Understanding a Human Mind Clarices Unexpected Knowledge - Literature Essay Samples

Renowned psychotherapist Alfred Adler once said, â€Å"Man knows much more than he understands.† This means that although we might be rich in education, we do not understand much of what we know. The Silence of the Lambs brings insight to this quote on a much deeper level. In the novel, and FBI trainee named Clarice Starling is given the opportunity to work in the high profile case of a serial killer named Buffalo Bill. Through her journey she befriends cannibal and serial killer Hannibal Lecter, who feeds her hints leading to the capture of Buffalo Bill. Lecter leaves Clarice with many pieces of knowledge, but it is up to her to understand what the knowledge truly means. In between interviewing Hannibal Lecter and examining bodies, Clarice Starling experiences many of Alfred Adler’s theories. In The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, female protagonist Clarice Starling embodies Adler’s theories of social interest and compensation, as well as the use of defense mechanisms, created by Alfred Adler. Clarice Starling demonstrates the theory of social interest through cooperating with others and valuing the common good over her own interests. While examining the body of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims, Jack Crawford, the agent in charge of the behavioral science unit at Quantico, makes the following observation about Clarice Starling, â€Å"Wherever this victim came from, whoever she was, the river had carried her into the country, Clarice Starling had a special relationship with her,† (Harris 75). Crawford can sense that Clarice has social interest through her automatic bond with the victim. He sees that Clarice is able to r elate to her even though she is dead, and through this â€Å"special relationship† Clarice can learn new things about the victim that will help the case. Through her ability to relate to victims in ways her colleagues cannot, Clarice demonstrates social interest because she uses these bonds and relationships to contribute to the common good of her work. This concept is shown even further when Clarice is convincing Crawford to let her search with the others for Buffalo Bill. Clarice explains to Jack, â€Å"The victims are all women and there aren’t any women working this. I can walk in a woman’s room and know three times as much about her as a man would know, and you know that’s a fact,† (Harris 274). Clarice is explaining to Crawford how her being a woman working on the case puts their team at an advantage because she is able to gain more information than a male can. Since she would be the only female working on the case, there would be some sense of discomfort for Clarice being surrounded by men all the time. However, her social interest allows her to brush this discomfort to the side in order to use her female brains to help save Catherine from Buffalo Bill. Starling’s social interest allows her to utilize every skill she has to work with others in order to achieve the goal of the greater good. S tarling demonstrates Alfred’s theory of compensation by attempting to overcome an inferiority complex as a result of her upbringing. While visiting the home of the wealthy Catherina Martin, the narrator explains, â€Å"Starling had done her time in boarding schools, living on scholarships, her grades much better than her clothes,† (Harris 191). The author is describing how Starling has had to compensate for her poor upbringing through her grades and schooling. Since Clarice grew up having â€Å"grades much better than her clothes† she has always had to compensate for her families financial background. Through her boarding schools and UVA education Starling was able to dissolve herself in a crowd of wealth students, which allowed her to counterbalance the reality of her home life. Clarice is the perfect example of Alfred’s theory of compensation because all her life she has worked hard and attended prestigious academies in order to compensate for her upbringing in a low-income household. Starling’s embodiment of this theory is show again when Clarice is recalling the accomplishments of her family members; the author narrates, â€Å"One of Starling’s uncles had his junior college degree cut on his tombstone. Starling had lived by schools, her weapon the competitive exam, for all the years there was no place else for her to go,† (Harris 266). Starling is the first in her family to ever attend and graduate from a real university. When Clarice had â€Å"no place else for her to go† she focused all her efforts into school to compensate for her aloneness and her family’s lack of accomplishment. Clarice Starling exemplifies Alfred’s theory of compensation throughout her life by pushing herself to excel in school in ord er to make up for the incompetence of her own family. Clarice uses defense mechanisms throughout the novel to separate herself from the unpleasant memories that inhibit her from doing her job. Before Clarice enters the house of Frederica Bimmel, Harris narrates, â€Å"She should hurry, but to think about why, to dwell on Catherine’s plight on this final day, would be to waste the day entirely. To think of her in real time, being processed at this moment as Kimberley Emberg and Fredrica Bimmel had been processed, would jam all other thought,† (Harris 282). The narrator is describing Clarice’s use of the defense mechanism repression. Repression allows a person to block out or push