Addendum to ‘Narcissistic Love II’

In Narcissistic Love Part II, I discussed the triptych dynamic between Elio and Oliver. I said that they relate, but that also Elio looks at Oliver and sees what he would like to become and Oliver looks at Elio and sees what he would have liked to have been. After writing this, I came across an illuminating passage in Freud’s essay, ‘On Narcissism’. In it, Freud describes what constitutes the two types of love, the narcissistic type and the imitative type. In the former, we find precisely the sort of dynamic I described between Elio and Oliver. According to Freud, ‘We love one or other of the following’:

1) Narcissistic type:

a) what we ourselves are,

b) what we ourselves were,

c) what we would like to become,

d) a person who was once part of our own self.

2) Imitative type:

a) the woman who feeds us,

b) the man who protects us, and the many surrogates who take their place

I would only object to the ‘one or other’. I believe it could also be both-and, since the triptych is, as we discussed, simultaneously a, b, and c.