The Materiality of Remembering: Freud's Wolf Man and the Biological Dimensions of Memory

Teckyoung Kwon

New Literary History, Volume 41, Number 1, Winter 2010, pp. 213-232 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/nlh.0.0133

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nlh/summary/v041/41.1.kwon.html

Access provided by Aberystwyth University (6 Jan 2014 16:24 GMT)

The Materiality of Remembering: Freuds Wolf Man and the Biological Dimensions of Memory
Teckyoung Kwon
igmund freuds celebrated case study, From the History of an Infantile Neurosis (1918), more closely resembles a literary work than it does a meticulously composed scientic record, given that it provides seemingly innite possibilities for reinterpretation.1 The study not only describes the process involved in the interpretation of dreams, but it also outlines the structure of remembering through deferred acts, along with repetition and transference. Indeed, the style of the writing itself is seemingly intended to call attention to the way in which science and literature are dynamically synthesized, and the manner in which the mode of remembering functions in the studys dialectic. As Jacques Derrida observes, The theory of psychoanalysis, then, becomes a theory of the archive and not only a theory of memory.2 Signicantly, in Freuds case study of the so-called Wolf Man, memoryor more accurately, remembering or recollectionserves as the key element, given its role as the kernel of Freudian repression. Perhaps the numerous rereadings of this single empirical scientic study are due to its treatment of memory, which is, after all, the most mysterious structure of the human mind. Building upon the materiality of the so-called memory trace, the human mind perceives reality through a circular process of remembering. We refer to this material as the void; and in its absence, there can be no repetition, no cultural transference, and, for that matter, no cycle of recollections. As a reader whose development was shaped by the Eastern philosophical tradition, my interpretation of the Wolf Man case study focuses on transference, which contends that materiality, or animal nature, is the source of (re)creation as well as of remembering. In order to illustrate the narrative transference caused by this material base, my argument will proceed in the following order. First, I compare Freudian remembering to the Bergsonian model of memory through a brief examination of Matter and Memory, which features a version of the mode of remembering.3 Next, along with Freuds letter 52 and several key essays from the

New Literary History, 2010, 41: 213232

214

new literary history

metapsychology on remembering, I explore the mode of cultural turn, or transference, which is reected by Derrida in his essay Freud and the Scene of Writing. In the process, I examine how Derrida created a new paradigm of deconstruction, a seminal inuence upon cultural studies, drawing upon Freuds mode of rememberingand I will consider what he repressed in the process of doing so. Those who take issue with the positive transference of Freuds memory structure include dissenting gures like Frank Sulloway, who calls into question the politics of hiding materiality (or biology) in pure psychology, and Frederick Crews, who (along with Adolf Grnbaum) criticizes Freuds clinical method of recovering memory as untestable and fundamentally awed. To call attention to their misunderstandings, I refer to the HERA model that has been recently explored by neuroscientists, and that bears a strikingand for many, surprisingresemblance to Freuds apparatuses in the mystic writing-pad. Accordingly, the crux of my argument examines Freuds embodiment of his concept of remembering, From the History of an Infantile Neurosis, in regard to Chuang-tzus dream of a buttery. Ultimately, the cause of transference is grounded less in the dream of wolves than in the memory of the buttery. My argument is designed to show that the cause of deferred acts, revealing narration as an endless process, is the material base of remembering. Furthermore, the material aspect of the mnemic system signies the potentiality of psychoanalysis to achieve a symbiotic relationship between humans and natural beings.

I. The Materiality of Remembering in Freud, Bergson, and Derrida

Bergsons approach to memory is not inherently incompatible with Freuds model of remembrance, given that both claim an intersection between mind and matter. A key element of Bergsons premise is situated in neuron theory, which contends that human perception is a powerful motor designed to adopt the pure memory that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. Cerebral movement, however, belongs to (unconscious) matter, not consciousness, although conscious perception and cerebral movement are in strict correspondence (MM 35). Therefore, we are unable to grasp how the image arises from cerebral movement, and we cannot reach the realm of pure memory. Operating on this assumption, Bergson classies memory into two distinct forms. The rst category includes real, individual, representative memories, which are easily erased through the automatism of habitual acts that are inscribed

the materiality of remembering

215

in the body. The other form includes memories that result from the reciprocal dependence of two polarities, the powerful motor of perceptive consciousness and images caused by cerebral movement. In the latter form (the kernel of Bergsons model of memory), our perception is continually brimming with memories of the past, even though a large number of memory images are erased through habitual action. As a result of the interrelationship between these two parts, however, an attentive perception is a reection on the present object, of chosen images from the past. While the number and complexity of these images will depend on the degree of tension adapted by the mind, the reexive perception forms a circuit, constantly creating, or recreating, within the sequence of time (MM 126). Here, Bergson emphasizes two aspects of memory structure: the function of perception, which is inseparable from the material base of cerebral movement, and the result of the intersection between these two psychic apparatuses, from which no pure memories are producedjust as there is no such thing as pure consciousness. Accordingly, there is no transparent perception that is not modied by memories: With the immediate and present data of our senses we mingle a thousand details out of our past experience. In most cases these memories supplant our actual perceptions, of which we then retain only a few hints, thus using them merely as signs that recall to us former images. The convenience and the rapidity of perception are bought at this price: but hence also springs every kind of illusion (MM 24). Illusion emerges when the perceptive present and the incorporated past come together reciprocally, resulting in a circuit-of-time sequence. We can quickly perceive an object due to past experiences inscribed in the body, but only at the cost of attaining a pure grasp of that object: consciousness is the sign of the present, therefore pure memory is latent and unconscious (MM 181). On the basis of this dynamic between the present and the past, there arises a new concept of time that is not linear, but circuitous. Consequently, the past exists only in the present, for past memories are sensed only when they are refracted through the perception of the present: The truth is that memory does not consist in a regression from the present to the past, but on the contrary, in a progress from the past to the present. It is in the past that we place ourselves at a stroke (MM 319). Bergson remarks that pure, that is to say, instantaneous perception, is, in fact, only an ideal ction, for every perception lls a depth of duration, prolongs the past into the present, and thereby partakes of memory (MM 325). Likewise, the future exists in the present, at the moment it is refracted through the present.

