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Now is an opportune time to return to our
toolbox.

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Remember, one of our projects in this
class is to develop a box of tools that we

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can use to analyze the myths when we run
into something interesting.

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We've already talked about structuralism
and how it's useful in decoding some of

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the things we see inside of myths.
We talked about functionalism.

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And talked about how it works as a tool.
After having a look at [inaudible], it

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makes a lot of sense to introduce the
tools given to us by the great towering

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figure in the human sciences, Sigmund
Freud.

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His dates are 1856 to 1939.
Freud made many, many contributions, not

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the least creating a whole field of psycho
analysis, but he's important in the

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interpretation of, literate and literature
and across the humanities not so much in

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the social sciences anymore.
Interesting psychology has moved on but

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he's definitely left a mark on the
humanities and that's surely true for

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those of us that are interested in myths.
Freud has an important set of observations

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that help us understand this.
We'll work through them, but let's just

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summarize what Freud's main message is, at
least for our purposes in this class.

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Freud tells us that myths dramatize events
in every individual's mental or

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psychological development.
Myths dramatize events in every

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individual's mental or psychological
development.

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Now, we're use to having people in our
collection of tools and approaches to

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myth, looking at structuralism and
functionalism, and even going back to

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allegory.
We're used to having people tell us that

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yeah, myths contain hidden messages.
Our ancient allegorists thought that.

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Structuralists think they contain hidden
messages about the structure of the human

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mind.
Functionalists think that they contain

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messages about the values that a culture
wants to legitimize to itself.

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Freud thinks that hidden messages inside a
myth are always going to be about just you

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and me as individuals, developing, working
our way through a developing, the

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developing of our psychological state.
Now, as a doctor Freud is interested in

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any of us as a, a patient.
Now, when a, a patient goes to see a

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doctor, the doctor doesn't.
Interviewed a patient to talk about you

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know, your, national background, your
cultural ethnicity, and these kind of

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things, unless there's something very
relevant that happens in those little,

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little aspects.
Mostly what a doctor is interested in is

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you as a member of a species, as a
universal creature that needs some help.

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Freud thinks about all of us as universal
creatures, and he thinks about the human

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psyche as a universal like, organ that all
of us have inside of us, and it goes

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through a developmental process.
So, looking at a young one and a, a one

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transitioning from adolescence to
adulthood, and one transitioning from

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adulthood into very old age.
There is a kind of ongoing, consistent

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development that Freud, is trying to
develop a science of.

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Now there are many different aspects to
Freud.

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There are many ways that he looks at the
psyche.

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In some of his later periods, some will
recognize terms like ego, id, and

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superego.
We're going to look at an earlier version

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of Freud's idea of the psyche which has
two parts to it.

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This is one that shows up in The
Interpretation of Dreams, in 1900.

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Now in the interpretation of dreams there
are many observations that are important.

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That, the, the structure of the psyche
that he's working with here is one that's

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made up of two main parts with a
repression barrier in between.

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We have the unconscious mind and the
conscious mind and the repression barrier,

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in healthy people, keeps the unconscious
mind repressed.

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Now for some people, particularly in
America, the idea of repression is a bad

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thing.
It's thought that we should all just be

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kind of letting whatever desires we have
leak out all over the place.

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Well Freud thinks that would be a
disaster.

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If the repression barrier weren't there,
we would all answer to these deep, dark,

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unconscious desires that we have.
Now they're very powerful.

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Some of them can be benign, but some of
them can be very toxic and antisocial.

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All of us Freud says that our guts and our
core have the desire for the most intense

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pleasures we can.
And we'll pursue those deeply, selfishly,

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according to, the, the most antisocial,
kind of uncivilized behaviors as we

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possibly could.
If our unconscious was given free reign.

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If there was no such thing as a depression
barrier, sorry, a repression barrier, all

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of us would be running around trying to
gratify, our, deepest urges for, the most

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intense pleasure we could find.
Now where is this most intense pleasure

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going to be fround, found.
Freud makes the argument that sex is a

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very important piece of this.
Who can deny that such a thing is true.

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Freud also talks about food and the
pleasure that come from making sure that

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a, the organism maintains its metabolizing
at a very elemental level.

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Freud also talks about the pleasures that
come from being dominant over others in a

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group and that these are the things that
are.

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Animating our unconscious desires, and
luckily, our repression barrier keeps

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them, for the most part, in check.
Now when we think about our psychological

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houses, most of us think that our
conscious desires are the things that we

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answer to most, we're familiar with these,
and sure we might have some unconscious

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desires but they don't really seem all
that important.

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On occasion some urge will bubble up but
we'll talk ourself out of it and get on

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with our lives.
Now Freud says that actually that position

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should be reversed, the conscious desires
that we have are kind of like the tip of

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an iceberg.
Underneath is the biggest part of the

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iceberg, these unconscious desires are the
very powerful drivers that are the energy

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that presses our life forward.
Now what makes up these unconscious

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desires?
When we meet them we're going to be a

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little bit horrified.
According to Freud, we want to have sexual

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pleasure with anything and anyone.
That's what we look for in our view of the

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world, this most intense gratification
through sexual pleasure of anything and

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anyone.
Now, that includes even parts of the,

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larger grouping of human beings that you
and I run into that are not allowed to us,

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that are forbidden to us.
We want to even have sex with those with

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whom it's forbidden.
And in fact the forbiddenness makes a kind

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of forbidden fruit of these potential
sexual partners for us, and produces

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frustration that we're forbidden from it,
so even amps up the desire even more.

