Lincoln's Quest for Union - A Psychological Profile

[Gene C]

Written by Charles Strozier, second edition published 2000.

He makes some interesting and valued observations in the book, but he started off badly for me with his comments about Lincoln and his mother. Such as...

"Lincoln wrote a humorous letter on April Fools Day 1838 to his good friend and maternal figure, Mrs. Orville Browning. The letter mocks his recent unsuccessful courtship of Mary Owen, whom he could not behold without 'thinking of my mother, and this not from her withered features, for her skin was too full of fat, to permit its contracting into wrinkles; but from her want of front teeth, weather beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy, and reached her present size in bulk in less than thirty five or forty years'. In this letter Lincoln used the image of his mother as a kind of baseline for ugliness. It is true of coarse, that Lincoln called Sarah Lincoln "mother", as he was later to refer to Mary after they had children. but unconsciously "mother" for Lincoln also had to mean Nancy. Perhaps she had become that ugly. Certainly the only form of dentistry in those days was extraction, and on her deathbed she may have looked suddenly old and withered to her young son.
The endurance of this image in Lincoln suggest that it carried some sense of childhood disappointment with his mother. In a part of himself he seemed not to trust her."

But wait, there's more, and it gets more far-fetched....remember the story of Lincoln killing a wild turkey before his eighth birthday? I'll share with you what Strozier has to say about that in another post.

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Gene. I have always wondered about that reference to his mother in the letter to Mrs. Browning. John Hanks said Nancy Hanks Lincoln had a spare, delicate frame and weighed about 120 pounds. He said she was 5' 7", and Dennis Hanks said she was 5' 8" and weighed 130 pounds.

[Gene C]

Here is a link to the entire letter Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Browning. A portion of the third paragraph, was quoted in Mr. Strozier's book.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...-browning/

[Pamela]

That is one of the funniest things I have ever read, and it's so brilliantly, convolutedly funny with it's run on sentences and self deprecating humor and ironies. I remember reading it before in a book but reading it again, fresh and on it's own really showcases Lincoln's wonderful personality.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Gene - as always I like your book reviews and have never been disappointed following a recommendation. Which leads me to this question as I am not sure - would you recommend this book? (Far-fetched can be both, interesting and "disgusting", especially when it comes to psychoanalysis/es...)

[Gene C]

This is the first of two rather long posts.
From Strozier's book p29

"In his autobiography, Lincoln tells a curious story of killing a wild turkey just before his eighth birthday. The story, which he told in the third person and placed in parentheses, goes:

(A few days before the completion of his eight year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin
and A. with his riffle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack, and killed one of them. He has never since pulled the trigger on any
larger game) [Collected Works 4]

"The turkey story follow a brief description of the move to Indiana in 1816, when Thomas settled 'in an unbroken forest' and Lincoln 'had an axe put in his hands at once'. But then the first sentence after the turkey story relates both the death of his mother and his father's remarriage: "In the autumn of 1818, his mother died:, and a year afterwards his father married Mrs. Sally Johnston." Such a juxtaposition of memories suggest an association between the wild turkey and his mothers death. Both are helpless, and both die. The odd insertion of the turkey scene in parenthesis between the description of Indiana and the report of Nancy's death seem a symbolic way of communicating unconscious feelings about his mother's death. The most important detail in the turkey story is Lincoln's responsibility for killing the bird. This apparently left remorse - guilt in our terms - and makes it impossible for Lincoln to pull " a trigger on any larger game". This guilt, one suspects, had been displaced from his mother onto the wild bird. Thus it seems he felt somehow responsible for causing his mothers death"

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In honor of Thanksgiving, I personally think his theory is full of gobbeldygook.

Eva asked if I would recommend this book. I think there are better books to spend your money and time on, although it does have some more reasonable sections later in the book. The part on Lincoln and his mother are just to far fetched. In the next day or two I'll tell you more.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Gene!

[Gene C]

The quote below from the book is the main reason I do not recommend this book. It made me look at every thing else the writer wrote with skepticism.
There are some decent insights into Lincolns character in the book, but this ain't it.
Remember, Abraham was 9 at the time his mother died.

