scholarly journals An Opposing Self

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Gamache
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
Popular Films ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray ◽  
The Times ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Conscious Control

<p>People have always been both frightened and fascinated by the unknown, and themes touching on the existence of things beyond human understanding have longevity in the literary arena as well as in popular culture. One such theme is that of the <em>doppelgänger</em>, or double, which has been around for centuries but was first made popular by Jean-Paul’s (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) work <em>Hesperus</em> in 1795. Due to a resurgence in the nineteenth century in the popularity of Gothic literature, <em>doppelgängers</em>, or variations of this double motif, found their way into some of the most famous works of literature by the most notable writers of the century, including Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” (1839), Feodor Dostoevsky’s “The Double” (1846), Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shadow” (1847), and Oscar Wilde’s <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray </em>(1891). The theme has persisted through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, recent examples being the popular films <em>Secret Window</em> (2004) starring Johnny Depp, <em>Shutter Island </em>(2010) starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and <em>Black Swan</em> (2010) starring Natalie Portman.</p> <p>Although the popularity of the double has remained constant over the past few centuries, the presentation and interpretation of doubles have not. Prior to the Romantic period, the appearance of a <em>doppelgänger</em> was almost always seen as an evil portent, often foretelling disaster and the death of the protagonist. The character of the double, in manifest form, was represented as something outside of the person plagued by it, part of the realm of the supernatural, and certainly something to be feared. But with the growing interest in the human mind, and especially the unconscious, in the Romantic Period, people started viewing the double as something that could possibly come from <em>within</em> an individual. This new way of looking at the theme of the double fit the interests and feelings of the times, especially the idea that there were parts of ourselves over which we had no conscious control. The evolution of the double as a literary motif thus reflected the changing attitudes of the times, its horror lying now not outside of the human psyche but secretly locked within it. As Rosemary Jackson observes, there was “an explicit shift from a presentation of a demonic ‘other’ as supernaturally evil, the devil in a conventional iconography, toward something much more disturbing because equivocal, ambiguous in its nature and origins. . . . The double then comes to be seen as an aspect of the psyche, externalized in the shape of another in the world” (44).</p>

scholarly journals A Freudian Reading of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

2021 ◽  
pp. 466-475
Author(s):  
Shaima Abdullah Jassim ◽  
Alaa Muzahim Abdulrazaq
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Wuthering Heights ◽  
Slips Of The Tongue ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Impact

There are many theories that emerged in fields other than literature but influenced the literary works greatly. These theories are used by scholars and critics to analyses and study the literary text. Among these theories are Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and the theory of interpretation of dreams. According to Freud, the human mind is divided into two parts: the conscious and the subconscious. Freud used this theory to treat his patients by making them lie down and talk about their dreams, childhood and other thoughts. It is an attempt to make the unconscious conscious. Additionally, the unconscious can be revealed through the slips of the tongue (paraphrases) and dreams. Moreover, Freud assumes that the human psyche consists of three parts: Id (a store of the human desires and needs); superego (the part of the psyche which represents the high ideals); ego (the part which tries to make a compromise between the id and the superego). He also emphasizes the effect of our childhood upon our lives. The present study is a Freudian reading to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with reference to the impact of the author’s life upon the flow of the events and the lives of the characters.

Evolution of Dada Uttam Kumar: Performing Masculinity and the Disillusioned Bhadralok Mahanayak in the 1970s’ Popular Melodramas

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-74
Author(s):  
Smita Banerjee
Keyword(s):  
Radical Politics ◽  
Popular Films ◽  
Masculine Subjectivity ◽  
The Times ◽  
Star Text

This essay focuses on a fragment of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar’s star text, the dada figure, to analyse the contours of melodramatic enunciations and masculinity that appear in the 1970s’ popular films. This decade is identified with the radical politics associated with the Naxal movement that erupted in varied expressions of rage and anger at institutional and systemic failures. Since Uttam typified a bhadralok masculine subjectivity, his evolution in domestic melodramas especially in male weepies from the period enables me to read the specifics of regional cinema and its response to social and political contexts of the times.