216

new literary history

Whereas Bergson transmitted the dialectic between matter and memory onto an ontological perception of things that was eventually echoed in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze, Freud developed and rened the mode of recollection throughout his entire life, in a way that was compatible with his discovery of the unconscious. Indeed, it would not be hyperbole to suggest that Freud devoted the entirety of his life to devising, searching, and rening such terms as remembering and repetition, from his earlier days as a neurologist to his later years as a psychologist. For the present argument, the following list sufces to represent his lifelong effort to establish the nature of human mnemic systems: the letter to Fliess 52 and the essay Project for a Scientic Psychology (1895); Remembering, Repetition, and Working-Through (1914); Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920); and A Note Upon the Mystic Writing-Pad (1925). This list may be expanded to include the later work titled Construction in Analysis (1937), where Freud insists that the function of transference is interminable interpretation, which continues even after the conclusion of analysis. In this series of works, the Wolf Man narrative holds a unique position as a sjuzet, a dramatization, through which these concepts are staged vividly and convincingly. The general assumption to which Freud (like Bergson) continually returns contends that memory structure includes two different levels: perceptive consciousness, on one hand, and permanent memory trace, on the other. If the former is to sustain a limitless receptive capacity for new perceptions at each and every moment, the latter must retain its permanence, even though the trace is not beyond alteration. The neurons in which perceptions appear, and to which consciousness is attached, do not retain any trace of what happens, in order to be repeatedly perceptual. Hence, consciousness and memory trace are mutually exclusive.4 Between these two strataone at the surface level and the other at the deep, buried levela third element is required for the production of verbal images, even if they are rendered inaccurate due to resistance, partiality, or incompleteness. To demonstrate this incompleteness, Freud presents the case of Emma, which features an example of screen memory, a primal scene produced after the event: a memory is repressed which only became a trauma after the event.5 Given that the Project for a Scientic Psychology was written at a time when Freud was still a neurologist, it is relatively complicated yet unrened.6 A clearer vision of the mode of remembering did not become accessible until the appearance of the relatively shortyet precisely expoundedessay on the mystic writing pad. The writing pad was a popular device (designed mainly for children) that consisted of two layers. The surface layer was a transparent piece of celluloid, a cover to

the materiality of remembering

217

protect the under layer, a thin, translucent piece of waxed paper. Beneath these two layers was a waxed slab. The scratched letters on the upper layer were erased if it was lifted even slightly, and yet, traces of these letters remained on the waxed slab below. Freud presents this device as an analogy for our mental apparatus, explaining that the upper layer, which receives the stimuli, could be compared to our perception apparatus, while the lower layer, where memories are stored, is comparable to other, adjoining, systems.7 Due to this adjoining mnemic component (the so called memory traces), remembrance of the past cannot be verbalized, but is, instead, acted out repeatedly. Freud draws attention to the mutually exclusive relations between the two parts: Either the receptive surface must be renewed or the note must be destroyed.8 Freud insists upon the mutually exclusive properties of the two memory systems, as he equates these two parts with the opposition of consciousness and the unconscious. Without a negation of the repressed, no viable theory is possible for him. Indeed, negation is the one principle that Freud held on to tenaciously, as we know from the circumstances surrounding his estrangement from former colleagues like Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.9 Once again, unlike Bergson, whose idea led to the phenomenology of perception as well as to the location of images in a time sequence, Freuds idea pointed the way to an entirely new concept, the death drive: a crucial turning point in the history of psychoanalysis. In his indispensable text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud adduces the identical place to which each organism tries to return by making use of a lovely analogy. He observes that a certain sh returns continually to its place of origin in order to lay eggs. Similarly, the migratory ights of birds always adhere to the same route: an organic compulsion to repeat lies in the phenomena of heredity and the facts of embryology.10 If the compulsive repetition is an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things, the wish to return is not conned to humans but is evident even in the lowest branches of the animal world. In these accounts, we can discern two important references to an identical theme: death as an eternal home, and the death instinct, a risky and controversial idea in his own time, as an instinct not limited to human beings, but also found among all organic life. Freud writes:
Moreover it is possible to specify this nal goal of all organic striving. It would be in contradiction to the conservative nature of the instincts if the goal of life were a state of things which had never yet been attained. On the contrary, it must be an old state of things, an initial state from which the living entity has at one time or other departed and to which it is striving to return by the circuitous paths along which its development leads. If we are to take it as a truth that knows no exception that everything living dies for internal reasonsbecomes

218

new literary history

inorganic once againthen we shall be compelled to say that the aim of all life is death and, looking backwards, that inanimate things existed before living ones. (BP 38, Freuds emphasis)

