Option #2

Section II of Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle examines the activities of a child; specifically a game of disappearance and return that revolves around the use of the words, “fort” and “da”. Although simplistic in nature, the activities of the child indicate a very analytical, physiological aspect of the “pleasure principle”. The child would throw toys away from his crib while attempting to say fort (gone) and da (there). The child would throw away the toy in hopes that his mother would retrieve it and come back to him. A brief analysis indicates that the actions of the child give away his motive for power, indicating that he gains pleasure in securing domination over his mother’s actions.
In some respects, the Freud’s analysis of the child’s actions has similarities with Plato’s Allegory of a Cave. Both works revolve around an unenlightened individual, the child and a chained man respectively. Both works attempt to speculate the comparisons between the person’s actions and his physiological motives. In both cases, both the child and the chained man may have acted according to their physiological motives, but may not have fully understood them. This brings into mind, Plato’s four stages of knowledge analogy: imagination, belief, thought, and ultimately understanding. Although Freud did not conjure up the child’s actions in his imagination, his belief that the child was acting on the power principle brought him to a breakthrough in thought. Since Freud cannot directly see into the child ‘sub-consciousness, he cannot fully understand the child’s physiological motive, however his analysis based on the four stages of knowledge indicated he tried to.
In the first section of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud speculates the prevalence of the pleasure principle: all individuals have an instinctive drive to experience satisfaction and to avoid pain. However, one may first experience pain of one endeavor to ultimately experience the satisfaction associated with such an endeavor. The example of the child provided in section II is a clear example: The child uses his measly effort to throw the toy away from his crib in hopes of his mother coming back to retrieve it. Although the child would be deprived of the toy due to his actions of throwing it away, he probably reconciles that his mother will come back to retrieve it. His mother’s presence afterwards would be the pleasure. Section II also introduces the concept of the “power principle” that speculates individuals can attain satisfaction from securing domination over the actions and beliefs of others.