20. Medicine and Psychology
Doctor Watson was seated on
the chair at the unit. He had seen Holmes leave after receiving a note from one
of his boys. The doctor was to follow but was told to stay there.
“Our hare may be abounded.”
Watson was told.
“Hare?” The doctor was not
amused. It was a rarity when Holmes ever mentioned hunting unless it was the
foe of the two-legged preys; technically the hare was two-legged, but the hare
was still considered among the animals grouping. So were the chickens and
ducks, but they cannot speak the language understood by mankind. The vocal
expression of mankind in pain was equally understood, but no one cares when it
is an animal, but over the ages, the doctors have perfected it by the calls of
it. One day, physicians would have charts to denote the level of pain like
music scores.
Doctor Watson saw the
housemate of his left with his full attire but not the walking cane. Perhaps he
was not in need of it as it was daylight. It was nighttime when you felt safer
with a walking stick. Bartitsu was the art of self-defence learned by the other
for his own protection. It was a combination of the elements of boxing,
jujitsu, cane-fighting, and French kickboxing.
“He would not stand one
round with John.” John L. Sulivan was the world champion in bare knuckles and
gloved. The doctor smiled, although boxing was not his sport, but like many, he
cheered or jeered them from the sidelines.
The doctor then focused his
mind on the unit. The stacks of prints and notes are stacked to Holmes’s side
while the walking boundary area looked clear; there were still the single
prints there. He declined to pick them up and gave his thoughts to the visit at
Newgate Prison.
It was an honor to be in the
company of the esteemed professor then.
“A most remarkable place. It
differs so much from ours in my home country.” The professor had commented.
“The Saint Giles Prison is more recent than yours. We treat the inmates with
reasonable care. The doctors were there to treat the infirm, and like myself,
we also treat the mental state of the inmates.”
(Extract from https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2024&context=jclc).
“In all fairness, Belgium
has a differing view on the incarceration of offenders.” Doctor Watson had
replied to defend the system deployed there. He has his share of sympathy for
the reform there, but the prisons were undermanned and overcrowded. Hard labour
was a common punishment. Many Victorians believed that having to work very hard
would prevent criminals from committing crime in the future. The crank and the
treadmill: Prisons often made prisoners do pointless tasks such as turning a
crank up to 10,000 times a day. Or walk for hours on giant circular tread
mills. (Extract from https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zck3n9q#zp6xxbk )
“We lived in different
realms, if I may say.” The professor smiled. “Let us visit some of the inmates
here.”
“You may leave your cloak
with the guards while inside.” Doctor Watson suggested to the Professor.
“No, it is okay. I do feel
chilly without my cloak.” The Professor declined the suggestion. The visitation
yielded little results, for the sharing was more confrontational than what it
was supposed to be. The duo soon took leave of the prison and boarded the coach
to return to their abodes.
“Are you implying that
criminals are mad, Professor?”
“Not mad, but mentally
challenged.” The professor explained. “Criminal behaviour is attributed to
maladjustment and dysfunctional personality. Some criminologists were not
averse to the principle of confinement and often favoured increased penalties
like how we interned the mentally challenged.”
“It was designed to protect
them from... hurt and also...”
“A stigma of processing. We
kill to avoid being killed.” The professor held his view.
“Yet they kill for whatever
reasons they may hold." Doctor Watson defended the incarceration of
violent offenders.
“Yes, that may be their...
intentions, but what drove it. I have founded the psychoanalyst to form
theories and concepts surrounding the existence of mental illness and its
interconnected nature with human behaviour. Throughout my research, I can
conclude that behaviour can be explained through the analysis of one's
experiences and trauma, giving accountability to the motivation of a person's
actions.”
“The interpretation of his
findings concluded a person can adapt his/her behaviour from childhood
experiences to become a part of the hidden consciousness state. I studied
unobservable behaviour—parts of the personality that are not visibly noticeable
within one's nature and, on a basic level, cannot be explained.”
“I am still compiling my
findings till now. It is unconclusive, for the depth of the mind is vast. We
may be using only a small fraction of our brain... perhaps less than ten
percent.” (Extract from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_criminology).
“And how will you... surmise
on the recent murders?”
“I can say it is the work of
some men with the desire to preserve the organs for their trophies or research.
Do you recall the works of Mary Shelley of Frankenstein?”
“A wild imagination of a
lady.” Doctor Watson remarked.
“A lady she is, but her
writing of the horrifying events was of pioneering view from her gender.”
Professor Freud smiled. “You spoke out of ego that the female gender may not or
should not be doing such tasks. I can assure you that one day in the future, we
may regret that attitude.”
“A slip of my tongue there.”
Doctor Watson apologized.
