In the beginning of Peter Brooks’s piece entitled “Freud’s Masterplot”, he comes to say that we are largely driven by pleasure. With this pleasure, we feel obligated to fulfill basic wants for food, comfort and sex as well as secondary desires for favorable respect, love, retribution, and so on. A main point made in this piece is that through storytelling and/or recalling memories, there is an impulse to recall traumatic and unpleasant past events. “The answer lies in a universal attribute of instincts and perhaps of organic life in general, that an instinct is an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things (290).” In other words according to this quotes, the fundamental aim of the story is repetition. Individuals repeat past experiences in an attempt to obtain symbolic control over their life. Repetition compulsion helps to rebuild pleasurable capacity that has been harmed by trauma. Repetition creates a bond. Humans were able to regain their enjoyment due to the binding nature of repetition. An individual’s ability for satisfaction can be restored by repeating such trauma. “The organism has no wish to change; if its conditions remained the same, it would constantly repeat the very same course of life. Modifications are the effect of external stimuli, and these modifications are in turn stored up for further repetition, so that, while the instincts may give the appearance of tending toward change, they are merely seeking to reach an ancient goal by paths alike old and new” (290).A lengthy quotation illustrates how an individual’s memory is inclined to alter previous pain rather than change it to make it more palatable to the human mind. Individuals can fight extraneous influences in this way and remain focused on the original aim of existence, which is death. In some ways, we can relate the notion of memory and recalling trauma, to Freud piece entitled, “The Uncanny” which talks about how we feel anxious when a particular trigger reanimates latent childhood conflicts or primordial ideas that we previously rejected but now gain newfound validation. “The subject of the uncanny  is a province of this kind~ It is undoubtedly related to what is frightening to what arouses dread and horror; equally certainly, too, the word is.pot always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general” (930). The uncanny is kind of a relation to humans recalling trauma. The fact that both these pieces talk about humans recalling and tapping into dark parts of their life is extremely interesting and fascinating in which the human brian functions.

Walter Benjamin’s article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” addresses how art is evaluated at different stages of its creation and how it is generated. Then he goes on to talk about how technological reproduction has affected society’s capitalism. To begin, we examine the idea that art is history, and that as a result, many different types of artwork have been developed over time. Some would argue that before modern replication, art was more distinct to the touch since it wasn’t processed and duplicated. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art·is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership” (Benjamin 1168). Handcrafted work is unique in that it retains its individuality across time, space, and place. That being said, art is always duplicated in today’s society; the only difference is in the manner in which it is imitated. One of the first machines reproduced forms of art was woodcut. Following the woodcut, lithography became a method of producing art that was more concerned with quantity and variation than with authenticity. As a result, lithography turns art into a materialistic medium rather than a source of pure, one-of-a-kind uniqueness. People would pay to have “nice art” in their homes despite the fact that most of it was duplicated, causing society to regard things in a more materialistic light. Following photography, artists began to rely less on their manual skills with simple objects like hand and paper. Artists now had to employ perspective in order to represent life scenes in a way that was technologically feasible. Is there a feeling of originality in an image, or is it merely second-hand descriptions of what the artists captured? Even though a photograph appears to be beautiful to the naked eye, it lacks real-time perspective. The snapshot is just a copy of what happened in real life, which detracts from the emotion or reason behind a painting. “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity” (1169) as argued by Walter Benjamin. Authenticity gives art the power of time, space, and place in terms of first-hand creativity, allowing it to properly be deemed art. Because images pass through the hands of thousands of individuals, technological reproduction of art produces manipulation in artwork such as photography. With today’s technology, hundreds of elements inside the artwork may be changed, such as color tone, material, and so on. All of these manipulatable elements detract from the originality and significance of the artwork. Things begin to be mass produced, which introduces Karl Marx’s concepts and capitalism. No one will want to buy art if it continues to be replicated because it has lost its authenticity and distinctiveness. According to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commodities are items that humans want and need, as discussed in chapter 1 of their book Capital Volume 1, entitled Commodities. “Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values. It is, however, just this ultimate money-form of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of disclosing, the social character of private labor, and the social relations between the individual producers” (Marx and Engel 779). Because art has become a commodity, such products are mass-produced, losing their individuality in the process. Children in 2022 have no understanding of the creative culture underlying Van Gogh’s painting because it is electronically recreated and can be viewed in practically every restaurant, school, and other public places. Art has fallen into the hands of mass production as a result of capitalism, and as a result, art is no longer meaningful or worthwhile but is instead employed as a source of profit for manufacturers.

