Alice Munro ' s " Runaway " in the Mirror of Sigmund Freud

Mirroring the complexities of the human psyche, literature has received new comprehension through a psychoanalytic lens. Alice Munro's "Runaway" (2003) is character-based and has the psychological analysis potential but it had never received such kind of study. The objective of the present paper is to read Munro's "Runaway" in the mirror of Sigmund Freud to detect the psychological aspects of its fictional characters. The characters are driven by the Freudian mental agencies and undergo phases of psychic disorder. In the present paper, Munro's short fiction has been discussed based on Sigmund Freud's theory of the Unconscious and its connection with the interpretation of dreams as well as the symbolization of three main characters based on tripartite agencies of the id, ego and superego. Clarifying the latent and manifest levels of characters and the world of dreams indicates the artistic creation of Alice Munro in handling complex characterization. The unconscious and its connection with the female character's dreams have been discussed. The unconscious of the female character is reflected in her dreams in result of repression and asocial drives and desires. Unconscious through dreams is the mirror of the repressed psyche of the female character. Scrutinizing the three main characters in terms of Freudian psychic trilogy, they prove to fit their psychological Freudian terms.


Introduction
Emerged at the dawn of the twentieth century, theories of Sigmund Freud (1856Freud ( -1939) ) marked revolutionary effect upon the modern psychological aspects towards literary works.Among the critical approaches to literature, the psychological approach is the most controversial.It provides the readers as well as critics with a vast field of study in the human psyche.To scrutinize the latent phases of the human psyche as well as the impulses behind his/her actions and reactions, the psychological analysis of Freud works well although the critical attitudes towards his theories are not few.Focusing on human behaviors and his responses to personal and social conflicts, Freud's psychological analysis helps literature's readers "to enhance their understanding and appreciation of literature" (Guerin et.al, p.152, 2005).The Swiss psychoanalyst establishes what came to be known as classic psychology.It is significant to add that Freud had vast literary studies from a psychological perspective.Graham Frankland in Freud's Literary Culture writes: "Freud was influenced most powerfully by the canonical works on which he was raised in childhood" (2000, p.7). Accordingly, Freud's ideas have direct bonds with the study of literature.In contrast with previous critical approaches to literature, psychological analysis studies the subjective and mental levels of the literary work.In fact what distinguishes the psychological criticism from those ancestors is that it provides the readers to read behind the words and to discover the underlying reasons which establish the deeds and doings of the characters.It focuses on what is latent through what is manifest to respond to what makes the characters do this and that.In the discussion present below the unconscious and its relation to dream psychology and the tripartite of Freudian psychological mechanism which constitutes the human psyche: the id, ego and superego will be discussed.

Method
The foundation of Freud's critical method is his focus on 'unconscious', "Freud's most important contribution to understanding humanity: namely, that psychic reality is governed by the unconscious mind" (Mills, p.x, 2004).Practicing his theories through many case studies, Freud believes that many of our actions are motivated by psychological forces unknown to us which he calls unconscious.Indeed unconscious is the most important concept in Freudian psychoanalysis.Freud attributed three qualities to mental processes: conscious, preconscious and unconscious.In his hypothesis Freud believes that the conscious part of the mind is what we are aware of any particular moment.Sofe Ahmed writes: "[the conscious mind] is like present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, feelings, etc…" (p.61, 2012).The second part is preconscious which ranks after the conscious and it works in a close relationship with conscious part.Even if it is not presently conscious, it can be made conscious easily.But what is the main discussion point of this study is "unconscious", in Freud's terms "the single most important concept" (Evans, p. 219, 1996).It is what constitutes the largest part of our mental structure.Michael Billig according to Edward Glover believes that "if Freud's discovery had to be summed up in a single word that word would without doubt have to be 'unconscious'" (p.14, 1999).
The unconscious part of the mental process is what constitutes the impulse behind human kind's behavior although often he/she is not aware of the main cause and the source of them.Michael Billig in Freudian Repression, Conversation Creating the Unconscious writes: "behind the thoughts and wishes, of which we are aware, lurks a shadowed hinterland of secret desires" (p.12, 1999).Accordingly, human behavior is constructed by unconscious drives and impulses and Freud gives the supreme place to the unconscious for "it resides source of hopes, wishes, desired outcomes, etcetera" (qtd. in Rabstejnek, p. 15, 2011).The actions we categorize as unconscious were conscious in the past but they were pushed from conscious because of some reasons including repression.To Freud, thoughts are supposed to be guided by desires and these desires are the fundamental basis of humankind life and psyche.Not being expressed directly, they form other shapes in order to be expressible in the personal and social situations.They are repressed because they could not be fitted into social norms and laws for they are considered outrageous.

