Structure of the Mind Child Development Love Sigmund

Structure of the Mind, Child Development & Love: Sigmund Freud

Section II: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Self & Literature (covered in our course) (1) (2) (3) (4) Structure of the Mind, Child Development & Love Dream and Sexual Symbols Lacan’s Views of Desire & Split Identity Psychological Disorders

Outline n n n Starting Questions & Key Words General Introduction Freud’s Premise 1. 2. 3. n n Psyche; an example Sexuality, Love and Desire Child Development, Repression and Sublimation Issues and Discussion Examples: 1) Literature and Fine Arts; 2) Dali, 3) “Eveline” n(assignment for next week)

Starting Questions n n Are we rational or autonomous? (作你自己的主 人) How is our body related to our mind –and soul? Can the latter two transcend the former (e. g. when it is ill)? Are they formed by it and also in resistance to it (e. g. its desires)? Or does the mind work ‘through’ the body (e. g. bodily performance of the mind)? What are Freud’s theories of human psyche (or mind) and sexuality? Do you agree with them? Do you have examples of the influences of id or superego? Do you agree with Freud that babies have sexual desires?

Starting Questions n n Is intimate love definitely sexually driven? Should our sexual desires be repressed or liberated? What do you think about cohabitation for college students (who are couples)? Have you experienced Oedipus/Electra complex and/or castration fear?

Key Words n n Sexuality, libido, pleasure principle id, ego, superego, Reality principle, Repression and sublimation child development: Erotogenic zones, oral, anal and genital phases; Oedipus/Electra complex, castration fear

Freudian Psychoanalysis: General Introduction n One branch of the studies of human psychology (the others: abnormal, social, cognitive, biological, etc. ) (our textbook) studies of mind and personality (e. g. Coleridge’s def. of imagination; Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian. Emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis: Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams clip 24: 20 – 25: 30 – 27: 30

Freud: Three Premises n n n 1. Most of the individual's mental processes are unconscious. (c: tip of an iceberg) (text: 49) 2. All human behavior is motivated ultimately by what we would call sexuality. The prime psychic force is libido, or sexual energy. 3. Because of the powerful social taboos attached to certain sexual impulses, many of our desires and memories are repressed.

The Unconscious n n --cannot be pointed at; can only be "diagnosed" --the reverse of consciousness; takes a large part of our mind. Making itself manifest through "gaps"-unintended lapses in memory, slips of tongue, puns and dreams tip of an iceberg (text 49; 50) e. g. “Young Goodman Brown” the sea in The Piano (and several other feminist films)

Our Psyche: three models More and more specific descriptions of our mind: 1. Descriptive n The conscious – perceptual or sensory consciousness which orders reality; n the preconscious –the elements of experience which can be called into consciousness; n the unconscious– desires, images and ideas unknown to and repressed by us. 2. Economic (Systematic): For self-preservation, ego negotiates between “pleasure principle” and “reality principle”

Our Psyche: three models (2) (textbook pp. 149 -51) 3. Dynamic: the interplay of forces within the mind, or the tensions that develop when instinctual drives erupt, surface and meet the necessities of external reality formation of the mind out of the body and its experience of pleasure and pain

Our Psyche: 3 -Part Structure n n n Superego morality p. repository of conscience & pride Follows reason and morality circumspection protect society e. g. internalized parental discipline • Ego • reality p • Intermediary • protects one’s self • e. g. restrain from crying in order to get what it wants Id n pleasure p. n repository of libido n Follows instinct and passion n self-satisfaction n e. g. babies’ nonstop crying (textbook p. 51 -52) n Examples?

Example I: “No Problem (? )” n n No Problem = “On Problem” Problem (1): Desire for a female aerobic teacher n Disguised as “exercise” Fantasies—screen projection censored:

Example I: “No Problem” Problems (2) Courting attempts frustrated 1) visits Natalie with a bunch of flowers – nervous conflicting desires 2) rejected by many in “The Little Black book” 3) Zolga—lady high above on a mt. or far away

Desire for Zolga n Expressed thru’ photographic & stereotypical images (fantasies)

Example I: “No Problem” Problem (3): self split into three; the two others appear whenever he acts.

