The present article aims to study the myth of Thanatos and the conception of death. The beginning of everything and Thanatos in the beginning of everything was Chaos, according to Greek mythology. In Evaldo D' Assumpção's exposition:

"And Chaos, in Greek means the unfathomable abyss. But Chaos is not a concept exclusive to Greek mythology. In the book of Genesis we read that "in the beginning, the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the face of the abyss." It was primordial Chaos. In Egyptian cosmogony, Chaos is a powerful energy of the formless and unordered world. In Chinese tradition, Chaos is the homogeneous space, prior to the creation of theworld" (ASSUMPÇÃO, 2017).

The story of Thanatos

From Chaos were born Erebo, the personification of subterranean darkness, and Nix, night and higher darkness. "[...] From Nix were born Uranus (the sky) and Gaia (the Earth). Gaia was united to Uranus, who continually fertilized her. From them were born the 12 Titans, among them Cronus (time), the Hecatonchians and the 3 Cyclops.

Uranus hated his children and Cronus, revolted against that situation, He castrated his father and freed his mother. He then married his sister Rhea, but Chrono feared a prophecy that one of his sons would usurp his throne.

Therefore, he too disliked his children and devoured them after their birth. Unhappy with that situation, Réia decided to save Zeus, the son she had just given birth to, by rolling a stone with the clothes that wrapped the boy" (ASSUMPÇÃO, 2017).

Mythology of death

Zeus would be the next to be devoured, but Rhea saved him, she had just given birth to Zeus. She wrapped the boy's clothes in a stone and croned him, Noticing the smell of the boy on the stone, he devoured it.

In a debatable genealogy, Nix also begot Ether (the upper heaven, where light is purest) and Hemera (day), and begot Moro (fate), Momo (sarcasm), Gueras (old age), Eris (discord), and the Moiras (fate), which are three: Cloto (the spinner of the thread of life), Lachesis (the sorcerer of those who will die), and Atropos (theAnd also Nemesis (distributive justice), Queres (destruction), Hypno (sleep), and Thanatos (death)" (ASSUMPÇÃO, 2017).

The power of Thanatos in Ancient Greece

In Ancient Greece, the Greeks avoided pronouncing the name Thanatos. They believed that the name could attract some kind of destruction. According to Assumption (2017), Thanatos had a heart of iron and a bowels of silver.

"In a fight with Sisyphus, who was king of Corinth, he was defeated and chained by him. With Thanatos imprisoned, no one died anymore and so the kingdom of Hades (of the dead) became impoverished, since it no longer received anyone. Seeing this, Zeus intervened and freed Thanatos, who upon being freed sought out Sisyphus and made him his first victim" (ASSUMPÇÃO, 2017).

Sisyphus

As Assumpção (2017) has well explained, Sisyphus, before he died, asked his wife not to perform funeral rites. Arriving in the nether world, he complained that his wife had not performed the funeral ceremony.

So Sisyphus got a chance to go to the world of the living to talk to his wife. But it was a plan, and Sisyphus and his wife ran away in the meantime, Thanatos returned to the upper world and arrested Sisyphus.

"As punishment, he was given the task of painfully rolling a heavy stone to the top of a mountain, but every time he got close to the top, the stone slipped out of his hands and rolled downhill, and Sisyphus had to go back for it, starting all over again. And that for all eternity" (ASSUMPÇÃO, 2017).

The relationship between Thanatos and Psychoanalysis

Thanatos is the perception of death, drives toward destruction. Sigmund Freud and war has always been part of human life, it was once regarded as a kind of evolution, in other words, combat enhances the technological knowledge of the human being.

Sigmund Freud was close to war, as Juliana Vecchi Marinuchi signals: "Moreover, Freud's contributions concerning times of war and peace are well known" (MARINUCHI, 2019).

The desire for power

There is in the human being a deep desire for power Although social patterns constitute countless regulations, the primitive aspect does not disappear, it is just reorganized.

"In the late 18th century and early 19th century, the world underwent major transformations. With the strengthening of capitalism , population growth, transformations in the transportation system, urbanization. In addition, the two great wars" (MARINUCHI, 2019).

I want information to enroll in the Psychoanalysis Course .

As put by Marinuchi (2019), Sigmund Freud lived through the time of the First War. He was excited at the beginning of the war, Freud was a nationalist. However the war was bringing its symptoms as time went on: fear, distress, anguish, etc.

"[...] Therefore, Freud shares his afflictions of the First War, and places as one of the central themes death, in Reflections for the Times of War and Death" (FREUD, 1915). He who, from a distance, guards the post and longs for the return of his loved ones" (MARINUCHI). Once, in between reflections, Freud constituted the following question: what is the reason for war? It is of utmost importance,readers, let us establish some paths to understand Freud's questioning.

Man is man's own wolf

The above title was mentioned by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, according to Hobbes, The human being is naturally evil and ruled by self-preservation. According to him, human beings possess an instinct that rules them to the path of violence.

The social apparatus is the regulatory instrument of the destructive nature of the individual. For Thomas Hobbes, peace and security are close words and political instruments for the purpose of preservation. Interesting that the philosopher's statement brings some reminders of Freudian thought.

