Sigmund Freud devoted his life to deciphering the human mind. He utilized the method of psychoanalytic theory to better understand the brain and how it functions. http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8-1MajorThemesAssumptionsPsychoanalytic.html; Using the site above as a reference, find two characters (one from Faulkner's work and one from O'Connor's) and explain why these characters exemplify the meaning of psychoanalytic theory. What traits do they possess that make them significant examples of psychoanalysis and Freud's teachings?
sorry about the link guys. it worked fine yesterday. here is a different website....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.panix.com/~squigle/at/psycho.html
The beauty, and fault, of Freud’s theories lies in their inability to be properly adjudicated; scientists cannot verify nor falsify them, as Quigley states in his exposition on psychoanalysis. Thus, their application remains boundless in both the real and literary world. Readers can properly scrutinize any character, as simple as Peter Rabbit or complex as Dorian Gray, in Freud’s thesis. Take for example, the character of Mrs. Turpin in O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation”. Although a complex character, she does not stand out as the prototype synthesis of id-plus-superego-divided-by-half-gives-ego. Mrs. Turpin exemplifies instead the Christianized version of the rising from human sin, id, to Godly salvation, the superego. O’Connor utilizes the symbol of pigs to illustrate Mrs. Turpin’s vanity, self-centeredness, and judgment. As a human she is “A-gruntin and a-rootin and a-groanin” to fulfill her human desires: sex, shelter, and above all, superiority (482). Mrs. Turpin even questions “How am I a hog and me both?” (482). If she had studied Freud, Mrs. Turpin would have undoubtedly known that her id was controlling her ego at the time, making her a human swine. O’Connor, though, is known for saving her character’s in “moments of grace”. The girl’s outburst in the doctor’s office (a product perhaps of her id, which would cause a whole new layer of complexity) of “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog”, worms its way into Mrs. Turpin’s psyche, acting as a superego calling her to reform her pharisaic ways (478). Thus, Mrs. Turpin’s soul is saved, and raised above the internal source of damnation in Christian tradition, the inherent id.
ReplyDeleteFaulkner, a contemporary of O’Connor and likewise a Southern Gothic author, also incorporates characters that illustrate Freud’s theories. In “A Rose for Emily”, he introduces the reader to Emily Grierson, a relic of an Antebellum South still clinging to the Stars and Bars. Almost, as it seems to the reader, in a concerted attempt with O’Connor to show the inherent evil in human nature, he molds Emily in a necrophiliac. Unable to cope with the unrequited love of Homer Barron, she breaks societal rules left and right: first murder, then desecration of a corpse. The id raging in her veins, that of inhumane want, controls her ego and drives her to purchase arsenic from her local pharmacist “for rats” (99). After poisoning the object of her affection, she further submits to her id of uncontrolled lust and lies with her dead lover. The reader reaches this conclusion from the “…long strand of iron-gray hair” in the “…indentation of a head” on the second pillow of the bed where Homer was found (101). Further, Faulkner creates symbols in the story to mirror Emily’s id, ego, and superego. The house, the domain of her id, rejects the outside values, the superego, of church and state, especially in terms of taxation. Accordingly, Emily’s ego remains under full control of her id, with little outside influence. Both Emily and Mrs. Turpin, equally sinners under sway of their id, exemplify Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis.
Great post Bracey! I can see you really delved into depth involving the character's correlation to Freud's philosophy. I'm glad you mentioned id, superego, and ego. It seems you truly have an understanding of Freud's studies on the complex human mind and the subconcious (the vivid depiction of Mrs. Turpin was on target as well.) Great Job!
ReplyDeleteA reader can take practically any character and use Freud’s psychoanalytic theory to analyze their actions, behaviors, and thought. Snopes, the father in “Barn Burning,” can be analyzed using Freud’s psychoanalytic theory along with the grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Faulkner’s character of Snopes lack’s a superego, and without the balance of morals in his life his ego turns into his id, or the unconscious more irrational and emotional state of mind. By burning barns, Snopes is acting irrationally because of his lack of morals. Therefore there is not a balance between his irrational and emotional thoughts and his morally correct side of thinking. With O’Connor, the grandmother believes that she is a lady. When she comes into contact with the Misfit she says, “I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!” (454) but because her life is now being threatened her unconscious thoughts now arise to the top of Freud’s iceberg metaphor. Her irrational and emotional thoughts arise, although interestingly enough she still maintains the thought that she is a lady. She got the family into the mess, and still proceeds to bargain and reason with the killer. The grandmother’s id has invaded her superego and therefore has thrown off her ego completely. Her ego would like to believe that she is a true lady even though this is false because her morals are corrupt.
