Sigmund Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis and explains his concepts of the unconscious and conscious mind in his “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis.” Freud’s concepts impacted the psychological world and can be found throughout literature. In the story “It Was A Different Day They Killed the Pig,” by Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro, Freud’s ideas of wishful impulse and repression are shown through Aloisio’s experience of the killing of the pig; These two ideas are expressed in Aloisio’s change from being a child into an adult.

Wishful impulse is what one really wants in the unconscious mind, even though it goes against morality and societal expectations. The story states, “He wanted very, very much to be a man. He wanted nobody to be ever, ever be able to say that he had not been a man if only for an instant.” What Aloisio really wanted was to be a considered a man in front of his parents and society. The men in this society have all the power. The pig killers are the fathers, while the mothers prepare the food. The sow, a female pig who’s had piglets, is the one that is killed. One day Alosio would have to kill the pigs for his family, and his wife would expect him to know how to do it. If Aloisio could watch the killing of the pig, he would enter adulthood: “ But because he did not want to appear to be a boy who did not understand things and did not want people to say then that they would no longer allow him to see the killing of the pig.” He did not want anything to stop him from becoming a man. Aloisio did not question the killing, because he was afraid it would come in the way of his desire. He was still a child and should not be exposed to the killing, as shown by his feeling sick. The wishful impulse to grow up caused him to repress his feelings.

Repression is the attempt to block out one’s desires and impulses from the conscious mind. The desires and impulses don’t just go away, they exist in the unconscious mind. The story states, “…[the sow] knew that one day he would betray her and would be watching her execution in all coldness … But he spoke nothing of what he felt.” This quote shows Aloisio feeling useless and guilty because the pig is his friend and he cannot save her. All he could do is watch her die. Aloisio’s silence in the face of what he was truly feeling is his repression. He is aware that he cannot be feeling this way; his conscious mind bans these impulses and places them in the unconscious: “He had never known one could sweat so much… he exploded as if he were going to turn inside out.” The feelings build up, unable to be expressed emotionally. They need an outlet to be released, and are expressed physically.

In the story, it is every kid’s wishful impulse to see the killing of the pig. If they cannot witness the killing, they want to meet the man who was going to do it. All the children were excited and would pass the information onto the others.The children want to grow up because the adults get to make every decision. The men are the ones in charge and are expected to be stoic. Showing any type of emotion was looked upon as a sign of weakness. Aloisio wanted to cry, but he had to repress his feelings to get his father’s approval. He thought he wanted to see the killing of the pig, but it was not what he expected. A child seeing an animal slaughtered would traumatize them. Aloisio was traumatized because of the killing and was on the verge of breaking down and never being able to stop crying.

Aloisio wanted to experience manhood so he could be worthy to his parents and society. He was willing to do anything, even watch the killing of the pig. What started off as wishful impulse and desire, changed into repression and disgust. If he only knew what it took to really become a man, he probably would not have wished so hard to grow up. Aloisio had a friendship with the sow Noca and ended up being apart of her demise. The horrors he witnessed are always going to be a part of him. The death of the sow Noca first exists in his conscious and then is repressed into the unconscious mind. Wishful impulse and repression are expressed in Aloisio by his change from being a child into an adult through the killing of the pig.

Hysteria was a psychological condition that was associated with women in the early 1900s. Hysterical patients could not prove that they had hysteria, because it was a mental condition rather than a physical one. Sigmund Freud gave lectures on psychoanalysis where he explained hysteria as a mental condition that doctors did not indulge. Women were labeled with the term to disempower them in society. In the short stories,“Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” by Haruki Murakami and “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, hysteria appears in men rather than women, and demonstrates Sigmund Freud’s concepts of displacement and condensation.

