Freud is Not Sexist Many feminist critics have perceived Freud to be an active force in Victorian gender politics that claim women's inferiority. His attitudes towards women, as reflected in his psychoanalyses, consciously reflect the patriarchal assumptions of Victorian society, but unconsciously reject gender roles and stereotypes about women. Freud is therefore complicit in accepting sexist perceptions of women, but is not a perpetrator who attempts to entrench patriarchy by portraying women as inferior. Because Freud is a victim of the prevalent stereotypes of society, feminist critics are unwarranted in characterizing him as an instigator of female degradation. Rather, his skewed perceptions reflect the male-chauvinist beliefs of his surroundings and influences. Freud's relationships with his female patients indicate that he simultaneously identifies with and fails to understand women. In identifying with women patients, Freud demonstrates concern for the underlying causes of psychological affliction, namely the constricting nature of gender roles. This fixation with the feminine complaint is exemplified in particular by Freud's dream of Irma and his case study of Dora, two recalcitrant female patients who refuse to accept his theories. Freud's failure to completely understand his female patients, however, indicates that he has begun to question patriarchal assumptions by realizing that fulfillment of stereotypically female roles leaves women unfulfilled. Unfortunately, he has not acted upon this realization because he consciously sees women through the clouded lens of Victorian bias. Because Freud fails to bring his unconscious desire to reject gender roles to the conscious surface, he never completely frees h... ... middle of paper ... ...le for his curing anxieties. Until Freud rejects female gender roles, he will never fulfill his phantasy to ameliorate the sick and, in effect, his Victorian male role in society. Bibliography: Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine Clément. The Untenable. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Felman, Shoshana. What Does a Woman Want?. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. London, The Hogarth Press, 1900. Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc, 1966. Marcus, Steven. Freud and Dora: Story, History, Case History. New York: Random House, 1975. Masson, Jeffrey. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1985.
...le dominance over female acquiescence. His goal is to ascertain that those qualities identified as feminine are used to undermine those qualities considered masculine. Kesey minimizes the mental suffering of the male patients while focusing on the inability of a woman to have control over men and keep it without resorting to emasculatory tactics. This is a social commentary on the representation of a woman or an institutional system that abuses power (Leach; Termpaperwarehouse.com).
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
examine Freud's claim in his own terms, as well as in the light of the
“Freud and Man’s Soul”, by Bruno Bettelheim, is the authors attempt to clear up inadequacies and errors of Freud’s research and writings after being translated to English. Bettelheim, with much of the same childhood background as Freud, studied Freud’s work at the University of Vienna. He later moved to the United States and became the director of the University of Chicago’s Orthogenic School. After reading Freud’s work in English he found the translation to be misleading. “…I discovered that reading Freud in English translations leads to quite different impressions from those I had formed when I had read them in German” (Weeks 3). He clears up some of these misunderstandings in his book. He argues that translations of Freud’s work have failed to capture Freud’s emotional intensity; even though Freud and his daughter Anna oversaw much of the translation.
She said that men suffered from womb envy because they will under no circumstances be able to bear a child (Washington, 2009). Womb envy was indeed an opposition of Freud. Womb envy and the hostility created from it is manifested unconsciously in behaviors designed to belittle women and highlight their second-rate status (Schultz & Schultz, 2012). As an outcome of believing their inferiority, women may decide to refute their femininity and subconsciously desire to be men (Schultz & Schultz, 2012). Horney termed this experience flight from womanhood, a condition built on social and cultural disadvantages that can result in sexual unresponsiveness (Engler,
Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her drunken husband Stanley, and also in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the female narrator is claimed unfit by her husband as she suffers from a sort of depression, and is generally looked down on for other reasons.
Mental illness is a disease that cannot be fully cured but controlled to some degree. There are multiple types of mental illnesses, ranging from mood disorders to schizophrenia. A mental illness is when there is an abnormality in the brain. An example would be when a person is diagnosed with depression; there is a lack of serotonin in the brain. Medications can balance the levels of serotonin, and either cure the depression or decrease the symptoms of depression. Mental illness is fairly common; 1 in 4 people are diagnosed with mental illness. Today there are multiple ways to diagnose a person with a mental illness. Doctors mostly use therapy and quizzes to diagnose someone with a mental illness. I am going to use the Freud theory to diagnose
Freud had developed his theory of hysteria and how its origin came from repressed sexual desire. He diagnosed Dora as someone who was suffering from hysteria as a result of this repressed desire. He used the fact that when Herr K. was not around, Dora was unable to talk, and that showed that her symptoms of hysteria were directly correlated with Herr K. He concluded from his invalid evidence, which consisted of Dora's dreams and her past childhood experiences, that she was indeed repressing her love for Herr K. and this cam...
