Understanding Visual Culture Part Four: Looking and Subjectivity Project 17: Freud, Oedipus and castration (Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan)

Project 17 begins to investigate how sexuality affects looking. This issue will be developed throughout this part of the course. Also, Freud was discussed – in relation to Scopophilia – as far back as project 2. Could vision be a central theme, or a device used to support them, in the ideas of Freud?

This project required the reading of Sigmund Freud’s The Dissolution of the Oedipal Complex (1924). According to Freud the Oedipus complex, referred in the title of the essay, is part of the first stages in developing awareness of our sexuality; we are attracted to parent of opposite sex and become aware of our rivalry with the parent who is a member of the same sex. Castration anxiety develops when the male child notices genital difference. Freud argues, that the child believes a female has had their penis removed, castrated and the parent is the agent of this. Anxiety develops as the male child believes it can happen to him. Freud believed complex universal phenomenon, a factor for responsible for our unconscious guilt. Furthermore, the resolution of this complex is fundamental to our development as adults as an unresolved complex may lead to a variety of neuroses.

The essay looks at the genital difference looks at the different course taken by the development of sexuality in boys and girls. The Oedipal Complex is central to this and the dissolution the essay title refers to is that as the ego turns away from complex – feelings of identification with the same-sex parent take the place of the desire experienced for the opposite-sex one – it is repressed and stays remained buried in the unconscious id. It is the fear of the castration that causes the dissolution.

Also discussed is the work of Neo-Freudian Jacques Lacan who, in the light of Structuralism and Linguistics, remodelled Freud’s ideas on castration and the oedipal complex. Lacan saw the father as a symbolic manifestation of the paternal functions with society. In part a symbolic structure that regulates the relationship between man and woman. Lacan suggests the relationship between a child and their mother as being a triangular one referred to as ‘the phallus’. By this Lacan did not mean the actual penis but that which the child perceives the mother to desire that is not the child itself. Thus the Child will try and become the object of the mother’s desire, to become the ‘phallus’ for the mother.  Ultimately, intervention on the part of the father prevents the child from fulfilling that desire and so the phallus becomes something that is lost, or out of reach.

The phallus is an imaginary that becomes a symbol of all that is missing. While a Male may be able to accept having the phallus, but only if he accepts a prior not-having, a previous deprivation, a female has to except not having the phallus so long as she can give up the phallic identification with the mother; she may retain a nostalgia for the lost phallus or she may live in hope of receiving one in the future and from a male. Through motherhood the female is confined to being the phallus, the subject, while the male posses it thus the female is a signifier rather than a signified.

 

Freud’s concepts of the Oedipus complex and castration anxiety were then to be considered in analysis of artworks.

Task One: The Oedipal Complex and Edvard Munch’s Ashes.

This week’s task was to apply Freud’s ideas to Edvard Munch’s Ashes (1894) which may help an understanding and interpretation of the image.

Munch, E. (1894) Ashes. [Oil on canvas] Oslo: Nasjonalgalleriet.

This image comments on the dyadic relationship between the mother and the child.  The female figure represents the mother. Her unbuttoned dress, red under garment, unkempt   hair and pose suggests she is offering herself to the fore-grounded black figure on the left hand side.  He represents the male child. He turns away for in fear of castration but disobeying the father because of his incestuous desire.  

Thus repressed desire embodies the neurosis in the image.  The grey of the man’s hands and face suggest he is an older man thus the oedipal complex, which has been repressed in his Id, has resurfaced causing neurosis. Obviously this picture has implications for the Super-Ego and some of the repressions it performs and those rules enforced by the law of the Father. These are internalised via the super-ego which explains the lack of a patriarchal figure within Ashes it is not needed because it is within us. 

The Freudian nature of the image could be emphasised the tree trunks in the background being a phallic symbol.  

Task Two: Castration Anxiety in Visual Culture

As Freud’s idea of castration anxiety may help to explain images within culture that feature a dominatrix or simply a large woman and a small man, it was required that I find some examples that could demonstrate this.

This first image that came into my mind was the original theatrical poster for the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) by Reynold Brown:

Brown, R. (1958) Attack of the 50ft. Woman. [Poster]

 

I then thought of the episode ‘Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio’ (“The Temptation of Dr. Antonio”) from the anthology film Boccaccio ’70 (1962) directed by Federico Fellini. The episode clearly has a Freudian subtext. 

 An elderly prude fed up with immorality in the form of indecent print content. This is clearly a projection of the repressed oedipal desire within his psyche. Neurosis develops due to a provocative billboard of Anita Ekberg advertising 'Drink more milk' is put up in a park near his residence. 

The image begins to dominate his life, it haunts him to the point where he begins to hallucinate. The huge image of Ekberg becomes animates. She tempts him but as he refuses and destroys her he is driven mad in reality.

I also thought about the archetypal femme fatale in film noir. She threatens castration but is usually killed. Is this a punishment?

Further Reading

Freud, S. (1931) Female sexuality. In: Translated from German by J. Strachey. On sexuality (1991), London: Penguin Books, pp. 367-392.

Freud, S.  The ego and the id. In: Translated from German by J. Strachey. On meta-psychology and the theory of psychoanalysis (1991), London: Penguin Books, pp. 339-407.

Freud, S. 1925. Some psychical consequences of the anatomical distinction between the sexes.  In: Translated from German by J. Strachey. (1991) London: Penguin Books, pp. 323-344.

Freud, S. Femininity. . In: Translated from German by J. Strachey.  New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. (1991) London: Penguin Books, pp. 145-169.  

Bibliography

Andrew, D. (1984)  Concepts in film theory. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Barry, P. (2009) Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Creed, B. (1998) Film and Psychoanalysis. In: J. Hill & P. Church Gibson eds. Oxford guide to film studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press  

Burgoyne, R., Flitterman-Lewis, S. & Stam, R. (1992) New vocabularies in film semiotics. London: Routledge.

D’Alleva, A. (2005) Methods & theories of art history. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Freud, S. (1997) The interpretation of dreams. Translated from German by A.A. Brill. Ware: Wordsworth Editions.  

Hayward, S. (1996) Cinema studies: the key concepts. Abingdon: Routledge.

Filmography

Boccaccio ’70 (Vittorio De Sica/Federico Fellini/Mario Monicelli/Luchino Visconti, Cineriz/ Concordia Compagnia Cinematografica/Francinex/Gray-Film, France/Italy, 1962)