Everyday Use
Psychological Approach to “Everyday Use”
The psychological approach was developed by Sigmund Freud. He is the father of psychoanalysis. And his principal ideas are very essential to an understanding of literature and criticism. Freud compared the mind to an iceberg, of which only a small portion is visible; the rest is below the waves of the sea. When it comes to the elements of the psyche, Freud hypothesized that we have several psychic structures that make up the personality and clash with one another. These structures are the Id, Ego and Superego.
According to Freud, we are born with our Id, with such things as hunger, sex or aggression. The id doesn’t care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction. And Freud believed that the id is based on our pleasure principle. However, the ego is based on the reality principle. The ego understands that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can hurt us. The superego is the moral part of us and develops because of some ethical restraints which placed on us in our early age. Therefore, it is ruled by the moral principle. Every individual is composed of different amounts of each psychic structure. The ultimate goal is to achieve the balance of the three areas by understanding how each area works alone and contributes to make the whole.
Dee and Maggie are two African American sisters who have obtained contrasting lifestyles. Although the two sisters grew up in the same home environment,“Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, illustrates Dee and Maggie’s divergence in character caused by their separation in economic status.
Dee The id is the main energy source for the psyche. The id “knows no values, no good and evil, no morality". In the short story "Everyday Use", Dee's actions are clearly attributed to her overdeveloped id, which is a distorted sense of ego, and an underdeveloped superego.
The id functions according
The psychological approach was developed by Sigmund Freud. He is the father of psychoanalysis. And his principal ideas are very essential to an understanding of literature and criticism. Freud compared the mind to an iceberg, of which only a small portion is visible; the rest is below the waves of the sea. When it comes to the elements of the psyche, Freud hypothesized that we have several psychic structures that make up the personality and clash with one another. These structures are the Id, Ego and Superego.
According to Freud, we are born with our Id, with such things as hunger, sex or aggression. The id doesn’t care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction. And Freud believed that the id is based on our pleasure principle. However, the ego is based on the reality principle. The ego understands that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can hurt us. The superego is the moral part of us and develops because of some ethical restraints which placed on us in our early age. Therefore, it is ruled by the moral principle. Every individual is composed of different amounts of each psychic structure. The ultimate goal is to achieve the balance of the three areas by understanding how each area works alone and contributes to make the whole.
Dee and Maggie are two African American sisters who have obtained contrasting lifestyles. Although the two sisters grew up in the same home environment,“Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, illustrates Dee and Maggie’s divergence in character caused by their separation in economic status.
Dee The id is the main energy source for the psyche. The id “knows no values, no good and evil, no morality". In the short story "Everyday Use", Dee's actions are clearly attributed to her overdeveloped id, which is a distorted sense of ego, and an underdeveloped superego.
The id functions according