Infantile Desire in I Kill Myself
Julian Kawalec’s short story, “I Kill Myself,” written in 1962, is a prime example of New Wave psychological SF. Kawalec’s narrator, an unnamed lab technician working to develop and mass produce the Zeta Bomb— the ultimate weapon of destruction— decides to steal and destroy it instead, hoping to keep the world safe. The narrator grows to covet the Bomb, however, and keeps it for himself. He fantasizes about the Bomb’s power, ultimately proclaiming himself “God.” Central to the story is the narrator’s psychological “u-turn:” his original desire to destroy Zeta transforms into a desire for Zeta. The significance of the narrator’s u-turn can be interpreted as an example of humans’ desire for power and expanded into a metaphor for humans’ inability to control their desire for pleasure-inducing technology, an interpretation crucial to communicate in contemporary times.
The narrator’s psychological u-turn, however, contains more than a conscious reversal of his desires. Rather, as a psychoanalytic interpretation of the text reveals, his u-turn is a consequence of his id (his unconscious wishes), which seizes control of him once he has the Bomb. The narrator’s ego is rendered powerless and its capacity for reality testing reduced to nothing. The narrator’s u-turn reveals that humans’ submission to technology is not merely the bending of our conscious will. On the contrary, it is a result of an internal force often unstoppable when paired with pleasure-inducing technology. This revelation is infinitely more useful to society, for it informs us that in our attempts to stall pleasure-tech, we are up against a formidable opponent.
One’s repressed desires are, under normal circumstances, repressed or transformed by the ego into something consciously palatable. The narrator’s ego in this story, however, cannot prevent his infantile desires, namely those Oedipal and narcissistic in nature, from resurfacing. Faced with this stress, the narrator resorts to the defenses of rationalization and suppression.
Three oedipal wishes manifest upon the narrator’s possession of Zeta. His wishes parallel the Oedipus Complex in that they involve the narrator’s removal of some sexual object from some male figure(s) while simultaneously causing them pain. This constitutes a triad similar to the Oedipal triad:
In the narrator’s first oedipal wish, he considers revenge against his lab workers, and more importantly, his boss. He imagines “command[ing] them to march to a hollow between hills and leav[ing] them there, and starv[ing] them” (Kawalec 266). This desire for cruel revenge parallels the Boy’s hate towards his Father. Zeta’s status as a sexual object, however, is not immediate; in fact, its sexual connotations grow once it is stolen. Prior to being stolen, Zeta is first described as a “steel child… cold and slippery… monstrous” (Kawalec 260-2). Once stolen, Zeta “reminds [the narrator]… more insistently of its presence,” growing “warmer… [and not] so ugly” as before (Kawalec 264), until it is “warm,” with “smooth metal” (Kawalec 265). Once the narrator decides not to destroy it, he proceeds to “touch Zeta… stroke it.” Zeta is “beautiful… smooth… pleasant”. He “press[es] Zeta to [his] heart… kiss[es] it” (Kawalec 267). Zeta transforms from cold and inanimate to warm and fetishized. The narrator’s desire to kill his senior lab workers and covet Zeta parallel the Boy’s desire to kill his Father and possess his Mother. We can map the Oedipal triad:
The narrator’s second oedipal wish more distinctly parallels the original Complex. The narrator realizes that with Zeta’s power, “Mrs. Emilia will forsake the husband she loves, will bow to [him] and go wandering about the world” (Kawalec 266). While Mrs. Emilia is never previously mentioned and thus does not offer for interpretation more than the fact that she is a married female, this wish to take another man’s wife distinctly parallels the Boy’s desire to take his Mother from the “husband she loves”:
The narrator’s third oedipal wish involves another distinctly Oedipal structure. The narrator states that with “Zeta in [his] possession… if [he] wish[es], the daughter of the chief of staff will present herself naked to [him]” (Kawalec 266). The narrator’s desire to remove something from and cause pain to his “chief,” a figure of authority, parallels the Boy’s hatred against his Father. The narrator’s choice to remove something explicitly sexual— the chief’s naked daughter— parallels the Boy’s desire to possess his Mother:
The psychoanalytic definitions of narcissism and omnipotence are broad and “lacking conceptual clarity” (CPG). I invoke these concepts only to highlight their connections with infantile development. Omnipotence, for example, the “fantasy of power with no limits,” is “characteristic of thinking in infants” (CPG). Narcissism can be described as “an early developmental stage that precedes object ties,” characterized by “primitive, omnipotent, and magical aspects of thinking and feeling” (CPG).