Example I: “No Problem” n In between the conflicting two: n n Id figure: likes to eat, is messy and sexdriven; Superego figure: Polite, rational, cautious, prohibiting. (e. g. To leap over the gulf or not)

Example I: “No Problem” n Images and their symbolic meanings: water dripping down his face, rain, waterfalls, embarrassment, obstacles, insatiable desire, sexual difficulties; n closing door—rejection; selfcompartmentalized n

Images and their symbolic meanings: n n black dog—animal desire foods

Solution: n n Dilemma: to call or not to call Solution: after some inner struggle, she is still there.

Solution: n n n Killing the two; Integrating the three; Closing the door against the dog.

No problem at the end? n Animal and divided selves are locked indoor. n The film critiques but also centers on male ego.

Freud’s View of Sexuality and Love (Singer 100 -) n 1) love as the fusion of sexuality and tenderness. n n n Love: Tenderness and affection directed toward the ones who takes care of the baby; Two currents (love and sexuality; identification and possession) fused only in early childhood; hardly combined in adulthood. (e. g. angel and whore as men’s love objects) There is always a yearning for a confluence of these two currents. (And, for Lacan, return to the realm of plenitude Lacan’s idea of desire as lack. )

Freud’s View of Sexuality and Love 2 (Singer 100 -) 2) Love as libidinal energy; n n Libido = energy, “dynamic manifestation of sexuality. ” Freud’s idea of Sexuality is broader than the general conception: n n n It includes not just adult coital sex, but also “the sexual life of perverted persons and also of children. ” Perversion= sexual but not genital activities. n n Children—polimorphous, The Pervert – fixated on non-genital love objects which “normal” people have outgrown.

Freud’s View of Sexuality and Love 3 (Singer 100 -) 3) Love as Eros n The drive or instinct of life which attaches individuals to each other and ultimately unifies mankind; 4) Love as the mixture of Eros and one’s aggressive instinct (death drive). n Almost every intimate relationship between two people which lasts for some time leaves a sediment of feelings of aversion and hostility. (Singer 114) Agree?

Freud’s View of Sexuality and Love 4 (Grosz 126 -) Two Kinds: Anaclisis (依賴心理) and Narcissism n Anaclitic love: love for the care-taker (mother or her substitute) n Narcissistic love: those who are “seeking themselves as a love object” n Is there a gender tendency? n For Freud: A—”an active, masculine type of love” N—”the feminine form [involving] the passive aim of beling loved. ” n Do you agree?

Romantic Love: Freud’s View (G 127) The anaclitic lover: n Tends to over-evaluate the love-object (putting the love-object on a pedestal and abjecting the self) n Anaclisis is not so much based on a valorization of her unique charms and attributes as much as his position as lover. n It is “derived from the child’s original narcissism and thus corresponds to a transference of that narcissism to the sexual object. ” (Freud qtd in Grosz 127) n He is “the subject who has what the (m)other lacks. ” n (e. g. man’s rescue fantasy; Male spectator’s identifying with the grand female image on the screen. )

(Female) Narcissism n Secondary and defensive reassertion of the girl’s pre-oedipal narcissism, a compensation for her oedipal castration. n n n Normal femininity (passivity) and motherhood; (takes on the role of object of desire and mother. ) The masculinity complex (Tom boy) A reactivated narcissism (vain, shallow, skilled in artifice, bound up by the desire to be loved) –far more dependent and subordinate than it seems. Passive position of semblance and seduction. Do you agree? Can women be narcissistic without a man? Is narcissism a necessary state of love? Yes for Freud. Primary narcissism//auto -eroticism

