Clayton Kulzer

Jeff Naftzinger
ENC1145
25 February 2015
A Look into the mind of George Costanza
The basis of Sigmund Freuds work was psychoanalysis. To take a look
into someones life and see why they act the way they do and say what they
say. But can this be applied to a fictional character? Can you look into the
life of someone who never existed? The answer is yes. Even if they were
created in someones mind it can still tell us something. Maybe their creator
is trying to say something about society or they represent someone they
know.
The fundamental argument in Freuds work is his discovery of the
human unconscious. The idea being that we have two main parts to out
psyche, the conscious or what we control, and the unconscious, the part
that works without our knowing. This is what we mean when we talk about
our instinct. Another key aspect of Freuds theories is that nearly
everything can be related back to sex. And, in turn these sexual urges that
start in our developmental stages, where he believes we desire to have sex
with our mother and kill our father. For most people these urges go away
around the age of seven, but for some who were not given the time to
develop or go through some sort of childhood drama, they develop what is
known as an Oedipus Complex.

That being said, not all of Freuds work centered on incest, he also
created the idea of the three sections of the psyche that make up the
conscious and unconscious known as the Id, Ego, and Super Ego. The basic
idea being that there was much more than just what we purposely think and
what we do subconsciously, so he proposed the Id, Ego, and Super Ego. The
Id is the earliest organization of mental life of an individual (Freud) it is
also our most basic instinct, what keeps us alive and controls our urges, it is
completely suppressed in the unconscious to prevent us from acting purely
on these instincts. The Ego represents how we have been molded by the
world around us, it is our personality, our sense of morality, and it is who we
are. Easily manipulated in early life, the subconscious ego is where many
people repress childhood trauma which can in turn lead to an
underdeveloped ego. The final part of the trio that makes up Freuds
conscious is the Super Ego. The Super Ego is much more susceptible to
change from outside influence than the Ego it is derived from religion,
morality and social sense. (Freud)
Now back to our star specimen, George Costanza. George is a short
and stocky man, he has little ambition, a compulsive liar when it comes to
his line of work. He even still lives with his parents on occasion. This is a
man that seems to have everything going against him, but somehow things
usually end up going his way. A further psychoanalytical of George will help
to discover why he is the why he is, the experiences that we can infer from
his early childhood that made the George Costanza we know today.

I plan on viewing the character of George Costanza using

psychoanalytical methods proposed my Freud. By viewing the various
relationships; how they progress, and inevitably end. As well as his
relationships with both his parents to help me determine if he has an
Oedipus complex as well as any repressed emotions or feelings.
In the hit sitcom Seinfeld the character George Costanza is a grown
man, still living with his parents, and usually unemployed. Nothing ever
seems to go his way, yet he always seems to find a partner. In fact, in the
show he has the most out of any character with over 40. Why such a
seemingly off-putting and self-loathing man is able to not only sustain a
relationship, but in the course of just a few years he was able to have over
40 different partners. Why is this? Is his lack of social manners, which could
be from an ego/super ego that is weak, therefore allowing his Id to become
more prominent in the conscious mind, that his partners find attractive? I
think that it is this aura that George has, an Id that is not fully unconscious
and shows more in day to day life that allows him to seem more attractive.
Another relationship of Georges that I wanted to look at was between
him and each of his parents. It is apparent in the show that he has a very
dysfunctional relationship with both his parents, this could be because he
was not able to go through every stage of Freuds development, causing him
to never fully develop in that sense. Which could be the reason that his life
is such a mess. Jerry even says in The Chinese Women "It's a shame his
parents didn't get divorced thirty years ago. He could've been normal"

because they are psychopaths. His mom is a stereotypical overly controlling

mom, but unlike most moms like that who support everything, she has
absolutely no faith in George and seems to put him down whenever. If this is
any reflection of how his childhood was than it could have been a source of
trauma for George. It would explain why he is constantly belittling and
putting himself down. His father Frank is even worse. He has absolutely no
sense of empathy, and he seems to outright dislike George. He yells
everything that he says, and his main hobby is collecting old TV Guide
books. Instead of celebrating normal winter holidays, Frank creates his own
called Festivius which consists of preforming feats of strength and telling
everyone what you do not like about them. This environment is no place for
anyone to grow up and makes what Jerry said seem like it would probably
ring true, even if they were just slightly less psychotic.
Normally George is that person that everyone knows that just does
not have their life together. In the episode The Opposite he decides that
he has had enough, and decides that he is going to do the opposite of what
his Ego tells him, therefore allowing his Id to emerge. This episode helps
highlight one of the main issues with George. Due to his unorthodox
childhood, he has a very underdeveloped ego and super ego.
One of the most universally known of Freuds theories is the concept
of the id, ego, and super ego. This can be simplified down to: the id being
like our natural animal instinct and is in the unconscious mind, our ego is
what makes our rational choices, and the super ego is the conscience. In

