Objective data:
He comes from a poor family with lots of siblings.
He is ugly.
His father was incompetent and lazy.
Due to the absence of fatherly support, he was forced by his mother to work from a very young age in order to support the family (he was giving lessons).
He endured and suffered in order to support the family (when he was young he did not wear a coat during the winter with 25 degrees minus zero, while his sisters wore warm woolen coats).
He claims that his childhood was always bizarre, cruel and hostile.
His perception of life can be described in one word: deletion.
He finds his whole life horrible. He does not know the meaning of happiness and feels “autumn” inside.
He believes that he was surrounded by enemies throughout his whole life, but that was something, as he claims, that did not harm him but on the contrary, it helped him move on.
He believes that whatever he acquired in his cruel life, he earned it through struggling.
He wears a worn out military uniform and riding boots with spurs. He does not take the boots off during the whole play, not even when he lies down in bed ill.
He does not admit he fears even when his fear is obvious.
He is afraid of dark.
He refuses to admit that he gets old. He is not familiarized with the ravages of time and death.
When he comes in contact with the fear of death, he hopes that this will not be the end and speaks about the immortality of the soul.
He believes that during his life he has not received the recognition that he deserved.
He seeks for moments of acceptance, even if they are fictitious, that is why he is flattered when corporals, soldiers and musicians of the band send him bouquets of flowers, telegrams and letters.
He believes he kept a dignified attitude under all conditions in life.
He lives in an illusion which is something he admits at the end of the play.
He considers himself as a celebrated author of school textbooks. In fact he has only written one book called “Shooting lessons”, which it was once taught in military schools and has now been substituted.
He argues that the reason he remained Captain is that he did not want to become a Major.
He enjoys smoking cigars and drinking whisky. He does not want to hold himself back as regards to alcohol, as it is not worth otherwise.
Smoking is for him “his only pleasure”.
When the doctor forbids smoking and drinking, he wonders whether it is worth living without these two pleasures.
He believes Alice is a good woman “despite her foibles”. He claims that she has been a faithful spouse and a perfect mother but she has a “devilish temper”.
He accepts Alice’s accusation that he tried to kill her by pushing her into the sea.
He admits it was a mean act that felt normal at the time and for which he has never regretted. He recognizes that Alice took revenge in full measure for what he did and finds it equally “normal”.
His opinion about his children is that they are two very good kids.
He believes his son is of rare intellect.
He has a soft spot for his daughter, Judith.
He argues that he has enough money to take care of his family even though the objective circumstances show that his financial situation is not satisfactory.
He believes that both his children and wife exploit him financially. He believes that, if at some point he becomes unable to financially provide for his wife, she will abandon him. Piano is for him “the last resort”. He enjoys listening to his wife playing the march “The Entry of the Boyars”. When he listens to the march, he dances. Moreover, the sound of the piano brings him round, when he faints.
He believes that his wife chooses to play dead marches and mournful songs to show how unhappy she is and what a lousy husband she has.
He considers Kurt responsible for his getting acquainted with Alice and their unhappy marriage.
His attitude towards Kurt presents ambivalent mood swings.
On the one hand, he argues that Kurt is “a nice guy” and he enjoys discussing with him while on the other hand, he thinks he is a frivolous and irresponsible husband and father, because he has been divorced and his wife has been awarded with the custody of his children by a court order. He accuses him of abandoning his children, thus losing his honor and reputation.
He considers himself the master of the island, irreproachable and fearless. Even when he is ill, he deludes himself by thinking that he is the one giving orders on the island and Kurt is accountable to him.
He is contemptuous of other people on the island and does not associate with them. He thinks they are all tyrants, rascals, insidious, and crooks.
He is in bickering with everyone and has no intercourse with them.
He believes there is not even one man on the island who can understand him. He thinks they all are a community of idiots.
His getting in contact with his reality (at the end of the play) differentiates his attitude towards Alice, Kurt and the community on the island since he finally realizes his parental projections on them ( he asks Alice to tidy up, he wants to celebrate their silver weddings, he urges Alice to forget what happened and move on).