Barbara Johnson’s analysis, “From Melville’s Fist: The Execution of Billy Budd,” delves into the story of three major characters: Billy Budd, John Claggart, and Captain Vere. Each of these personalities represents something unique and possesses distinct characteristics, all of which contribute to their demise and troubles. First, we can look at Budd. “the innocent, ignorant foretopman, handsome Billy Budd” (2319). Budd is regarded as a good and innocent person. On the other side, Claggart is the polar opposite of him. Claggart is referred to as the devious, urban master-at-arms” (2319), and he is portrayed as nasty, cruel, and, in many ways, satan since he is always attempting to harm people around him. Billy’s good nature turns out to be his demise, which is ironic. As the evil becomes the innocent, the good becomes guilty. A fairly devastating conclusion to what can be viewed as both an ironic narrative and a natural tragedy. Captain Vere, in the end, sentences Billy Budd to death as he is battling his own sense of self vs. society. Johnson says that the signified is resembled by the inner self, whereas the signifier is resembled by the signifier outer self, based on Saussure’s concepts. Johnson employs Saussure’s theory of signifier/signified to explain the difference between Billy and Claggart as readers in terms of the traits and ideas that they share. Billy Budd is prone to gaps between purpose and action between signifier and signified, thus the comparison of being and doing comes into play here. Billy is a transparent sign with a required link between the signifier and the signified. Billy represents the difficulty of a “transparent” manner of meaning. Billy believes everything he reads and does all he says merely to preserve himself. “As a reader, then, Billy is symbolically as well as factually illiterate. His literal-mindedness is represented by his illiteracy because, in assuming that language can be taken at face value, he excludes the very functioning of difference that makes the act of reading both indispensable and undecidable” (2323). Therefore, Billy’s inability to see things at nothing else but face value put him in jeopardy of being good but guilty. On the other hand, Claggart “is the very image of difference and duplicity, both in his appearance and in his character” (2323). Claggart is the polar opposite of Billy in that he epitomizes wickedness yet, due to his untimely death, he depicts innocence. Claggart always assumes a gap between the signified and the signifier as he assumes the opposite. In essence, Johnson employs Saussure’s theory to demonstrate a distinction between Claggart and Billy. Johnson used the terms signified and signifier to show which character is capable of distinguishing between the two and which is not and how such distinctions create characterization.

         The essay “from Linguistics and Poetics” was written by linguist Roman Jakobson. Readers will gain an understanding of his concepts in this work, which revolve around the study of both poetics and linguistics. Jakobson begins by explaining what both of these concepts are and how they are similar and different from one another. He also considers how poetics and linguistics are applied in everyday situations as well as in the literary realm. We wonder how linguistics as a whole relates to poetics. Roman Jakobson argues that there is a system in which a speaking act must be analyzed. This speaking act is significant because it allows for varied interpretations of different sentences and art genres. Poetics, according to Jakobson, does not entail the study of poetry. Rather, it is a literary form of attention devoted to a literary subset of language usage. The way one reads a pizza menu is not the same as reading Robert Frost. Because close reading approaches are not appropriate for all areas of literature, Jakobson demonstrates how to assess the poetic dimension of language. We’ve arrived at the point where we have to ask ourselves, what makes anything poetic? This is what Jakobson is trying to get through in his essay. Both Saussure and Jakobson refer to linguistics and literacy theory in the same way. Saussure explains how sign systems function. Jakobson now narrows it down and explains how poetics differs from linguistic analysis. We learn about Jakobson’s train of thought, which helps humans to evaluate language in order to determine what is poetic about a text and whether or not a text is poetic in and of itself. As previously indicated, language must be investigated. In such an investigation, Jakobson identifies the variables that occur in all acts of verbal communication.

 The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To’ be operative the message requires CONTEXT referred to “(the   “referent” in another, somewhat ambiguous,’ nomenclature), graspable by the addressee, and·either verbal or capable of being verbalized; a CODE fully or at least partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and, finally, a CONTACT. a physical channel and psychological connection ~between the addresser and· the addressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication. 

