Freud consumes my writings

Because I have had several classes dealing with psychology I am on a Freud roll. So now all class material is being addressed through said lens. Sorry but enjoy for the entertainment value as I destroy perfectly good movies and music by examining their Oedipal content.

To come: Gendering Conquest: The New World as the Oedipal Child

Female Agency and Freud

Gender Identity: Female Agency Enters the Equation
The formation of gender in humans is a topic studied by many academic and professional fields. Psychology has done a lot of work toward theories on gender identity via personalities like Sigmund Freud and Jessica Benjamin. Freud looks at the formation of identity as the recognition of difference between the male and female child. In Freud’s Oedipal model, identification with the father and the recognition of physical similarities, by way of penis, creates a tension that results in a break with the mother and idealization of the father. The break with the mother is necessary because the mother is the source of a dependency for the child that will subvert the formation of identity, according to Freud. Benjamin claims, “difference is only truly established when it exists in tension with likeness, when we are able to recognize the other in ourselves.” (Benjamin 169) Benjamin criticizes Freud’s exclusion of the mother as a source of agency for the independence of the child. Benjamin articulates the mother’s role in the attainment of autonomy, adding a missing element to the Freudian Oedipal theories of gender formation, female agency or instrumentality in the mother. We will look at the theories of Freud and Benjamin as they relate to the development of gender identity in the heterosexual male and female child.
According to Freud there is a model of reality that contains 3 components: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id represents our most basic instincts or needs, which according to Freud are hunger, thirst, the avoidance of pain, and sex. The id also represents our wishes and the difference between our wants and needs is called the primary process. The ego represents reality and our consciousness of it. The ego looks for possible ways to negotiate between the self-serving id and the realm of what is actually possible and within the scope of societal allowance. This is the secondary process. The superego is the place of deduction in our minds that store the information on proper behavior and existence based on the two most important people in the world of the child, its parents. There are two parts of the superego, the conscience, they way we punish ourselves, and the ego ideal, the way we reward ourselves. It is in the superego that we see the struggle of the Oedipal man. It is important to understand the stages of development as Freud lays them out to understand the Oedipal crisis.
The stages are oral (birth- approx. 18 months), the anal stage (18 months – four years), the phallic stage (3or 4 until 6 or 7 years), and the latent stage (5- approx. 12 y ears), and finally the genital stage, which represents our sex lives, after puberty. The Oedipal crisis occurs in the phallic stage. Sucking or biting represents the oral stage and the anal stage, by potty training joys and or woes. Masturbation or fascination with genitalia represents the phallic or Oedipal stage. In fact, Freud believes it is the recognition of the difference in genitalia, which comprise the point of tension that begins the process of individuation for the child.
The first love object is our mother because she is closely associated with the breast and the nurturing milk of the breast. The mother is also a love object of the male child specifically when he has realized he has a penis and the male child has identified with the father and seeks to possess the mother the same way the father does, sexually. This is one of the least like theories of Freud because it challenges our Western sensibilities to consciously consider sexual intimacy with a parent. The identification with father causes the break with mother and forms identity for the child. The mother becomes only a vessel for the child’s frustrations after this point; rather Freud would have us believe so. Freud assigns the character of the overbearing mother who would prefer not see her child reach autonomy. Freud asserts that women seek to nurture their children until the children are unwilling and unable to care for themselves because of their over-dependence on mother. Whereas mother is the monster no child wants to emulate, father is the idealized parent that all children wish they could be or be as like as they possibly can.
There are two types of father to be discussed when discussing the Oedipal crisis, the archaic father and the Oedipal father. The archaic father matches the mythical father in Oedipus the King insomuch that he sees the male child as a rival and seeks to have the child eliminated. In the Oedipus model this would serve for the fear of castration because that is the deterrent the father employs to prevent the child from attempting to have sex with the mother. Freud completely disregards this element opting instead for the Oedipal father whose primal tendencies are under control and is viewed more as a protector of free agency than protector of his property.
In the Oedipal model, difference is construed in respect to its binaries. Benjamin calls this gender polarity. The same phallus that stands for difference and reality also stands for power over and repudiation of women. By assuming the power to represent her sexuality as well as his, it denies women’s independent sexuality. Thus, masculinity is defined in opposition to woman; one gender is glorified in favor of vilification of the other (Benjamin 167). At the moment the male child realizes he has a penis and the female child has not, he realizes that he is different and has something, where she is lacking. Freud claims this is the point where the male assumes a superior posture. The male child can now begins to identify with his father. He has apparatus like his father and therefore his father’s power in some small measure.
The problem with the identification with the father is with the male child’s desire to be like the father entirely, just as when he was with the mother entirely in the pre-oedipal stage. In the male child’s eyes the father possesses the mother; the male child desires to possess the mother in the same way. The frustrations lie in the child’s realization that he cannot fully be with the mother in the same way the as the father. The child wants the mother for himself and this puts the child in a position of competition with the father he wants to be like.
