The Oedipal Complex and Castration

Freud’s Oedipal complex, inspired by Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex, attempts to account for infantile anxieties by claiming that children, especially boys, have an inner sexual desire toward their opposite sex parent and secretly want to murder their parent of the same sex. Freud proclaims that, like Oedipus who could not escape his destiny, “the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him.” (NTC 816) Oedipus’s actions, according to Freud, merely fulfill our childhood wishes. He claims that even today many men have a desire to be with their mothers and kill their fathers. These unconscious feelings are suppressed by the father figure and society in general, yet those primitive feelings are sometimes divulged in dreams and literature.

In this sense, to what extent does Frankenstein ratify the Oedipal complex? Since Victor is both the mother and the father of the monster, can the Oedipal complex here be deemed completely useless, or merely more complicated? Also, do you think that the monster paradoxically has an unconscious sexual desire for Victor, as well as a ruthless desire to kill him, which he eventually does? And how does that all play in the final scene when Victor dies?

The fear of castration is what stifles the Oedipal complex from ever occurring in real life. Freud claims that when the young male realizes the inherent biological sexual differences between male and female, assumes that the female figure is lacking in some way, arriving at the conclusion that she has been punished and castrated. Thus the young male becomes anxious that his organ will be cut off by his nemesis, the father figure, in reprimand for desiring the mother. However, I believe that this castration anxiety in actuality is only rendered metaphorically. The fear of castration is the fear of being beaten down by the father figure, as well as being stripped of masculinity and reduced to impotence.

Thus, how is the castration complex in Frankenstein taken to the extreme, by both Victor and the Monster? Does Victor metaphorically castrate the Creature by destroying his bride and depriving him of female companionship? Is this role reversed when the Creature retaliates and murders Elizabeth on her and Victor’s wedding night, even before they had a chance to consummate the marriage?

Oedipus, Victor, and the creature

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud writes that Oedipus' "destiny moves us only because it might have been ours -- because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father" (816). He further analyzes Hamlet in these terms, saying that Hamlet hesitates to take revenge "on the man who did away with his father and took that father's place with his mother" because that man "shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized" (817-8). If this unconscious desire is universal, I wonder, then, how this Oedipus Complex applies to Frankenstein. Victor loves his mother -- it could be said that he idolizes her -- and he could even be said to want to marry her, as Elizabeth set up as the best substitute for his mother after she dies. Also, while Victor respects his father, he expresses anger towards him for dismissing his fascination with Agrippa and slowly brings about his father's death through the deaths of his loved ones. Thus, the Oedipus Complex plays out with regard to Victor (without intention, too! as Freud's theory comes 85 years after Shelley's novel). The creature, however, is a different case than Victor's. He expresses hatred for his father (Victor) and wants to kill him, as the novel clearly shows, although this desire is conscious. The Oedipus Complex is further complicated as Victor is simultaneously the creature's father and mother. Where, then, does the creature's sexual impulses lie? Is it problematic that he has a father and no mother, or that his "mother" is a man? What might Freud have said about the creature's unconscious? What are the creature's true desires? Can they be categorized in the way that the Oedipus Complex suggests they should be?

New York Times: Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

Lacan believed that the unconscious is structured like language, and seems to imply that language has a lot to do with what shapes our sense of self. If you find these ideas interesting, you might like this article I came across recently in the New York Times. It's about more recent studies in how language shapes the way we think:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Enjoy!

Dan

PS My seminar paper has been posted on Blackboard.

Frankenstein & The Uncanny: Just how "realistic" is Shelley's fictional reality?

Freud says that a writer “can select his world of representation so that it either coincides with the realties we are familiar with or departs from them what particulars he pleases” (839). The extent to which a fictional world “coincides with the realities we are familiar with or departs from them” (839) determines whether or not the events in that world can generate feelings of the uncanny. Freud points out three types of “realities” that the author can create, only one of which can lead to feelings of the uncanny:

1. In the world of fairy tales, “wish-fulfilments, secret powers, omnipotence of thoughts, animation of inanimate objects” (839) are par for the course. As such, things that would normally generate uncanny feelings fail to do so.

2 Freud describes a middle-ground, where “the creative writer can also choose a setting which though less imaginary than the world of fairy tales, does yet differ from the real world by admitting superior spiritual beings such as daemonic spirits or ghost of the dead” (839). As such, “in this case too we avoid all trace of the uncanny” (841).

3 When “the writer pretends to move in the world of common reality … everything that would have an uncanny effect in reality has it in his story” (840).

