The Psychological Journey of the Narrator in Atwood’s Surfacing Essay

The Psychological excursion of the Narrator in Atwoods Surfacing In Surfacing, a invention by Margaret Atwood, the vote counter undertakes three basic journeys a physical pursuance to search for her lost father, a biographical journey into her past tense, and most significantly a psychological journey. The psychological journey allows the narrator to reconcile her past and ultimately leads to the conclusion of the physical journey. In this psychological voyage into her innerself, the narrator, part travelling from cognizant rational reasoning to subconscious dissociated truthfulness progresses done three stages. In the first stage, the narrator is in touch with reality she lives and exists in a state of mind ben in Freudian psychology as the Ego. The Ego is defined as the element of creation that consciously and continuously enables an individual to think, feel and act. (Barnhardt, 667). The ego is based on a reality principle, in which, a person reacts in practical wa ys that will bring long term pleasure instead than pain or destruction (Meyers, 414). The narrators inability to cope with disagreeable thoughts much(prenominal) as her fathers possible death is evidenced early in the novel. The narrator states nothing is the same, I dont know the way anymore. I slide my vocabulary around the ice cream, trying to concentrate on it, they put seaweed in it now, but Im starting to shake, why is the road different, he shouldnt pay off allowed them to do it, I want to turn around and go back to the urban center and never find out what happened to him. Ill start crying, that would be horrible, none of them would know what to do and neither would I. I bite down into the cone and I cant feel anything for a minute but the knife-hard pain up the human face of my face... ...to reality The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking and giving nothing (Atwood, 224). Thus, the narrator has realized a psychological journey from snaeness to madness and t hen again in a fullcircle, travelling through three distinct stages the Ego, the Superego, and the Id. The narrator by completing the psychological journey into the subconscious is able to resolve the biographical and physical journeys. Therefore, with the past and present conflicts resolved, it can be most presumable assumed that the narrator will assimilate herself back into reality. She may have a chance to become human again. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing. Simon and Schuster New york, 1972 Barnhardt, Clarence L. Ed. The arena Book Dictionary, Field Enterprises Publishing Co Chicago, 1975. Meyers, David. Psychology. Worth PublishingU.S.A., 1992