Failure of the Superego in Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train

Abstract

This research paper deals with failure of moral structures in Paula Hawkins’s 2015 novel,The Girl on the Train. The novelist depicts modern British society in the text to make her claims regarding the fall of standard moral values in their society. The female characters live a very difficult life in which they face problems. This research paper studies the events and the behaviour of the characters who are guided by the repressed libidinal contents in the id. This study has taken Freudian model of psychoanalysis to study the novel. Freud has divided human personality into three elements Id, Ego and Superego. Ego plays a role of mediator to create balance between these two id primitive drives and superego moral and social drives. This study draws on morality of the characters that fails to adjust the subject in society.