Just as the id is behind actions driven by unconscious desires, so too are the actions of Mathew Pit in Mercy Among the Children. After the death of his younger brother, Mathew’s community sympathizes with him. This sympathy allows Mathew to avoid accountability of the death of Trenton. Furthermore, Mathew manages to repress his role in his brothers’ death and convinces himself “that he had nothing at all to do with any of [it]” (Richards 141). Thus, he forces the memory of his actions too painful and surely seen as unacceptable to society to his unconscious state of mind. In addition, Mathew allows Sydney Henderson to take the blame for his actions and suffer. Sydney faces the consequences of society; the shunning, the attacks and verbal
