“I have this condition,” repeats Leonard Shelby, the leading character of Memento, a film by Christopher Nolan. In the psychological thriller, Leonard has a condition that does not allow him to make new memories. The condition was caused by head trauma; the result of trying to protect his wife from being killed by the thieves who broke into his house and raped his wife. He is doomed to a live a life by following mementos--- his pictures, notes, and tattoos. Leonard’s single life mission is to find and kill his wife’s murderer. However, his condition allows him to seek vengeance over and over again. As a result, there is not only a barrier between Leonard and reality, but also a barrier between Leonard and the understanding of himself. Rooted in this confusing film is an important philosophical study of identity. How does the ability to make memories contribute to the idea of one’s identity? Can Leonard have an identity if he has lost this ability? These questions can be explored through the perspectives of John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Their philosophical theories of identity and the self involve a close study of the conscious mind. However, when studying only this level of self, it is difficult to argue that Leonard has an identity. Leonard’s identity can best be supported when one also considers Sigmund Freud’s theory of a multilayered self, which allows one to look deeper, beyond the conscious level to what seethes underneath.
Before Freud, there was a lack of philosophical consideration for the unconscious---the foundational driver of one’s desires. However, to best look at Leonard’s identity in this Freudian light, one should trace the historical progression of the study of the multilayered s...
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...re the Leonard kills Teddy, for killing his wife or for possessing inconvenient truths, Teddy says, “so you lie to yourself to be happy. There's nothing wrong with that. We all do it.” Teddy is right---we all do it. While Leonard’s condition serves as an extra barrier to reality, it only enforces what is already in our human nature. According to Freud, it is human nature to protect ourselves from painful memories and feelings. Leonard’s condition and his manipulation of reality leaves him in an endless cycle of denial. He will never come to terms with what lurks in his unconscious, the pain that drives his new identity as a killer.
Works Cited
Chaffee, John. The Philosophers Way: Thinking Critically about Profound Ideas. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2012.
Memento. Directed by Christopher. 2000. Santa Monica: Summit Entertainment, 2001. DVD.
Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 124(3), 333.
...f existence before essence is echoed when Teddy tells Leonard that he (Leonard) doesn't even know who he is: when Leonard answers he is his past self, Teddy cautions "That's who you were, not who you've become." While Leonard does not believe it, Teddy reminds him that he is responsible for his wife's death, not the men he tracks down and enjoys killing. Leonard refuses to acknowledge that he is his actions, to which Sartre would say "There is no reality except in action" (316, Existentialist Philosophy). Leonard seems to avoid responsibility for his freedom, most likely because he does see who he has become. Memento is a poignant affirmation that our actions make us who we are and that we are in fact responsible for the choices we make, whether we face our freedom, or flee from our anxiety as Leonard does. Now, where was I...?
In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind stresses the importance of memory and how memories shape a person’s identity. Stories such as “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust and a report by the President’s Council on Bioethics called “Beyond Therapy” support the claims made in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Director Christopher Nolan′s film Memento (2000), is loosely based from the concept of a short story named Memento Mori written by his brother Jonathan. This story is about a man named Leonard Shelby who is suffering from anterograde amnesia, which is a loss of ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long term memories from before the event remain intact. Leonard was hit over the head during an attack which resulted in his wife being raped and murdered. With the help of contact named Teddy and a bartender named Natalie, Leonard set out for revenge. Since the attack Leonard has set out to exact revenge on the man who has caused him suffering. He helps himself by writing notes, taking photographs, and tattooing himself with important notes and facts. An analysis of the film Memento reveals the use of film techniques such as editing, non-linear storytelling, symbolism, director's style, musical score, color, and cinematography that creates an intellectual stimulant that has the viewer deciphering a puzzle in a reversed chronological order.
Sigmund Freud, the preeminent, 19th century, European neurologist and psychologist, designed a theory he labelled “psychoanalysis,” a theory which would transcend all borders and integrate itself deeply into many facets of society. In fact, an American named Kate Chopin, wrote a book entitled The Awakening, which was published at the turn of the 19th century, in which this theory played an integral role in expressing the complexity, relevance, and growth of the main character. The express importance of the main character displaying a Freudian psych is pertinent even in the modern time because it allows us to view the application of his theories around the time of their conception, trace their evolution and see the changes throughout the years. By possessing these comparisons, one could then gain insight as to how society and the individual has developed and progressed.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Freud for Historians. By Peter Gay. (Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. vii + 252. Preface, bibliography, acknowledgments, index.)
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher's Way Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2009.
Lawhead, W. (2011). The philosophical journey, an interactive approach, fifth edition. New York: McGraw Hill.
During the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, a psychologist named Sigmund Freud welcomed the new age with his socially unacceptable yet undoubtedly intriguing ideologies; one of many was his Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams. Freud believed that dreams are the gateway into a person’s unconscious mind and repressed desires. He was also determined to prove his theory and the structure, mechanism, and symbolism behind it through a study of his patients’ as well as his own dreams. He contended that all dreams had meaning and were the representation of a person’s repressed wish. While the weaknesses of his theory allowed many people to deem it as merely wishful thinking, he was a brilliant man, and his theory on dreams also had many strengths. Freud’s theories of the unconscious mind enabled him to go down in history as the prominent creator of Psychoanalysis.
Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1949. Print.
Sigmund Freud created strong theories in science and medicine that are still studied today. Freud was a neurologist who proposed many distinctive theories in psychiatry, all based upon the method of psychoanalysis. Some of his key concepts include the ego/superego/id, free association, trauma/fantasy, dream interpretation, and jokes and the unconscious. “Freud remained a determinist throughout his life, believing that all vital phenomena, including psychological phenomena like thoughts, feelings and phantasies, are rigidly determined by the principle of cause and effect” (Storr, 1989, p. 2). Through the discussion of those central concepts, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis becomes clear as to how he construed human character.
Lawhead, William F. (2013). The Philosophical Journey, An Interactive Approach, 6th Ed. McGraw-Hill Education. New York .
The longevity of success using psychoanalysis becomes a testimony to Freud’s in-depth study of the human mind. His forty plus years of work in the field were spent on the development of the main principles of psychoanalysis along with the techniques and methods used by the analyst. His work was furthered by his daughter and later adopted then adapted by Erikson. What seemed so revolutionary in the 1890’s and beyond has now become widely accepted by most all schools of psychological thought and its study.
c. Freud establishes a common element: the human desire to alter their existing and often unsatisfactory or unpleasant reality. All individuals are frustrated within their lives, whether they are non-writers who cannot reclaim their childhood stimulant or as individuals unhappy in their marriages, etc.. Freud contests that desires, repressed to an unconscious state, will emerge in disguised forms: in dreams, in language, in creativity, and in neurotic behavior.. We can look for these occurrences in the future to conduct an analysis of the author’s own repressed desires or fictional characters.