Sigmund Frued: The Return of the Repressed

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud is well known in the world of Neurology and Psychology, mostly for his theories on "The Return of the Repressed" which in it's most simple form is a repressed feeling or emotion that fights to emerge from our sub-conscious.

Now, for the slightly more in-depth explanation! Freud's idea was that at some point in our past we would develop feelings towards something or someone but these feelings for whatever reason would end up trapped in our sub-conscious, a website I found gave me what I think is a fantastic example.

Imagine a family in which they had just one child who received all of his parents love and attention but at the age of 3 his mother gives birth to another child, and the first child soon realises the attention will be shifted to the new born child and he will no longer receive as much as he did, thus develops a hatred towards his new born sibling. His parents however scold him for trying to take it out on the baby and eventually the feelings of hatred are pushed to the back of his mind because he knows if he lets them out he'll be punished. With time feelings of love towards the sibling are almost forced through a mental defense mechanism known as "Reaction formation" where feelings that are considered unacceptable are masked by an over-exaggerated form of the opposite feeling, but when the child is left alone with his sibling he lays with the young baby but in-turn causes harm on the baby through what it thought to be simply playing but is in fact his repressed anger trying to surface.

Eventually the mask that is created may over-power the childish resentment against his sibling and the anger is kept unconscious in his mind forever, although this may not happen and the anger will continue to try and surface whenever it can.

Sound confusing? It's rather simple when you get your head round it. The whole idea that repressed feeling can emerge can cause distress for some people, when someone has been down to "snap" and lash out a a family member is often explained by psychologists as repressed anger emerging during a simple argument or similar situation and causes the person to hit the other person they are arguing with, and when put into a context like this, we can start to apply the theory to horror movies, more specifically horror antagonists.

I'm going to use John Carpenters slasher flick Halloween (1978) as my first example to try and explain Freud's theories  in relation to horror.

The films antagonist, Michael Myers, kills his sister in the beginning with a kitchen knife and it's suggested by James Marriott in his book "Horror Films" that Michael was imitating his sister and her boyfriend having sex with a kitchen knife and stabbing her in the process, although this isn't confirmed in any way in the movie. With this idea in place, why not go the whole nine yards and suggest that maybe Michael has repressed feelings of anger towards his sister, and that when simply imitating his sister having sex the repressed anger causes him to do so. Up close. And with a kitchen knife.

That's just one example, another could simply be a normal man has repressed feeling of anger and hatred, and snaps one day and goes on a killing spree. Sound familiar? It's more or less the plot for Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".

Think about it, Jack Torrance we know has a history of violence when we're told he hit his son Danny some years ago for whatever reason, and presumably the anger that caused him to do so was repressed and when enraged by his wife Wendy for falsely accusing him of doing it again and interrupting him whilst he was concentrating on his play writing these feelings emerged. Perhaps in a more physical form represented by the apparition of the old caretaker Delbert Grady who suggests that Jack "corrects" his wife and child and sends Jack on a killing spree.

Or, if we're really pushing the boat out, we know that Jacks violence towards his son is caused by alcohol,  or at least that he is a recovering alcoholic, and that the violence in the hotel only starts after his meeting with Lloyd and Grady where he starts drinking again. Could the alcohol, whether real or a figment of Jacks imagination trigger the emotions in his mind that caused him to harm Danny for whatever reason?

Jack Torrance from The Shining - A descent into madness fueled by a supernatural entity or his repressed feelings of anger?

In conclusion I think it's safe to say that Freud's theory stands strong in horror narratives, comparing it to Todorov's narrative theory, the return of the repressed could be in fact an ideal plot device to set off the disequilibrium he mentions. In this case going mad and slaughtering everyone under the sun.