The Angel, The Devil and Tom's Ego

This is a good one for all you cartoon lovers out there. My 6 year daughter and I (I am still a kid a heart!) were watching the cartoon network yesterday October 29th when a good Tom & Jerry skit came on that relates to our psychology class. As usual in this episode Tom (the cat) is chasing Jerry (the mouse) all around the house and yard. And as usual Jerry is getting the better of Tom, that is, until another no named junk yard cat comes into the picture. From here the no named cat and Tom fumble and battle for a while over who is to catch poor little Jerry. Eventually, after blocking each others way of catching Jerry, Tom and the no named cat stop fighting and manage to work together to catch Jerry. Jerry is caught by the two cats and put on a chopping block to be split in half for each cat to have. Tom picks up an axe draws a line on Jerry's little body marking the mid point, and then psychology comes into play. Tom starts to think, do I split Jerry in half with the axe or should I use the axe on the junk yard cat instead and take all of Jerry for myself. At that moment a little angel appears on one of Tom's shoulders and a little devil on the other shoulder. The angel tells Tom be nice to the junk yard cat and share little Jerry with him. The little devil on the other hand says to Tom the heck with the other loser cat, whack him with the axe, and take Jerry for your self. Naturally Toms chooses the devils route and the episode goes from there.

This episode of Tom and Jerry is a classic example of one of Sigmund Freud's beliefs on how one's personality was developed and functioned. Freud was always interested in how the unconscious mind and thoughts influenced peoples thoughts and actions. Our psychology book talks about Freud's divisions of the personality in the chapter on theories of personality. Freud believed that personality itself could be divided into three parts: the Id, ego, and superego. The id of ones personality is present at birth and entirely unconscious. The id states if it feels good, go do it, without regard for the consequence. That process is the pleasure principle of one's personality. This represents the little devil on Tom's shoulder in our cartoon, saying the heck with the consequences just do it. Now on the other end of Freud's spectrum was the superego. The superego in personality is a person's conscience (NOT conscious) mind using morals as a basis for making decisions. The superego stops to think about the consequences and what is wrong or right. This is our little angel on Tom's shoulder or ours saying use morals and a conscience to make the right decision. In the middle of the id and the superego is the ego. The ego is Tom's mind thinking should I do it or not. The ego is our part of personality that works on the reality principle. The reality principle basically says if I can do something and NOT worry about the consequences maybe I should do it, maybe I should not. The ego is always torn between the Id (the little devil) and the superego (angels on ones shoulder).

Overall I think this episode of Tom & Jerry was good example of psychology in particular using Freud's personality theory. By the way, do you really think Tom or that other cat really caught Jerry this time?