Psychoanalysis
Q. How is the societal unconscious related to the personal unconscious in the textsMrs DallowayandHeart of Darkness?
The Modernist Period in English Literature has its beginnings in the late 19Thursdaycentury and the early 20Thursdaycentury. Expedited by World War I ( 1914-1918 ) , the human-centered facet of civilisation was unable to hold on the world of what the universe seemed to be immersing towards which necessarily leads to the decomposition and devolution of the Victorian society. We see a transmutation and a struggle of involvement between the personal reservoirs of an individual’s experiences vis-a-vis the collective unconscious which efficaciously predisposes the society to civilizational malady. Virginia Woolf writes in her diary(February 17, 1922 )“I meant to compose about decease ; merely life came interrupting in as usual.”This impression sing the conflicting Thanatic and the Erotic thrusts subsequently gets reflected in her novelMrs Dalloway, published in 1925. Set in London over the span of one twenty-four hours in June,Mrs Dallowaydelves into the deepnesss of different mentalities and explores assorted ideas and positions on life, decease, love, and society. Similarly, Joseph Conrad in his noveletteHeart of Darkness ( 1899 )employs Freudian psychoanalytical enquiries in order to grok the precise nature of the corporate unconscious of the Modern European mentality. Conrad presents a narrative about the actual and a metaphorical pilotage and the find of an inexplicable Africa and the ambiguity it contains sing the human psyche through the eyes of the supporter, Marlow.
Herbert Spencer posits a theoretical account of devolution inFirst Principles of a New System of Philosophy ( 1864 )where he argues that the life of an single reflects the life of a species. Carl Jung defines the corporate unconscious as a portion of the human mind which is differentiated from the personal unconscious by the fact that its being is non contingent on personal experience, and therefore it does non develop separately but is inherited. While the personal unconscious is composed of elements which have at a peculiar point of clip been at the degree of consciousness and subsequently have been forgotten or repressed, the components of the corporate unconscious have ne’er been in consciousness, and therefore they can non be acquired separately, but owe their being entirely to heredity. If we are to follow Jung’s line of debate, it can be concluded that a alteration in the personal unconscious has a larger impact on the corporate unconscious and the fact that the societal unconscious, being an over arced entity, creates certain originals which get personified within the experiences of an person.
With the aforesaid statement in head, before traveling onto the scrutiny of how the societal unconscious and the personal unconscious operate in both the texts it is indispensable to analyse the wide originals that are present in the texts.Mrs Dallowayreflects upon originals such as “war” , “death” vis-a-vis “vitality” and “sexuality” . By the terminal of the WWI, near to a million British soldiers had been sacrificed. Another two million had become for good disabled out of which over 40,000 had lost legs or weaponries. The civilisation was hit dramatically. All these people needed medical intervention, psychological attention and fiscal support in order to last. This engendered an experiential and a traumatic kind of an feeling in the society that efficaciously predisposes the people to conflicting ideas about the humane facet of the universe, oppugning the ground for their very being. At the same clip it besides engenders the impression of businessperson patriotism within the heads of the people which basically is used to warrant war. The original of war further strengthens the original of decease. Freud’s statement on the decease thrust provides an account to these debatable elements. Freud argues for an internally generated urge for devastation and obliteration that may be directed towards one’s ain ego or the society. Despite the human psyche’s desire for development, decease becomes the epicentre of patterned advance and decay. The Thanatic thrust for Freud basically meant the Restoration or a reinstatement of a old uniform province of being. Sexuality as an original is elaborately derived from the patriarchal and heteronormative protocols. It imposes a reductive and a constricting theoretical account on the society similar to a straitjacket that is used to incorporate patients in a mental refuge. It eliminates any legitimization of homosexualism thereby, categorising any such effects as a “phase” which will go through and represses the satisfaction of the instinctual urge which is what engenders neuroticisms in the society.
InHeart of Darknessthe wide originals that can be highlighted are “imperialism” , “white man’s burden” , and the “orient” . The “mighty” European states thought themselves to be the first civilised race of the world.With the onslaught of scientific discipline and ground during the Age of Enlightenment ( 1650s-1780s ) and new innovations like the printing imperativeness, advanced arms, stronger navy, etc Europe became materially superior to the remainder of the universe. Driven by the greed for resources and for enlargement, the states started to take over and exploit less developed states. The idea of being the superior race played an of import function as it gave them an inducement to build themselves against the “other” by dwelling on their high quality and their ageless lower status. The imperialist original that they brought along with themselves was the white man’s load of conveying “light” to “dark” topographic points by circulating, instead enforcing their ideals and basicss responsible for the development of their civilisation on the societies that they conquered. The “heroic” white man’s load with its inexplicit attire of selflessness was presented as the lone status that must be accepted if the indigens of the dark continent are to go enlightened and transformed into white people with black masks. Further, their building of the Orient is chiefly responsible for it being an original. Clubbed with the impression of high quality and the “obligation” to suppress and promote the Other to that same base, they constructed the alleged inferior societies as crude, dark topographic point filled with the every horrific component that can be imagined and the imperialists are able to ingrain and indoctrinate this to consecutive coevalss as good which brings about conformance to the white man’s ideals.
