"The Return of the Repressed"

Diana.

After class last Monday, I understood Norman O’Brown’s chapter on the Protestant Era much better. I found some things a little farfetched; the psychoanalysis, that is. Yet the anal eroticism was very much in our face.

We all  have learned about the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther over and over again. However I don't think we learned about it from this point of view. It makes me look at this subject very differently, much deeper than I have learned in other classes. It’s a whole new side that I would have never thought about without these ideas. Brown argued that Protestants show the return of anal eroticism.

It was interesting to see artwork by Bosch, who put these ideas of the time in color for someone to imagine and feel. It was quite eerie to see the bird-like devil eating and defecating human beings. However those images made me understand much better. I really saw how the people of that time were so concerned with the devil and all things devilish.

I enjoyed the whole chapter, it was quite interesting to read and talk about in class. One thing that caught my attention during the lecture about this section was a quote from Freud saying that we are “polymorphishly perverse.” This means that there are many forms of perversity or sexuality. Infants take in pleasure from every part of their body without shame. They love to be touched and soothed just about anywhere because it comforts and relaxes them. As one grows up, society influences them little by little and teaches that the libido is only genital eroticism.

This made me think of the biblical story of The Creation: Adam and Eve. Once they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they realized that they were naked and became shameful. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” This is from Genesis chapter 1, The Creation according to J. Civilization has designated sexual pleasure only to male and female genitals. Adam and Eve learned to be shameful of these parts that give them pleasure.