BIM in "We Were Worried

¶ … BIM in "We Were Worried About You" by Joyce Carol Oates - Symbolism, Suppression, and Displacement In the 20th century, the history of social science has changed radically with the introduction and development of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic theory posits that individuals' unconscious aspect of the mind ultimately creates a conflict between biological instincts and society's demands, and early family experiences.

Moreover, psychoanalysis explains the interplay among the id, superego, and ego, elements of the human mind that expresses an individual's sexual desires, represents conscience and the rules of society, and mediates between desires of the id and demands of the superego, respectively. Freud's psychoanalytic theory has been applied in various fields of study both in the sciences and the arts.

Literature, most specifically, has adapted the basic principles of psychoanalytic theory in order to explain social issues in society, as well as mundane or everyday events and activities depicted in the American life. Literary works of Joyce Carol Oates, most specifically, have subsisted to depicting the lives of Americans in the psychoanalytic perspective, illustrating the suppressed desires, violence, and even the hopelessness that individuals feel, as s/he tries to reconcile his/her desires with the social realities that s/he encounters in life.

Take as an example Oates' short story, entitled, "We were worried about you." In this short story, Oates depicts a picture of the typical American family, who experiences typical feelings of subjugation and suppression, primarily because white American families (especially WASPs, or the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans) are characteristically patriarchal and rigidly conservative in nature.

In the said literary work, symbolism is used to demonstrate the existence of suppression, reaction formation, and displacement, defense mechanisms used by the characters in the story to respond to the difficulty the face in life. In the family that Oates portrays in "We were," these defense mechanisms were used to "protect" the characters from the dominant role of the father in the family.

More particularly, this paper argues that Bim, one of the main characters in the story, expresses suppression, reaction formation, and displacement as defense mechanisms as his way from protecting himself from feelings of both love and hate that he feels for his dominant, oppressive father.

The story demonstrates the thesis stated through two phases in the life of Bim: the first phase is suppression, demonstrated when Bim was still a child; and the second phase is the emergence of the mechanisms of reaction transformation and displacement, which occurred when Bim was growing up into adulthood and as an adult.

In the first phase, suppression is symbolically expressed by two main points: (1) suppression through subjugation of the family through the character of a dominant father and (2) suppression of Bim's love and hate for his father because of his insensitive nature towards his family. In the first main point, it is evident that Oates symbolically illustrates the dominance of the character Dad by giving him the role as the 'driver' of the family car.

This is a subtle strategy the author uses in order to express how the family is in control of Dad, in the same way that the Packard car is under his control. This set-up demonstrates that Dad is dominant, and family is submissive. This becomes evident in the narrator's description of Dad-Mom relationship while inside the car, which gives the reader a glimpse of the kind of family interaction and relationship that they have: "...Dad was an impatient man, any display of weakness made him squirm.

Mom smiled at his words of criticism but rarely contradicted, not quick or bold enough, to match wits with him" (77). Another symbolic illustration of suppression within Oates' family in "We were" is the apparent conflict that Bim experiences for his father. He tries to suppress both love and hate for his father, for expressing love would mean "weakness" on Bim's part, not to mention his fear of being rejected when he shows his love for his father. Bim's hate is also suppressed mainly for fear of retribution from his father.

It is evident that as a child, Bim is limited to express his feelings -- thus, suppression operates as his way of not acknowledging and hiding the existence of feelings of love and hate, which, at the same time, protects him from feelings of hurt and embarrassment. Oates illustrates these suppressions of love and hate through the image of a black stallion and the hitchhikers that the family had, for numerous times, failed to accommodate in their Packard.

The black stallion is Bim's 'medium' through which he channels his frustration in life, especially in a difficult that he was going through as a thirteen-year-old: "...Bim saw so vividly a magnificent black stallion galloping by the roadside...he had to pinch himself to realize the stallion was not real; and no one else...could see it" (78-9). Hitchhikers also have a symbolic meaning in the story, since these hitchhikers represent the subjugated family, wherein each rejection signifies Dad's neglect for his family's sentiments and feelings.

The family's eventual behavior against hitchhikers is an after-effect of Dad's neglect, wherein displacement takes place, wherein hate within the family is redirected towards their aversion to and avoidance of the hitchhikers. In the second phase, two defense mechanisms emerge in Bim's personality. Reaction formation occurs as Bim learns to convert his love for his father to hate, thereby resulting to the dominant feeling of hate for Dad. This is symbolically illustrated by the shifts of power that.