The Grinch's character development can be discussed in multiple concepts, one being

Sigmund Freud's
psychosexual stages of personality development. Within this, there are a series of
stages which
focus on different aspect of an individual's personality. The psychosexual stages
represent the
development of children related to sexual drives and instinct. These stages
include: the oral
stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and genital stage. During the oral
stage, the main
source of pleasure is the mouth, lips and tongue (Larsen, 2017). In this stage,
children are
curious and tend to place what they pick up into their mouth. The problem with this
is that
insufficiently fed children can lead to oral fixation. When they become adult, they
may overeat,
smoke, bite their nails, suck on their thumb, and simply become overly dependent on
certain things.
The Grinch is seen eating glass bottles in his adulthood. When he was a baby, he
had begun eating
plates rather than the food which was presented to him. This habit of his seems to
be consistent
overtime as it changes to him eating glass bottles. We also see other signs of
fixation based on
the oral stage such as him biting his nails as well as chewing on a toothpick when
he is nervous.

The second stage of development is the anal stage which children learn self-control
of their own
bodily function. When children achieve too little control, they tend to grow up and
be sloppy or
unorganized (Larsen, 2017). Without too much self-control, they become overly
orderly, rigid and
clean. This type of personality can also be cause by too abundant toilet training.
The Grinch
shows signs of disturbed anal stage as he presented to be an expulsive adult. His
cave is seen to
be very messy and unorganized which he has no intentions of cleaning up as well. He
also shows
signs of hot-temper and inconsiderate behaviour towards others' feelings.
Due to all of his behaviours such as these, we can assume that he could have had
too much
indulgence during this stage.

The third stage of development is the phallic stage which is the time when boys and
girls start to
learnt he difference between themselves. This is also the stage where we start to
see the same
gender parent as an opponent as children try to compete for the attention of the
opposite gender
parent. Due to the fact that the Grinch was raised by two sisters, he never
experienced an Oedipus
complex which also interrupted his phallic stage. He never had a fatherly
influence.
Since this stage was interrupted, it caused him to have a problem with authority
figures and
recklessness.

There seems to be no disturbance in the Grinch's latency stage as it is not

presented, which means
we are able to assume there to be no habits in the result of this stage. There also
seems to be no
disturbance during his genital stage. He seemed to develop normally during this
stage as he is seen
to develop feelings for someone in his class and soon is grown into a mature
relationship when in
adulthood. He was capable of forming a romantic relationship as well as sexual
interest with his
former crush when they met again in adulthood.

Due to the disturbance in his early childhood, the Grinch was shown to be the
villain with bad
personality trait when really all he needed was the same sense of belongingness as
everyone else.
He ended up forming relationships with the citizens of Whoville. Once he reached
the
latency/genital stage, puberty had also hit him which allowed him to think in a
mature way compared
to when he was a child. Although he carried certain characteristics into adulthood,
once they were
dealt with by himself, he ended up becoming kinder. The Grinch showed that

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when the stages are interrupted and don't go as smoothly it can cause a bump in the
road, but when
not disturbed, he was able to come around and find a different perspective and a
bit of happiness
during Christmas with others.

Larsen, R. J., Buss, D. M., King, D. B., & Ensley, C. E. (2017). Personality
Psychology: Domains
o[Knowledge About Human Nature. First Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Education.
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