Often, elements of the mind and past developments play a key role in understanding events and writings. In Edgar Allan Poe's short stories “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe creates tales that reveal the inner desires that motivate action and perception. In “Ligeia,” Poe orchestrates her story to comment on her family's history and to demonstrate the intricate elements of a mother-son relationship. Its themes of love and obsession suggest an Oedipus complex in its narrator which creates a further twisted story that demonstrates the complexity of family. Furthermore, Poe's three characters in “The Fall of the House of Usher” represent the three elements of the human mind: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. This demonstration of psychoanalytic motivation explains the functions of the mind and suggests the strength of desire. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Edgar Allan Poe led a tumultuous life filled with loss. At an early age Poe lost his mother, and while he was still young, Poe's adoptive mother died. This tragic life led Poe to have a strong desire for maternal love which can be seen in his literary works (Jones 446). In “Ligeia” by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe creates a form of the Oedipus complex between the narrator and his wives. Although the story does not imply a relationship between mother and son, Poe creates a relationship similar to that of a mother and son between the narrator and both of his wives. Poe uses themes of obsessions and youthful repetition of words in reference to the narrator to emphasize the role of women as maternal figures. Through the characterization of Ligeia and Rowena, Poe describes a loving and interesting mother and an uninvolved and neglectful mother. This dynamic stems from Poe's unresolved difficulties with his own parents and involves the complexity of the relationship between mother and child. Throughout the story the narrator attributes childlike qualities to himself by affirming his role as a child in the relationship between him and his wife. Speaking of Ligeia's vast knowledge he explains that "[I] resign myself, with childlike trust, to her guidance" (Poe 8). This is a very common feeling of trust that a child has towards his mother, but it does not describe the traditional position of husband and wife. Later, after Ligeia's death, the narrator admits that “Without Ligeia I was like a dull child” (Poe 12). The speaker explains his complete dependence on Ligeia just as a child must completely depend on his mother for the sustenance of his life. The narrator goes on to state again that he “gave way, with a childish perversity” (Poe 13). This repetition of the word child in reference to the narrator portrays the dynamic of the relationship and implies that the narrator relates to his wife the way a child relates to his mother. The narrator depends on Ligeia and needs her guidance. The speaker expresses feelings of obsession and attachment towards the maternal figure, which Freud explains as the initial stages of the Oedipus complex. When describing Ligeia, the narrator uses words such as “majesty,” matchless beauty, and “vision that lifts the spirit” (Poe 3). These words reflect strong adoration and suggest that the narrator sees Ligeia as somehow divine. This description is closely in line with Freud's view of how children view their parents. A child sees his mother with unshakable love and supernatural qualities. The narrator associates himself with youthful language and respects Ligeia as a child would have done with a mother, affirming his own role and underlining Poe's allusion to the complexity of family dynamics. An additional oneelement that suggests that the relationship between the narrator and his wife represents a mother-son relationship is found in the first line of the text. The speaker admits that “I cannot, for the life of me, remember how, when, or even just where, I first met Mrs. Ligeia” (Poe 2). This is a very strange feeling to express towards a wife, but it is also a very natural relationship to have with a mother. Individuals cannot recount the moment they met their mother, but almost everyone has a meaningful story describing meeting their significant other. This oddity suggests that there is not a traditional relationship between the narrator and his wife but rather a relationship of maternal influence. Once this relationship is established, it is clear that Ligeia represents a preferable mother while Rowena represents neglect. When describing Ligeia, the narrator spends paragraphs praising Ligeia's every characteristic, but when referring to Rowena, the speaker explains "that she avoided me and loved me but little" (Poe 21). This dynamic heavily references Poe's relationship with his adoptive mother. Lorine Pruette, writer in A Psycho-Analytical Study of Edgar Allan Poe, states that "[Poe's] adoptive mother satisfied his desires...but in no way seemed to have satisfied his passionate desire for love and approval" ( Pruette 378). Poe grew up longing for this relationship and the approval of a caring mother and projects these feelings of inadequacy and abandonment into his writing. Using characterization, Poe demonstrates feelings of obsessive love as well as feelings of abandonment which allude to Poe's feelings towards his childhood maternal figures. Poe expresses a confused view of maternal relationships that plays into Freud's beliefs that children experience feelings of love, jealousy, and obsession towards their mothers. Just