Analysis # 3: Freudian interpretation of the song "I won't grow up"

In the introduction to psychology, Julie Rivkin and Michael discuss several of Freud’s theories in their essay entitled. Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis. Freud was very much intrigued by the process by which a child became a functioning member of society. He also studied the relationships between fathers and mothers towards their children (especially boys) and how their relationship influenced a child’s' gender identity. In the Peter Pan musical, Peter proudly boasts that he will never grow. One can use Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex as a foundation for analyzing Peter's desire to remain a boy forever.

Peter says, "Anyone who wants to try and make me a man, catch me if you can!"
According to Rivkin, "Anxiety about entry into an adult world perceived as threatening of a too fragile sense of self or anxiety that awakens either troubling memories or drives energies will propel some people to fixate at an early state of development." It is clear from the song that Peter pan is fixated in an early stage of his childhood development. He has a very fragile sense of self, and if frightened by the adult world that must forever run away from.

Peter is also driven by his id and wants instant gratification all of the time. His id remains unchecked by his ego and superego, so all he cares about his pleasure and having fun. Peter cannot participate the normal social world, which demands that we repress sexual and aggressive emotions. "Repression is essential to civilization, the converse of animal instinct into civil behavior" (Rivkin 389). As a person dominated by his id, Peter Pan finds going to school, obeying rules/norms, wearing a tie, being serious, and maintaining job daunting tasks.

If everyone in the world were like Peter Pan there would be no civilization because everyone would run away from his or her responsibilities. Freud would also say that Peter has not given up his pre-Oedipal desires. "All male children, Freud argued, experience an early attachment to their mother that is sexual in nature. Only the father's intervention, separates the mother from child, prevents incest" (Rivkin 391). Peter's fear of becoming a man may have to do with "castration anxiety" which Freud believed would lead to homosexuality if not overcome. Peter does identify with his father, an important stage in a boy's life.

"A little boy will exhibit a special interest in his father...we will simply say that he takes his father as ideal" (Freud 438). If Peter Pan were to grow up he would most likely have anxieties about sex or be asexual. His abilities to form relationships would be very limited, and would have neurotic tendencies to fly and play with little boys.

Works cited

Rivkin, Julie. "Strangers to Ourselves" & Freud, Sigmund. "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego". Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

youtube video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy3hB8ERBvI

Analysis of My Niece: Why Children Play?

When my niece was 1 1/2 years old I used to babysit her after school. A neighbor (Abby) would take care of her until three o'clock, and then I would pick her up. I often liked to watch my niece play, especially with her dolls which she like to dress and feed with plastic bottle and food.

One day, while she was playing, she tried to stand one of her dolls on its feet in order to brush the doll's hair. The doll would not stand because its legs were made out of fabric instead hard plastic. The doll flopped onto the floor over and over again. When my niece became angry she ordered her doll to "Stay, stay!"

When the doll would not stay, my niece walked it over to the corner and gave her doll a time out. "Bad Baby" she said to her doll.
I had never heard my niece say the words "Bad Baby" and wondered who had said the expression in her presence. I later learned from my niece's babysitter, Abby, that my niece hated to have her hair brushed and often fussed and cried.

Like the child in Freud's essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" my niece re-enacted with her doll an experience that was not pleasurable for her. By punishing her doll, my niece was able to take an active part in the unpleasant experience. Punishing her doll by placing it in the corner was an act of revenge/mastery against Abby her babysitter who often gave her time outs for throwing tantrums whenever she did not want her hair brushed.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle".Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Analysis #2: Russian Formalism & Defamiliarization

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

When the poet Philip Larkin wrote his famous lines they fucked you up in his 1971 poem entitled “This be the verse” it sent a shock wave across the nerves of parents everywhere, and challenged young adults and teens to see their parents in a new light. According to Julia Rivkan’s introduction on Art as Technique, “[Russian Formalist] were concerned with writing that would be brutally honest and shockingly new, these writers rejected traditional culture and traditional artistic forms that had for them become boring and overly conventional” (15).

What made Larkin’s poem so shocking in the 1971, as well as today, is the incorporation of the technique called defamiliarization. In Larkin’s poem he uses the common and familiar word “fuck” and defamiliarizes it by referencing it to ones parents. Unlike poem in past history that often praised the virtues of parents and obedience, Larkin goes against the grain by resisting the traditional prose in poetry (i.e roughened up language) and instead uses everyday slang in his verses.

Larkin is similar to Tolstoy who, “Described the [religious] dogmas and rituals he attacked as if they were unfamiliar, substituting everyday meaning for the customary religious meaning of the words common in church ritual. Many persons were painfully wounded; they considered it blasphemy to present as strange and monstrous what they accepted as sacred” (Rivkan 18). Many readers both today and well in the 70s found Larkin’s use of everyday vulgar language highly offensive.

