The Sophisticated Thing

We finally did it.  We finished reading Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson today.  I am honestly just surprised no one died in the last chapter of the book.  In all seriousness, though, the book ended on a much happier and optimistic note than I thought it would.

The story before the final story Departure, is entitled Sophisticated and is actually an uplifting and beautiful story that I could go on and on about.  I really related to this story because it is about teenagers transitioning from childhood to adulthood.

As George talks about leaving the small suburban town he has lived in his whole life to begin a new chapter in his life, it was hard not to relate since we seniors will be leaving our hometowns we have known our whole lives to start our new lives as young adults.  “Ambitions and regrets awake within” George, just as all of us seniors who are applying to college have ambitions to succeed in majors of our choice and one day find a great job, but also have regrets about our past choices (234).  I know personally that if I could go back in time, I would make different decisions in school that I believe would have influenced where I end up spending the next four years of my life growing and learning.  George feels like he hears “the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life” just as we seniors, while having aspirations, also fear our limitations (234).  We fear the limits of our abilities, our financial limits, and the limits of our potential in this world.  George goes “From being quite sure of himself and his future” to “not at all sure” (234).  I feel the same way about my future.  One moment I feel confident of my abilities and my academic plans for the future and the next minute I’m doubting myself and stressing I will not get into the colleges or programs that I want to be in.

The story continues to talk about George’s, as well as Helen’s, transition to manhood/womanhood.  The story is called sophistication because the “little animal struggles”, the id impulses, that were in conflict with the “the thing that reflects and remember [...] the more sophisticated thing”, the superego, have finally died down (240).  The “more sophisticated thing had possession of George Willard” meaning that his childhood is ending and his superego is now fully developed.  As a teenager, I also relate as I am at the point in my life where I am starting to form a fully developed superego and possession of the “sophisticated thing”.  As we teenagers mature, our id impulses slowly die down and our superego continues to develop to allow us to function maturely in society.

The story however is not just about the importance of the superego and maturity.  Rather, it is about as people mature, it is important and healthy to sometimes use the defense mechanism of regression and regress momentarily back to a time of childhood innocence.  George and Helen are excited to show each other their new mature natures, but feel somewhat awkward once they meet.  When they finally stop feeling embarrassed and start embracing their youth, they have a great time just laughing and rolling down a hill.  As we seniors start to feel the pressure to act like proper, mature adults, it is important to also occasionally embrace the innocence of childhood whether that is laughing about a silly joke or dressing up for spirit week.  It is important like George and Helen to take “hold of the thing that makes the mature life of men and women in the modern world possible” (243).  

Together in Isolation

As we continue to read more and more short stories from Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, it seems clear that no matter the story, there is at least one character that faces isolation and/or loneliness.

Most people feel alone at certain points in their lives but constant loneliness is unhealthy and can lead to many of the behaviors seen exhibited by the characters in the town of Winesburg.  In Adventure, Alice engages in the defense mechanism denial as she waits for a man that she loves, Ned Currie, to return to Winesburg.  He of course never returns and she feels isolated and lonely.  Not only does the man she love find himself a new life without her, her mother finds a new husband after Alice’s father dies.  Alice even says that “‘I want to avoid being so much alone’” and she attempts to spend time with a drug clerk (118).  Between losing the man she loves, her father, and her mother to another man, Alice has no one close to her in her life to love her.  Alice’s isolation makes her so upset that she has a psychotic break and runs naked through the rain.  

In The Thinker, Seth Richmond feels isolated because he feels that he does not belong in the town.  Seth says that, “‘George belongs to this town’” and that “‘I don’t belong’” because George is outgoing and talkative(137).  Seth believes because he is not talkative, but rather a quiet “thinker” that he does not fit in.  He struggles to relate and interact with others in his small town which causes him to want to leave so he can escape the feeling of loneliness and isolation.

In Mother, Elizabeth Willard, the mother of George Willard becomes isolated and lonely.  Her husband sucks the vitality out of Elizabeth who is described as ghostly, and he takes control of everything Elizabeth has, including the hotel she owns that is named for her husband (the “New WIllard House”).  Elizabeth has nothing and she certainly has no loving husband.  She is extremely jealous of her husband’s relationship with her son and even wants to kill Tom.  This oedipal conflict in reverse (Elizabeth views Tom, her husband, as a revival that must be eliminated) leads to further loneliness as she feel distant from her son.  Eventually, however, Elizabeth lets go of her desires to keep her son for herself and tells George that ,“‘I think you had better go out among the boys’”(48).  Once Elizabeth gives up the struggle to keep her son, she truly has no one and is lonely and isolated from her family.

The theme of isolation and loneliness can be found in every short story we have read so far in Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.  Each of the main characters in each story have different personalities, family backgrounds, and lives, but all of them live together in isolation.

Mental Health, Summer Reading, and John Oliver

My favorite television show (in the whole world) is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.  While it is technically a comedy show, each week the host, John Oliver, picks one topic to do a “deep dive” story on that can range from 11-30 minutes.  These deep dives are not just hilarious but informative.  It just so happened that this week he picked the topic of “Mental Health”.  He discussed the treatment of people with mental illnesses as well as what role mental health actually plays in gun violence in this country.  He also discussed the history of mental health care in the United States.  He brought up that patients used to be put in horrid asylums and that now many mentally ill people either receive no help or end up in prison.  