In the depths of Freuds mind, there lurks a fervent belief that humankind is not as perfect as the image of God, despite the notable cultural and intellectual achievements of human history. Repudiating the idealism of faith, and the expectations of his own time, Freud boldly rejects this benevolent illusion and warns that the present development of human beings requires, as it seems to me, no different explanation from that of animals (BP 42). Since the memory trace is the negation of consciousness, remembering cannot sidestep the barrier of screen memory, from which transference (as a part of repetition) emerges. As a result of this barrier, we cannot read timeless memory directly without the intervention of consciousness. Furthermore, caught between time-limited consciousness and the timeless memory trace, the original experiences are erased, resulting in deferred meaning. If resistance is so strong that remembering is not expressed through speech, past memories surface as images in dreams, or as repeated acts in life. Thus, Freud regards the memory trace as the archive that is exposed to the death drive, to which the two dynamic forces of memory trace and consciousness belong. Derrida, on the other hand, reads the memory trace quite differently, foregrounding the machinery of Freuds mystic writing pad in a way that is provocative. If we consider Derridas new terms, diffrance, trace, and the supplement, not to mention the term writing, which was evidently inspired by the writing pad, we are compelled to appreciate the extent to which Freuds mnemic systems inuenced him.11 From the perspective of Derrida, image-oriented dreams, in which no voices are heard, are the equivalent of writing, whereas interpretations in which condensation and displacement work together are the equivalent of speech, epitomizing the endless chain of signication. Nevertheless, in the history of Western metaphysics, speech has been regarded as presence or even originality. Our perception fails to function in the absence of the memory trace, the unconscious: without the memory trace, there can be no presence of consciousness, with the result that the origin of language, or presence, is from the beginning difference. Based on an acknowledgment of writing within speech, Derrida denies logo-phonocentrism and extends the concept of arche-trace, or of difference, to the diffrance that is produced through the effect of deferring. When the two apparatuses come upon each other, meaning is born as a deferred act, so that repetition takes the place of originality.

the materiality of remembering

219

If everything begins with reproduction, and a signied presence is always reconstituted through deferral (belatedly, supplementarily), this deferral also signies a supplement, the leading concept in Derridas interpretation of Freuds mnemic structures: A double system contained in a single differentiated apparatus under the name of the mystic writing pad (FS 223). By subordinating speech to the dream stage, and consciousness to the memory trace, Derrida coins several terminologies, such as writing, trace, and diffrance, and nally arrives at a single differentiated apparatus. Thus an innite reserve of traces are nally reconciled through the small contrivance known as the mystic writing pad: We must account for writing as a trace which survives the scratchs present, punctuality, Derrida argues, adding that the foundations of memory come about in other, supplementary, systems (FS 224). This is the concept of techne as supplementary machine:
Writing, here, is techne as the relation between life and death, between present and representation, between the two apparatuses. It opens up the question of technics: of the apparatus in general and of the analogy between the psychical apparatus and the nonpsychical apparatus. In this sense writing is the stage of history and the play of the world. It cannot be exhausted by psychology alone. That which, in Freuds discourse, opens itself to the theme of writing results in psychoanalysis being not simply psychologynor simply psychoanalysis. (FS 228)

Here we discern a signicant difference between Freuds memory trace as the death drive and Derridas trace (or supplement) as techne. When the perceptive time of consciousness interacts with the timeless memory trace, a spacing of time or periodicity emerges. The origin of time is therefore always already this periodic non-excitability. To erase the origin of time, Derrida interprets Freuds mnemic theory in the context of the order of written time, according to a whole chain of hypotheses which stretch from the Letters to Fliess, to Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and which, once again, are constructed, consolidated, conrmed, and solidied in the Mystic Pad (FS 225). In order to radicalize the repressed memory trace, Derrida codes the thought of the trace as an independent space, decodes the unconscious via the concept of writing as a strategy (while reformulating the static binary oppositions of structuralism into the dynamic return of the repressed), and substitutes Freuds mystic writing pad with techne. In doing so, he recasts Freuds unconscious, or materiality, as a matter of technology, or the supplementarity to which binarism is subordinated (FS 230). What is sacriced in his reading of Freuds remembering is what Freud really wants to tell us. In discovering the death drive beyond the

220

new literary history

pleasure principle, Freud boldly abandons the dream of an ideal society and extends the death drive to the realm of the organic world, including human beings. Freud perceives this symptom in the Wolf Man, who was burdened with guilt and lived in fear of transgressing the boundaries between human beings and animals. Freud diagnoses the cause of the Wolf Mans neurotic phobia as the instinct of every human being who lacks the resilience to endure the strict prohibitions required by civilization. For Freud, the two mechanisms in the mode of remembering are acceptance of infantile experience and acceptance of repressed animal nature, in opposition to the logocentric repression that prohibits animal instincts. In this context, Derridas concept of techne (the term representing civilization) falls beyond the boundaries of Freuds original idea of memory trace. Contrary to these humanistic approaches to the mnemic apparatus, two diverse analyses of its empirical and biological dimensions are worth investigating at this point.

II. The Memory Wars and the HERA Model

The false-memory syndrome that prevailed throughout the 1980s was closely connected to the work of memory-recovery therapists who sought to uncover their patients past. Working under the assumption that an individuals memory could be restored without being signicantly modied by current desires, the patient tended to trust uncritically the results of analysis. The disputes that grew up around Freudian remembering reect the atmosphere of a period in which many observers questioned the scientic authenticity of psychoanalysis. Notably, Frederick Crews, who had reviewed several books skeptical of Freudian ideas, published the essay The Unknown Freud, where he asked Freudians to take responsibility for the phenomenon of false-memory syndrome.12 Crewss understanding of Freud as displayed in this essay is rather fragmentary, relying on sketches of other scholars criticisms while eschewing the benet of a thorough examination of Freuds own texts. At the same time, his argument was exceedingly timely, given that skepticism about the scientic dimensions of psychoanalysis was becoming fashionable. Much of this skepticism stemmed from the fact that Freuds theories could not be tested scientically, a view exemplied by works such as Frank Sulloways Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979) and Adolf Grnbaums The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984). As a scientic historian, Sulloway examines the development of psychology. He describes Freuds origins as a neurologist (one who worked in close association with contemporary biologists) and goes on to out-

