Odalis Espinoza
FIQWS: Literature & Psychoanalysis
10 October 2018
Reflection: Exploratory Essay
As easy as writing an exploratory essay may sound, it is in fact rather complex and requires a lot of thought. Given short stories with main ideas and plots which revolved around Freud’s ideas on psycho-analysis was greater help than was anticipated. Understanding and analyzing given texts requires full understanding of Freud’s theories as well as that of the story. The short story I chose to write my exploratory essay on is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat”.
Beginning to write this exploratory essay required a lot of time and patience for me. Reading all four short stories provided was time-consuming, and fully understanding the Freudian concept within them was intense. After finally selecting the story of my choice, I began to analyze the text for examples of condensation and displacement. I found Poe’s story interesting but at the same time extremely disturbing. I was eager to write an exploratory paper on this story because it was closely related to the series I recently began to watch named “American Horror Story” on Netflix. I was able to closely relate the book and this series because of the way the narrator in Poe’s story was able to hide his wife’s body, much like the characters hid the bodies of their victims in the series. I started out with only a basic understanding of displacement and condensation as described by Freud, since it was only briefly explained in class. I had to conduct my own research to gain a better understanding of these terms. Understanding this story was rather complex because I had to uncover what caused the feelings of the narrator towards the cat. At first my inference was that the narrator portrayed himself in the cat, which is why he hated it so much, but after a few more close readings, I determined that the cat symbolizing the wife was a stronger point to be made.
The excess of ideas resulted in a paper full of different thesis statements. My desire of putting all my ideas of paper led to the excess of word count for my paper. them all. All these ideas lead to my excess in words at the end of my paper. After completing what I thought was my finished copy, I felt that my paper wasn’t as strong as I wanted it. Visiting my professor during her office hours was very beneficial to me and my paper. With the advice provided by my professor, I was able to edit my paper until I grew tired of proof reading.
The exploratory essay assignment gave me the opportunity to grow. Not only do I see growth within my knowledge of Freud’s condensation and displacement, but I can also see growth within my personality. The requirements that had to be met for the fulfillment of this paper challenged me to the extent of asking for help and advice, which turned out to great. From now on I think I will visit my professor more often when assigned any paper.
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