Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory In Relation To Carroll Lewis' 'Through The Looking Glass'. Essay

Describe and explain the main principles of either;
a) Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory or
b) Carl Jung’s Individual Psychology; with reference to either art, film or literature.
                             
                                                                 


“The Ego is not master in its own house.” Sigmund Freud, from A Difficulty in the

Path of Psychoanalysis, 1917.

In this essay I will   attempt   to   describe   and   explain   the   main   principles   of

Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic   Theory   with reference to Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through

the Looking Glass’. I   have   chosen this   particular piece of literature because   Freud’s

Psychoanalytic Theory was an approach to the   analysis   and   treatment   of ‘abnormal’

behaviour.   I   feel   that   ‘Through   the   Looking   Glass’   deals   with   a   fair   amount of

‘abnormal’ behaviour   and   think   that   a   lot   of   it   can   be   explained   by   this   theory.


Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory uses the idea of id, ego   and   superego   (Freud,

New   Introductory   Lectures on   Psychoanalysis, p 65, 1933.).   Based   on   this   idea   it

becomes obvious when reading ‘Through the Looking Glass’ that   Lewis   Carroll was

controlled   by   his   id;   the unconscious   part   of   his   mind. Carroll’s   style of   writing

throughout this text is consistently dreamlike and extremely unrealistic to the external

world.

The character of ‘Alice’ takes on a stable, realistic role starting in her ‘normal’ everyday life as a young child and is taken on a strange journey of fantasy, conflicting emotions and distress. As she travels through the looking-glass to ‘Looking-Glass House’ her life is transformed and she is suddenly making encounters with talking flowers, live chess pieces and Humpty Dumpty.
The id controls dream and desire which is portrayed as Alice enters into this world of illusion and illness, with images playing on her mind as she sees things that aren’t really there.
In...