Formal Papers were used to demonstrate our comprehension of texts, provide an interpretation and analysis of the texts, and link them to outside research
John’s Catalyst Effect on His Wife’s Illness and How Freud’s Criticism is applicable to Him
- Summary & Response Essay
In his first lecture, Freud is reproachful of doctors’ attitudes towards hysterics. He says doctors’ medical skills are unable to treat Hysteria, and so doctors let nature decide a hysteric’s prognosis (Freud 2201). Furthermore, doctors are unsympathetic to hysterics, as doctors are unable to understand why a hysteric is suffering, and because they put doctors in a layman’s position (where no learned person likes to be). As such, doctors view hysterics’ grievances as deceiving and exaggerated. Freud acknowledges that Breuer was undeserving of the same reproach, as he was sympathetic and his kind yet critical examination of his patient allowed him to heal her (Freud 2202). On the other hand, John from the “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a catalyst to his wife’s worsening condition. He exemplifies the limitations of medical training in treating Hysteria, and other psychological conditions. The short story also demonstrates doctors’ disbelief in Hysterical patients’ condition- another criticism derived from Freud’s lecture- which is seen in John’s reactions to his wife’s condition. Thus the overarching theme of Freud’s criticism, which is the damage doctors can cause hysterics and other psychologically ill, is applicable to John.
It should be noted that Freud’s stance on doctors’ approach to Hysteria also applies to psychological illnesses in general, as he says “Medical skill is … powerless against severe diseases of the brain…” (Freud 2201). With that in mind, John is treating the psychological illness his wife has, so Freud’s criticism can be applied to John if John’s treatment is damaging. This makes sense considering that John parallels the doctors that Gilman wanted to protect others from, those who treated psychological conditions such as Melancholia with rest cure (Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper). And so, John can be viewed as a doctor with limitations treating psychological illnesses, and Freud’s criticism can be applied to him.
John illustrates Freud’s point that doctors in the late nineteenth century were limited in treating hysteria. In his lecture, Freud states: “Medical skill is … powerless against severe diseases of the brain…” (Freud 2201). This occurred in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when John provides treatment for his wife that is physiologically beneficial, but does not treat her psychological condition. For example, on page 651, the narrator describes how John treats her with “cod liver oil and tonic…” in order to keep her from losing her strength (Gilman). On page 652 however, John states that the narrator’s physique was improving, to which the narrator then implies she is not improving elsewhere, but is cut off by John (Gilman). This shows that John is focused on the narrator’s physical health, and nothing more. Furthermore, the narrator writes “I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time” (Gilman 650), which portrays that she is psychologically unwell, and John’s treatments are ineffective. Accordingly, John is limited in his medical training and treatment of his wife, which Freud points out against doctors.
Other than ineffective treatment, John rejects his wife’s illness being anything but physiological, relating to Freud’s claim that doctors were skeptical of hysterics (Freud 2201). For instance, when the narrator suggests her pain is not physiological, John refuses to entertain that idea, calling it a “false and foolish fancy” (Gilman 652). This bears similarity to Freud’s claim that doctors were skeptical of and accusatory towards hysterics, which in itself suggests that doctors do not believe in their suffering (Freud 2201). Both John’s rejection and other doctors’ skepticism lay on the same essence of disbelief. There hence exists another commonality between John and doctors that Freud criticizes: the skepticism and doubt of Hysteria and other psychological illnesses.
John’s limitations in treating Hysteria caused him to address his wife’s physiology, but not her psychological illness. Also, he rejects that she is psychologically ill. Because of these factors, he holds accountability in being a catalyst for his wife’s condition worsening. The indifference to Hysteria from nineteenth century doctors must have caused the same damage to hysterics, which Freud holds doctors accountable for by criticizing them. Thus, Freud’s criticism of most doctors applies to John.
The Black Cat: A Psychoanalysis of the Narrator’s Losing Touch with Reality
- Exploratory Essay
Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ illustrates the downward spiral of a well-natured man into a mentally broken, immoral character who harms his cat and eventually murders his wife; these despicable actions lead to his conviction, emanating from his drowning in Freudian wishful impulses and repressions.