The Unconscious and the World of Dreams
Sigmund Freud established the interpretation of dreams along with the unconscious in the early twentieth century.What is significant is the connection between unconscious and dreams.Freud considered dreams "the royal road to the unconscious" (qtd. in Rabstejnek p.1, 2011).In Rereading Freud: Psychoanalysis through Philosophy Jon Mills writes: "Freud considered his work on dreams to be his most original contribution to understanding the human mind " (p.xi, 2004).Dreams had been interpreted through history in its traditional forms but Freud gives it a psychological validity.Freud viewed dreams as the manifestation of repressed desires which resides in unconscious.The psychological theory of Freud asserts that it is in dreams that a person's desires are revealed.What a person cannot express or do because of social rules will be expressed and accomplished in dreams.In Dream Psychology Freud asserts that dreams "completely satisfy wishes… and are simply and disguisedly realizations of wishes " (p.16, 1920).Accordingly, dreams are the mirror and reflection of unconscious desires and drives and Freud called them "wish-fulfilment" (p.73) because "it is an unfulfilled and unrepressed wish from the waking state" (p.76).According to K. Lapsley and C. Stey in Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, "dreams represent a disguised attempt at fulfillment of an unconscious wish that was denied satisfaction" (p.3, 2011).Indeed what a person cannot do during the day because of its contradiction with social or moral norms comes true at night when he/she dreams in sleep.Not to be counted as a separate domain of psyche, the dream is one of those central areas in which a person's unconscious will be revealed.In Freudian psychological theory there is a connection between unconscious and suppressed wish and dream makes this tie obvious.J. Rivkin and M. Ryan in Literary Theory: An Anthology write: "according to Freud, the drives of the unconscious though repressed, can never be quelled entirely.They emerge in dreams" (p.391, 2004).The emergence of desires in dreams is indirect and it may stand symbolically or otherwise the real representation of what had been denied.Accordingly, "dream expresses the realization of the desire somewhat indirectly; some connections, some sequel must be known-the first step towards recognizing the desire" (Freud, p.17, 1920).

Three Agencies of the Human Psyche: the id, ego and superego
Freud distinguished three aspects of the human psyche, the id, ego and superego.Everyone's behavior and personality are directed by this tripartite.To find the true source of human drives, actions and reactions, Freud's theory lurk into the deep aspects of man's psyche.One can identify the tripartite as demonic, angelic and human aspects of an individual respectively.The id is the source of primitive human desires and drives and is identified with the pleasure principle.As the reservoir of psychic energy, the id is characterized by irrationality and the desire for instant gratification or release.Freud explains the id as "a chaos, a cauldron of seething excitement [with] no organization and no unified will, only an impulsion to obtain satisfaction for the instinctual needs, in accordance with the pleasure principle" (pp.[103][104]1962) and "naturally, the id knows no values, no good and evil, no morality" (pp.104-105).With no respect for ethics and morality, social and religious conventions, id aims to gratify its pleasure and achieve whatever it wants, heedless of consequences.L. Guerin in A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature writes: "the id is, in short, the source of all our aggressions and desires.It is lawless, asocial, and amoral" (p.157, 2005).The id is fully unconscious.
