“Caviare to the general”

“Caviare to the general” is a phrase from Hamlet that Freud uses as an interpretive link in his analysis of a dream. Its distinction between salted and unsalted caviare helps him move from the dream’s invented word Ungeseres to Geseres, a word he understands as meaning suffering imposed on someone, or destiny.## Source and Meaning Freud identifies the phrase as Hamlet’s. In the dream analysis, its force is not merely literary: the image of caviare provides a comparison between two kinds of something, one salted and one unsalted. Unsalted caviare, Freud observes, is more highly regarded. That preference gives him a route into the dream’s contrast between Geseres and Ungeseres.

The phrase also carries a joking personal allusion. Freud says that “great expectations” conceals a reference to a younger member of his household, whom he hopes will one day take responsibility for the future of his children. The phrase thus operates at once as a borrowed expression, a comparison of preferences, and a veiled reference within the dream’s associations.## Role in the Dream Analysis The interpretive problem begins with the dream’s spoken words Auf Geseres, where Auf Wiedersehen would ordinarily be expected, and the nonsensical opposite Ungeseres. Freud explains that Geseres derives from the Hebrew verb goiser and is best rendered as imposed suffering or destiny; Jewish slang might suggest weeping and wailing. Ungeseres, by contrast, is Freud’s own word formation, and at first he cannot make sense of it.

The dream’s closing remark that Ungeseres is preferred to Geseres opens the way to interpretation. The salted–unsalted contrast suggested by caviare supplies one intermediate step, but Freud notes that a transition is still needed between that pair and the dream’s two words. He finds it in leavened and unleavened bread: the children of Israel, leaving Egypt without time for their dough to rise, are remembered at Easter through the eating of unleavened bread. The chain of comparisons makes the caviare phrase part of a wider sequence of verbal and remembered associations, rather than a self-contained allusion.## Personal Associations and Connections The association proceeds through memories from an Easter walk in Breslau with Freud’s Berlin friend. A little girl asked for directions to a street; because Freud did not know the town, he had to excuse himself. He then hoped aloud that the girl would later show better judgment in choosing guides. Soon afterward, he noticed a physician’s plate bearing the name Dr Herodes and joked about whether the colleague was a children’s specialist. His friend meanwhile spoke about bilateral symmetry and the possibility of having one eye in the middle of the forehead like a Cyclops.

That conversation leads back to the dream’s preliminary reference to “My son, the myope” and, through it, to the source of Geseres. Freud recalls that Professor L.’s son, now an independent thinker, had suffered an eye complaint while still at school. The phrase “Caviare to the general” therefore belongs to an associative network that connects the dream’s verbal oppositions with household references, the Easter walk, and the remembered concern about the boy’s eyesight.## Interpretive Significance The phrase’s contribution depends on its position in this chain: it offers a concrete contrast of preference, but Freud’s interpretation does not stop at that analogy. He supplies the missing verbal bridge through leavened and unleavened bread, then follows the associations toward the dream’s personal and remembered material. The literary phrase consequently acts as a hinge in the analysis, joining a joking allusion to the dream’s invented wordplay and the recollections that give the word Geseres its significance.