Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology and psychoanalysis, described human consciousness as the combination of three elements, Id, Ego and Superego. The id is what controls our personal desires, the superego controls our ideas about where we fit in society, and the ego sits between these two elements balancing their effects to help us make rational decisions. Despite the fact that these theories were developed well after Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary or Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilych, the main characters in each (Emma and Ivan) both represent people who have been dominated by an aspect of their subconscious. While Emma is dominated by her id, seeking only selfish pleasures in life, Ivan is dominated by his superego, letting society's standards run his life for him. Even though there is this big difference in their subconscious motivations, both Ivan and Emma are essentially looking for the same thing: fulfillment in life. For Emma this means romantic escapades with the dukes of the royal court, but for Ivan fulfillment in life is marked by adequate career progression and a stable position in society. Interestingly, despite all these differences in ways and means, both characters are ultimately faced with the same problems. Emma Bovary has all the characteristics of a person who lives only to satisfy her own desires and desires. Like a child, she seeks pleasure and when she is not actively stimulated by something she wants to do she is tormented by boredom. While seeking these stimuli, he does not pay attention to the consequences his actions will have on others. This attitude pervades his every action, to the point that he does not even take into account the needs of his only daughter, Berthe, in... middle of paper... he was able to portray with such precision a character who lives life exclusively through an element of their subconscious. What is amazing about all of this is how neatly each character fits into an individual aspect of Freud's psychoanalytic model when that model wasn't developed until thirty years after these novels were published. For his work, Freud is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. If this is true, then the same should also apply to Flaubert and Tolstoy, because both were evidently as capable as Freud in finding the emotions underlying human behavior. Works Cited Flaubert, Gustave. Mrs. Bovary. New York City: Bantam Books, 1989. Tolstoy, Leone. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." Longman's anthology of short stories. Ed. Dana Gioia and RS Gwynn. New York: Longman, 2001. 1585-1624.