This moment occurs in the female child as well. When the female child realizes she has no penis she becomes envious. With this recognition she assigns blame for her shortcomings onto her mother. She identifies with her mother’s condition of being merely female without the much-needed penis. The female feels she needs this penis to be powerful like her father. This need to be like her father is met by the fact that she is like her mother and the disillusionment is the moment of gender identity for the female. The female child has realized she is not male.
Sigmund Freud established psychoanalysis as a credible study with his conscientious pursuit for understanding the workings of the psyche; Freud is not alone is his diligence. Modern psychoanalyst and feminist Jessica Benjamin also seeks to understand the relationships between men, women, gender and identity. Benjamin agrees with the basic Oedipal model but finds it sorely lacking in its representation of the role of the mother in the independence of the child amongst other things.
Benjamin deviates from Freud in several specific areas. According to Benjamin, male subjugation is caused by fear of being reabsorbed into the “engulfing womb”. This means that men are scared if they do not keep their mother at bay she will swallow them whole and they will never become individuals but merely reflections of her all encompassing existence. Benjamin assures us that it is the intense male need to reconnect to the mother that the male feels “violated” by her existence and fears in weakness he will return to her ministrations (Benjamin 164). The male must always fight the desire for mother else he is plagued by feelings of dependency and helplessness. When he is able to displace this desire onto other women, he is able to feel powerful because he can have a mother substitute that both fulfills his sexual desire and his sense of autonomy because this female is not his mother. He retaliates with subjugation as a method of self-defense against the “regressive siren” that would re-engulf him in “female goodness”(Benjamin164).
Mother is the source of goodness for children, the source of life giving milk as well as the provider of every need. When the male repudiates mother for not being male, for not having a penis, he is excluded from his mother as the source of goodness. Whereas his source of goodness was once externally imposed he must now create goodness for himself, internally.
There is an immediate penalty for repudiating mother, more work for the male child who immediately begins to feel his loss.
The female child is no less susceptible to the repudiation of mother and its backlash. The female child maintains some semblance of connection to the mother in her physical similarity to mother but she resents it. This resentment is less traumatic than the male child’s complete denial of mother but it does occur. Because the connection is maintained the female child learns nurturance by virtue of her experience at the hands of the mother she resents. This creates a quandary for the female child; as the mother is both the love object and deficient object sufficient target for displaced feelings of inadequacy because she is not like the father.
Father represents power by virtue of having the penis and fulfills the male child’s fantasy of one day having similar power.
Benjamin asks us to look the relationship between the Oedipal man and his father in the myth of Oedipus the King, the source of the psychoanalytic term coined by Freud, the Oedipal man referring to a man’s desire to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Oedipus is first cast off to fend for himself when he could not; this begins the battle for survival between father and son. The prophecy that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother prompted the King (father) to cast Oedipus out in his instinctual desire to survive. Oedipus fled his home when he heard about the prophecy in an attempt to escape his destiny. This point to reluctance in Oedipus to take his father’s place and sleep with his mother, not desire. Oedipus also kills the King without knowing it is his father. This is not the intentional destruction of the father in jealous fever of Freud’s Totems and Taboos. This supports Benjamin’s assertion that the idea of “paternal intervention, in the most profound sense, is a projection of the child’s own desire.” (151) Apparently, Benjamin believes that it is the acceptance of the mother and father as a unit without the child that allows the child to see itself without the parents.
Theory claims father responsible for autonomy and he relegates the mother to the position of the anti-father. In a way Freud not only creates a negative image of the mother and her influence on the independence of her children but his treatment of the omission is suspect in its deliberateness. Benjamin points out the child recognizes he has a penis and the she does not; the child recognizes he is male and she is not, there is no mention of the vagina’s existence or acknowledgement of the female child as a female for its intrinsic value.
Benjamin offers that the mother plays a significant role in the formation of gender identity not just as the antihero but also as a catalyst for the establishment of independence in the recognition of difference in the “identity mirror”. It is the mother in our culture that promotes growth and independence in the child even though in Freud’s model our culture supports male superiority for which the child breaks with the mother.
Benjamin also offers another point of deviation from Freud’s Oedipal model she adds the concept of fecundity envy; this means the male is envious of female fertility. The female ability to feed the child via breast is also envied. The penis envy of the female child is seen as a critical aspect of female feelings of inferiority. Does fecund envy result in the critical aspect of male feelings of inferiority that are manifested in the subjugation of women?
For Freud the fear of physical castration by father is fathers attempt to deter the male child from copulating with the mother, and thereby replacing the father. Even though Freud seems to recognize there is danger for the male child he does not attribute it to an aggressive act by the father toward the child. Benjamin clearly challenges this omission. In the myth, the father was the initial aggressor and Oedipus the reluctant player.
Fear of castration for boys a metaphor in Benjamin’s eyes for fear of being “cut off” from the source of goodness, mother’s nurturing milk. Loosing the connection to the mother subverts the male child’s confidence. This could help explain the competitive nature of the male, as he is always trying to prove himself equal to the father and deserving of the mother.
Conclusion

