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  • Essay / Power and Spatial Discipline in the Case Study of “Little Hans”

    In her article “The Taming of Michel Foucault: New Historicism, Psychoanalysis and the Subversion of Power”, Suzanne Gearhart describes what she calls “ Foucault's critical approach. dialogue” with Freud”, notably in his “analysis of the relationship between pleasure and power” (459-60). Interestingly, she notes that, in Discipline and Punish, Foucault mentions "the subjects of two of Freud's most famous case studies: little Hans and Judge Schreber" (469). Gearhart, however, does not fully explore Foucault's understanding of the "Little Hans" case study. Foucault cites Little Hans as an exemplary object of the discipline of his father and Freud; However, in many instances of the case study, rather than acting as a subject of Foucault's ideas about the discipline, Hans actually actively engages with, questions, and challenges them. By both transgressing the spatial boundaries his parents set for him and simultaneously using the complex ways in which he confines and empowers Hanna, Hans attempts to assert both his power over his family and his new sexual desires. emerging. In fact, his manipulation of the spatial enclosures and his disciplinary interactions with Hanna allow Hans to become "master of the house," asserting his desires and creating his own rules and boundaries (Gurewich 137). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Despite Hans's age, scholars often note the ways in which he questions his father's authority. Early in the case study, Freud notes the Graf family's liberal policy on discipline: "his parents...had agreed to raise their first child without more constraint than was necessary to maintain behavior decent” (4). Patrick Mahony argues, however, that the effect of this policy was that "Hans was subjected to his parents' confusing mixture of permissiveness, excessive stimulation, and constraints" (1247). Hans confronts this unstable discipline by seeking to surpass his father in both control of the family and psychoanalytic understanding. Judith Gurewich argues that Hans's constant creation of myths represents his attempts to "force his father's involvement" in the paternal role (123). Furthermore, she states that Hans's fantasy of "loading and unloading" a furniture van "serves as a dream of control" over his environment (123). In terms of knowledge and understanding, Gillian Beer states that often “little Hans is ahead of his father” in analysis (xv). Mahony observes that, in the writing case, Hans becomes a “dictator” who “dominate[s]” the writing activity to the professor; the “scriptive father” then remains “crumpled”, which indicates that the father has been relegated to the rank of the mother or Hanna, both contained in the symbol of the crumpled giraffe (1249). Even Freud himself is aware of the way in which Hans consciously seeks to elevate his understanding above that of his father. He makes this clear through the footnote in which he states that Hans's story is a way of "consciously mocking his father" (82). As a result, Hans seems preoccupied with acquiring and asserting his own knowledge and power over that of his father. Foucault, however, views little Hans not as an agent of control, but as a force that must be harnessed and disciplined. In his slight mention of the case of “Little Hans” in Discipline and Punish, Foucault cites the way in which the case study individualizes Little Hans as an example of a “disciplinary regime” (193). He maintains that “ina system of discipline, the child is more individualized than the adult, [and] the patient more than the healthy man” (193); as a result, the disciplinary society individualizes its members according to their degree of deviation from the norm. Due to his age and his phobia, little Hans is a prime example of someone who is disciplined by the "surveillance" and "observation" of both his father and Freud (Foucault 193). Consequently, Foucault understands the case of Little Hans thus: "The adventure of our childhood is no longer expressed in 'little good Henri', but in the misfortunes of 'little Hans'" (193-4). Ultimately, although Foucault views Hans as the "unfortunate" object of disciplinary action, I argue that Hans in fact intentionally escapes these disciplinary constraints and, furthermore, varies and imposes them on others. members of his family to assert his own control and domination. The main disciplinary action Hans engages in is Foucault's idea of ​​spatial discipline. Foucault maintains that strict spatial organization is “a question of organizing the multiple, of providing oneself with an instrument to cover and control it; it was a matter of imposing an “order” on him” (148). Accordingly, classifying and controlling the