The Mind and the Act: A Representation of the Freudian Tripartite Model in Festus Iyayi’s Violence and Alex la Guma’s A Walk in the Night

Abstract

The conflict between the Id and the Superego, as negotiated by the Ego is one of the fundamental psychological conflicts experienced by human beings in all races. The character of a man is dependent upon which part of his mind dominates and triggers the outcome of his actions. To Sigmund Freud, the mind is in constant conflict within itself and also the cause of every anxiety, unhappiness as well as happiness of man. This study focuses on the Freudian concept of the tripartite mind as the basis for all human actions or inactions. Upon the framework of Psychoanalysis, this paper establishes a correlation between the Freudian tripartite model with Festus Iyayi’s Violence and Alex La Guma’s A Walk in the Night, by looking closely through the mind of the characters in both novels respectively, showing, to a great extent that the actions of every character as well as all human beings is the outcome of the conflict that first begins in the mind.

Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Id, Ego, Superego, Unconscious, violence, conflicts, mind.