the materiality of remembering

221

line his transformation into a pure psychologist. Throughout, Sulloway presents Freud as a scientic heir of Darwin, emphasizing that Freud worked closely with neurobiologists like Jean-Martin Charcot and Fliess. According to Sulloway, Freudas a Darwin of the mindbegan his career as a neuroanatomical researcher, moved on to assume the role of clinical neurologist, and nally arrived at the position of psychotherapist. In the authors view, however, Freud actively sought to camouage the biological side of his development when he established himself as the founder of psychoanalysis (FB 4). Referring to Freud as a crypticbiologist, Sulloway calls the readers attention to the hidden politics swirling beneath the legend (FB 419). He argues that the distortion of history involved in the establishment of the Freudian myth is the product of two distinct motivations. According to Sulloway, the rst of these motives was Freuds personal ambition to become the hero of a new science; the second was his followers collective quest for power. Sulloway suggests that, in order to undercut the inuence of dissenters from within as well as rivals from without, Freud and his followers cultivated a legend that largely suppressed Freuds early connection to biology. He goes on to assert that, while Freuds early inuences included Darwin and neuroscience, Freud deliberately lost sight of the balance he had earlier achieved between biology and the mind as the essence of evolutionary theory. In contrast to Sulloways contention, however, I would argue that Freud remained an ardent Darwinian for his entire life.13 As reected in his theory of remembering, Freud is constantly aware of both memory trace (biology) and consciousness (evolved mental capacity), perceiving them as the components of an inseparable symmetry. And while Sulloway provides a thorough examination of Freuds early life as a biologist, and does a competent job of exploring his role as the creator of infantile sexuality, he sheds almost no light on the poetic side of Freudian theory, without which remembering cannot exist as a deferred act. In a similar vein, Grnbaums critique of Freud presents psychoanalysis as a natural science, dismissing the notion that it should be treated as hermeneuticsor any other form of knowledge immune to a rigid standard of testability. As a philosopher of science, Grnbaum demonstrates how contemporary philosophy has undermined the integrity of psychoanalysis, pointing to Jrgen Habermass philosophical misconception of the clinical theory or Paul Ricoeurs misunderstanding of psychoanalysis: Freud invites us to look to dreams themselves for the various relations between desire and language, to quote Ricoeurs own words (FP 8, 65). Grnbaum also dismisses Karl Poppers conception of psychoanalysis as the domain of an untestable pseudoscience that is em-

222

new literary history

pirically irrefutable (FP 104). Firmly endorsing the scientic and clinical value of psychoanalysis, Grnbaum argues: The theory was compatible with everything that could happeneven without any special immunization treatment (FP 108). Accusing all three theorists of immunizing the analysts clinical techniques from empirical falsiability, Grnbaum openly asserts that the prime testing ground and the heuristic inspiration should be fully at home with one another. After those tenacious arguments to solidify the empirical base of psychoanalysis, Grnbaum turns to Freuds essay Constructions in Analysis and quotes from it: If the patient agrees with us, then the interpretation is right, but if he contradicts us, that is only a sign of his resistance, which shows that we are right (FP 125). As if doing so much work for nothing, Grnbaum tests the authenticity of psychoanalysis, only to present it as an arbitrary method based on the principle of heads I win, and tails you lose. Here Grnbaum fails to grasp either the true nature of memory or the aims of psychotherapy. Memory is not founded on testable knowledge, given that the mind ows in the manner of water. The aim of therapy does not lie in a quest for concrete empirical truth. Instead, the analyst seeks to break down, or melt, the patients trauma in order to facilitate the natural ow of the mind. What the analyst should do is help the patient to grasp that truth is temporal, and that our mind is reconstructed at every moment. To release the patient free from the cathexis of the trauma is the primary responsibility of the therapist. He or she is not charged with orchestrating vengeance upon an invisible past, as was evidently the case with false-memory syndrome. Ultimately, if Freud is a self-dramatizing rhetorician (whose therapy sometimes works and sometimes fails), he cannot be simultaneously regarded as the scientic sponsor of false-memory syndrome, in which the uncontaminated past is believed to be restored. Here lies the inherent contradiction in the arguments of the dissenters. That Freud devoted his entire life to proving that the human mind and memory emerge as deferred acts is the very point Grnbaum and Crews have sought to dispute, as shown in the following words by Grnbaum: The analyst cannot justly claim to be a mere neutral expeditor or catalyst for the recovery of memories that can be intraclinically certied as authentic (FP 243). In line with these criticisms, Crews stresses the awed foundation of Freuds analytic method as an empirical science, calling attention to the fact that the politics informing the history of psychoanalysis was opportunistic and infused with a blind, combative stubbornness. In his review The Unknown Freud, Crews denes Freud as a saturnine self-dramatizer, and insists that his primal scene was more folkloric