For Freud, culture has two objectives: the control of nature and the adjustment of relations between human beings, so much so that social institutions mediate man's living in society, in other words, they minimize human hostile impulses. Because the subject is an enemy of civilization, he has a strong tendency toward annihilation.

The Evolution of Man

Every kind of civilizing project is attacked by the rebelliousness of men, the desire to kill the other is instinctual, that is, the instinct and the civilized need to be separated. And the real is the evolutionary space of man; technology and science are indispensable apparatuses for the mental improvement of the being.

Cultural units are essential for the proper development of man, for the subject has his latent inclinations and ideas. What civilization seeks is the deprivation of instincts, its great protector is science.

She is the guardian that drives away primitivism and the ferocious state, she is the provider of ideas for men.

Human Nature

Science aims to humanize the real, in short, society aims to protect man from death, from the wolf that surrounds, or rather, from the other man.

The child, through its parents and in order to enter the civilizing world, goes through a process of repression; it needs to know what is right and wrong. The social environment also interferes in the individual's decisions He goes through repressions, of course, with the objective of reaching maturity for a healthy social life.

The cultural precepts

The cultural precepts are bridges for the transformation of the person. The intellect needs to be a persistent walk in the individual, repressing what is instinct and expanding what is held as correct. Finally, readers, to repress is to dam the harmful impulses of human beings.

Because man is individual-oriented, because he is individual, he needs a leader to lead him along the paths of a social life.

I want information to enroll in the Psychoanalysis Course .

The leader is the element that deprives others of destructive and selfish impulses. Civilization is synonymous with renunciation; it is the organization of the psychological orders of the individual for a common good.

The individual's relationship with society

The human being organizes his libido, channels it into the leader, into the ideal of the "I". The individual's relationship with society is oedipal, that is, he redirects his instinctual libido in the discourses taken for granted. By ordering, by means of social codes, the material and symbolic aspects.

The subject is molded to be a representative of public precepts, in other terms, a civilizing castration for the preservation of life.

When we think about ordering institutions, I have already commented in previous lines, they aim to constitute the identity aspect of the citizen. Social devices are fuel for the drive toward life. They are essential for the organization of healthy coexistence among human beings.

Consumer society

Western societies are characterized by consumerism. Consumerist discourses give expression to what is sublimated into a competitive reality. Organizing individuals for enmity and destructiveness, there are gaps about preservation.

The libido is directed toward the satisfaction of consumption. The person longs for the model of life that society imposes as a paradigm. People, longing for the social proposal, go in search of the proposal to satisfy the ego.

When we talk about a consumer society, it is valid to be aware that its consumption is rhetorical. It has an end in itself, it aims to imbue people with its message. The 21st century is marked by the need to realize the paradigms determined by society.

And in face of this need, the competitive feeling and inequality emerge. And inequality generates a death drive, Thanatos, due to consumerism and the emotional exhaustion propitiated by consumption. It is the libidinal castration that occurs through social and cultural exclusion. If the drives are not properly taken care of, there can be a triggering of actual death of the subject.

Thanatos: a reflection

Therefore, the death drive is an objection that is part of human existence. Although the human being lives and coexists in society, such drive is not exhausted, man lives between two drives: life and death.

Even in the face of the destructive space that exists in man, the social system is the essential gear for preservation. It constitutes self-denial for the individuals it organizes, that is, from the other the individual awakens Eros, the opposite of death.

Empathy is the feeling that needs to be awakened in the person, to have empathy is to preserve oneself and the other. It is known that the social system is in a constant state of change, it is forged by managed discourses, cultures, and desires. The paradoxical felicities are not few, so it is important for the human being to be aware of the proposed paradigms.

The price of happiness

The present offers a happiness with a price, that is, you either achieve it or you don't. If the person achieves the steps necessary to reach such happiness, he has his ego sustained; if not, death impulses may surface.

Ultimately, readers, the inner lobes need to be taught for continuous withdrawal and the encouragement for good libido orchestration So to speak, the true pursuit of happiness.

References about Thanatos

ASSUMPÇÃO, Evaldo D.' Thanatos- the death, in Greek mythology.Dom Total, 2017.Available at: //domtotal.com/noticia/1204071/2017/11/thanatos-a-morte-na-mitologia-grega/.Accessed on: 03/17/21.

BRAGA, Ive. The myth of Thanatos and the death drive. Psychoanalysis Clínica, 2020. Available at: //www.psicanaliseclinica.com/mito-de-thanatos/. Access on: 22/03/21.

VECCHI MARINUCHI, Juliana.First and Second World War for Freud.Clinical Psychoanalysis, 2019.Available at: //www.psicanaliseclinica.com/guerra-mundial/. Accessed on: 25/03/21.

This article was written by the author Artur Charczuk( [email protected] ), Lutheran pastor in Rio Grande do Sul. He has a degree in Languages, Literature and Portuguese (2010) from the Universidade Luterana do Brasil, ULBRA. He has a specialization in Languages, Literatures and Media (2011) from the Universidade Luterana do Brasil, ULBRA. He has a degree in Theology and Philosophy and a specialization inPastoral Counseling (2020) by Instituto Mineiro de Formação Continuada, ZAYN.