2012年第32期（总第47期）
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SCIENCE &TECHNOLOGY VISION 科技视界1Introduction
Tenne Williams is one of the most significant playwrights of the twentieth century,and almost the most important of American Southern Dramatists.He ’s a playwright of great psychological depth.He frequently deals with intricate relationships among individuals,as well as neurosis and psychological disintegration.Williams ’characters em frequently to be fractured and incure,relating dysfunctionally without intimate connection to others or confident lf-identity.
aectA Streetcar Named Desire is his masterpiece,in which the heroine —Blanche got huge attention and remark from literary critics.To some extent,Blanche ’s tragic destiny has confirmed Freud ’s Psychoanalysis Theory.This thesis aims at analyzing the ways that Blache behaves by using Psychoanalysis Theory and focus on the ways that the Id,the Ego and the Superego of Blanche ’s personalities influence her destiny as a whole.
2Analyze Blanche ’s tragic destiny by applying Freud ’s Psychoanalysis Theory
Freud divides each person ’s personality into three parts:the Id,the Ego and the Superego.The Id is the part of the personality that contains our primitive impuls,such as thirst,anger,hunger and the desire for instant gratification or relea.Freud believes that the Id is bad on our pleasure principle.Ego is the part of the personality that maintains a balance between our impuls (our Id)and our conscience (our Superego).The ego is bad on the reality principle.The ego works to regulate the conflict between the two.Superego reprents a kind of moral restriction that confines Id.Superego and Id are at the opposition position.Superego directs ego to confine id ’s impulsion.According to Freud,the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id,the ego,and the superego.The maladjustment of their relationship is the origin of people ’s psychogenic behavior disorder.2.1Split Personality
Split Personality is a psychiatric diagnosis,which refers to multiplicity of character,or double personality.In medical terms,Split Personality is defined as a “Dissociative Disorder ”,the main syndrome of which is that the sufferer dissociates his consciousness or memory which will arou his spiritual miry to protect himlf;while two or more independent personalities in him emerge,thus losing the integrity of his
identity.This term is commonly ud to indicate a contradictory or drastically and dramatically alterna
ting type of behavior.A person with Split Personality has two or more Egos,each framented from the big original one,working independently and smoothly to the effect that they coexist in one person.2.2Neurosis
Neurosis is a psychological disturbance,encompassing various mild forms of mental disorder.According to Freud,neuros are manifestations or symptoms of anxiety-producing unconscious matter.Some thoughts are too painful to bear,but they must find some expressions.The symptoms of Neurosis “are esntially substitute gratifications for unfulfilled xual wishes ”(Freud,A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis ,310).In Neurosis,the Ego suppress part of the Id out of allegiance to reality;whereas,in Psychosis,it lets itlf be carried away by the Id and detached from a part of reality.
Neurosis is a kind of mild mental illness.Psychosis is a vere psychic dia.Split Personality is a psychological phenomenon not so normal or an inclination to be a Neurosis.
