A Psychological Interpretation of Pandora and Fifth Business

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Psychology, the study of mental thoughts and interpretations of individuals, helps to provide a thorough understanding of mental and social behavior, which dictates the way people interact. The psychoanalytical criticism, developed by Sigmund Freud, focuses on a method to treat patients through the analysis and identification of the main cause of distress and hysteria. They examine a person’s youth to see if influences develop from a person’s childhood. This can be related to the characters of Pandora by Anne Rice and Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. These two stories tend to focus on the psychological aspect more than anything else, mainly due to the fact that they are both fictional semi-autobiographies. The main characters in both books start off by telling the reader about their past, their journey into adolescence, youth and eventually, into their adulthood. This encompasses a multitude of psychological behaviors that can be described through traits and characteristics. The inner conflicts of characters within Pandora and Fifth Business support psychological understandings and are mainly affected by the id, the ego and isolation. The id, is the natural instinct that shows from of birth, allowing everyone to survive and thrive in the living world. Within stories, the id appears as soon as characters are described and try to survive in one form or another. Approaching Pandora with a psychoanalytical lens strengthens the current view of psychoanalytical criticism developed by Sigmund Freud. A strong example of the id in action within Pandora would be when the main protagonist, Pandora, uses her natural instinct for survival as a vampire, to kill people and drain them of their blood. She does this in order to survive when... ... middle of paper ... ...The actions of people are indications of their current state of mind. This can help society in the real world; by being able to understand a mental illness, diagnostics and cures are able to be completed and used. The impact of psychology towards society is proven to contribute to the way humans develop as a whole and grow. Works Cited Davies, Robertson. Fifth Business. Toronto: Penguin Group, 1996. Rice, Anne. Pandora: new tales of the vampires. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. "Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism." Welcome to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Web. 24 July 2011. . "Id, Ego, Superego, and the Unconscious in Psychology 101 at AllPsychOnline." Psychology Classroom at AllPsych Online. Web. 24 July 2011. .

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