The narrator’s drinking degrades his character at his pets’ expense. Pluto, his cat, was saved from this abuse by the narrator’s self-restraint, though eventually Pluto was abused as well. This passage illustrates the dynamic between the narrator’s urge to harm Pluto, and his affection for the cat:
“Our friendship lasted… for several years, during which my general temperament and character — through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance — had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse… My pets… were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him… But my disease grew upon me — for what disease is like Alcohol ! — and at length even Pluto… began to experience the effects of my ill temper” (Poe).
The narrator’s restraint in this passage is a Freudian repression, the act of resisting an inappropriate desire (Freud 2212). The narrator’s restraint was his friendship with Pluto, restraining him from hurting Pluto, a desire developed due to the narrator’s intemperance. This desire is a Freudian wishful impulse, which was “… in sharp contrast to the subject’s other wishes and … proved incompatible with the ethical … standards of his personality” (Freud 2212). In this case, the wish was to hurt Pluto, which was incompatible with his friendship with the cat. This wish is eventually fulfilled though, when after a night of drinking, the narrator takes out Pluto’s eye after being annoyed by him (Poe).
Eventually, the dynamic between the narrator’s wish and his repression breaks, setting course for him to lose his moral grounding. This passage shows the narrator’s shift in perspective between drunkenly hurting Pluto, to committing to hanging Pluto:
“…Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself … — to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only — that urged me to … consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning … I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful … God” (Poe),
When the narrator removed Pluto’s eye, it was in a heated, drunken moment (Poe). In contrast, the hanging was thought-out; its consequences weighed; he describes this crime as “jeopardizing [his] immortal soul…beyond the reach of…God” (Poe). Without a doubt, the narrator conscientiously hanging Pluto while acknowledging its gravity, exhibits a willful immorality the narrator adopts; this action was committed for the purpose of doing “wrong for wrong’s sake only” (Poe). This shift in the narrator’s perspective caused the transition from drunken to deliberate crime -resulting from acting on his wishful impulse- translates as the downward slope of his morals.
Consequently, the narrator’s broken restraint against hurting Pluto makes him even more impulsive, accumulating to him killing his wife and entering a brief period of insanity, leading to his conviction. The narrator’s repression acted as gatekeeping of his morals and sanity, until he removed Pluto’s eye in his drunken state. Before hurting Pluto, the narrator’s impulse was based on irritability- but with no manifestation of his impulse, it was easier to repress. After hurting Pluto, the narrator’s impulse was strengthened by a desire to “consummate the injury”, and since he already harmed Pluto once, it was easier for him to reenact his impulse and end the cat’s life. This second enactment of his impulse indicates that his mental gatekeeping was breached. Resultedly, the narrator becomes unhinged and morally parched, thus more impulsive. Upon experiencing a split-second impulse to bring the axe down on his wife, the narrator did not restrain himself, nor was he remorseful of this murder (Poe). Further, the methodical manner whereby he hid his wife’s corpse and his pride in accomplishing that task exhibits a developed apathy to evil within him (Poe). This psychotic development affected his mental state- during a police investigation of his basement, the narrator was overcome with deliriousness, and knocked down the wall wherein his wife’s corpse lay. This episode led to the narrator’s incarceration (Poe), hence the contingency between the narrator losing his self-restraint and his conviction.
Albeit the alter-ego Poe’s narrator becomes, due to his intemperance, can be analyzed in relation to psychical traumas from the narrator’s youth; a psychoanalysis of his adulthood also explains this alter-ego. The narrator’s ill-fated journey from alcoholic to felon, due to the fermentation of his mind, develops a tough dynamic between his desire to hurt Pluto and the resistance of their friendship; these are Freudian wishful impulse and repression. Losing the battle against his wishful impulses, the narrator becomes indifferent to heinous acts, from hanging Pluto, to murdering his wife- which ultimately leads to his conviction. Provided that Poe successfully invokes a cathartic exploration of human capacity for evil through the narrator, a question arises: to what extent can this evil be summoned within each of us?
