Cain and Abel: word or violence. Reading Gen 4: 1-16 from a psychoanalytic approach

Abstract

Mary Balmary looks into all that man says about himself ––in relation to his origins and his purpose–– both in cultural foundational myths and in the unconscious, as the later is perceived in psychoanalysis. In the Middle Easter and Western traditions, the first story of fraternal relations and violence is that of Cain and Abel. The regarding Balmary proposes for Gen 4: 1-16 begins with the verification of a significant fact: the desire people have to live together ––in spite of the difficulties of satisfying this desire–– does not fade with time. Not even wars have been able to extinguish it. What are fraternal relations between persons, and how to they come about? What generates these relationships and what impedes them?