Fantasies, Dreams, Feelings, and Thoughts: Way for the Development of Mental Illness
PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
I.INTRODUCTION
“If often he was wrong and, at times absurd, to us he is no more person now but a whole climate of opinion under whom we conduct our different lives…”
(W.H Auden, In Memory of Sigmund Freud) (Auden and Mendelson, 1991).
Sigmund Freud is considered as the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the foundation for all forms of psychoanalytic criticism is unquestionable belongs to him. Psychoanalysis regarded everything mental being in the first place unconscious, and thus for them, consciousness might be present or absent. This of course encourage a denial from philosophers for whom consciousness and mental were identical and they could never imagine of a folly such as unconscious mental state. Reasons for believing in the existence of the unconsciousness are of course objective, but the question as to what most fundamentally distinguishes the Freudian unconscious is a conceptual one. It is very important that one understands the nature of the unconsciousness in broad holistic terms rather than the fine details that Freud gave, and also one must follow the coherence such a concept to understand our present day understanding of consciousness. (Freud, 1912; Ricoeur, 1970).
The two literary piece will play a major role in understanding the psychoanalytic approach into a deeper and wider example that will help and joined the ideas of the reader. Nicomedes Marquez Joaquin (May 4, 1917- April 29, 2004) was a Filipino writer, historian and journalist, best known for his short stories and novels in the English language, he also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. Joaquin was conferred the rank and title of National List of the Philippines for Literature. He is considered the most important Filipino writer in English, and the third most important overall, after Jose Rizal and Claro M. Recto.
According to Domingo, A.M (2016), this story entitled “The House on Zapote Street” was written by Nick Joaquin. Nick Joaquin was dropped out twice in his schools; he wrote this short story because of what he felt when he was dropped out. This story demonstrates jealousy as a negative effect in the mindset of people. The author of different story is Christopher Marlowe, he is born in Canterbury, England and graduated from University with the Bachelor of Arts. His first plays were performed in the late 1580’s and were quite successful in Elizabethan Theater. He was killed during a fight when he got trouble with the law in 1593. According to Kelly (2008) Christopher Marlowe is a poet, spy and playwright, he was from Elizabethan period. And it was written by Christopher Marlowe, according to Hardison (2012), Dr. Faustus is true, she believes that the man being portrayed by Faustus is Marlowe.
II.DISCUSSION
The story the House on Zapote Street, is tragic love story of a couple named Leonardo and Lydia. Their marriage was bounded by love but it was ruined by an evil man, who is very jealous and also the psychotic father of Lydia. Lydia and her family lived a horrible life in the hand of their master Pablo Cabading. He controlled their life, they were also abused and forced to do whatever he wants to them to do. His character was unpredictable, sometimes he plays nice and sometimes he is evil that the married couple cannot stand him anymore, Pablo Cabading, a police officer was very strict to his daughter Lydia because the father was sexually aggressive to his daughter. This statement was supported in the story that Lydia and his husband Leonardo didn’t have a perfect honeymoon. Lydia always sleeps with her mother at night due to the many alibis of her father Pablo. The wife of Pablo Cabading was an underdog to his husband Pablo Cabading.
“I built this house for Lydia”, said Pablo Cabading, and “I want her to live here even when she’s married. Besides, her mother couldn’t bear to be separated from Lydia, her only child”.
“Lydia, you sleep with your mother tonight. She has a toothache.” After a dead look at her husband, Lydia obeyed, Leonardo went to bed alone. The incident would be repeated there would always be other reasons, besides Mrs., Cabading’s toothaches.
These two lines there is a hidden meaning on what is happening in the story, on why the father was deeply jealous towards his daughter’s husband, on why he needs to talk to them always and on why he gives false accusation so that his daughter would not be in the bed with her husband. We can say that, based on the story the attitude of Pablo Cabading has something to do with his past experiences because as we define the psychoanalytic by Sigmund Freud, it is the unconscious mind over the conscious mind as we define unconscious, it is the storage of the past experiences or memories. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, personality develops through a series of stages, each characterized by a certain internal psychological conflict.
In the story, Electra complex was also present. According to Cherry (2017), Electra complex is a psychoanalytic term used to describe girl’s sense of competition with her mother for the affections of his father. It is comparable to the male Oedipus complex. Resolving the Electra complex ultimately leads to identification with the same sex parent. According to Sigmund Freud, during female psycho sexual development, a young girl is initially attached to her mother. When she discovers that she does not have a penis, she becomes attached to her father and begins to resent her mother who she blames for her “castration”. As a result, Freud believe that the girl begins to identify with an emulate her mother out of fear of losing her love. While the term Electra complex is frequently associated with Freud, it was actually Carl Jung who coined the term in 1913. Freud rejected the term and described as an attempt to emphasize the analogy between the attitudes of the two sexes. “Freud himself used the term feminine Oedipus attitude to describe what we now refer to as the Electra complex.
