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  • Essay / Analysis of the black cat through Freud's personality theory

    Freud described personality by dividing it into three main subjects: structure of the personality which is the id, the ego and the superego, dynamics of the personality especially the self-defense mechanism and personality development. Today I will focus solely on personality structure and dynamics. This analysis uses the defense mechanisms that occur in personality dynamics and structure to analyze the characters of The Black Cat in the short story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In this part of the analysis, the development of the narrator's character will be elaborated on the basis of Sigmund Freud's division of human personalities of id, ego and superego. . It is not surprising to conclude the narrator of the story, because he has a very strange and complex mind. He is able to show his benevolent side and his natural side as shown in these lines: “From my childhood, I was noticed for the docility and humanity of my character”. This attitude of a seemingly peaceful individual is the nature of the narrator which he inherited from his parents. It was also because of his parents whom he loved and had a considerable fondness for animals. According to the narrator, he was spoiled by his parents' variety of pets when he was a child. As he grew older, this attachment gradually diminished. This could be due to the influence of his environment and the people he grew up among. Due to influences from various sources, the narrator's behavior has changed, including his desires. This is where the identity of the narrator began to become very apparent. The id is the origin of aggression and desires. This is the core of a personality, the desire to satisfy one's desires, because otherwise the person will become tense or worse and resort to unnatural behaviors. After the narrator returned home one evening, drunk on alcohol, the cat avoided him. At first, the cat named Pluto was the narrator's playmate. He preferred Pluto. Pluto also adores him by approaching him as soon as he returns home. But as Pluto grew, he became somewhat moody. That night the narrator went home, Pluto avoided him, which he didn't like. This cold reaction from Pluto and the narrator's drunken state made him unreasonable. He became furious and seized Pluto as shown in the following lines: “I seized him;...The fury of the demon instantly possessed me. I didn't know myself anymore. My original soul seemed, all of a sudden, to fly away from my body. » Another example of the narrator's pleasure is when the next black cat accidentally entered his wife's life and his own. Like Pluto, he came to love the cat. But this affection did not last long, his dislike for this cat grew until this dislike turned into disgust. The second black cat suffered the same fate as Pluto. The narrator has lost his sense of reason. There is little to note about the development of the narrator's ego. The ego is the component of the personality responsible for managing reality. It is the ego that ensures that the appearance of the id is satisfied in a way that will be well received by society. The narrator's mental capacity or incapacity unbalances his ego. His rational mind was very short-lived because he did not suffer from the bad behavior he had committed towards Pluto. In the case of the second black cat, the narrator's ego prevented him from hurting the black cat, as these lines say: "In such moments, even if I wanted to destroy it with one blow, I was however preventedto do it. , partly by the memory of a previous crime,...". It could be said that, from the mentioned statement, the narrator's way of dealing with the reality of Pluto's murder was to listen to his conscience. The last part is the superego of the narrator. The Superego is the last component of the personality trait to be developed by an individual. The Superego is what holds the three together and hence it also explains the sense of right and wrong of one. a person. The narrator knows that what he did was wrong This was revealed by his guilt and the way he tried to restrain himself from putting the second cat in the same fate as Pluto. can be said that the narrator of the story, The Black Cat, is dominated by his identity then his ego and his superego He was more concerned with achieving his desires, however he did it, and without caring. whether he was endangering himself or the people around him in the process. His identity demanded not just pleasure, but pleasure after pleasure. He no longer loved Pluto so he didn't feed him then for more pleasure he killed him. His wife then stopped him from killing the second black cat, he did not push his wife away but he killed her at that moment. This murder is the reason why at the beginning of the text, a foreshadowing of his death was made. All these things the narrator was able to do thanks to a very powerful substance called alcohol. The second and final part of personality types I'm going to talk about is personality dynamics. This part of the personality can help explain the narrator's actions in a different way rather than personality structure. There are three terms you need to know: Irrational: The term irrational is often used in psychotherapy and the concept of irrationality is particularly well known in rational emotive behavior therapy created and developed by American psychologist Albert Ellis. In this approach, the term irrational is used in a slightly different way than in general. Here, irrationality is defined as the tendency and belief that humans must act, express and think in an inflexible, unrealistic, absolutist and, most importantly, self-defeating and socially destructive manner. ''depicts three main psychological aspects of the human mind, namely irrationality, perversity and guilt. From the beginning of the story, it is clearly understood that the main character is superstitious. He recalls his wife's words as follows: "my wife... frequently alluded to the old popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise." The narrator calls his wife superstitious. Superstitious is synonymous with irrational. As the story progresses, we can see that he is much more superstitious himself. Moreover, the narrator begins to believe in the reincarnation of the black cat. Upon seeing the second cat, he quickly remembers Pluto's appearance and how the two cats look alike. The second quote was 'It was a black cat, a very big cat, as big as Pluto, and very much like him in every way but one'. His mind is full of these irrational beliefs which scare him and lead him to the hatred of the second cat and the murder of his beloved wife “Even though I wanted to destroy him at once, I was nevertheless restrained from doing so, partly by the memory of my former crime, but. above all - let me admit it right away - by the absolute fear of the beast” Therefore, the superstition in the mind of the main character is the main reason why he killed the second cat In addition to. this, the author of “Le Chat Noir” expresses the spirit of perversity” through his.