Nabeel Akbar Mokal Sardar

Exploring the id, ego and super ego to explain a character’s (Jack/Tyler Durden) triumph or downfall. Perhaps the existence of the various aspects of human psych – the id, the ego and the super ego – is one of Freud’s most significant and enduring ideas. The Id consists of the biological (inherited) aspects of a personality. It is the part that responds directly to instincts and desires. It is the impulsive (and unconscious) aspect of personality. Ego is defined as the part of the Id that has been modified due to external influences. The ego is usually based on reason and reality. Ego operates according to The Reality Principle, i.e it works out realistic ways to satisfy Id’s demands. The superego incorporates the values and morals of society that are learnt from other people such as parents (initially) and friends (later on). The super ego consists of two systems – The conscience, which is responsible for emotions such as guilt and the ideal self (or ego-ideal), which is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behavior as a member of society.. Having briefly defined these three aspects, we now move on to the subject of their importance in the context of our chosen character(s) - Tyler Durden and Jack (the protagonist/narrator of story). The id, ego and superego are the defining characteristics of behavior and of how people deal with problems. Thus, in order to measure how each character progresses through the story and eventually reaches the point of triumph or downfall we will now aim to relate each of the above mentioned aspects of human psych with the chosen characters and how the id, ego and superego affect and shape their lives. We will also attempt to individually study these aspects in each character and how they complement and contradict each other. I will try to prove that, in my opinion, when a man struggles to change and improve himself, there can never be a downfall. The protagonist “Jack” is a guy with problems. He is an insomniac who is discontent with his job and is dependent on support groups. Jack is an obedient ‘stay in the box’ sort of guy who just wants to simplify his life. He goes to work, comes home and wears the same style of clothes every day in order to make this happen. He is a subservient sort of person who attends meetings his boss doesn’t want to attend. Lack of confidence is another aspect of his personality. Despite his hatred for his life and his job he is unable to change things until the character of Tyler Durden enters his life. However, with Tyler comes another problem. Tyler is Jack’s alter ego. Tyler Durden represents the Id of Jack – the part of Jack that seeks pleasure at all costs and has no morality. He finds pleasure in pain and, thus, develops the Fight Club in order to achieve this delight. He is everything Jack is not and in some aspects a manifestation of what Jack wants to be. Evidence of this can be noted when Tyler says to Jack “All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.” Id, in its purest form, can be seen in an infant, as in Tyler, who is free from morality and from confines of society. His only concerns are to satisfy his Eros (sexual instinct) and Thanatos (the aggressive/death instinct). Tyler’s character is one that takes the world head on and wants to own it. On page 3, he says, “This is our world, now, our world..” Despite Jack and Tyler having two opposite personalities it is difficult, maybe impossible, to understand one without understanding the other. In order to clearly grasp the role of Tyler as Jack’s Id it was important to outline certain basic aspects of Jack’s personality. Now we can explore Jack as the ego and superego and how Tyler and Jack clash yet co-exist. Jack is the story teller/protagonist. He embodies the ego and superego. Let’s take his role as the Ego into consideration for now. Like his Id, Tyler Durden, Jack seeks pleasure. However, he does not have the strength of will to achieve this pleasure. The ego (Jack) has no sense of right or wrong as long as there is no harm to being caused. This is partly why he is content and discontent at the same time. He does not want to change things because that involves complicating his everyday life but at the same time he hates it. Thus, he is unable to lead to a significant change in his life and is unable to find a solution to any of his problems. Adding to this confusion, or perhaps causing it, is his insomnia. Even his description of his insomnia is confusing, when he says (on page 10) “This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy.” This is where the super ego comes in. The super ego aspect of his personality seeks improvement in his life, solutions to his problems and generally aims to achieve his idea of his Ideal self-image. One of the few pleasures in Jack’s life is crying. He loves to cry and in fact considers the time he spends crying with his support group as vacation. This can be seen on Page 9, “This should be my favorite part, being held and crying with Big Bob without hope. We all work so hard all the time. This is the only place I ever relax and give up. This is my vacation.” His super ego is, perhaps, the reason that Jack creates Tyler Durden. His version of his perfect self. This story is less about the fights in the fight club and more about the conflict inside the person. It is about the war being waged between the id, ego and superego. Jack in the course of the story can be seen as someone who loathes himself and his life and is consistently looking for change. His conscious idea of change and improvement is to please and impress other people while staying in a shell and out of harm’s way. He is also a pessimist. Evidence of pessimism is when he says (Page 8), “On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” He is a cynic and does not believe that true freedom and change can ever be achieved unless you have a lot of money or a lot of power. Thus, he envies those who are better off and maintains a very sarcastic attitude towards them. However, Tyler’s ideas of change, improvement, freedom and pleasure are based on instinct and optimism. He does not believe in or aim to follow the social confines. On numerous occasions he criticizes Jack’s confined thinking and believes that the only way to truly be free is to let go of your inhibitions and to break one’s own limits. For example he says (page 46), “It is only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything.” He also does not believe that better material possessions lead to a better life and in fact thinks that “The things you own end up owning you.” The theme of this story, according to me, is his own inner conflict. It is about his battle against himself and his struggle to change. Thus, there is no real downfall as the fight is between two aspects of the same individual where one is learning from the other... As Jack sees Tyler he learns that his idea of his perfect self may not be so perfect after all. Thus, in the process he learns to be more content with his life. He learns that more is not always better. He comes out of his shell and learns how he can be free and happy. He learns how to let go of his troubles... There is an open ending. He learns that there will always be more questions... And that is his triumph.