Katagiri, the main character from “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” appears to be hysterical due to his hallucinations and his inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. The causes of his hallucinations of a giant frog in his living room could be linked to his past and present hardships. Katagiri faces isolation because the only family he has left does not want anything to do with him. Katagiri has always been alone, which makes him the perfect candidate for his job. Katagiri has a dangerous job where he could be killed at any moment, dealing with mobsters and loan sharks. His superiors and colleagues do not properly appreciate all the hard work and accomplishments that Katagiri has done for the bank. The story starts off with, “Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs” (Murakami,1). Katagiri hallucinates a giant frog in his apartment, the Frog gives him the respect that Katagiri always wanted. The Frog becomes his friend, something Katagiri never had. Immediately, hysteria appears challenging the hysterical stereotype of women. The Frog wants Katagiri’s help to defeat the Worm that will eventually cause a massive earthquake killing millions of people. The day before the battle, Katagiri is found unconscious on the road and is taken to the hospital. Katagiri thought he had been shot, but the nurse told him, “‘You didn’t have any external wounds’…[but] he had seen the pistol go off, aimed at him”

(Murakami, 15). The nurse goes on to tell him that he fainted on the street, and had awful nightmares. In the nightmares, he was screaming about Frog and Worm. Katagiri was so sure that he was shot with a pistol. In reality, he was having illusions of things that never happened. His hysteria became a problem because it was interrupting his life by bringing him to the hospital.

Condensation and displacement are concepts from  Freud’s dream-work. Condensation is defined as an object that has multiple meanings within a dream. Condensation is shown in the Frog because the Frog does not only represent Katagiri’s conscious mind but also the anger, isolation, and the respect that Katagiri deserved throughout the years. Katagiri first addresses the Frog as Mr. Frog and the Frog does not like that. “‘Please,’ Frog said, raising one finger again. ‘Call me ‘Frog’” ( Murakami, 3). The Frog here is giving Katagiri respect as a friend by having address him informally. The Frog wants to be his friend and have a connection with him, and symbolizes his need for respect. Katagiri’s anger is also symbolized in the Frog when the Frog expresses that he wants to get revenge on the people that Katagiri is angry at. Katagiri’s isolation is overturned with the arrival of the Frog breaking his cycle of working and sleeping with prostitutes. Katagiri’s conscious mind, his superego, is personified by the Frog’s quest to stop the Worm, representing the id. The Frog’s many symbols epitomizes Freud’s concept of condensation.

    Displacement is when an individual displaces their anger onto something that is less risky and will not harm them. Katagiri is angry at himself because he allowed people to walk all over him. At his job it is up to him to fight with the mobsters and thugs to get the money back from the loan sharks. Katagiri is also angry at his family due to him raising them and getting them married off, yet they want nothing to do with him. All that hard work was for nothing because

“‘After [his] parents died’… [all] at great expense of [his] time and income, and at the expense of [his] own marriage prospects. (Murakami, 6). Katagiri put his family before his own needs, and at the end they put themselves over him.

Katagiri’s sense of self is expressed through him being bitter and feeling unappreciated. In Japanese society, the social norms revolve around the family. An individual is supposed to be loyal to their family. It is a collectivist society, where family comes first. Katagiri goes against social norms because his family is not loyal to him and he is not respected (Welch,1). The anger exists within him and is displaced into the form of the Frog. The Frog battles with the worm, which represents the loneliness and bitterness that could eventually destroy him. Although the battle was a draw, the Frog ends up sacrificing himself for the greater good and dies with worms coming out of him. Katagiri realizes that the world does not have to know about his accomplishments, the only thing that matters is how Katagiri views himself.

The narrator from “The Black Cat” grew up loving and taking care of animals. He married early, and had a variety of pets. Out of all the pets, the narrator’s favorite was Pluto, a black cat. He alone took care of Pluto without the help of anyone. The narrator started to abuse his wife, and all the animals besides Pluto. Pluto then started to distance himself and the narrator reacted violently: “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut out on of its eyes from the socket” (Poe,7). After cutting the cat’s eye begins to heal he decides to hang the cat. “One morning, in cool blood, a slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree, hung it with tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart” (Poe, 9). The narrator knew the cat loved him and wanted to kill the cat because he had a an inner desire to do wrong. When he first took out the cat’s eye he felt guilty, but at the same time he felt in control. He liked knowing that he had the power to end the cat’s life at any second.

