Psychoanalytic thinking

Any classic good vs. evil or superhero movie will most likely have psychoanalytic theory in it. One of my favorite renditions of this is in spiderman when the green goblin is struggling with his other personality or “shadow self” as we talked about in class. He finds himself battling between the self that he longs to be according to society and the evil self that seeks power and destruction. According to Freud his evil side would be his Id and the battle would be his ego trying to regulate between the Id and superego.

spiderman

This idea of the shadow self makes me think of the view in christianity that is referred to as our sinful nature. Many of the ideas behind the shadow self are similar to how we describe the sinful nature and how we are wanting to get rid of our sinful nature but it is such a struggle between the life we want to live and are called to live according to our Maker in the christian worldview and the life we constantly fall back on. Although this is a somewhat extreme example, I find myself having a similar tormented inner dialogue in life when I am faced with temptations.