Essay on Psycho-Analysis in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster that murders several people, and then flees through Europe to the Arctic Circle. In the beginning of the story, it seems that Frankenstein is simply a scientist chasing a pipe dream of finding the key to eternal life, but closer analysis of the text reveals that Frankenstein is not sane, and possibly suffering from one of many psychology disorders, causing hallucinations and psychosis, it is my contention, that Victor Frankenstein is his monster.

According to modern psychologists, Sigmund Freud is considered the father of modern psychology; Freud’s idea of the three zones of the psychic apparatus play a heavy influence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The three zones are Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is natural instincts, Ego is the influence of the Id caused by society, and the Superego is acting based off of adopted morals taught to you. The Monster’s personality traits in Frankenstein are examples of Freud's idea of Id, Ego, and Superego. Throughout the novel, each trait is developed with the Id being first ; and alternating back and forth between all of them on which one becomes the dominant trait.

Further Freud divided the human psyche into three separate but interacting elements: the id, the ego and the super ego. Freud described the id as a reservoir of psychic energy, the pool of biological drives that arise from our needs for food, water, warmth, sexual gratification, aggression, avoidance of pain, and so forth. And he believed that these drives direct all human behavior. The id is an unconscious force, with no link to objective reality. It seeks one thing only: the discharge of tension arising from biological drives. The id's exclusive devotion to gratification without regard for logic or reason, reality or morality, is called the pleasure principle. According to Sigmund Freud human beings are essentially biological creatures with strong instincts, one among them is aggression, it as Freud calls: "an original self subsisting instinctual disposition in man . . . the greatest impediment to civilization." At this point the difference between primitive and civilized man arises. Primitive man could satisfy his bodily needs in his id, as it is, whenever and wherever he wanted. Thus he could achieve his freedom fully in his gratification of his primary needs. But even at that age, the

The environment one lives in is one of the major factors in the development of human behavior. The unpredictability of human behavior shows that people are unique and operate based on their different ideas and backgrounds. Growing up one learns something from someone everyday whether they want to or not through interaction. This interaction makes connections with people and they influence our behavior. According to Freud, human behavior is a result of the interaction between the three components of the mind: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the part of our subconscious that is driven by desires the conscious mind doesn’t want to acknowledge. The ego is the conscious sense of the mind. The superego is the part of the conscious that knows the rules and expectation of society. The id contains the libido which in psychoanalytic theory, libido is defined as primitive biological urges that is expressed through conscious actions. In Euripides’s Medea, Medea is driven by her libido. The motivations for Medea’s actions do not come from outside problems, but from her id and ego constantly being at war with one another.

All theories of human behavior are not alike because they do not hold equal status in dimensions nor in the depth of research and information that is provided. Freud’s original thoughts for Ego psychology are still prevalent because it is one of the earliest contemporary perspectives that molded the fieldwork to further understand narcissism. From his 1914 work On Narcissism, Freud aligned narcissism with libido theory and stated that it grew and diffused into object relationships. Shortly after, Freud formulated the developmental sequence that included the autoerotic phase which is coined as the primary narcissistic condition. Overtime, Freud viewed narcissism as a widespread developmental process that is continuous through human beings lives,

In Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, he saw sex as a basic driving force for humans. Freud called the sex drive “libido.” Libido is part of the id, one of the three parts of the human personality. The id is the most basic part of personality. This is present at birth and it operates on someone’s most basic needs, which included sex. The ego tries to

In his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud works inductively towards a theory of the (sexual) mind. The lectures consider years of psychoanalytic experience and try to fit them into a framework, in the process always slightly altering both the data and the theory. His primary interest lies in the competitive interplay of libido - the pleasure seeking unconscious part of the mind - and the ego - the rational and socially constituted character who internalizes norms and tries to tame the libido. The pleasure that the libido presses for is firstly sexual, but for Freud this expansive term indicates any kind of pleasure derived from physical contact. Working from these terms, he tries

The human psyche is divided into three distinct aspects: the Persona, the Shadow, and the Anima/Animus; at least, it is according to Jungian Psychology. Drawing heavily on the theories developed by Freud, Jung's psychological concepts tell us that if these three facets are not properly integrated - that is, if one of the three is overly dominant, or repressed, or all three are in conflict with each other - then an individual's energies - his libido - will be out of alignment, causing psychological distress and unconscious problems.