According to Lapsley and Clark Power, "ego psychology represents a dominant paradigm in the study of personality" (p.179, 1988).The second part of the human psyche according to Freud's theory is ego.As L. Guerin calls it "the rational governing agent of the psyche" (p.157, 2005) the ego is the regulating part of man's psyche towards the impulses and irrational drives of the id.It is the angelic force of psyche towards social and individual situations and leads human to morality and rationality.It mediates between the world within that is governed by the pleasure principle and the world without that is governed by the reality principle.Although the id directs man to dangerous actions, the ego summons it to good and virtue.Kim Atkins in Self and Subjectivity asserts: As the gatekeeper for behavior, the ego is responsible for repression.Repression is the central defense mechanism that keeps essentially dangerous (that is, violent and self-destructive) impulses from direct conscious expression in thoughts, feelings, or actions.(p.197, 2005) Freud represents the superego as the third part of the human psyche that makes us behave as healthy human beings.While the id is the devil aspect of the psyche and ego is the angle of human kind's mental aspect, it is with superego to act according to social conventions and norms.The superego is the mediator between the pleasure principle of the id and the reality principle of ego and "can help the individual to conform to the basic rules and laws of the society" (Roth, p.13, 1997).Developed due to the moral and ethical constraints of the family and society, the superego is the balance power of the individual to avoid excess or outrageous actions.Superego places inside someone's mental activity and it is conscious.Alice Munro's character-development short stories are significant from a psychological aspect.Narrating the lives of men and women consequently, Munro explores deep into the mental and behavioral process of her characters: "Munro's stories are character-based, or as Jonathan Franzen ex-claims in praise of her fiction: her "subject is people..." (Skagert, p.163, 2008).Alice Munro's "Runaway" (2003) published in the New Yorker for the first time and came under the same name in a collection of short stories.It depicts the life of a couple struggles in the world within and the world without.Since the publication of her first collection Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), Munro's works have been criticized from different point of views.Here is a glimpse over them."Disturbing to Others: The Too Great Happiness of Alice Munro and Sophia Kovalevsky" (2010) represents Marijke Boucherie's criticism of Munro's story.In this paper Boucherie examines historical and biographical picture of Sophia Kovalevsky's life, the Russian mathematician, according to her life Munro writes this story.The paper analyzes the picture of the artist and scientist Kovalevsky, and her search for truth regardless of historical setting and limitations.Considering certain gender performances in Alice Munro's Runaway, Emily LeDuc in "Fleeting Femininities: Allegories of Female Independence in Alice Munro's Runaway" (2012) has analyzed Munro's story in allegorical and feminist aspects.LeDuc in her paper asserts that Munro's story depicts the oppression of female agency through characterization and in this way Munro shows that even in a modern western world women are oppressed by the domination of a larger patriarchal society.LeDuc concludes that works like Munro's story is a medium to discuss the problems of a gendered society.Alice Munro's "Runaway" (2003) has not been studied from psychological lens yet.It has the capacity to be analyzed according to Freudian psychology and the aim of this paper is to discuss the story in Freudian theories of the unconscious and its relation to dream psychology, characters symbolizing in terms of the id, ego and superego.

"Runaway": The Unconscious in Dreams
Alice Munro's "Runaway" published in 2003 recounts the life story of Clark and Carla, the young couple and their relation to Sylvia Jamieson, their old neighbor.Began at a chronological point in time, the story recounts the couple's life in an anachrony way and oscillating between past memories and future anticipations.Dissatisfied with and disappointed by Clark's bad temper, Carla always wants to gain a new identity and life in which Clark does not exist.She dreams for twice.The narrator recounts: She had dreamed of Flora last night and the night before.In the first dream, Flora had walked right up to the bed with a red apple in her mouth, but in the second dream-last night-she had run away when she saw Carla coming.Her leg seemed to be hurt, but she ran anyway.She led Carla to a barbed-wire barricade of the kind that might belong on some battlefield, and then she-Flora-slipped through it, hurt leg and all, just slithered through like a white eel and disappeared (New Yorker 2003).Freud in Dream Psychology (1920) distinguishes between the manifest and latent content of a dream.The dream's manifest content is what is evoked by memory after waking and dream's latent content Freud calls "dream-thoughts" (Rivkin and Ryan, p.400, 2004) which is the revelation of unconscious and receives Freudian psychological attention.The hidden desire is repressed and consequently "such a desire being distorted, appearing in one's dream, is called latent dream" (Tai-An Lin, p. 43, 2011).In Interpretation of Dreams (1900) Freud writes: the dream-thoughts and the dream-content are presented to us like two versions of the same subject matter in two different languages… the dream-content…is expressed as it were in a pictographic script, the characters of which have to be transposed individually into the language of dream-thought (Rivkin and Ryan, p.419, 2004).
Implicating the biblical story of Eve's temptation by a serpent to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Carla's latent content of her dreams mirrored the unconscious of her mental process.According to Rivkin and Ryan, "Freud realized that the unconscious often expresses itself in the form of dreams" (p.409,2004).It is useful to have a glance at Carla's life with Clark in order to scrutinize the impulses and background of her dreams and to translate the manifest -content of her dream into the latent -content.She is not satisfied with her husband and the narrator clarifies this problem sometimes in the text.Early in the story, the reader has the report of Clark's bad mood: "Clark often had fights, and not just with the people he owed money to.His friendliness, compelling at first, could suddenly turn sour" (New Yorker 2003).In another case he had a "row" with Joy Tucker, one of his customers and his behavior with Carla: "He was mad at her all the time.He acted as if he hated her" (New Yorker 2003).In their conversation we read: "You flare up," Carla said.