        To clarify, the addresser is the speaker who speaks first and then transmits a message to the addressee. The message is the act of receiving a spoken message from the sender to the receiver. The addressee is the individual who hears or receives the message. The context, or the type of term, thing, or significance being expressed, is then examined. Then there’s a code, which is just a common language. Finally, there’s the channel, which is the contact. The connection between the addresser and the addressee is known as the channel.

      When comparing Jakobson’s theories to Saussure, Saussure stated that language is similar to a chess board with rules. Grammar, immaterial/ abstract thoughts, absent/ unseen ideas, and other rules. Saussure is the source of Jakobson’s ideas, as he describes rules that allow someone to draw linguistic connections in order to determine whether something is poetic. Saussure also talks about the signifier and the signified. The signified, which is the sound picture, and the signified, which is the concept derived from the sound image, can both be related to Jakobson’s concepts. I can see the relationship between the message and the setting in respect to the signifier and the signified in Jakobsons discussion of elements in verbal discourse. 

     Additionally, Jakobson discusses six communication functions which allows people to determine what makes something poetic. These functions include, referential, poetic, emotive, conative, phatic and metalingual. Referential is the facts and the information. Emotive is self-expression. Such as making the statement that “I am pretty”. Conative is when you are addressing the addressee. Phatic is basically when a conversation isn’t emotive or referential but just about the channel itself. Metalingual is confirming whether you share codes and if not find ways to relate your codes/ form of language. Finally, we have poetic. Poetic is the use of language as a language. It’s the strategic use of language that creates effect, rich description and calls attention to the message itself. The definition of poetic is crucial because it affirms the fact about whether something is poetic and what qualities something exhibited to make it poetic. Interpretation of poetic language makes us more awake to dichotomy and the division/ separation of ways in which we speak and analyze messages. 

Truth to Friedrich Nietzsche is nothing more than the human mind’s ever-changing perceptions. The truth was established based on what people wanted to hear in order to create a feeling of reality that appealed to people’s minds and intellects. Truth is founded on the creation of metaphors that have evolved into a type of belief and, as a result, are seen as the truth upon which reality is founded. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, in his piece, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense, he believes that truth is “a mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthro- pomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation; and decoration” (878). To put it another way, there really is no such thing as truth. Truth is nothing more than a set of metaphors devised to produce an appealing aesthetic for humans. Then there’s the question of whether truth is the same for everyone or if the truth is only accepted when people wish to accept it. Friedrich Nietzsche thought that society forces people to be truthful. But, if being truthful is a social requirement, who defines what constitutes truth and what constitutes a lie? This is the question that Nietzsche brings up. We, as humans, consider truth to be a fact. A human who states the facts is seen as a trustworthy individual, but those who lie are regarded as threats to society. What if, on the other hand, people believe in two separate truths? Can truths change depending on people’s perceptions and the reality that has been forced on them? Yes, Friedrich Nietzsche believes they can, and as a result, he believes truth is nothing more than a never-ending army of metaphors. Metaphors were created on the basis of tolerance and logic. If people have different acceptances and logic, then there is no such thing as truth. There is only a list of never-ending metaphors and perceptions that vary within individuals. “The feeling that one is obliged to describe one thing as red, another as cold, and a third as dumb, prompts a moral impulse which pertains to truth”(878). What causes something to get cold? Is it the truth if something is cold? Is it possible for people’s perceptions of cold to be subjective? Friedrich Nietzsche is attempting to persuade his audience of the importance of these problems. Truth is derived from cultural ideas that have evolved into “customary metaphors” and, as a result, are nothing more than deceptive illusions that have been deceiving people for years. A fact is something that is classified as true, but where did such facts come from if not from science? “Coins which, having lost their stamp, are now regarded as metal and no longer as coins” (878). When coins lose their stamp, who came up with the idea that they are no longer coins? Why does this one concept come to pass and become a common metaphor that forces itself on society? The conclusion is that humans are duped into believing the truth. Humans pursue the truth because if they don’t, society will judge them as untrustworthy. There is no such thing as reality because there is no such thing as truth. Reality is built on metaphors that have been developed imaginatively. Reality is nothing more than a reflection of what humans have made for themselves after being deluded by the incessant yearning for truth. What is true and what is a lie is depicted through feelings. The terms “feeling” and “reason” are both metaphorical and subjective. So, is the truth really the truth, or is everything all a lie?