Essay about Sin and Virtue in the works of Freud and Dante

Religion is arguably most influential when concerning politics, society, and individuality. This belief system provides most people with somewhat of a guideline on how to live their lives on a daily basis, depending on which religion one follows. One of the major underlying aspects of religion, Catholicism or Christianity in particular, is to show guilt or sorrow to God for ones own sins and to ask for forgiveness on Earth so when Judgment Day comes the gates of heaven will open. A follower of Christianity is expected to follow the divine doctrine (e.g. The Ten Commandments) and any deviation requires repentance. If one does not ask for forgiveness for his sins, the common belief is that he will be sent to Hell upon death, spending an†¦show more content†¦(36). Religion constricts an individual?s ability to explore different paths to happiness, thereby mentally situating him in a state of ?unconditional submission?. Civilization also puts enormous expectations and restrictions on individuals and these are in the form of examples such as art, beauty, sexuality, customs, taboos, law, order, and justice. The rule of law is placed above individual instincts and causes man to suppress his instinctual urges in order to coincide with society. As Freud states it is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct (52). This causes sublimation in the human mind, or channeling primal urges to other psychical or physical activities. Freud claims that man?s primal instinctual behavior is aggression and this aggression could disintegrate civilization, therefore it is highly repressed by society and consequently, the mind. ?His aggressiveness is introjected, internalized, it is?sent back to where it came from?his own ego. There it is taken over by a portion of the ego?as super-ego (84). This aggression harbored in the super-ego is then channeled toward the ego creating feelings of guilt. Freud declares that a sense of guilt is the direct result of the conflict between the need for the authority?s love and the impulse towards instinctual satiety, and if this instinctual need cannot be satisfied aggression will ensue (100). A sense of guilt is arisen within whenShow MoreRelatedCleanth Brookss Essay Irony as a Principle of Structure9125 Words   |  37 PagesClass Consciousness Preface THE collection and publication of these essays in book form is not intended to give them a greater importance as a whole than would be due to each individually. For the most part they are attempts, arising out of actual work for the party, to clarify the theoretical problems of the revolutionary movement in the mind ,of the author and his readers. The exceptions to this are the two essays Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat and Towards a Methodology ofRead MoreHomosexuality in Victorian and Elizabethan Literature.6608 Words   |  27 Pagesweakened, it still affects people in todays society. It even dates back to the Renaissance days, and is presented by Dante Aligheri is his Inferno. And for this reason doth the smallest round/ Seal with its signet Sodom[...]†. Sodom is a city known for crude sexual acts, which is where sodomy gets its name from. Since the Inferno is a world created by Dante, he believes that sodomy is a sin that is worse than suicide, and d ecides to put it just before the entrance to the Eighth Circle of Hell. In Dracula