Analysis Of Rousseau's Essay 'Confession'

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During the eighteenth century, after the revolution, a famous author, Rousseau, wrote an essay “Confession”, where he explored himself, even the most embarrassing moments he experienced, by telling readers how he behaved and exposing how he felt in that way. As he said readers should not feel shame of or blame him of what he did. Even we should encourage and send applause to him because his confession is not only about how he acted in the society but also what it did to him. Instead of judging him, the more valuable thing is to understand what motivated his action. Here is an interesting story in his life that he stole the ribbon and framed Marion. When analyzing the reason why Rousseau framed the innocent girl, Marion, he explained it was because of his “fondness” for her; however, the more significant logic behind him accusing Marion of stealing the ribbon is his desire to escape

Here he gave out the idea that his fault was caused by his fear of shame. In other words he was protecting himself of charged by others and confronting the shame. Here apply the theory “defense mechanism”, came up by Freud, Sigmund and expanded by Freud Anna Freud, could help on understanding what motivated his framing and how he defensed himself.
Defense mechanism is an unconscious psychological mechanism to reduce anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli and could be applied as deny, displacement, projection, rationalization and etc. When Rousseau faced the trial from people, the first thing he chose to do was to deny. A “denial” happened when we could not afford to face it to protect us. For example, children might cover their eyes when they broke out something, like a cup. Here at that moment he denied his fault in front of people to defend