Sigmund Freud had an interesting consideration of the human mind and personality. He wrote abundantly on the importance of a child’s upbringing and its eventual effect on his or her behaviour. He formulated theories that spanned several different aspects of development but that were all related to sexuality. He produced many popular writings which detail his created frameworks and the way they relate to the ‘average’ person. These frameworks can be applied to a wide range of other fictional works to help garner a deeper understanding of characters and the underlying themes within. In particular, in relation to the 1989 Disney film The Little Mermaid, Freudian theories can be applied.[1] The film provides several, varying characters who each incorporate different aspects of Freud’s theories.
Freud provides three basic states that differentiate and are distinguished by how conscious and aware a person is of any personal actions or behaviours. The ‘Conscious’ is where all of our current memories are stored along with all of our basic instincts like how to function within society. The ‘Preconscious’ is for memories that are not accessed daily but can be recalled if needed. The ‘Unconscious’ contains unfiltered and unaltered memories that we cannot possibly remember and the things that we encounter and absorb daily that our conscious mind is not aware of.[2] Freud believed that the ‘Unconscious’ was also a place for any of our troubling or disturbing thoughts that we suppress, to further help us conform to the social norms. Repression is often associated with shame, guilt and trauma and a need to hide our differences from others. Freud had the understanding that we cannot control ourselves in our dreams, therefore, anything from our past can manifest itself clearly whilst dreaming, without us trying hard to forget or suppress.
Freud wanted to learn more about the suppressed unconscious by exploring and discussing dreams. In The Little Mermaid, the love interest, Prince Eric, claims to have dreams of Ariel’s beautiful voice but he cannot picture her face. But yet when he meets her he is instinctively drawn to her. Freud would assume that Eric’s subconscious is trying to guide him towards Ariel even though he cannot remember being saved by her. Freud claimed that making unconscious impulses conscious could cure ‘neurotic symptoms’.[3] And in the case of the film, by realising the truth about Ariel, Eric would not only be reunited with his love but would also prevent her kingdom and voice from being permanently seized by the sea witch.
Freud believes that a person’s attitude and personality can be traced back to key stages of their development. Freud splits these stages into the following: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital. The Oral stage is in the early years of a child’s life and many arguments arise from whether the child is breast or bottle fed. Often when problems arise later in life, people fixate on this stage and are convinced that something that occurred within the first 18 months of a child’s life can explain away any habits or addictions they come to have in later life. The Anal stage tends to be from 18 months to 3 years old and centres on toilet training and a child ability to accept and fit with social norms and conventions. The Phallic stage, from 3 to 7/8 years of age, is considered to be the ‘most important’ by Freud.[4] As this is the stage where a boy goes through the Oedipus complex and women go through penis envy. Just before puberty comes the Latency Stage where sexual interests and desires are hidden under the surface and then finally the Genital stage when sexuality becomes apparent..
In The Little Mermaid, we are never told about Ariel’s Mother nor are we informed about the details of her childhood. Much of Freud’s psychosexual theory does not apply because of the lack of a Mother figure in the young girl’s life. A flaw within his theory is that it is dependent on there being both parents present during upbringing and that any child without both will have instability issues. In order to properly analyse a film in relation to the psychosexual stages, it is important to see how a child was raised in order to determine how that has affected their personality and habits. However, when we are introduced to our main character it is established early on that she is still a child and it is easily deduced that she is in her Phallic stage due to her age and interest in scavenging things, an interest that subsides when she becomes interested in men. Freud pays key attention to the early stages of a child’s life and its life altering effects. Ariel is surrounded by male authority figures whether it is her Father or Sebastian, so it is no surprise that when she is finally approached by a female, who is seemingly looking out for her, Ariel trusts and follows the advice of a complete stranger. A secondary character, Flounder, plays an interesting role within the film when considered alongside Freud’s theory. Ariel’s cowardly best friend’s age is never revealed but his personality is one of a scared young girl, despite him being a boy. Other personality traits that Flounder is considered to have are kindness, innocence and an anxious disposition. When reflected upon with Freud in mind, it could be assumed that Flounder was over nurtured by his Mother as a child, who perhaps worried that he would be in danger if he ever went too far from her. This bond was likely developed in the oral stage. The first stage is also the most intimate between Mother and child as the connection can be physical, through breast feeding, and the Mother has full control over her young. Although we never hear of Flounder’s mother, Freud would say it is clear that her influence is there as he has a very feminine personality – one that is doting and caring to the stronger character. And even when Flounder tries to be brave his ‘very effort to “be a man” seems to invite the opposite: to bring on his repressed feminine side’.[5]
Freud identifies three main players in the brain that work together to form a person’s personality. Freud first discussed the three agencies of the mind in his 1923 writing entitled, The Ego and the Id.[6] The Id controls all of our wants, needs and desires. The Ego is our sense of self. And the Superego acts as a judge or a censor within our mind. All three of these agencies within our mind work together. The Ego works with the Id to ensure we don’t over indulge (or in some cases, make sure we do) and pleases the Superego. The Superego has a leadership role and has control over the other two. The idea that we are ultimately driven by three sections of our brain, allows for a discussion regarding what is more powerful: desire or reason. The superego is another name for a conscience and often the existence of one can be questioned. Freud may not have accounted for the varying degrees of humanity within the population and the ability to do ‘bad things’ within ‘good people’.