aside unwanted stressful or anxious thoughts. If Clarice were to focus on the thought of Catherine dying all day, she would â€Å"waste the day entirely† because of the stress and anxiety that accompany those thoughts. Clarice utilizes this defense mechanism in order to carry out her job to the best of her ability. This is further shown when Starling receives a call that a team is en route to potentially rescue Catherina Martin. Harris describes this scene as, â€Å"Still to be so close, to get a hand on the rump of it, to have a good idea a day late and wind up far from the arrest, busted out of school, it all smacked of losing. Starling and long suspected, guilty, that the Starlings’ luck had been sour for a couple of hundred of years now,† (Harris 299). Starling is upset because she feels as if she has lost the case while being so close to solving it. Instead of claiming responsibility for her misfortune, Starling attributes her loss to the bad luck that seems to continuously strike her family. This defen se mechanism is called denial. Starling refuses to accept that her lost might have been due to her actions, and instead suggests her misfortune is due to bad lucky. Starling uses this defense mechanism in order to keep her self-confidence, which allows her to carry out her job productively, along with the defense mechanism of repression. Clarice Starling exemplifies Adler’s theories of social interest, compensation, and defense mechanisms. Starling demonstrates social interest through bonding with and caring for victims, compensation by always trying her hardest to make up for her inadequate family, and defense mechanisms by clearing her head and attributing her misfortune to forces she cannot control. These theories demonstrate that although Starling has much knowledge, she does not understand what is going on inside her own head because she is not aware of these psychological happenings. Just like Adler said, â€Å"man knows much more than he understands.† Although we may be smart, we must remember we still do not understand most of what is happening inside our own heads. Works Cited Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York: St. Martins, 1988. Print.

Subconcious Motivations and Conscious Triggers of Clytemnestra in Agamemnon - Literature Essay Samples

From its first performance in Ancient Greece several centuries ago to present day, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon remains a quintessential example of the definitive Greek tragedy, continually captivating audiences with its progressive depiction of feminine complexity. In the play, women are represented by the anti heroine, Queen Clytemnestra of Mycenae, who in the climax of the first act, vindictively murders the titular King Agamemnon. While psychoanalytical and archetypical criticisms differ in regards to what desire inherently drives the character to murder her husband (power and freedom, or revenge) both identify that Clytemnestra is driven primarily by pre-existing subconscious desires (centered on her identity) that are only ‘realised and awakened’ by conscious life events, specifically, the death of her daughter Iphigenia. Although the term ‘femme fatale’ was not coined until the twentieth century, literary history has been continually blessed with images of strong women who use their sensuality to skillfully manipulate those around them. Clytemnestra, protagonist of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, is one such example. As Sneed writes, Aeschylus’s anti heroine ‘embodies every characteristic of a classic femme fatale’ by ‘avoiding traditional romance and domesticity.’ Even before her initial appearance, the watchman describes his queen as ‘a woman in passionate heart and man in strength of purpose’. The chorus also joins in, stating that the character ‘is a woman with no fear of the husband’ and who speaks ‘as wisely as a prudent man’. The awed, wary and even fearful tones in which supporting male characters describe the protagonist demonstrate the extent of which Clytemnestra disfigures typical ‘womanly behaviourâ⠂¬â„¢, with her cunning, intelligence and strength of purpose, thus justifying her femme fatalistic classification. By looking at other literary characters with the same archetype, the subconscious workings of Clytemnestra’s own character can be revealed. Femme fatale character arcs generally revolve around a pursuit of freedom, dominance and empowerment, achieved by eliminating figures that restrict them. Given this, Sneed concludes that Clytemnestra’s inherent motivation is her subconscious desire for power. This is not the only motivation that has been brought forward by literary critics. Alsop paints Clytemnestra as a vindictive individual seeking retribution for the gradual destruction of her identity by her husband. Again, the expositional speech of the chorus provides evidence for this particular motivation. The old men of Argos are heard calling their queen an ‘architect of vengeance’, and a ‘mother’ of ‘child-avenging fury’. Clytemnestra herself also betrays her grief in her dialogue. In her return speech, she compares the king to a tyrannous ‘Zeus’ who ‘tramples the bitter virgin grape’, alluding to the daughter he trampled in his war conquest. Additionally, her own justification of the murder: ‘he sacrificed his own child, she whom I bore,’ evokes strong emotional images of a devastated, grieving mother robbed of her motherhood and maternal identity. On a more psychosexually charged note, Alsop also suggests that Clytemnestra’s unconscious ‘male’ personality, also desires justice. This notion is also implied as she describes her husbands mistress Cassandra ,who lies dead beside him as someone who ‘†¦ has brought for my bed an added relish of delight.’ For Clytemnestra, Cassandra represents the unfair double standards of men and women regarding infidelity. Despite being in the same position of power as her husband, Clytemnestra was condemned for taking a lover and forced to deny her affair, while he was celebrated and rewarded with an object to commit adultery with. Thus, it can be ultimately concluded that she was driven to murder both for the repression/theft of her subconscious and conscious identities. Despite the obvious differences in what the two critiques believe to be Clytemnestra’s primary subconscious motives, both authors agree that without a conscious world event, these dormant desires would never have gained the ambition to reach action and cite the sacrifice of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s daughter by the latter, to be this igniting event. The name Iphigenia is never explicitly mentioned by any of the main characters. However, the brutal nature of her death is constantly alluded to leading up to the events of Agamemnon’s murder. The earliest occurrence of this is by the Chorus, who recounts the young girl’s final moments: ‘†¦the bridle chokes her voice†¦saffron robes pouring over the sand†¦glance like arrows showering/wounding every murderer through with pity.’. While the act of war sacrifice would be common in pre-democratic Greece, the vivid, melancholic passages strike the audience in the same way that they impac t the anti heroine, causing them to better understand and sympathise with her subsequent action. The resounding effects of Iphigenia’s demise are depicted in the entirety of The Oresteia’s first act, Agamemnon, which takes place ten years from the sacrifice. Clytemnestra is depicted to have shifted from an insignificant maternal figure to a hardened, independent woman, capable of running a kingdom in her husband’s absence. In addition to this, her vengeance has become intelligent—and she is able to recognise that patience is a necessary burden in exacting a perfect revenge. According to Sneed, this increased intelligence is awakened following the development of the protagonist’s animus (male identity), from one who simply craves physical power, to one that craves social power. This notion is indicated in her actions following the return of her husband to Argos, in which she utilises ‘Agamemnon’s patriarchal sense of value’ in her deception. By playing the part of the typical ‘submissive and modest’, ‘simpe ring’ ‘coy wife’, Clytemnestra demonstrates the patience required to exact the perfect revenge. In a similar way, Alsop also recognises that following the event, Clytemnestra exhibits a change in mentality. The murder of her daughter causes a ‘realisation’ of her identity’s continual repression, and also presents a means of which she can consciously, justify her later immoral action. This idea is demonstrated in her dialogue following the death of Agamemnon, in which she states that the late king was a ‘man who did her (me) wrong’. The quote presented highlights that while Iphigenia’s death causes the heroine grief, and allowed her to become the woman she was required to be, the event was not what she was truly avenging. Regardless of what motives ultimately drove her to murder, Aeschylus’ brilliant characterization of the Clytemnestra as both an avenger and villain can be ambivalently interpreted in two ways. It is possible that he wrote the character of with misogynistic intent to reflect Athenian attitudes and horrify his audience, something he was renown for. This has been put forward by several scholars who cite that common Athenian attitudes of the time would have ‘shuddered’ at the homicidal tendencies of a woman and consider her mad. This is reflected in the chorus’ attitudes to the murder of their king. More radically, the author was an early feminist who believed that the complexity of such a woman could cause reflection of the traditional gender role of women in society. This is supported in her character’s unrepressed ambition and drive, and also in the admiration of the strength of her character by the male characters surrounding her . Given the admirabl e strength of the character, the latter seems more potent as a plausible explanation. The given evidence above demonstrate that Aeschylus did not wish to present women as perfect, angelic beings or submissive vassals of men as they were traditionally portrayed in art. Rather, he chooses to depict them as average humans— capable of possessing inherent flaws and intimate desires, and acting on them as their male counterparts do. In the end, both critiques presented above are correct in their recognition and analysis of Clytemnestra’s possible motives for liberating action. However, to give one particular desire precedence over another then corrupts Aeschylus’ supposed intention. That is, to portray women as intrinsically complex human beings, equal to men. Given this, it is not possible to discern a single motive as the sole drive of Clytemnestra’s ambition without damaging her utter complexity. It is more fitting to say that the character was driven to murder by a myriad of reasons that cannot fully be comprehended by anyone other than Aeschylus himself.