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Repression: A Reexamination of the Concept as Applied to Folktales
Author(s) -
Johnson Allen
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.1998.26.3.295
Subject(s) - psychoanalytic theory , unconscious mind , psychological repression , id, ego and super ego , agency (philosophy) , psychoanalysis , epistemology , psychology , sociology , social psychology , philosophy , biochemistry , gene expression , chemistry , gene
Psychoanalytic anthropologists assume that folktales often reflect unconscious beliefs and attitudes of listeners, who can tolerate anxiety‐provoking images and messages (perhaps wish fulfillments) because these have been projected at a safe distance into the characters in the story. Here I argue that our theory for how such a process occurs is inadequate in terms of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. We need to reexamine a number of questions for which we may have assumed we already have answers, including the nature of repression and how it is accomplished; who or what "hears" an unconscious idea that has been collectively repressed when it is expressed in a folktale; and whether Freud's structural model of id‐ego‐superego can provide an adequate theoretical framework for understanding how unconscious ideas find their way into "expressive culture." I examine these questions in light of a folktale collected among Brazilian peasants. I conclude by questioning the central importance of the ego in repression, and propose a concept of a whole, or supraordinate, self to describe the actual agency in charge of repression.