Animal Farm

Oral stage (birth to one year) the mouth, tongue and gums are the focus of pleasurable sensations in the baby’s body. During the oral stage one of the child’s pleasures is sucking. Too much or too little gratification can result in an oral fixation or oral personality. This type of personality may have a stronger tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, over eat, or bite his or her nails. Also, these individuals may become excessively dependent on others, deceitful, and constant followers. Anal stage (one to three years) The anus is the focus of pleasurable sensations in the baby’s body. The most important activity is toilet training to eliminate feces. The child has to learn to control anal stimulation, through pressure from society and mainly parents. When it comes to personality, after effects of an anal fixation can result in an obsession with cleanliness and perfection. As a result of anal-retentive the individual may become uptight and controlling. As a result of anal expulsive an individual may become messy and disorganized in the future.

Phallic stage (three to six years) In the time of the phallic stage the child’s pleasure is his/her genitals. Freud believed that during this stage, boys develop unconscious sexual desires for their mother. Usually, boys become rivals with their father and see him as competition for the mother’s affection. Also, boys develop a fear that their father will punish them for these feelings. This group of feelings is known as Oedipus complex. In addition, boys develop in self-defense, a powerful conscience, called the superego that is quick to judge and punish “the bad guys”. According to Freud’s theory, a young boys fascination with superheroes, guns, kung fu, and the like comes directly from his unconscious urges to kill his father. A man’s obsession with crime and punishment might be explained by a poorly resolved phallic stage. Also, homosexuality and homophobia are due to a weak resolved phallic stage.

Freud had to two descriptions of the phallic stage in girls. Later, it was discovered that girls go through a similar situation, developing unconscious sexual attraction to their father. Little girls want to eliminate their mother and become intimate with their father. This is known as the Electra complex. In the other description, the little girl becomes jealous of boys because they have penises, which was what Freud called ‘penis envy”. The girl blames her mother for this “incompleteness” and decides that the next best thing to having a penis is to become sexually attractive so,