After an rating of the originals that constitute the societal unconscious in the texts, it becomes easier to analyse the representation of the said originals within the texts. For case inMrs Dalloway,Septimus is presented as an ex-soldier who suffers from shell-shock due to the injury he endured during the war. By being in the ground forces and the war, Septimus had developed the feeling of brotherhood and manfulness. He was taught how non to experience anything. When his friend, Evans, was killed, he does non respond to it because he is unable to treat it owing it to the clip he spent in the ground forces. This struggle of different ideals is partly the ground why he develops shell daze. Witnessing the beast worlds of life in the clip of warfare numbs him to the point that he contemplates suicide as his head is incapable to treating the polemic ideas. Septimus repeatedly says,‘I will kill myself’and finally commits suicide. Freud calls this type of a status as psychosis which is incurable. His definition of self-actualization is able to happen intending merely in decease. On the other manus, Clarissa Dalloway has, what Freud calls, neuroticism. For case Clarissa thinks to herself‘Make it count then…walking towards Bond Street, did it affair that she must necessarily discontinue wholly ; all this must travel on without her ; did she resent it ; or did it non go comforting to believe that decease ended perfectly?’. This brings to illume her contemplation in association with her thanatic thrust. At the same clip she is able to reason with herself the opposite side of that statement ; she says,“…‘but that somehow in the streets of London, on the wane and flow of things, here, there, she survived’ ; her love for London brings her dorsum to life”. The ground why her neuroticism does non come on to psychosis can be attributed to the deficiency of her individualization with regard to her gender. She tries projecting her inability to realize onto her girl Elizabeth who, harmonizing to Richard Dalloway is traveling through the “phase” where she is in love with Doris Kilman.
It becomes clear that Clarissa harbored sexual feelings for her childhood friend Sally Seton. For case she says,‘Then came the most keen minute of her whole life go throughing a rock urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped ; picked a flower ; kissed her on the lips’. The fact that she asserts that the most keen minute in her life was when she Sally kissed her brings to illume the latent homosexual feelings that are contained in the “Id” but the civilised sexual morality seems to hold a clasp established on her and she is unable to realize her inherent aptitudes and her desires. This repression is what engenders her neuroticism. Similar is the instance with Septimus. His latent homosexual feelings are brought to his consciousness via the war where he fought with his fellow soldier Evans. For case Woolf writes,‘There in the trenches the alteration which Mr. Brewer desired when he advised football was produced immediately ; he developed manfulness ; he was promoted ; he drew the attending, so the fondness of his officer, Evans by name’ .This brings to illume that Septimus’s instinctual unconscious desires which have been repressed by the civilised sexual morality and the fact that Septimus commits self-destruction is an statement for the disapprobation of the society’s inability to suit homosexualism. Their “camaraderie” can be seen at another case where Woolf writes, ‘It was a instance of two Canis familiariss playing on a hearth-rug ; one worrying a paper prison guard, snaping, snarling, giving a pinch, now and so, at the old dog’s ear ; the other lying somnolent, winking at the fire, raising a paw, turning and grumbling good-temperedly. They had to be together, portion with each other, fight with eacH other, quarrel with each other’ .Evans and Septimus’s homosexual relation is rather implicative in the aforesaid extract. The lone difference between Clarissa and Septimus is that Septimus is able conveying about a declaration to the struggle between his personal unconscious and the civilisational unconscious and that Clarissa remains suspended in an ageless province of thanatic and titillating thrust.
On the other manus, in Conrad’sHeart of Darknesswe see the personification of Marlow’s unconscious in the character of Kurtz. The fresh reflects Marlow’s province of head and his journey for individualization. As Marlow goes deeper into the dark continent from the “outer” station to the “inner” in hunt of Kurtz, he starts to recognize the extent of savageness as a crude signifier of civilisation. In the get downing his personal unconscious is suppressed by the corporate unconscious. For case he says, ‘…bearing the blade, and frequently the torch, couriers of the might within the land, carriers of a flicker from the sacred fire. What illustriousness had non floated on the wane of that river into the enigma of an unknown earth’ .Here he is lauding the imperialist values and is in coherency with them. But as his journey advancement into Africa, where all the forces that uphold the societal cloth do non be, his aboriginal inherent aptitudes are reflected in the milieus. That may be the ground why Marlow says that “ And this besides has been one of thedark placesof theearth’ “this” mentioning to England. Marlow hears secondhand of Kurtz’s mastermind, but as he draws closer to his finish, he realizes that Kurtz, one time deemed ‘an envoy of light’ , has become the darkness that lurks in the African continent and he himself reflects upon ‘the horror! ’ of his actions in his deceasing minutes.
Kurtz, before he gives in to the darkness within him, is fabricated as the definition of colonial endeavor. He is a adult male of many endowments and indulges in literature and writes poesy. Ironically his greed for tusk, which stems out of his colonial docket, over powers the imperialist within him. This is the ground why he gives up volitionally to his crude inherent aptitudes, gets involved in the awful rites of the indigens, and lets his darkness go the centre of his actions. For case Marlow’s foremost glance of Kurtz ‘s hut reveals the human skulls, all ( but one ) confronting the hovel, as if the dead worship Kurtz like the indigens do which farther substantiates that Kurtz has embraced the aboriginal darkness within him.
Therefore, we see that the corporate unconscious is what governs the society in all of its moralss and ethical motives to a point where the personal unconscious of the person comes to the degree of consciousness and clangs with the already established morality. It can be concluded that the personal unconscious can merely come to consciousness when the individual is subjected to devolution and decay boding decease which is provided by WWI in Woolf’sMrs Dallowayand the clang between the imperialist ideals and the savageness of Africa in Conrad’sHeart of Darkness. It can besides concluded that though through the procedure of self-actualization and individualization the personal unconscious can be transformed but the societal unconscious remain the same as it is the reservoir of experiences that are shared with the full species.
It is besides notable that both Virginia Woolf and Joseph Conrad impart an autobiographical component in their several plants discussed in this essay. Woolf had suffered through a turn of mental unwellness which prompts her to believe in Freudian footings sing saneness and insanity and Conrad had himself taken a journey into Africa with an anthropological question in head, but it is imperative to maintain in head that both the writers are cultural symbols in themselves and are merchandises of the Modernist period which is every bit much as responsible as the autobiographical component in motivating the writers to bring forth such texts.