In the play,when Blanche found out that her beloved poet husband,Allen is a disgusting homoxual,she is shocked and heart broken.She cries at her loving husband:“I know!I know!You disgust me!...(Williams,184)After that,Allen commits suicide.This event was the critical moment in he
r life that she lost her innocence.From then on,she escape from the prent reality into her fantasy world.Blanche has been traumatized by Allen ’s suicide:“He ’d stuck the revolver into this mouth,and fire so that the back of his head had been blown away ”(Williams,184).She cannot have peace whenever she gets nervous until she hears the sound of a shot in her mind.She could never walk out the compulsive reminiscence on her husband.She suffers from traumatic neurosis.2.3Sigmund Freud ’s Psychoanalysis Theory
Freud reforms the concept of Personality into three psychic parts:the Id,the Ego and the Superego.The Id is the rervoir of libido (or libidinal energies that are directed toward need gratification),which is the unconscious part of mind,eking immediate satifaction of desires.It follows the pleasure principle.The Ego is the pacificator between the Id and the Superego under the governing of the reality principle,which is characterized by a desire for independence,autonomy and lf-direction.Superego is the idealized image that a person builds of himlf in respon to authority and social pressures,and is dominated by the
从弗洛伊德的精神分析理论解读《欲望号街车》中
布兰奇的悲剧命运
黄志颜
(广州工程技术职业学院广东
广州
残疾鉴定标准
510075)
【摘要】本论文的宗旨在于通过运用精神分析理论分析《欲望号街车》中的女主角布兰奇的行为，重点放在分析布兰奇性格特征中的本我，自我和超我影响着她的命运。文章探讨了布兰奇的人格分裂，神经衰弱，她内心的冲突，她的幻想与现实的矛盾和内心的压抑导致精神崩溃，最终产生不可避免的悲剧命运。
雀鲷【关键词】精神分析；本我；自我和超我；悲剧命运
Blanche ’s Tragic Destiny in A Streetcar Named Desire from the Perspective of Freud ’s Psychoanalysis Theory
HUANG Zhi-yan
（Guangzhou Institute of Technology,Guangzhou Guangdong ，510075）
一本倒
【Abstract 】This thesis aims at analyzing the ways that Blache behaves by using Psychoanalysis Theory and focus on the ways that the Id,the Ego and the Superego of Blanche ’s personalities influence her destiny.It is intended to probe deeply into Blache ’s split personality,neurosis,conflicts within Blanche,ality and suppression lead to her complete psychological collap.The analysis has shown how her act inevitably results in a tragic conquence.
【Key words 】Psychoanalysis ；The Id ；The Ego and the Superego ；Tragic destiny
作者简介：黄志颜(1980—)，女，广东罗定人，广东外语外贸大学英文学院，英语语言文学专业，硕士，讲师，主要研究方向为英语语言文学、英语教学。
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morality principle.
Freud thinks that the Id,the Ego,and the Superego are always in conflicts.They make perpetual interactions and conflicts among them,which promotes the development of the personality.The Ego acts as a balance coordinator between Id and Superego.If the Id is over represd,or if it goes too far,abnormal personality happens.
3Conflicts
3.1Conflicts within Blanche
Blanche ’s Split Personality lies between her Id and Superego which is externalized in the antagonism between her soul and body.Traumatic experience repeated in her mind compulsively,forcing her to resort to a Transference to relea her nervousness.After that,she goes to the excessive u of her phantasy-making which is reprented in the conflicts of illusion versus reality.In her unconscious,she wishes to forget her traumatic experience and indecent past.However,the reality always defeats her phantasy.According to Freud,“Most people construct fantasies at times in their lives ”(Freud,Creative Writer and Day-Dreaming ,37).But she can never manage her libido which is accumulating by her in appropriate phantasy.She ’s a person of contrast:
purity and lechery,elegance and hypocrisy,desire and despair coexists in her.
Blanche suffers from the trauma left by her husbands ’s death.This central event has triggered Blanche ’s neurosis and personal n of despair.In order to ek mental peace,her rational Ego is at work.Her Ego unconsciously operates Defen Mechanisms,endeavoring to gain control over the demands of the instincts,such as Transference.She transfer her desire to looking for some protection or human contact out of her panic and guilt.She lives in a cocoon of unreality to protect herlf against her weakness and shortcomings,including her inability to repress xual desire.In order to prerve her ego,she lies about her promiscuous behavior;she shuns bright light,lest it reveal her physical imperfections;and she refus to acknowledge her problem with alcohol,etc.
歌手张杰When Blanche utters “Death …The opposite is desire ”(Williams,135)she suggests that there is an ultimate dichotomy wherein one must choo either to succumb to one ’s desire or to fight them.Ultimately,she cannot balance the tension between the two conflicting aspects of herlf —the percuting anti -libidinal ego eking banishment of her “dirty ”xuality that is associated with a needy libidinal ego.The forces between the two contradictory esnces within her ultimately overwhelm her entire being,and even her central ego is sucked into the conflict.Hence,she descends into madness.3.2Illusion vs.Reality
In reality,Blanche is an aging woman who cannot cope with the actualities of life.She makes up wild stories,and when Stanley Kowalski,her brother-in-law,rapes her,the realities of life cau her to drift into absolute lunacy.