the materiality of remembering

223

than scientic (MW 35). The analyst, he points out, forces the Wolf Man to accept his conclusions, which are neither true nor entirely agreeable to the patient. According to Crews, the primal scene is merely the product of the analysts own desires and memories. Hence, the forced interpretation has nothing at all to do with the patients neurosis. Crewss caustic critique of the Freudian model of remembering takes aim at its unformalized procedures, its gratuitous causal assertions, and its appeal to evidence consisting of unobservable buried wishes (MW 63). Behind such criticisms of the Freudian model of remembering lurks a common feature that must be discussed. Overall, this kind of distrust of the clinical work of psychoanalysis is informed by a deep attachment to the spirit of scientic empiricism, evolutionary biology, and solid evidence produced through the relatively new discipline of brain science, which was not developed to any great extent during Freuds lifetime. Hence, we will now turn to recent experimental results produced by the technical innovations of brain-imaging techniques, such as position emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), and event-related potentials (ERP)all of which enhanced our empirical understanding of both memory and awareness.14 Brain researchersnotably, Endel Tulvinghave produced volumes of empirical data regarding memory, especially about where, and how, our awareness of the past is generated in the brain. For these researchers, remembering is associated primarily with the prefrontal cortical regions, and it functions through mutually exclusive encoding and retrieval activities, encoding independently of retrieval, and retrieval independently of encoding.15 All animals require survival skills and instinctive knowledge that are oriented towards the present and the future. We call this type of memory semantic memory. Beyond this acquisition and utilization of knowledge, however, human beings require what might be termed higher memory, that is, the capacity to recall past experiences. This backward memory, or recollection, is closely connected to subjective and intimate feelings, and it is made possible by the autonoetic consciousness, a more developed portion of the mind. This episodic memory must be differentiated from semantic memory with respect to evolutionary history, with episodic memory arguably representing the latest development.16 Accordingly, memory functions as an encoder and retriever of information with respect to two types of memories: Retrieval from semantic memory and encoding of information into episodic memory take place concurrently on the left lobes, while the retrieval of episodic memory is exclusively restricted to the right hemisphere.17 The left frontal lobes are limited to a pattern of semantic-memory retrieval as well as episodic-memory encoding, whereas the right frontal

224

new literary history

lobes are restricted to episodic-memory retrieval: a model that is referred to as the HERA modelhemispheric encoding/retrieval asymmetry in the frontal lobes.18 The initial work done by Tulving was conrmed later as a surprising empirical regularity.19 Signicantly, this model overlaps in striking ways with Freuds model of remembering: the mystic writing pad. Both models, after all, feature two mutually exclusive layers: memory trace and consciousness. Unlike animals, human beings possess an episodic memory and recall the past by encoding the memory traces stored in the left frontal lobes and engaging in retrieval through the autonoetic consciousness of the right frontal lobes. Furthermore, autonoetic consciousness as an evolutionary adaptation is consistent with Freudian consciousness, in contrast to the unconscious of semantic memory. Unique in humans, autonoetic consciousness is important for many of the most complex abilities, including the ability to perform mental time travel in the personal, subjective way that is the hallmark of retrieval from episodic memory.20 This capacity for retrieval from episodic memory is a landmark of evolution, for it provides humans with a vision of space and time. It does not merely involve the reexive consciousness of ones own self in relation to the social environment, which enables us to obtain self-awareness; it also encompasses the selfs experiences in the past, present, and future. In short, consciousness, as understood by Freud, is incapable of visiting the screen memory, for it extends back to a time before the development of the autonoetic capacity. In the same vein, Tulvings theory of childhood amnesia puts us in mind of Freuds screen memory, or the memory trace of infantile sexuality.21 We simply cannot return to that time, for perception is located at the more recently evolved area of the brain. In short, an accurate grasp of past memory is incompatible with the construction of a civilization featuring complex goal-directed activity. The HERA model supported by PET studies conrms that remembering is the product of deferred acts in its terminable and interminable constructions, suggesting that Freuds model of the writing pad is perfectly compatible with recent scientic experiments. Regarding these deferred acts, another reading of memory trace will be introduced by a reader based on Korean culture.

III. The Wolf Man and Cultural Transference: The Dream of a Buttery
In his Editors Note, James Strachey presents the case study of the Wolf Man as the most elaborate and no doubt the most important work of all Freuds case histories.22 A peculiar characteristic of the myriad

the materiality of remembering

225

rereadings of this one case study is that much of the discussion focuses exclusively on the dream of the wolf and the primal scene. Undoubtedly, there are many reasons that so much attention has been lavished on this case study in general and on the dream of the wolf in particular. However, one thing is clear: this case study is the embodiment, as well as the culmination, of Freuds quest to outline the mechanism of remembering as deferred action. Furthermore, Freud tenaciously clings to the role of infantile experience, as he demonstrates from the beginning with such statements as: Only this infantile neurosis will be the subject of my communication (IN 8). In line with this approach, he positions the memory of the buttery after the dream of the wolves in his narrative sequence, as though to suggest that the last episode were the real onea supplementary element, without which the narrative cannot be concluded. Accepting the ctional elements of his narrative (as well as its arbitrariness), and anticipating the patients resistance to him (and the readers disagreement with his conclusions), Freud goes so far as to add, In spite of the patients direct request, I have abstained from writing a complete history of his illness and that distortion and refurbishing is inevitable because a persons own past is subjected to this reworking when it is looked back upon from a later period (IN 9). As we know, these same words are repeated in the essay Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through, which was written in 1914, the same year that the case study was closed. Writing of his patient, Freud observes: We must treat his illness, not as an event of the past, but as a present-day force.23 For Freud, a period of three-and-a-half years (from 1910 to 1914) was required to reach the deepest and most primitive strata of mental development in order to arrive at the solution of the later formation (IN 10). What does Freud signify through this introductory phrase, the later formation? If we consider that he delayed the publication of this case study of the Wolf Man until after his announcement of the discovery of the death drive as a cause of compulsive repetition, the narrative seems to be carefully devised to move beyond the Pleasure Principle, and toward what is perhaps the most explosively controversial issue in the history of psychoanalysis. Indeed, compulsive repetition was already strongly adduced in Remembering, Repeating, and WorkingThrough, where Freud writes, The patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, but acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it.24 Obviously, these two pieces of metapsychology are the byproducts of his analysis of the Wolf Man; and therefore, we should read the case study in the context of its connection to them, with a special emphasis on the process of repetition and transference.

