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The character of Michael in The Godfather

The character of Michael in The Godfather, is a good candidate for a detailed character analysis of the self-conscious, making him a good example of Freud's so-called structural hypothesis, which posits a theory of personality built on three principal components plus an ancillary feature: the ego, superego, and id, plus the libido. Freud says that personality emerges in three states of being: preconscious (Pcs), unconscious (Ucs), and conscious (Cs). The push-pull dynamic is elaborated in Freud's distinction between the ego, id, and superego. The Ucs, however, is the source of "the impetus to dream formation" (Freud, 1978, p. 397), and the role of the Ucs is decisive for Freud. Theorists building on Freud's pioneering work have carried the death-instinct idea to fundamental status. In Michael there is evidence of significant tension between ego and superefo enacted sociologically. The principal focus of ego-id-superego tension in Michael is sociological. Ego is the conscious projection of self into the world and self-preservation. To the degree all personality theorists owe a debt to Freud's work, Erikson's approach to human development can be said to derive partly from Freud's theory of the ego structure (Wallerstein, 1998). Undoubtedly Michael Corleone's environment and culture affect his psychosocial development as can be shown using both Freud and Erikson.

The epic structure of The Godfather is consistent with Erik Erikson's schema for structuring life experience, and the strength and complexity of the character of Michael Corleone lend themselves to Freudian analysis of personality in general and the relationship between the individual persona and his environment in particular. The purpose of this research is to show how these two different approaches to an understanding of human behavior and development describe the arc of Michael's character in the Godfather saga.

The action of the novel The Godfather and the three motio...

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The character of Michael in The Godfather. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:11, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689326.html