Mantissssssa

First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed Mantissa. It really helped me pull together all of these theories we have been talking about. The way Fowles presented the theories in a jesting way helped me figure out how to pick theories out of any text.

One scene which I really enjoyed reading was the first part of the book when he first wakes up and has amnesia. As I opened the book, I started reading it looking for the authorship of the book because I knew that is what I wanted to talk about in my class discussion. I found something that I felt had to do with that right away. However, at first glance, I did not quite understand how it was related to authorship. On page four when the being that we see the point of view from realizes, “ it was not just an I, but a male I” I know that we spoke about this quote in class, but I just feel like it is so important to the book. Not only as a quote of identification, but also as a foreshadowing of the personality of this “I”.

When we first read this quote, we think about authorship. The narrator is identifying itself as a male. There, we found the author, he is definitely not dead yet. Then, when we look closer at the quote, we see “male I”. Is this a coincidence or a pun that Fowles has creatively slipped in? Considering that in the rest of the book, the main point of view is from a male gaze, I would think it is the latter. We are always seeing Erato from this sexualized male view of women, and we never see Miles being sexualized. As a matter of fact, we hardly get a description of him! Once the author identified himself, the only depiction I could think of for Miles was the picture of John Fowles on the back of my book, with his graying beard and his blob of a sweater.

The last thing that I really liked about this part of the book was that it was identifying the book as a book about theories. Although it does not blatantly say it, this part of the book shows the reader that there are going to be many different theories intertwined in the plot, and that the author is going to make it fun.

I think that Mantissa is a book that was written to be picked apart and analyzed by any theory, and I liked that about it. It was like wax in my hands; I felt I could apply it to any theory I could think of.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

The purpose of this essay will be to look at the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and take the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and show how the three main characters, Frank-n-furter, Janet, and Brad represent the id, ego, and superego, respectively. Also, I will be applying these characters to the real world and how they represent parts of human nature.
One of the ideas in the film is that Janet and Brad are the type of couple that culture wants them to be and by entering Frank-n-furter’s castle, they are going into a world that is generally dismissed. I will talk about how and why our culture does not approve of the castle.
Finally, I want to speak of why this film has become a cult classic. One of the main reasons is that this movie allows viewers to completely let their id’s run free without barriers.

The following texts will be used to create a full understanding of the id, ego, and superego, as well as the understanding of other psychoanalytic concepts:

Freud, Sigmund. “The Ego and the Id.” The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 19: 13-48

In Freud’s paper, “The Ego and the Id”, Freud explains the concepts of the ego, super-ego and the id. Mainly, he speaks about the ego and its push and pull with the super-ego and id. Freud speaks of the ego and how it has repressed thoughts that the id is willing to bring out in the open. He also talks about the super-ego and its relationship to the ego; how the super-ego is the exact opposite of the id. Also, Freud explains the love-instinct and the death-instinct and how they create and destroy. Freud explains how all of these parts of a personality work together and how they do not work together.

Mayer, John D.. “Primary Divisions of Personality and their Scientific Contributions: From the Trilogy-of-Mind to the Systems Set.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Dec2001, Vol. 31 Issue 4, p449

In John D. Mayer’s writing for the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Mayer looks at different sets of personality theories. He takes three different sets and reviews them: the trilogy of the mind, including motivation, cognition, and emotion; Freud’s structural set, the id, ego, and superego; and the fairly modern systems set of energy lattice, knowledge works, role player and executive consciousness. He argues what sets are considered good, verses the ones he thinks are not. Mayer reviews the history and identification of all of the sets and how they have contributed to Psychology and the understanding of the human personality.

Moncayo, Raul. “The Partial Object, The Ideal Ego, The Ego-Ideal, and the Empty Subject: Four Degrees of Differentiation within Narcissism.” Psychoanalytic Review, Aug 2006, Vol. 93 Issue 4, p565-602

The article by Raul Moncayo in the Psychoanalytic Review, is about Sigmund Freud and his personality theory on the id, ego, and super-ego and how they relate to narcissism. He first speaks of narcissism and the ways that Freud relates to it in some of his other theories. Moncayo then goes on to explain how Lacan’s mirror phase relates to the ideal-ego and self-image. He also uses the parental metaphor to show how parents can either lead one into narcissism, or wreak it. He takes the ideas of narcissism and applies it to many different personality theories and shows how the theories relate to each other and with the ego.