A Psychoanalytical approach
III.1. Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is the name given by Sigmund Freud to a system of
interpretation
and
therapeutic
treatment
of
psychological
disorders.
Psychoanalysis began after Freud studied (188586) with the French neurologist
J. M. Charcot in Paris and became convinced that hysteria was caused not by
organic symptoms in the nervous system but by emotional disturbance. Later, in
collaboration with Viennese physician Josef Breuer, Freud wrote two papers on
hysteria (1893, 1895) that were the precursors of his vast body of psychoanalytic
theory. Freud used his psychoanalytic method primarily to treat clients suffering
from a variety of mild mental disorders classified until recently as neuroses.
Freud was joined by an increasing number of students and physicians, among
whom were C. G. Jung and Alfred Adler. Both made significant contributions,
but by 1913 ceased to be identified with the main body of psychoanalysts
because of theoretical disagreements with Freuds strong emphasis on sexual
motivation. Other analysts, including Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan, also
have contributed greatly to the field. Psychoanalysis and its theoretical
underpinnings have had an enormous influence on modern psychology and
psychiatry and in fields as diverse as literary theory, anthropology, and film
criticism.1
According to Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 2 psychoanalysis
represents a method of analysis esp. for therapeutic purpose based on the
theory that abnormal mental reactions are due to repression of desires
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of a collection of psychological
e can think of psychoanalysis as having three phases. In the first phase, Freud
made his great original discoveries. I mean his discoveries of free association,
unconscious processes, the Oedipus complex and infantile sexuality. I would
define this first phase as one in which people explained things by the
relationship between conscious and unconscious.
Then
came a second phase, Freud rethought the model he built on his original
discoveries, and he and his colleagues in Vienna in the 1920s and '30s developed
33
the structural id - ego - superego model, the principle of multiple function, and
what we think of as ego-psychology.5
The
way
impossibility. For instance, although Freud will define religion and metaphysics
as a displacement of the identification with the father in the resolution of the
Oedipal complex (e.g. in 'The Ego and The Id' and Totem and Taboo) Derrida
will insist (for instance in 'The Postcard') that the prominence of the father in
Freud's own analysis is at the same time indebted to and an example of the
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prominence given to the father in Western metaphysics and theology since Plato.
Thus, (in a similar manner to that in which Levi-Strauss reads Freud's
understanding of the Oedipal complex as but another version of the Oedipus
myth,) Derrida understands Freud as remaining partly within that theologicalmetaphysical tradition
purpose of Derrida's analysis is not to refute Freud per se, (which would only be
to reaffirm traditional metaphysics) but rather to reveal an aporia undecidability)
at the very heart of Freud's project. Such a 'deconstruction' (or indeed
psychoanalysis) of Freud does tend to cast doubt upon the possibilty of
delimiting psychoanalysis as a rigorous science. However in doing so it
celebrates and pledges a critical alliegance to that side of Freud which
emphasises the open-ended and improvisatory nature of psychoanalysis, and its
(methodical and ethical) demand (for instance in the opening chapters of the
Interpretation of Dreams) that the testimony of the analysand should be given
prominence in the practice
of
analysis.8
repression.
But psychoanalysis's true strength lies deeper than its simple ability to analyze
literature; instead, it is the psychoanalysis' ability to inspire a greater
consciousness among people which is admirable. Psychoanalysis is a talking
cure as it has been established that the illness represents the bodys way of
communicating. The language and the narrative form are fundamental to it, so in
a way psychoanalytic therapy is the re-narratization of a person's life.
Psychoanalysis as therapy emphasizes the importance of dreams for
consideration as part of the patient's diagnosis. Dreams are regarded as beyond
the conscious mind and therefore uncensored, making use of images, symbols,
and metaphors in order to convey a message that the conscious mind would
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otherwise not be able to handle or process. As dreams are in the realm of the
unconscious, so it seems is literature.
If literature is considered a sort of dream - a story born from the author's mind then psychoanalysis truly becomes the best means to understanding literature.
Both literature and dreams make use of images, symbols, and metaphors to
convey a story that is beyond words alone, a story that can be delved into in
order to find more layers of meaning. Like dreams, literature doesn't just simply
"say things", but "shows them." By analyzing literature in terms of the same
tools that literature itself uses, psychoanalysis demonstrates its strength through
its familiarity with many of literature's key elements.9
Psychoanalysis includes the idea of the unconscious and when this idea is
applied to literature, it quickly begins to reveal important information, such as
the motivations and hidden intentions of characters. It is essential for the
purpose of understanding characters on a deeper level, but it also brings a
greater level of consciousness to the world in general. It seems that if people
begin to access literature in terms of what could be lying beneath the surface of
words and actions - in terms of the unconscious - then this will encourage them
to access the world in the same way. Thus, strangely enough applying the idea of
the unconscious actually encourages increased consciousness.
