Sigmund Freud¡¯s Beyond the Pleasure Principle introduces trauma as something that defines the individual rather than the common perception that the person who falls victim to the event shapes the trauma. Trauma is not something that can be easily defined. Thus, artists and writers in the twentieth century have been forced to elaborate a variety of new literary and artistic strategies and techniques to attempt a resolution to trauma. In order to examine the effectiveness of each artist and writer in trying to deal with trauma, several key elements of Freudian psychology must be introduced as groundwork for debate.
             Freudian psychological reality begins with the world, full of objects. Among them is a very special object, the organism known as men. This organism is special in that it acts to survive and reproduce, and it is guided toward those ends by its needs. A very important part of the organism is the nervous system, which has as one its characteristics a sensitivity to the organism's needs. At birth, that nervous system is little more than that of any other animal, an id. The nervous system, as id, translates the organism's needs into motivational forces called instincts or drives, which Freud also called them wishes. This translation from need to wish is called the primary process.
             The id works in keeping with the pleasure principle, which can be understood as a demand to take care of needs immediately. For instance, a hungry infant cries for food doesn't ¡°know¡± what it wants in any logical sense; it just knows that it wants it and it wants it now. The infant, in the Freudian view, is pure or nearly pure id. However, although a wish for food might be enough to satisfy the id, it isn't enough to satisfy the organism. The need only gets stronger, and the wishes will continue to come. As time progresses, the need that is to be satisfied will consume more and more attention, until there comes a point where thinking ...