Based on the previous understanding of the unconscious mind, Sigmund Freud makes an important distinction between the conscious and the unconscious mind. The “manifest” conscious part of your mind also known as the dream content is the tip of the iceberg content of dreams. Like now waking up from a dream and recalling the images from your dream but not fully understanding it or interpreting it to the fullest. According to Freud, there is an ego and an id and a superego (the part of a person’s mind that acts as a self-critical conscience). Furthermore, Freud’s Iceberg Theory explains basically, that you the conscious level, which would be the part of the iceberg above water that you can see, and according to Freud, that’s where your perceptions and thoughts are. Then there is the preconscious, which is a part of the iceberg that is submerged in the water (not too deep) and that’s the part where your memories and stored knowledge are. The last part is the unconscious, the part of the iceberg that is submerged deep in the water, the part that is usually unseen, where your fears, violent motives, dark desires, shameful experiences are store. This reminds me of the novel ‘Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson, where Dr. Jekyll is basically the conscious level, the preconscious level is how both Jekyll and Hyde are aware of each other’s actions. The unconscious level is ALL Mr. Hyde who behaves in such bad manner and cruelty that at times even Jekyll doesn’t even know about until he learns it from an outsider observing Mr. Hyde.
The “Latent” unconscious part of your mind also known as the ‘dream thoughts’ are the analysis of your dream. Freud states, “but just as all neurotic symptoms, and, for that matter, dreams, are capable of being ‘over-interpreted’ and indeed need to be, if they are to fully understood… and are open to more than a single interpretation” Freud demonstrates this, like said before through analyzing dreams to access the functions of the unconscious mind, which is not as easy to get to through the waking thought process. Images in dreams are often not what they appear to be and needs a deep interpretation if you are to inform on the structures of the conscious mind.
According to Freud, our childhood experiences also play an important role in your unconscious mind that expresses within the dream thoughts. As dreams collects bits and pieces of the manifest part from our past, this material can also be connected to your early childhood experiences. I’m not sure but I think Freud is trying to say that the images that we expressed through dreams are most likely our desires that have been kept on reserved or repressed but still remain an effective part of the unconscious mind. Probably? Dreams are never just on the surface, whatever your dreams may look like, it actually mean something else. The story about Oedipus, free will vs. destiny and Hamlet was quiet interesting and sad. One reason you shouldn’t ask to see what your future holds (joke).
Freud’s “The Uncanny” was also interesting, relating to your past experiences. It is something familiar but odd at the same time. Freud states, “that class of the frightening which leads back to something long… foreign, and yet familiar” establishing that “the uncanny” is placed in a circle for the repressed. It “is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old… established in the mind and become alienated from it only through the process of repression,” repressing meaning restraining the impulses of desires, I guess in your dreams.

Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams forces us all to take a closer look at ourselves.  Freud gives a summary of the story of Oedipus, and explains the well-known Oedipus Complex to the reader but then takes a turn and tells us that the reason we enjoy the story of Oedipus (and not other tragedies of destiny) is because we actually relate to the character of Oedipus as Freud says “his destiny moves us only because it might have been ours…(816).”  Other authors cannot mimic a tragedy of destiny in the same way because these specific factors are the most relatable.  However, unlike Oedipus, Freud says, we are at an advantage because we have been able to “detach” ourselves from the destiny (urges) Oedipus’ path was set on.  If we think to ourselves, very few of us will actually admit to having an urge to sleep with our mothers and kill our fathers.  Skepticism arose for me as Freud says, “we live in ignorance of these wishes,” because it seems bizarre for every human to have these innate desires.

Freud also draws comparison between the story of Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.  He likens Oedipus and Hamlet to one another.  While Oedipus kills his father and sleeps with his mother, Hamlet does neither of these things.  His father is already dead, and his mother has married his uncle.  Hamlet’s mission so to speak during the play is to take revenge upon his father’s throne, by killing his uncle.  And with this in mind, Freud believes that the reason Hamlet cannot kill his uncle throughout the play is that he becomes aware of the “repressed” desires he innately has.  Freud says, “Hamlet is able to do anything—except take vengeance on the man who did away with his father and took that father’s place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized.  Thus, the loathing which should drive him on to revenge is replaced in him by self-reproaches, by scruples of conscience, which remind him that he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish (818).” I do not think that Hamlet had an enlightening realization or a moment where he remotely believes that perhaps Claudius has done him a favor of sorts.  The fact that Hamlet behaves aggressively and can wield a sword does not necessarily have anything to do with an Oedipus complex.  Hamlet’s hesitation arises from his own doubt in himself and the ghost, as well as his waiting for the confirmation of Claudius’ guilt.  At this point, I think Freud is really stretching the idea and comparison.

