely. Also, his brother, Absalom, hates
Amnon for the act that he did to his sister.
Like a disease, the unconscious still works within individuals. After two years,
Absalom invites his father and his brothers to come to his house to see the sheepshearers, but
David refuses this invitation and agrees to let Amnon do that. Even after two years Absalom
still hates his brother for what he did to his sister. He now plans to kill him. And so he does.
Here Freuds theory might have some problems to explain it. It seems that this action does
not fit very well the theory. Nonetheless, one could say that Absalom imagined his brother as
being his father, same as Amnon imagined his sister as being his mother. Hence, it is because
of the Oedipus Complex why Absalom killed his brother. He wanted to protect her sister,
whom in his eyes was like his mother.
When David hears that Amnon was killed by his brother, he starts suffering a lot.
Absalom runs from the face of his father and stays for three years far from David. These acts
might be explained by the Freudian theory of the Id, Ego and Superego. His theory is based
on concepts such as the Id, which is that part of ourselves that is animal and we cannot
control, that which is related to our primal instincts, especially for survival; then as we
evolved, we developed a conscience, or a Superego as Freud calls it, and we all have an Ego
which acts as a regulator or compromiser between the Id and the Superego. So the reaction of
David when he hears the news might be interpreted as being the voice of his Ego in relation
with his Superego, his conscience, how is socially and morally good to react to such an event.
Same view may apply to Absaloms choice to go away from the face of his father.

After some time Joab convinces David to let his son come back into his land. So
David commands to Joab to bring his son back to Jerusalem, but he still does not want to see
his sons face and because of this Absalom stays separately at his own house in Jerusalem. It
looks like David remains the same authoritarian male: that father that is always jealous and
tries to keep his females close to him. This is why he drives away his sons as soon as they
grow up. He takes advantage of every little situation to keep safe his women.
Absalom wants to see the face of his father, so he commands to his servants to set the
field of Joab on fire because he do not want to let David know that he wants to see him. After
that, Joab finally speaks to David and David agrees to see his son. Absalom bowed down his
face to the ground before his father and then the king kisses his son. Again, Freud would say
here that was routed from his Superego. It was more like a fake act; the unconscious would
definitely not act this way. And they consciously repress the feeling of hate that each one has
for the other. They are both neurotics.
Absalom reveals his true face: he wants to be a new king in Israel and to kill his
father. He speaks with the Jewish people and tells them that if we would be the king, he will
make justice in the country. Hence, a lot of people go with him to Hebron where he starts to
rule over them. Now Absalom is more neurotic than his father. He begins a revolution against
King David.
Most complications that lead to a higher level of neurosis occur in the phallic stage.
For instance, for Freud all religious people are neurotic. Individuals who have the desire to
kill the parent of the same sex in order to get access to the parent of the opposite sex are
called neurotics. They usually are not aware of the hate they have; it is unconscious. And
although they are not conscious of it, the complex is dictating their lives. Absalom is the best
example of it.

Absalom listens to Ahithophels advice and sleeps with the concubines of his father in
the sight of all Israel. By this action he publicly dishonors his father. The complex seems to
manifest more and take control over his life. Absalom wants to show his father that he is
better than him; that he will win the game, so David no longer is in the control of his women.
Freud points out that in the primal horde a single father rules tyrannically over both his sons
and his wives. He is the protector of his own horde to which he provides food. Since the
father is very jealous incest is strictly forbidden. So he refuses to share his women with his
sons. Consequently, his sons must either go without sex or leave the horde to seek women
somewhere else. However, Freud speculates that even if the sons choose to go elsewhere,
they still confront the same problem: that jealous and possessive male.
Before the battle between the army of David and that of Absalom to begin, David has
announced his team not to kill his son, but rather to protect him. After David hears that his
son Absalom was killed, he mourns and cries. This is again a problem for Freuds theory. But
again it can be pointed out that David is just pretending that, it is not his true desire. He does
it just to show goodness and forgiveness throughout his people. His unconscious feeling is
exactly the opposite. Sigmund Freud's theory sees the humans ruled by animalistic sexual
drives. Furthermore, Freud believes that these drives are derived from our primitive ancestors
and are hidden deep within our unconscious.
To conclude, both Amnon and Absalom never got over their childhood and what was
going on in their minds. They were both neurotics that were physically adult but
psychologically still childish. They unconsciously desired to kill his father in different ways,
in a more direct or indirect way. On the other side, David tried to protect and to keep safe his
women and in order to do this he kept his sons away from his house.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo
The Bible, New International Version