226

new literary history

The relationship between repetitive acts and the primal scenedespite most reviewers fascination with the wolf dreamshould be presented in a way that places greater emphasis on the memory of the buttery. Freud carefully constructs a narrative that builds toward the synthesis of the dream of the wolf and the memory of the buttery, which suggests he considered both equally important to remembering the past and exploring the trauma. At the same time, both elements point toward the existence of an infantile stage. Boldly accepting the possibility of the analysts transference, Freud anticipates claims that the analysis is the product of the analysts own fantasies, which the analyst essentially forces upon the patient (IN 52). If we explore the patients early life, we nd that the memory of the swallowtail buttery plays no less signicant a role than the wolf dream in the development of his fear of animals, even though Freud postpones any discussion of this particular memory until the close of the narration. His gesture (which appears to indicate that the ve or six wolves are the only source of the patients phobia) adds a story-like element to the narration. Evidently, most parts of the narrative are devoted to an account of the patients history, with an emphasis on his phobia and his family relations, especially his relationship with his parents, his nurse, Nanny, and his sisterall of whom exerted negative inuences upon him. These gures worked collectively to push him toward a sexually passive role, a masochistic tendency. Instead of becoming a positive character by identifying with his father, he was caught in the split between love and hate, internalizing these features in his body, where they were inscribed as fear and humiliation. In this way, fear of the father was replaced by fear of the wolf, and humiliation at the hands of his older sister (who was intellectually superior to the patient) led him to become dependent, incapable of doing anything on his own. In contrast to little Hans, who had a similar fear of animals (a phobia regarding horses in this case), the Wolf Man has no one to turn to for proper guidance. The patient also served as a surrogate son for Nanny, whose own son had died at a young age. He spent his early childhood in a pastoral environment, where he was exposed to life on a countryside estate, peasant life, fairytales, and picture booksall of which served as the sole sources of his education. The fairytales and picture books that Freud regarded as primary inuences upon the patient may have inspired his animal phobia and the dream of the wolf. Indeed, the number of wolves in the tree, their resemblance to white sheep, and their manner of observing him recall features of widely known fairy tales. Signicantly, in fairy tales, human beings converse with animals and live together with them, sustaining a remarkable intimacy, whether they are friends or enemies. Hence, fairy

the materiality of remembering

227

tales belong to the heritage of the prehistorical period, or (to put it in Freudian terms) infantile experiences. Vulnerable to the effects of instinctive sexuality, and deprived of any meaningful opportunities for socialization, the Wolf Man was burdened by feelings of guilt and a profound fear of punishment. According to Freud, the animal phobia was replaced by the patients fear of his father, which was caused, in turn, by homosexual eroticism. The Wolf Man was fearful of the wolves depicted in the picture book, standing upright and striding along, and other animals (whether large or small) also frightened him: Once he was running after a beautiful big buttery, with striped yellow wings which ended in points, in the hope of catching it. (It was no doubt a swallow-tail.) He was suddenly seized with a terrible fear of the creature and, screaming, gave up the chase (IN 16). At this point, Freud interrupts his discussion of the buttery and will not pick up the topic again until the conclusion of the narrative. Is it possible that Freud, as part of a narrative strategy, conceals the memory of the buttery as a means of heightening its dramatic effect later on? Yet, why does Freud barely touch upon the memory of the buttery (limiting himself to the briefest of descriptions) as though it were nothing? Could it be that he is enacting his own theory of repression and resistance? We will discover that this seemingly innocuous memory of the buttery is of monumental importance to Freuds claims for infantile sexuality, and for the remembering as repeated acts that occurred later in the patients life. Freud might have come to appreciate Aristotles notion of catharsis, which is not very different from the theory of repression and resistance, insofar as both reserve the most important element of the narrative for the dramatic reversal.25 Thus, there is nothing to do but wait until the memory of the buttery reects the dream of the wolf and thereby supports the primal scene. The patients conicting reactions of love and hate, along with mixed feelings of empathy and hostility toward animals (which often contributed to his disruptive behavior), can be explained by referring to Freuds comment in another meta-psychological piece, A Difculty in the Path of Psycho-analysis: A child can see no difference between his own nature and that of animals. He is not astonished at animals thinking and talking in fairy-tales; he will transfer an emotion of fear which he feels for his human father onto a dog or a horse, without intending any derogation of his father by it.26 Under the inuence of a persistently passive sexual role (through the path from his sister via his Nanny to his father), the patient was unable to identify himself as an independent, responsible man, but instead, slipped into an object-choice.27 At this point, Freud analyzes the patients contradictory feeling towards animals and sets