"That's what men do" (New Yorker 2003).
Clark provides a hostile condition for Carla and it is reflected in Carla's words: "I can't stand it anymore" (New Yorker 2003).Carla began her life with Clark with another perspective to have a more "authentic kind" of life.She imagines a brilliant future with Clark who she sees as "sturdy architecture of the life" (New Yorker 2003).Carla runs away with Clark to gain a new life but annoyed and bored with Clark's patriarchal mood, she desires the second flight to achieve a new identity.To return to her dreams, both indicate Carla's oppressed desires and wishes.In Dream Psychology Freud classifies three kinds of dreams.He emphasizes the second kind of dreams which he believes "constitute the larger number of our dreams" (p.37, 1920) and "express in weird form some repressed desire" (p.37).The dreams act as a kind of temptation and lead Carla to escape and freedom.The objective facts of her life underscore the misfortune and disaster in which she is entangled.These facts are the impulses behind her flight and evoke her restless soul's desire to free herself.Emily LeDuc in "Fleeting Femininities: Allegories of Female Independence in Alice Munro's Runaway" writes: In attaching herself to Carla, Flora presents the opportunity for female agency or independence.Munro confirms this by constructing a dream sequence, which is often used in short story fiction to highlight an unconscious desire (p.78, 2012).
What is the impulse behind Carla's desire for flight are not only Clark's bad temper and his disability to make an "authentic life" for her but her repressed identity and desires of freedom.In The Fiction of Alice Munro B. Hooper writes: "Clark's bad moods creating an oppressive atmosphere… he is consumed with his computer.That situation creates an indelible picture of their relationship: Clark has his back turned to Carla" (p.145, 2008).The revelation of her repressed identity is manifested when she creates a world specific for herself in which Clark does not exist: "she did this at times when Clark's mood had weighted down all their indoor space.The best thing then was to invent or remember some job to do in the barn" (New Yorker 2003).Carol Ann Howells writes: [in Munro's stories] relationships between men and women constitute the field in which "the feminine" is defined through varieties of resistance to masculine constructions, as each woman seeks not a room of her own but a space of her own where she can escape the constraints of expectation imposed upon her (p.171, 2009).
A difficult condition imposes upon Carla is the stimulation that paves the way for her flight.To build a world of her own is Carla's attempt to escape the oppression and pressure dictate by her husband.She married Clark in search of a different life.Unable to find true and good condition, she acts against Clark.According to Lois Tyson: "we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to "play out", without admitting it to ourselves, our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (p.13, 2006).Before getting familiar with Clark, Carla wished to get an academic education to be a "veterinarian" (New Yorker 2003).She alters her plan in order to get married to Clark but she is not happy with her present condition now.Michael Billig in Freudian Repression claims: "the idea of self-deceit, or willed forgetting, forms the basis for the Freudian concept of repression" (p.13, 1999).Accordingly, Carla's willed-forgetting of her education and her marriage to Clark is the first stone to build her unconscious desire towards flight.She imagines her prosperity with Clark and in spite of her parents warn against her great mistake goes through the path of self-deceit.Carla's objective is an "authentic life" and when she reaches the mirage of Clark's promised life, she attempts to journey this destination by herself.She always lives with the temptation and in Sylvia's home the temptation which resided in her unconscious so far, comes into consciousness.Repentant of her second flight, she repeated self-deceit.
Dreams are the embodiment of repressed desires and stand as the substitutions for reality's wishes as Sigmund Freud in Dream Psychology confirms that "they [dreams] completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized.They are simply and undisguisedly realization of wishes " (p.16, 1920).Accordingly, Carla during her waking hours and before her confession to Sylvia -which from chronological aspect is after her dreams-would not like to speak about her desires of flight and freedom but in the world of dreams she fulfills her wish by the role of Flora.Longing for freedom and regain her identity lurks through her unconscious in the form of dreams.Allegorizing feminine freedom and independence (LeDuc, p.76, 2012), Flora's appearance in Carla's dream is what directs her to desired identity.Carla's twin dreams are also anticipation of future events.In both of them, Flora appears and runs away and tempts Carla towards rebellion and flight.Freud in Dream Psychology states that: "… they are right who regard the dream as foretelling of the future…" (p.37, 1920).
