The Cement Garden represents an isolated family and the narrator is the family's eldest son, named Jack. As a fifteen-year-old, it is time for Jack to develop sexual and gender awareness. However, after the deaths of his father and mother, he and his sister Julie begin to act as parents in the family, which results in incest. Andrew Birkin argues that Jack's sexual instinct becomes apparent since the death of his father and that his mother's death results in the emergence of Jack's character, as he is eager to take on the role of father. Debashis Mitra and Manish Shrivastava argue that Jack is oppressed by his father who is at first an obsessive and powerful man, while Julie acts as a surrogate mother and attempts to establish a traditional family structure after their mother's death. In The Fiction of Ian McEwan, the author states that Jack is sleeping with his sister Julie, the mother of the family, and that in the meantime he is expecting a baby again. This article will apply Freud's theories to an analysis of Jack's abnormal adolescent consciousness and sexuality focusing on the sexual instinct, the alliance with Julie, and the absence of manners. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Jack's strong sexual impulse and curiosity can be observed during the puberty stage, which prompts an inappropriate relationship with his sister. In Freudian theory, the sexual instinct resides in the unconscious of children and even infants, including Jack. As Sigmund Freud notes, puberty transforms the infantile sexual life into its defined normal form, while the sexual drive is mainly dominated by autoeroticism (72). A teenager around 15 years old, Jack is addicted to masturbation while going through puberty. After the first ejaculation, he seriously observes the liquid which is not milky, colorless and tasteless. The biological meaning of masculine is linked to the presence of sperm (98). Masturbation becomes a meaningless but necessary part of Jack's daily routine that gradually transforms a child into a man. On this side, Jack's awareness of masculinity grows. Additionally, children start masturbating very early, especially when they notice the gender distinction in the second year of life. They therefore show their sexual curiosity towards their parents' genitals and would like to touch the genitals if they can (Joseph 947). ). The adolescent recognizes the change in his genitals and must find an object that is his sexual goal. In Freudian theory, sex can be divided into two parts, subject and object, and the actions of the opposite sex as an object are essential to the construction of a gender role. Absolutely, in The Cement Garden, Julie serves as Jack's sexual object. When he plays the sex game with his sisters, he imagines Julie's body, although he examines Sue's body with his fingers. Jack throws his curiosity and libido at his sister. A depiction of Julie's feminine characteristics occurs on Jack's fifteenth birthday. Jack persuades Julie to do a handstand again and he describes how her skirt fell over her head. Her panties were bright white against the pale brown skin of her legs and I could see how the fabric formed into little folds around the elastic that clung to her flat, muscular stomach. A few black hairs escaped from the white crotch. His legs, which were together at first, now slowly spread apart like giant arms (McEwan 20). Jack is eager to see Julie's handstand, because he is curious about female genitalia. Freud considers thatunion of the genitals is a normal sexual goal (19). Jack's growing gender and sexual awareness strengthens the libido, especially his sister's. The Oedipus complex is Jack's unconscious desire, which causes an inappropriate relationship with his sister, although the early stage of the Oedipus complex usually included an obsession with the mother. In reference to Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the “mother” is originally the sexual object of people in their childhood, and then they look for someone who loves them as their mother loved them (Freud 40). Unconscious affection towards the mother is considered this way by Freud, because it satisfies instincts but goes against social conventions. Some details show that Jack loves his mother. For example, when Jack was eight years old, he came home from school one morning pretending to be seriously ill so that his mother would please me. Jack wants to monopolize his mother while the others are away from home. The unconscious desire to possess his mother individually foreshadows his affection towards Julie. After the death of his parents, Jack still seeks his parents' love and care, even though the maternal care is gone. The unconscious consciousness is reflected in his dream. Dreams are related to the interpretation of thoughts that are repressed as being at odds with the chosen life of consciousness (Freud 5). In Jack's dream, my mother and father were walking in front of me, carrying deck chairs and a bundle of towels. I couldn't follow. The big round stones hurt my feet. In my hand was a stick with a windmill on the end. I was crying because I was tired and wanted to be carried. My parents stopped to wait for me but when I was a few feet away from them, they turned around and continued on their way (McEwan 63). Jack dreams that he is left on the beach and returned to the infant stage (Children 44). The absence of a primary mother prevents children from maintaining a set of healthy relationships with other objects in the future (Sistania et al. 454). After the death of Jack's mother, Jack's true nature emerges. Jack said, “When my mother died, behind my strongest feelings was a sense of adventure and freedom,” because no one judges her behavior anymore (McEwan 34). He will take the responsibility of being a “father” in the family while assuming the role of mother. Jack's affection for Julie is much more obvious than his affection for his mother. He stays clean, rarely masturbates, helps Tom go back to sleep when he wakes up at night crying, and even has sex with Julie (Birkin 35). In fiction, the Oedipal complex is mainly based on Jack's alliance with Julie who assumes the role of instant mother after the death of their parents. The deaths of his mother and father offer him the chance to be a father capable of loving “mother” Julie. He needs a mother while the position is replaced by Julie, as she takes on his mother's personality traits (Sistania et al. 454). Jack's family lacks the traditional morality and rules that represent the superego in Freud's theory. Based on the Oedipal complex, the children's own jealousy and retaliatory fury against their Oedipal rivals who gain the person they deeply desire to mate with, the same as Jack (Joseph 949). The Oedipal rival refers to the father who takes away the mother's love. The image of Jack's father is arbitrary, dominant and powerful, contrasting completely with that of his mother. In Jack's words: "I didn't kill my father, but I sometimes felt like I helped him on his way" (McEwan 7). Jack masturbates when his father suffers a sudden heart attack, which to some extent precipitates his father's death. Additionally, the,.