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And in fact the one person that you and I
are forbidden from having sex with is a

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parent.
Yes indeed.

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Freud says we all have an unconscious
desire to have sex with one of our

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parents.
We also have an unconscious desire to

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eliminate the parent of the same gender as
us, such that, that person is not in the

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way of us gratifying our sexual desires
for the parent of the opposite sex.

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This is what Freud says, all of us then,
in addition to this urge to have sexual

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gratification through this intense
pleasure.

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Also our gratifying urge to be dominant by
pressing the parent that has such a

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powerful role in our lives aside, the one
of the same gender, and having a close

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intimate relationship, one that's
forbidden, with the one of the different

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gender.
Gender.

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These powerful unconscious desires, Freud
says, are present in all of us.

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Now luckily there's a repression barrier,
right?

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Otherwise such things would go around
being gratified, and that would be a bad

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thing.
What Freud says in healthy people happens

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is that these powerful, even forbidden
desires, are kept down by the repression

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barrier.
But on occasion these unconscious desires

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grow, and they become huge, and they place
pressure on the repression barrier.

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Now in an unhealthy psyche, the repression
barrier has no gaps, and the pressure

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could cause the whole psyche to explode
and no longer work.

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In a healthy psyche, what happens is the
repression barrier opens up on occasion,

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and allows one of these unconscious
desires to actually show itself to the

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conscious mind, and allow itself to be
gratified.

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Now, lest you think that Freud thought
that on occasion each of us goes around

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and does those things that he said, live
beneath the repression barrier, that's not

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what happens.
Instead what happens is, this repression

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barrier allows the unconscious desire to
enter into the conscious mind, but not

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before it changes it.
Through these processes of condensation

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and displacement, that our desire we feel
for forbidden object, for example, become

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dominant over our own fathers.
And perhaps trying to have sexual

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relationships with the parent of the same
or opposite gender.

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These desires are allowed to be expressed,
but they're changed.

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They're displaced, and put onto someone
else who's authorized.

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So we can have a dream block, dominance
over someone else, who stands as a symbol

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for our father.
Or intimacy with someone else who stands

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as symbol, or replacement of, for our
mother.

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It's a system that Freud says allows this
sort of tea kettle of the, of the

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unconscious mind to let off some steam
without having anything that is absolutely

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forbidden by the conscious mind, to
happen.

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Now, getting back to our main story, what
Freud says happens here is that in a

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healthy mind the unconscious does indeed
allow itself to express these desires, and

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in the interpretation of dreams he says
that a main avenue by which these

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unconscious desires are expressed is
through dreams.

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Now to get back to our story in the
course, how do myths fit in?

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Freud tells us as he extends his thoughts
on myths as his as his thinking develops,

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in the interpretation of dreams in a
leader works, that precisely myths are the

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dreams of an entire culture.
Myths are the dreams of an entire culture.

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So what we get when we take a look at
myths is we get this kind of displaced and

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condensed expression of primal desires in
a culture that are displaced onto now more

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acceptable targets for those desires.
So the desire to overcome the father, all

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of us get to live it out vicariously by
looking at it through this awful figure of

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Cronus who we can scold and wag our finger
at, but actually each of us gets a little

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vicarious thrill by watching a father
figure get castrated.

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The special intimacy and closeness that
Cronus has with his mother.

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There's no sexual relationship that's
talked about but they had a special

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closeness.
This, in that sense, all kind of have that

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special extra intimacy with mother figures
in our life vicariously, but we now live

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it out through Cronus.
The connection here, according to Freud is

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that all of us have these desires.
These desires had a chance to get

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themselves worked out through this
apparatus.

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The apparatus though, you hope works in a
special way and modifies but does not

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allow the desire to express itself
straight up and clearly.

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Through this modification, then, each of
us is engaged always in a process of

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myth-making through our dreams, and our
cultures are, in a way, dreaming as they

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write their myths.
These myths then, according to Freud, are

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interpretable, according to his large
scheme.

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And we see a system, a giant system.
In which, not only is it true that as

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humans that are living along, thinking
that we have this very well set up

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conscious mind.
With a repression barrier that is keeping

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down our d, dark desires.
All of us are actually living in a

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psychological house over which we are not
quite masters.

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None of us are quite masters of our own
psychological desires.

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Similarly, in, myths, in our, in our
culture's myths, our culture is not the

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master over its own, cultural product.
Instead, what we do through myth is live

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out all the things that our culture
forbids itself.

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So keep an eye on those things in myth
that seem especially salacious, nasty,

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overstepping of lines, overstepping of
bounds.

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Freud gives us a really interesting tool,
that's helpful in trying to figure out why

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in the world would a culture want to tell
itself a myth like this?