Condensation is expressed through Pluto because the word Pluto also can represent the Roman God of the underworld. Black cats can also represent “witches in disguise” (Poe, 3). The black cat itself and the name Pluto symbolizes evil and death. The same day Pluto is killed, the narrator’s house burns down: “On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire” (Poe, 10). The fire symbolizes hell and burning, punishing the narrator for the deed he has done. Displacement is presented when the narrator is being abusive towards his surroundings (Hester, 2 ). He tries to kill a second cat, but ends up killing his wife instead in anger: “But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Groaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demonical, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain” (Poe, 23). The narrator is angry at himself for not having power. He is submissive and lacks control. When he is angry he takes his anger out on  his wife or the cat. The wife stopped him from harming the cat, so he had to kill her.

His sense of self is expressed through him identifying himself as submissive. He feels powerless to control his bad behavior. As he is telling his story, he speaks highly of himself. His sense of self identifies with the good that people saw in him. He even says his real soul is good and leaves his body when he does something bad. He has always been taking care of the animals and his wife, so he feels like he has been serving other people. The narrator has multiple hysterical episodes where he committed acts of physical violence. By killing Pluto and his wife, he felt more free than he has ever been. He gets to feel powerful and in control.

The narrator from “The Black Cat’’ and Katagiri from “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” prove to be hysterical and challenge the stereotype of hysteria only being linked to women. The narrator’s hysteria is worse than Katagiri’s because he actually displaced his anger onto people and animals. Katagiri was fighting with his inner demons to get over isolation and loneliness. The narrator was also fighting with his inner demons, but he gave into them and committed heinous acts. Katagiri gets over his isolation because he realizes his worth and accepts that he does not have to fit in with society. The narrator is telling his story from death row, the night before he is about to die. Hysteria should not have been associated with the women because it also existed within men. In the short stories, “Super Frog Saves Tokyo” and “The Black Cat,” both of the male characters show the symptoms of being hysterical and also utilize Freud’s ideas of condensation and displacement. Although the term hysteria has lost its meaning, it is disparaging to see that it was used to disempower women. We can see now that the term has a broader influence as it does not only affect one gender. Men too, are victims of hysteria.

Writing this paper made me feel stressed because I feel like my class did not have enough time to get the paper done. I had less than two weeks to write the paper, and get help from tutoring. I chose the idea of hysterical men for the reason that my professor said that no one has done it before. The topic immediately caught my attention and I wanted to use condensation and displacement. I did not want something easy, I wanted a real challenge. This was going to be the final paper and it is worth forty percent of my overall grade. I had to give it my all and write about something that has not been written about before.

At first, I was going to use ‘A Country Doctor’ and ‘The Rocking Horse Winner,’ but after talking to my professor I thought a more approachable idea would be to use “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” and “The Black Cat.” I enjoyed reading the story with Katagiri because it was surprising to be reading from a mystical point of view. I did not like “The Black Cat,” mainly due to the fact that I have a black kitten. Reading about how the narrator abused the cat made me feel heartbroken. The show had to go on so I put my personal feelings to the side and incorporated it into the paper.

My favorite part about the paper was coming up with a unique title. I combined the words  men and women by crossing out the “Wo” and kept the “men” to emphasize what the paper was going to be about. The introduction was not a challenge. I was having trouble analyzing “The Black Cat” because the literature is intense. My tutor and I agreed to make a timeline of all the events that happened in the story. I made an outline in Mrs. Killebrew’s class and that helped a lot. She taught me how to properly use citations. She even helped me find outside sources for my paper.  

The ending of “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” made me feel gloomy because Katagiri lost his only friend which was a figment of his imagination. He came to a realization that the world did not have to know about his accomplishments and how he and the Frog saved Tokyo. All that mattered was that he knew. I felt a connection to the ending because society is always going to be judgmental. The best way to deal with that is to ignore and just keep doing your own thing. Writing my conclusion, I connected it back to my thesis statement. I finally finished my essay and got my main point across. I proved that men could be hysterical too.