Sometimes trying to conform to society’s expectations becomes extremely overwhelming, especially if you’re a woman. Not until recent years have woman become much more independent and to some extent equalized to men. However going back to the 19th century, women were much more restrained. From the beginning we perceive the narrator as an imaginative woman, in tune with her surroundings. The narrator is undoubtedly a very intellectual woman. Conversely, she lives in a society which views women who demonstrate intellectual potential as eccentric, strange, or as in this situation, ill. She is made to believe by her husband and physician that she has “temporary nervous depression --a slight hysterical tendency” and should restrain herself from any intellectual exercises in order to get well (Gilman 487). The narrator was not allowed to write or in any way freely...
In the video of the Changing Face of Feminist Psychology, Naomi Weisstein wrote a paper that women were not valued in their experiences” the uselessness that present psychology with regard to women is simply a special case of the general conclusion” (Young, 2010). One account of sexism is Bernice Lott told her story about graduate studies and she recalls her meeting, and she said that the professor told her that she would be out of her studies. She would bear children. Another account sexism is from Florence Denmark she recalls her experience with her husband’s job. Florence Denmark’s job was placed on the lowest position because of her husband job of being a dentist.
“Must this multiplicity of female desire and female language be understood as shards, scattered remnants of a violated sexuality? sexually denied?” Freud mentions that the clitoris is a small penis. Female parts are always seen as a commodity for men. Women don’t need men’s object to pleasure themselves, but men need to see or feel a women’s part in order to pleasure themselves.
To begin this paper, I want to explain a little bit about Feminist Criticism. This category of criticism scrutinizes the means in which texts have been molded in accordance with matters of gender. It concentrates on social and financial disparities in a “male-controlled” culture that continues to impede women from grasping their true potentials. There are several perceptions and theories universally shared by feminist critics. One such belief is that our society is undeniably regulated by men. Another belief is that the concept of “gender” is mostly, if not wholly, a social standard that has curtailed from the never ending masculine biases that engulf our world. This male dominated philosophy is excessively abundant in most of the writings that are deemed exceptional literature. In addition, many feminist consider females, in literature, to be represented as destructive or docile objects, while most males are portrayed as being brave and resilient leaders.
In the Victorian Era of mid nineteen to early twentieth century, a woman’s role in society remained to be in the household, away from the business and cares of men. The feminine side is portrayed as negative, powerless, and lacking (Kileen 49). Society discouraged women from having power in society and neglecting women represented normal in the eyes of most men and women. However, Victorian novels such as The Picture of Dorian Gray illustrate the consequences of disregarding women. In Oscar Wilde’s only novel, the lack of importance surrounding the female characters and their careless treatment from men results in the selfishness of the male characters exemplified through Dorian Gray’s acts of evil.
The term Electra complex which according to Freud is ‘feminine Oedipus attitude’ is for the first time coined by C. G. Jung as ‘Electra complex’. This term refers to “a type of arrested development in an older female child or woman, in which the daughter adulates the father and scorns the mother” (Swiontkowski 31) for she lacks a penis which is a phallus, a symbol of power and authority. While Freud sees the complex from anatomical and sexual point of view, Jung sees it from symbolic point of view where biological father is often absent. If we read the poems identified with the Electra complex written by Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, we will notice that both the poets represent an imaginary image of the fathers to symbolize patriarchal power what they want to gain not to see their position as victim in the patriarchal social structure any more. Gale Swiontkowski clearly points out why a daughter shows her excessive psychological attachment towards her father and denying her mother. She
Psychoanalytical criticism is a form of literary critique, which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. One of the more prevalent Psychoanalytical theorists after Freud was Jacques Lacan. In his text, “The Signification of the Phallus,” asserts that the idea of both sexes are based on the male “being” and the female “having” the phallus, and these two differences determine the relations between the sexes while also bringing them together. For Lacan, the phallus for males represents power, authority, and desire while for females the phallus signifies lack of power and agency (182).