Chapter 2 of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” by Sigmund Freud discusses a simple child’s game of “disappearance and return.” Wherein a child threw a toy with a sting attached, giving him the power to banish and summon the object whenever he pleased. At first it had seemed the child was doing this to experience the pleasure of the toy returning every time he pulled the string. Almost like he was willing to go through the anxiety of throwing the toy out of sight, instilling a fear within, to later re-establish himself with the toy and feel a rush of joy.
He then came to the conclusion that the act was the child’s way of getting revenge on his mother for leaving. Freud stated this was the child’s way of non-verbally saying “I don’t want you, I am sending you away myself” (Freud, pg. 14). Expressing an emotion that isn’t pleasant yet a the same time he doesn’t truly understand why objects or people seem to disappear. He would perform a similar action to his toys even when he was older. Throwing the toys he disliked and yelled “go to war!”, expressing his dissatisfaction with the leaving of his father to go off to war.
I feel as if this situation can be compared to “The Allegory in the Cave.” The reason being is that the people in the cave have a different reality than those in the outside world, much like the child and his mother. The child has no idea why the mother would leave him, he understands that this makes him upset, but he doesn’t know why. Much like the prisoner in the cave who thinks that shadows are the actual form of all things, he doesn’t understand why, but that is how he perceives his reality. While the child is confused, the mother obviously knows why she must leave her child at certain times of the day, whether it may be to read, exercise, or even shop. She understand there are times where she can’t have her child with her, yet the child thinks otherwise.
This theory does seem to explain why the child acts the way it does, yet I do think it also has to do with the first theory Freud applied, where the child goes through the pain of throwing the toy in order to experience the pleasure of its return. It may be that the child is acting out how he anticipates his mother will return. He may believe that the mother vanishes with no warning, and then returns suddenly which brings immense joy to the child, because he can only anticipate it, he can never know exactly when she will return, which could be why he plays this game.
