Freud had a lot of wild theories, but a simple understanding of the short essay “The Structure of the Unconscious” can help students easily understand the psyche. Applying the basic idea of the unconscious can help students make a connection between the experiences and behaviors of the characters. It can also help them think about how judging morality can be complicated. Let’s go through how the mind processes information. Here is a free graphic that students can fill out with quotes from the text or watch a screencast lecture about how I teach the psyche.
Experience
This is the context of the passage or what the character experiences in that moment and how they react to it. Students may also consider all of the prior experiences of the character and not just one. Experiences can be anything: conversations with family, books, movies, failures and successes, religion, politics, the media, heartbreak, trauma. Students need to pick and choose what experiences influence the character and account for their choices.
Perception
This is what the characters consciously think about their situation. The narrator usually has some access to these thoughts or dialogue could indicate what a character thinks. Sometimes, letters or other documents will show what the character thinks, but this is only what they think consciously, not unconsciously. The character does not know what happens in their unconscious mind, so the reader can attempt to explain what they truly feel and think.
Memories and dreams
After a character processes an experience, the experience enters the unconscious through the preconscious or what I like to call the semiconscious mind. Dreams occur in the semiconscious state between waking and sleeping. Remembering is also a conscious or semiconscious attempt to recover experiences submerged in the unconscious. Anytime a character dreams or hallucinates, they reveal their unconscious fears or desires.
The unconscious or subconscious
The unconscious is where superego, ego, and id battle it out. Freud called the ego the gatekeeper between the superego and id. The superego and id can be easily compared to the angel and devil on one’s shoulders often depicted in movies. The id contains one’s instinctive impulses and desires, or short-term thinking. The superego represents the thinking of one’s conscience (inner moral voice) or the morals of their society and culture. It accounts for long-term thinking that considers the consequences of one’s behaviors. A character’s conscience and culture can often be at odds so I tell students to clearly state the two opposing sides of the character’s internal conflict.
Behavior
After the character has an experience, processes it consciously, and then represses it into the unconscious, they make a choice. This choice can take the form of a verbal expression or outlet. I tell students behavior can take the form of an action or nonaction, silence. Often a character will choose not to say or do anything until they can find the courage to do what they want, for good or for bad.
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