ReplyDeleteNicely put Lauren. I especially liked how you mentioned the happenings surrounding a character may cause their inner thoughts come out (the grandmother). Very good use of the ID, superego, and ego as well.
ReplyDeleteBoth O'Connor and Faulkner use of similar concept especially with their creation of grotesque characters. O' Connor's characters have eccentric ways of functioning because she feels that by illustrating a bizzare scene, the reader will grasp the message she attempts to explain instead of telling a normal story. One of her grotesque characters, Manley Pointer, is a great epitome of Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Id is described as being one's "instincts and irrational impulses". Pointer uses the title of a Bible salesmen in order to come into Hulga's life and he makes her feel special in order to satisfy his id. While Pointer is leaving Hulga's house, the narrator describes how Hulga said, "She would always be happy to see him" (462). Manley's impulse is so efficacious that he turns stoic Hulga into someone that is beginnning to fall in love. When Manley invites her in accompanying him, Hulga does not even think twice before going with him. Instead she dreams about their encounter as she explains, "She had thought about it half the night...She had lain in bed imagining dialogues for them" (464). Hulga's thoughts are being driven by the one impulse of Manley that is based from his id. The next day when Manley tells Hulga to remove her wooden leg, she is reluctant in taking it off. However, she realizes that this may be the only way that she can prove her love towards him. As she takes off her leg, Manley explains other heinous acts he has performed. He says, "I've gotten a lot of interesting things...One time I got a woman's glass eye this ay in my name. I use a different name at every house I call and don't stay nowhere long" (469). Manley Pointer breaks Hulga's high self-esteem that she held of herself at one point in her life as he leaves her physically and mentally impaired. While describing other outlandish items Pointer has collected, the reader understands how Pointer's id is more pertinent then his superego because if he had a superego, then he would not perform acts that were not considered moral. This relates the Freudian presentation because the criminals also have no superego because their id is much more powerful, therefore, like the criminals Pointer does not find this immoral or rubukable.
ReplyDeleteNot only in O'Connor's stories, but Faulkner also constructs such grotesque characters whose id is more competent than their superego. In his story "Barn Burning" Faulkner's grotesque character, Abner Snopes, burns barns. While Snope's case is presented in court, the justice verdicts him to take his wagon,"get out of this country before dark" (500). Because Snopes has burned the barn but there is no evidence of his crime, he is ordered to leave the country. Snope's son, Colonel Sartois, is reluctant because he wants his father to be released from the trial without any charges as Sartois says, "He's my father" (499). Sartois attempts to hide ensconce his father's nefarious acts because of his blood relations. However, when his father plans to repeat the same act in Major de Spain's barn, Sartois explains to Spain what his father plans to do. Sartois runs and there is screaming, "Barn...Barn" (509). Sartois, who was at one point, attempting to save his father even though he knew his father was wrong is now actually sticking up to the moral thing to do, which shows how his superego comes into play. Superego, which is described as, "internalized rules placing limits on the subject's satisfactions", is more efficacious in Sartois's case becuase he puts a limit on his satisfaction, which is protecting his father even though he has done evil things, and he exposes the truth, which is the moral thing to do. Freud's psychoanalytic theory can be applied to both O'Connor and Faulkner's works because they both design grotesque characters that have inscrutable ways of life.
Many of O’Connor and Faulkner’s stories incorporates Freudian principles throughout the many grotesque characters in their stories. In “Good Country People” by O’Connor, Hulga is clearly a character who can be analyzed through psychoanalytic theory. The first link within the blog post states that everything a person does has a specific, identifiable cause. Hulga, whose original name is Joyce, deeply contemplates on what name is the most ugly name of all, “Mrs. Hopewell was certain that [Hulga] had thought and thought until she hit upon the ugliest name in any language” (716). Hulga exemplifies psychoanalytic theory because she only has had one leg since she was ten, and therefore caused her entire lifestyle to change from a childhood filled with play and freedom to one confined within a small domain of freedom. This unhappiness as a result of her being handicapped manifested and grew throughout her life as she evolved into an adult. This specific cause resulted in Joy changing her beautiful happy name to an ugly harsh sounding name Hulga.