228

new literary history

out to compose the primal scene. First, he substitutes the gaze of the patient for that of the wolves, that is, instead of a wolf looking at him, the patient is looking at something. Secondly, he replaces the wolves with the patients parents, whose postures are similar to those of the animals. Freud attributes this posture (coitus a tergo) to the childs likely observation of copulation between animals, which he then displaced on to his parents, as though he had inferred that his parents did things in the same way (IN 57). Avoiding any absolute convictions regarding the primal sceneand offering such excuses as the readers belief will abandon me or join me in adopting a provisional belief in the reality of the scene (IN 39)Freud remains open to other possible approaches to resolving its mystery. Freud reminds us that dreaming is another kind of remembering (one that is hardly inferior to recollection), and emphasizes that the Wolf Mans history is about the mode of remembering involved in reaching the primal scene. The crucial material needed to solidify this scene is provided by the patient, when he describes the memory of a beautiful big buttery with yellow stripes and large wings. While he initially pursued the buttery, he suddenly ed, with a feeling of terror. The buttery is usually interpreted as the signier for a girl, thereby rendering it a metaphor of the patients erotic passion for a particular woman. Freud then makes a brief tour into Russian vocabulary, focusing on words such as babushka (granny) and babochka (buttery), as well as grusha, a big delicious pear with a yellow stripe on its skin. Freud nally settles on the proper name Grusha, the patients rst loved one during the primal period, when he was two-and-a-half years old. Signicantly, this Grusha scenario was repeated during his later life, on at least three occasions. The patient would fall in love with a maid, or peasant girl, whose posture resembled that of his mother in coitus a tergo, a prehistoric form of lovemaking that is now associated with animals. Thus, the scene provides the missing link between the primal scene and the later, compulsive love affairs. Freud concludes that the deeply concealed erotic objects lying beneath the patients repeated acts were surrogates for one person, his mother. What does this mother surrogate mean to Freud and the patient? How is this connected to the fear of the wolf and the recurrence of the wolf dream? Before we connect the wolf dream to the memory of the buttery (in other words, the fear of the father to the fear of the mother, in relation to the primal scene), we might stray for a moment in the Asian countryside to visit another dream of a buttery, one described in a well-known poem by Chuang-tzu:

the materiality of remembering

229

[On one occasion, Chuang-tzu dreamed that he was a buttery. His dream ight proved so delightful, so congenial, that the poet simply forgot he was Chuangtzu. Suddenly, he awoke, only to realize that he was indeed Chuang-tzu. In the throes of this experience, he stated, I hardly know whether I am Chuang-tzu who dreams of a buttery, or a buttery who dreams of Chuang-tzu. Obviously, there needs to be a distinction between Chuang-tzu and the buttery, so it is said that he became a thing.28]

Little wonder that Jacques Lacan quotes Chuang-tzu in his Seminar XI, where he illustrates the concept of the gaze.29 Although we are not far from Lacans understanding of Chuang-tzus dream of the buttery, it may be useful to investigate it further in the context of the Wolf Mans memory, linking the patients memory of the buttery to his dream of the wolf and treating them as counterparts. Notably, Chuang-tzu transgresses the boundary between man and animal, between dream and reality. To conrm this spirit of transgression, we might turn to another example, this time from the work of Lao-tzu, who represents the spirit of Tao in the symbolic statement: There is the original One, Tao, from which two is engendered; from the two, three is engendered; from the three, ten thousand things are born ( , , , ).30 What have these numbers to do with the Freudian mode of remembering? Lets start with the number three, which creates ten thousand things that subsist through the endless cycle of nature. From the number one, the supreme void, two are bornas with yin and yang, matter and spirit, or any two polarities. We could add to this list the mutually exclusive relationships of consciousness and memory trace, or the negation of the unconscious to achieve consciousness. Maintaining a balance between these two polarities, that is, as counterparts, is essential for repetition and transference. Therefore, we need three, which is called yang-hang (Korean pronunciation of ), in order to consider both counterparts simultaneously. In the absence of three, there can be no reconstruction. Nor is it possible to maintain the harmony of yin and yang. However, keeping a balance between yin and yang, given that we are confronted with the two sides of memory trace and consciousness, is not an easy task in the context of our daily lives. While it is easy for us to appreciate Chuang-tzus playful poem of the buttery (perhaps even to discern its essential truth), it is enormously difcult to apply it to our own experience, given that we live as human beings in a civilized

230

new literary history

world. Perhaps this accounts for Freuds impulse to cling tenaciously to the materiality of remembering. Chuang-tzus resemblance to the Wolf Man (not to mention to Freud himself) is the product of their common empathy for Nature and their resistance to human law. Both men, after all, are inclined to move beyond the boundaries of the human and in the direction of the realm of animals, that is, of materiality. Although there is a boundary between human beings and butteries, it cannot be described as a real boundary. Thus, Chuang-tzu is compelled to ask himself whether he is a buttery who dreams of Chuang-tzu, or Chuangtzu who dreams of a buttery. By contrast, the Wolf Man admits that he screamed and ran from that swallowtail buttery, for he dared to dream of being loved by that buttery, a mother surrogate. In this context, it may be illuminating to conclude by reviewing Freuds confession in A Difculty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis, where he identies with his patient in a way he could scarcely admit in the course of the analysis:
In the course of the development of civilization, man acquired a dominating position over his fellow-creatures in the animal kingdom. Not content with this supremacy, however, he began to place a gulf between his nature and theirs. He denied the possession of reason to them, and to himself he attributed an immortal soul, and made claims to a divine descent which permitted him to break the bond of community between him and the animal kingdom. Curiously enough, this piece of arrogance is still foreign to children, just as it is to primitive and primaeval man.31

