Arrested Development and Philosophy_ They've Made a Huge Mistake - Kristopher G. Phillips [16]
Tobias: Jesus, it’s the wolf! That is the wolf! The wolf is upstairs!
Michael: Think it’s just my son’s Peter and the Wolf record.
For Michael, there’s no question about what is actually going on in the attic. Tobias, however, is unaware of what is happening and misinterprets George Sr.’s howling. This is like an unconscious urge or thought coming to the fore of the conscious—the urge or thought is lost in translation. The attic, for Tobias, is the unconscious—for Tobias is completely unaware of the actual source of the howling.
Michael’s response to Tobias exemplifies Freud’s idea of repression. Michael, in his creative excuses (“Peter and the Wolf” or “the house is settling”) are just like the forces of repression that oppose and resist unconscious ideas. These unconscious ideas are repressed because, for some reason, they are too traumatic or troublesome to become conscious. George Sr. hiding in the attic is certainly a troublesome idea, as he should be in prison—and so, as the purpose or essence of repression is to keep something from becoming known, Michael keeps his family unaware of George Sr.’s whereabouts.2
The preconscious is the accessible middle ground between the entirely accessible conscious level of the mind and the completely blocked-off unconscious level of the mind. It is much easier for preconscious thoughts to enter into consciousness than it is for the unconscious to enter into consciousness. The preconscious includes memories that we are not conscious of at the moment but that we can retrieve at any time. So if Lucille did not have too much to drink at last year’s Motherboy celebration, the events of that day would be preconscious for her. Preconscious ideas and thoughts may also contain words that are residues from a failed repression. Therefore, the content of the preconscious is not fully repressed, while unconscious ideas and thoughts are completely unknown and repressed.3
The preconscious could be explained, again, through George Sr.’s presence in the attic. Except this time let’s take George Sr.’s presence in the attic as being known only by George Michael in the episode “Good Grief!”
Michael: Well, I meant it. So no more secret trips up to the attic, right?
Narrator: George Michael didn’t want to betray his grandfather, but it appeared that his father already knew the truth.
George Michael: I have Pop-Pop in the attic.
Michael: What? The mere fact that you call making love “Pop-Pop” tells me you’re not ready.
The idea of hiding George Sr. in the attic was latent, or held back from consciousness in the realm of the preconscious. It only becomes fully conscious when Michael realizes that George Michael was not calling sex with Ann “Pop-Pop.” He was actually referring to George Sr. This middle ground of Michael being told and yet not knowing that George Sr. was hiding in the attic is precisely where ideas of the preconscious lie. Ideas in the preconscious are neither fully known nor fully unknown, but they may eventually become known.
Freud’s Company Model
Freud’s second model, while influenced by the topographical model, is more familiar to casual readers of Freud. This second model was the structural model, which involved the id, the ego, and the super-ego. Freud uses the German words “Es,” “Ich,” and “Über-Ich,” but English translations use their Latin equivalents—id/Es means “it,” ego/Ich means “I,” and super-ego/Über-Ich means “Super I” or “Over I.” The id dwells only in the realm of the unconscious, while the ego and super-ego are located both in the preconscious and the unconscious.
The id, located in the realm of the unconscious, is the “oldest” part of our mental agencies. It contains the instincts, or the needs that require satisfaction and that are the cause of all activity.4 Because of the