Few topics evoke so much intrigue and bewilderment, discussion and silence as the concept of sexuality. It has simultaneously been the focus of scientific experimentation and theoretical debate since the emergence of the modern world. Traditional views designate sexuality as purposeful, which is to say that our sexual instinct compels us toward reproduction and the preservation of life. This parallels human sexuality to that of animals, an instinct that is genetically programmed into us for the purpose of copulation. This is made to seem analogous to the instinct of hunger or thirst and taking nourishment (15). In his book, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Sigmund Freud challenges these conventional views of the subject. While there are translational inconsistencies with his use of the word instinct, the term drive actually substantiates his theory. He argues that sexuality begins in childhood and can develop into a continuum of expressions that are shaped by experiences at the level of the body, and to a lesser extent, experiences in society. These impulses of the libido drive all psychological activity. In this paper I will show that, according to Freud, sexuality is embedded in our bodily being without being instinctual because it can take many forms, it can be controlled or repressed and contains mental dispositions.

One of the most universally criticized and disputed of Freud’s theories is that of the psychosexual stages. According to him, a person’s personality develops in five fixed stages, at each of which the person’s energy force, or libido as he

Civilization also puts enormous expectations and restrictions on individuals and these are in the form of examples such as art, beauty, sexuality, customs, taboos, law, order, and justice. The rule of law is placed above individual instincts and causes man to suppress his instinctual urges in order to coincide with society. As Freud states ??it is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct?? (52). This causes sublimation in the human mind, or channeling primal urges to other psychical or physical activities. Freud claims that man?s primal instinctual behavior is aggression and this aggression could disintegrate civilization, therefore it is highly repressed by society and consequently, the mind. ?His aggressiveness is introjected, internalized, it is?sent back to where it came from?his own ego. There it is taken over by a portion of the ego?as super-ego?? (84).

Quite simply, Freud divided the mind into three sections. The ego, superego, and the “id” which represents instincts, drive, and desire. If you can imagine an iceberg floating in the ocean, draw a vertical line from the top floating above water to the bottom point under water. On the left half is the superego. On the right-side and roughly split that area in half with a vertical line, the top half has an area that is slightly exposed above the water line and has a portion below. This is the ego. And the bottom half of this section that is submerged entirely underwater is the “id”. The area of the sky above the water is the conscious, the area where the water helps form the horizon in the water is the preconscious. And the area deeper in the

The very young infant, Freud felt, was entirely governed by the libido, and this embedded, embodied existence was called 'primary process thinking,' the bedrock of all experience. This 'primary process thinking' largely consists of fantasy, omnipotent thinking, and exists outside of linear time -- in short, it demands immediate gratification. As the child develops through the various psychosexual stages -- oral, anal, phallic and genital-- his libido is increasingly 'repressed' by parental figures. Parents train the child to delay gratification and to channel the libido in ways that are socially acceptable. This pure libidinal drive was called the 'id’ by Freud. Freud observed that disruptions at any of the stages of psychosexual development, appeared to result in what he called 'fixation' -- an excessive preoccupation with that particular stage. This was characterized either by over-indulgence or under-indulgence. With the formation of the unconscious, what is left-over in the conscious of the person is called 'secondary process thinking' by Freud.

Sigmund Freud is considered one of the most famous and controversial figures in the field of psychology. Originating from his work, the psychoanalytic theory has influenced and motivated many others, neo-Freudians, to expand on Freud’s beliefs and create their own theories. Using the clinical data from his work with mental health patients, Freud created the theory of psychosexual development to explain how one’s personality is developed in stages, formed through experiences during childhood and unconscious impulses and desires (Haight & Taylor, 2013). In his theory, personality was thought to be a result of the efforts to resolve the basic conflict between the impulses of biological urges and the restraint of reality and social control over these urges (Haight & Taylor, 2013). In order to better understand these dynamics in the mind, Freud constructed 3 interacting systems: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id operates on the pleasure principle that seeks immediate gratification. The ego operates on the reality principle, which seeks to satisfy the id’s needs in realistic ways to bring pleasure- not pain. The superego operates on how we ought to behave which seeks perfection and the ideal. When the demands of the superego are in opposition to the demands of the id, which is frequently the case, the ego serves to reconcile the two (Myers, 2010).

Sigmund Freud, known as the father of psychology, has developed some of the first theories of modern psychology. One of his well known theories is the structural model of the psyche. According to Freud, most of what drives humans is buried in the unconscious mind. There are three main forces that drive humans: the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id is the sum of basic personal needs and desires. It is completely selfish and has no care for sensibility or reality. It strives for what it wants, when it wants it with no other considerations and is primarily concerned with sex. The second part of the personality is the ego. The ego is the realization of reality. It is the ego’s job to, in a sense, counteract the selfishness and