Abstract This paper analyzes and examines Sigmund Freud's bungled actions theory. The writer explores the basis for the theory and uses several examples to illustrate how Freud believed it worked. According to the theory, there is no such thing as an accident, but rather an unconscious desire. The author concludes that Freud believed it was necessary to explore these bungled actions by understanding their foundational roots. Only then could the person let go of the problem and have a healthier mental attitude.
Outline
Introduction
What It Is
Conclusion
From the Paper "Before one can begin to understand the many underlying and sublime underpinnings of bungled actions as Freud understood them it is important that one first have a basic grasp and understanding of the theory itself. Freud developed the theory of Bungled Actions as a method to explain when things happen that seem to be accidental but play right into what that person desires at the time. The desire may not even be a conscious or purposeful event, but can be something that is desired in the subconscious and the accident or bungled action provides a means to get that desire accomplished."
The writer examines novels by Agatha Christie and Joseph Conrad, and discusses characters and scenes in light of prejudices the authors may have held, bringing as evidence Chinese (non-Western) detective novels.
2,200 words (approx. 8.8 pages), 2 sources, 2001, $ 68.95
Abstract We can also see the kind of xenophobic stereotypes that Christie used when we compare her works to detective fiction taken from an entirely different cultural tradition: When we think about the detective novel, we are most likely to see in our mind's eye Sherlock Holmes's deerstalker cap or hear the Belgian accents of Hercule Poirot. The genre of detective fiction ? with its traditional elements of the seemingly perfect crime, the wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points (in many cases, the bungling of the dim-witted police (in opposition to the cleverness of the private operator), the astonishing powers of observation and superior mind of the detective, and a startling and unexpected denouement (quite likely taking place in a parlor) in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained ? seems a quintessentially Western concept.
