Psychoanalysis And Story Analysis Of Rick Bass's Characters In The Prisoners

A Psychoanalysis and Story Analysis of Rick Bass 's Characters In “The Prisoners” Using Psychology And Sociology

Alan Moore, in his book V For Vendetta stated, “Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain, everybody. Everybody has their story to tell...” Rick Bass 's The Prisoners, follows this quote exceptionally well, with a fascinating cast of characters; each with their complexing psychological, and sociological problems, like the working poor, depression and anxiety, workaholism and inferiority complexes, scapegoating, and Bass 's metaphor of how they are, all like prisoners on a bus; a prisoner to one 's emotions and predicaments. The working poor, are a class of society that barely make enough

Wilson is the go getter of the group and a workaholic. But his personality creates an interesting dynamic of the fact that he hates it, his work that is, “It makes him seem richer than he already is, though in is mind, it 's a little bit like he 's drowning or gasping for air-like he can 't quite get enough air-and he doesn 't like it” (Bass, 44). From Psychology Today, “ Workaholics use work to cope with emotional discomfort and feelings of inadequacy. They get adrenaline highs from work binges and then crash from exhaustion, resulting in periods of irritability, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression.” Bass never states if Wilson has anxiety or depression, nor low self-esteem, even though that could be an inferiority complex which wouldn 't show except form the workaholism it self. Moreover, an inferiority complex could explain Wilson 's behavior very adequately. People that suffer from an inferiority complex have a lot of the same symptoms of workaholism, like low self-esteem, which is usually overcompensated for by wanting to excel at everything they do. Unfortunately, at other times his addiction comes out in anger, like when he said, “I could kill him,“ (Bass, 46) Here he 's referring to Clifford, the last character of the story; also, this is a common symptom of an inferiority complex, belittling

Clifford is referred to as a “scapegoat” in this story. He 's the character the group picks on and projects their own inadequacies onto. He 's not penurious, nor depressed, and he doesn 't break his back being a workaholic; in fact, he 's happy go lucky, “They savage Clifford; it is as if he is meat and they are eating him” (Bass, 45). For example, in Exploring Psychology, “Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some outraged people lashed out at innocent Arab-Americans. Others called for eliminating Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader whom Americans had been grudgingly tolerating. (David G. Myers, 513) Bass uses Clifford in a similar way; that, and as contrast to his other characters. He seems to have everything just given to him, or at least that 's how he 's portrayed. He 's over all the rest of them in their office, yet he seems to do less work then the others, and his job position would fit either one of them better, due to them being more unyielding workers in their eyes. Furthermore, “Negative emotions nourish prejudice. When facing death, fearing threats, or experiencing frustration, people cling more tightly to their in group and their friends. As the terror of death heightens patriotism, it also produces loathing and aggression toward “them”-those who threaten our world (Pyszczynski et al. 2002, 2008)” (David G. Myers, 514). So it makes