Freud’s “Interpretation Of Dreams” allowed me to clarify a few concepts I had previously studied in psychology, but was never able to fully grasp and understand. The story of King Oedipus was an interesting way of explaining the childhood urges or impulses that drive early developmental behavior in children. Freud explains that the just as it occurs in the story of King Oedipus, humans are bound to be attracted to the force of destiny or to the predetermination of our lives. to develop the same impulses that the Oracle forced upon Oedipus to hate his father and feel attraction to his mother.

Honestly I really did not understand how the Freudian concept of child development contributed to interpreting dreams, but from what I grasped I think he is trying to use the interpretation of a literary work through a writer’s motivation for writing such literary work in order to say that: Just as books and works of literature cannot be fully interpreted neither can dreams. (Did I explain myself correctly on this one?) HELP!!

Now, moving forward with what I understood of the work on condensation, Freud explains that COLLECTING the thoughts we have of the dreams and analyzing them into much larger and deeper concepts is the process of condensation. My understanding of Freud’s condensation sort of leads me to believe that it is similar to turning a book or novel into a movie. He says that writing out a dream could probably take up half a page, but that the analysis of it can take much more than that. Well movies are perhaps the opposite of this process because a book that contains hundreds of pages like for example “Harry Potter” can be condensed into a 2 hour movie. Therefore I feel this is kind of the opposite of what Freud believes people do with dreams as they are short and laconic, but in the analysis become much longer. According to Freud there really isn’t a way to know when one has completed condensing a dream because it is subject to interpretation and this leaves margin for additional analysis and ideas that a person might add.

Antonio Gramsci’s piece titled, “The Formation of the Intellectuals,” definitely serves as food for thought.  The first line of his essay states, “Are intellectuals an autonomous and independent social group, or does every social group its own particular specialized category of intellectuals (1002)?”  Upon reading this, I sided with the idea that every social group has its own intellectuals and not the other way around.  Reason being that, to me, an intellectual has superior knowledge, but this knowledge varies by social and group settings.  Antonion Gramsci goes on to explain the differences between the two types of intellectuals, which rank as “most important.”

The two types of intellectuals are organic and traditional.  Organic intellectuals s are created as each new class is creating and traditional individuals stem from those, which already have a permanent place in society (clergy, priests, etc.).  Gramsci states, “Thus it is to be noted that the mass of the peasantry, although it performs an essential function in the world of production, does not elaborate its own “organic” intellectuals, nor does it “assimilate” any stratum of “traditional” intellectuals, although it is from the peasantry that other social groups draw many of their intellectuals and a high proportion of traditional intellectuals are of peasant origin (1002).”  In other words, Gramsci is saying that while “peasantry” serves as a basis, it does not breed intellectuals of its own kind per say or absorb “traditional” intellectuals; but that intellectuals come out of the peasantry as intellectuals part of different social groups.  Organic intellectuals are bound to class and are bound to production, while traditional intellectuals serve something higher than production (religion).  On the contrary, traditional intellectuals are considered independent by Gramsci, or as we said in class they have a “leftover presence.”  Gramsci states, “every “essential” social group, which emerges into history out of the preceding economic structure, and as an expression of a development of this structure, has found (at least in all of history up to the present) categories of intellectuals already in existence…(1003).”   With this statement, Gramsci describes the finding of traditional intellectuals as already a part of history.  Traditional intellectuals are almost a part of a “higher order.”  In regards to education, we can come to the conclusion that schools are important to Gramsci as they are where exactly intellectuals reside and are produced from, therein making one of the social functions of school to produce intellectuals.

Barbara Johnson’s “From Melville’s Fist: The Execution of Billy Budd,” is a close reading of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd.   Johnson opens her piece by explaining that Billy Budd is generally a straightforward story, and any close reading or analysis must be made and gathered from the actions and observance of the characters.  In the subsection of Johnson’s piece titled, “Judgment as Political Performance,” she takes a closer look at Captain Vere.  The contrast made between Captain Vere and Billy Budd is quite striking.  As we know, Billy Budd unintentionally kills Claggart, which results in Captain Vere’s forced judgment to sentence Billy Budd to be hung.  Johnson makes clear the contrast between these two condemned people (Claggart and Billy): she states, “Captain Vere is a reader who kills, not, like Billy, instead of speaking, but rather, precisely by means of speaking (2272).  Captain Vere and Billy Budd work on a parallel scale.