Salt of the Earth in One Shot

Section One-Summary

Salt of the Earth (1953), a self-described photoplay, is narrated in the accented voice of a Mexican mine worker's wife, Esperanza. The story is set in a fictional New Mexico mining community however it is based on real events. The movie handles topics of gender, exploring the role of women in union activities and the battle for equality in their own homes while preserving the value of family and community in the struggle for equality. Topics of racism are confronted by the unconquerable hope of the miners and their wives. Essentially, white International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers representative Jencks and Mexican labor organizer Ramon try to force the mining company to discuss wages, safety issues in the mine, and equity in housing with white miners. Local law enforcement participates in the violence against the miners at the bidding of the mining company officials. Esperanza, our main character, finds herself struggling with her husband for union rights, racial equity, and fighting against her husband and the status quo for gender equity. The shot chosen for analysis is situated midway through the film. Esperanza, who is pregnant with her third child, goes into labor at the strike site as her husband begins to chase down two strike breakers; she fears violence and the reprisals from the white officers who have been waiting for a reason to further humiliate and harass the striking miners and their families. This is the opening shot of Esperanza's husband, Ramon, being handcuffed after a confrontation with the strikebreaker. This shot occurs 34 minutes and 9 seconds into the 1:32 minute long, black and white film. It is the opening shot of a 30 shot sequence.



Section Two:Shot Breakdown-Ramon handcuffed by two white officers after scab chase
Angle:Eye-level
Distance:Medium
Depth of Field:Shallow Focus
Camera Movement: STationary
Transition:Jump Cut

Section Three-Analysis

In this analysis, the wardrobe selection, the music, and the landscape come alive in the talented hands of directors and producers of Salt of the Earth. In one shot, we are allied with the Mexican worker, even as we see him being arrested. The wardrobe assigns class level and the music immediately tells us whose side we are on. The landscape is used along with camera angles and lighting to portray hierarchy and struggle. A closer look at the details of this one shot shows the resistance rhetoric of the movie.

