Freud

11 Pages 2862 Words

tify with them as analogues. Misunderstanding was replaced by assimilation, which led to progress. To Freud’s surprise, the characteristics that he had in common with his female patients were those of stubbornness, arrogance, and insight—qualities that are characteristically male. Freud’s desire to cure his patients reflects that his preconceived notions of women are bereft of an ability to predict their actions. By asking, “What does a woman want?” (Felman, 73), Freud indicates that merely adopting societal assumptions about women’s goals may be insufficient. Women are baffling to Freud because, unlike men, there is a large disparity between women’s desires and the roles forced upon them by society. Shoshana Felman supports this claim by investigating the dream of Irma’s injection, in which Irma is examined by men: “The riddle of the woman--Irma’s body, or Irma’s riddle--is thus submitted to an exclusively male examination… Here again the question of femininity becomes a question of male knowledge… The riddle, it woul...