“The Devil Made Me Do It!” An Inquiry Into the Unconscious “Devils Within” of Rationalized Corruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremias J. De Klerk
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Devil

Individuals involved in corruption often offer rationalizations to convince themselves and others that they are not corrupt, and that their acts are justified and acceptable. However, to confine the dynamic process of mobilizing rationalizations to this purpose is too restrictive. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, it is argued that an unconscious urge for rationalizations develops from a need to find psychological restitution and atonement, achieved only through self-convincing beliefs of acquittal. Six unconscious motives are identified as explanations how offenders believe that rationalizations acquit them from guilt, indemnify them, or redeem the corruption. These motives represent metaphorical devils that can spawn corruption in otherwise law-abiding citizens with moral intentions. Conceptualizations bring the unconscious dynamics or rationalized corruption into consciousness, where it can be studied and worked with. This makes an important contribution toward enabling managers to be more in control of rationalized corruption, both in themselves and elsewhere in the organization.

On Contemporary Nihilism

1945 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aron Gurwitsch
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Conditioned Reflexes ◽  
The Times

At The present time, reason is not held in any too great esteem; “rationalism” is deprecated in most intellectual circles. “To believe in reason” is to be behind the times, to give evidence of a mode of thinking that is out of date, out of contact with what today is called “progress.”The “belief in reason” is now replaced by all sorts of psychological and sociological sciences: the psychology of the unconscious, of the subconscious, of behavior, of suppressed desires and conditioned reflexes. The variety of sociologies is no less disconcerting—not should we forget the sociological psychologies and the psychological sociologies. Formerly man was considered to be an animal rationale, a rational being; now he has become simply a vital being, not further qualified. Since man lives in community with his fellows, it was formerly the practice to inquire into the structure and organization which society ought to have in order to correspond to the rational and human nature of its members. But today no such question is raised; it is taken for granted that man, as a social animal, must adjust himself to his environment or suffer the consequence to his well-being and his happiness. It is no longer a question of whether one may or one should adjust oneself to certain social conditions: it is now only a question of what is the most effective means or technique of adjustment.

NON-EVOLUTIONARY DEGENERATION IN ARTHUR MACHEN'S SUPERNATURAL TALES

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Psychological Treatment ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray

Welsh author Arthur Machen (1863–1947) wrote his most popular supernatural tales between 1890 and 1900, a period in which European culture felt itself to be on the decline and in which “decadent” art and literature rose up both as a reflection of and a contribution to this perceived cultural deterioration. While Machen's works have received little critical attention, a recent revival of interest in fin-de-siècle decadence has brought his supernatural tales into the literary limelight. Noteworthy examples of this interest include Julian North's treatment of The Great God Pan in Michael St. John's Romancing Decay: Ideas of Decadence in European Culture and Christine Ferguson's analysis of the same work in her PMLA article “Decadence as Scientific Fulfillment.” Indeed, Machen's supernatural tales could enhance and complicate any exposition of decadent literature and culture; they offer a unique vision of descent into the primordial that differs from the moral and psychological treatment of decadence in other popular works of the time, such as Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like Stevenson and Wilde, Machen employs themes of transgression and metamorphosis to illustrate his characters’ deviations from human nature. However, the forces at work in Machen's tales do not arise from the recesses of the human mind in its modern conception, nor do his protagonists sin primarily against society and the arbitrary nature of its morals and values. Instead, Machen locates mythic forces at work within his contemporary society to highlight a much older form of transgression and to challenge notions of degeneration that held currency at the end of the nineteenth century.

Ten Questions for Psychoanalysis

Philosophy ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 68 (264) ◽  
pp. 183-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Z. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Real Character ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Real

A psychoanalyst is said to provide the real explanation of a person's behaviour; an explanation which the person has arrived at with the help of a psychoanalyst. The person was not aware of the real character of his behaviour. It may have exhibited unconscious thoughts, beliefs, motives, intentions and emotions. In his paper ‘The Unconscious’, in Mind 1959, Ilham Dilman says, ‘What those who talked of “Freud's discovery of the unconscious” had in mind is a group of innovations which “the founder of psycho-analysis” brought to bear on the study of the human mind’ (p.446). I have ten questions concerning the relation of this ‘group of innovations’ to human behaviour.

