“Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant: A Psychoanalytic Lens “Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant, unfolds in a dreamlike state, blurring the lines between reality and the subconscious. When observed through a psychoanalytic lens, the story serves as a descent into the protagonist’s psyche, revealing the interplay and transitions between the id, ego, and superego. This essay focuses on how each aspect of his psyche manifests throughout the narrative. The ego, which represents rationality and consciousness, is depicted in the story’s initial stages until the protagonist’s encounter with the mirror. This transitions into the superego, the moralizing force within the psyche, as he casts judgement on his dead partner’s vanity – “looking glass in which she had so often been reflected.it must have retained her reflection.” His fixation on the mirror, while he gazes at his own reflection, is indicative of the protagonist projecting his own feelings onto the deceased woman. …show more content…
The Freudian imagery is ripe as he ventures into the oldest part of the cemetery, symbolizing the essence of the protagonist’s psyche shaped by his oldest childhood experiences. Here, he is “perfectly alone”, devoid of social norms, embodying the uninhibited nature of the Id. This is further enhanced since “there was no moon”, therefore our protagonist, in the “impenetrable night” was cloaked in darkness – both literally and metaphorically. “All the graves were open.all the dead had emerged.” The Id emerges fully. The opening of the graves and emergence of the dead symbolize the liberation of repressed desires and subconscious thoughts. Societal repression has given way to the unfiltered expression of one’s true
extreme illustration of obsession with the body after death- humans, as the author mentions, have an innate affinity for the state of the body after death. "Obsession over what happens after death — not just to the soul but also to the physical self — has always been part of the human condition;" This statement is potentially a thesis for the author as it is the foundation for many other points expressed throughout. The funeral industry, particularly, capitalizes on this human obsession and increases societal value regarding corpses and the ordeal of the body after
Psychoanalytic type “A” of the novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Psychoanalytic type “A” is “examining conflicts, characters, dream sequences, and symbols.” The three parts of the subconscious; the id, superego, and ego, affect the characters’ personalities. The id is “ Known as the inner child, the basic desire for what each person wants. There is no sense of conscience in it”(McLeod).
Looking Through the Psychoanalytical Lens The definition of a psycho is a person who is mentally unstable, crazy, and sometimes aggressive. The main character, Roderick, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the house itself are perfect elements of the short story to look at through the psychoanalytic lens. Through a psychoanalytic lens, the audience explores the ideas of the human psyche, mysterious things, and trauma within the story. This lens also allows the reader to do a deep dive into the character's mental health, and how this relates to the author.
In the process of writing, regardless of the form it takes, thesis or narrative for example, the purpose of the piece has several lenses that shape how the reader perceives the material. Of the less important lenses that shape the piece, mood, word choice, and rhetoric are only a few. These elements of the work, while minimal in a relative sense, accomplish the same as other, more important components, they influence how the reader perceives the material, how it is understood. If one is to effectively convey the message of the piece, one must first look at how the any reader perceives any text. This idea of how the reader perceives is a culmination of all the devices employed by the author. The idea is for the author to craft an aggregate
Death is typically placed in direct opposition to life, forming a dichotomy that shapes narrative and character. Typically, the dead and the living are completely separate beings with no physical overlap, only the dead existing in the living’s memory. However, in Theodor Storm’s Aquis Submersus, the dichotomy is disrupted in the boundaries of life and death, enabling the essence of existence to interplay. In the scene depicting Johannes, a painter, grappling with the loss of his newly discovered son, Aquis Submersus blurs the boundaries between life and death through portraits and the relationship between text and image. The frames become portals that transcend mortal confines, allowing the living to see the deceased beyond the typical convention,
Since the beginning of time, people have many different ways of going about the idea of death and what the afterlife may hold for them, whether they’ll be reunited with family and friends or if they’ll be reincarnated or, maybe nothing at all. This is true for writers, poets and artists. William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”, Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” they all center their idea death, but approach it differently and conveys their points differently. One glorifies death, one says life is meaningless and the other glorifies life.
