Exploratory Essay
Somaiya Sime
Professor Von Uhl
FIQWS 10108
10/20/2021
The short story “A Country Doctor” discusses how the doctor was the one who was suffering from illness of depression, social anxiety, migraines, and insomnia. This short story can be part of Freud’s dreamwork elements such as Unconsciousness, displacement, condensation, latent content. Not only these dreamwork elements but also describe the characters through their wishful impulses. Throughout the text of “A Country Doctor”, there are many symbols that represent Freud’s elements of dream where we can understand the motive of the character through a Freudian Lens by the elements of his dreamwork.
One of Freud’s elements of dreamwork is known as “latent content which you must suppose were present in the unconscious” (Freuds LII). In “A Country Doctor” latent content is presented through the symbols of the girl Rose. She was described as the helper of the doctor with her horse. According to Kafka states that “the willing girl hurried to help the groom with the harnessing. Yet hardly was she beside him when the groom clipped hold of her and pushed his face against hers. She screamed and fled back to me; on her cheek stood out in red the marks of two rows of teeth” (ACD 1st page). This elevates to the part when Rose comes and hands the doctor the horses she was being sexually harassed by the groom. Although this her intention was just to help the doctor, the groom who was beside her had to assault intentions. This carried the meaning of the latent content because the groom’s action towards the girl Rose is the symbolism of harassment even though she went to help the doctor. Not only the latent content this concept of behavior is part of Freud’s concept of wishful impulses because this shows the desires of the groom towards the girl Rose. Therefore, this was one of Freud’s elements of dream where we can understand the motive of the character through a Freudian Lends by the element of his dreamwork.
Furthermore, as I analyze “A Country Doctor” by Franz Kafka another example I found through Freud’s lecture III was the unconsciousness “The manifest content of the dream is the distorted substitute for the unconscious dream thoughts and this distortion is the work of the ego’s forces of defense – of resistances” (Freuds LIII). This element of Freud connects with the situation of the doctor in “A Country Doctor” by him being unconscious about Rose being harassed by the groom and him trying to focus on the patient. As it mentions through Kafka that “And so they came, the family and the village elders, and stripped my clothes off me; … Then my clothes were off, and I looked at the people quietly, my fingers in my beard and my head cocked to one side” (ACD pg. 3). This shows the unconsciousness of the doctor. Although it was important for him to save the boy that was ill his unconscious mind did not let him control his own self. Which ended in him being naked and uncontrol of himself. This shows the conflict of both the external and internal because his unconsciousness shows his internal conflict with his mind being focused on the horses and the girl. External conflict because of his problem with patients’ family not being patient with him with his treatment which made him end up being undressed and strapped in a room. This brings us back to the element of dream where we can understand the motive of the character through a Freudian Lens by the element of his dreamwork and wishful impulse.
Additionally, another internal conflict shown by the doctor was him having a conversation with himself. As Kafka mentioned “Do you know,” said a voice in my ear, “I have very little confidence in you. Why you were only blown in here, you didn’t come on your own feet. Instead of helping me, you’re cramping me on my deathbed. What I’d like best is to scratch your eyes out.” “Right,” I said, “it is a shame. And yet I am a doctor” (CAD page 3-4). This part of the doctor’s situation connects with Freud’s element of condensation “The dream-work is a special case of the effects produced by two different mental groupings on each other – that is, of the consequences of mental splitting”. (FLIII pg.2223). This can be argued as Freud’s elements of dream where we can understand the motive of the character through a Freudian Lens by the elements of his dreamwork because it shows the internal thought of the doctor of being unconscious about his work and reflecting on what he has done to be the society and it part o the mental grouping of mental splitting as Freud’s mentions.
To sum up, the concepts that have been mentioned throughout the whole essay with the argument of “A Country Doctor”, there are many symbols that represent Freud’s elements of dream where we can understand the motive of the character through a Freudian Lens by the elements of his dreamwork. To reflect on the symbols through the Freudian lens we can see the actions of the doctor being unconscious for the action of the groom towards the rose affecting the work of the doctor which made him lose from his accomplishment of being a doctor.
