A bunch of you indicated in the first meeting of the class that you'd read some Freud before. What have you read? And is there anything that you found interesting or useful in psychoanalytic thought? Here's an idea of mine: that scene where I thought, "Hey, Fred MacMurray can act" — where Walter's expression goes through contortions as he listens to Keyes's recorded memo expressing faith in him — could, perhaps benefit from psychoanalytic vocabulary. It would say something about how Walter must have viewed Keyes in order to experience him as a powerful thing to "get over," to rebel against, or what-have-you, using terms like "phantasm" or "imago" to refer to the Keyes in Walter's head. And that moment when he learns that Keyes has warm feelings toward him and is something other than an obstacle would be, like, one of those moments of phantasmatic
working-through, when you see your parent not as the
super-egoic fantasy figure, but as another frail, fallible human
being.
I'm not asking you here to apply psychoanalytic thought to course material, necessarily, though: just to say something about your experience with and interest in it, if any.
I had to read Freud's "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis"- so I was pretty familiar with some of the terms mentioned in the article "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" (like 'transference' and 'resistance'). Otherwise, I might have had more while confusion reading the article. Anyway, I feel like any of these psychoanalysis ideas can be applied to almost any character in one way or another (just like how I kinda saw ressentiment in a lot of characters- whether they had it or not; may just be my mind wanting it to be there!)
The part of the article that dealt with trauma and its effects could be related to Johnny in Rendezvous. Like "Fixations to the experience" (12)- Johnny's life definitely revolved around the death of Dorothy. The author also says that he doesn't think the trauma sufferer is as occupied with memories of the accident-but instead concerned with not thinking of it (12). For Johnny- I don't even think he actually has a memory of the event because we never really see him recognize the event- we just see his revenge for it. He still waits for her long after she died, which makes me think that he refuses to believe it and is not occupied with the actual memory- but it could be a way for him to not believe it even happened (i.e. not think about it).
I also wondered if he was forced to recognize Dorothy's death he would have come to terms with it more, and not have killed all those people. There's sooo much you can do with Johnny's character with psychoanalysis it gets so deep to think about!
In my first Mosaics class we were required to read "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis" as well, and to this day I have only a fragmented understanding of this great thinker. I personally only know his major theories (dream analysis, Oedipus concept, Penis envy, etc) and could certainly read more Freud.
I had to read Freud's "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis"- so I was pretty familiar with some of the terms mentioned in the article "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" (like 'transference' and 'resistance'). Otherwise, I might have had more while confusion reading the article.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I feel like any of these psychoanalysis ideas can be applied to almost any character in one way or another (just like how I kinda saw ressentiment in a lot of characters- whether they had it or not; may just be my mind wanting it to be there!)
The part of the article that dealt with trauma and its effects could be related to Johnny in Rendezvous. Like "Fixations to the experience" (12)- Johnny's life definitely revolved around the death of Dorothy. The author also says that he doesn't think the trauma sufferer is as occupied with memories of the accident-but instead concerned with not thinking of it (12). For Johnny- I don't even think he actually has a memory of the event because we never really see him recognize the event- we just see his revenge for it. He still waits for her long after she died, which makes me think that he refuses to believe it and is not occupied with the actual memory- but it could be a way for him to not believe it even happened (i.e. not think about it).
I also wondered if he was forced to recognize Dorothy's death he would have come to terms with it more, and not have killed all those people. There's sooo much you can do with Johnny's character with psychoanalysis it gets so deep to think about!
In my first Mosaics class we were required to read "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis" as well, and to this day I have only a fragmented understanding of this great thinker. I personally only know his major theories (dream analysis, Oedipus concept, Penis envy, etc) and could certainly read more Freud.
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