“A slip of the mind will be
more appropriate.” The professor narrowed down the workings there. “Mary
Shelley’s works are novels that express the tragedy of conflicts within an
individual consciousness. Frankenstein is riven by the competing forces of his
social conscience (his Super-Ego), his conscious desires (his Ego), and his
unconscious wishes (his Id). It will not be difficult to demonstrate the
competition between Frankenstein and the Monster as dramatic representations of
the ego-id conflict, but first it is necessary to produce a reason or an origin
for the essential divisions that break Frankenstein apart.”
“The simplest explanation
seems to be straightforward: Oedipal rivalry coupled with sexual fear and
guilt. My understanding of the book plot was along with my readings of it.”
“Victor Frankenstein is a
bright young man, but his feelings were on the contrary. His father repeatedly
urges marriage upon him—something which Victor fears for he loved his mother
and detests the rivalry there, hence my oedipal effect. She was still very much
a young lady, and it was seen when she gave birth to his other brothers, Ernest
and William. And later, for some reason, the family adopted Elizabeth. She was
an attraction to him but took great pains to avoid and then put off marriage to
her—a marriage which his mother wished for on her death bed.”
“Frankenstein’s
psychological conflicts, or his mental association was with sex and death.”
“Hmmm….” Doctor Watson
nodded. It was his way of sharing that he was agreeable, but who could argue
otherwise with the master of the subject then?
“Subconsciously, the object
of his unconscious sexual desire, which is his mother, was removed when he
viewed Elizabeth differently. Moreover, his mother’s death from scarlet fever
was contracted from Elizabeth herself. She died and killed his object of desire.
She represents the threat of sexuality, which Frankenstein fears; at another,
she is an object of forbidden desire; incest was the word; and at a third, she
is the'murderer’ of his mother. At times, we blamed some other family member
for causing the death of another out of anger.”
“From there, Frankenstein
therefore has subconscious reasons for every one of the murders that follow:
the death of William’s case; a sibling rivalry whom he felt had abandoned him
in the family.”
“Soon Frankenstein leaves
home, knowing that neglect of his friends and family is wrong and that his
father would disapprove. It is not difficult to see the Monster as an image of
Frankenstein’s secret sexuality: ‘it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion
agitated its' limbs'—especially when the description of the Monster itself is
suggestively close to what might be the implement of Frankenstein’s sexuality,
complete with its appurtenances and products.”
“Intriguing….” Doctor Watson
was looking for words to express his thoughts.
“Do not patronize me,
Doctor. I am saying from my findings. The Monster created by Victor is... an
image; no, it was a phallic image, a representation of Frankenstein’s conscious
sexual guilt and fear, and an embodiment of his Id—the unconscious irrational
impulses, the amoral libido-fuelled forces that can act either for good
(creation) or evil (destruction and death).”
“Immediately after the
monster was created, Frankenstein falls into a guilt-induced dream that
wonderfully combines all his sexual anxieties—conscious and unconscious. The
dream is so disturbing that Frankenstein awakes—and is described in almost the
same terms as the Monster—'a' cold dew covered my forehead... and every limb
became' convulsed'—whereupon the Monster appears to him—'He' held up the
curtain of the bed... and his eyes were fixed on me,’ which is another stunning
image of the Monster as Frankenstein’s sexual guilt. One notes that it is then
Frankenstein who runs away from the monster—that is, releases it to perform his
unconscious wishes. Frankenstein himself falls ill and is nursed back to
health, back to social normality by his ‘conscience’, his Super-Ego figure,
Clerval.”
“Who’s Clerval?”
“Victor’s boyhood friend,
who nurses Victor back to health in Ingolstadt. After working unhappily for his
father, Henry begins to follow in Victor’s footsteps as a scientist. His
cheerfulness counters Victor’s moroseness.” The professor stared at Doctor Watson.
“There were no other feelings besides the brotherhood sharing. Victor did not
view Clerval as a threat.”
“The id-Monster is now at
liberty as an amoral force, but with explicitly sexual impulses. Since he is
ugly, a notion that Victor attributed to his appearance and, assumably, unable
to be loved by a woman, it is a mate he requires of Frankenstein.”
“He demanded a creature of
another sex, but as hideous as myself. He also knows that if this ‘passion’ is
not gratified, it will turn from a desire for ‘the interchange of...
sympathies’ into a wanton destructiveness. That is, the unconscious libidinous impulses
of Frankenstein’s he represents will, if not properly gratified, turn from
positive creative ones into something negative and destructive.” (Extract from
https://mantex.co.uk/frankenstein-a-study-6/
“I have reached my house.
Good night, Doctor Watson.’ The professor alighted from the coach, and slipped
on the cloak. The doctor was left alone to his thoughts.
“I believe that there is
another Frankenstein in the city. One that is equally deadly.” The professor
had his last words towards Doctor Watson. The good doctor was making no
progress on his findings at all.
The professor merely told
what the mindset of a criminal or monster criminal is, but how does that relate
to the murders? It was like a game of dice; you knew the numbers there, but the
outcome was never foreseen unless you were a cheat.
