Aggression In The Pillowman

Freud believed that aggression was a normal but unconscious impulse that is repressed in well-adjusted people. However, if the aggressive impulse is particularly strong or repressed to an unusual degree, then some aggression can ‘leak’ out of the unconscious and the person may be aggressively against a random, innocent victim. Freud called this displaced aggression, and this theory might explain an attack of ‘senseless’ violence, labeling it as aggression that was too repressed and has broken through the surface. (Englander 73-4)
It means that according to Freud every character of the play shows his symbolic role in some ways. For example, Michal who stands for id, is very naïve and innocent and also retarded but by acting murder completely
present the id in a violent way. Katurian, the ego, the mind responds to this violence by writing through and Michal, the id, the body, by acting out. Whereas Katurian, the mind is treated with love, Michal, the body, the id has been tortured and repressed. Whereas the mind is continuously cherished and nurtured, the body is continuously repressed and tortured as expressed in Michal’s letter to his brother Katurian: “They have loved you and tortured me for seven straight years for no reason other than an artistic experiment, an artistic experiment which has worked” (McDonagh 23-4). This is the portrait of the modern individual. So although the play shows the nature of violence on the surface level, it also reveals the violent tension between the human psyche through the characterization in the play. It not only shows us the violent nature of the social relations but also the violence executed within the human psyche. McDonagh tries to show us this fact that the human being has dark aspects in his mind and shows this dark side of his mind whenever has the chance.
It means this dark side of the mind is repressed but sometimes it comes to reality. McDonagh shows this point to the audiences and never be didactic. In the Pillowman, the concept of violence is depicted as a more complicated issue than it looks and it is really hard to draw the boundaries between the victim and the perpetrator. The individual is represented as being subjected to violence throughout his social and internal experience and it is argued that that individuals who are subjected to too much violence, systemic or subjective, become responsive in violent ways. The interesting and surprising point is the function of art is the function of one brother who writes and the other one who commits the murders. And the shocking part is Katurian’s action who tries to help his brother by killing him. Perhaps McDonagh’s play even gives us an explanation for the current blast in the exposition of violence. Englander suggests that there is a basic element that distinguishes animal violence from human violence: motive. She suggests that though any animal can engage in instrumental aggression (aggression that has as its purpose the achievement of a seperate goal), only humans engage in hostile aggression (aggression performed for the purpose of harming the victim). (Englander,
2)