Clockwork Orange Alex's Dysfunctional Personality

A Clockwork Orange was a very weird movie for me to watch, because I didn’t understand why the reasons for such violent behave without guilty at all, so this assignment was a good opportunity for me to learn and understand more about this issue.

First I thought in analyse the movie with Jacques Lacan language theory, but in my research I came across with the “structural” topography. This theory elaborated by Freud, was from me, the best theory to understand and explain the violent behave of Alex, the main character of the movie. So I decide to analyze the protagonist behave based on Freud, mainly on the “structural” topography theory.

I pretend to demonstrate that the violent behave of Alex without guilty, is based on the dysfunctional development of is personality, using Freud Theory to prove my point. Relating his dysfunctional development of Alex’s personality with the parents weak personality, as well as their lack of love and attention to their son. This way Alex’s develop a dysfunctional personality dominated by is ID (pleasure seeking tendencies), over a weak Ego and Superego.

Sigmund Freud is considerate the father of Psychoanalysis, this therapy investigates the communication and mechanism between conscious and unconscious mind; basically try to understanding the way that mind works.

Freud believes that the self isn’t unified as a unique entity; there are different competing elements to control the self. From 1920 onwards, he elaborated the

“structural” topography, were he describes a structure defined by three agencies the ID, the EGO and the SUPEREGO. These three agencies are the components of the self, the interaction between them are represented by the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of the individual. Freud describes these three agencies in the New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), in the chapter Dissection of the Psychical Personality.

The ID:

The ID is the most primitive part of our mind and work essential according to the pleasure principle, which is based in the hunt for pleasure avoiding pain and doesn’t takes into account neither social rules neither the consequences of human action.

The ID has 2 key instincts: Eros the live impulse that motivates individuals on pleasure seeking tendencies; Thanatos the death impulse that motivates individuals to destroy and be aggressive.

The Ego:

The Ego develops in the child by about the age 3, it mediates between the ID and the external world, is shaped from the non-biological (social and familial) forces brought to stand on one's biological development. Is a kind of “system of values” referred by Freud as secondary process, which arranges one's communication with the internal and external demands of life.

The Ego is ruled by the Reality Principle, this is when the child learns to regulate the pleasure principle by adjusting the instinctive search of pleasure, and this search ceases to be instantaneous in order to get a more guaranteed pleasure at a later period.

As Freud claim a boy's close relation to his mother, makes him to wish for a sexual union with her, the boy will eventually discard his incestuous desire for the fear of being castrated by his father. He will develop a vast feeling of guilt over this confused conflict and come to be conscious of the superiority of his father. To solve this conflict, the boy learns to refuse his mother as a love object and in time identify with is father. The repress of his incestuous desire, waiting for the day he will be the patriarch, represents the OEDIPUS COMPLEX.

The SUPEREGO:

The SUPEREGO is the last part of the mind to be developed, around the age of 5, represents the standards for what is bad, immoral placing limits on the individual satisfactions and pleasures. Basically balance the Id's satisfaction demands, mainly those for sex and aggression. The SUPEREGO starts to obtain form when the child emerges from the OEDIPUS COMPLEX.

The SUPEREGO is based in two components: Ego Ideal are the rules or principles for what represent good or suitable conduct; Conscience are the rules or principles for what represent bad, immoral, embarrassing conduct.

According to Freud, in a healthy individual the ego is the strongest agency of the mind, this way the needs of the ID are satisfy without upsetting the SUPEREGO, taking in concern the reality of every situation. In case of the ID get to be the strongest one, the individual is taking over by pleasure hunting impulses. If the superego becomes the strongest one, the individual would be obsessed by moral principles. Heffner, Christopher 2001 Structural Model (id, ego, superego)