The Mind of Eugene Jerome

By
Meghan O’Neill
Dear Mr. Freud,

I am writing to you because I need to know if I

am acting normal or not. I have thoughts about my
cousin Nora all the time and I try to see her naked.
I think I may marry her one day. My brother told
me that I’m nuts and that I am just going through
“Puberty”. I hope that I am not screwed up. Please
tell me what's wrong with me. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Eugene Jerome
 Eugene’s Thoughts
• “To be absolutely honest, this is the year I
started noticing girls that weren’t too bad
to look at. Nora started developing about
eight months ago…I have the exact date
written in my diary” (12).
• “My God! I’ll be sleeping right next door to
a show girl” (15)!
“If I had boobs, I would love to touch them,
wouldn’t you” (57)?
“October the second, six twenty-five P.M. A
momentous moment in the life of I,
Eugene Morris Jerome. I have seen the
Golden Palace of the Himalayas…Puberty
is over” (130).
“She drives me crazy. I think I’m in
love with her” (58).
“I still would love to see her naked
[…] There’s nothing wrong with that,
is there” (59)?
“I kept dropping my napkin so I could bend down
and get a good look at those virginal creamy
white legs […]She was really deep in thought
because she left herself unguarded a few times
and I got to see halfway up her thighs that led to
the Golden Palace of the Himalayas” (41).
In the iceberg the id is entirely unconscious and only
a small portion of the ego and the superego is
conscious.
Sigmund Freud’s Opinion
Dear Eugene,

There is nothing wrong with you. The only thing that is happening is that
your id is overpowering your ego and superego. I assume you do not know
what that is so I will explain.
The id contains "primitive desires" (hunger, rage, and sex), the superego
contains internalized norms, morality and taboos, and the ego mediates between
the two and may include or give rise to the sense of self.
In simpler terms the id is the “devil” on your shoulder, telling you to do all
the wrong things, the superego is the “angel” on your shoulder telling you to do
all the right things, and the ego is the mediator between the two and it gives you
a chance to control your own life. The id, the ego, and the superego collaborate
to serve the needs of the body and to control the conduct of the person.
This fixation you have with your cousin is simply your pleasure principle
talking. You will feel this way about many girls but it just so happens that you
happen to live with one. Just remember that there is nothing you can do about it
and it is just a phase. You can not marry your cousin anyway because it is
against the law in New York. Good luck getting through this and if you have
any questions, feel free to write.

Sincerely,
Sigmund Freud
 Works Cited
Simon, Neil. Brighton Beach Memoirs.
Penguin Group: 1995, NY.
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego
%2C_super-ego%2C_and_id.