The literal surface of a work of literature is sometimes called the “manifest content” and treated as “manifest dream” or “dream story.” The psychoanalytic literary critic tries to analyze the latent, underlying content of the work, or the “dream thought” hidden in
1. The adjectives and concepts that come to mind is how all of these groups are hard working, determined, and unique in their own ways. All of these groups work hard in order to get the goals they want to accomplish in life. 2. I do believe all of these adjectives for each group apply to every single person in that group because even though they are different races, they are still the same.
The desire for mastery itself, is based off of a denial for the future that will never come; this is the historical and psychoanalytic underpinnings that serves the desire for mastery, which itself comes to shape the very historical forces that shaped it. The relationship between this familial structure and the historical forces that shape it itself are dialectical, one cannot occur without the other. Any other position would imply the static categorization that psychoanalysis tries to undermine. The desire for mastery and the familial structure itself is related to a certain kind of relation to the future and the past.
The normal psychology is the subject's ability to survive independently, to play a positive social role, to maintain itself, to have the discernment, and to be free. All these features are in our conception a way of socialization. Many scientists say that the progress of society has increased the complexity and the risk of social development, and it is obvious that the human personality cannot remain completely independent and that it always finds a sociocultural context or at least influential cause of social madness. Solving this dilemma is based on clarifying the notion of normal and pathological, both socially and individually. The psychoanalysis has gone through a lot of stress, challenge, strife, and divisions, but is seen regaining vitality and dignity through multiple theories which play an important role in social psychoanalysis by trying to apply the methods of individual psychoanalysis and knowledge to a complex of social neurosis. The most important representatives of this theory: are Herbert Marcuse, Harry Sullivan, Erich Fromm, and the great American psychologists Karen Horney, who brings a great contribution to psychology by initiating and animating the social psychoanalysis by using a philosophy based on growth oriented ideas, life and freedom.
I thought that The storytelling is very logical in its set up throughout the entire episode. Although there were multiple storylines, all of them were resolved by the end of the episode. The plot is presented in a way where it is linear, as the stories are in chronological order, and the events are all happening in current time. It seems that The show is very episodic as, although there seems to be a dilemma in the episode, where jack is unable to act due to a past childhood trauma, tracy refuses to contribute to the show due to his laziness, and jenna is fearful of losing her job, it all ends up being resolved so there doesn't seem to be a chance of continuing this particular plotline as there is a definite end. Flashbacks are only twice once
As an Occupational Therapist there are a number of things that can be used and considered while working. One perspective that would be useful when working with a patient is the psychoanalytic perspective. This is when, “people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. How these conflicts are resolved determines the person’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety” (Berk, 2010, p.12). In this case as an Occupational Therapist I could use this perspective to see how the patients I work with adjust and cope with learning certain activities. This perspective along with the social learning theory where people learn through imitation or observational learning
Dead individuals during their burials undergo an ethical distortion and possibly gender confinement in order to be assigned a definite social role, while their gender may be emphasized, negated or falsified so that their burial would be socially profitable. Based on these ideas, one of the first questions we need to ask when considering gender in mortuary contexts is how the individuals were perceived after their death based on the gender displayed on their bodies and what gravitas their personal identity seems to have had during the formation of the
When he tossed the discarded wipes in the bin, he caught sight of his bruised wrists, and he stared at the fading contusions for a moment before rolling down his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs, effectively hiding his shame. He covered his bloodstained T-shirt behind his buttoned shirt, and feeling slightly less disheveled, he once again stared at himself in the mirror. His ghostly image gazed back; empty, devoid, the haunting apparition a mocking caricature of what a twenty-three-year-old man should look like. But it was not a shock, it was the visage he’d lived with for nearly twelve years, and it was as familiar to him as his own voice. He was what he was, and he accepted
What does a scholarship to The University of Texas Health Science Center School of Nursing mean to me? Well, it means just about everything. As a freshman in high school, I always dreamed of attending a world-renowned University. However, what I didn’t realize is that regardless the thousands of scholarship applications I applied to. I still did not have enough money to attend. After receiving my acceptance letters to some of the largest Universities in the state of Texas my world felt like it was falling apart. Despite, this minor setback, I decided to take the road less traveled and enroll into Lonestar College. What I did not realize is the opportunity I was going to receive when attending Lonestar. Just before I began Lonestar in the fall