3.1 The Application of Psychoanalytical Theory in Cummings
In The Naked and the Dead, there is no democracy and freedom of speech at all. The inferiors have to be unconditionally obedient to the superiors’ order and they can’ t make any suggestions or put forward any opposite opinions, not to mention to fight against superiors or meddle in matters above their status. If any one dares to do so, he would suffer severe punishment.
Cummings believes that man is in transition from the savage to God that “man’s primary drive is to achieve omnipotence” (1948:255). “The only morality of the future is a power morality, and a man who cannot find his adjustment to it is doomed. There is one thing about power. It can only flow from the top down. When there are little surges of resistance at the middle levels, it merely calls for more power to be directed downward, to bun it out”. (1948:255)This is the id of Cummings’s inner world.
In the conversation between Cummings and Hearn, Cummings endeavors to convince Hearn that he should fit himself in the system of hierarchy, the way to which is to make Hearn an instrument of his own policy, whether he likes it or not. Of course, Hearn does not like the policy and is unwilling to accept this policy. Just as Cummings says of him: “you are a liberal. You are a reactionary just like me.”(1948:68) This indicates that Cummings’s id is pursuit for power, the absolute power.本文来自优/文(论+文?网，毕业论文 www.youerw.com
The rational ego attempts to exact a balance between the impractical hedonism of the id and the equally impractical moralism of the super-ego; it is the part of the psyche that is usually reflected most directly in a person's actions (Net.1). For Cummings the Second World War is not a grand revolution but a “power concentration”. It is part of a movement toward the goal of consolidation of political power. He considers himself different from the “man” he talks. He considers himself above them and has the power to be active.
3.2 The Application of Psychoanalytical Theory in Croft
In the novel, Croft looks like a robot man: never smiling, cold-hearted, and unmerciful. “His narrow triangular face was utterly without expression...and there seemed nothing wasted in his hard small jaw, gaunt firm cheeks and straight short nose. His thin black hair has indigo glints in it.” (1948:12)
Croft is an obvious sadist. His father is a tough Texas dirt-farmer and his mother is a weak and conventional woman. His father encourages in him a predator’s taste for hunting and he is by nature “mean”. He enjoys his power of command over the men in the platoon and accepts their fear and hatred as the inevitable corollary of that leadership. Croft’s id only takes his own needs and satisfaction into consideration without considering the feeling of other people. His attitude towards other men is directly and indirectly responsible for the death of Hearn Roth and Wilson within the sphere of his influence. If he had not pushed them to keep on in the impossible mission, Roth would not have fallen into a gap and Wilson would not have been shot by the Japanese. No one can stop him though they are exhausted beyond their limits. This is the id of Croft’s inner world.
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