Identification in Life and Literature

About the Book

Sigmund Freud viewed the coping strategy of identification as both an expansion of the verb “to identify,” as well as a validation of the concept “to identify with.” This book shows how the Aztec emperor Montezuma and the noted Argentine writer Julio Cortázar each, respectively, used the process of identification in a Freudian manner. In the case of Montezuma, it is argued that he identified the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés as the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), while for Cortázar, it is demonstrated that he identified with a Moteca Indian from the Aztec world, who was about to be sacrificed.

About the Author

Martin Wasserman is a professor emeritus at SUNY Adirondack, a college in the State University of New York system, where he taught for thirty-six years. During his career, he published over thirty journal articles and three books. One of those works, Kafka Kaleidoscope, was chosen as a best book by the Small Press Review in 1999. Dr. Wasserman’s three most recent publications consist of a book of translations entitled Listening to the Other: Versions of Yiddish, Vietnamese, and Aztec Poetry and two monographs––the title of the first is Vultures, Hemorrhages, and Zionism: A Sociohistorical Investigation of a Franz Kafka Parable, and the second is called Sports, Games, and Gambling in the Aztec World.