A rather liberal approach to the Id, Ego and Superego would be to assign each to a different character within the film that typifies the basic characteristics of each mental structure. The Id in the case of The Little Mermaid would be the protagonist herself, Ariel. She works by desire and impulse rather than by reason and rationalising. Freud’s Id is the driving force of emotions and instincts and as a result, when someone like Ariel is as instinctive as she is then it is logical to deduce that this mental structure has more control than the others in her brain. Whilst the story wouldn’t have existed if Ariel had thought carefully about her decisions and taken into account the implications of her actions, she would have been a more rounded human/mermaid if she had. She is so emotionally driven that it causes her to encounter possibilities of downfall for both her romantic life and her Father’s leadership.
The Ego in the story is represented by Sebastian. Representing the voice of reason who literally shuttles back and forth in an attempt to please both the Id and the Superego. The Ego is a part of the mind that Freud considered to stem from logic and understanding. The character Sebastian is a loyal servant to King Triton but also serves as a loyal friend to Ariel. This in between structure is important as its presence creates a rational person. Personality ‘is derived from the interplay of these three psychic structures, which differ in terms of power and influence’.[7] It is clear that neither Ariel nor King Triton are able to control the situation, so it is with the assistance of Sebastian the story ends happily. His independence and coping skills are developed as a result of the Ego being a more mentally stable character than the other two structures.
Finally the Superego, King Triton is considered the morality and conscience. From the outset of the film Triton clearly has rules that he likes to have enforced but many of them are strict and hold his daughter back from being the person she wants to be. He is overbearing in this sense, and it is through Sebastian, the Id, that he is able to reconnect with his child. Freud believed that the Superego is the last structure to develop within the mind, which makes sense in relation to the film at King Triton is the eldest character. The Superego strives for perfection in everything, ‘it seeks moralistic rather than realistic solutions’.[8] Triton epitomises this opinion from Barbara Engler in her introductory writing to studying personality. This is because he wants his daughter to fit in with her sisters and follow the moral compass he has set for her instead of venturing out into the world by herself.
The main characters can be dissected alongside Freud’s writing to reveal underlying motivation and reasoning behind their actions. Although, by applying Freud’s ideas to a story we are able to identify the flaws that appear within his work and the little allocation he left for female sexuality and identity out with the constraints of her Father. Ultimately, Freud’s theories are sound, but not necessarily valid, and applicable to many situations, with the understanding that society, location and individual situation can alter how affective the dissection will be. In the case of The Little Mermaid Freud’s theories are applicable because of the vast diversity between each character and the way the film has tried to reflect some real life relationships, like those between Father and Daughter.
[1] The
Little Mermaid, dir. By Ron Clements and John Musker (Buena Vista Pictures,
1989)
[2] Jacki
Watts, ‘Jung’s Analytic Theory of the Development of Personality’ in Developmental Psychology, ed. by Derek
Hook, Jacki Watts, Kate Cockcroft (Landsdowne, Cape Town, University of Cape
Town, 2002), p. 124
[3] Richard
W. Noland, ‘Sigmund Freud’ in Encyclopedia
of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms, ed. by Irene
R. Makaryk (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto, 1993), p. 321
[4] Janell
L. Carroll, Sexuality Now: Embracing
Diversity, 4th edn (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2010), p. 29
[5]
Christopher Benfey, ‘From Modern to Postmodern Literatures’ in Men Writing the Feminine Literature, Theory
and the Questions of Genders, ed. By Thais E. Morgan (Albany, NY:
University of New York, 1994), p. 124
[6] Sigmund
Freud, The Ego and the Id (Eastford,
CT: Martino Publishing, 2011)
[7] Robert
F Bornstein, ‘The Evolution of Psychoanalysis: Gazing Across Three Centuries’
in Handbook of Pyschology, Personality
and Social Psychology, ed. By Theodore Millon, Melvin J Lerner (Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2003), p. 121
[8] Barbara
Engler, Personality Theories: An
Introduction (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
2009), p. 48
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