Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) is considered the “father of psychoanalysis” (Thornton, “Sigmund Freud”). Freud was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and a great contribution to the field of psychology. Freud is famous for his theories of personality, to which he experimented and believed that psychosexual development in early childhood was the groundwork for a person’s personality. “Freud articulated and refined the concepts of unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and he proposed a tripartite account of the mind’s structure - all as part of a radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame reference for the understanding of human psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions.” (Thornton, “Sigmund Freud”). While Freud was completing his work with the unconscious and psychosexual behaviours, he created the “conception of human consciousness as consisting of three distinct parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.” (Collishaw, Haskings-Winner, Kritzer, Warecki; 59)
This idea is called the Iceberg Theory as this concept has emerged from Freud’s theory of personality because the Iceberg theory deals with the conscious and unconscious mind. Freud’s theory can relate to Heart of Darkness because many sources have analyzed and described the story as, “Marlow’s journey to Africa is the journey into his unconscious mind.” Each level of Freud’s Iceberg Theory can be demonstrated through at least one character in the story. Kurtz demonstrated the id, Marlow demonstrates the ego, and the Accountant demonstrates the superego. |