Chapter 7, Character and Anal Eroticism Summary and Analysis

The Final Paper in this Part of The Freud Reader is Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. This classic of psycho-analysis was originally presented in the German language in 1911. It actually revolves around the replacement of what Freud calls the pleasure principle by the reality principle. There is at least some extent to which it might be wiser to call this the unpleasure principle, as tendencies towards any fixations on pain are relinquished as are attachments to pleasure. Freud insists that pleasure is blinding. Not every reader will agree with this after a thorough examination. He writes that the sexual instincts undergo a radical transformation when the ego actually shifts from the pleasure principle to the reality principle. He claims that those living under the pleasure principle confuse their fantasies for...