Freud’s Impact on Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Giorgio de Chirico’s The Vexations of the Thinker
The 1920 publication of Beyond the Pleasure Principle formalized a meaningful shift in Sigmund Freud's theory of sexual drive: his original hypothesis distinguished the ego instincts from the sexual instincts. Subsequent psychoanalytic researches force him to refine this configuration:
. . . psycho-analysis observed the regularity with which libido is withdrawn from the object and directed on the ego (the process of introversion); and, by studying the libidinal development of children in its earliest phases, came to the conclusion that the ego is the true and original reservoir of libido, and that it is only from that reservoir that libido is extended on to objects. [1]
Freud recognizes the narcissistic nature of sexual instinct yet clings to a dual (read: non-Jungian) model for instinctual drive. He ". . . describe[s] the opposition as being, not between ego-instincts and sexual instincts but between life instincts and death instincts" (Freud 64). Freud sees the natural goal of the sexual drive as reproduction - life - and the natural goal of the ego as death. This newest polarity leads to Freud's exploration of the so-called "perversions", sadism and masochism, as they characterize the death instinct.
It may seem odd to equate sadism with narcissism considering that a sadist receives pleasure only from another's pain. "[But] is it not plausible," Freud asks, "to suppose that this sadism is in fact a death instinct which, under the influence of the narcissistic ego, has been forced away from the ego and consequently only emerged in relation to the object?" He goes on to explain tha...
... middle of paper ...
...irico builds a wall of narcissism to entrap his solitary figure. This fact leads me to draw a parallel between the figure in de Chirico's painting and Charlotte Brontë's Heathcliff. Both suffer unnecessarily. Arguably, both would be better off dead. But their pain keeps them going even as it slowly kills them. Life serves death serves . . . life. Yes, we are slowly moving toward death, but each step is a lively one.
Works Cited
[1] Sigmund Freud. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1961 (62). Hereafter cited parenthetically.
[2] During the oral stage of organization of the libido, the act of obtaining erotic mastery over an object coincides with that object's destruction (Freud 65).
[3] Charlotte Brontë. Wuthering Heights. New York: TOR Books, 1989 (177). Hereafter cited parenthetically.
The novel The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger, depicts a boy named Holden Caulfield whose psyche ultimately impacts his mental state. Throughout the novel Holden’s mental state gradually becomes affected by this damaged psyche. He either demonstrates the id or the superego, and rarely his ego. Holden’s psyche appears in the id, superego, and ego forms.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
EYSENCK, page 475) Sigmund Freud developed a theory to explain psychoanalytic or psychodynamic theory he was the founder and practised as a psychotherapist and much of his work comes from self-analysis. Freud’s work suggests that early experiences determine adult personality; he identified five stages within the first five years of life. Freud believed that personality consisted of three main elements, The Id: Basic instincts present at birth (The pleasure principle)
According to Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams we all have wishes and desires. One of the most common of these repressed desires is the wish to sexually pos...
Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.
The psychoanalytic perspective grew out of subsequent psychoanalytic theories (1901, 1924, and 1940) following decades of interactions with clients with the use of an innovative procedure developed by Sigmund Freud that required lengthy verbal interactions with patients during which Freud probed deep into their lives. In a nutshell, the psychoanalytic perspective looked to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focussing on the influence of early childhood experiences, on unconscious motives and conflicts, and on the methods people use to cope with their sexual and aggressive urges. The Biological perspective on the other hand looks at the physiological bases of behaviour in humans and animals. It proposes that an organism’s functioning can be described in terms of the bodily structures and biochemical processes that cause behaviour. This paper attempts to examine the similarities and differences between the psychoanalytic perspective and the biological perspective with the key focus on the core assumptions and features of these perspectives as well as their individual strengths and weaknesses.
Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting poems and morbid stories will be read by countless generations of people from many different countries, a fact which would have undoubtedly provided some source of comfort for this troubled, talented yet tormented man. His dark past continued to torture him until his own death. These torturous feelings were shown in many of his works. A tragic past, consisting of a lack of true parents and the death of his wife, made Edgar Allan Poe the famous writer he is today, but it also led to his demise and unpopularity.