Furthermore, language plays a major role in both of these acts.  Billy’s inability to speak (verbal language) resulted in his frustration and the actions, which led to Claggart’s death.  In regards to Captain Vere’s judgment, Johnson states, “Judgment is precisely cognition functioning as an act.”  Johnson also looks at contrasts in the characterization of both Billy and Captain Vere.  Billy is described as innocent and acts harmless, but he is the character who commits murder.  It is the most unsuspecting.  Moreover, Captain Vere appears to be intelligent and fair but he is the one to sentence Billy Budd to his death, making both him and Billy murderers in a way.  Captain Vere’s reasoning is backed up by his own political views.  The reader is meant to disagree with Captain Vere’s reasoning because we feel compassion for Billy Budd.  Captain Vere is well aware of Billy’s innocence but does not let that get away with his duty to law and order.

In addition, Barbara Johnson also notes Billy Budd’s flaws. Johnson states, “His literal-mindedness is represented by his illiteracy because, in assuming that language can be taken at face value, he excludes the very functioning of difference that makes the act of reading both indispensable and undecidable. (2262).” Due to his stutter and inability to properly convey his thoughts, he must take everything as it is, or at face-value at Johnson puts it.  This puts Billy at a disadvantage.  His mode of reading is what leads to his unfortunate death.

Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams can be compared to the arbitrariness of language. He states that dreams are ideas and feelings that one has subconsciously. What you remember of the dream is not to be interpreted as literal, but has some type of other thank to to. This is very similar to Saussure’s rules on semiotics. Language and communication is very broad and you could express things many different ways. Saussure is known for his explanation of the form of language and the endless meanings attached to it, and this relates to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. Dreams come from the subconscious, and whatever you think that dream might mean can actually have an entirely different meaning. Freud explains that one cannot translate the dream just by its dream contents or in the way one remembers iT. Instead one has to take into consideration the latent or dream thoughts which are seen as ideas subconscious ideas while they are awake. A dream thought, Freud explains, is the symbolism behind what you are actually seeing. He explains that although a dream can be described in a few minutes, the symbolism behind it has an infinite Number of forms. This reminds me of Saussure’s signifier and signified. The signifier can have a representation but a signified has an infinite number of representations.

In other news, I also found the Oedipal complex to be a little far fetched. I guess it is easier for one to blame their parents for their psychological issues than it is themselves. I can’t say I believe it, but his reasoning is very logical. I can see why people believe him. It is in our nature to try and find the unexplainable and his studies offer that.

            In “Course in General Linguistics” Saussure was able to systematically define the meaning and the form of language and their relation to each other.  In “The Interpretation of Dreams” Freud attempts to do the same thing – but with your subconscious, and the form it takes to inform you while you are dreaming in your sleep. To correctly analyze ones dreams, Freud states that a dream cannot be understood purely from its “dream content” or in the manifest state it takes as we recall it in our memory the next morning. Instead we must also take into account the dream’s “latent content” or “dream-thoughts” which are seen as one’s subconscious’s ideation while they are awake. Freud believes that “it is from these dream-thoughts and not from a dream’s manifest content that we disentangle its meaning” (818). The dichotomist relationship between an individual’s “dream content” and “dream thought” made me think immediately back on the similarly dichotomist relationship Saussure defines between the “signifier” and the “signified” implicit to the meaning within a word. In this way, I begin to see Freud as not simply an interpreter of dreams, but also as a practical application of Saussure’s system of semiotics.

Upon classifying “dream-thought” as apart from “dream-content,” Freud then explains the relationship between the two in saying that one’s dream-content is “expressed as it were in a pictographic script” (819) where the dream-thought must be extracted from isolated symbols seen within the dream-content. When comparing dream-thought to dream-content, Freud states that the “condensation” of one’s dream-thought is carried out on a large scale within the content of the dream. While a dream may take only a few minutes to describe, the analysis of the various symbols of meaning seen throughout the dream can go on to infinity, for as Freud says of dreams, “it is impossible to determine the amount of condensation” (819). This contrast in significance between the “dream thought” and “dream content” again reminds me of Saussure’s “signified”/ “signifier” relationship.  While a “signifier” can stand alone as a short, simple representation of a thing, the “signified” in and of itself is far less able to be simply expressed in its own right and essence, for example the word “leaf” in contrast to the tangible object a “leaf” expresses when we are pointing to a leaf.  It is interesting to me that a dream or objects that exists in nature can be easily identified through words or through the pictorial nature dreams, and from these definitions we are able to create ‘languages’ to express them, but to attempt to discuss the pure ‘essence’ of something such as what is meant exactly by “leaf” or by one’s dream will lead inevitably to hours of discussion.