Freud's View Of The Life Of Henry Turner

The epic poem, “The Iliad,” written by the Greek poet Homer, contains many occurrences of the psychologist Freud’s approach of the three systems of Superego, Id, and Ego. Superego, the little angel on one’s shoulder, is considered to be the voice of our moral compass (conscience) that speaks from the unconscious mind on the difference between real and ideal situations. It strives for perfection with tracking what we ought to behave like. Id, opposite to Superego, is the little devil on the other side of one’s shoulder. Its unconscious energy strives to satisfy the basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress. To balance these two systems, the Ego becomes the mediator and compromiser to keep both content. One’s Ego focuses on responses to the real world, stemming from the reality principle. It contains our partly conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgements, and memories.

Freud proposed the psychological structure of personality to include three systems called the id, the ego, and the superego. At birth, the id is the original system of personality and is ruled by the pleasure principle. It is driven towards satisfying instinctual needs. The ego can be described as a mediator between ones instincts and their surrounding environment. The ego is ruled by the reality principle, using realistic and logical thinking to formulate action plans for satisfying needs. The superego includes a person’s moral code and strives for perfection, not pleasure. Psychic energy is distributed between these three systems creating dynamics of personality. This psychic energy is what determines behavior (Day, 2008).

Moreover, another event from the movie that shows his (CD) is his attempt to kill his mother. After running away from her in the woods and hiding, he tries to push his mother of a cliff. This plan was once again stopped by Mark. This ultimately led to Henrys death. This shows just how maladaptive or out of touch with the world Henry was. As I pointed out earlier, Henry was a very intelligent and manipulative child. He convinced his parents and other elders around him to believe that he was the perfect child and tried turning them against his cousin Mark. He even had Mark’s doctor believing that Mark had a problem. According to (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 12/10/09) both of these events are characteristics of (CD).

Henry Smart seemed to evolve into a man who was remarkably similar to his father. In Doyle’s A Star Called Henry, both Henry and his father committed heinous crimes on behalf of a higher authority, but Henry justified his actions by cloaking himself in the Irish flag. Henry Sr. relied on a wooden leg for both transportation and savage purposes and Henry Jr. adopted his father’s leg both physically and for his own violent agenda. Additionally, Henry Sr.’s staple fashion choice was a coat covered in dirt and blood. Eventually, however, Henry Jr. wore a coat of his own, which too, was coated in the grime of his own maniacal actions. He eventually threw the coat out, suggesting, in the end, that he had become his own man. Thus, while it appeared

Freud strategized that the personality was composed of three elements; the id, ego, and superego. The id is the component of personality that is present from birth, and is exclusively unconscious. “According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality” (Cherry,1). On the other hand, the ego is the element of the personality that is responsible with reality. “According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world” (Cherry, 1). It

Freud is known for his theories of the human mind. One of the most well known ideas is that of the psyche. The psyche is the unconscious mind, which consists of the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the part of the mind that operates on the pleasure principle. The id strives to

At the beginning of the movie Henry’s id shows through his immoral victory over the elderly couple that sued the hospital. Without showing any remorse, he flat out lies and convinces the jury that the elderly couple is responsible for the damage since they did not tell the nurse about their diabetic needs. Henry is able to go on with his life, ruining people’s lives and making a living off of it. Following

Freud attempted to explain how the unconscious functions by dividing it into three structures, the id, ego, and superego. The id holds our primitive instincts that demand immediate gratification, because it operates on the pleasure principle (McLeod, 2010). Similarly, the ego also seeks pleasure. However, instead of seeking immediate gratification, the ego acts realistically in order to avoid potentially negative consequences that may arise. On the other hand, our superego represents our conscious. It encompasses the morals and values we learn by society and our parents as we go through the stages of

Henry shows many examples of Id throughout the movie. For example, he had no cigarettes so he had a motivation to do out and buy a pack. Therefore leading him to get shot in the head. Another example, when he lied in court about something very serious when he knew he was lying. Also when he bought a puppy for his daughter he felt an urge to get a puppy for her because he has heard her mention it many times before.

However, Henry has not relearned how this is supposed to work, so he throws a fit as a toddler would. Another simple example of Henry’s id is him needing the pack of cigarettes, which is why he ended up going to the store where he is shot. Other acts of his id that reveal that it is not controlled at all by his superego is when he is wandering through the city and spots an adorable puppy through the window. He goes into the store and winds up buying the puppy, after he had said before his accident that they didn’t need one. His instinct of seeing how cute it was and his initial want for it compelled him too strongly to not get it.

Freud’s structural and topographical model of personality, revolves around the id, ego and superego (McLeod, 2008). As a newborn, I was born with my id which allowed me to get my basic needs met. As an infant, I would cry if I was hungry or tired or just wanted to be held, I did not think of anyone else. The second part of my personality started around when I was three years old, and according to Freud this is when I began to develop my ego. An example of this would be if I was hungry I would want to satisfy my id, but at the

It can be proven through evidence of actions that the ID in Henry’s natural state. For example, in “Regarding Henry,” after the accident, Rachel shows Henry a picture of him and his dad together. She told him that his dad always had a motto of always doing what he had to do to get the job done. This can arguably be why Henry was always “no play, all work. “ His childhood experiences, and the way his dad raised him, can be the reason his ID was suppressed throughout the year.

There are plenty of scenes during the movie that reveal Henry’s id. The id by definition is the reservoir of instinctual and biological urges, it operates on a pleasure principle. One scene that illustrates this very well is where Henry is in the hospital and he’s told that he’s fit to go home. However since he has had such a good time at the hospital, he refuses to go home. This refusal is a demonstration of what he wants, instead of what he needs or what

Freud theorized that each person has an id, ego, and superego. The id operates on what is referred to as the pleasure principle and seeks instant gratification for basic urges such as sex, hunger, and thirst. The ego operates on the reality principle and attempts to satisfy the id’s urges by rational, safe, and socially acceptable means. The superego requires that these solutions be moral and ethical. However, if this balance were to become skewed, for example, if the id were to become too powerful, its unacceptable urges would rise to the preconscious and cause a great deal of anxiety. In order to get rid of this anxiety, the ego will employ the use of defense mechanisms.

Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality and the stages of consciousness and its constant battle paint a very negative picture of human life. The ego constantly has to battle the id and its selfish demands and the superego flying in trying hard to aid the id in calming down and strengthening the ego. As such our mind is constantly in war, our ego constantly battling off the evil id and losing every battle.