Chris Roske
Freud
How Should I Interpret the Dreamy Book?
There is more to psychoanalysis than just talking to people: anyone can talk, but who are you talking to? Freud had some interesting ideas. Freud proposed the idea of a conscious and unconscious part of the mind (think ocean), wherein the conscious part is barely visible from the surface while the rest is unseen from the surface.
Where does this go? People do irrational things. Freud thought that all of our actions and thoughts are the product of a violent struggle between 3 processes: the id, the ego, and the superego.
Baby’s are born with the ID. It’s our simple and very primitive self. All it does is want: I want this, I want that that, I will do this and that. It’s a pleasure machine, it’s scared of pain, and above all it’s stupid. The ID, however, cannot run completely unregulated. The foundation of modern economics is based off the principle that people have unlimited wants and desires but we all live in a world with finite resources. Therefore the ID cannot be simply left unchecked for baby's forever.
The ego serves as the moderator to the ID. "It is I" used by Shakespeare et al. represents the ego's place, for it is you. But, Freud did not stop there. The Oedipus complex occurs when to a boy of 3 and then here is a new voice, a dad voice- the superego. The superego, eventually evolves into the voice of society, telling you, “no no, don’t do that.”. It’s the little white angel on your shoulder. Did I mention the superego is stupid too? Well, it is. But you can observe the superego’s power: say you are about to do something bad and you know you shouldn’t, you will feel anxious. That’s when the ego is telling you, “we might want to stop.” Why is the ego afraid? Well, the superego has a nuclear weapon, it’s called guilt. How many of you have felt guilt? Does it feel bad or good? Bad right. Well then, your superego is something Stalin wished he could be. Oh no, did I mention Marxism? You betcha. Anyway, the superego eventually ends up representing society’s voice, what society says is right or wrong. Freud agreed with Aristotle’s idea of tabula rasa.
So, you are the ego, in between the superego and ID yelling back and forth. Freud’s development of the ID, ego, and superego fit together with his idea of psychosexual development. There is an oral stage wherein one wonders, "Am I going to bed, am I going to be warm, etc" (Wolfe). It doesn’t go away. How you understand the world is shaped by what happens during this time. (Smoking, kissing, chewing gum) (Wolfe). Then the anal stage. Freud thought that there were pleasures in elimination, but also who was in control of you. Up until this point, you could do anything you want, then there is this terrible toilet training. It’s disgusting now, don’t touch it (Wolfe)! How much control do you have is answered here. Say something bad happens during our anal stage, this might be where OCD comes from. (Obsession with organization or excessive neatness). Phallic, is where one ascertains "am I a boy or a girl". What does it mean to be a boy or girl. This is where Momma’s Boy Syndrome comes in. And the latent stage is important for further development of the superego and its transition from dad’s voice to society’s. Self confidence is built and etc. Then finally, the genital stage in which we are all in now. We can develop impotence and unsatisfactory relationships throughout this stage. Freud thought that if we were to have anything bad happen during any of our stages we might be forever stuck in such a stage: i.e., we “fixate” on something if anything bad happens.
We go through different sexual stages in which we develop our unconscious and conscious faculties. We get urges to do things, but we can’t because DAD, or superego says “no” (Wolfe). So the ego dumps this “crap,” but where does it go? Freud argued, our dreams. Freud wrote a book on dreams, “The Interpretation Of Dreams.”
Freud thought all dreams had a purpose. None were without meaning. Dreams are where we can fulfill or at least in some dreams we can at least represent our desires. And if we could see into your dreams we and therefore see your unconscious mind at work, especially the ID. And if you were having issues, we could treat it. In dreams the ID is less restrained and more free to do what it pleases, but censorship still exists and some symbolism is necessary to obfuscate the true meaning. We say things like, “I can only dream of such a thing” to describe what we wish but obviously can’t have. This shows us, clearly, that we use dreams to fulfill desires or at least it is generally accept by most people to be this way. But in more general terms, dreams are where our unconscious resolves conflicts.
