Media and Psychoanalysis Literature & Language Essay (Essay Sample)

Psychoanalysis and Media- PA7004- Neelam Shah- K1132310
Summarize the importance of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle to Walter Benjamin’s discussion of the ‘shock aesthetic’ in ‘Some Motifs in Baudelaire’ in Illuminations. Pimlico, 1999: 152-96.
This essay will explore the importance of shock aesthetics. The text which will be discussed in this essay will be the ‘shock aesthetic’ in ‘Some Motifs in Baudelaire’ in Illuminations. First part of essay will look at what is trauma, what leads to trauma and the symptoms of shell shock. Secondly the essay will analyse how prominent the role of shock aesthetics is in relation to Freud’s beyond pleasure principle text and Walter Benjamin author of Some Motifs in Baudelaire’ in Illuminations. Thirdly the essay will examine authors Ankhi Mukherjee, Allen Meek, Paul Sheehan and Walter Benjamin views on how the shock experiences from trauma can be turned into art forms with examples such as war.
The Freudian reference is to Beyond the Pleasure Principle, where Freud attempts to unravel the dreams and associations of trauma victims in connection to specifically First World War victims and Freud notes that “consciousness comes into being at the site of a memory trace” (Walter Benjamin, , Some Motifs in Baudelaire’ in Illuminations,1999, p160). What Freud argues, ‘in fact, is that it is not unreasonable to assume that consciousness arises instead of a memory trace.’ (Freud, Beyond the pleasure principle 1955, pg12).
According to Freud ‘In the cases of ordinary traumatic neuroses two characteristics emerge prominently, firstly the causation of the trauma relies upon the surprise of fear or shock aesthetic and secondly that a wound or injury simultaneously works as a rule against the development of neurosis.’ (Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1955, pg 12).
Identifying Baudelaire’s aesthetic as one of shock, Walter Benjamin expressed his approach to modern culture that remains with us in today’s fixation with trauma. Instead of understanding shock experience as part of an original modernist sensibility, Adorno argued that “shock itself had become fetish and commodified” (Allen Meek, Trauma and Media: Theories, Histories and Images 2010, Pg75) In relation to 21st century media and the artistic contexts of where film, photography, poetry, theatrical plays etc. in which shock plays an important role. Film Directors and Producers, Photographers and Poets have merged shock and aesthetics together as a means to communicate to the audience and readers by utilising the shock factor as a way to make a profit in the media industry.
According to Allen Meek ‘Benjamin proposed that “psychic defense against shock, which Freud had theorized with respect to war trauma, was characteristic of modern experience in general.” (Allen Meek, Trauma and Media: Theories, Histories, and Images, 2010, Pg75) In other words watching the aftermath affects of wars in the news for example destruction of country, loosing loved ones, homes bombed, families dying, separation etc. have left people over the world in shock. The ones who are greatly affected by war are left even more traumatised and have impacted the human sensorium over time.