QUANTUM MICROGENESIS: EVOLUTION, SYNCHRONICITY, AND TENSELESSNESS

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-289
Author(s):  
Mark Germine
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mixed State ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Quantum Nonlocality ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Subjective Duration ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Universe

Quantum nonlocality is described in the context of a subjective duration that has a period of unconscious simultaneity of potentials that are reduced to an actual observably-identical mixed state of consciousness that deposits time and duration at the end of the mental state. Quantum microgenesis involves the observer as the agent of experience, which is a single continuum from depth to surface in the genesis of the mental state, repeating prior states of the individual. Microgenesis is generalized as prior becomings going back to the inception of the Universe. Synchronicity is the fundamental principle of Mind, Self, and consciousness. Mind is always One, which cannot be multiplied. Synchronicity is beyond any process of inanimate quantum nonlocality. It is outside of the physics, as Mind is based on the actualization of the mixed state of the human mind rather than the single quantum eigenstate given by the physics. Consciousness is thus a process of an irreducible and indivisible Mind in ourselves and the acausal realm of synchronicity. The mental-physical process evolves from the unconscious subjective time in the period of simultaneity, proceeding to the actuality of the mixed state of consciousness through synchronicity in its operative role as manifestation of Mind. Periods of unconscious duration and simultaneity exist as potential and only become actual at the synchronous moment of conscious observation at the end of the cyclical mental state.

scholarly journals Challenges in Conducting MBBS Program in a Nepalese Medical College

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
K Rajeshwar Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Subject Knowledge ◽  
Medical College ◽  
The Future ◽  
Working Together ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Medical Teachers

The medical education in Nepal faces many challenges. Medical education, in order to keep up with the times, needs to adapt to the changing attitudes of society. We need a change for better. The curriculum is outdated to the clinical needs, and the students are rarely taught any skills and innovations or creativity to think for the future, and whoever wishes to change the system will be isolated. A serious shortage of talents, subject knowledge, technical skills and communication skills in teachers is affecting the future of medical students. Many medical teachers teach in local language making students poor communicators.Nepal, a developing country in South Asia is in transition had suffered from a decade long violent conflict and the country is in the implementation of its new constitution and suffers from political instability which may contribute several challenges like general shutdowns, frequent bandhs, shortage of electricity, load shedding, voltage fluctuation and problems with internet in conducting MBBS program in a Medical College.At the moment, there is no foreseeable future effort by parents, teachers, educationists, policy makers and politicians to correct this and courageously bring in radical reforms in medical education. These challenges can be overcome by cooperation and working together to create a peaceful and stable climate. Nepal has been going through tremendous changes in the last few years. Medical teachers have a great role to play and stand against many odds.Journal of Gandaki Medical College Vol. 10, No. 1, 2017, Page: 49-56 

Embodying Emptiness: the Irreality of Mikhail Chekhov's Khlestakov

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 224-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Senelick
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Anton Chekhov ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Moscow Art Theatre

Comedy, argues Laurence Senelick, is the form most indigenous to the Russian stage; so while its great players may still vie to make Hamlet their own, it is the comic figure of Khlestakov in Gogol's Government Inspector (Revizor) who most fully absorbs and enacts the concerns of the times in which the role is recreated. Here, while tracing the history of the role during the nineteenth century, Laurence Senelick is chiefly concerned with its performance by Mikhail Chekhov in Stanislavsky's first post-Revolutionary production at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1921. Stanislavsky's earlier revival in 1908 had placed Khlestakov amidst a ‘community of fools’; now – reflecting the view of Gogol's anti-hero given by Dmitry Merezhkovsky in his influential essay of 1906, ‘Gogol and the Devil’ – Chekhov accomplished the challenging task of embodying a nullity, an ‘empty vessel’, the odd one out in a ‘normal’ society which he manages briefly to plunge into delirium. Laurence Senelick is Distinguished Professor at Tufts University, and has published widely in the fields of Russian theatre, the history of popular entertainments, sex and gender and performance, and theatre iconography. His most recent works include A Historical Dictionary of Russian Theatre (Scarecrow Press, 2007), The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov as translator and editor (Norton, 2005), and The Changing Room: Sex, Drag, and Theatre (Routledge, 2000).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document