Archive for October, 2008
FREUD on DEATH
Freud’s views on death varied significantly over the years. Near the outbreak of WWI, Freud argued that the conscious attitude towards death prevailing in civilized society was one that, though nominally acknowledging the reality of death, was in fact based upon denial. This was evident in the fact that we tend to emphasize the external causes of death, such as environmentally determined diseases, or accidents. By so doing, we strive to reduce death to a near-chance event. Also, by emphasizing the external causes of death, it becomes natural to arrange life in such as way as to reduce the probability of such occurrences. But the end point of this process is not a life affirming one. For ‘life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked. It becomes shallow and empty… the tendency to exclude death from our calculations in life brings in its train many other renunciations and exclusions.’ (p.290-291).*
Freud makes another keen observation, which may help us better understand the contemporary craving for fictional representations of life: ‘It is an inevitable result of all this that we should seek in the world of fiction, in literature and in the theatre compensation for what has been lost in life. There we still find people who know how to die who, indeed, even manage to kill someone else. There alone too the condition can be fulfilled which makes it possible for us to reconcile ourselves with death: namely, that behind all the vicissitudes of life we should still be able to preserve a life intact… In the realm of fiction we find the plurality of lives which we need. We die with the hero with whom we have identified ourselves; yet we survive him, and are ready to die again just as safely with another hero. (p.290)*
In fact, Freud concludes, it is in times such as war times, when the reality of death can be denied no longer, that life becomes interesting again, and recovers ‘its full content’.
*Freud, S. (1970). Thoughts for the Times on War and Death. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 14. London: Ogart Press and Institute of Psychoanalysis. (Original work published 1915).
ABOUT DEATH
Just a few quotations, to introduce the topic.
Death is an impossibility that suddenly becomes a reality
W. Goethe
Oh, build your ship of death,
Build it in time, and build it lovingly,
And put it
Between the hands of your soul
D. H. Lawrence
We must always be booted,
And ready to go
M. de Montaigne
Would it not be better to give death the place in actuality and in our thoughts which properly belongs to it?
S. Freud
Of this only am I certain:
That it all ends here
On the tombstone of a Roman Legionaire
L. appellare “to address, appeal to, summon, name,” iterative of appellere “to prepare.” For more information about what's behind this site,