Shot1:

Da Da Da Dummmmmm goes the music as this shot opens with Ramon Quintero being handcuffed. We are ready to experience this dreaded situation the sound clip has prepared us for. As Ramon is the person being arrested in this shot the viewer sides with him because the music is ominous and creates the feeling something bad is going to happen to him. Through the previous 33 minutes of the film, the viewer has come to sympathize with Ramon so the music sets us up for the action to come. The music sets the tone for the scene but the camera angle tells us a lot about the message the producers hoped to convey.

The camera is approximately waist-level, a medium distance shot, and angled upward. It captures an image of the two officers and Ramon against the grayed sky and an upward angled hill. Every aspect of the mise-en-scene compliments the struggle inherent in the situation Ramon was in. The hill and the upward angle impresses upon the viewer the uphill battle against authority Ramon faced. The officer staged to the left of Ramon is higher on the hill than Ramon and Ramon even higher than the officer on the right. This implies that though the authorities or establishment have a higher position, the struggle is still worth fighting because you could gain some ground. This potential for improvement upon one's situation is a main theme in the movie.

The distance in the shot gives a view from the waist up on the men. This allows us to feel we are close enough to actually see what is going on between them. We are given a good view of the faces in a shot at this distance usually and any deviation from a face view indicates a motive to be analyzed. While we are close enough to see, we are also distanced enough to not feel embroiled in the danger. This seems like an important choice so the viewer does not feel overly connected to the action. In this shot, the connection the viewer has to the scene is one of equivalence without solidarity. The viewer is shown enough to make an informed decision on the action but not so much as to overwhelm.

The importance of the hill and the upward angle are subtle because everything behind Ramon and the officers is slightly out of focus. The use of shallow focusing helps the viewer to understand the struggle ahead is unclear. The important action right now is the immediate peril Ramon is in, or perhaps the world is in. The hill's presence indicates hope but the blurry viewpoint indicates a future possibility that may be a long hard way off. Salt of the Earth allies the viewer with the mine workers subtly; shooting from the waist level also gives a sense of correlation between the viewer and what is happening onscreen. The camera position is second only to the wardrobe choices for the establishment of hierarchy and class in the movie.

The sides are clearly marked with the everyday clothing of the worker, Ramon, compared to that of the officers. Visible are the two white officers struggling with Ramon to get his hands into the handcuffs. The two officers flank Ramon and their faces are partially covered by the wide brimmed hats they wear as part of their neutral colored uniforms. Although, the film is in black and white the shading of the colors is apparent. The choice of officer's dress could have simply been indicative of the standard uniform for officers in the 1950s however, the wide brims do much in this shot to obscure the officers' faces; the suggestion is present that their faces should be obscured in shame of their actions. The officers' hats are also shaded a bit darker than their uniforms. This is important because we expect the good guys to wear the white or light colored hats and in this shot Ramon's hat is lighter. The neutral color in the officers' uniforms blends into the scenery of the New Mexico desert. The neutrality of their uniforms juxtaposed against the neutrality law enforcement officers are expected to show, but do not in this case, highlights the corruption of the officers.

The workers are better dressed than one would expect in a mining situation. Ramon's clothing appear sturdy; the working mining family would have generally been very dirty and their clothing thread bare and tattered. Ramon has a pen in the pocket of his shirt. Even though these miners are portrayed as very impoverished, their clothing are only lightly soiled and it gives them an elevation in class, as if to say they are not as lowly as one may think. In fact, not only are they not as lowly but they are not just laborers, these people think, write, and perhaps have a just cause.

