Terms and definitions
This part of the Freudian psyche operates on the pleasure principle and seeks immediate gratification.
What is the Id?
The film can be read as a critique of repression—especially of violent and narcissistic urges—connected to this psychoanalytic concept.
What is Repression?
The layered dream logic in the film aligns with this Freudian structure of the mind, often illustrated as an iceberg.
What is the Unconscious Mind?
Susanna’s questioning of norms touches on this psychoanalytic theme: when one resists social expectations and explores inner conflict.
What is the Ego Crisis?
Alex’s behavioral conditioning can be examined as a repression of this Freudian part of the psyche associated with primal urges.
What is the Id?
According to Lacanian theory, this "stage" is when a child first identifies with an external image, forming the ego.
Patrick Bateman’s dual life illustrates this Freudian structure of conflicting forces within the psyche.
What is the Id, Ego, and Superego?
The idea that dreams can reveal hidden desires is central to this Freudian theory.
What is the Interpretation of Dreams?
The mental institution setting invites analysis of how society defines this Freudian concept of normal versus abnormal behavior.
What is Neurosis (or Psychopathology)?
The film critiques state control over individual will, echoing this psychoanalytic conflict between desire and law.
What is the Superego vs. Id conflict?
What is Scopophilia?
Bateman’s obsession with image and perfection reflects this Lacanian order of language and social norms.
What is the Symbolic Order?
The film explores multiple realities, mirroring this Lacanian concept that truth is always deferred and unstable.
What is the Real?
The film encourages viewers to examine how identity can be shaped by external labels, tied to this Lacanian structure.
What is the Symbolic Order?
Alex’s transformation reflects this Freudian idea of reshaping desires through external punishment or reinforcement.
What is Behavior Modification or Sublimation?
This is the term for the audience's unconcious identification with the camera's point of view in classical cinema.
What is the Male Gaze?
The unreliable narrative challenges the viewer’s grasp on reality, evoking this Freudian concept of wish fulfillment through fantasy.
What is the Pleasure Principle?
Characters’ manipulation of dreams parallels this psychoanalytic process of confronting the unconscious through guided exploration.
What is Psychoanalysis (or Free Association)?
The fragmentation of self among characters aligns with this defense mechanism in Freudian psychology.
What is Dissociation (or Splitting)?
The film asks whether removing violent tendencies eliminates human agency—challenging this psychoanalytic view of repression and morality.
What is the Civilizing Process (Freud’s theory from Civilization and Its Discontents)?
Freud's term for when repressed thoughts return in disguised forms, often through film symbols or narrative gaps.
The film’s surface calm and aestheticism may mask disturbing content, functioning like this Freudian defense mechanism.
What is Sublimation?
The film’s concept of implanting an idea reflects this Freudian mechanism where thoughts are inserted into the unconscious mind.
What is Suggestion or Repression?
Female characters challenge traditional roles, invoking psychoanalytic feminist critiques of this concept shaped by the male gaze.
What is Objectification?
The soundtrack and aesthetics mask deeper violence, creating discomfort and reflecting this Lacanian concept of jouissance.
What is Jouissance (excessive pleasure that becomes painful)?