Child development n oral stage anal stage latent period phallic stage genital stage What is happening in this process. . . is a gradual organization of the libidinal drives. . . n Oedipus complex and gendering process n With Oedipus complex starts the process of socialization Textbook: p. 53 -

Child development (2) 1. oral stage (sucking) n 2. anal stage (withholding, expulsion) n 3. phallic stage (castration complex) n n 4. latent period n 5. genital stage n Auto-eroticism Oedipus complex (positive and negative constellation) n n puberty

Oedipus complex in Boys Loving Mother, Hating father Castration fear Positive constellation: identifies with Father, later loves other women Negative constellation: identifies with Mother and loves Father or unable to love other women. n n Electra complex in Girls loving Mother, hating Father n loving Father + Penis envy n Loving Father and identifying with Mother in order to produce babies (phallus) for Father. Negative: unable to love Father or other men. n n

Repression and Sublimation n Libido as flows of energy. Once held back (as if water being dammed up), it has to find other outlets. Two possible outcome – n sublimation, (indirect expressions in Dream or Art) The return of the repressed. “All the achievements of civilization result from the discharge of sublimated energy. ” (Singer 103) // Civilization and its Discontents. n fixation (e. g. neurosis, perversion such as fetishism)

Key Issues in Freud’s views of sexuality & Oedipus complex n n Recognition of Father’s authority Development from bi-sexuality to heterosexuality The influence of sexuality, parents and childhood on our personality Are we born to be destructive and aggressive? Is sexuality the source of our energy?

Child development (3) Beyond Freud Oedipus complex & its (Identification resolution with Mother) ego psychology Pre-Oedipal Symbiosis Object-Relation Theory: e. g. Transitional Objects such as receiving blanket

Summary: Freud’s Major Concepts The Unconscious & Structure of the psyche n the child's sexual development- a. polymorphous sexuality, three stages, fixation b. Oedipal stage--gendering process, Oedipus complex, castration fear n (next time) dream analysis-condensation, substitution, symbolization n repression and pyschological disorder: psychological or physical abnormalities as symptoms (or covert expressions of desire)biography n

Examples of Freud’s Oedipus complex n n n Sons and Lovers –Paul not able to love the woman who resembles his mother. Peter Pan –as Wendy’s Other (with phallic power) Leonardo –his androgenous figures Edgar Allan Poe, his rebellion against authority and his fixation on deadly women “Araby” – the child in lack of maternal love.

Example: SALVADOR DALI His stylistic concerns: eroticize reality + Trompe-l'oeil n 'After Freud it is the outer world, the world of physics, which will have to be eroticized and quantified. ‘ Dali, IN 'THE WORLD OF SALVADOR DALI, ' MACMILLAN 1962 n (source: SALVADOR DALI http: //www. mmlab. ktu. lt/Dali/index. html )

Example: SALVADOR DALI "My whole ambition in the pictorial domain is to materialize the images of concrete irrationality with the most imperialist fury of precision. " n "to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality" (source) n

Example: SALVADOR DALI n n n His Life Gala and Dali met in the summer of 1929. In that year, Dali's paintings were full of flourishing sexual symbols. "This historic meeting was accompanied by a fit of extreme madness. Dali was in such a state of constant exaltation that every time he started to speak to Gala he burst into insane laughter" (Neret, 22). “The Great Masturbator” bears witness to Dali's first encounter with Gala and the state in which she left him -midway between 'hard' and 'soft'" (Neret, 28).

The Great Masturbator n n "The Great Masturbator" is one of Dali's classic surreal images of sexual persecution and an obsession with castration, impotence, and masturbation. It is also an image that plays off of psychic automatism and Freudian dream logic: displacement, condensation, and fetish. (source) Where do we see displacement, condensation and fetish?

Language of Dream n n Fetish: A tremendous nose -leaning on the ground A large, soft, terrorized head, livid and waxlike, with pink cheeks; the closed eyes (embellished by very long eyelashes) suggest the state of sleeping or dreaming. Condensation: Metamorphosis at the neck region The mouth, replaced by a decaying grasshopper crawling with ants.