According to Carl Jung, Electra complex refers to a girl or woman who falls in love with her father and becomes jealous of her mother and or the girl daughter and the father has an intimate relationship towards each other. “House on Zapote Street: emphasized this concept. This concept under Psychoanalytic Theory then took an immense role in the story wherein it serves as the main reason of all the unhappy moments of the major character. In the story, it revolves the character of Dr. Leonardo Quitangon, Lydia Cabading and her father Pablo Cabading. The role of Electra complex in the story is a contrast of the real concept since it is the father whom we can vividly see the fixation. Pablo Cabading being the father of Lydia suffers Electra complex in which he became very jealous over looking to her. He even threatened arrest young men who stared at her on the street, or pressed too close her. The dictation he made towards Lydia had already trespass her personal life which negatively affects her. Thus, this story shows how Pablo Cabading had been affected Carl Jung’s concept of Electra complex and this because of the closeness or intimate relationship he had with his daughter, Lydia.
‘From the position of the bodies and from Mrs. Cabading’s statements later at the hospital, it appears that Cabading shot Lydia while she was shielding her husband, and Mrs. Cabading when she tried to shield Lydia. Then he turned the gun on himself, and it’s an indication of the man’s uncommon strength and power that, after the first shot, through the right side of the head, which must have been mortal enough he seems to have been able, as his hands dropped to his breast, to fire at himself a second time. The violent spasm of agony must have sent the gun- a 45 calibre pistol- flying from his hand. It was found at the foot of the bed, near Mrs Cabading’s feet. The drama of the jealous father had ended at about half past six in the evening. Tuesday last week’
To sum up the author did a good job in hitting the points that define a typical suspense-thriller literature. Pablo Cabading was indeed a scary man that one would normally call a psychopath also known as “antisocial personal disorder” according to Harvey Cleckley (1941), who is known as the first person to describe the condition in detail. Anyone fitting enough of these criteria counts a psychopath or sociopath. The story implicates the obstacles coupes faced. Leonardo and Lydia just wanted to live a simple and happy life as a married couple, but Mr Cabading denied them that freedom. It is sad, tragic, and it made us wanted to lament for them. The part where they got killed just shows what happens when you stay within a complete psychopath’s grasp.
The exciting part was another story will be analyse. The story begins with Doctor John Faustus, he was a learned scholar in 15th century in the land of Germany. He was dissatisfied with his limitation in term of knowledge that’s why he offered himself in the devil/Lucifer with the exchange of knowledge that cannot measure. He was accompanied by his servant Wagner who is very fan of imitating Faustus, he also imitates the method of reasoning of Faustus but fails to do it. Faustus as the story is going to decision making affects greatly his life, first when he offered himself to the devil in exchange to knowledge and in the end he regretted everything: he wanted to be back of his normal life.
Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
Having commenc’d, be a divine in show,
Yet level at the end of every art,
And live and die in Aristotle’s works.
Sweet analytics, ‘tis thou hast ravish’d me!
Bone dissever est finis logices.
Is, to dipute well, logic’s chiefest end?
Affords this art no greater miracle?
Then read no more: thou hast
Attain’d that end:
A greater subject fitteth Fuastus’ wit:
With this lines, it tells here that Dr. Faustus is really a genius one. He can’t figure out what in the world he wants to do with his life. As he thinks over the options-philosophy, medicine, law- he rejects them all for being too boring and too pointless. He decided to let his soul sold to the devil. To make this clearer, the psychoanalytic criticism in here is that the main character’s curiosity about the benefits of magic, the complexity of good and evil, and the nature of desire. Dr. Faustus has a feeling of discontentment in his life so his temptation is considered as the id of the character. Id possesses most of the sins: pride, covetousness, envy, wrath, gluttony and lechery. This sins showed up in this story which brought by Mephistopheles, the devil.
There was also a point where he doubted with his decision in selling his soul to the devil and that makes his superego show up on that particular situation. So we can conclude that Faustus mind is struggling between id and superego.
III.CONCLUSION
Therefore, an author’s chief motivation for writing any story is to gratify some secret desire, some forbidden wish that probably developed during author’s infancy and was immediately suppressed and dumped in unconscious. How the readers interpreted the various characters now became an integral part of the text’s interpretation. Whereas the author creates a character, a reader re-creates the same character, bringing to the text and to an individual character all the reader’s past experiences and knowledge. The character simultaneously becomes creation of both the author and the reader were thus needed.
LIST OF REFERENCES
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