Comparison and Contrast - Essay Example

Comparison and Contrast Both the articles tend to focus on discussing the gut feminism from the variably different perspectives. What is most importantly similar in both the articles is the fact they attempt to present the dichotomous explanation of the role of dualities within human personality. Both the articles tend to rely strongly on the scientific evidence produced in terms of explaining the role of fear, hysteria and how it can be related to the feminism. Both the articles however tend to utilize the differing methodologies and research methods and studies to argue a point. For example the article of Elspeth Probyn tend to rely more on the recent studies however with reference to the Darwin whereas the article by Wilson is relying on the different type of studies conducted by the Freud and his contemporaries. One also need to take care into the account the fact that the article written by Wilson is more in detail presenting a detailed and somewhat different view of the same subject whereas Probyn’s approach is little poetic when it comes to defining the relationships which psychology has with the feminism. However, both the articles tend to project the same objective and research question but from a different perspective. It also must be noted that Probyn and Wilson are in agreement while discussing how the dichotomous nature plays a critical role in defining the overall fate of mind and body. The so called fact that Hysteria and anatomy are two aliens to each other (Wilson,1) clearly is in comparison with the argument put forward by Probyn. However what is critically different between these two articles is the fact that both rely on different investigative methods of describing the role of gut and its relationship with the body whereas in terms of their approach, Probyn tend to rely on the biological evidence of how fear, anxiety etc can have impacts on the gut feeling whereas Wilson solely tend to rely on hysteria and its connection with the gut. The work of Probyn tend not to complement the earlier work of Freud as it largely relies on the biological evidence rather than concentrating on the psychoanalysis approach as adopted by the Freud and his contemporaries. However, the work by Wilson largely relies on the earlier work of Freud and draws much evidence from the Freud’s work. The major theme of the whole article by Wilson therefore largely surround around the earlier work of Freud whereas Probyn tend to deviate the Freudian methods of analyzing the gut and its relation with the body. However, what is most contrasting is the evidence produced by Probyn which suggest that gut has the communicative capabilities which modern science tend to ignore (Probyn 109) whereas Wilson tend to claim that motives such as gut comes out only as a result of the psychopathology thus there is a wide gap between the argument put forward by the two authors in terms of their orientation and representation of the results produced in various studies. Part II “Hysteria behaves as though anatomy did not exist or as though it has no knowledge of it” (Wilson 31) This quotation is of Freud which is cited on the first page of the article. From this quotation, what we can understand is the fact that there is a negative correlation between the anatomy of a person’s body and its relationship with the hysteria. In other words, Hysteria is independent of the influences of body on it. The author has quoted many examples and research studies which indicated this relation between the gut feelings, body and hysteria. “ Complex interweaving of endogenous and exogenous, perceptual, propri-oceptive and interpretive – causes, effect, feedbacks, motives , long- term states such as moods and theories, along with distinct transistory physical or verbal effect” (Probyn 45) This quote has been taken from the Probyn’s article. This quote has been placed in the article in continuation of the argument that our feelings are aroused and multiplied by many independent variables which have the impact on our feelings. This quotation is basically explaining the different variables both independent and dependent or correlated with each other producing impacts such as variations in our moods besides creating other impacts on our body both in physical as well as verbal in nature. Criticism The first quote is directly related with the biological evidence of the hysteria and how it can be related with the body and the mind to produce gut feelings. However, it must also be noted in the cultures where the economic or social conditions are not very well, the hysteria and the related issues can be the consequences of the various factors directly related with the anatomy. The societies where most of the resources are captive and dormant for most of the people, developing gut feelings to work for the persons may not seem to be a relevant idea. Thus the concept of the negative relationship between the hysteria and anatomy may be flawed in various cultural perspectives. It also must be noted that as Probyn mentioned about the Darwin and the naked savage touching his food, can effectively serve for us as a metaphor that the various cultural impacts on our psychology puts us into various kinds of fears and we tend to rely on our gut feelings at that time. This evidence is very penetrating in the sense that mutual understanding of the various relationships between us – though may not be formal- have profound impacts on the way we tend to think and gut feel about each other. The second quotation is critical in the sense that it tend to rely on just one side of the argument as it fails to provide a proper link between the facts and the theory. In theory, our gut feelings may emerge as a result of the exogenous and indigenous variables but in its essence, gut feelings emerge mainly without any definite link between the mind and body of the persons thus though physical and verbal impacts can be witnessed but they may not solely produce the changes. Works Cited Probyn, Elspeth. "Thinking with Gut Feeling." Eating Things (2004): 101-112. Wilson, Elizabeth A. "Gut Feminism." A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (2004): 66-94. Read More