Imelda Carrisalez
Professor Rosen
RHE 309K
February 22, 2012
Rhetoric Analysis of “Consciousness and what is Unconsciousness”
In Sigmund Freud’s introductory chapter “Consciousness and what is Unconsciousness” in his book The Ego and the Id, he writes about the conflicting term of unconsciousness and how preconscious and conscious are related to it. Freud’s argument is to present conscious and unconscious as something physical, although, no one can clearly point out in the brain where they are situated (3).
 Freud’s target audience is psychology students as he mentions in his third paragraph (3), but it can range from health students, rhetoric students, or anyone who is interested in psychoanalysis. He makes his argument that unconscious is descriptive and physical, and defines the term for the audience as “…two kinds of unconscious-the one which is latent but capable of becoming conscious, and the one which is repressed and which is not, in itself and without more ado, capable of becoming conscious” (5). Freud then breaks down unconscious into two branches: repressed and latent. Repression is “The state in which the ideas existed before being made conscious” (5) and may or may become unconscious. Latent can be described as “…capable of becoming conscious” (4) and can lead to preconscious. Freud then makes his argument persuasive by giving the audience definitions as evidence to support his claim that with unconsciousness, people reproduce latent or repressed ideas. Another strategy Freud uses to persuade his audience is by refuting the counterarguments that may come up and giving his own explanation. For example, he writes that, “To most people who have been educated in philosophy the idea of anything psychical which is not also conscious is so inconceivable that it seems to them absurd and refutable simply by logic,” (3) which is the counterargument, but Freud refutes it by stating that the study of hypnosis and dreams cannot be solved by philosophers using their own psychology of consciousness (4).  Another example that Freud uses to make his argument persuasive is that he writes about the difficulties, obscurities, and questions that arise when studying the unconscious, “…the consequence of this discovery is that we land in endless obscurities and difficulties if we keep to our habitual forms of expression and try, for instance, to derive neuroses from a conflict between conscious and the unconscious.” (9). He uses anthypophora, reasoning in which one asks and then immediately answer’s ones own question, to answer the audience doubts about the study on unconscious, “For our conception of the unconscious, however, the consequences of our discovery are even more important.  Dynamic considerations caused us to make our first correction; our insight into the structure of the mind leads to the second” (9).
The structure of the introductory chapter helps the reader understand Freud’s argument because he introduces the terms consciousness and unconscious. Then proceeds to describe the two branches of unconscious, latent and repressed, and how each either become conscious or not. Freud at the end of his chapter briefly explains the ego, but continues to remind the reader that the subject unconscious is a conflicting matter and that there may be a third branch.
The text appeals to its specific audience of people studying psychology because it explains the complexity of the brain. Freud writes about conscious and the ego being attached (8), but it is when he writes about unconscious, the target audience realizes the true complexity of it because although Freud states that there are two branches to unconscious, he writes at the end that there may a third branch. This can confuse the psychology audience, but it does provoke thought about the unconscious and its complexity.
Freud’s ethos and pathos is strong in the text because he presents the argument that unconscious bring then spend the rest of the chapter refuting possible counterarguments that may arise. He supports his argument of unconscious and conscious by giving the audience evidence of definitions and example of a person where he may repress his ego, which leads to it not being conscious, and therefore censoring his dreams and ideas (8).
In describing ego, Freud quickly points out the relationship that it shares with conscious. The ego is what, “controls the approaches to motility-that is, to the discharge of excitations into the external world…” and ego is as much part of unconscious as conscious because of repression (8). To explain this, Freud gives an example of a patient who is confronted with his ego and has difficulties understanding what it is and its function, but because of the difficulties, it confirms that repression behaves like the unconscious (9).
In the final paragraph, Freud uses the analogy of “…it is still true that all that is repressed is unconscious, but not all that is unconscious is repressed,” (9) which informs the audience that repression leads to unconscious, but there must be another branch of unconscious because not all that is unconscious leads to repression. He presents his argument and it is made clear to the audience that unconsciousness has elements of unknown more than known, and because of this the audience has to take into consideration that it is important to study unconsciousness as much as consciousness. Freud ends his argument of conscious and unconscious by giving the audience hope on the subject, “…for the property of being conscious or not is in the last resort our one beacon-light in the darkness of depth-psychology,” (10).

Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. “Consciousness and what is Unconscious.” The Ego and the Id. 1923. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1960. 3-10. Print.