Although the officers and strikers are at the same sight all day, the officers are clean and the workers have a thin veneer of dust covering them. This costuming choice shows the director wanted to portray the officers as clean outside but dirtied by their corrupt actions and the workers as touched by their circumstance but not sullied. The music ends as this shot ends, abruptly and we cut to the next shot. This transition leaves the images of the final handcuffing and the beginning of the next step of the journey to the imagination of the viewer.

In one shot, Salt of the Earth, convinces the viewer to champion the cause of the working man. The power of resistance rhetoric in film production is evident in this shot analysis. The themes of social consciousness are woven into the fabric of the movie as the worker's portrayed are woven into the fabric of a society that equates race with class.

Home of the Brave and Freudian Concepts -the psyche version

Treating Psychosomatic Illness in Home of the Brave (1949)

A paralyzed African-American soldier, Private Peter Moss begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an "outsider". The soldier's compatriots include his lifelong friend Finch, whose death leaves him racked with guilt, a racist loudmouth Corporal, and Sergeant Mingo, all white. In one of the film's crucial scenes, the camp doctor attempts to force Moss to overcome his paralysis by yelling a racial slur at him, in an attempt to recreate the traumatic event at the root of the paralysis. Moss suffers a somatic illness, paralysis of the legs. This occurs after he is forced to leave a wounded friend to save the maps they had come for. Complicating this was an argument, had moments before the friend was shot, where his friend almost used a racial epitaph. Though unsaid, the damage was done; Moss understood and was hurt and angry. When his friend is shot Moss suffers survivors guilt from different avenues. First, Moss felt guilty for leaving his friend behind and especially because he was awarded for the good work of retrieving the maps. He also felt guilty because he was glad he had survived but Moss does not immediately recognize this.
Treatment in Home of the Brave was considered successful because Moss could walk. Supposedly from this point on, Moss will never again kowtow to prejudice. The apex of the film is not the discovery that fears of not being accepted are at the root of Moss’ inability to walk, as the film would lead you to believe, but in the moment the character accepts that he is just like everyone else despite the way others may see him. It is in the final scene that this occurs. Sergeant Mingo and Moss are waiting for transport home; they discuss Moss’ treatment. Moss finds freedom from his neurosis with the epiphany that he is “just like everyone else.” Not only is the back-story of the somatic paralysis valuable for elucidations on Freud’s thoughts on repetition required in treating traumatic neuroses but also it provides a platform for examining the scene with the doctor where the evolution of 25 years of psychoanalytic practice takes place within the framework of one sequence (18).
Moss was sent to a psychiatric doctor because other doctors could find nothing physically wrong with him. The nature of somatic illness is a physical representation of a psychological problem. The Doctor knows he will only have Moss under his care for a short time so he attempts to give him tools to combat his “illness”. Moss’ illness is manifested rage at his own feelings of inferiority and of not belonging because he is black; Finch, his lifelong friend, called him Nigger. Somatic illness is the projection of internal threats outward; one is more vulnerable to internal threats because one has no means of fortifying against oneself as one could against an external threat. Moss was better able to deal with the loss of his walking ability it was an acceptable outward threat to replace the internal, more difficult internal threat of truly being inferior (30). The interaction between Moss and the Doctor is wrought with the tension of the memories being experienced by Moss as the internal threat touches upon the borderline between repression of his fears and acknowledgment of them.