What we do not think about is the similarity that can exist between poetry and
psychoanalysis because we discover a place where meaning is governed by
fantasy.
Applying psychoanalysis to Emily Dickinsons work is clearly the same
thing as putting literature next to psychoanalysis. As we can see those multiple
readings and interpretations bring us to the psychoanalytical approach of Emily
Dickinsons literature. While metaphysics deals with the rational discussions of
its phenomena, psychoanalysis deals with the struggles and the joys of human
existence, the basics of being a person.
In poetry as well as in psychoanalysis, words, sounds and silences have a very
important impact on meaning and it helps us penetrate into the depths of the
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human soul and mind with infinite insight, or better said we hear the surface
texture of words while we seek to get a glimpse of the depths. 10 Lets take for
instance remembrance; it has been considered a source of lyric that has been
used almost by all the romantic writers, wearing it till the last drop. With Emily
Dickinson remembrance becomes the storehouse of her subconscious. This is
why we agree with Griffith the moment he discovers the poem that anticipates
the latter conquests of the psychoanalysis:
Remembrance has a rear and a front
'Tis something like a House It has a Garret also
For Refuse and the Mouse.
Besides the deepest Cellar
That ever Mason laid Look to it by its Fathoms
Ourselves be not pursued -
From a certain point of view psychoanalysis has become a psychology of the
self, although there are wide differences in the way different schools address the
self.
Throughout the entire work of Emily Dickinson I have found the mixture of her
sensational poems with that crying out of the ego. There are hundred of poems
that start with the 1st person, singular pronoun I, which is the representative of
her true self. Psychoanalysis challenges the humanist idea of the self: a being
that is entirely conscious of him/herself, who lives outside of his language and
symbols, which are the only tools of truth, stability that represented an identity.
According to the definition given by Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged
Dictionary of the English Language11, the self represents: a person or thing
referred to with respect; a persons nature, character; in philosophy, it sends to
the ego, that which knows, remembers, desires, suffers, as contrasted to that
known, remembered.
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The study of the self, more precisely, the voyage of the outer self
towards the inner world, has as a starting point the investigation of the
common body seen as the medium by means of which the common person
experiences the world around and is experienced in the world by others.12
The voyage of I in search of the Is creates the complicated trajectory of
self-discovery13
Freud identified three levels of human mind according to Bonta Elena
study in Interpersonal Communication:
- the conscious level - includes anything that is thought, perceived or
understood;
- the pre-conscious level - includes the thoughts and memories which can
be easily recalled and brought back to the conscious level;
- the unconscious level - the place where all individual past experience
(wishes, urges memories, thoughts) can be found.
Also for Freud the human mind is in a permanent conflict with itself, a thing
that gives birth to anxiety and unhappiness. His investigation into these internal
conflicts made him draw the conclusion that the mind can be divided into three
internal conflicting tendencies: the id; the ego and the superego.
In order to live properly, the three forms of the mind have to coexist in harmony,
as a whole. The ego represents what we may call reson and common sense
whereas the id represents passions.
III.1.a. Id
The id represents the most primitive motivational force; it is governed
by the pleasure principle and this is why his demands should be satisfied at
once, no matter the circumstances or the effects. The id stands in direct
opposition with the super - ego. Also Freud proposes that the ego is part of the
id, whereas the ego seeks to bring the influence to the external world to bear
upon the id and its tendencies, trying to substitute the reality principle with the
pleasure principle that reigns unrestrictedly in the id.
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III.1.b. Ego
The ego is ruled by the reality principle; it meditates the relationship
between the id and the reality around, very often suppressing the ids demands
until the appropriate moment. The ego often uses defence mechanism meant to
help its activity and, at the same time, meant to ensure the individuals stability
and sanity. Once the ego is shaped, the individual becomes a self (the individual
becomes aware of values, of needs and his actions). The ego can be
manipulated and controlled; this is why the society creates it. Once the ego
becomes a self it is impossible to be manipulated, no one can control a self.
