An example of this can be seen in Henry James’s gothic novel, The Turn of the Screw. When applied to literary criticism, Freud’s theory holds implications for the nature of characters and their unconscious motives, leading the characters to take on a new position in relation in the story, perhaps even transitioning from a protagonist to an antagonist or vice versa. Freud outlined the way in which this guilt or conscience keeps our unconscious desires from manifesting in a socially unacceptable manner as he argued that “Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating within us”.

Unlike the ego, the superego causes us to feel guilt when we allow ourselves to act on our primal desires in an uncompromising fashion. The ‘superego’ is, according to Freud, the part of the brain which acts in accordance with moral expectations. Freud argued that the ‘ego’ is developed during infancy as a way of integrating the primitive desires of the id into the reality of society in a safe and acceptable way. The id is comprised of the life instinct (or eros), which drives sexual desire and life sustenance, and the death instinct (or theros) which is responsible for aggression and self-destruction.

The majority of this level is composed of what Freud termed the ‘id’, the basal instincts and desires of the human mind. One of his key ideas on this part of the mind is the idea that it operates outside of our awareness, yet still affects our behaviour and personality without us knowing it. This is a vast thought pool of mostly socially unacceptable desires, fears and anxieties. The largest part of the iceberg which expands deep under the water hidden from view is analogous to Freud’s idea of the unconscious. These are stored just outside of our consciousness, but we can retrieve them in response to a trigger such as an old photo or a friend recalling a memory out loud. The preconscious exists just below ‘sea level’, and can be accessed when necessary but is not constantly in awareness, much like human memories.

This level encompasses the thoughts and feelings which we are aware of and our rational everyday thought processes. Here, the conscious mind is shown as comparable to the tip of an iceberg, the only part which is clearly exposed above sea level. Freud uses an iceberg analogy in order to better explain his ideas about the levels of the mind. According to Freud’s process of psychoanalysis, the mind exists not as one single unit, but is rather separated into three distinct divisions: the conscious mind, the preconscious mind, and the unconscious mind.

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