ReplyDelete“A Rose for Emily”, written by Faulkner, is another short story that includes grotesque characters that identify with many Freudian theories. In the story, Emily Grierson is a strange woman who remains within the confined walls of her house for the majority of her life. After her father dies, Emily becomes even more introverted, but is able to seduce Homer Barron into her house after they began to talk and correspond sparingly and gossip spreads throughout the town that marriage could be possible between the two. However, Homer never leaves the house again because Emily kills Homer, and then proceeds to succumb to necrophilia. She keeps Homer’s corpse with her on her bed, “The man himself lay in bed” (108). Her twisted views on love are easily analyzed through Freud’s three divisions of the human psyche. The id is the unconscious driven by sexual drives and an impulsive instinct, which is what drove Emily to kill Homer and then proceed to sleep with the rotting corpse. Her unconscious impulse to kill Homer took over her mind instantly as she sought to buy arsenic and then seduce Homer within her home. Also Freud says that everything a person does has a specific reason. The killing of Homer can be justified so some extent because Emily wanted someone to love and be with her always, especially when her father died, leaving her alone in the gloomy house. The only way she could keep her lover by her side at all times was to kill him, and therefore he would have no chance of escaping, and she could still have to body to love forever until she died. Many Freudian theories play into Faulkner and O’Connor’s short stories, and explain the actions or personalities of many of the grotesque characters.
ReplyDeleteFreud and his Psychoanalytic Theory are portrayed in many different short stories, specifically through O’ Connor’s and Faulkner’s works. These concepts are viewed through the sub-conscience and dreams. Freud uses his interpretations of the Id, Ego, and Superego to interpret individual’s actions and emotions.
ReplyDeleteIn A Good Man is Hard to Find, by O’ Conner, the grandmother is a perfect candidate for psychoanalysis. She believes she represents a sophisticated woman in society; however, her judgmental attitude contradicts her overall character. She lives off the concept of personal gain and only cares about her social status. When she is encounters the Misfit, Freud’s theory is shown by O’ Conner. This traumatic event unleashes the grandmother’s Id causing her to show her true character and no longer caring about her appearance. She asks him to praise God and states that he is like one of her own children; however, Freud’s analysis of the mind was depicted when the Misfit put son the son’s shirt, “The grandmother couldn’t name what the shirt reminded her of” (453). Freud believed mistakes, such as forgetting important details, happen for a reason, and this shows the corrupt personality that the grandmother outward displays to the reader. This life-threatening event causes the grandmother’s Id and Superego to emerge into her conscience and react with reality.
Another character that exemplifies Freud’s interpretation of the human mind is Abner Snopes from Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”. He is a grotesque character within the story and shows a lack of maturity through destroying people’s property. His preconscious is corrupt, and his Superego has no moral code. Mr. Snopes is seen as a nihilistic character with an introvert personality who believes in nothing. He treats his family with little respect and lives the Paranoid way of life. This concept “results when each man relies upon blood ties to form social alliances and to sanction their actions” (515). There is a huge separation of Abner’s family from society because of his dominant and reckless actions, such as barn burning. In Freud’s perspective, Abner’s Superego is too prominent in his subconscious, causing his overbearing demeanor. In addition, the reader learns more about the father’s destructive nature through his son’s stream of conscience. Sarty wants his father to learn to show consideration for others and acts of destruction, “Maybe he will feel it too. Maybe it will even change him now from what maybe he couldn’t help but me” (503). According to Freud’s psychoanalysis, the son’s thoughts portrayed to the reader allow a better understanding of Abner’s character and corresponds with Freud’s views of finding few positive attributes about humans.
Your Blog is going extremely well! Wonderful posts, students, and awesome job, administrators, with monitoring the comments and encouraging students.