However, Larkin’s goal in his poem is to challenge his readers, especially his young readers, to reject the socially habitual way they have always viewed their parents and Grandparents. Rivkin says, “the general law of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual it becomes automatic” (15).
Television shows in the 1950s like Leave It To Beaver, portrayed parents as perfect, all-knowing, all-wise, and without any faults. It became habitual for adults and children living in the 50s to watch perfect families like the Cleaver’s until they were overly familiarized by the images on screen.

Larkin defamiliarized the notion of the ideal perfect parents by telling his reader that all parents have faults that are passed down from generation to generation. Ironically, Larkin calls on his young reader to have some sympathy for their parents. They may not mean to, but they do… But they were fucked up in their turn. By fools in old-style hats and coats, who half the time were soppy-stern and half at one another's throats.
Larkin’s poem succeeds in shocking his reader as well as disrupting the habitual ways of seeing and thinking.

Works Cited

Shklovshy, Viktor. “Art as Technique”. Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Larken, Philip. “This Be the Verse”. Black, Joseph. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Broadview press; Canada, 2007.

Word Art

A family gathers for Thanksgiving dinner, and the much awaited turkey has arrived. Ironically, everyone seated at the table focuses on one another and not the turky. The family -aunts, uncles, and niece -are completely absorbed in their own conversations and do not see the delicious turkey being presented to them. The Grandfather and Grandmother are the only two people focused entirely on the turkey.

There is a contrast between the young and older generation. They are caught up in the festive moment and seem to take for granted the hard work of the Grandmother who is still wearing her apron. The Grandfather stands over his wife at the head of the table, and re-enforces the masculine/feminine roles of the time.The table is also very bare and the family drinks water instead of wine. There is celery on the table which is not a traditional Thanksgiving food.

At the bottom righthand corner a man looks out at the viewer(us!)and we realized that we are part on the table too! His mouth is concealed, but he looks as though he is speaking to us. We (the viewer) are seated at the head of the table smiling back.

Analysis #1: The Power of Rhetoric in Julius Caesr

The rise rise of rhetoric in Ancient Greece was one of particular interest and concern to philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Rhetoric became the eloquent art form of lawyers, politicians, and leaders seeking to persuade audiences through speech. According to Plato, poetry and rhetoric is dangerous to the ideal republic, “for its power to corrupt even good men, except for a very few, is surely a terrible thing” (Murray 53). In the YouTube clip that I have chosen, Marc Antony delivers his famous speech, Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Marc Antony’s cunning use of rhetoric plays heavily on the emotions of his Plebeian audience.
What makes Marc Antony speech so persuasive is his use of Aristotelian devices: logos, pathos, and ethos. The first rhetorical device that Antony uses is logos/logic to persuade his audience. Antony says, “The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious.” Antony uses deductive reasoning to support Brutus’ argument.

Ambition is a grievous fault
Caesar had ambitions
Caesar had a grievous fault.

Antony counters his own deductive reasoning by logically illustrating how un-ambitious Caesar was. Caesar ransomed solders, wept for the poor, and denied the crowd thrice! Can this be considered ambitious? Antony turns away and weeps to appeal to the pathos of his audience. According to Plato, weeping and crying had no place in poetry or rhetoric because, “it is psychologically damaging, for it appeals to an inferior element in the soul, and encourages us to indulge in emotions that we ought to be kept firmly in check […] and disable our rational responses” (Murray xxv). Antonys’ display of emotions tugs at he heart of his audience who are touched by the tears in his eyes.
Antony uses more deductive reasoning to persuade his audience.

We should mourn those we once loved
We once had cause to love Caesar
Therefore we should mourn Caesar.

In a gripping tug at his audiences’ emotions; Antony equates the fall of Caesar to fall of everyone. The sight of Caesar’s mangled body stirs the crowd to a furry and rage. Pathos proves to be Antony’s strongest tool of persuasion.
Antony credibility/ethos is visible when he descends the platform and stands on the same level as the Plebeians. He endures himself to the people by claiming he is no orator (Plato also claims that he was not an orator) but a plain blunt man. Through the power of rhetoric Antony achieves what Plato feared the most; he mesmerizes his audience through eloquent speech, and war and chaos breaks out.


Works Cited

Murray, Penelope. Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin Books: New York, 2004.

Nordquist, Dr. Richard. “Comments on the Rhetoric of Brutus and Marc Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar”. Atlanta State University. 2 Feb 2009

youtube video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRoeMvzMVo