Concern with the question of an adopted child’s origin occupies a central place in the imagination of adoptive parents. A “revelation” therefore becomes a key signifier that generates a state of anxiety, when the more natural situation would be to arrange for an informal family discussion about adoption. The state of the foreigner to consanguinity would seem to eliminate the guarantee of a delegated, granted, conquered place.
The Oedipus fantasy is seen in a very particular way because, due to the lack of the barrier of consanguinity, it loses the guarantee with which the interdiction of incest is marked. We discuss here the condition of foreigner in the Oedipal experience mainly because it has often been expressed in parents’ discourse as well as in comments and definitions by legislators who study the subject.
The uncanny is frightening, stirring up both fear and terror, but it is also related to the known and the very familiar. One aspect of Unheimlich “refers to everything that should have remained private and secret, but came to light.” Heimlich refers to “a place free from the influence of fantasies.” It can be said, then, that uncanny does not mean something new, but something familiar that has long been present in the imagination. Something that should have stayed in the shadows is brought up to light. In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles shows rare sensibility as he unveils, step by step, the conflict of the revelation, the revelation of Oedipus’ double filiation. Adopted children seem to live, both in action and in reality, what the most people live in dreams: the duplicity of the parental couple present in the fantasy of the family romance.
Adoptive parents; Oedipus mith; uncanny; Unheimlich; revelation