Year: 1974 Source: Psychological Reports, v.34, (1974), p.182 SIEC No: 19840530

Faber (1970) analyzed the suicidal behaviour in Sophocle’s plays & noted that they illustrate the psychodynamics of suicide as proposed by Freud. An individual is angry at someone but is unable to express the anger, & so turns it inward on himself. The thesis of the present work is that Jocasta’s suicide may be open to an alternative interpretation. Jocasta has lost 2 husbands. The second loss may have re-activated the trauma of the first, & this, rather than anger, may have caused her suicide.