The Psychological Allegory of “24″

02Jul08

I’ve been watching the series “24” (surfthechannel.com if you want to check it out), and its struck me how clearly the story is, or rather can be taken as, a direct 1:1 metaphor for the internal psychology of a single person. A strange person, to be sure, but the show makes a good bit of sense, taken in this light.

Its long been a theory that one can take any dream, fairy tale, myth, or even real social situation, and re-examine it as if all the characters were internal voices, drives, motives, of a single individual. The parallel is easy to see in dream analysis. One person dreams about conflicting characters, and perhaps one observes a similar conflict or ambivalence in the person’s behaviors, aspirations, or neuroses.

Its a little more of a stretch to examine fairy tales and myths in this light, as often these are laden with seemingly intentional surface messages about morality, relationships, or the nature of the world. However, just as a dream may seem to be ‘about’ a particular external conflict in the world, we can sometimes be taken aback when we come to some insight regarding the internal nature of certain of these dream conflicts.

The process of analysis of all three metaphorical types: dream, traditional fairy tale, or modern drama, is always an artistic and creative proposition, because any given tale may reveal its meaning on many different levels, any of which could be correct interpretations of the message within. Discerning both the content, and the appropriateness of metaphorical level may always thus make the entire process seem ambiguous or perhaps less important than more direct forms of communication.

Nonetheless, it is a fact that certain kinds of messages are usually only received through their characteristic medium. Our unconscious does communicate to us through dreams. That inner realm also simply communicates through our felt conscious experience of self, but dreams can communicate something that our conscious inner chatter and response to body sensations cannot typically achieve. And hence not only are dreams valuable for their content, but for the seemingly indirect medium of their communication. They give us pause. They give us a chance to reflect on our experience in a new way. They may even tell us who we really are, or lead us to letting go of now vestigal parts of ourselves that we’ve carried from earlier life.

And there is a fourth (at least) category of message or ‘tale’ that can be reinterpreted as the inner experience of an individual: Real life. Our social experience. Indeed, sometimes our lives seem like dreams, and our dreams seem like our life. Sometimes our inner voices find alignment in external persons, and our inner life is played out around us, affirming our inner voices, but also our social interconnection. We belong with others as social beings because we can relate with them as we do with ourselves. And this can all be reversed as well by simply looking for the message about our external world: its important persons, our attractions, our fears and aversions, within what seem like messages about our inner world. This last can be a bit more difficult, but the parallels are clear, and hence the opportunities for meaningful metaphor are also clear.

Any time two systems can be aligned in symbol, sense, or even feeling, there is a potential for metaphor to drive us to new insights about either or both systems.

So, to the story of the Television show: “24”. Whether or not the show is likeable, realistic, or memorable isn’t so important to this discussion. Personally, I enjoy it as being fairly ridiculous but engaging. Its self-seriousness is somehow still funny. It is almost a parody of itself. But that aside, what about the show seems like the inner life of a person?

I’m growing weary of this post for now, and might come back to it and finish it up, but in light of that I’ll just unload the paraphrase of my analysis. Actually, the following is just exploratory, as I’ve somewhat lost the insight in my increasing need to end the post. But here it is:

The main character, Jack Bauer, is the false self’s impersonation, or counterfeit of the true self. When its really just the false self’s narcissistic idolizing of itself. He’s obviously much like Freud’s superego, however, if we look from the perspective of Alice Miller’s writings (among others), the character of Bauer is more than a morally perfect ideal. He’s a real force in the story. He’s seemingly the only important force, or the king of all the forces of good.

Evil keeps attacking the world of 24. The ‘good guys’ are all responsible for stopping this evil. That is the world of the false self, not the true self. As every good character must ‘defend’ (ego defenses are the hallmark of the false self) the nation (the nation cannot defend itself), Bauer is the particular good guy who always comes through and gets it done. He makes most of the connections between threats, appears everywhere there is danger that needs handling, and always seems to do the right thing. He has no real fear.

When the big uglies of our real lives come to confront us, we defend ourselves. We rationalize this defense against our experience of pain in order to cover up the fact of our fear and maintain a particular kind of ego identity. We make virtues of our false fronts, and believe them.

More later

Tags: TV, “24″

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