Coping with Crisis
According to Freudian psychoanalysis, humans, as a whole, have three main parts to their psychological identity. These parts are the Id, which desires judgement and decisions based on primitive inclinations, the SuperEgo, which desires judgement and decisions based on morals and ethics, and lastly the Ego which tries to balance power between the Id and SuperEgo. In “Macbeth”, the famous seventeenth century play by Shakespeare, each character is crafted to cope with crises differently; some are healthier than others. Two of the most common ways of coping are to fight or flight.
In crises, society has deemed that dealing with a problem, the fight response, rather than not is healthier. Characters in this category are not impulsive,
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In “Macbeth”, Malcom is the best representation of such a charter. “To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy. I’ll off to England” (II.III. 32-33) Instead of staying to fully realize his father’s death, he leaves for England, and to do so, it will block out any reminder of his father, and it doesn’t allow any opportunity to deal with his feelings. This can be unhealthy because it bottles up feelings, which is culturally accepted to be unhealthy. Furthermore, due to his closeted feelings toward his father’s death, he becomes self-critical. “It is myself I mean, in whom I knew all the particulars of vice so grafted that, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth will seem pure as snow” (IV.III. 51-54) To make such a comparison would mean that Malcom’s faults would have to be more terrible than murder, treason, and the most extreme forms of treachery. Later on we learn these vices are not as bad. Malcom’s pent up rage and sorrow caused him to be so critical of himself and makes him hate himself, which is not a healthy way of coping; it is barley coping at all. Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, also represents this way of coping. When confronted with problems he just doesn’t help himself, and later in the movie it is shown how unhealthy this is. These two characters show the destructive nature of failure to cope, and its