Chapter 4

This chapter included information about the antithetical meanings of words. Overall, I thought the beginning of the chapter was kind of confusing because it started out with many quotations. This was definitely the least interesting chapter out of the book that we have had to read so far. Also, the author, Sigmund Freud, did not make it clear what a Traumdeutung is. Continuing with the language theme, antithetical meanings of words means that there are several words that have two meanings, one which is the direct opposite of the other.

The chapter goes on to give a short biography of Sigmund Freud. Freud is "considered the father of psychoanalytic theory" and was a very profound thinker in the nineteenth and twentieth century. He was the man to come up with the Iceberg Theory. This theory states that there are three levels of consciousness (which can be represented by an iceberg). The tip of the iceberg that is visible represents consciousness, the small portion below the sea that we are able to view represents preconsciousness (material that we are not aware of but we can bring to consciousness), and the rest of the iceberg represents the unconscious (the darkness that portrays what we are unaware of). The unconscious makes up ninety percent and is the material that is not accessible to us, but is nevertheless in our minds. Freud stresses the importance of the unconscious because it shapes our behavior. We do what we do because of a "power" within us that we can not control (the unknown).

Freud also introduced the idea that there are three unconscious forces operating in the human psyche: the id (lust and desire), the superego (conscience and guilt), and the ego (mediates between the two other forces). In his book, Freud writes about dreams with ideas being opposite of each other, and he forms a reaction formation, or a defense mechanism. This simply means that we express a feeling based off of the opposite feeling that we have. An example is when junior high boys and girls pick on each other and make fun of each other just because they secretly have crushes on each other. Freud was also interested in the ideas of sexual content of symbols which is called a phallic symbol (symbol of the penis). This chapter explains that even though people may say something, it could just be a reaction formula, when really they think the exact opposite (which is why body language is very important to read and understand).