THE PSYCHOANALYTIC (SIMPLE) ANALYSIS OF THE LEITMOTIVES IN THE MOVIE: THE VILLAGE

T.C YEDITEPE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

  

ELIT 402

CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORY II

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC (SIMPLE) ANALYSIS OF THE LEITMOTIVES IN THE MOVIE:

THE VILLAGE 

BY 

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

ASSIST. PROF.DR. ADRIANA LUMUNITA RADUCANU

BURCIN HASANOGLU

FALL, 2010

Summary

     The Village by the director and the writer, M. Night Shyamalan depicts a village named Covington and which is located in a place in isolation and surrounded by woods. The village people do their best to stay off the limits of the woods because creatures live in the woods. Neither the people nor the creature could trespass onto the lands of each other due to the pact which was signed between the town elders and the creatures. The boundaries were set and the signs were put to keep the town people off the land of the creatures and the some warning colors were set to keep the “strangers” in the distance.

   In the village, one of the elders loses his son to an untreatable disease under the current conditions of the village. For that reason, a young man, Lucius Hunt offers them to go “beyond the woods” and get some medicine for the rest of the village people. His courage increases when he sees Noah Percy, the mentally defective young man in the village, treating some berries to Ivy Walker who is blind since she was very young. Because he knows that those berries grows only in “the woods”. Lucius goes to the elders to get the permission but both his mother Alice Hunt and the elders decline his offer. One day, guarding by the boundaries, he goes beyond and nothing happens. He goes to Ivy’s house both to see her and tell what has happened. Thereafter, the bells strike for alarming that the creatures are in the village and later the people sees some marks were on the doors. A meeting is held and during the meeting Lucius confesses that he has made a mistake and feels sorry. Then more guards are put out.

    There happens a wedding ceremony and during the ceremony the bells ring again and this causes distress. Some time later, Licius and Ivy express their fondness for each other and they share this with the elders. This news makes Noah distraught and he stabs Licius severely. His wounds are too deep that Licius needs medicine which is not found in the village borders. Ivy loves Licius so much that she dares to cross over the borders through the woods. Ivy goes to her father to get permission to go to “the towns”. Edward, the father takes her aside and take her to an old shed and tells her “the truth” about the monsters and the towns. He tells her that the people in the towns are bad and they did kill her grandfather and they built this village to keep the folk away from the mischievous parts of the town and the creatures are made up by the elders. Ivy packs up and is given two men to accompany her in the woods. Two men scare to much that they leave her alone in the half way through the towns. She keeps walking and she feels that she is followed by “creatures” though she knows they do not exist. It is Noah who escaped from the basement where he was locked to be punished and wears the clothes of the creatures. She traps him in pit and then she keeps walking. After a short time she hears a noise which is from the guards whose mission is to keep the people away from the woods. She gives him the pocket watch to get the medicine she needs. The man tells her to stay by the wall. Then he returns with supplies and with the medicine. She goes back to village completely unaware of the modern-life of town. When she gets back to village the people already talk about the creature that Ivy kills in the woods. Sure the creature was Noah and Noah’s family is distressed at Noah’ death. Edward convinces Ivy that the creatures are made up by the elders, but what she encounters in the woods still makes her believe in the creatures and feels deterred from going into the woods again. Edward tells the people to take Noah’ body retrieve from the woods and tells the people he is killed by the creatures in the woods and all the things have happened so far keep the charade keep going to keep the village safe and sound away from “towns.” (IMDb, 2004)

What is Psychoanalysis?