Psychic structure:
The mother was, not only in reality but also emotionally, non-existent.
During pregnancy his mother’s womb was hard and cold as the stone fortress in which he resides.
Darkness causes him fear because it regresses him into the womb.
When he was born, his mother would abandon him in his crib where he was experiencing endless hours of loneliness waiting for her to come and take care of him.
The abandonment by his mother and the endless loneliness in the crib regressed him into the womb where he was experiencing not only the fear of death but also “the absolute nothing”, as he claims. In his adult life he revives the same endless loneliness by living in the fortress.
Both situations (abandonment-loneliness) caused him anxiety (fear) of survival which in his adult life is revived in the question whether there is life after death.
When his mother used to abandon him, he was experiencing desperation, which in his adult life led him to regression into abandonment by his mother and desperation when his mother’s project object abandons him.
The non existence-absence of his mother caused him enormous pain.
The introjected mother has been recorded as non-existent, resulting in the revival of her existence during his adulthood through his preference for annihilation after death, namely he revives the emotional recording not only in the womb but in the crib as well (“whatever remains is a barrowful of manure for the garden”).
The abandonment in the crib by his mother led him to the belief in his adult life that he is familiarized with loneliness.
The regression from the crib to the womb made him steadfastly believe that his death will come instantaneously and without pain like the sudden coldhearted abandonment in his crib by his mother and later on his impending regression into her womb.During his adulthood, the fear of death makes him wonder what the purpose in a life like his, is. He admits that he looked for it but did not manage to find it because the question appears while he is in regression thus making it impossible to accept this ascertainment unaffected.
Because of his mother not coming to his crib, he developed a peculiar logic for his tragedy. If he does not adhere to this defence (peculiar logic) then he regresses to the emotional charging (fear of death and pain) which he was experiencing in the womb. In his adult life when he regresses from the crib to the womb, he experiences misery everywhere around him which makes him believe that misery attracts misery and happy people avoid unhappy people. This is how he explains the fact that he and Alice do not see anything but misery around them.
Since his mother’s presence was perceived through the cold womb while he was an embryo and through his abandonment in the crib while he was an infant (womb/crib = tomb), in his adulthood he revives his mother’s presence through the belief that he is not happy with his life and he will be happy on the day of his death.
When his mother looked after him, she did it impassively. The misery she was experiencing in her marriage and her exhaustion due to her taking care of many siblings, deprived her of the appropriate emotional background for profound care. This lack of care led το the creation of an oral fixation, which he covers during his adulthood with his cigar, the lack of measure as regards with drinking and the constant culinary pursuits (his most significant recollection of his five trips to Copenhagen is the lamb "Navarin aux pommes”).
The lack of motherly care coincides in his adulthood with lack of care for himself, namely by wearing constantly the same much-worn military uniform.
When his mother cared for him, he would put the emotional energy himself, thus having as a result to experience life during his adulthood as a never-ending struggle with short expiration date.
In the army environment he revived his birth conditions and he was faced with financial hardships, namely he was deprived of care just like when there was lack of motherly care.
The mother while taking care of the infant by giving him milk, she felt disgust. The newborn felt the same disgust for his mother’s care and milk and he did not actually liked milk throughout his life, projecting the motherly care on it.
For a newborn, his relationship with his mother becomes the whole world. During adulthood the relationship with one’s mother revives in the relationship with the outer world. The Captain revives the anger and disgust towards his mother by considering the island’s residents insidious, crooks, tyrants and a community of idiots.
He cannot stand crowds around him because of the existence of many siblings in the parental family.
In his regression to his primitive trauma during adolescence, his mother entrusted him with the role of her husband, namely that of the protector of the family (when he listens to Alice playing a march on the piano, he becomes emotionally charged because he is experiencing the presence of his introjected mother.)
In order to cope with the role entrusted to him by his mother, that is to support the family, he had to be robust at all times, resulting in his adulthood in a denial of being sick and in the need to always feel poised (he always wears his combat boots) in order to be able to experience the presence of his introjected mother.