Example 2: “Eveline” n n Structure: 1. How does the story start and end? Point of View: Is the third-person narrator critical of or sympathetic with Eveline? Or neither? Character: How is Eveline related to her father and mother? What is her environment like (home and the “Stores” where she works)? Why can’t she elope with Frank? What is he associated with? Recurring images in The Dubliners: death, disintegration of community, degradation of religion, liquor, constraint to the degree of paralysis. Do you see them in this story? How do we do a psychoanalytic reading of this story?

“Eveline”: Structure and Point of View n Structure: n n n In medias res Repetition: E leans by the window at the beginning; holds on to the railing at the end. Narrative Perspective and Narrative time: n n n Third-person, sympathetic perspective following the flow of Eveline’s thinking (from present to past, both pros and cons). (Not yet stream-of-consciousness) Narrative time: longer on the home scene than the harbor scene; More thinking at home (3. 5 pages) self-enclosure and paralysis (0. 5 page)

Eveline vs. her Father & Mother Father n Occasionally kind (first page —not bad); read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire, made the kids laugh n Used violence first on the boys and then on Eveline n Squabble for money Mother n --dead n --her promise to the mother to keep her home together; n Her mother’s death by exhaustion or craziness n an Italian organ-player playing the same song and her mother's final, "foolish" repeated phrase, "Derevaun Seraun“ (A slurred Gaelic phrase meaning either "the end of pleasure is pain" or the end of song is raving madness“)

Eveline in a world of Decay and Constraint -- Images n n n Death – of people, Dust (cretonne), evening Decay – (of religion) the priest gone, Change – good old past, field built with houses (with bright bricks, shining roofs vs. their brown houses) Constraint – window, people’s comments, father’s control Hard life and work

“Eveline”: Images of Virginal Constraint Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque n Saint Mary Alacoque made a vow of chastity at the age of four although she later admitted that at this age she did not understand what either a vow or chastity was. At the age of eight her father died and she was sent to a convent school, where her piety so impressed the nuns that she was allowed to make her first Communion (領聖餐) one year later. From ages eleven to fifteen she suffered from rheumatism and paralysis. She also inflicted bizarre punishments upon herself once carving the name Jesus on her breast with a penknife.

“Eveline”: No Escape Frank –ambiguous: –represent the remote, the open and free, and “romantic” (Buenos Aires, opera Bohemian girl, tales of remote countries, sea and going places) -- suggestions of his not being serious: Buenos Aires, night boat n Eveline does not want to be like her mother, but either staying or leaving, she ends up being like her mother. n

“Eveline”: Psychoanalytic Reading n n Eveline, like Hamlet, suffers from oedipal neurosis: forever loving her father and taking her mother’s role to take care of him. a trapped animal Symptoms: n n Psychological: circular and regressive thinking about childhood. as if the whole world tumbles onto her. Physical: paleness, nausea and inactivity.

Eveline in Context n n n Dubliners: setting—Dublin, Ireland in and around 1901 –(after the 1845 famine) impoverished, less populated, with some passionate cultural revival movements, but still dominated by religion. Religious Division: The privileged classes in Dublin were nonnative British Protestants; Catholicism: the traditional religion of the vast majority of the Irish--became associated with grassroots Irish cultural and political identity. A woman used to represent the state of paralysis in Dublin. (Araby: Woman symbolizing lost ideal)

References n n n Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Reappraisal by Elizabeth Wright. Polity, 1998. Nature of Love, Vol. 2: Courtly & Romantic. Irving Singer. University of Chicago Press, 1998. Salvador Dali 1904 -1989 by Gilles Neret, Giles Neret 20 th Century Art History Tutorials: http: //www. csulb. edu/~karenk/index. html

Assignment n n Reader: chap 3 to p. 55; chap 4: pp. 14661 "The Blind Man" by D. H. Lawrence