Freuds Assumption of Individual Grievance to Civilization - Essay Example

Freud’s Assumption of Individual Grievance to Civilization and Conflict between the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Man in Dickey’s Novel “Deliverance” Introduction James Dickey’s novel, “Deliverance” provides the readers with the relief from Freudian dilemma that though men create laws, rules and regulations to build up civilization to protect them from unhappiness, they themselves perpetually despise it and continue to ignore it. Dickey’s characters also –like any other typical modern men- have sought a way of liberation -to detach themselves from the regulatory restrictions of modern society- through their journey down the river into the woods. But essentially their journey symbolically turns into one through the most clandestine and unconscious region of mind where Freud’s Id dwells in. In the jungle, the Id, being liberated from the restrictions of Freud’s Ego and Superego that modern civilization sets for the individuals to prevent both individual and collective social unhappiness, appears before the characters with all its monstrous and raw natures. When Dickey’s survivors return to their society, they are no more belligerent to the law of man. Now the readers are ultimately convinced of the Freudian proposition that man needs civilization, but in some way or other, this necessity must be felt by men in the bare-face of the law of nature. Monotony and Dissatisfaction with Modern Life in “Deliverance” The way the narrator depicts the life in modern society reveal the monotonous feeling that sits in the greatest depth of his mind. It is somewhat panoptic and he is not unhappy, but cannot tolerate it. It is true, more or less, for all the four characters of the novel. All of them are mild and happy middle-age men. Yet they temporarily seek escape from the civilization. Dickey’s characters’ implicit and underlying grudging against the monotony of civil life has its basis in Freud’s assumption of man’s relationship with his surroundings. With the safeguard of the supervision of modern society, they are far away from the threat of wilderness of nature as well as the destructive nature of the Id. Freud refers to these threats in the following lines: We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction. (Norton edition, p. 24) Before facing the destructive and monstrous wilderness of the jungle, their civil life was somewhat monotonous for them. This monotony essentially evolves from the reiterated pattern of the fulfillment of the urges of the Id. Also there is another factor that contributes to the development of the monotony of civil life. Modern people as well as Dickey’s characters are unaware of the destructive presence of the Id in them. Even they are afraid of acknowledge it as a part of their existence until the circumstances force them to face it. Escaping Syndrome of Dickey’s Characters and its Relation to Freud’s Assumption of Individual Grievance to Civilization Freud’s “Civilization and its Discontents” greatly assists a reader to understand the escaping syndrome of the characters in the novel. Freudian concept of ‘psyche and its reactions to social regulations’ affects a reader’s comprehension of the syndrome by focusing at the core of human concept of ‘rule’, ‘sin/guilt’ and ‘happiness’. Freud argues that because of the urges of the Id, the tendency of human being is to maximize the chance of satisfying the pleasure principles. Again the ego and the Superego ensure that the desires of the Id are acceptable enough for the surrounding in which a man lives. Therefore, the purpose of a civilized life is to maximize the possibility of fulfilling the urges of the Id within the regulations of the society. According to Freud, a civilized man conviction of happiness is essentially his perception of the fulfillment of the material needs of the Id. In this regard, Freud says, “What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as an episodic phenomenon” (47). But since in modern civilization, a man is oblivious about the monstrous presence of the Id in him and in the oft-repeated supervision and regulatory environment of a society the minor desires of the Id are continually ignored by the Ego and the Superego, he often grudges the suppression of the Id. Consequently, readers find that the characters, in the novel, seek escapes from his society and civilization. Again elaborating this grudging condition of mind, Freud’s says, “When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment” (23). Man’s Survival in His Conflicts with Destructive Nature Throughout the whole journey the characters, Ed, Drew, Lewis, and others differentiate themselves from each other through their actions. Also these characters symbolically represent different phases of Freud’s concept of personality. In the face of the monstrous nature they also necessarily turn into counter-monsters in order to maximize the chance of survival, as in a famous article, “Deliverance’: A Dark Heart Still Beating” Dwight Garner notes, “Dickey wrote about men, neither dudes nor (although they were fathers) dads. The men in “Deliverance” meet real monsters and recognize their ability to become, in Dickey’s phrase, countermonsters” (1). The capability of the characters to cope with the hostility of nature refers to the Freudian concept of civilization. According to Freud, civilization grows out of the grouping of men with balanced shares of the Id, the Ego and the Superego. Obviously an imbalanced combination of Id, Ego and Superego cannot survive in the conflict with nature. For Freud, the evolution of civilization is essentially “the struggle for life of the human species.”(322). In the team of four men, Bobby, Lewis and Drew represent the Id, the Ego and the Superego respectively, but Ed Gentry alone represents a balanced combination of all the three components of Freud’s personality. Bobby’s impulsive and instinctual nature fails to protect him from being raped by the psychotic and irresistible sexual force of the mountain-men. It infers the fact that two instinctual existences must destroy each other. Drew who symbolizes the Superego through his obsession with his moral conscience was killed in the fight with the nature. This defeat, again, infers that rigidly civilized society without the acknowledgement of the destructive nature will erode away with the growing resentment of its members. Finally, Ed appears to be the most competent to face the ordeals in the journey because he holds a balanced combination of the three components. He returns to the modern society with a sense of deliverance from his earlier grievance and monotony of life. Conclusion In the novel, Dickey apparently echoes Freud’s assumption that the more people will be civilized, the more they will be irritated by the morality that the Superego imposes upon them. Consequently they will seek escape from it and push themselves towards the destructive from of the Id. One of the underlying tones of the novel is that in human civilization man should be moral but morality should not grasp a man. Civilized society must neither overlook nor be afraid of the presence of the Id as a destructive part of the human existence. Rather the end of Dickey’s novel suggests that in order to make the civilization more stable, it must include the expectation and the reality between creation and destruction, in other words, between the Superego and the Id, as Freud notes, “[Civilization] must present the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instincts of life and the instincts of destruction, as it works itself out in the human species. This struggle is what all life essentially consists of” (322). Works Cited Dickey, James. Deliverance. New York: Benthum Pub, 1970. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. London: Penguin, 2002. Garner, Dwight. “‘Deliverance’: A Dark Heart Still Beating”, New York Times. August 24, 2010. November 22, 2010. 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