III.1.c. Superego
The notion of Uber-Ich, super-ego has been introduced by Freud in
the study Das Ich und das Es14, 1923. He underlines the critic function that
constitutes an instance separated from the I and that seems to dominate, as the
states of spleen and pathological mourning demonstrate it, in which the subject
criticizes and disapproves himself: We consider that a part of the I interferes
with the other one taking it for an object.
The notion of super-ego belongs to the second topic of Freud. Before
introducing it into a definition, the psychoanalytical theory had already
acknowledged the place that was taken into the psychological conflict that
followed the suppression of the achievement and the acknowledgement of ones
wishes: the censorship of the dream, for instance. Moreover, Freud said that this
censorship could act in an unconscious manner; this would differentiate from the
beginning his own apprehension from the classic ones concerning the moral
consciousness.15
To what Freud is concerned, the super-ego is considered as a part of the ego.
Taking into account the notion of the super-ego, it covers the functions of
suppression and ideal. If the ideal of the ego is maintained at least as particular
substructure, then the super-ego would appear firstly as an instance that
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It is
ego what is right or wrong, moral, acceptable, or realistic; at the same time, it
represents the individuals step towards the ideal, towards the achieving the
perfect goal required by society. Whenever the individual does something
wrong, unacceptable, the superego resorts to self-criticism; whenever the
individual does something good, which deserves appreciation, the superego
experiences pride and
self-satisfaction.
There are two aspects to the superego: One is the conscience, which is an
internalization of punishments and warnings. The other is called the ego ideal. It
derives from rewards and positive models presented to the child. The conscience
and ego ideal communicate their requirements to the ego with feelings like
pride, shame, and guilt.
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The ego is not sharply separated from the id; its lower portion merges into it....
But the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it. The
repressed is only cut off sharply from the ego by the resistances of repression; it
can communicate with the ego through the id." (Model of the mind which
appears in Freud's 1923 paper "The Ego and the Id").18
The American psychologist, William James, identified two main aspects of the
self: the self as a knower, ( called the I or the pure ego) - it is the active
source of behavior, the activity of consciousness, that can be directed towards
everything, including oneself;
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Thus, the SELF becomes the result of me (the bearer of the social order, of
values and norms; it ensures control over the I, determining our own behaviour)
and the I (carrier of the elements proper to the unique individual).
I have chosen a poem of love that illustrates better the relationship between the
id, ego and superego.
I started Early - Took my Dog And visited the Sea The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me And Frigates - in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands Presuming Me to be a Mouse Aground - upon the Sands But no Man moved Me - till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe And past my Apron - and my Belt
And past my Bodice - too And made as He would eat me up As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion's Sleeve And then - I started - too And He - He followed - close behind I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle - Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl Until We met the Solid Town No One He seemed to know
And bowing - with a Mighty look 42
He seemed to know shows that no one is that various restriction and morality
that governs our society (the super-ego) and that he (the id) is unfamiliar with
them. This could be a conflict. However, the water bowing - with a Might
look illustrates that the inner-world of the poetess respects the social rules (the
super-ego) and that the strong will (the ego) of her will lead to the rejection of
that Man. This also shows that he (the id) is repressed by the rules and defeated
by the ego. The ego balances the conflict and the poetess goes back into the
reality. At last, the water (the id) goes back to the sea, the destination for the id
in reality. The poetess also tells us that the desire of a person is as infinite as the
sea. Although the sea is a living symbol of nature and we all know how deadly
nature can be.
For a person to live sanely, the three forms of the mind must exist in harmony.
Yet, in order for a person to maintain stability, society must not put any sort of
barrier between persons of any kind.
became her Holy Trinity. What she divined of their Holiness was what she could
divine of their poetry. And it is in her devotion to this Trinity, rather than in
anything to do with the more orthodox terminology which she used so freely and
familiarly, that she became the greatest religious poet America has produced.
The Bible was a territory of myth that she loved, but the structures upon
behavior educed from it by believers were not those she could adopt. Her
imagination released by personal discipline and strengthened by vicissitude, was
too lively to accept revealed religion and too restless to abide in the world
comfortably defined by the popular science and philosophy of the nineteenth
century
Dying
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
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For
This
47
devotion to the eternal, mystic dimension beyond time and beyond death is also
a product of her inner experiences which often left her overwhelmed by the
hidden bliss of life. Yet despite the profound inner revelations, which left her
with a bitter taste of immortality, it is clear that these did not become a
permanent reality. It is as if she often doubted her own glimpses of a life beyond
the ordinary. As Sri Chinmoy observes:
her mind violently refused to believe in the authenticity of Emily's
illumining, fulfilling and immortalizing experiences.
