Abstract

BARUS-MICHEL, Jacqueline. The subject and fate. Psicol. rev. (Belo Horizonte) [online]. 2008, vol.14, n.1, pp.17-36. ISSN 1677-1168.

What is the role of the notion of fate nowadays? An obstinate refuse of randomness and contingency, fate has always brought to the surface the issue of freedom and responsibility. Conceived as an external and determinant cause of our life course, such notion has undergone multiple mutations. It represented the fury of the gods, a figure of passion, and heredity, until Freud, inscribing it in psychism, unveiled the obscure web of the unconscious, the reappearance of mnemic traces, and the irresistible movement of urges, up to our ancestrals’ words. This does not prevent others from searching for it within the scope of genetic determinism, finding it hidden in our cells. We can envisage here the subject’s endless conflict with culpability and the unescapable fact of death, which makes fate and tragedy be connected forever.

Keywords : Fate; Myth; Tragedy; Freedom; Responsibility; Culpability.

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