Every poem of Edgar Allan Poe’s has some common literary elements, such as themes, symbols, motifs, and moods. Poe often uses similar themes throughout his poems. For instance, revenge is a common them and is used in the “Cask of Amontillado” and “ Hop Frog.” Another them he uses quite frequently is death. In almost every poem, death is mentioned. In the “Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor kills Fortunato. In “Premature Burial,” it has documentaries of people who have died. In “Tell Tale Heart,” a man his killed. Dea...
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.
In Sigmund Freud's observation, humans are mainly ambitious by sexual and aggressive instincts, and search for boundless enjoyment of all needs. However, the continuous pursuit of gratification driven by the identification, or unconscious, directly conflicts with our society as the uncontrolled happiness. Sigmund Freud believed that inherent sexual and aggressive power prevented from being expressed would cause our "society to be miserable and the forfeiture of contentment." Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic view of personality theory is based on the perception that greatly of human behavior is determi...
From the first scene of Catcher in the Rye. Holden chooses not to go to the football game that the rest of his school is going to, unmistakably Holden doesn't fit in.
Anxiety played an important role in the psychoanalytic theory, and, as a result, psychoanalytic interpretation is important to understand anxiety disorders. In the psychoanalytic interpretation, anxiety is defined an intense sensation of endangerment and an unconscious mechanism produced by unconscious conflicts. According to Wolman and Stricker (1994), it can be understood as a symptom that is the cause and effect of itself and a product of past experience, psychological mechanisms, and psychic contents like persecutory anxiety or separation anxiety. For Freud, nervous anxiety was produced by sexual frustration and repressed sexual drives, or libido. In his theory, sexual frustration creates a biochemical imbalance that results in anxiety. However, this idea does not have support on the empirical basis because there is not a biochemical process that correlates with Freud’s theory. In addition, on the psychological basis, sexually abstinent people do not always experience extreme anxiety (Wolman...
“Psychological - or more strictly speaking, psychoanalytic -investigation shows that the deepest essence of human nature, which are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain needs... [are] self-preservation, aggression, need for love, and the impulse to attain pleasure and avoid pain...” At its simplest form, this quote perfectly explains Sigmund Freud’s theory on human nature. Human beings, according to Freud, are in a constant state of conflict within themselves; trying to satisfy their animalistic instincts, while also maintaining a socially appropriate life. Freud termed these animalistic tendencies that we have, the Id. The Id is essentially our unconscious mind, it is the part of us that has been there since the day we were born and is what drives our life’s needs and desires. The Id simply aims to satisfy our sexual or aggressive urges immediately, without taking into account any further implications. On the other hand, Freud used the term, the Superego, to describe man’s conscience and sense of morality. It is the Superego’s job to keep the Id in check by combatting the desire to satisfy urges with the feeling of guilt or anxiety. Finally, the Ego, is the conscious representation of the constant battle between the Superego and the Id. It must work to satisfy human’s instinctual tendencies while taking into account their conscience and doing what is rational and acceptable. Freud argues that these internal process that are constantly at work in our mind are what shape humans to do the things that they do. Thus, he believes, the goal of human nature is to satisfy our basic aggressive and sexual desires while adhering to cultural and social standards.
From a Freudian perspective, human development is based on psychosexual theory (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). It was Freud’s perspective that there are three components of personality (the id, ego, and superego) that become integrated into his five stage theoretical model. The id was the biological or drive component that is innate from birth. The sole purpose of the Id is satiate an individual’s internal drives (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). The ego is the conscious portion of our personality that mediates between our id and superego. Throughout development the ego reflects the child’s emerging ability to...
Throughout Freud’s time, he came up with many different theories. One of his theories was Life and Death Instincts. This theory evolved throughout his life and work. He believed that these drives were responsible for much of behavior. He eventually came to believe that these life instincts alone couldn’t explain all human behavior. Freud then determined that all instincts fall into one of 2 major classes: the life instincts or the death instincts. Life instincts deal with basic survival, reproduction, and pleasure. Death instincts are apparent after people experience a traumatic event and they often reenact the experience. In Freud’s view, self-destructive behavior is an expression of the energy that is created by the death instincts.