ReplyDeleteFreud’s Psyhcoanalytic theory is very useful in that it can be applied to characters in literature to better understand them. In O’ Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” his theory aids in uncovering hidden traits of the grandmother. The grandmother has a lack of balance between her super-ego and id. Super-ego is represented by rules and limits on internal desires. The grandmother traps herself within what she believes is societies definition of a lady. She concentrates on pretentious manners and elegant clothing. “Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her necklace she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead...would know at once that she was a lady” (368). She focuses more on outward appearances and perfection rather than internal exploration. This restraint contributes to her falsely thinking she is a good person. Although she successfully confines herself to a “lady,” she is extremely judgmental and does not express love her for her children or grandchildren. By being too focused on her own “moral code,” the grandmother becomes a dysfunctional human being. Her ego, or the part of one’s self that interacts with reality, is too self-obsessed to realize that she has lacked compassion and is flawed until faced with death. Contrastingly, Emily Grierson in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” defines her own rules. Her warped and unbalanced ego is overpowered by her id. She follows her desires without much attention to societal guidelines and expectations usually defined by one’s super-ego. As a result, she is somewhat out-casted and the “talk of the town.” She rebels when she refuses to pay taxes or reveal her reasons for purchasing poison. However, the act in which she most completely surrenders to her impulsivity is when she kills Homer. Refusing to let him abandon her, Emily succumbs to her id and forgoes her super-ego. The reality of these two characters’ situations’ is that their deepest flaws are revealed through their actions and analyzed through Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory. The extreme imbalance in their egos leads to their downfalls.
ReplyDeletePrutha: I really like your example of Hulga. Her changing from a monotonous, blunt, pessimistic personality to one of love and fulfillment just because of a Bible salesman is a great example of her Id changing.
ReplyDeleteTasha: Your use of Emily from "A Rose for Emily" was a great choice. Her obsession with Homer stems from her distorted mental state. You did a great job analyzing where her emotions come from and how she displays Freud's psychoanalytic theory principles.
Caroline: The grandmother from "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Abner Snopes from "Barn Burning" are both prime examples of psychoanalytic theory. The grandmother's true emotions do not show until she is threatened with death. In Abner's case, his superego does in fact distant himself from his family, characterizing him as despondent and spiteful.
Anna Cait: The grandmother is once again defined very well by you. Her "lack of balance" does truly affect her appearance to others and personality. This imbalance eventually shows when her whole personality changes when threatened with death by The Misfit.
O’Connor and Faulkner both use characters that could be seen as “untraditional” protagonists. This is due to that fact that both create their characters to be jaded from society in the aspect that they suffer from some mental disorder. In O’Connor’s, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the Misfit suffers from a mental flaw that drives him to take the lives of the people he meets. The Misfit’s drive to kill could be related to some traumatic experience in his past that has scarred him in such a way, that he only knows to deal with this through acts of random violence. Before the Grandmother is shot, “She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest”(www.pegasus.cc.ucf.edu). Because human touch disoriented the Misfit so much, he shot the woman many times in succession. This could be seen as an act of passion as he felt the drive to overkill the old woman. This could be related to his subconscious because he hardly knew the Grandmother, yet he felt the need to shoot her many times after she would have been dead. In Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily, the protagonist, Emily Grierson, suffers from an obvious mental disorder as she kills the man she is in love with to stay with him for all eternity. When Emily’s family enters her house after her death they saw, “The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him”( www.eng.fju.edu.tw). Emily’s mental state relates to Freudian theory as she becomes possessive. She years to control the love of someone else, so she is driven to murder the one she loves to gain total control of the relationship.
ReplyDeleteFreud’s psychoanalytic theory can be used to help analyze and understand characters in literature, specifically within Faulkner and O’Connor’s short stories. Within Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” Emily’s character was very depressed after her father died. She stayed within her home mostly. If she ever ventured outside, it was for unusual reasons such as buying arsenic. By the end of the story the reader finds out that she has killed her love interest and slept with his corpse until she eventually died. Through the progression of her mind from deep depression to complete insanity, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory comes to mind. Emily was an example of a person whose brain had developed more of an Id way of thinking. This means that her emotional and irrational part of her mind was being used more often than normal. This analysis of Emily’s mind helps the reader understand her irrational actions as not a conscious act but an act that she could not consciously control at all. In O’Connor’s “Revelation” Mrs. Turpin is seen as an extremely judgmental character denying her faults and only seeing the negativity within others. She also feels that she is better than all other around her. By analyzing her character using Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, it is revealed that her superego is working less than normal. Superego is the moral part of the brain. With Mrs. Turpin’s superego not functioning correctly, this shows a scientific reason for her actions and thoughts. The theories of Freud play an important role in deciphering characters and their minds. Coupling both a scientific and rhetorical analysis, readers are provided with a better opportunity to understand literature and the characters within.