Earthquake, Gas Attacks, and a Frog: A Textual and Historical Analysis of Haruki Murakami’s “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”
- Critical Researched Analysis Essay
The Magic realism present in Haruki Murakami’s “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” can be dissected using Freudian Manifest and Latent content, Displacement, and Condensation to examine how Katagiri’s unconscious mind reconciles his sense of purposelessness, and how Katagiri represents Murakami’s critique of the absence of identity during Japan’s halcyon days.
“Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” follows Katagiri, who finds a six-foot frog awaiting him in his apartment. Frog tells Katagiri that he needs Katagiri’s help in stopping Worm from triggering a massive earthquake in Tokyo. Katagiri thinks he is being pranked but decides that Frog is real and agrees to help. However, Katagiri is shot on his way to the fight. He wakes up in a hospital bed the next morning. A nurse explains he was found passed out on the street, with no signs of physiological stress, and that during the night he had called for Frog several times. Confused that he was not actually shot, Katagiri wonders if Frog was a figment of his imagination as well. Frog returns later that evening, having beat Worm, but fatally wounded. Frog dies at Katagiri’s bedside after a quick exchange with Katagiri, and his body disintegrates into insects which scale up Katagiri’s body. Horrified, Katagiri screams. The nurse storms in and Frog’s remains disappear. At this sudden disappearance, Katagiri reflects on something Frog said before dying: “What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real” then rolls into a dreamless sleep, whence the story concludes.
“Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” is engulfed in Magic realism, which is “…when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something ‘too strange to believe’” (Stretcher). The magic realism elements of this story occur in a dream, as they are oriented around Frog, who turns out to be a figment of Katagiri’s imagination. Frog appears in Katagiri’s dream for his help in a meaningful task: saving Tokyo from Worm. This is the manifest content of the dream, “a disguised fulfilment” which Katagiri knows “from memory” when he wakes up in the hospital bed (Freud 2222). The disguised fulfillment is Katagiri’s unconscious mind reconciling with his hidden feelings of purposelessness. Katagiri’s lack of purpose resonates with many protagonists in Murakami’s fiction, trying “to fill their… vaguely sensed longing through mindless repetitive action… [their identity] largely a by-product of ideology that supports… the state and capitalism” (Welch). In relation to Katagiri, any authenticity to his identity is suppressed as his life centers around his “ability to collect on loans” and to “eat, sleep and shit” (Murakami).
Conversely, Frog characterizes an individual whose existence has transcended their survival— he is a Condensation of traits that Katagiri should develop to forge an authentic identity. Condensation is a “psychical process” of the unconscious mind (Freud 2223), wherein several ideas manifest into one object in a dream. For instance, Frog is adamant in battling Worm, even if it means sacrificing himself. Frog says “I would fight [Worm] alone. My chances of beating him by myself are perhaps just slightly better than Anna Karenina’s chances of beating that speeding locomotive” (Murakami). Frog uses this reference to allude to his odds of being killed if he fights alone; his commitment, with the stakes involved, is brave and selfless. While Katagiri is selfless –supporting his siblings through school and getting them married– he lives in his comfort zone (Murakami). Breaking out of the comfort zone may be intimidating for Katagiri as he regards himself with low self-esteem. For instance, Katagiri lists his flaws to Frog to justify his hesitance in helping in fighting Worm (Murakami). Thus, it makes sense that if Frog represents traits Katagiri should embody, then bravery is a trait that Frog would exhibit. Frog is also well-read, referencing the novel “Anna Karenina” and writer Joseph Conrad. Readers have widened perspectives– perhaps if Katagiri were to adopt this trait, he would see his life as more than to “eat, sleep, and shit” or, he would aspire towards putting more meaning in his life. All these traits would put substance into Katagiri’s life and address his flaws, though Katagiri does not engage this thinking and maintains a passive attitude, and so his flaws must be called out discreetly. To do so, Katagiri’s unconscious mind manifests Frog in his dream, while also expressing its latent yearning for growth and self-fulfillment.