"It would appear from the story that renounced infantile sexual longings toward the mother prompted the sense of guilt Lincoln felt after her death. This sexual theme enters the story by proxy, for Lincoln killed the turkey "in the absence of his father" and with a "rifle gun" that probably belonged to his father and that, according to Dennis Hanks, may have been loaded by his mother. If we take the appropriation of the father's gun as a wish--and the story itself seems dreamlike--then the meaning of the condensed memories expressed in the story becomes more apparent. Lincoln unconsciously wished his father away because he wanted to possess his mother. He could only realize the wish, however by appropriating the magical power of the father's gun as he struggled to beat out his father in competition for the mother. At some point, he must have felt victorious in the struggle, but the gun he appropriated proved more deadly than anticipated, for with it he killed the helpless turkey. Punishment must be extracted: "He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game." In the confusion of mourning his mother's death, Lincoln thus seemed to construct an unconscious explanation for her loss that "explained" her death in terms of punishment for his own earlier forbidden sexual wishes. As punishment for his love, she died."

Yeah, right!
The author has taken some flak over his opinion, but as far as I know has not retracted his views.

Just what is "infantile sexual longings"? I would post a link that Freud wrote discussing it (from Bartleby.com), but he must be one of the few writers that can make sex boring...plus I don't buy into his theory. There are better things to read.

[Pamela]

I don't know what the status of Freudian psychology is today. Is the writer a phychiatrist? His analysis seems rather pointless.

[RJNorton]

Abraham Lincoln also mourned deeply when his sister, Sarah, died in 1828. IMO Lincoln's feelings toward both his mother and his sister were feelings of love but not in a sexual sense.
There were no "forbidden sexual wishes" IMO.

[Gene C]

Mr. Strozier is a psychotherapist (I was going to ask if that is one word or two, but someone might not know I'm just kidding ) in NY City.
I imagine (is that revealing to much of my personality?) he's quite accomplished in his field.

[Pamela]

Just based on vague memories from taking a couple of psychology courses in school, I think with Freudian psychology, humans universally are driven by subconscious sexual impulses from infancy, and resulting jealousies and competitiveness with parents, like the oedipus complex:

Oedipus complex
Word Origin
noun, Psychoanalysis.
1.
the unresolved desire of a child for sexual gratification through the parent of the opposite sex, especially the desire of a son for his mother. This involves, first, identification with and, later, hatred for the parent of the same sex, who is considered by the child as a rival.

The author isn't trying to single Lincoln out being motivated by anything uniquely perverse; he's just applying Freudian analysis to a historical figure.

[maharba]

I personally think his theory is full of gobbeldygook.>

Something about the wild turkey shoot story doesn't strike me as legit.
Don't other narratives talk about Abraham Lincoln and or father and
cousin shooting a lot of game, which practically kept them alive? And
didn't Lincoln speak casually about the necessity of killing and butchering
a hog, as a farm chore he sometimes did? I can think of famous vegetarians and I don't think Lincoln was one. Speaking of Freud, how come no brain surgeon yet has confirmed the existence of those critical structures he described: the ego, id, superego?

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-27-2015 01:00 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Abraham Lincoln also mourned deeply when his sister, Sarah, died in 1828. IMO Lincoln's feelings toward both his mother and his sister were feelings of love but not in a sexual sense.
There were no "forbidden sexual wishes" IMO.

Same here, well said. And I guess if he (or people in general) did not mourn, there would another "clinical issue" be made out of it.

(11-27-2015 01:08 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Mr. Strozier is a psychotherapist (I was going to ask if that is one word or two, but someone might not know I'm just kidding ) in NY City.
I imagine (is that revealing to much of my personality?) he's quite accomplished in his field.

If any you didn't reveal more than that of one of the two of you!

(11-27-2015 02:27 PM)maharba Wrote:  Speaking of Freud, how come no brain surgeon yet has confirmed the existence of those critical structures he described: the ego, id, superego?

Although I generally find this kind of question is an argumentative dead end street (the two possible answers being 1. because it's wrong or 2. because science hasn't been smart enough yet), this site argues the same way and is quite interesting to know in the context of this thread:
http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-w...1055800815

This article says that three of Freud's assumptions have proven to be valid:
1. The subconscious has more influence on the conscience than v.v.
2. The subconscious develops before the conscious awareness.
3. The conscious mind has only little insight in the roots of its desires and actions.
http://www.zeit.de/2006/09/F-Einfhrung

[maharba]

Lincoln's vision of Union appears to be something he tried to work back past the Constitution which radical Republicans and Abolitions openly scorned. After Lincoln lost the Senate run against Steven Douglas, and the mainstream Republicans in Illinois apparently disapproving of Lincoln's stated views, it appears that Lincoln decided that national office might still be in his future.