It is believed that the development of girls and boys only emerges when the child enters the phallic stage; this is where the focus of its libido moves to the genitals. This is where the boys enter the Oedipus complex and start to have sexual desires for their mother. They see their father as standing in the way of these desires and thus creates a hate/ death wish for the father, however at the same time realises that the father is more powerful than he is and starts to fear that if his desires for his mother are found out by his father that he will castrate him, causing castration anxiety. The way the boy handles with this conflict is by identifying and associating with his father to try and become more like him. The boy then starts copying his father, picking up his traits; these newly acquired traits form the boy’s superego and in taking on his father as himself the boy automatically takes on the male gender identity.
According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences.” (About.com) Freud believed that the unconscious can influence one’s behavior, and even one’s experiences. If the book is taken metaphorically, not literally, perhaps one could come to the conclusion that the feeling’s in Gregor’s unconscious mind of worthlessness and pain turned him into a vermin. The conscious mind is everything that one is aware of. It is what permits us to think, speak, and observe rationally. It is also the sum of feelings, beliefs,
Crow Lake Journal #2 As Matt is ___, and everything in turns out to be fine, an ___ incident takes place and changes everyone’s life. The narrator of this novel, Kate accidentally finds out that her brother Matt is having an affair with Marie, whose father has killed her brother. By the moment that Kate discovers their relationship, she has already “defined her brother’s live”. She knows that her brother’s bright future will probably be ruined by this relationship, and the upcoming story proves that she was right. Later in the srory, Matt made Marie pregnant.
The unconscious mind is when you are doing or thinking something without being alert or aware that you are doing it. Along the idea of the unconscious mind Freud also developed the concept of the ‘ID’, the ‘Ego’ and the ‘Superego’. The id is described as an impulsive, selfish side to our personality which is ruled by a pleasure principle, the superego is the moral part of our personality which recognises right from wrong; and our ego is the part of our mind which tries to rationalise and arbitrate both sides of our thoughts. Freud believed that there were two main causes of abnormality in general. One of these was childhood traumas and the idea that a bad memory from our childhood is so traumatic that it buries itself in our subconscious.
The superego uses guilt to punish the ego if it misbehaves and rewards it with pride if does what the superego wants. If the ego does not keep the balance between the id and the super ego, Freud suggests, mental illness will occur in the individual. In the story of Hamlet, The Complete Persepolis, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, one can explore how the ego of Claudius, Marjane, and Enkidu helps form their identity. In the story of Hamlet, the character Claudius’ ego can be seen as allowing his id to be more dominate than his superego. Because Claudius wanted to be king more than anything one can assume the suppression of his id caused him to be so aggressive he killed the king.
An advantage of this theory is that it drives parents to encourage their children at a young age to build up a large self-esteem; their sense of self-worth. A disadvantage of this theory is that the theories have been considered naïve and optimistic as it disregards the darker aspects of human nature. Like psychodynamic theories, humanistic theories are difficult to scientifically
He further goes into how the identity in the fantasy starts controlling the person’s life. The anger starts and begins to form a specific purpose for the person. “Anger and emptiness become the energy and motivating forces behind the fantasy” (Carlisle, 1993, p. 26). Everything around the person is ignored and now they are totally absorbed by their fantasy. Psychodynamic theory backs up Carlisle’s theory by the explanation of the ID, controls the seeking pleasure and impulses.
Freud believed that conscience was a construct of the mind built up through repressed feelings and emotions. For Freud, during our upbringing we accept values and beliefs about morality, and at some point, these may be rejected by our moral reasoning. Even though these early views have since been rejected, they continue to influence our ‘conscience’. Freud separated the conscious into three clear parts: the ID, the EGO, and the Super-Ego. The ID is considered part of the unconscious personality, and is driven by impulses to seek pleasure and satisfaction.
Laius and Jocasta were the king and queen of Thebes. Laius was warned through an oracle that if he had a son, he would be killed by him. When Oedipus was born, Laius, fearing the prophecy, secretly ordered his son’s feet bound and the baby left to die on a mountain. However, Oedipus was found and taken to Corinth where he was raised as the son of the kind Polybus. When Oedipus grew up he, too, consulted an oracle about his future and was told that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
Oedipus's Fate and Essential Nature Oedipus was born by the King and Queen of Thebes. King Laius and his wife Jocasta were informed by a prophet that Laius "is doomed and would perish by the hand of his own son"; if they had a child he would kill the father and marry the mother and produce offspring with her. Regardless of the curse, they had a baby. Knowing this terrible curse was brought upon them, they immediately tried to impede the prophecy, and made a decision to have the child killed. The parents stabbed bolts through the baby's feet and handed him off to a shepherd.