Displacement is when a desire for one thing is put somewhere else. Say you do bad on an exam and snap at your roommate. You’re displacing your anger about the exam onto her. Whatever the object in your dream is, it actually represents a host of other more subtle meanings which is why there are dream dictionaries (Wolfe).
Freud also thought of Projection: projection is taking your own qualities, good or bad, and applying them to someone else (Wolfe).
Condensation: Say when I am finally done lecturing, you’re like, “I’m slad you’re done.” Perhaps you were trying to say, “I’m sad you’re done.” Maybe you really were thinking, “I am glad you’re done” unconsciously. The words sad and glad were condensed into slad. In dreams, one dream object stands for several associations and idea (Sharp).
Rationalization is when a dream is made into something more logical. We can have first drafts and second drafts (Wolfe). After we wake up, we try to rationalize what we dreamed through this process. We’re refining it and the censor goes over it and changes some bits (Wolfe).
And finally, Freud mentions symbolism. Freud really liked this. He thought anything long slender or elongated, say knives or ciags, was the phallus (Wolfe). And any bowls, caves, or tunnels had to do with that female counterpart. Freud was obsessed with this, perhaps from his long days with the eels? All these tricks can be seen in dreams and used to find your unconscious desire or conflict. And the more repetitious, the more important.
Now that we’ve covered dreams, let’s explore Heart of Darkness. If our circadian cycle (circa ‘around’ diem ‘day’) is left undisturbed we will have cycles around 24 hours each day. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (supra meaning above optic chiasma (i.e., where the optic nerves cross)) is modulated by light (Wolfe). Traditionally we are asleep when it is dark. When we sleep, our unconscious can become more active and somewhat less restrained and able to work out any troubles it has. At the time of Conrad's writing of the book, Africa was a mysterious place. Africa was the “Dark Continent” in the Victorian Era (Wikipedia). Dark people are throughout the land. The forests are dark. So they are in a dark place with dark people, but fellow Eurpoeans become dark too. This darkness lurks underneath all the “civilized” people, as we shall see in Kurtz. Darkness is throughout the book. It is also dreamy like. UH OH, I SEE A CONNECTION. If the book is a dream, then perhaps we are delving into an unconscious mind. Maybe we should think of this trip up the Congo as a psychological trip.
The main character is Marlow, who we must then gander at. Marlow is Conrad’s literary device, there to do his bidding and convey what the writer was trying to express as satire can be used to mask true criticisms, like in Candide, Conrad instead uses Marlow to express some things he has to say. Marlow also, surprisingly, is Conrad in many regards. Conrad ventured up the Congo river in his life. There was a trip required, some 200 miles (because it was impassable by steam boat until the central station), from the mouth to a central station where he eventually manned a steam boat as captain. At the time, a government permitted everyone to obtain as much ivory as they wished. Some call Marlow a mimetic character. Marlow is affected by the journey in many ways: he comes an unresolved person and leaves more refined with his definition and value of morality.
Marlow starts out in a familiar environment and leaves and is confounded by what he sees. He didn’t expect to see all the death, rapacious behavior, and apathetic attitude of his fellow Europeans. People are dying, 3 a day (fever). Natives are being slaved. He can’t get rivets! It’s chaos and unexpected to Marvin! Who does he see as the first person to bring back a familiar style of life? The accountant at the central station. This accountant dresses finely and even teaches a local woman to care for his clothes. He is more at home with this fellow, albeit an anal fellow (Nassab).
Marlow uses restraint, something some of his fellow Europeans are severely lacking in (Nassab). Restraint, as we will see, is entirely necessary for morality and a functioning civilization, and it is really a journey toward understanding what Marlow feels this means. But, Marvin is really more interested in Kurtz. As he goes up the river, he wants to meet him more and more (Nassab).
