You're the one that I want! (Grease)

I know what you're thinking. How can this campy musical ever show signs of Sigmund Freud. Well it actually does. Through it's romantic female lead Sandy to the T-Birds ways the movie actually shows a lot of Freudian sub plot.

-Sandy herself is the first one. Obviously representing the Super-ego of the time. With her dress and conservativeness she is a prime example of anti-Id. But in the end to experience her pleasure she changes who she is and becomes Id itself. While experiencing her Genital stage in psychosexual development. Which converts her to the Pink Lady Id-ness that she soon finds to love. She also goes through the repression of the unconscious by repressing her old self to fit a situation with her attitudes fighting just to create some significance of self-gratification.

-Another great example of the Freudian ways is Danny's amazing Ego. The fact that he starts as an Id and changes his ways to fit Super-ego and balancing it out with his Ego to try and satisfy one woman. He also is going through the final stage of psychosexual development with his symbolic gratification of Sandy. Seeing that he wants her (Oedipus complex changed to create an illusion as head of a family) as his girlfriend no matter what, creating the gratification.  

-Also the two groups (Pink Ladies and the T-Birds) are great examples of the drives. They both are wanting of the Life drive and experiencing life to it's fullest even if it could hurt them. With there anti-culture of smoking and sex, not to mention the street racing and boozing it up from the T-birds.

But near the end of the movie they all seem to balance it a bit more with there Egos and find a happy medium by going back to school, stopping bad habits or changing themselves with in a boundary. 

Yes! Yes! Yes! (Portrait)

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is book about Stephen Daedalus a young boy who is trying to define himself as his life goes on. This book is slightly harder to analyze on the Freudian Lens so I'll take it through the "Big 4".
-The Unconscious- The way the book is laid out is in a stream of consciousness very contradictory to the unconscious topic given. Though the book does show some signs of repression, a large factor in the unconscious topic. As the book does not illustrate all his life it only show the parts he wants to remember from his life.
-Psychoanalytical Development- As he starts out he goes through his teething showing the oral stage. And his need to explore his surroundings. His oral stage is abruptly ended when he is sent to school where rules are set down and must be followed. Growing up as a protestant and a budding artist he went through the anal stage and was taught due to schooling to become very anal retentive. As his phallic stage developed he himself started to develop sexual feelings and eventually indulges in a prostitute in his latency stage. And as he reaches the phallic stage he finds peace in himself.
-Id, Ego, Super-ego- As he grows up due to religion he tries to stay in the super-ego heavy side of his mind. But occasionally brings his inner Id out (ex.telling his principal the actions of a teacher hitting him and the celebration he had). Stephen is never truly balanced and his ego is never really shown being at either one with small hints of the other and vice versa.
-Drives- Stephen as a child would like to die due to his devotion to his religion. As he slips away from his overly active Super-ego he also slowly respects life more than he did and tries to make his life worth living for.

Community, Identity, Stability (Brave New World)

As the title says this section is about Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This book is sort of a freebie. The book if you haven't read it is sex ridden with free drugs that increase your libido which is exactly why I love it. Just kidding. But to read it through a Freudian lens is rather easy as it's main characters Bernard and John are easily identified in the "Big 4" (The four points pointed out in my first post).

Bernard shows a large role in the psycho-sexual development like all the "civilized" people in the world of Aldous Huxley. His incessant feeling of displeasure and not fulfilling his desires just ooze the negative effects of not properly pleasing the Id and not developing correctly due to conditioning. As a person everyone differs. Bernard has different need and them not being gratified in a manner in which he would have liked he grew into a bundle of anti-cultural and true unhappiness. While he is supposed to be a true showing of Id with a hint of Ego, what he wants is never truly fulfilled keeping him in a suspended state which he relapses on himself in the end with.

John on the other hand is truly the representation on Super-ego. His distaste of the Id-fested world which he dreamed about as a child and his basis to keep religion alive within himself, religion being one of the biggest factors in the discord in the psycho-sexual development stage. As I observed his character he started as an Id also but soon turned into Super-ego the moment he realized the assembly-line ways of the people of civilization.

As for the unconscious factor it is not necessarily used besides the feelings of Bernard, John and a few other characters who interact with the two. The drives are apparent also. As the conditioning let's the people love life but also to want the waiting calm that awaits.

The book itself is a very recreation of Freud's theories that it even uses his name in a catch phrase manner.

Sigmund Freud... isn't he that sex guy?

As I start this blog I want to let you know I am being semi-serious. The psychoanalytical/Freudian lens is a very risqué in some of it's aspect so I will try to add some comic relief.

But back on topic. Sigmund Freud. The creator of the psychoanalytical way of analyzing. It has branched into the most popular uses in the psychologist world being the most used basis of psychology in the world. The basis of it derives from a few key points.

-The first being the unconscious which is divided into three other parts: descriptive, dynamic and system. Descriptive unconscious refers to mental life where people are not completely aware. Dynamic unconscious refers to the more specific function where memories are removed due to conflicting attitudes. The system unconscious was divided again into the second key point.

-Id, Ego and Superego. They are the functions/personalities of a person's semi-conscious meaning that they active in conscious and unconscious ways.

Id is the reference to the "Pleasure Principal" which overall says that your mind will instinctively avoid pain and search for pleasure.

Ego is the part that finds the balance between Id and Superego searching for compromising ways to deal with pleasure and structure presented to it.

Superego is the self gratifying and socially acceptable part of the semi-conscious. It is usually referred to as the actual "conscious".

-Psycho-sexual development is one of his most known theories. It involves several stages going as stated: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Oral dealing with birth to about 2 years old where the Id is the ruler of decisions and examining with the mouth is where the child's earliest memories are created. Anal starts from 1 and a half until about 3. Where compulsiveness is created based on the amount of cleanliness is enforced by the parents. Next is Phallic which deals with Oedipus and Electra complexes which start from 3 until about 5. The complexes are focused on trying to become head of household. The Electra complex makes the woman feel inferior to the males for their genitalia signifying power so in turn she seeks to become a mother. After that is the Latency stage where during age 5 until the end of puberty the child will make any of the former stages latent and find what is socially acceptable if no problems occur. Then after that the Genital stage occurs which is similar to the phallic stage but goes through a secondary adult thinking process where symbolic gratification is used such as creating a family and getting married to fulfill the Oedipus and Electra complexes.

-The Life and Death Drives. The simplest of his theories where the body aims fro two distinct feelings. The first to thrive and live and the second to remain in a state of calm and eventually staying in the calm (death).

All these are present in using a Freudian lens to analyze a work of literature. Making sure you realize the characters unconscious motives, where they derived from, what part of the life it's in and if it's being the affecter and if the moment is directed towards life or death. It is actually very simple when put into 4 concise versions isn't it?