Before he dies, Frog says: “I am, indeed, pure Frog, but at the same time I am a thing that stands for a world of un-Frog… My enemy is… the me inside me.” In other words, Frog has an authentic identity, though he also embodies the surrounding environment which suppresses it. In this sense, Frog’s opponent is himself; his battle is the clash between his silenced, unexplored identity, and the identity he puts on before the world. This is a Displacement, a psychical process wherein strong emotion or tension transfers to something trivial (Freud 2223). Being that Frog is symbolic of Katagiri, the unconscious mind is displacing Katagiri’s cognitive dissonance in this statement. This cognitive dissonance is the tension between how Katagiri feels about living “a horrible life,” and his indifference to change it (Murakami). Seeing how this tension affects Katagiri during his rant to Frog, it can reasonably be said that the tension is strong enough to be a factor in Katagiri ending up in the hospital. Consider what Freud says about repressed erotic desires: “human beings fall ill when… the satisfaction of their erotic needs [are] in reality frustrated” (Freud 2234). Though Katagiri’s erotic desires are not being considered, the idea of repressions leading to illness resonates with his situation. Katagiri cannot escape this cognitive dissonance, and so he is vulnerable to neurosis (Freud 2235). Given that Katagiri wakes up in the hospital with the doctors not being able to pinpoint a physiological reason for his collapse, the only possibility is that Katagiri was psychologically unwell, to the extent that he was afflicted with neurosis (Murakami). This psychological conflict illustrates Katagiri’s battle against himself.
Katagiri is consumed by his job; he is insecure, perhaps too insecure to acknowledge his shortcomings; or he may be unmotivated to work on himself. Nonetheless, internally, he is not where he wants to be. Also, his life is a sequence of working and charging up for work. He has no healthy outlets, and no human connection, as he says “I don’t have a single person who likes me, either at work or in my private life… I never make friends” (Murakami). Emotionally, he remains unexpressed for too long. All these things considered, Katagiri has no meaning in life, as he says “ I live a horrible life… I don’t know why I’m even living” (Murakami). This lack of purpose, along with his other stressors, causes him to develop neurosis. Consequently, after neurosis takes over and Katagiri falls ill, his unconscious mind produces this dream to reconcile this purposelessness. By now, it is clear that this reconciliation comes from Katagiri’s “latent dream thoughts, which you must suppose were present in the unconscious” (Freud 2222).
Katagiri’s lack of meaning is not merely to trigger a catharsis in his readers, it is reflective of the identity crisis that Murakami witnessed enveloping the Japanese youth in the early nineties. Ironically, Japan was flourishing at the time, regarded as a utopia both domestically and internationally (Welch). Its Bubble economy was expanding greatly, it was “a suitable model for economic and social development,” with ideal schools, and low violence rates (Welch). However, this was only a gilded surface; much like Katagiri, Japanese youth were facing an “existential homelessness.” This was put to the spotlight after the Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo in 1995, two months after the Kobe earthquake which demoralized the country (Welch). The gas attack was the product of an overwhelming psychological toll, like the one that caused Katagiri’s neurosis. What caused this toll? When the Bubble economy burst, students graduating from the ideal schools felt “alone and unprotected,” and would join cults, one of which was behind the gas attacks. Much like Katagiri, Japanese youth, viewing their society as a “numbing mindlessness” (Welch), lacked a sense of belonging and meaning.
The perpetrators of the gas attacks and Katagiri lost their minds due to psychological stress caused by disparities between their lifestyles and their unconscious yearning for identity. Katagiri was psychologically damaged by neurosis, whereas the perpetrators lost themselves in their criminal actions. After Katagiri collapses, the unconscious mind creates an outlet for the psychological damage present by manifesting Frog, while also inviting introspection towards Katagiri’s unhealthy lifestyle. Likewise, after the gas attacks, Murakami drafts this short story, inviting upon a societal introspection to address the absence of identity that Japan was latently experiencing, and the damage it had caused.