location assigned to something or someone is a sign of both “power” and “knowledge” (Foucault 148). This spatial organization is exactly what Hans' father tries to do to “impose his law” and take his place in the Oedipal triangle (Gurewich 117). Although Karin Ahbel-Rappe asserts that Hans's father "is a man [consciously] obsessed...with being the big daddy who announces the Oedipal order," he ultimately fails to do so (853). Gurewich even uses spatial terms to assert that the father must be located “between mother and child” to fulfill his role successfully (117). Hans's father attempts, unsuccessfully, to discipline his son in the following passage: Hans always comes to our house early in the morning and my wife can't help but take him to bed with her for a few minutes. At this point I always start to warn her about being with her... and she replies that it doesn't make any sense... Hans then stays in bed for a little while. (30) In this passage, Hans's father attempts to limit the places his son can and cannot go, but he fails and Hans is finally allowed into bed, marking the breakdown of the father's sense of control. Sleeping with your mother is one of them. of the main ways in which Hans avoids the spatial limitations his father imposes on him, thus escaping any sense of discipline other than his own. Many other situations in which Hans transgresses spatial boundaries involve using the toilet. The most striking example, also involving his mother, is the one where Hans goes to the toilet with her: Hans answers yes when his father asks him: "Have you often been to the toilet at the same time as mom?" (49). Upon further investigation, Hans's father discovers that Hans enters the toilet in hopes of "seeing Mommy's pee-pee", which again represents an example in which Hans transgresses spatial boundaries in order to challenge his father and to get closer to his mother (50). Furthermore, Hans states that he “was going to the toilet with [Berta]” in Gmunden (48). This, perhaps more than any other example, shows Hans actively pushing spatial boundaries to the extent that he does not ask Berta's permission to enter the toilet with her; he “entered it alone” (48). Likewise, the fact that Hans's parents then tell him "not to do it again" shows that this act is a definite spatial transgression, despite Hans' assertion that he "wasn't bad" (48); this statement perhaps indicates theHans' sense of his own right to break these boundaries. Finally, Freud suggests that Hans refuses to limit himself to urinating only in the toilet. At the beginning of the case study, Hans's father explains that Hans likes to "play toilet" in a "wood store" in the house, despite the fact that the toilet is right next to it (9). Hans also remembers “where the little garden is [in Gmunden], where the radishes are, that was where I made a cuttlefish” (47). In these examples, Hans chooses to define his own toilet rather than adhering to the spatial boundaries set for him. Hans also shows his desire to physically transgress boundaries through his two criminal “thoughts” on March 30. The first is Hans's fantasy: "I was at Schönbrunn with you [his father] looking at the sheep, then we crawled under the ropes and then we told the policeman at the entrance what we had done and he caught us” (31). . The second fantasy involves breaking a window from inside a train, perhaps to escape, to which, again, "a policeman took [Hans and his father]" (31). Gurewich examines these two fantasies and focuses on the policeman's presence as "expressing [Hans'] desire for a threshold, a limit to be set between him and his mother" (131). Another way to view these fantasies, however, is to place them in the context of Hans's desire to transgress boundaries rather than construct them. These fantasies differ from Hans's other attempts to challenge spatial discipline in that they explicitly involve the father; Ahbel-Rappe argues that "instead of the father appropriating the son in the order of decency [in this fantasy], the son appropriating the father in a transgressive disorder", once again indicating the desire to Hans to control his father (849). Furthermore, according to Gurewich, these fantasies show Hans "forming an alliance with his father to defeat the all-powerful mother" (126). As a result, these instances of spatial transgression reinforce Hans's power over his mother as well as his father. The most compelling reason why these transgressions display and reinforce Hans's sense of control can be found in Foucault's connection between pleasure and power in The History of Sexuality. . Gearhart cites the following aspects of Foucault's argument on the relationship between power and pleasure: "They function as double-impulse mechanisms: pleasure and power...power [asserts itself] in the pleasure of showing