Whilst reading for this class, I have had a number of interesting conversations with fellow Whitworth students from various majors about Freud. Some were psych majors, who mentioned that they tended not to take too much of Freud too seriously. Which makes me think...
How much of Freud do you/we take seriously? As individuals, and as literature people, how much do we really use Freud? Is this different from how much we believe Freud? What parts of his ideas do we focus on most?
(Also, does anybody else feel really uncomfortable reading Freud in public?)
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ReplyDeleteI don't feel uncomfortable at all! Nothing says fun like a preponderance of phalluses (phalli?). More to the point though. I personally don't take Freud too seriously save for some thoughts on the subconscious.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I take seriously? The literary tidal wave who's source is the psychoanalytic theory. We, in literature, are constantly reverting to these precepts in our analysis.
And the abstracted Freud of Lacan does this too. Removing the phallus from the physical (the penis) and reformatting it into an object which is both conceptually and physically manifested as an identifier and a complex creator of power (i.e. crown). This impulse, to employ the physical as a representation of self in relation to others is a vital part of the psychological self and the literary self.
I'm not sure the issue is how comfortable we are w/ Freud. His ideas are so endemic in Western Culture that you can't really do a thumbs up/down. Just think about all of our notions about psycho-sexual ideas, the subconscious, ego, etc. Our society's interpretations of Freud aren't all that accurate, either, so we're now talking about layers of interpretation based upon our loose associations.
ReplyDeleteI think that Freud is important for modern psychological and literature theory because he was one of the first people to acknowledge the role of the unconscious. This seems to be true, because there are times when people say things, or have dreams and are not sure how tat idea manifested itself. However, I think Freud took his theories too far, and a lot of his psychosexual assumptions seem ridiculous and also very sexist.
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