In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll I found a relationship between Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual Latency stage and Alice the main character of the story. The Latency stage is one of the stages of Freud’s psychosexual development. Alice seems to be in the latency stage of the psychosexual development she has the age that many children were found were in this stage, some descriptions of the latency stage identify Alice. What Alice is going through can also be seen as Electra complex. The Electra complex occurs during the phallic stage which is before the latent stage, the latent stage gets effected by the Electra complex that occurs to girls.
Sigmund Freud developed the idea of psychosexual development in which consisted of five different stages the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital. According to Feud Alice would be in the latency stage according to her age and because of what she is going through. In Freud’s theory the latency stage begins during the phallic stage in which the child realizes that their wish and longing to the parent of opposite sex cannot be fulfilled. During the phallic stage is when Electra complex occurs and can effect the development of girls during the latent stage. During the latent stage the children start to develop from babies to reasonable human beings that can express more complex feelings. Anna Freud who continued the development of psychosexual development from her father found that If the Oepidal stage is delayed, or in the case of females the Electra complex, it would create problems during the latency stage. Problems that can arouse are having problems to adapting to a group, lack of interest and school phobias. Erik Erikson also a psychologist, said that in the latency phase was when many suffered competence and inferiority. Children compare their worth to others and recognize their differences and abilities which makes them “inferior” to others in their eyes. He also believed that during this stage the children grew eager to learn new skills.
Alice fits the descriptions of being in the latency stage because she is seven years old and according to how the book is describing her and her actions she seems to be having a hard time realizing what is happening in real life and what is happening in her fantasy world. Alice seems to believe that everything is happening to her in real life when it’s more than clear that many things occurring to her are impossible to happen I real life. According to Erikson in this stage there are always eager to learn new skills and Alice is always questioning everything that is going on around her and expecting to learn everything that is going on around her. Alice is also always comparing herself others. When Alice takes the potion or eats the cake she either grows or shrinks can be a simile of her feeling superior or inferior at given times. Many of Freud’s theories had something to do with sex.
Electra complex was one of the theories developed by Carl Gustav Jang in which he said that every little girl goes through this even though they don’t remember. In Electra Complex all the little girls envy their mothers because of their mothers possession over the father. Alice could have not grown out of this stage on time which brings her complications to belong in a group or fit well in society. Since Alice isn’t able to fit in a group she decides to create another society in her mind but she still finds it complicated to fit in as well. There’s a part in the story in which she sees a king and queen and she describes the queen as if she was the one with all authority and not the king, this shows that Alice’s mother has more control over her father and she wasn’t able to fulfill her desire for her father.
Alice fits very well in the latency stage of the psychosexual development. Electra complex seems to have been delayed and is still in her memory which makes her act like she does and create a whole new imaginary world. Her form of inferiority is expressed when she eats the cake and shrinks herself, she stays small for the most of the story. Her sexual desires are all the fantasies that she is going through which she knows she wouldn’t be able to see or go through in real life.
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