Biting my nails!

My habit was biting. I found it interesting to find a deeper meaning in the fact that I bite my nails. I mean to be honest I never really thought about it, I just did it. But it does make sense when thinking about the times when I bite my nails and the signs are there. When I’m anxious I bite my nails, when I’m kept waiting for anything I bite nails, when I’m bored I bite my nails, when I’m nervous I bite my nails. In reality I shouldn’t even have nails anymore. But in remembering the times when I bite my nails there was a pattern revealed. This patter revealed to me a sense of insecurity, I bite my nails because I lack the control of perfection, or perhaps any control on my life at all, and in reality it became second nature to bite my nails, and in that a sense of comfort was born. I mean to really think about it, why shouldn’t my nails be a source of comfort? I know my nails will always be located on my fingers; they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. So therefore I bight my nails, because in a time of insecurity, there is one secure thing I know. But, to move on, what is the comfort found in biting my nails? That is what I really thought about. What sense of security do my nails offer?

Or is it even security but really just force of habit? In an article published in The Los Angeles Times titled, “Habits can be broken, but not forgotten” by Karen Raven. The article states that we can break habits if we focus hard enough and put effort into quitting. But then the article focuses on the part of our brain (the striatum) that makes our habits a part of our lives by focusing on the function of rats, “But once the rats were in the habit of running the maze, just being placed in the maze was all it took to make them run it. Not much was going on in their striatums; they were running on automatic pilot.” This automatic pilot, is this what controls my biting my nails?

Or is it that they will always be on my fingers? Not necessarily. I think that there is comfort found in trying to make them as short as possible, which is why I let them grow long. If I put it in my mind that I can make them as short as possible without the need of nail cutters then there is one less thing I need to be dependent on. And that also in a sense offers a feeling independence. That need that forms from infantry to not have others do things for us. This also makes me think of the mirror complex and the need to identify with the image of ourselves in that mirror as stated by Jacques Lacan, “We have only to understand the mirror stage as an identification, in the full sense that analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes the image,” (442). And then the real reason I bite my nails is answered. The reason I bite my nails is for the control they provide in my identification. My nails not only offer sense of independence, a sense of comfort, but ultimately a sense of control. I can in the end control the length of the nails. I can ultimately make them as short or as long as I want. And there lies the true enjoyment reason for biting my nails.

Works Cited

“Raven, Karen.” Habits can be broken, but not forgotten. 2009. 4 April 2010.

Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formation of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Maichael. Victoria, Aus.: Blackwell Publishing, 1998. 441-446. Print.

Hamlet and Freud

“Identification is known to psycho-analysis as the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person.” (Freud, p. 438) In this scene in “Hamlet” we see this tie stand out between Hamlet and his mother. As Hamlet is able to channel the identification of his father and confront his mother on the death of his father, as it does take a sexual tone (as Hamlet shows his mother a locket with a picture of his father and a another with the picture of his father’s brother, while lying on top of her). This similar argument as made in the article, “Mother and Child: The Erotic Bond” by Linda Marin. In this article she turns the table and focuses on the erotic bond a mother creates with her son, “Still, it seems mothers do something equally silencing in the day-to-day way we do not speak of our erotic feelings toward those most desirable of objects, our children. We say our kids are cute, of course, or beautiful or remarkable, and we endlessly detail their behaviors and idiosyncrasies, but rarely do we acknowledge the erotic component of our own feelings in these observations of them.” In this clip of hamlet we see the acknowledgement of this eroticism and the consequences that come from it. Having the bond between mother and son disappears as Hamlet takes a dominant role over his mother in his attempt to have her confess and having the sexual tone become almost sexual force and mimicry of fornication (since it does appear that Hamlet is almost raping his mother). According to Freud, this scene alone shows us that that the early attraction between Hamlet and his mother never went away, as Hamlet obviously created a sexual tie between him and his as mother and identification tie between him and his father, as the father is obviously the model he is trying so hard to mimic. At the climax of this scene we see Hamlet losing steam on the dominance over his mother but as soon he sees the image of his father he remembers what he came there to do (to get the confession from his mother about the death of his father). And soon is back on track and leaves his mother with a warning to confess or suffer the consequences. Leaving his mother an emotional wreck, while not exactly accomplishing what he originally set out to do, he does accomplish in establishing a dominant stance between him and his mother.

Works Cited

“Marin, Linda.” Mother and Child: The Erotic Bond. 1994. Web. 4 April 2010

Freud, Sigmund. “Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Maichael. Victoria, Aus.: Blackwell Publishing, 1998. 438-440. Print.