Originally founded by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psychoanalysis introduced an entirely new perception of the human mind, forming theories that were both revolutionary and controversial. In his thesis “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Freud describes psychoanalysis as “the first and foremost art of interpretation”. What is hidden in the “unconscious” of the human mind. Freud states that human behavior is the creation of an inner conflict taking place within the “unconscious,” which is “the belief in “repressed desires, feelings, memories, and instinctual drives.” To understand the theory of the id, the ego and the superego, this essay analyzes the main protagonists of David Fincher's film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1998). I will examine the character and explore the society that sees him and his origins. To deepen this investigation, I will also rely on the concepts of Carl Gustav Jung and Jacques Lacan. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay First, the essence of the narrator's disappointment with life comes from a feeling of emptiness and futility. His mundane job, living situation, and “single” life compound the prevailing feeling of insignificance. Ultimately, this leads him to hope for liberation; he believes that freedom can be obtained through death in a plane crash. It seems that the narrator's cynicism may be linked to the poorly sold American dream. The forever-out-of-reach ideal that every young white American his age had been led to imagine was owed to him; the high-profile job, the apartment, the money, the girls, the clothes – the movie star lifestyle, had all been trampled. As Tyler states, “We were all raised on television to believe that one day we would all be millionaires.” His feelings of estrangement and loneliness are compounded by an inadequate and unbridled consumer society that has let him down. He deliberates “which dining table defines me as a person?” » as he flips through the “pornography” in his Ikea collection. He directs his anger against the multinationals and big companies who sold him his dream. The “Ikea nesting instinct” suggests the evolving culture that has stripped the young American male of his “manliness.” In an interview with Gavin Smith, Fincher states: "We are designed to be hunters and we are in a shopping society." The same opinion is expressed in Tyler's words: “We are consumers. We are the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. This issue of gender role is further examined in the recognition that the perfect nuclear family has evolved into a structure; Tyler says this is “a generation of men raised by women.” Now applying psychoanalytic theory to these characters and themes, I will consider their function and overall impact on the text. To begin, I would like to return to the narrator's fight for himself, while focusing on the Freudian vision of unconscious drives. In “The Ego and the Id,” Freud states that the human psyche is divided into three distinct parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. These three components work together and, when properly balanced, create a complete, rounded individual. The id is the power of the mind, made up of impulses and instincts that constantly demand gratification. Freud separates the main id drives into two groups, the life drives and the death drives. The life instincts are mainly concentratedon the pleasure of survival, such as thirst, hunger and erotic urges, while the death instincts seek to reproduce the earliest experience of dormancy from before life. It is our seemingly unconscious desire for self-destruction and death. One could argue that Tyler is a representation of the id since his life is not driven by society; he “lets the chips fall where they may.” It is through his desire and will to crush society that Project Mayhem was founded. Stripped of Tyler, the narrator would have endured being a slave to Ikea's nesting instinct - He may still be searching for meaning in Scandinavian furniture. After accepting his life of simple service and his material existence, the unconscious reservoir is flooded with pent-up anger, and it is from its aggression that Tyler is born. Indeed, even before Tyler officially appears on the plane, the narrator is vaguely aware of the "death drive" when he toys with the idea of ​​ending his sad existence through death in a crash. 'plane. The ego is the developed part of the conscious and is created from a reality principle. Freud assumed that the ego represents "what we can call reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains passion" because it stifles the desires and impulses of the id, maintaining control. In Fight Club, the ego takes the form of the narrator. As mentioned, the narrator is a separated individual, suffering from insomnia. When he begins to make remarks such as: "This is your life, and it is ending minute by minute", indicates the presence of the death drive, which could be interpreted as the first stages of taking control of the that of the narrator. It is notable that throughout his work and independence, the narrator was once a well-functioning person. However, clearly a change has occurred that has disrupted the balance between the id and the ego. In some of his early work, notably “The Interpretation of Dreams,” Freud argued that dreams were the product of “wish fulfillment.” He uses the term “residue of the day” to explain the idea that the basis of the dream is rooted in the events of the previous day. Children clearly demonstrate this concept, but the substance of adults' dreams is less clear and distorted by dream notions buried in the unconscious. Thus, the meaning is sometimes partly hidden. This impacts the narrator's state to the extent that his insomnia makes him unable to release his pent-up desire in the dream state. According to Freud, the third element of the personality to develop is the superego and this begins to emerge at the age of five. It is fundamentally our sense of right and wrong and it is the code by which civilized society operates. It also covers our perceptions of conscience and our feelings of guilt and repentance. The Superego acts to suppress the id impulses. In effect, the ego is stuck in the middle of a battle between the angel (the superego) and the devil (the id). In Fight Club, the superego is depicted as the real world of the story. The narrator (ego) is unhappy and alienated from this world and therefore has little resistance when Tyler (id) asserts himself and attempts to destroy the world that has stifled all sense of self and emasculated him. This sets up a battle between the id and the superego and can be seen in the jobs Tyler takes. He incorporates hidden sexual images into home movies and taints restaurant food with bodily fluids. In Fight Club, he constructs a clandestine patriarchal place that seems to encourage gratuitous violence. He then embarks on a montage of capitalist rebellion, which initially takes the form of vandalizing municipal buildings, which escalates into the creation of the ProjectMayhem. Drawing on Freud's theories on the classification of human personality, it is possible to understand how the id and ego are powerful opposing forces. The libido (id) fights against the ego's need to repress desire. Freud defines five stages of psychosexual development in the human infant; oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Balanced individuals have negotiated this with the ego, suppressing the id's more deplorable desires. In this context, it is worth highlighting the Oedipal complex in male infants, as its impact reverberates throughout the film. The developing sexuality of the male infant includes the desire for his mother, but this is curbed by the fear of his mother. The power of the father, particularly the power to castrate him. In an ideal world, he stifles his desire and replaces it with abandonment to his father's power, while retaining his mother's affection. In theory, the boy's masculinity would be strengthened by his deep relationship with his father. Freud emphasizes that where the father is not present (as in the narrator's case) or is a weak role model, the Oedipus complex is not resolved and obsessions arise. The narrator is so affected and when the id (Tyler) breaks out, it manifests as an unbridled libido; (the sex with Marla), brutality (the sadomasochistic interaction in Fight Club), and ultimately, an effort to destroy the culture that stole his masculinity. The anxiety of castration as the ultimate punishment is persistent, and it confronts us strongly in the first scene of the support group “Remaining Men Together.” These men are emasculated substantially and mentally and demonstrate a desperate need to assert, “We are still men,” even as they cry. In many situations, castration is proposed as the ultimate punishment; Indeed, the members of Project Mayhem confront the narrator himself towards the end of the film, as his ego strengthens enough to deny them. The importance placed on this device is extremely evident in an unforgettable speech by Tyler in the bar after the narrator loses everything in the condo explosion: “you know, it could be worse; a woman could cut off your penis and throw it out of a car. » If we look at the theories of other psychoanalytic theorists, such as Jung and Lacan, we are able to gain a different understanding of the narrator's neurotic behavior. Carl Gustav Jung's views were originally affiliated with those of Freud; However, Jung came to consider that Freud paid too little attention to the spirit and religion in his analysis of human psychology. Jung studied the theory that every personality has two contradictory elements, which he called "Ego" and "Shadow." Comparable to Freud, Jung believed that the Ego remained in control until something fell apart. In the narrator's case, the trigger is his insomnia and the shadow comes to power. We can also apply the Jungian concept of "physical inheritance" (collective unconscious) and its content in archetypes" to other characters in the film. For example, Marla could be interpreted as "the anima", that is to say "the image of the feminine soul of a man", insofar as she replaces the initial childish form of "the power animal” of the narrator, and her relationship with him is mainly controlled by Tyler. There is also a possible mana personality archetype in Bob's character. As stated previously, it is through Bob's emasculated life and troubles that the narrator is able to feel emotions and identify. Jung believed that "the Mana personality is a dominant of the collective unconscious, the well-known archetype of the powerful man in the form of heroes,’