This scene is just after the hypnosis where the Doctor discusses what Moss remembers. The Doctor questions Moss and corrects the answers when Moss recounts incorrectly. Early psychoanalysis consisted of interpretation according to Freud. This is clearly the Doctor having full control of the session, decoding for the patient the diagnosis as he sees it to be. “Do you remember how you got out?” the Doctor fires the question rapidly, Freud points out the “art” was to uncover resistances to the diagnosis as quickly as possible (18). “Mingo” answers Moss. “NO. Not Mingo it was TJ. TJ carried you”, the Doctor informs him. “Oh Yeah” Moss replies weakly. He continues to question Moss about his feelings when Finch used the racial slur and tells Moss this is the cause of the paralysis. He explains Moss was angry at Finch and was glad he was shot, but not in the way Moss feels so guilty about. Moss feels guilty because he thinks his feeling of gladness was because of what Finch said. He was glad it was Finch who was shot and not he. These mixed feelings of guilt and shame cause Moss to feel he should not have been able to leave Finch; the somatic conversion occurs and Moss could not physically leave due to paralysis. After explaining all this to Moss, the Doctor tells him that he is not so different in an attempt to bring the crux of the problem to the light for Moss, the objective being to bring what was unconscious into the conscious mind (18). He tells him many soldiers feel the same way when they see a buddy die or injured. He asks Moss to repeat the explanations and Moss does. Repeating is an important step in therapeutic success and it plays a number of roles in this film as discussed further on in this essay. The Doctor then asks him if he believes the explanation. Moss merely replies, “I want to”. He explains, “Sure I believe it up here (points to head) because you say so but I don’t really know if I really believe it up here (points to heart). I’m sorry Doc.” It is not enough, as early psychoanalysts did, to tell the patient what is wrong with them (18). The patient can only be cured when they have as Freud puts it “conviction of the correctness of the construction that has been communicated to him”; he believes and understands the diagnosis (19). Freud’s use of the word “construction” makes clear that the actual work of putting together the cause with the effect is still being done by the analyst. Now it is the patient’s work to understand the steps needed to free his conscious mind from the repressed desire building upon the initial work of the therapist.
This is where Hollywood movie making apparatus take creative license with the psychoanalytic process because the Doctor recreates the traumatic event by using a racial slur to anger Moss into walking, moments after explaining the diagnosis. This repetition is important but not exactly the impetus to making everything all better. Moss relives the moment of anger instead of remembering it. Because the patient did not believe his guilt was related to surviving but was related to his guilt over his anger, the traumatic event treated was the betrayal of his friend. The traumatic event of experiencing prejudice over ones ethnicity that results in feelings of shame and inferiority are deeply entwined with Moss’s desire to be like everyone else. War itself is another event that affects our main character and cannot be separate from the others because the natures of the traumas are the same, shame and guilt. The overlapping causes for Moss’ condition is another element of repetition. Because remembering places the traumatic event in the past, it is in remembering that healing begins to take place. Identifying the events causing the problem is, again, the “construction” work. Repeating the event in “real time” emotionally with enough force to generate movement in his limbs is in conflict with Freud’s view that the analyst must ensure the patient “maintains some aloofness” (19). There is no aloofness in this scene so Moss should not have been able to walk.
Not only should Moss continue to be unable to walk but also the act of transference needs to take its final steps, relinquishment of the doctor from his role as proxy. The treatment is only beginning although the movie cures Moss for entertainment purposes. The Doctor took on the roll of Finch, as aggressor, in using the racial term against Moss and a proxy for the justified anger Moss felt toward Finch but could not display because Finch was dead and he had left him there. This transference, as it is called when the doctor takes on the role of the “other” during treatment, is a tenuous line to walk because as these bonds are built to encourage abandonment of the resistances to treatment the patient may exhibit (18). Transference is another form of repetition needed to create a bond of trust between the analyzed and analyst. However, in order for treatment to be fully realized the patient must be able to de-realize the analyst.
When simply interpreting the diagnosis for Moss does not work, the Doctor then uses the next evolutionary step Freud outlines and asks the patient to confirm the doctor’s construction from his own memory (18). This repeating, alluded to earlier, is not as negative as the previous version where the patient is reliving a traumatic act. In this scene repetition is also used as a therapeutic tool. Moss is told repeatedly by the Doctor that he is “no different, no different at all.” This is said in a few ways but the message is the same and clear, the Doctor is trying to impress upon Moss that his problem lies within his ability to believe for himself that he is no different from others. Again, just telling him over and over that he is no different could only illicit the response that Moss “want[s] to” believe.