The first instances of the narrator’s narcissistic behavior are partially described in his oedipal wishes; in those wishes the narrator is exercising his stated power “to break into the life of every man on… earth and arbitrarily change it,” (Kawalec 266) a “power with no limits” (CPG). In addition to using this power for his own pleasure, the narrator appears intent on having only “the laboratories in which [Zeta] was created… be destroyed… [and] Professor Lombard [made] harmless” (Kawalec 266). This rhetoric changes however, in the last paragraph of the text, with the narrator deciding he must “divide the people of the world into wicked and good” (Kawalec 267). Zeta makes him “the supreme judge.” Zeta makes him “God,” allows him to “surpass God.” Comparing himself to “Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander the Great,” the narrator decides that “all human beings are wicked… [that] they must all be destroyed” (Kawalec 267). Fully dissociated from reality at this point, he proclaims, “I ALONE AM GOOD, FOR I POSSESS ZETA” (Kawalec 267).
As the narrator allows himself increasing power, his outer world is destroyed. This destruction begins with the killing of Professor Lombard, then the killing of only the “wicked” people, and finally the killing of “all human beings.” The narrator builds up to total outer destruction, cutting all his connections to the real world— his “object ties”— leaving only the union between him and Zeta. His desire for omnipotence and union with Zeta exemplify narcissistic behavior, which is epitomized by the use of the pronoun “I” in the last paragraph twenty-five times throughout its seventeen lines of text.
The narrator’s weakening ego tries to rationalize and suppress the wishes of his id-Zeta complex. When the narrator believes he is being pursued, he justifies the threat of using the Bomb against his pursuers. He says:
I shall threaten the police [with Zeta]… because they’re in the service of those who produce the bomb, those I hate. So that threat and that hatred should be included in the program of sacrifice. I cling to this thought… for I can hold the makers of the Zeta bomb, and their assistants, under threat; I can do as I like with them. (Kawalec 266)
The narrator begins with a reasonable justification for his threatening the police, but then directs this threat to the much broader category of those he “hates”. He “cling[s] to this thought,” for it allows his abuse of the Bomb. Although his reasoning is fairly logical, it allows his more radical wishes to become conscious, even if they are not justified by his current logic, as they are merely “performing that which ought to be done” (p.#). His wishes are normalized, becoming “included within [his] enlarged, human program of sacrifice” (Kawalec 267). The narrator’s suppression of his wishes appears in two phrases. Before the last paragraph, the narrator says, “I try to cast out these thoughts [ his wishes]” (Kawalec 267), fitting the textbook definition of suppression, which involves “deliberate, conscious attempt to drive specific thoughts, affects, and impulses out of awareness” (CPG). The narrator’s second and final attempt at suppression appears as two questions to himself: “What am I saying, what am I doing?”— a horrified, conscious questioning of his own behavior (Kawalec 267).
I have based my analysis largely on the return of the narrator’s repressed wishes and the manifestation of the rationalization and suppression defenses. Also supporting my interpretation is the possibility that the “rustle in the reeds” (Kawalec 265)— which prompted the narrator to rationalize his use of Zeta— was psychogenic, created by his id to allow him to have a reason for keeping Zeta. People often pretend to themselves they had an experience, if that experience allows them to get something they would not have been able to get without the experience happening first. One could argue the narrator’s superego was preventing him from keeping the Bomb, so his id created the experience of hearing a pursuer, which thereby allowed the narrator to justify his keeping Zeta.
One can also note a fulfillment of one of the narrator’s conscious wishes—to have normal ears— as a consequence of Zeta’s power. In describing his unappealing characteristics, the narrator refers twice to his “big ears” (Kawalec 260,2). Once he has Zeta, he imagines “someone tells [him he] has very handsome ears” (Kawalec 267). Here a conscious wish has also been fulfilled through Zeta’s power.
The narrator’s unconscious desires, motivated by the total power Zeta grants, resurface against the will of the ego We can see an analogy between the narrator’s relationship with Zeta and today’s society’s relationship with pleasure-inducing technology such as smart devices. Smart devices employ a wide variety of conspiracy against the human mind, be it in the form of appealing aesthetic or addicting software. As Zeta allows the narrator to fulfill all his wishes, so does smart technology. Pornography is readily available to those seeking sexual pleasure. Narcissists can edit their way to flawlessness and distribute it through social media. Those seeking omnipotent control can keep watch over their front porch and constantly add to lists of infinite reminders. Continued abuse of pleasure-tech will result in scaled-down versions of our narrator. With total integration to smart technology comes total disregard for oneself, one’s neighbor, and one’s society. Realizing that smart technology perpetuates the narrator’s id-Zeta complex is crucial, for it informs us that in our struggle against pleasure-inducing gadgets, we are facing our innate desires, the most formidable of opponents.
Works Cited
Kawalec, Julian. “I Kill Myself” (year). The Vintage Anthology of Science Fantasy. Edited by Christopher Cerf. Translated by Harry Stevens. City: Random House, 1966, pp. 260–67.
Tuckett, D. and Levinson, N.A. (2016). PEP Consolidated Psychoanalytic Glossary. i. Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing: London.