The mind stood adamant20 between the finite and the Infinite, between the body
and vital and the heart and soul,
between the consciously known world and the unconsciously known world21
This reflects in the inherent paradoxes and apparent contradictions within her
poetry.
One cannot read the poetry of Emily Dickinson without being struck by her
interest clearly turned into obsession, with death. It was not that she feared
death, more so she hoped that death was perhaps a solution, a way forward from
the impediments of human life and human weakness.
I died for Beauty but was scarce adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room
I Died for Beauty
Analysts may take different things from the poetry of Emily Dickinson but over
100 years after her death, she is considered -a prophet poet who contemplates
death and immortality - engaging the reader in his own contemplations.
III.2.b. Inner World
While we explore our inner world by means of different psychological states,
Dickinson tries to present the drama of the individual consciousness. Dickinson
was the one who saw the potential danger and loneliness of the world, "the
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is proclaimed after the other appearances of the nature that have been denied:
Nay - nature is heaven, Nay - nature is harmony.. Although it is obvious that
here is recommended a range of opposition, not between the abstract and
concrete world, but between the habitat of man and what it involves, covering it
like a dome. The real inside of nature consists in these realities, some realities
psychologically perceived. The poetess actually referred to the harmonic
coexistence of all things in nature, or to the platonic world of the ideal
appearances.
The intelligence of man is completely useless in nature So impotent our
wisdom is and this leads to the fact that everything we do doesnt have a
reason, it actually seems meaningless. As the philosopher Sri Chinmoy used to
say: Nature has always had more force than education.
Her poetic definitions simply emphasize the essential realities that will be
confirmed latter on by her Experiment in green. The poetess perceives
vaguely the existence of these realities that- along with those directly observed constitute the complexity of what she calls nature.
Influenced perhaps by the mysticism of Ralph Waldo Emerson as
expressed in his essay, Nature, Dickinson looked to the natural world because it
seemed to have the peculiar power of awakening mystical-like moods. She also
seemed to be fully aware of the "peril" of taking such an unorthodox stance.
Using her principal metaphor of the sea to stand for the unknown and eternity,
Dickinson wrote to Abiah Root in 1850: "The shore is safer, Abiah, but I love to
buffet the sea - I can count the bitter wrecks here in these pleasant waters, and
hear the murmuring winds, but oh, I love the danger!" (L-39).24
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Notes
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1 http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0802510.html
2 G. & C. Merriam Company (1967):Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Publishers
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
3 Longman Dictionary of English language and Culture, New Edition, Longman.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis
5 Holland, Norman.N. (1993). Psychoanalysis and Literature. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 5 - 21
6 Paul Ricoeur (1913 2005) was a french philosopher best known for combining phenomenological
description with hermeneutic interpretation.
7 Jacques Derrida (born July 15, 1930 October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher,
known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon continental
philosophy, French philosophy, and literary theory.
8 Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis.
9 From: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/57309/psychoanalysis_in_literature.html.
10Online article taken from: http://sf-cp.org/Archive/newsroom/nr12-1996.htm
11 Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, New revised Edition
(1994), Dilithium Press Ltd.
12 Cmeciu D. (1999): Virginia Woolf or the Quest for the Poetic Word , Ed. Pro Humanitate, Bucuresti,
p.18
13 Cmeciu D.(1999): ibidem p.22
14 In translation The I and the Self.
15 Jean Laplanche, J.B. Pontalis (1994): Vocabularul Psihanalizei,Ed. Humanitas, Bucuresti, p. 423 - 4
16 Not satisfying his forbidden oedipal desires, the child transforms the possession upon his parents
into an identification with them, by introspecting the forbiddance.
17 http://www.wikipedia.org
18 source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego#Freud.27s_structural_theory
19 The Course of American Literature, Emily Dickinson's Cosmic "Buzz", Sava Ioan (note de curs)
20 Adj. (of a person or behavior) firm and immovable in purpose: ex. I tied to talk her out of it but she
was adamant.
21 Sri Chinmoy (1998): Philosopher-Thinkers: The Power-Towers Of The Mind And Poet-Seers: The
Fragrance-Hours Of The Heart In The West, Agni Press.
22 From: Spirituality today, 1989, Vol.41 No. 3, pp. 226-241. Connie Doyle: 'Experiment in Green':
Emily Dickinson's Search for Faith
23 From: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/dickinson.html#themes
24 Ibidem