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Sigmund FreudA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
“Screen Memories”
“The Creative Writer and Daydreaming”
“Family Romances”
Part 1, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 2, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 3, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 4, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 5, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 6, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”
Part 1, “The Uncanny”
Part 2, “The Uncanny”
Part 3, “The Uncanny”
Key Figures
Themes
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
In this brief essay, Freud outlines the role of fantasy within the family, that crucible of early childhood development. Freud argues that the principal work of the child is to succeed its parents by replacing them with more exhaled figures. Neurotics fail in this task. To the small child, parents appear all powerful and are loved unconditionally. Through experience, the child realizes that their parents are not all-powerful and all-good as the child had originally believed. The child then begins to critique his or her parents. In neurosis, such dissatisfaction is accompanied with feelings of sexual rivalry, which arise during the early sexual development of the child. Boys typically feel contention with their father, for instance.
The subsequent estrangement of the child from their parents involves the fantasy of replacing them with superior figures. Freud writes that “an essential feature in neurosis, and also of any considerable talent, is a special imaginative activity” (38). Encounters with social superiors arouse envy in the child, whom responds by deposing his or her parents and instating replacements. A second, sexualized phase follows, during which the child’s fantasy life integrates a new awareness of sex. The sum of these fantasies is what Freud calls the “family romance” (39).
By Sigmund Freud
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
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Civilization And Its Discontents
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Moses and Monotheism
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On Dreams
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The Freud Reader
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The Future of an Illusion
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The Interpretation of Dreams
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Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
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