Freudian Psychological Analysis of Jack in The Cement Garden Anonymous College

The Cement Garden depicts an isolated family, and the narrator is the oldest son in the family, named Jack. As a fifteen-year-old adolescent, it is time for Jack to build sex and gender consciousness. However, after the death of his father and mother, he and his sister Julie start to play the role of the parents in family, resulting in the incest. Andrew Birkin argues that Jack’s sexual instinct becomes apparent since his father’s death, and the death of his mother results in the emergence of Jack’s character, because he is eager for taking the role of father. Debashis Mitra and Manish Shrivastava contends that Jack is oppressed by his father who is an obsessive and powerful man at first, while Julie acts as a surrogate-mother and tries to establish a traditional family structure after the death of their mother. In The Fiction of Ian McEwan, the author claims Jack sleeps with his sister Julie who is the family’s mother, and meanwhile, he expects to an infant again. This paper will apply Freud’s theories to an analysis of Jack’s abnormal adolescent consciousness and sexuality focusing on the sexual instinct, the alliance to Julie, and the absence of manner.

Jack’s strong sexual impulse and curiosity can be witnessed during the...