Litany is used, as a rhetorical tool several times throughout the film, to introduce the audience to the emotional intensity the character is experiencing. In the scene just before Moss encounters Finch, Moss cries woefully as he drops to his knees chanting “Nigger, Nigger, Nigger, Nigger” pounding his legs with his fists. The film offers the audience the cause of his “illness” in this moment if they can see it without the onscreen explanation to come. When Moss cradles the dying Finch in his arms he rocks him back and forth whispering in despair, “No God” repeatedly. Moss presents for the audience yet another chance to experience his pain when he finds he cannot walk. His distress is palpable as he first says, “No, I can’t leave him” referring to leaving Finch so they can rendezvous with the rescue boat, then increasing as he realizes that he cannot physically leave. Moss utters excitedly, “I can’t move, NO! I can’t. I can’t walk. I can’t move, I can’t.” He is ultimately carried to safety. The litany of the Doctor is no different from that of Moss. The Doctor says to Moss, “Listen to me. You are no different” and that is submitted to the audience to understand and believe, thus curing society of the malady of racial classifications.
This brings us to the final step in the evolution of psychoanalytic practice covered in the movie and the final scene, the moment of conviction. In this scene Moss is talking with a liberal Sergeant Mingo about his treatment. Moss tells Mingo that treatment is an ongoing process and Mingo claims he understands just how Moss felt. He told him he has often felt grateful that it was the guy next to him that got shot or killed instead of him. This moment in the scene highlights the epiphany Moss experiences immediately. Excitedly, Moss asks Mingo to “ repeat what you just said Mingo.” Mingo repeats several lines and at insistent prompting from Moss, he finally repeats, “Sure I’ve felt like that, everyone has”; elaborating he repeats the sentiment that every soldier, in that situation, has a moment where he is glad it was not his turn to die. This above all the Doctor’s exaltations provides Moss with the “conviction” necessary for cure. His buddy Mingo had echoed the thoughts that had shamed Moss, causing him guilt. This single moment of solidarity released Moss from his guilt about surviving because other soldiers had the same experience and this proved he was like everyone else. The shame of feeling inferior is also relinquished because now Moss is able to absorb the rest of the doctor’s construction because of his newfound solidarity with humanity. Because Moss could believe he was no different than anyone else he can appropriately place his anger at Finch’s careless words in the past, in its safe position of remembering not reliving.
Psychoanalytic elements of repetition are replete in the film Home of the Brave. The use of litany in the characters dialogue supports the sense of work needed to combat traumatic neuroses. The audience participates in the therapy of Moss. The audience is reminded, as Moss is told repeatedly, that Moss is no different from any other soldier, black or white. In the time the film was produced, 1949, this message would have met an audience who lived segregation daily. The audience would have to work in viewing this film to combat the traumatic event of racism present in their own world. Moss is compelled into repetition of the initial trauma of recognizing his difference when his friend points it out; the audience is guided through repetition in order to liberate the repressed thoughts of racial inequalities in a safe manner, leading to healing for both. The guide, the Doctor for Moss, is also the psychoanalytic device of repetition in the form of litany for the audience. The evolution of psychoanalytic treatment follows the natural steps one takes to resolve repressed impulses. The interpretation of the neurosis by the analyst, the presentation of the diagnosis to the patient, and the final epiphany the patient must come to are paralleled by the occurrence of the initial traumatic event, recognizing the compounding, loosely related subsequent traumatic events, and finally the epiphany experience of understanding and believing the truth or falseness of the perceptions. Home of the Brave was billed as a “psychological thriller” and indeed it offers a wealth of Freudian concepts to explore.


Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: WW Norton, 1961.
Robson, Mark. Home of the Brave. Stanley Kramer Productions. 1949. University of California, Berkeley. Media Resource VHS: 999:3670.