Amor e terror na visão de si: Narciso e outros mitos sobre o duplo

Abstract

This paper focalizes the relationship of the human being with himself, by the investigation of the questions concerning the vision of oneself's double or oneself's reflex. It shows studies accomplished by Otto Rank, James Frazer and other anthropologists and social scientists, about myths, believes and taboos, which are social regulators since the immemorial time. The primitive people' believes and those ones concerning recent ocidental communities are approched. Then, the myth of Narciso is analysed as an emblem of love and terror themes, both present in all the myths about the vision of the double, about the vision of oneself's reflex. At last, the saga of Narciso is compared to the hero's drame of the film "The Student of Praha", which is inspired in a Hoffmann's tale about the double.