Psychopathology of Everyday Life · Sigmund Freud
MISTAKES IN SPEECH
“While writing a prescription for a woman who was especially weighed down by the financial burden of the treatment, I was interested to hear her say suddenly: ‘Please do not give me _big bills_, because I cannot swallow them.’ Of course she meant to say _pills_.” The following example illustrates a rather serious case of self-betrayal through a mistake in talking. Some accessory details justify full reproduction as first printed by Dr. A. A. Brill.[21] “While walking one night with Dr. Frink we accidentally met a colleague, Dr. P., whom I had not seen for years, and of whose private life I knew nothing. We were naturally very pleased to meet again, and on my invitation he accompanied us to a café, where we spent about two hours in pleasant conversation. To my question as to whether he was married he gave a negative answer, and added, ‘Why should a man like me marry?’ “On leaving the café, he suddenly turned to me and said: ‘I should like to know what you would do in a case like this: I know a nurse who was named as co-respondent in a divorce case. The wife sued the husband for divorce and named her as co-respondent, and _he_ got the divorce.’ I interrupted him, saying, ‘You mean _she_ got the divorce.’ He immediately corrected himself, saying, ‘Yes, she got the divorce,’ and continued to tell how the excitement of the trial had affected this nurse to such an extent that she became nervous and took to drink. He wanted me to advise him how to treat her.
“As soon as I had corrected his mistake I asked him to explain it, but, as is usually the case, he was surprised at my question. He wanted to know whether a person had no right to make mistakes in talking. I explained to him that there is a reason for every mistake, and that if he had not told me that he was unmarried, I would say that he was the hero of the divorce case in question, and that the mistake showed that he wished he had obtained the divorce instead of his wife, so as not to be obliged to pay alimony and to be permitted to marry again in New York State. “He stoutly denied my interpretation, but his emotional agitation, followed by loud laughter, only strengthened my suspicions. To my appeal that he should tell the truth ‘for science’ sake,’ he said, ‘Unless you wish me to lie you must believe that I was never married, and hence your psychoanalytic interpretation is all wrong.’ He, however, added that it was dangerous to be with a person who paid attention to such little things. Then he suddenly remembered that he had another appointment and left us. “Both Dr. Frink and I were convinced that my interpretation of his _lapsus linguæ_ was correct, and I decided to corroborate or disprove it by further investigation. The next day I found a neighbour and old friend of Dr. P., who confirmed my interpretation in every particular. The divorce was granted to Dr. P.’s wife a few weeks before, and a nurse was named as co-respondent. A few weeks later I met Dr. P., and he told me that he was thoroughly convinced of the Freudian mechanisms.”
The self-betrayal is just as plain in the following case reported by Otto Rank:-- A father who was devoid of all patriotic feeling and desirous of educating his children to be just as free from this superfluous sentiment, reproached his sons for participating in a patriotic demonstration, and rejected their reference to a similar behaviour of their uncle with these words: “You are not obliged to imitate him; why, he is an _idiot_.” The astonished features of the children at their father’s unusual tone aroused him to the fact that he had made a mistake, and he remarked apologetically, “Of course, I wished to say _patriot_.” When such a speech-blunder occurs in a serious squabble and reverses the intended meaning of one of the disputants, at once it puts him at a disadvantage with his adversary--a disadvantage which the latter seldom fails to utilize. This clearly shows that although people are unwilling to accept the theory of my conception and are not inclined to forego the convenience that is connected with the tolerance of a faulty action, they nevertheless interpret speech-blunders and other faulty acts in a manner similar to the one presented in this book. The merriment and derision which are sure to be evoked at the decisive moment through such linguistic mistakes speak conclusively against the generally accepted convention that such a speech-blunder is a _lapsus linguæ_ and psychologically of no importance. It was no less a man than the German Chancellor, Prince Bülow, who endeavoured to save the situation through such a protest when the wording of his defence of his Emperor (November, 1907) turned into the opposite through a speech-blunder.
“Concerning the present, the new epoch of Emperor Wilhelm II, I can only repeat what I said a year ago, that _it would be unfair and unjust to speak of a coterie of responsible advisers around our Emperor_ (loud calls, ‘Irresponsible!’)--to speak of _irresponsible_ advisers. Pardon the _lapsus linguæ_” (hilarity). A nice example of speech-blunder, which aims not so much at the betrayal of the speaker as at the enlightenment of the listener outside the scene, is found in Wallenstein (_Piccolomini_, Act I, Scene 5), and shows us that the poet who here uses this means is well versed in the mechanism and intent of speech-blunders. In the preceding scene Max Piccolomini was passionately in favour of the ducal party, and was enthusiastic over the blessings of the peace which became known to him in the course of a journey while accompanying Wallenstein’s daughter to the encampment. He leaves his father and the Court ambassador, Questenberg, in great consternation. The scene proceeds as follows:-- QUESTENBERG. Woe unto us! Are matters thus? Friend, should we allow him to go there with this false opinion, and not recall him at once in order to open his eyes instantly. OCTAVIO (_rousing himself from profound meditation_). He has already opened mine, and I see more than pleases me. QUESTENBERG. What is it, friend? OCTAVIO. A curse on that journey!
