Editing Melanie Klein (section)

=== Primitive envy ===
Klein defines envy as "the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something desirable—the envious impulse being to take it away or to spoil it."<ref>{{Citation |last=Klein |first=Melanie |title=The writings of Melanie Klein. Vol. 3: Envy and gratitude and other works, 1946 - 1963 |date=1980 |issue=104 |series=The international psycho-analytical Library |edition=2nd impr |location=London |publisher=Hogarth Press |isbn=978-0-7012-0409-9}}</ref> According to Klein, envy is one of the earliest expressions of the death drive and is an innate emotion. Envy exists even before the infant can fully perceive the external world and the mother, and it affects the first object relation, which is the relation to the breast. 

In Klein's theory, there is an important distinction between envy and jealousy: "Jealousy is based on love and aims at the possession of the loved object and the removal of the rival; envy is the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something desirable—the envious impulse being to take it away or to spoil it."<ref>{{Citation |last=Klein |first=Melanie |title=The writings of Melanie Klein. Vol. 3: Envy and gratitude and other works, 1946 - 1963 |date=1980 |issue=104 |series=The international psycho-analytical Library |edition=2nd impr |location=London |publisher=Hogarth Press |isbn=978-0-7012-0409-9}}</ref>

Envy is directed towards the creative capacity of the good object that is both loved and hated. The infant envies the breast (the good object) that feeds and comforts them, and wants to spoil and destroy its goodness. This sadistic impulse arises from a kind of pain stemming from the infant's inability to satisfy its own needs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grotstein |first=James S. |title="... But at the same time and on another level ..." |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-786-8 |location=London}}</ref>