as the character's actions and feelings in “Ligeia” draw on the functions of the human mind and instinct as explained by Freud, the character's motivations in Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” can be explained by Freud's belief that the The mind is composed of Id, Ego and Superego. The narrator, approaching the house, explains that, “at the first sight of the building, a sense of unbearable sadness pervaded my spirit” (Poe 3). This house represents its tenants and the narrator's dislike of the dark and gloomy house is based on the fact that the narrator embodies opposite qualities such as goodness and morality. This characterization implies that the narrator is the superego and symbolizes the unconscious part of the brain that psychologists describe as the “system within the total psyche developed… incorporating the moral standards of society” (Strunk 318). The narrator represents established social rules about goodness and opposes selfish desires. The juxtaposed element of the unconscious mind is the Id which is defined as “the division of the psyche from which arise blind, impersonal, instinctive impulses leading to the immediate gratification of primitive needs” (Strunk 317). This part of the mind is represented by Madeline and represents instinctive and selfish desires. Although her physical character is seen very little in the story, the malignant effect Madeline had on her brother Roderick is very evident throughout the story. Roderick is the owner of the house and represents the ego or conscious part of the mind. The ego regulates between the id and the superego, balancing innate desires with social morality. In Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", Poe constructs a story in which the id has taken control of the ego leading to its complete disappearance. Roderick represents an individual whose id has dominated his superego. At the beginning of the story, thenarrator of the tale and the superego, received a letter of a “wildly importunate nature” expressing Roderick's illness and “sincere desire to see” the narrator in person (Poe 4). This implies that Roderick has been overcome by his id and is now sliding into illness and defeat. In an attempt to create balance and save himself, Roderick invites the narrator to compensate for the effects of Madeline. Once the narrator reaches the house, Rodericks explains, "that much of the peculiar sadness which thus afflicted him could be traced back to... [his] tenderly beloved sister" (Poe 10). This further proves that Roderick's identity is represented by his sister, Madeline, who caused Roderick's sickly condition. As the story continues, Madeline dies, and Roderick and the narrator place the body in a vault (Poe 17). This action symbolizes Roderick's attempt to rid himself of the id and escape his desires. Roderick locks away his identity in a natural effort to resist the power of human desire. Ultimately, the ego is unable to avoid the id's hold on desire, which is represented by Madeleine's hold on Roderick's physical body. Madeline emerges from her vault, alive, and rushes to Roderick. Madeline collapses and dies causing Roderick to also collapse and die of fear (Poe 25). Madeline is the cause of Roderick's illness and eventual death which represents the id's ability to take over and destroy the mind. Roderick cannot escape his innate desires and it kills him. He tries to compensate by regaining his superego but it is too late and Roderick is overwhelmed. Poe assigns overwhelming strength to the darkest aspects of the mind and suggests that the id cannot be buried or resist the ego. Both "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher", as well as many of Poe's other short stories, center on themes of death and regeneration. These themes stem not only from the deaths of Poe's mother and adoptive mother, but the writer also survived the deaths of his friend Jane Stith Stanard and his wife Virginia Clemm. Poe himself wrote: "I could not love except where Death / mixed his with the breath of Beauty." (Jones 446) This considerable loss inevitably played an emotional role in Poe's writings. Freud explains that part of man's death instinct is the need to express aggression that revolves around the emotions of death. This expression can generally occur internally in the form of self-sabotage or externally in the form of violence towards others. Poe demonstrated various forms of aggression towards himself and others throughout his life, but his writings are another form of elaboration of the death instinct described by Freud. Despite this concern with death, Poe's writings about death are often mixed with a kind of rebirth of life. Pruette explains that this repetition of the theme of history in Poe's writings alludes to the idea that Poe believed "that the dead are not quite dead to consciousness" (Pruette 378). This can be seen in Ligeia's takeover of Rowena as well as Madeline's escape from the vault. In both of these cases, the characters are able to achieve a type of afterlife by questioning the finality of death. This notion is supported by Freud's belief that "in our unconscious we are immortal". Both of these suggestions made by Freud and Poe imply that there is more to the mind than life and death and explain the themes of the return of life after death in Poe's work. In “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, the elements of the mind are displayed through characterization. In “Ligeia” Poe expresses the complicated relationship between mother and son. 23,.