“There is something tells me (but it is not love), I would not lose you; and you know yourself Hate counsels not in such a quality. But lest you should not understand me well (And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought), I would detain you here some month or two, Before you venture for me. I could teach you How to choose right, but then I am forsworn; So will I never be; so may you miss me; But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, They have o’erlooked me, and divided me: _One half of me is yours, the other half yours_-- _Mine own, I would say_; but if mine, then yours-- And so all yours.” “Just the very thing which she would like to hint to him gently, because really she should keep it from him, namely, that even before the choice she is wholly his--that she loves him, the poet, with admirable psychologic sensitiveness, allows to come to the surface in the speech-blunder. It is through this artifice that he manages to allay the intolerable uncertainty of the lover as well as the like tension of the hearer concerning the outcome of the choice.” The interest merited by the confirmation of our conception of speech-blunders through the great poets justifies the citation of a third example which was reported by Dr. E. Jones.[22]
“Our great novelist, George Meredith, in his masterpiece, _The Egoist_, shows an even finer understanding of the mechanism. The plot of the novel is, shortly, as follows: Sir Willoughby Patterne, an aristocrat greatly admired by his circle, becomes engaged to a Miss Constantia Durham. She discovers in him an intense egoism, which he skilfully conceals from the world, and to escape the marriage she elopes with a Captain Oxford. Some years later Patterne becomes engaged to a Miss Clara Middleton, and most of the book is taken up with a detailed description of the conflict that arises in her mind on also discovering his egoism. External circumstances and her conception of honour hold her to her pledge, while he becomes more and more distasteful in her eyes. She partly confided in his cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford, the man whom she ultimately marries, but from a mixture of motives he stands aloof. “In the soliloquy Clara speaks as follows: ‘If some noble gentleman could see me as I am and not disdain to aid me! Oh! to be caught out of this prison of thorns and brambles. I cannot tear my own way out. I am a coward. A beckoning of a finger would change me, I believe. I could fly bleeding and through hootings to a comrade.... Constantia met a soldier. Perhaps she prayed and her prayer was answered. She did ill. But, oh, how I love her for it! His name was Harry Oxford.... She did not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl, what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford; I am alone....’ The sudden consciousness that she had put another name for Oxford struck her a buffet, drowning her in crimson.
“The fact that both men’s names end in ‘ford’ evidently renders the confounding of them more easy, and would by many be regarded as an adequate cause for this, but the real underlying motive for it is plainly indicated by the author. In another passage the same _lapsus_ occurs, and is followed by the hesitation and change of subject that one is familiar with in psychoanalysis when a half-conscious complex is touched. Sir Willoughby patronizingly says of Whitford: ‘False alarm. The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quite beyond poor old Vernon.’ Clara replies: ‘But if Mr. Oxford--Whitford ... your swans, coming sailing up the lake; how beautiful they look when they are indignant! I was going to ask you, surely men witnessing a marked admiration for some one else will naturally be discouraged?’ Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment. “In still another passage Clara, by another _lapsus_, betrays her secret wish that she was on a more intimate footing with Vernon Whitford. Speaking to a boy friend, she says, ‘Tell Mr. Vernon--tell Mr. Whitford.’” The conception of speech-blunders here defended can be readily verified in the smallest details. I have been able to demonstrate repeatedly that the most insignificant and most natural cases of speech-blunders have their good sense, and admit of the same interpretation as the more striking examples. A patient who, contrary to my wishes but with firm personal motives, decided upon a short trip to Budapest, justified herself by saying that she was going for only three days, but she blundered and said for only three weeks. She betrayed her secret feeling that, to spite me, she preferred spending three weeks to three days in that society which I considered unfit for her.
One evening, wishing to excuse myself for not having called for my wife at the theatre, I said: “I was at the theatre at ten minutes after ten.” I was corrected: “You meant to say before ten o’clock.” Naturally I wanted to say before ten. After ten would certainly be no excuse. I had been told that the theatre programme read, “Finished before ten o’clock.” When I arrived at the theatre I found the foyer dark and the theatre empty. Evidently the performance was over earlier and my wife did not wait for me. When I looked at the clock it still wanted five minutes to ten. I determined to make my case more favourable at home, and say that it was ten minutes to ten. Unfortunately, the speech-blunder spoiled the intent and laid bare my dishonesty, in which I acknowledged more than there really was to confess.
This leads us to those speech disturbances which can no longer be described as speech-blunders, for they do not injure the individual word, but affect the rhythm and execution of the entire speech, as, for example, the stammering and stuttering of embarrassment. But here, as in the former cases, it is the inner conflict that is betrayed to us through the disturbance in speech. I really do not believe that any one will make mistakes in talking in an audience with His Majesty, in a serious love declaration, or in defending one’s name and honour before a jury; in short, people make no mistakes where _they are all there_, as the saying goes. Even in criticizing an author’s style we are allowed and accustomed to follow the principle of explanation, which we cannot miss in the origin of a single speech-blunder. A clear and unequivocal manner of writing shows us that here the author is in harmony with himself, but where we find a forced and involved expression, aiming at more than one target, as appropriately expressed, we can thereby recognize the participation of an unfinished and complicated thought, or we can hear through it the stifled voice of the author’s self-criticism.[23] That the same view-points and observation should hold true for mistakes in reading and writing as for lapses in speech is not at all surprising when one remembers the inner relation of these functions. I shall here confine myself to the reports of several carefully analysed examples and shall make no attempt to include all of the phenomena.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.