I pose the question: which of these three types of stories is Frankenstein? References to Darwin in the introduction, and other references to the “modern” science of the time would naturally lead us to conclude that, for the 19th century reader, Frankenstein is a story that “pretends to move in the world of common reality” (840). A reader in 1818 might very well believe that the events of the novel are possible in reality, and feelings of the uncanny would undoubtedly result.

But what about for the modern, 21^st century reader? Given our current knowledge of science, Victor’s discovery of “the spark of life” and his method of creating a person is more like fantasy, and would perhaps place the novel in the second of the abovementioned categories.

If the modern, 21^st century reader experiences feelings of the uncanny when reading Frankenstein, I’m not sure they have anything to do with the question of whether or not the monster is human. I think, in order for that to be the case, the story would have to be rewritten, containing a science that is more like our own. Or, put differently, if we do experience feelings of the uncanny when considering the (in)humanity of the creature, it is because we perceive the science of the present day as an extension of Victor’s science.

I would say that a weakness of Freud is his tendency towards making universal claims. He says, “I cannot think of any genuine fairy story which has anything uncanny about it” (837). I point to the story of Hanzel & Gretel. Even though this story takes place in a world where the impossible is actual, I always found myself deeply unsettled by it. Perhaps because it stirs up some “primal emotion” (I’m sure a hardcore Freudian could find some interpretation having to do with the Oedipus complex, though I care not to determine one myself). Or perhaps because it’s a story that, though fantastical in nature, could happen in a way. The tale calls to mind the seductive pedophile and/or cannibalistic serial killer – both of which are horrific character-types in actual reality. Perhaps Freud’s statement that the problem of the uncanny “is eliminated from the outset by the postulates of the world of fairy tales” (839) requires modification.

That's all for now. Doing my best to prepare for cofacilitation on Wednesday - as psychoanalysis is often a divisive topic, I think discussion should be fun!

Dan

Performing the Uncanny Heimlich Maneuver on Frankenstein's Monster

What drew Frankenstein to loathe his creation? Why did humanity frame his creation has a creature, not even acknowledging him as human, but something subhuman; a wretched and abhorrent monster wreaking havoc on civilization? According to Freud, it could have been due to the creature's uncanny nature. Freud states "The uncanny is that class of frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar." (NA 825) He goes on to develop a precise definition for the German term heimlich and consequently unheimlich; the first term not only meaning something home-like and familiar, but also "the notion of something hidden and dangerous". Unheimlich holds a similar definition to the latter mentioned previously.

I found a similarity in the two definitions associated with heimlich in that the home can be viewed as a shelter, and if viewed as that, isn't that where we all retreat or hide from the forces of the outside world? If so, then the home transforms not only into a place of familiar comfort, but also into one of hidden secrets. The uncanny effect that the creature may have on people is that he resembles something so close to the human form, something close to home, yet he is considered physically appalling. His physical deformities could represent the undesirable characteristics which lay hidden within all of humanity. His presence therefore acts as a mirror to people, in which they see their own flaws presented in his physical character.

Freud goes on to quote Ernst Jentsch, stating "In telling a story, one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton, and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately." (829) Freud also stated "Jentsch believes that a particularly favourable condition for awakening uncanny feelings is created when there is intellectual uncertainty whether an object is alive or not, and when an inanimate object becomes too much like an animate one." (833) These statements encapsulate almost our entire discussion regarding the creature in Frankenstein because one of the main questions we have been discussing is could the creature be considered human and what does he reflect about humanity. Jentsch defines what we could consider the "creature archetype".

Another uncanny effect Freud discusses is the use of repetition of events to create anxiety. He suggests that when repressed emotions are brought to light, they are considered frightening. This idea could be related to the multiple deaths Victor encounters in the story.
However, I would like to put a spin on Freud's theory because I think it could be applied to the creature in a number of ways. According Spivak, looking at Frankenstein as a text representing English imperialism, Victor functions as the imperialist and the creature as the imperialized. The creature desires to join the community but is rejected, turning him into a minority. It could be thought of then, that all of his dialogue within the text represents what Deleuze and Guattari would refer to as minor literature.
Could the existence of the creature be viewed as the repressed minority coming into main view in the story and the reaction that ensues because of this a reflection of how imperialists would usually react to an native uprisings?