Since the start of the year, psychoanalysis and mental illnesses have been focal points in our discussion of literature.  We have discussed many characters who have exhibited various mental illnesses.  While this week we focused on defense mechanisms and how they are used in Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, I wanted to take one last look at our summer reading as it directly relates to this week’s main story on Last Week Tonight.  As John Oliver talked this week, I could not help but think back to our summer reading again, and I began to reflect on the different ways the mentally ill characters in our summer reading were treated.

In Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nicole goes to a mental hospital to receive help.  This story takes place in the 1920s, and I could not help thinking that Nicole seems to get better treatment than many mentally ill people today.  Nicole is carefully attended to by intelligent psychiatrists who are doing the best they can to help her recover from the traumatic sexual abuse she suffered at a young age.  While the type of “mental hospital” she stayed in is obviously outdated, she is never thrown in prison or targeted by violence for her condition.  Dick Diver wants to do everything he can to help her.  He writes her letters and visits her.  While Dick’s behavior becomes unhealthy as he falls in love with her, he and the other psychiatrists who thought that Dick writing to her would be helpful, are trying to do what they think is best for Nicole.  Of course, Nicole is rich, and her family can afford for her to go to one of the best mental hospitals.  Nicole’s experience is most likely atypical for a mental patient in the 1920s.

In The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther, unlike the Divers, refers to the places where she receives treatment as asylums.  While she seemed to have stayed in similar sorts of places as Nicole, this difference in terms is key.  Nicole, a rich, nice, beautiful, privileged girl, who is just getting “treatment at a mental hospital” while Esther, an average middle class girl who seems somewhat aware of her poor mental state, is getting treated in an “asylum”.  Esther, unlike Nicole, receives electroconvulsive therapy which was a fairly new treatment in the 1950s.  While ECT is very controversial, it can actually be a useful and successful way to help patients with severe depression and suicidal thoughts.  In the novel, when the shocks are delivered properly by Dr. Nolan , Esther’s depression lessens.  In general, Esther seems to receive great care.  Breakfast is brought to her and the other patients each morning and Dr. Nolan seems intent on comforting Esther throughout her stay.  Many of the patients as they get better are also allowed time to leave the asylum.  Essentially, Esther and the others are being rehabilitated so they will be able to re-enter society.  

Both Esther and Nicole receive what is proper treatment in regards to the technology and information available at the time.  It seems sad that Esther and Nicole in the 1920s and 1950s receive better treatment than some mentally ill people in the year 2015.  Not only has this country let so many mentally ill patients down due to a lack of comprehensive and organized systems for treatment, but it has allowed many mentally ill to end up in prison instead of receiving any care at all.  People are unfairly blaming the mentally ill for gun violence when there are statistics that show that the majority of the mentally ill are non-violent and that the majority of gun violence is committed by non-mentally ill people.  In fact, mentally-ill people are more likely to be the victims of violence.

  

Psychoanalytic Criticism and Summer Reading

Psychoanalytic criticism has been the focus of this week’s class.  Using psychology to analyze characters and text is very new to me.  As we discussed different defense mechanisms, it became clear that many of the characters in the summer reading books exhibited these defense mechanisms.

In The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther becomes so depressed that the only way she feels she can deal with her depression is through self-harm and attempts at suicide.  Others, like Jay Cee, contribute to Esther’s depression.  She asks what Esther’s plans for her life after college are, but Esther is unsure.  It is this pressure from others that contributes to Esther’s depression.  She ends up cutting herself with razor blades to make herself bleed, attempting to drown in the ocean, and overdosing on medication to kill herself.  When people’s negative feelings towards others turns inward unto themselves leading to self-harm, they exhibit the defense mechanism known as somatization.  Esther displays this immature defense mechanism leading to the need for psychological help.

In Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nicole clearly has a mental illness.  When she was very young her father sexually abused her leaving her mentally ill.  Nicole seems to exhibit the repression defense mechanism.  Repression is when one subconsciously shoves a traumatic memory to the subconscious so it does not affect one’s conscious.  Nicole never mentions in Dick’s recollection when she was 16 or at the present time what occurred to her as a child.  It seems that she has repressed this memory to her subconscious and that is has had devastating consequences.  Repression can lead to “illogical, self-destructive, or anti-social” behavior1 .  While Nicole tries to seem normal and sociable, she actually is somewhat anti-social.  During Nicole’s own party, Mrs. McKisco finds Nicole having a panic attack on the bathroom floor.  Nicole also exhibits illogical behavior such as when she is running away from Dick (and her children) for no reason when they visit a fair.

While it is simple to read these novels and just notice that some of the main characters have mental illnesses, it is much more interesting to analyze their mental conditions in depth.  Using psychoanalytic criticism, the reasons for the characters’ mental illnesses as well as the defense mechanisms they employ can be explored in depth.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_repression