When the two maids abandon him and Alice, he regresses to his parental family, revives the emotional charge he felt back then and feels like a servant, namely that he is called to serve by taking care of and supporting.
When he asks to be taken care of from the object onto which he projects his introjected mother, this object does not take care of him either because it does not want to (Alice) or because it cannot (Judith, who does not manage to visit him due to bad weather) thus resulting in a feeling of frustration as regards his desire to be taken care of.
The projection objects of his introjected mother do not recognize his needs the way he perceives them and they reject them causing him to feel that they do not understand him (Judith:” Dad, do not drink much”).
Because he was deprived of motherly care, in his adult life he refuses to offer (emotionally or materially) even to his beloved ones, denying to be bequeathed.
In his attempt to recognize his mother’s mood when she got close to take care of him so as not to get hurt when she abandoned him, he developed an incredible talent to sense her disposition which resulted in his adult life in an incredible talent to sense other people’s secrets.
Mum was miserable in her marriage and felt anger towards her husband. The Captain, being the son of her husband, formed the transfer object of the anger towards her husband.
While mum was taking care of him, he felt anger and disgust. In his adult life he is experiencing the existence of the introjected mother by becoming himself the object of anger and disgust for others (the others take his mother’s role).
Mum used to feel anger towards the Captain because he constituted an extra burden in her life. In his adult life, he revives the presence of the mother not only through Alice, who is angry at him because she is experiencing him as a burden, but also through his children, at whom he is angry since he is experiencing them as a burden (his phrase towards Kurt in respect with his children proves that: “You are lucky that you got out of that mess”).
He felt great anger towards his mother, because she was neglecting him. He could not, however, express this anger, because he feared that if he expressed it, he would destroy his mother and thus he would die as well since there would be no one to take care of him. The result of this fear was to repel (block) fear.This suppressed anger manifests itself destructively,when he tears to pieces and drops Allice’s picture on the floor while he appears to be blocked when he does not throw the laurel wreath out of the window.
His mother when taking care of him, she did it with anger. He, as a newborn, responded to his mother’s anger by feeling anger towards her and wanted to make her suffer. Because as a newborn, the possibility to harm his mother would have consequences for him as well, he had to find a mechanism to justify his desire to make his mother suffer. The mechanism which he developed was to feel that mom had to take revenge for this desire of his. When he pulls out the sword to kill Alice, because Judith is the projection object of his mother, he asks from Judith to take revenge from him because by killing her mother (Alice) , Judith will suffer.
As a newborn, he felt anger towards mom, because his love was not capable of driving her away from this inefficient (dishonest and unrespected) husband resulting in their staying in a horrible relationship which constituted a source of unhappiness for both of them. In his adult life he considers as his duty to pull Alice away from this theatre (because I love you I will save you from this bad husband/theatre).
He expresses this anger towards Alice, onto whom he projects his mother (Alice does not give him what he wants and she takes care of him impassively because that is how it happened and she should bear him), when he tries to push her into the sea so as to get drowned.
The possibility that mom suffers from depression exists since she did not try to put an end to this stagnated marriage.
His father was non-existent and had abandoned his children. The Captain projects his introjected father on Kurt by considering him frivolous and an irresponsible husband and father and accusing him of abandoning his children thus losing his honor and reputation.
Relationship between mom- dad:
Mom was always angry with dad and was verbally abusive towards him. In his adult life the Captain dances when listening the march “The Entry of the Boyars” since through dancing he is experiencing his mother’s presence that attacks dad. Dad responded to mom’s aggressiveness by retreating to depression, which was interpreted as incompetence and laziness. In this confrontational relationship there was no space left for him and his siblings just like in his relationship with Alice there is no space for their children.
He reproduces this confrontational relationship of his parents himself by having conflicts within his family.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of loneliness, which will bring about death because he regresses to the crib and then to the womb.