oneself, of scandalizing or to resist” (462). . In this way, Foucault argues that “showing off” and “scandalizing,” two elements of Hans’s behavior, are ways of asserting his power. But perhaps more importantly, Foucault argues that the connections between power and pleasure are “not boundaries not to be crossed, but perpetual spirals,” suggesting that the two ideas are inextricably linked (Gearhart 462). In this statement, Foucault metaphorically compares the correlation between pleasure and power to a crossable boundary, returning to his argument about the establishment and transgression of spatial discipline as a sign of power in Discipline and Punish. Looking at Hans' spatial indiscretions from this perspective, it seems clear that most of them are motivated by pleasure and sexual desire. For example, Hans's father interprets Hans's entry into his mother's bed as "at night he is overcome by the desire for his Mother, her caresses and his sexual member and so he enters our room" (30). Likewise, entering the toilet with his mother and Berta results from his desire to see them urinate, and also from Berta touching his pee pad (48, 50). By also “playing” on the toilet, Hans realizes his sexual desire by “exposing himself” in the storage room, what Freud describes as an “autoerotic” impulse (9). Furthermore, Hans's diction "exposing himself" is explicitly sexual and suggests an aggressive sexuality in which Hans dominates (even though, in this particular situation, there is no subject to dominate): this action of "showing off" , such as walking on Berta in the toilet without permission, shows Hans' assertive erotic desires to be completely under control. Finally, although Hans's desire to hide under the rope and break the train window does not seem specifically motivated by sexual pleasure, Freud describes them as desires to "enter a closed area", indicating that these fantasies could also come from The Sexual Wishes of Hans (31). As a result, Hans is shown to be unconsciously preoccupied with power and control, not only because he crosses boundaries, but also because these acts of transgression allow her to gain pleasure and assert her sexual power over him. others. In addition to avoiding the boundaries that others set for him to assert his sense of dominance, he also sets those same boundaries for the people around him, especially his sister Hanna. Gurewich rightly notes that, for Hans, Hanna becomes “the ideal embodiment of the phallic object” (139). However, Hans's "adoration" for his sister is also accompanied by a simultaneous desire to assert his control over her (Gurewich 139). In the case study, Hans's father states that Hans "only becomes affectionate toward Hanna as he [becomes] aware of his own superiority" over her (7); therefore, their relationship can be understood on multiple levels. By examining their relationship on a superficial level, Hans attempts to exercise a similar type of discipline on Hanna that others offer him: he imagines her as confined and easily locatable in several "myths" he creates. The most prominent example of this is his fantasy that Hanna travels to Gmunden before being born in a bathtub enclosed in a box (55); the presence of both the box and the bathtub represents a double feeling of internment. Additionally, even after Hanna's birth, or her exit from the metaphorical stork box, Hans expresses that "when we go to Gmunden this time, Hanna will travel in the box again", indicating his continued desire to lock her away (55). Just as when Hans's own experiences asserting his control by transgressing boundaries give him pleasure, his powerful (if imaginary) act of putting Hanna back in the stork box is also pleasurable in that he gets rid of " this baby who had stolen part of his parents' love” (Freud 54). Another significant example of Hanna's imprisonment in the hands, or imagination, of Hans comes in the myth Hans creates concerning the stork: Frau Kraus (the midwife) put her in Mama's bed …The stork came up the stairs…and put Hanna in your bed and mom was sleeping – no, the stork put her in her bed. It was the middle of the night and the stork gently put her into bed. (56) Despite all the varying details that permeate this passage, the only consistent detail is that someone places Hanna in a bed. This fact is repeated four times in the passage, emphasizing it as the most important and certain aspect of Hans's story. Once again, Hans here attempts to locate and confine Hanna in an enclosed space. However, just like in the fantasy of the box, Hans's manipulation of his sister's location only occurs in his imagination; as Hans himself says, "'to want' is not the same thing as 'to do' and 'to do' is not the same thing as 'to want'" (24). As a result, although Hans frequently engages and questions 74.6 (1993): 1245-51.