ReplyDeleteThe Freudian psychoanalytic theory has merely pricked the field of understanding regarding the human mind. An area with such complexity and mélange of emotions taunts the frustrated minds that try to interpret its mundanely foreign concepts. This intricacy enlivens literary characters, for when an author captures the chaos within, it is as though a figurative conception of thoughts occurs and gives rise to a facsimile of a person. In O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” she embarks on this chaotic continuum of the mind by creating characters with such a real reflection of Freudian analysis that their breathing is almost audible and their heartbeats tangible. The Misfit is perhaps the most complex character of the story for as we observe his actions and hear his thoughts, it is as though he speaks from a psychiatrist’s office while sitting in a black and white chair formed from ink and paper of the story. His unconscious becomes his preconscious and even conscious behavior because he fails to see a need for sublimation, or reconstructing aspects of the id into socially acceptable traits. From his brilliantly insane criminal mind, “... crime don’t matter... because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it” (O’Connor 453). In a world of unmerciful justice, the Misfit acknowledges the inevitability of punishment and therefore he blends the instigating and associated crime into the same category of inevitability. His memory falters when he attempts to recollect his crimes, a Freudian form of constructive acceptance, in which he manipulates the Superego of civil society to fit his unrighteous actions driven by his id. He sheds the constriction of an unfitting superego like a snake would cast off a layer of skin to small. His id controls his ego, which overpowers his superego. This is his way of coping with his actions of theft and murder of innocent children, mothers, sons, and the elderly. It is as though the metaphorical Freudian iceberg has risen above the water of non conscious because he has embraced his subconscious for its blatant and sometimes grotesque nature and is willing to share it with onlookers, emotionlessly robbing the life of appalled viewers as easily as he would a, “tire of his car” (453).
ReplyDeleteFaulkner perpetuates this human psyche of what society deems an unsound mind in “A Rose for Emily.” In the ultimate story of perverted love, his conceived creation, Emily, is first introduced at her funeral, a narrative ploy that utilizes a foresight of events to contradict a chronologically expected order of life and set the tone for death, and drained life. The towns “hereditary obligation” (Faulkner 95) to Emily composes the musical masterpiece of superiority and generational elitism she clings to in order to conceal her insecurities. Her father’s death and rejection by her love fill the role of traumatic events that are so common in leading to the disorders that Freud observes. Patriarchal betrayal by her father’s inevitable and involuntary death and voluntary desertion by her love, Homer, provide a heartbreak with irreparable cracks that stretch into her mind and reasoning like fractures on the sidewalk that surround her house with cold, hard, and unloving cement. While purchasing her poison, or symbolic wedding ring, for her unobtained spouse in the drugstore, her composure flickers like, “... a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look” (99). She is the lonely keeper of light who waits and waits for her prince charming to come on his ship, battling the storms of sea to be with her, and yet, her Homer seems to be using the harsh winds to sail in the opposite direction. In a Southern Gothic twist, Faulkner alludes to Homer’s “Iliad,” but Emily’s Odysseus never returns to her after his battle with sirens and monsters. The natural woman within can wait no longer, and with id clouding her now clouded ego, she casts off the superego of morality and kills her husband in order to be with him forever. The arsenic that stops his heart slows down the beats of his love enough for her to silently lie next to him after her hair, “... grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron gray, when it ceased turning” (100). Perhaps the gray area of her ego mixes with the lighter, natural purity of a superego to lead to a dominating id. Eventually the pepper and salt tear down the fence between her perception of good and evil, enabling her to live with the homicide much like The Misfit. In order to hold the conscience provoking superego, she remains an agoraphobe in a house of “coquettish decay,” (95) trapped in a cage to which she holds the key like an animal who lives to eat and sleep, oblivious to the stench of rotting flesh, or a rotting love.