Desire to be taken care of from others, whom –though- he is experiencing as a threat (when his mother takes care of him she does it impassively - his siblings drain him away-mom shouts at dad).
Anger towards mom’s projection objects because they do not give him what he deserves, and fear of loneliness when the objects are driven away.
Pompous effort to escape the trauma’s pain, which leads him to loneliness (his pretentious self- importance shows in his opinion about his children and the book he has written).
His traumatic pain is related to the emotional abandonment which he experienced as regards his mother, not only in the womb but in the crib as well. He always seeks for this emotional abandonment unconsciously so that he can experience the presence of the introjected mother (fortress- residence, crib, womb: everything emotionally hard, cold).
He feels unsupported, because dad was absent and he tries to rely on persons who do not want or cannot support him. Many times he has caused other people not wanting to support him (doctor) because of his attitude and behavior.
He is derogative, just like his mother towards his father, and judgmental, and through this he revives the presence of the introjected mother.
He does not assume responsibilities, like his mother did in her marriage and stayed with this unworthy husband whom she devaluated.
Basic defense of the ego: repression (deletion).
Psychic Structure:
We cannot be absolutely accurate on the introjected parents, because as mentioned before, there is a lack of data on her childhood.
She has experienced rejection (from both parents) not only in the womb but also right after her birth.
As a newborn she experienced emotional abandonment from both parents.
She compromised with the incomplete- perfunctory care and support provided by her parents so as to be able to survive.
To bear the pain caused by rejection and her fear of death she developed a psychotic core, with its characteristics being hallucinations, persecution complex, a sense of greatness, manipulation, vindictiveness and disdain.
She experiences reality through her own hallucinatory perception.
Borderline personality (goes over the limits), in and out in madness, she makes paranoid thoughts, she perceives as real nonexistent situations.
Dark glance- blur- black.
Unsatisfied chaos. Constant sense of unsatisfied. Unorgasmic.
In constant hyperstimulation. Bad tempered.
Pleasure from revenge.
Resourceful (perceptive – intelligent) at finding well documented reasons to prove she is right to feel unsatisfied.
She is never pleased with anything. She uses everybody and everything with manic energy in order to achieve what she is after, but even when she gets it she is never satisfied.
She wants others to be submissive and to have full power over them.
Rambling way of thinking, she can think of many things at the same time and be good at everything.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death as a result of rejection. A sense of chaos when others reject or leave her so as not to feel any pain.
In her adult life, when she feels fear of rejection or abandonment (in real time or in regression) she enters chaos. Chaos leads her to actions which result in the rejection and abandonment by others in a way that her scenario repeats itself.
She feels accepted when others behave exactly the way she wants, namely when they do exactly what she wants and give her exactly what she wants.
In her attempt to feel accepted, namely the others to be the way she wants them and treat her the way she wants, she leads them to chaos causing them to reject and abandon her and so we have a repetition of her scenario.
Every time she makes concessions in her adult life or feels she makes concessions, she revives the pain of her injury and enters chaos.
She comes to terms with the given facts (people- situations) in her life which at the same time considers unworthy on the grounds that she feels trapped in them and this causes her pain.
Every compromise regresses her to the compromise she made with her parents in order to survive. Her contempt is being experienced by the object (people) as rejection having as a result the rejection by the object thus repeating her scenario.
Her pain of the injury stems from her into the womb rejection and her abandonment as a newborn.
Psychic Structure:
Incomplete – unhealthy symbiotic relationship (mom- newborn). While the pregnancy was desirable, none of his needs was covered after his birth for reasons which cannot be traced from the objective data.
His certainty that none of his needs will be covered, led to the development of a mechanism which blocks his desire.
Mom had a depression background which obliged him to emotionally nourish her in order to be looked after by her. During his adult life, he shows interest in other people so as to be able to coexist with them.
Anger towards mom (because she does not cover his needs), which he represses because he fears that if he expresses it, he will lose her and there will be no one to look after him. In his adult life he gets angry when he feels that his needs are not being covered (whether that is an objective fact or he experiences it as such), but his anger is repressed. If it expresses itself, it is being done in a hypomanic way, having as a main instrument of expression the mouth, namely by biting with words.
