Freud compares a child to a creative writer. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, re−arranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? Kids spend a lot of time and emotions in these games; so do creative writers in creating their fictional written worlds. It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously. Both writer and child use their imagination to invent characters, plots, and settings. Children take these games so seriously that they even forget about the real world that surrounds them. Freud states that kids are not able to differentiate fiction from reality. Writers, on the other hand, do have this ability.
The reason one creates an imaginary world is that some things can only be enjoyed if imagined in one's mind. For many things which, if they were real, could give no enjoyment, can do so in the play of fantasy, and many excitements which, in themselves, are actually distressing, can become a source of pleasure for the hearers and spectators at the performance of a writer's work. Kids like to play as if they were heroes that got hurt but yet survived; if they really got hurt and had to go through all the troubles they imagine, they would not enjoy it at all! Similarly, readers enjoy novels because they are a source of entertainment that liberates their mind letting them participate without being really involved. Therefore, a lot of times desires ought to remain just desires because if they were to become real they wouldn't live up to the idealized image that the person had of them.
Salman Akhtar’s extensive review has shown that rejection, traumatic overstimulation, and neglect in the first two years of life are common in the history of schizoids. The schizoid condition was first described by the Scottish psychoanalyst Fairbairn in the 1940s. Fairbairn found that his patients had withdrawn from parents who were overtly rejecting. They preferred to live in a rich, imaginary world. Many fiction writers are schizoid because the ability to create a vivid inner world in one’s head gives one a head start at writing fiction. The downside is that the schizoid’s sense of other people is impoverished.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/EnglishP.htm
In the film, one wonders whether Marilyn Monroe's character is an actual person or rather the living embodiment of the urban executive's wild imagination - a fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing this movie as a child and being especially taken with these scenes. Even today, I cannot hear the Rachmaninoff second piano concerto without thinking of this movie, The Seven Year Itch.
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