Psychoanalytical Analysis Of Dunny's Fifth Business

Fifth business through Freud’s eyes Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory looks at the different parts of the personality and makes the argument that all human behavior is directly related to the three parts of the mind, the Id, the Ego and the Superego. The Id is completely unconscious and is only concerned with instant satisfaction of your basic physical needs and urges. The Ego is partly conscious and party unconscious, it deals with the rational part of your brain. The Superego deals with the conscious part of your brain, this is your morals and social rules. Now one can apply Freud’s psychoanalytic theory to the novel Fifth Business by comparing three different characters to the three different parts of the mind. By observing the characters

One can see this by analyzing Dunny’s guilt about the snowball incident with Mrs. Dempster and how he carries that with him for his entire life. Right after the incident happened he says “I was contrite and guilty, for I knew that the snowball had been meant for me, but the Dempsters did not seem to think that” (5). This quotes shows the beginning of the lifelong guilt that he carries with him throughout the novel. At the end of the novel he finally confesses his guilt to Paul when he says “Staunton and I robbed your mother of her sanity” (253) after saying this he continues to tell the story about the snowball. As proof of his guilt he keeps the rock that he found inside the snowball for years after the incident. He being guilty of this is proof that he is the super ego, because the superego is the source of the guilt. This action is balanced out by Boy suppressing the situation and not feeling guilty, which now creates a balance in the novel. The second time we see Dunny acting as the Superego is when boy decides to share Leola’s nudes with Dunny. Ones superego is supposed to act as the morals and it is supposed to civilize ones behavior. By Dunny having no reaction he was showing his superego, instead of getting mad at Boy for showing him pictures of the

He was quite clever with cards and a very neat pickpocket. I begged him to take me, and was such an ignorant little boy-perhaps I might even call myself innocent, though it is a word I don’t like-that I was in ecstasy when he consented. But I soon found out that Willard had two weaknesses-boys and morphia. The morphia had already made him careless or he would never have run the terrible risk of stealing a boy. But when I had well and truly found out what travelling with Willard meant, he had me in slavery; he told me that if anybody ever found out what we did together I would certainly be hanged, but he would get off because he knew all the judges everywhere. So I was chained to Willard by fear; I was his thing and his creature, and I learned conjuring as a