Games People Play_ The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne [37]
An early analogue of ‘Frigid Woman’ is played by that type of prissy little girl described by Dickens in Great Expectations. She comes out in her starched dress and asks the little boy to make her a mud pie. Then she sneers at his dirty hands and clothing and tells him how clean she is.
ANALYSIS
Thesis: Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.
Aim: Vindication.
Roles: Proper Wife, Inconsiderate Husband.
Dynamics: Penis envy.
Examples: (1) Thank you for the mud pie, you dirty little boy. (2) Provocative, frigid wife.
Social Paradigm: Parent-Child.
Parent: ‘I give you permission to make me a mud pie (kiss me).’
Child: ‘I’d love to.’
Parent: ‘Now see how dirty you are.’
Psychological Paradigm: Child-Parent.
Child: ‘See if you can seduce me.’
Parent: ‘I’ll try, if you stop me.’
Child: ‘See, it was you who started it.’
Moves: (1) Seduction-Response. (2) Rejection-Resignation. (3) Provocation-Response. (4) Rejection-Uproar.
Advantages: (1) Internal Psychological – freedom from guilt for sadistic fantasies. (2) External Psychological – avoids feared exhibition and penetration. (3) Internal Social – ‘Uproar’. (4) External Social – What do you do with dirty little boys (husbands)? (5) Biological – inhibited sex play and belligerent exchanges. (6) Existential – I am pure.
4 · HARRIED
Thesis. This is a game played by the harried housewife. Her situation requires that she be proficient in ten or twelve different occupations; or, stated otherwise, that she fill gracefully ten or twelve different roles. From time to time semi-facetious lists of these occupations or roles appear in the Sunday supplements: mistress, mother, nurse, housemaid, etc. Since these roles are usually conflicting and fatiguing, their imposition gives rise in the course of years to the condition symbolically known as ‘Housewife’s Knee’ (since the knee is used for rocking, scrubbing, lifting, driving and so forth), whose symptoms are succinctly summarized in the complaint: ‘I’m tired.’
Now, if the housewife is able to set her own pace and find enough satisfaction in loving her husband and children, she will not merely serve but enjoy her twenty-five years, and see the youngest child off to college with a pang of loneliness. But if on the one hand she is driven by her inner Parent and called to account by the critical husband she has chosen for that purpose, and on the other unable to get sufficient satisfaction from loving her family, she may grow more and more unhappy. At first she may try to console herself with the advantages of ‘If It Weren’t For You’ and ‘Blemish’ (and indeed, any housewife may fall back on these when the going gets rough); but soon these fail to keep her going. Then she has to find another way out, and that is the game of ‘Harried’.
The thesis of this game is simple. She takes on everything that comes, and even asks for more. She agrees with her husband’s criticisms and accepts all her children’s demands. If she has to entertain at dinner, she not only feels she must function impeccably as a conversationalist, chatelaine over the household and servants, interior decorator, caterer, glamour girl, virgin queen and diplomat ; she will also volunteer that morning to bake a cake and take the children to the dentist. If she already feels harassed, she makes the day even more harried. Then in the middle of the afternoon she justifiably collapses, and nothing gets done. She lets down her husband, the children and their guests, and her self-reproaches add to her misery. After this happens two or three times her marriage is in jeopardy, the children are confused, she loses weight, her hair is untidy, her face is drawn and her shoes are scuffed. Then she appears at the psychiatrist’s office, ready to be hospitalized.
Antithesis. The logical antithesis is simple: Mrs White can fill each of her roles in succession during the week, but she must refuse to play two or more of them simultaneously. When she gives a cocktail party, for example, she can play either caterer or nursemaid, but not both. If she is