A Psychoanalytic Analysis of The Other Woman

Id is pretty close to instincts， which strives for the satisfaction of desire， unable to know moral things like right and wrong. It is inclined to seek the “comfort zone”， that is， the pleasure principle， which helps him get instant and instinctual pleasure. There are two different kinds of mechanisms in the man， one controlling sense and the other controlling sensibility. The other woman to the man appeared to be a temptation， so the man fell into the instinctual mechanism. This was his id. But at the same time， his sense kept telling him that he could not do that， because he was engaged with his the daughter of a judge. Psychological conflicts can be seen through the facts that， on the one hand he was scheduled to get married the next day， and on the other， he fell in love with the tobacconists wife. Inner struggling began between his desire for the married woman and his sense of superego. Ultimately the mans id prevailed over his sense.

His fiancee was only an object of marriage. Their relationship relied on the nomial words in marriage. They got married because of benefits. The man has not got sexual freedom but repressed his true feelings instead. What he could do was to release his passion for the other woman secretly， making him feel uneasy and even guilty. He had to repress all his feelings in public to remain his noble figure.

As their marriage drew near， the sense of emptiness in the mans heart grew more intense， so he became more eager to seek out inward satisfaction. The other woman is a substitute for the mans unfulfilled eros. The man attempted to transfer his erotic concentration onto readings that were once fascinating to him. Reading was a way of displacement as well as his instinctive love for the woman. Displacement is also repression. He would not recall peaceful heart unless he dissolved the ingrained roots of his thoughts.

The marriage was merely a “beautiful fact”. The man suffered psychological struggles but finally he had no solutions to tackle all these internal conflicts. Therefore， for common readers with common sense who say their marriage is an unhappy one are liars speaking the absolute truth， because the repetitive claim “I AM IN LOVE with my wife” is an ABSOLUTE lie.

作者簡(jiǎn)介： 肖芳（1993-）， 女， 漢族， 江西景德鎮(zhèn)人， 碩士在讀研究生，研究方向：英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)言文學(xué)。