Contending that man is not the master in its own house, Freud acknowledges, in his confession, that man is not a being different from animals or superior to them; he himself is of animal descent, being more closely related to some species and more distantly to others.32 Is it possible for us to substitute Chuang-tzus dream of a buttery for the Wolf Mans recurring dream of wolves, as reected by Freuds own confession, which involves accepting the animality of primitive humans? Freud ends his Wolf Man analysis by drawing together two distinct kinds of remembering: the dream of a wolf and the memory of a buttery. They are counterparts of a single wish to return to the innite. In the former, this desire is related as a fantasy of rebirth, while the latter takes the form of womb fantasy, but both are united in a common fantasy of rebirth (IN 1013). Similarly, remembering is nothing more than a wish to move beyond the Pleasure Principle (through a path of compulsive repetition) until we reach the primal scene, the void, where stories begin and return ceaselessly. Therefore, the buttery in the dream of Chuang-tzu, along with the dream of the Wolf Man, is the residue of

the materiality of remembering

231

our consciousness, the excess that causes compulsive erotic drivesthe materiality of remembering. Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
NOTES 1 In his book The Wolf Mans Burden ([Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001], 12628), Lawrence Johnson examines autobiography as a mode of psychoanalytic speculation. He points out how Freud transfers aspects of his own life, especially his guilt and jealousy towards his brother and sister, to an analysis of the Wolf Man, and accordingly withholds the publication of this case study (though we should also recall the fact of WWI, which caused the delay of many publications). He also lists criticisms and reviews of the case study of the Wolf Man. 2 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995), 19. 3 Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Paul and W. Scott Palmer (New York: Dover, 2004) (hereafter cited as MM). 4 Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris, eds., The Origins of Psycho-Analysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess: Drafts and Notes, 18871902, trans. Eric Mosbacher and James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1954), 174. 5 Bonaparte, Freud, Kris, The Origins of Psycho-Analysis, 413. 6 Sigmund Freud, Project for a Scientic Psychology, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogwarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 195374), 1:281397. The essay was written in 1895, yet only translated into English and edited by James Strachey in 1950. 7 Freud, A Note Upon the Mystic-Pad, Collected Papers, vol. 5, Miscellaneous Papers, 18881938, ed. James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 17580, 179. 8 Freud, A Note Upon the Mystic-Pad, 176. 9 In his Autobiography ([New York: Norton, 1935], 1056), Freud complains about Adler and Jungs hope of escaping the need for recognizing the importance of infantile sexuality. 10 Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Standard Edition 18:164, 37 (hereafter cited as BP). 11 Derrida, Freud and the Scene of Writing, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978), 196231 (hereafter cited as FS). 12 See Frank J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (New York: Basic Books, 1979) (hereafter cited as FB); Adolf Grnbaum, The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1984) (hereafter cited as FP); Frederick Crews, The Memory Wars: Freuds Legacy in Dispute (New York: A New York Review Book, 1995) (hereafter cited as MW). 13 For Freud, natural science does not stand far from human science. Freuds Autobiography, where he confesses how he chose his vocation as a medical student, conrms this supposition: At the same time, the theories of Darwin, which were then of topical interest, strongly attracted me, for they held out hopes of an extraordinary advance in our understanding of the world; and it was hearing Goethes beautiful essay on Nature read aloud at a popular lecture by professor Carl Brhl just before I left school that decided me to become a medical student (1011).

232

new literary history

14 Of recent experimental data, the following are regarded as important for the investigation. Las Nyberg, Roberto Cabeza, and Endel Tulving, PET Studies of Encoding and Retrieval: The HERA Model, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3, no. 2 (1996):13548; Mark A. Wheeler, Donald T. Stuss, and Endel Tuving, Toward a Theory of Episodic Memory: The Frontal Lobes and Autonoetic Consciousness, Psychological Bulletin 121, no. 3 (1997): 33154; Daniel L. Schacter, Kenneth A. Norman, and Wilma Koutstaal, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Constructive Memory, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 49 (1998): 289318; Endel Tulving and Martin Lepage, Where in the Brain Is the Awareness of Ones Past? Memory, Brain, and Belief, ed. Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000, 2001), 20828. 15 Nyberg et al., PET Studies, 136. 16 Tulving and Lepage, Where in the Brain, 214. 17 Nyberg et al., PET Studies, 140. 18 Nyberg et al., PET Studies, 135. 19 Tulving and Lepage, Where in the Brain, 219. 20 Wheeler et al., Toward a Theory, 331. 21 Wheeler et al., Toward a Theory, 345. 22 Freud, From the History of an Infantile Neurosis, Standard Edition, 17:3122 (hereafter cited as IN). 23 Freud, Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through, Standard Edition, 12: 145156, 151. 24 Freud, Remembering, 150 25 Peter Rudnytsky notes Freuds literary inclinations in Reading Psychoanalysis: Freud, Rank, Ferenczi, Groddeck (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2002), 71. 26 Freud, A Difculty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis, Standard Edition, 17: 13744, 140. 27 At the end of the memoir of the Wolf Man, edited by Muriel Gardiner, there is an impressive passage about the Wolf Mans incapacity to engage in study, work, and love. However, after his analysis with Freud, he completed his studies, married the woman he loved, took care of his job and his mother, and managed a relatively normal life. The Wolf Man and Sigmund Freud (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), 390. 28 , 2, . See 1, trans. , (Seoul: , 2001), 126; my translation. Chuang-tzu, along with Lao-tzu, represents a spirit of Taoism. Against the strict moral code in the Confucianism of his time, he wrote many interesting poems and fables supporting the exible ethics grounded in natural phenomena from the prehistoric age of China. Though Taoism originated with Lao-tzu, who wrote Tao-Tae-Ching (), people have generally agreed that without Chuangtzu and his disciples, Taoism would be a dry and tasteless set of principles of Nature for teaching the proper way of man in society. Indeed, Chuang-tzu added an aesthetic touch to Taoist thought by enriching it with his poetic imagination. 29 Jacques Lacan uses Chuang-tzus fable dream of a buttery for his illustration of the objet petit a. He remarks that Chuang-tzu apprehended one of the roots of his identity as a buttery. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, ed. Jacques A. Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1981), 76. 30 Lao-tzu (), Tao Te Ching (), 42 (). For a recent translation of the whole poem, see Daodejing: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger T. Ames & David L. Hall (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), 142. 31 Freud, A Difculty, 140. 32 Freud, A Difculty, 141.