ReplyDelete“Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy” (Sigmund Freud). Freud is known as the father of Psychology. He used a method that he invented, called psychoanalysis, to break down the human mind into three different parts. These parts are the Id, Ego, and Superego. Authors often incorporate many of Freud’s theories into their works through the characters. Characters’ role in a story may often be a lot more complex than it first appears to be. Authors commonly do this it get across the main point of the work or the theme. Joy (Hulga) Hopewell is one of the main characters in Flannery O’Conner’s short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Ever since she was little she has had a prosthetic leg. She views herself as unattractive and ugly. To prevent herself from getting hurt or having to let someone else into her life, she changes her name from Joy to what she believed to be a more suiting name for someone like her, Hulga. When the bible salesman comes to her door she is initially rude and like always puts up her barrier from others. She could not stop thinking about him after he left and “During the night she had imagined that she had seduced him. She imagined that the two of them walked on the place until they came to the storage barn beyond the two back fields and there, she imagined, that things came to such a pass that she very easily seduced him and that then, of course, she had to reckon with his remorse” (O’Connor 464). Freud believed that dreams are a leak of the unconscious mind to the conscious awareness. The things of the unconscious mind are often deep and usually what drive many people’s wrongs and desires or what they really feel. Hulga’s dream draws a connection to Freud’s studies. Hulga secretly desires love and wants to feel accepted. Her dream expresses her true desires, even though she puts up a nasty and unattractive front in her daily life and interactions. In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” Emily Grierson has a dark side that is made apparent to the reader. Her husband, Homer Barron, is not seen after his marriage to Emily. After Emily’s death, her husband’s rotting corpse was lying in her bed, “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (Faulkner 101). It is obvious to any reader that sleeping with a dead body is not something that a normal person would do. Freud, through his work would be the one who would analyze these actions and determine what was going on in Emily’s brain. One of his theories that can be applied to Miss Emily is that she is dealing with a lot of pain, and many people use defense mechanisms to prevent our psyche from experiencing this pain. Life is often too painful to bear in the conscious state of mind for most human beings. In Emily’s case, she killed and then went on to sleep with his dead body so he could not physically leave her. She did not want to have to undergo the experience of losing his love and having to face life without it. This irrational behavior is caused by the inner conflict of her unconscious mind. Psychoanalysis is a complex and interesting subject. Sigmund Freud developed and studied this theory throughout his studies. He applied it to many things that people did not understand about actions and was able to make diagnosis for people’s symptoms. Understanding the mind was something that no one had been able to comprehend before. His knowledge and research has made Freud famous. His studies are used by many different people and serve a variety of functions in our society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteGrotesque characters exemplified in O’Connor and Faulkner’s work can be analyzed through Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. The mere disgusting, abnormal, and immoral characteristics of characters in the stories are said by Freud to have a true meaning and purpose behind them, as the second blog link suggested. In O’Conner’s work, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother, a grotesque character, can be seen as sick, morally and mentally. Her refusal of her son Bailey and her ability to replace him and allow his memory to escape her mind shows her metal state of nonconsciousness; “ ‘Bailey Boy!’ the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in front of her. ‘I just know you’re a good man,’ she said desperately. ‘You’re not a bit common!’ ” (452) The fact that she can look at The Misfit and see something or someone other than the troubled being that is truly there is a testament to her nonconsciousness. The purpose behind her forgetfulness may be triggered by the desire to hide or attempt to banish pain and hurt. The grandmother struggles with the act of seeing something that she does not also feel. In Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” Abner’s father Snopes is a hysterical, immoral character who clearly has parts of his self absent from reality. Snopes seems to be in denial of his wrong doings. In his absent state of mind, he attempts to create lessons for Abner, “ ‘You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you’ ” (501). All the while Snopes continues to be immoral himself, forcing Abner to feel guilty about the crimes his father consistently commits. His lack of morals and caring concludes his unconscious state because of his inability to see clearly the truths of himself. His ID is misread and who he is, is not honest. Snopes mental state is set off balance, as shown by his consistent act of burning barns. He acquires an obsession of it, and relies on it as an outbreak from his state of mind, which lacks reality.
ReplyDeleteCassie: I love how you distinguished the deviation of the protagonists from the average book! Their works are very distinctive and utilize techniques that have been conquered by few authors. Overall great analysis of Freud and how it relates to these short stories!
ReplyDeleteKelsie: You really harnessed the idea of the progression of the protagonist's insanity in "A Rose for Emily." Also, your observation regarding the involuntary nature of her odd acts perfectly ties in with Freud and his philosophies. Great job!
Alexander: Needless to say your blending of your textual evidence clearly made your blog stand out. The great quotes definitely provided solid proof of how Freud's philosophies tied in with Freud.
Kelsey Smith: Your use of diction regarding the extent to which Faulkner utilized in his work really painted a clear picture of the characters. Freud's influence in their works is clearly evident through your explanations.
Outstanding job students and BLOG moderators!
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