On the Evil Destiny of Roman Polanski and Charles Manson

Lee, Byung Wook

Abstract

Roman Polanski is a famous film director, and Charles Manson is an infamous cruel criminal. They were involved with the 1969 horrible murder in Hollywood as the victim and assaulter each other, because Roman Polanski's pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson Family members. They have a heritage common to both them, namely childhood trauma. Roman Polanski was traumatized by the Holocaust in Nazioccupied Poland, which he was forced to separate with his Jewish parent, and his mother was gassed in Auschwitz, and he escapedthe Krakow ghetto, after the war he learned from his father that his mother had been killed by the Nazis. His father also barely survived the Austrian concentration camp. But his tumultuous personal life was not ended. His second trauma was the incredible murder in 1969. He lost his wife and baby at a time. His third trauma was his unlawful sex crime on a little girl, and thereafter he fled to Europe before sentencing. He is considered to be a fugitive fromjustice, and he never return to America without risking arrest. Charles Manson was born as an illegitimate in Ohio, and repetitively neglected and abandoned from his mother who was irresponsible antisocial alcoholic woman. His father was unknown. Charles Manson was traumatized by maternal deprivation and abandonment, and repetitive confinement with sadistic sexual assault in his boyhood. He lived in prison for the most of his lives, and then he did not know how to adapt to the world. He became a charismatic leader of the Manson Family, and his members worshipped him as Jesus Christ. At that time he was preoccupied to many religious, paranoid, grandiose delusions, and he synthesized to the Beatles and the Bible. He was a would-be musician, prophet, Messiah, and rescuer in his Family. Justafter the indiscriminate slaughter Manson and his followers were arrested, and isolated from the society. Roman Polanski and Charles Manson are nearly both of an age, and they have a common childhood trauma. But they traced on the quite different life courses. Polanski showed a neurotic feature, but he was successful to his creative works by appropriate sublimations. Manson showed a psychotic feature with antisocial traits, at last he was totally unsuccessful to social adaptation. This difference means that Polanski had mainly the oedipal problems, but Manson had the serious defects in pre-oedipal stage. Nevertheless I conclude that parental caring and concern are the core elements for the healthy psychological development, and proper educations are essential for the healthy social maintenances.