Abjection In Julia Kristeva's 'The Powers Of Horror'

In the Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva analyzes the concept of the abject in terms of the subject (self) and object (other). Abjection is one’s reaction when faced with taboo elements, because society perpetually implements this notion that, in order to be whole and pure, one must abstain from committing actions that are against the law, or in religious terms, one must abstain from sinful acts; Kristeva writes that “abjection persists as exclusion or taboo (dietary or other) in monotheistic religions [...] it finally encounters with Christian sin, a dialectic elaboration, as it becomes integrated in the Christian Word as a threatening otherness––but always nameable, always totalizeable” (Kristeva 17). Kristeva stems most of her understanding …show more content…
Research has been shown that there are no sign of any sexual feelings in the earliest years of a child’s development, which goes against Freud’s entire analysis of a child’s sexual development. Freud’s claims in the Oedipus complex theory lacks scientific evidence to support it, and it can instead be viewed as a bleak and cynical view of life. In addition, Oedipus was an adult by the time he unknowingly married Jocasta, his mother. According to Freud’s theory: children between the ages of three to six develop a sexual desire for the parent of opposite sex. The discontinuity presented in the age gaps of Oedipus and the age threshold Freud determined contradicts his theory. Freud connects the Oedipus complex with the development of the superego which, in turn, instills guilt onto the child’s conscious mind which prevents the child from further solidifying his/her emotions. Freud’s claim makes sense in theory, but there has not been any scientific evidence to support Freud’s analysis on the Oedipus complex. It can be argued that Freud misunderstood the Oedipus complex entirely to begin with. Instead of understanding it as a child’s desire to murder the father in order to be with the mother, there have been scientific evidence to show that a child’s early experiences may shape and construct their adult sexual preferences, which essentially comes to show that a …show more content…
Throughout Kristeva’s analysis of the abject, she branches off from Freud’s understanding of the unconscious. The unconscious may be expressed through different forms, one of which through a dream. According to Freud, he believed that dreams provided psychoanalysts the information to unravel the unconscious mind of a patient. He continued to argue that repressed thoughts may be lost, and falsification of the memory may take place. Kristeva continues to expand on the unconscious mind in which “a repression of contents [...] that, thereby, do not have access to consciousness but effect within the subject modifications, either of speech [...] or of the body (symptoms), or both (hallucinations, etc.). [...] that of rejection (repudiation) as a means of situation psychosis” (Kristeva 7), which relates to Freud’s case study of Dora— a young woman pen-named “Dora” who suffers from symptoms of hysteria: nervous coughs, loss of voice, migraines and breathing difficulties. Freud believed that dreams can be interpreted and translated into a solidified concept, taking form in language that allows for a psychoanalyst to bring forth repressed thoughts and desires to the conscious mind. Freud acknowledges that the unconscious mind is powerful enough to affect a patient’s body and mind, especially in Dora’s case. Although, one can question Freud’s