You could see him as Marlow. He is what Marlow could become. Maybe, Marlow’s alter-ego. Kurtz is a liar, like Marlow. Both were colonialists. Both tried to get away from civilization. Both were seduced by unexplored Africa. But Kurtz became evil, Marlow chose not to. Kurtz has an ID but no ego. He chooses what to do without any real regard for logic or a solid rationale. All his desires are unchecked. Marlow’s ego and ID are more in-check. The difference between the two is this seemingly insignificant missing “shoulder angel,” but as we can see it makes Kurtz terribly insane to others (Nassab).
The horror, Kurtz mentions, could be a lot of things. Is it the horror of the Colonial empire? The horror of not being able to accomplish something even when you have great plans. Or is it the horror of death? Whatever it is, it isn’t happy, it’s DARK (Nassab).
A good question would be, “Why does Marlow lie about Kurtz’s last words?” Well, the rest of this book isn’t about fixing things. If Marlow wanted to fix things, like say the unjustness of holding natives as prisoners in their own country then he, as somebody from the Enlightenment would try to fix it, but he doesn’t. He just lets it be. He doesn’t try to fix anything, he just comes to observe and learn about this imperialism. But why does he do it? He does it because he chose to keep his morals, unlike Kurtz, and even though Marlow is a liar, most moral people would strive to do as he did. Although there are some who argue he didn’t lie at all (Nassab).
This story illustrates two different options: when you’re away from civilization, you can let your morality go or you can cling to it (Nassab). Conrad says, therefore, that societies function because of our self-control, in other words, repression of our wants and desires is necessary for everything to work. What if the demands, i.e., the requirements before us are beyond what we can control ourselves to do are too demanding? This leads us into a possible break down in civilization. In the Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is an example of what it looks like when we ‘let loose.’ Not even Marlow likes this (Nassab).
This story is based on what? The ivory trade. All these people are making their way up through the Congo in order to reap profits unboundedly, except for trifles with the natives. As Marlow notes,
“The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball ? an
ivory ball; it had caressed him, and lo! he had withered; it had taken him,
loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his
soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation.” (Conrad 84)
Now, finally, back to Freud. Freud was vague a lot, so we can't disprove really. This symbolism and such exists in a place where it is hard to test if not impossible to test. It is hard to prove or disprove any of this. Like most horoscopes, unless they’re specific enough like mine, they can’t be falsified. Freud was kind of a step-back from the scientific method and really more of a move toward Plato again. Think about it, your true self is in this place you can’t see, the unconscious. Totally Platonic, not scientific (like intelligent design isn’t science). Freud shatters having one self and makes it into smaller pieces, maybe Decartes would get along with him. This is a move into a new era, kind of a step back from where the Enlightenment led us. It is kind of gloomy on this new path. Okay, really gloomy and dark.
References:
Conrad, Joseph and Paul Armstrong. Heart of Darkness, Fourth Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Sharp, William. “Teaching Clinical Psychology.” Rider University. 12 March 2008. <http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/dreamman.html>.
Wolfe, Jeremy. “Brain and Cognitive Sciences | 9.00 Introduction to Psychology, Fall 2004.” 11 March 2008. <http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Brain-and-Cognitive- Sciences/9-00Fall-2004/LectureNotes/>.
Nassab, Sara. A Postcolonial and Pyschological Approach to Heart of Darkness. Billy Gray, 2006 Lulea: Lulea University of Technology, 2006. ISSN: 1402-1552.
"Heart of Darkness." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 Mar 2008, 11:42 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heart_of_Darkness&oldid=199807699>.
Further Reading:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpretation_of_Dreams
[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=OSYJAAAAIAAJ
[3] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
[4] http://www.kheper.net/topics/psychology/Freud.html
Proposed Test Questions:
1. What do we discover about Marlow and Kurtz along the journey up the Congo? Why is this important?
2. Can race, ivory, and a suprachiasmatic nucleus be tied into one theme? How? What is the significance of this?