Althusser, Lukacs, and Spivak on History and Imperialism

Althusser's theory "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" and Lukacs "The Historic Novel" can be applied to Gayatri Spivak's critical essay "Frankenstein and a Critique of Imperialism." Setting her essay within this framework, I think it would be easier to understand the point she was trying to make of thinking of the Monster as the country being imperialized. However, regarding the evidence Althusser and Lukacs present, it could be said that Victor's Monster resists any form of imperialization because he exists outside of the state and outside of an historical setting.
According to Lukacs, "even the great realistic social novel of the eighteenth century, which in its portrayal of contemporary morals and psychology, accomplished a revolutionary breakthrough to reality for world literature is not concerned to show its characters as belonging to any concrete time. The contemporary world is portrayed with unusual plasticity and truth-to-life, but its accepted naively as something given: whence and how it has developed have not yet become problems for the writer." (NA 910) Frankenstein was created before the time period in which Lukacs determines the true historical novel was created. Because of this, it may reflect in essence the society in which the writer existed, but its goal was not to portray any true historicity nor was it to be considered commentary regarding the historic time in which it was created on behalf of the author.
According to Althusser, Ideological State apparatuses represent " specialized institutions" which according to the Norton Anthology "operate primarily in the private sphere, and they attain their power not by means of explicit coercion or force but through implicit consent realized in accepted 'practices'". He outlines these apparatuses as religious, educational, family, legal, political, cultural, etc...None of these institutions apply to the Monster because he was created outside of the society and was rejected by the society in which Spivak would have suggested Victor Frankenstein, his creator, represents. The Monster is exposed to these systems when he observed the behaviors of Felix's family, Victor even tried invoking the legal apparatus when trying to capture him, but, as we can see from the novel, the Monster evaded all of these measures.
Taken outside of the context of Althusser and Lukacs, I am sure there is a way you could imply the mechanics of the imperialized nation-state to the Monster, but given the evidence presented by Althusser, the Monster in himself can be viewed much in the same way the revolution could have been viewed in France. From his creation he took part in the building of his own history, with only the rejection of the former imperialist influence as the foundation of his self creation.

P.S. I deeply apologize for this being late. I have been experiencing internet problems all week and have been catching up on the time lost because of it.

Hatching Detached

The readings focusing on Marxism, state ideologies and social consciousness are very dense and fraught with cognitively compelling issues. The concepts these writings address and the ways in which they are conveyed waver between clarity and abstruseness; the ideas and language – complex in on their own - may have suffered from translation. I look forward to our discussion of the topics that Lukacs, Gramsci, and Althusser wrangle into their writing. Though some of Lukacs writing is difficult to peruse due to its heavy saturation with referenced works that I have little to no familiarity with, his central ideas seem very modern and applicable in a number of what would seem to be unrelated domains (like Frankenstein). Lukacs’s treatment of the historical novel in terms of the social and historical conditions of Europe considers issues that are still very relevant today. His notions of the emerging historical consciousness and feelings of nationalism in Europe seem pertinent in modern postcolonial discussions. His focused attention on the continental effects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars may be addressed through lenses of globalization, postmodernism and late capitalism.

In accordance with the majority of the other posts, the writing I would like to focus on in establishing a relationship to Frankenstein is Louis Althusser’s Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. School, according to Althusser, is the “one ideological State apparatus certainly has the dominant role, although hardly anyone lends an ear to its music” (1346). Unlike most children, the Monster, although equally vulnerable, is not forcedly “squeezed between the family State apparatus and the educational State apparatus” (1346). The monster’s self-determining role outside of these State apparatuses – his self-imposed womblike enclosure at the cottage where he willingly submits himself to information and education – allows him to evade being indoctrinated by “the ideology which suits the role [he] has to fulfill in class society” (1347). The Monster’s predicament diverges further from Althusser’s model in that he is not entrusted to the State apparatus by a hopeful (or deluded) parent. Frankenstein, as teacher and parent, may be seen as what Althusser calls a ‘hero’, in that he neglects his creations education and indoctrination into an exploitative society (1348). With further analysis, it seems that Felix and his family, though unbeknownst to them, are the true ‘heroes’ associated education. Felix, as a victim of French bourgeois injustice, evinces society to Safie – and unknowingly the Monster by association - instead of adopting an agenda of indoctrination. Felix and his family’s uniquely detached role, largely uninvolved though didactic, in the Monster’s education allows him to partake in a variety of roles, “role of the exploited; role of the agent of exploitation; of the agent of repression; of the professional ideologist”, in his attempt to create and destroy (his/a) society. Though it is by his constant exclusion and detached educational experience that allows the Monster to realize his own personal freedom of conceptualizing “knowledge, literature, and their ‘liberating’ virtues”, his is a society unto himself, like Milton’s Satan (1347).