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Abstract
The interpretations by O. Rank and J. Lacan of the tale The Horla by Maupassant are not convincing, they refer to the Horla as the depiction of a double. A careful reading of the three versions of the tale brings to light some elements which these interpretations have overlooked and the consideration of which allows for a critical reconstruction which is very different. In fact, in The Horla we find a literary dramatisation of just those aspects which characterise the being with no face or image described by Freud as reality-ego, which represents the first of two times where the genesis of the ego takes place. It’s significant that the figure of the Horla, so similar to the reality-ego and with no characteristics of the double, comes from the pen of an author who had a profound understanding of regression to the most devastating mental illness, and which offers in this way clinical support to the general theory of subj ectivation.