The fact that she feels dirty is apparent throughout the play.Blanche bathes repeatedly,as shown in the following quote:
STANLEY:“How long she been in there?STELLA:“All afternoon.”
STANLEY:“Soaking in a hot tub ”
…
STELLA:“She says it cools her off for the evening ”(Williams,112).Her act of bathing is indeed redemptive.“Hello,Stanley!Here I am,all freshly bathed and scented,and feeling like a brand-new human being!”(Williams,115).Blanche is frantic to cling to her psychic purity —compromid as it has been by the split caud with Allen ’s death.She fears that this psychic “dirt ”(attached to an anti -libidinal ego)will destroy her:“I shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day ”(Williams,116).So acute is her fear of her dirt being revealed that physical dirtiness terrifies her.
“I take hot baths for my nerves.Hydrotherapy,they call it ”(Williams,145).She us bathing as a therapy,a make -believe purification to ea her traumatic neurosis and to escape from reality.In Scene three,Blanche says:“I think I will bathe …My nerves are in
knots.”(Williams,145)In Scene eleven,before she is nt to the asylum,she comes out from bathing with “faintly hysterical vivacity ”(Williams,218).According to Freudian Psychoanalysis,“wish -fulfillment is the meaning of every dream ”(Freud,Interpretation of Dreams ,45).The dreamer realizes his or her wish in the phantasy of dreams which can ’t be realized in reality.Blanche feels that she can dream freely and forget the past by enjoying her bath.Her interminable baths function as a metaphor for her need to clean of her sordid past and reputation,her need for emotional,spiritual and mental cleasing.
Besides bathing,Blanche often drinks alone cretly in order to escape from reality.In Scene One,when she stays alone,she suddenly breaks out of her dejected stupor.She pours a healthy shot of whiskey,downs it immediately.In Scene Nine,she drinks a lot to escape the haunt of her husband ’s death.She cries that she doesn ’t like realism and “want (s)magic.”She explains that her policy is to say what “ought ”to be true.This depiction reveals her attitude towards the real world.
When Mitch charges her of her shady past,at first,she tries to argue that she ’s morally upright.Finally,she breaks down and admits the truth through convulsive sobs and shots of liquor.Drinking alcohol is an anaesthesia to calm her inner conflicts.Both bathing and drinking function as conciliator to sooth her nerves as well as reconciling her inner conflicts.She then gets temporary escape from reality.
When Mitch faces breakup with Blanche,Blanche becomes desperate and unhinged.She es marriage as her only means of escaping from reality,so Mitch ’s rejection amounts to a ntence of living in her internal world.Once Mitch crushes the make -believe identity Blanche has constructed for herlf,she begins to descend into madness.
In her phantasy-making,Blanche ’s Superego is so oppressive that the libido energy of her Id finds no way to regularly relea itlf.It accumulates to such a degree that it becomes destructive to the well -being of her Ego.Phantasy -making can not repress her libido energy,which frequently fails to work for her Superego.Therefore,her Id power occasionally explode impulsively.When she lets go of the hold on her Id and relea her psychic energy,her nature is expod explicity.
风雨作Blanche is a dichotomous character.She is very proper in her appearance,to a sufficient degree as to
make her look quite inappropriate in the tting in which she finds herlf.Yet,she drinks fairly heavily,only to deny this moments later “No,one ’s my limit ”(Williams,108)and “…I rarely touch it ”(Williams,109).Her drinking is a eming contradiction to her character and her effort in covering it up heightens this contradiction.It is obvious that Blanche is hiding something beneath her demure exterior.
In Scene five,when she flirts and duce the young newspaper boy,Blanche reveals her hypocrisy,she is lustful underneath her genteel,morally upright facade.For her,he is a psychic reprentation of Allen.Her long represd Id abreacts.Soon after she approaches him with a romantic kiss,she orders the boy to leave by saying:“Now run along,now,quickly!It would be nice to keep you,but I ’ve got to be good and keep my hands off children.”(Williams,174)The ntences reveals the conflict between her body and soul,between her Id and Superego.Her Superego gets the run upon Id.She cretly indulged in forbidden acts becau she could not find a stable outlet for her desires.
