Le malentendu, œuvre de civilisation. Nouvelle approche psychanalytique du mythe de Caïn et Abel

Abstract

Freud used language to examine the unconscious and proclaimed that “the ego is not master of his own house.” Language is thus a foundation of psychoanalysis. Lacan, following the Freudian approach, maintains that it is not only censorship of desire that prevents clear speech but also the unconscious, which is itself structured like language. Misunderstanding becomes therefore structural, a notion that is central to Lacan’s work. But what happens when words cannot even be spoken, when the signifier does not pierce the body of the real? At that moment, the symbolic order, that of language and law, is excluded and the subject remains in the imaginary, suspended in the Real of his jouissance. This is what happens to Cain in the famous biblical tale when he kills his brother Abel. Cain’s name comes from his mother’s omnipotence: “I produced a man with God.” Cain is then traumatised when God refuses to consider his offering but immediately accepts that of his brother. In this traumatic experience, the Real suddenly bursts forth, without language: Cain tries to speak but nothing is said and therefore cannot be forbidden. His being annihilated, he kills his brother. Although Cain is punished (or cursed), he continues to live under divine protection, receiving a mark from God, a letter, akin to a codicil. Given this signifier, he can at last open to and accept misunderstanding, without which there can be no otherness. The structural impossibility of being understood incites one to formulate speech in another fashion and to open to one’s own desire. This is perhaps the teaching of this foundation myth, as it applies to civilisation, given that Cain has a son whom he names Enoch, or Trained, and builds a city to which he gives the same name.