Love, Aggression, and Mourning in Euripides’ Heracles

Abstract

The paper’s main focus is the mourning process in Euripides’ Heracles (1087–1428) and the approach to it is based on psychoanalytic interpretive methods. Most of the play is characterized by what can be called the splitting of good and bad images of the self and of objects to which the self relates, which means that characters are presented as either all-good or all-bad and in an unrealistic and ahistorical manner. The murder of Heracles’ family is the first moment when love and aggression meet, because Heracles’ violence is directed at those who are dearest to him. The process of his mourning, described in the Exodus, is characterized by an attempt to overcome splitting and to tolerate the coexistence of love and aggression, goodness and evil, in the heroic self. Theseus’ presence enables Heracles to accept his destructive side and to move towards a hopeful resolution of this fundamental human conflict, which is one of the main dimensions of the play.