Dear Future Self,

  In my FIQWS Composition class, my professor wanted the class to create a portfolio website. When she gave more details on the assignment, I became so confused. I’ve never created a website before. I had an idea on how to write reflections because of the previous papers I have submitted had a reflection attached to them. I did not really understand the CUNY Academics Commons. I enjoyed making the website because I got to customize it the way I wanted. I added my personality and my love for superheros onto the website. For learning outcome #1 I analyzed my writing process and how I looked at the genre and the rhetorical situation. I had to write about how the two images made me feel and what genre they were a part of.

My professor gave us a chart of the Writing Section Learning Outcomes and explained in detail how to use the chart for the reflection essay. I felt confident with the chart filled out because the information was right there. I had to match the outcomes with a writing activity that we did in class. Filling out the chart was easy because I have a very good memory, and I was able to remember all the activities we did in class. My peer review for the Exploratory Essay helped me revise and edit the first draft of my essay. I needed help with my grammar and punctuation and my peer fixed my mistakes. I had to go back to my outline, and make some changes. I incorporated those changes into my essay. My classmate also helped me come up with the title. This is how I utilized Learning Outcome #2.

For the third learning outcome I had to use MLA citation to apply it for my essay. My class did this activity where we created our own MLA citations, and posted them on blackboard. After we posted the citation, we had to respond to three different classmates about their citation. I read the MLA Citation guide online and practiced applying the systematic application of citation convention.

For the fourth outcome, I had to write a Literacy Narrative for the first assignment. The assignment was to write about two images and include the theoretical key elements such as purpose, audience, genre, stance, and media/design. This assignment is called The Learning Outcome #4. When writing the literacy narrative I had to identify the rhetorical key elements. I recognized what was the purpose, who was the audience, what the genre was, what the stance was and the media/design. I utilized these skills while writing the Literacy Narrative. An example where I used a key element such as addressing the audience: “ The political cartoon of Betsy Devos created by Glenn McCoy is being compared to the famous painting The Problem We All Live With, created by Norman Rockwell is a false comparison, because no one threw anything at Devos. The protest against Devos was peaceful and safe. The purpose of a political cartoon is to persuade the audience about current issues. Some can be humorous, but in this case it was offensive. The purpose of this painting was to show what African Americans were going through at this time. The protest against Ruby Bridges required Bridges to have bodyguards to protect her. People actually threw things at Ruby Bridges. Her life was at stake all because she was an African American who wanted to go to an all white school.” This is an example where I address the key element of audience in the rhetorical situation. I prove that the assignment accomplished the writing section learning outcome #4.

For the fifth learning outcome I had to post my thesis statement under the discussion board to prove that I engaged in collaborative aspect. I looked at examples of thesis statements, and had to create my own. I remember writing a bunch of thesis statements and inputting them into a chart. After posting the thesis statement, I had to respond to three students theses. I had to figure out the students argument and what they were trying to prove.

Before writing the thesis statement I had to watch a Youtube video on how to write a thesis statement, which proves that I used digital technologies to address my audience. I had to answer questions about the video and submit the work to my professor. I got a 100 on the assignment. This is what Learning Outcome #6 was asking for.

For Learning Outcome #7 I used to the CCNY library database to find sources for my Critical Research Paper. Before this I did not know how to find sources. I was stressing because I did not know how to use the CCNY database. I was able to find the two outside sources that I needed for my paper.

In my exploratory essay, I quoted Freud and used appropriate sources to prove my argument which is what Learning Outcome #8 was asking for. I had to quote Freud’s ideas of wishful impulse and repression. I reread Freud’s lectures and used them for my paper. I had to analyze what the lecture was about in order to place it in my paper.

Everything that I learned in my FIQWS Composition class, actually improved me as a writer. I learned about the rhetorical situation and how to apply it to my papers. I learned how to find outside sources, and cite properly. All the worksheets and assignments strengthened my writing skills. As I’m writing this paper, I feel heartbroken that this class is ending. I’m really going to miss my professor and class a lot.

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