The pleasure of breastfeeding is being experienced not only through his anger towards mom, who does not want to feed him but at the same time through mom’s anger towards him because she feeds him without wanting to. During his adult life he expresses hypomanic anger by biting, when he expresses sexual passion.
When he was a newborn he manipulated his mother emotionally so as to evoke her interest. As an adult when he feels the need to be taken care of (an adult’s or a child’s need), he manipulates people and circumstances so as to get this care because it has been recorded that mom does not want to take care of him. Moreover, when someone tries to manipulate him, he revives the emotion (anger) mom felt towards him while looking after him, which leads to him getting angry and thus reviving the presence of the introjected mom.
He was consuming a lot of energy in order to be able to receive mom’s care while his mom was angry because she was looking after him. As an adult he draws anger from others when he is asking for their care so as to revive mom’s presence. If the other person has psychotic or borderline personality features, in his attempt to make him angry so as to feel mom’s presence, he leads him (the other) to madness.
When mom was looking after him, he felt like he sucked up all her energy. As an adult when he asks to be looked after by others, they feel that he sucks them up. But, because the roles go two-ways, when others are in a weak state and seek his care, he revives the introjected mom and feels like others are sucking up his life.
He gets angry in front of the needs of others, especially when these arise from a state of weakness because he regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom, in which he was in a state of weakness, thus reviving the presence of the introjected mother.
Mom was getting angry at him when she was obliged to look after him. What has been recorded is that if I express desire, mom will get angry. As an adult he believes that the expression of desire means punishment.
When an adult expresses his interest, he (Kurt) regresses to the symbiotic relationship with his mom and feels that the other person is trying to manipulate him and because of that he gets angry at him.
While mom was looking after him he found the courage to forgive her because he hoped that her attitude has changed, that is why as an adult he considers forgiveness and love as essential.
He felt disgust for his mom’s care which was perfunctory, thus making him as an adult feel disgusted with symbiotic relationships.
He would devalue mom in an attempt to handle his anger towards her and in the same way he devalues the female sex as an adult.
Dad did not provide mom with support so as to emotionally enable her to look after Kurt. Moreover, he was not interested whether his son was being looked after or not. Mom had resigned herself to the irresponsible and uncompassionate attitude of dad. As an adult Kurt is in no contact with the true reality of life, he does not stand for his interests and appears to be submissive to every form of power, real or fictional.
In order not to see his parents’ cruelty and irresponsibility, he would blur their image by rationalizing them having as a result his compromising, retreating and not taking a firm stand as an adult.
Emotional Pattern:
Fear of death because of abandonment, namely because of lack of care.
Despair because of abandonment.
Hatred towards the one who abandons him.
Repression of hatred and manipulation so as to be looked after and eventually survive.
Compromise with any kind of care which would ensure his survival.
Desire for a symbiotic relationship which would cover his incomplete egocentric part. Anger towards anyone who expresses adult care since his desire is for his childlike needs to be met.
Attraction to people who cannot or do not want to look after him in a way that the scenario repeats itself.
Fear of expressing desire because of its definite frustration.
Hatred and anger towards anyone who frustrates his desire, either the frustration is real or he is experiencing it as such.
Repression of hatred and anger by using the defense of rationalization.
Hypomanic unconscious expression of hatred and anger. He unconsciously provokes the anger of others towards him, anger which he cannot comprehend since he is not in contact with his own hatred and anger which had evoked the anger of others in the first place.
Anger from people from whom he seeks care and anger towards people who seek care.
Introjected mom, discouraging, punitive , compromised , submissive.
Introjected dad, irresponsible, indifferent.
The pain of the injury was created because of the initial emotional abandonment.
Theatrological Elaboration: Maria Kyriakoglou
Psychotheatrological Analysis: Maria Kyriakoglou/Panos Mavitzis
