ART AND ANXIETY
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of the symbols and the mechanisms of displacement, condensation,
splitting and the like which Freud defined in his study of the dream.
But unlike the dream art
is
a positive, consciously-directed social ac–
complishment, like that of the scientist, the producer, the builder.
Although it may be incidentally interesting to know what made a
man a scientist, what unconscious needs, displaced affections, sym–
bolic associations, we need only understand his particular science to
evaluate the success of a scientific experiment. The critical references
are not to the scientist's inner life but to the conditions of the experi–
ment and the hypothesis which it was intended to establish, as the
judgment of a diplomatic negotiation takes into account the world
situation at the time and the purposes the negotiators were trying to
accomplish. So, we may say, a critic need take into account only
artistic means and purposes in evaluating, which is his primary con–
cern, the success with which an artist fulfills the conditions of his art
in terms of that art.
But when all this is said, and the critic has protected his domain
against the encroachments of the psychologists, the difficulties that have
always beset aesthetic inqu iry arc still not solved. For just what are
the conditions that art must satisfy, and what objective references
have we for deciding its success in satisfying them?
In the analysis of the talc of Little Red Riding Hood, we saw
with what considerable economy and ingenuity it met the conditions
that were set for it by certain situations to which it had reference in
the unconscious psychic life of its young listeners. The wolf had to
replace the grandmother and yet be quite clearly separated, ·as a
person, from the grandmother. The child should be involved in the
experience, and yet in such a way that she should not feel responsi–
bly implicated in the grandmother's death. The wolf should be killed
by a protective parental figure. A good deal has been made of other
significant detai!s, such as the red hood, but they need not detain us
here.
Although the tale uses dream symbols, it is not like a dream, but
has the completeness, coherence and unity of a work of art. The
author has shaped his material, given it significant form, brought
it to a satisfactory conclusion. Obviously his own unconscious has a
part
in
the process, but insofar as he controls the telling consciously
he is not guided by Freudian doctrines but by stories he has heard
as a child a_nd by previous successes and failures in arousing a youth–
ful audience. And it is only on this level that criticism can operate
unl~s
it takes into account those psychic conditions that ultimately
determine the success or failure of a story of this kind. We cannot
