The Primal Urge

Adler’s Theory of Motivation consists of two major concepts, one being Striving for Superiority and the other being Style of Life. Adler suggests that all humans aim to succeed in life and that the human’s psyche primary objective is to strive for superiority, mastery, and competence. This natural drive involves the desire to be effective in whatever one strives to do. Adler’s Style of Life is the way an individual navigates one’s social map to overcome feelings of inferiority and develop…

Sigmund Freud conceptualised the working of the human mind through his famous ‘id, ego, and super-ego’ theory in 1923. According to Freud, the human mind is a complex interaction of the id, ego, and super-ego. All together the three make up what is known as personality, or the human ‘psyche’. To put it simply, the id is the instinctual function of the mind, the ego is the realistic function and the super-ego is the moral function of the mind. There is a familiar metaphor of angel and devil on…

What force truly controls humans? Is it a primal need to satisfy every whim, desperation to attain a moral high ground, or a logical combination of the two? In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, he answers this query with Sigmund Freud’s personality theory applied to characters in the book. Jack is the epitome of the id, an innate drive to fulfill one’s desires; Piggy represents the superego, a conscience indefinitely aware of the most ethical decision; and Ralph personifies the ego,…

life is also very evident through the symbolic masks. When concealed by masks of clay paint, the hunters, especially Ralph, seem to have new personalities as they forget the taboos of society that once restrained them from giving in to their natural urges. For example, when Jack first paints his face, he suddenly becomes a new, savage person; "He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid,…

that base urge to live and the conscious reality that you’re not at any risk of dying. Now, I've been rambling on quite a bit, but you need to hear it if you’re gonna understand why I call the thing crouching in the corners of my psyche the lizard. When it turns up, slithering into the corners of my vision and blocking my eyes from shutting, it twists itself out of that ancestral, reptilian mind we all share. Its body scrapes away at my capacity for conscious thought and it exhales primal fear.…

Sex, Violence and Power. Three primal urges that create a divide and contrast between fellow human beings. We see the devastating effects and the sheer volatility of these components in Ralph Ellison’s short story “Battle Royal”. In the story we find a young black boy who is showered with adulation from not only his community, but also by the wealthy and influential white people of the region as well. This only exsterbates the constant torment the young man feels, due to the fact that he cannot…

the concept of awe. As Victor Frankenstein ventures out into nature, he feels one half of awe, the wonder and amazement of the grandeur of nature. As he fulfills his duty as a natural philosopher, he experiences the other half—he sees the inherent primal sort of danger associated with discovery.…

relationship will survive a lifetime. With an Aries Woman Unlike her partner, an Aries woman seeks excitement, newness, and action. The natural nature of her feminine side may balance out the overwhelming urges of Mars. This personal balance of an Aries woman creates an equilibrium with a Taurus man. The urge to conquer still causes her to act in a certain manner, but an unmovable Taurus is enough to keep her challenged and, therefore, interested. Truly, this partnership is an unstoppable…

The short stories, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” by Herman Melville and “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, exemplifies the ideology that a man’s importance is directly equal to their usefulness in society. In “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” Bartleby is described through the perspective of his employer who becomes exasperated by the overtly mysterious scrivener. In “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a cockroach and cannot…

In Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, the feud between Victor Frankenstein and his Creation unwinds before the reader. In this story the reader is exposed to the Creation’s first moments of life. Like an innocent child the Creation finds himself wandering in the forest and eventually encounters a human. In this encounter, the reader is shown the intricate yet destructive relationship between the Creation and the rest of society. This relationship uncovers the raw emotions of the Creation…