As the identity Blanche has constructed for herlf begins to disintegrate,she begins to lo ground in her battle against Stanley.Stanley questions Blanche about her acquaintanceship with Shaw,she pretends not to know Shaw.Blanche ’s jitteriness and her need to hide herlf from the outside world
have suggested that she also had a past to hide.The emerging facts of Blanche ’s past begin to confirm the hypocrisy of her social snobbery.Her fantasies control her,she shrinks from the horror of reality.Her fears of acknowledging reality overpower her and prevent her from telling the truth.
Blanche ’s final statement to the doctor in the play,“Whoever you are —I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”This statement is ironic.Harris suggests that “Blanche is not a nymphomaniac ”(Perceptual Conflict and the Perversion of Creativity in A Streetcar
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SCIENCE &TECHNOLOGY VISION 科技视界Named Desire ,92),for Blanche is just in need of someone who ’s with sympathy and kindness to share her pains,to relea her from the cealess c
ompulsions,and to compensate for her cruelty to Allen with love.In Scene nine,she says that she panicked after Allen ’s death and looked to strangers for human companionship to fill her loneliness.It ’s just a Transference.In fact,strangers have been kind only want to exchange for x.Blanche ’s final remark indicates her total detachment from reality and her decision to e life only as she wishes to perceive it.
Blanche ’s pursuit of physical pleasure reprents her unrestrained instinctual impul of Id,resulting in her degenerating into prostitution.However she is tortured by her n of morality which is from her Superego.Suban Yankowitz thinks her “flesh-spirit split ”(Kolin,Tenne Williams:A Guide to Rearch and Performance ,201-02).It ’s an “inner tug -of -war ”where “Blanche ends up tragically divided from herlf ”(Ibid.).Her Id and Superego are in constant conflicts that gradually develop into an intangible but overwhelming crush on her Ego.
Blanche ’s final descent into the depths of her fantasy occurs during her climactic confrontation with Stanley in Scene Ten.In the face of Stanley ’s physical threat,the epitome of true reality,she falls to total madness.“Lurid reflections appear on the walls around Blanche.The shadows are of a grotesque and menacing form.”(Scene 10)The “lurid reflections ”reprent the extent to which Blanche has been overcome by fantasy,for until this point she had altered reality as she wished,she
altered it to fit her fantasy.However,she is no longer able to do so,and succumbs completely to fantasy.If Stanley ’s rape is realism,then Blanche ’s world of dreams and fantasies are better alternatives.3.3Suppression
As the title indicates,A Streetcar Named Desire explores the destinations to which desire leads.Blanche was born into a society that required the suppression of desire.She is the victim of a culture that has unhealthily represd its connection to primal and natural urges.Her culture also forbids love to cross boundaries of class,race,and “normal ”gender relationships.To her,this means that all but a narrow realm of x is illicit,demonized and taboo.The suppresd desire of Blanche and her forebears erupted from time to time in “epic fornications ”.From Freudian perspective,Blanche ’s ancestors paid for their lust with their wealth,and Blanche pays with her sanity.
4Conclusion
A Streetcar Named Desire prents a tragic picture of Blanche DuBois,a woman who ems doomed to lo in a struggle between civility and primitivism,purity and xual longing,and most poignantly of all,between death and desire.
This thesis have discusd Blanche ’s tragic destiny from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis.Blanche is constantly tortured by her individual neurosis.She immers herlf into phantasy -making by using compulsion and transference to escape from reality.The analysis has shown how her act inevitably results in her complete psychological collap.Blanche ’s tragic captivity between civility and xual impul,fuelled by anxiety and attempts to repair,has an inevitably tragic conquence.
Suffering from a vere split persnality,Blanche fails to adapt herlf to the harsh reality,which turns her into a tragic schizophrenic.Eventually,her desire leads to her tragic destiny.【References 】
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