the Seiienfeld episode, aptly named The Opposite, George decides to

ignore what his instinct tells him to do and does the opposite. This leads to
georgesGeorges life taking a turn for the better. He finds a partner, which
leads to him getting a job and eventually moving out of his parentsparents
house. This separation from the socially acceptable, or his perception of it,
allows him to actually excel in life. One possible explanation to this is that
George was never fully able to develop as a child due to his parents. Which
would explaineexplain his hatred of them both. Because of this
underdeveloped ego is not able to control his Id so what we get is a
micturemixture of Id and Ego, but when he ignores his instincts we get a
more balanced, normal, version of George. This change stays for quite a
while, but eventually George is unable to keep it up and falls back into his
old ways that he is accustomed to.
In The Parking Space George is returning Jerrys car and finds a
space right out front of his apartment. But as he is backing in, another car
drives in noes first. This leads George to nearly fighting the man, who also
refuses to leave and claims the space is his. George, having his skewed
perception of the world decides that instead of driving a block and finding
another parking spot like any normal person would do he is going to simply
not move, like a child that is not getting its way. This seems to stem, again,
from Georges lack of childhood development. He reverts back to what his
instinct is telling him to do. Instead of what he knows is the simpler way of
doing things and just letting it go. This could be his id coming out and

overtaking his ego, causing him to revert to his instinct and fight for what is
his.
One of the strangest phenomena in the show is the fact that George is
able to have so many girlfriends, the creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld
have said that the total number is 62 (Seinfeld Wiki). For a man who has no
self-confidence, no steady job, and lives with his parents for a good deal of
the show. He does remarkably well with the ladies. This also makes sense
because sex seem to be the only thing that he truly cares about. In the
episode The Abstinence George finds that he actually has near genious
level intelligence, be he is never able to because of his desire for sex. As
Freud puts it the most important instinctual drives are sexual (Storey 91)
and since George seems to have a much more prevalent instinctual drive
from his underdeveloped ego to repress this, his sexual drive is very
prevalent.
Aside from being a very sexual being. George is actually very sensitive
about his sexuality. He hates that he and Jerry are often confused for being
a couple. In the episode The Note he even goes so far as to question his
sexuality after receiving a massage from a male masseur. He panics at the
thought that he might be gay because of this. Because his sexuality has
basically defined him, it is what he is and the thought that it could change
makes him fear that he will lose everything. This fear of sudden or large
changes is normal but because he had such a deprived childhood he clings

to whatever he can and the thought of that changing too could lead him to
feel like he had failed his parents, whose support is all that he wants.
One explanation for this could be that all these girls find Georges
inflated id to be attractive. Because it is his inner animal instincts coming
out. Again looking back to The Opposite. George decides that since he
cannot do any worse he is just going to go against everything his ego/super
ego says is right. In doing this his life begins to turn around, he gets a
girlfriend, which leads to a job with the Yankees. This supports the idea that
normal Georges perception of how society works is off, therefore when he
flips his perspective and does the opposite he begins to excel. For the rest of
the show, or at least for a good bit of it, he continues down this opposite
path.
So how is this idea related back to Freuds theory of the moral
conscience? Well, looking back on his idea of moral conscience, we can see
that child development is key to having a stable conscience. Inadequate
development can lead to many things, such as an underdeveloped ego or an
id that is in both the realms of the conscience and unconscious mind. In the
case of George, we can see that his id is shadowing his ego and super ego
from lack of development. This can stem from traumatic childhood
experiences, such as living with his dysfunctional family. This lack of early
development actually leaves George quite vulnerable to new ideas as well.
In the Episode The Jimmy he becomes friends with someone who always

seems to refer to themselves in the third person. After being around him for
a little while George too starts to refer to himself in the third person.
So, looking back on how he developed throughout his early childhood
and even his continual development in the span of the show, we see that
George is anything but a one dimensional character. Without even seeing
how he grew up the writers where able to give us Georges complete history
and allowed us to understand why he is the character that we see on
screen. Growing up with his parents completely messed with his
developmental stage. He was never able to deal with his Oedipus complex
because he never loved his mother, although he probably did want to kill his
father. This lead to him having an Id that was never completely suppressed
because of his underdeveloped ego and super ego. This also explains his
increased sexual drive because he has much more prevalent instincts. He is
vulnerable to new ideas, even as an adult. He is self-hating and constantly
puts himself down because that is how he was treated as a child. He is
someone that should probably go see a psychiatrist but never will because
to him, he is perfectly normal.

Works Cited

Bowman, Karl. The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud; t.r.n. Joan
Rivire. The American Journal of Psychology. Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct.,

1928), pp. 644-645. Published by: University of Illinois Press. Web. 15

April, 2015.
McLeod, Saul. Id, Ego, and Superego Simple Psychology. Web. 2

April, 2015
George Costanza Seinfeld Wiki. Web. 29 March, 2015.
"The Note." Seinfeld. NBC. 18 Sept. 1991. Television.
"The Parking Space." Seinfeld. NBC. 22 Apr. 1992. Television.
"The Opposite." Seinfeld. NBC. 19 May. 1994. Television.
"The Chinese Women." Seinfeld. NBC. 13 Oct. 1994. Television.
"The Jimmy." Seinfeld. NBC. 16 Mar. 1995. Television.
"The Abstinence." Seinfeld. NBC. 21 Nov. 1995. Television.