Parallelism in Structures of the Mind and Home in Sherman Alexie’s “One Good Man”

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Parallelism in Structures of the Mind and Home in Sherman Alexie’s “One Good Man” There’s no place like home. Within this haven, people feel safe using the space to safeguard their possessions or to feel at home with their loved ones. Individuals can stop hiding behind the facades that they have erected in order to fit in; here, they can reveal their true identity. Like a person’s life, the house begins empty and is filled with memories and experiences over time, allowing family members to project thoughts and feelings onto their possessions. For this reason, the arrangement within the house often corresponds with the psychological aspect of its residents. In “One Good Man,” Sherman Alexie portrays the inner thoughts of a man by accurately paralleling the layers of the house to the Freudian theory of id, ego, and superego. According to psychologist Sigmund Freud’s model of the mind, the id utilizes “uncoordinated instinctual trends” (Snowden); the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the superego plays the critical and moralizing role. Looking closely, there is a correlation between one’s psyche and the structuring of one’s living space. In “One Good Man,” the narrator wanders the house looking “for those things that could kill [his] father, for those things that had already killed him, or rather had already assigned to him an appointment with death” (Alexie 213). Here, he is not only seeking the buried sweets, but also the life experiences and hardships of his father. The ego, which corresponds with the main floor of the household, acts as the reality check to balance the desires of the id and superego and considers situations on an overall basis. Like the narrator’s search, this analysis will start on the most surface level, a public area for anyone who enters the household – the main floor. Here, sweets like donuts and soda are stashed away in

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