    According to www.personalityresearch.org (2010) as a therapy, the psychoanalysis is based on the ideas and terms that are not visible to the consciousness of the individuals as factor while they manifest their feeling and emotion in their lives. In treatment, the therapies are individualized and Freud seeks for how those factors affect the individuals’ lives such as family, personal, social relationships. As a pioneer of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud spent plenty of years of pondering the importance of the unconscious mental activity and he explained the qualities of the psychical processes which are listed as conscious, preconscious and unconscious. According to www.en.wikipedia.org (2010) the psyche is divided in to three structures which are id, the pleasure-oriented structure, ego, mediator of the urgings of the id and the realities of the external world, and super-ego, carrying the self-criticism and the self-observation. Under our conscious, we repress our urgings. However, they could not stay there eternally and they emerge from where they are hidden such as dreams. In dreams, the repressed wishes, ideas and such like appear in different ways which are can be called displacement and condensation. In short, they are the different representation of the repressed urgings in similar event, persons or object such as vagina can appear like a jewelry case. In other ways of emerging we may have slip of tongues such as while waiting a friend of yours and she arrives, you may say that “I was eating you!” instead of “I was waiting for you!”. These are different ways of expression our repressed feelings in undesired ways.

     The Village and Its People and Their Behaviors

   As I mentioned before, The Village is about an isolated community and their fear of “The Creatures”. When we investigate the film in a deeper sense, we can claim that there is “no” creature. However, the elders are acting according to that belief. For that reason, the village people seem to have shaped their lives on fear of the creature. From a psychoanalytic perspective, we can say that the elders’ past emotional fears are turned into a physical force which is called monsters. The elders’ past experiences with the outer world before building up the village caused them to create “a life” which suits their ideal world which is far away from murder, stealing, rape or any other crimes. In the community, they have dreamed of, and which actually seems to have come true, everyone is so respectful and live in harmony with each other and they all are familiar. Even though, there is no human-induced crime or fear, the whole society has a common fear and they seem to set their lives on this fear.

  

       The Colors: Red and Yellow

   Throughout the story, we observe that there are two main colors constantly appearing. The red color stands for the color of evil, fear, in short, the color of monsters. The red, according to the people attracts the creatures, however no one did see the pact or read it to see whether or not they like or get angry at the red. They just act cautiously according to the teachings of the elders, that’s to say, no one questions the elders. The color red is considered to be bad, as it is said before, for that reason, they do not attempt to wear, carry or even grow anything red. At the very beginning of the movie, two ladies are who are sweeping the porch neatly, then they enjoy themselves for a period of time by whirling around, then they realize a flower with red petals and then pick it up in rush and bury it. “The made-up fear” has repression in people’s mind that they even do let the nature grow and blossom in red. Their fear for red is bigger and more massive that their love for red and nature. On the other hand, the yellow is derivation of red, however, by elders; it is pointed out to be the color of safety and protection. The guard who are standing by the borders wear cloaks in yellow, still the condense fear overflows out of their mind.

    Inheriting the Fake-Fear in an Isolated Village

   Edward Walker’s and other ill-fated elders’ town-fear is taught in the village’s school to the young ones. The tricks played by them by leaving skinned-dead animals and carcasses make the young children to create an image of the creature as to what kind of monsters they are and how vicious they are and on what conditions they may attack their village. The ridiculous thing is that the elders’ fear of “the towns” made them make up a utopia and another fear is made up to keep the village folk away from their evil town. The fear is taught at schools and the fear is being kept refreshed all the time with random attacks by the imaginary creatures.

     

         Ivy’s Sacrifice

     Ivy’s fondness for Lucius makes her cross the woods and fetch the medicine Licius needs. Although she is told that the creature story is made up for the sake of the people, not to go out and see the dirty side of “the towns”, the repressed fear goes up to the conscious and makes her believe again that monsters-are-not-real story is made up by her father Edward to get her courage up for getting the medicine beyond the woods and save her boyfriend. Love overcomes the fear for a while, however, the fossilized fear beats the belief of no-creature-exist. Her fear helps his father’s desire for keeping the village away from the corrupted “towns”.

Bibliography

"The Village (2004) - Synopsis." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 05 Jan. 2011. 

          <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368447/synopsis>.

"Psychoanalysis: Freud's Revolutionary Approach." Great Ideas in Personality--Theory and Research. Web. 05 Jan. 2011.

            <http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html>.

"Psychoanalysis." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 05 Jan. 2011.   

            <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis>.