The twin dreams reinforce Carla's tend to change her condition.To flight is to dream a future life without Clark and it has been foreseen in her dreams.The anticipated future in the dream world is the dreamer's favorite and in Freud's terms what "we would like to occur" (p.37).To have an independent economic condition and safe mental situation is what she searches in flight to Toronto.Implicating Toronto as the utopia for Carla, she manifests her unconscious desire in freedom and a new identity.Indeed "the repressed behaves like an unwelcome guest attempting to cross the threshold into consciousness" (Murray, p.7, 2010).Carla's first flight from her parents' home indicates that she has the courage to decide in complicated conditions but in the second flight something else happened.In Interpretation of Dreams Freud writes: "the dream serves as a substitute for a number of thoughts derived from our daily life" (p.184, 1900).The "mechanism of repression" (Cohen, p.118, 2000) is what prevents Carla's unconscious desires to come into consciousness.Although the second flight as anticipated in the dreams is affected by Carla's daydreaming about flight but because of her repressed identity by Clark who belittles her, she is not stable on her decision.Clark's presence is highly important in the narrative.Before his presence in Carla's life, she has the ability and confidence to decide what she favors but after Clark's arrival she is affected by her husband domination gradually and unable to decide consequently.Constitution of a repressed identity and desire is the process Carla undergoes in her life with Clark.Michael Billig defines repressed idea: "a repressed idea is one that has been pushed aside, or driven from conscious awareness" (p.15, 1999).Even after her return, Carla inhabits a "low-lying temptation" (New Yorker 2003).The repressed idea of knowing about Flora's absence in particular and the idea of flight and freedom in general is the temptation Carla held out against.
Flora the little white goat is also significant from the unconscious aspect of the narrative.Flora can be read as the embodiment of Carla and "as the counterweight to her [Carla's] increasing feelings of uncertainty and distress with Clark" (Barber, p.146, 2006).Both the feminine name and gender of the goat and the narrative of her flight has indications that she is the counterpart of Carla.Flora in the dream is Carla in reality that mirrors drives and desires of Carla's unconscious.The attachment and affection Carla feels towards Flora is the starting point of the connection between them.Flora's flight into reality and her presence in Carla's dreams to tempt her to flight underscore the affinities between Carla and Flora.Naming the white goat, Munro asserts the union of her protagonist and Flora.In the words of Clark we read: "Flora might have just gone off to find herself a billy" (New Yorker 2003).Although just a probability, Flora in reality has been on the same path as Carla had chosen to get married to Clark some years ago.The narrator recounts that how Flora tends to Clark early in her arrival and then tends towards Carla.The closeness and distance of Flora to Clark is the same mental process Carla undergoes through her relationship with her husband.In her magical return in the fog, Flora avoids Sylvia's touch and gets close to Clark as same as Carla's return to Clark and her avoidance of Sylvia.

Symbolization of the Id, Ego and Superego in "Runaway"
Brad Hooper in The Fiction of Alice Munro appreciates "Runaway" as "one of Munro's deepest psychological penetrations " (p.143, 2008).The world of Munro's story and characters involved in it could be symbolized according to the Freudian tripartite model of the psyche.As it had been explained before, Freud divided human psyche into three mental agencies: the id, ego and superego.The model will be discussed on Flora, Clark and Sylvia respectively.Flora, the little white goat is the embodiment of the id in "Runaway".The strong similarities between Flora and Carla as well as the mental unconscious tie between them are considerable.In fact the story is constructed based on the relationship of Flora and Carla.She stands as the outside display of both Carla's unconscious, the id and her presence is the motivation that fills Carla with the desires of aggression and revolt.The id is the source of energy and pleasure and leads to personal and social destruction if not could be controlled.It is the rebellion against limitation and control.As narrated in "Runaway", arrival of Flora tantalizes the hidden, unconscious tendency of Carla to flight and ignorance.The twin dreams prove that the essence of Flora's character is temptation and revolt.Wilfred L. Guerin et.al in A Handbook of Critical Approaches writes: He [Freud] further stresses that the "laws of logic-above all, the law of contradiction-do not hold for processes of the id.Contradictory impulses exist side by side without neutralizing each other or drawing apart…Naturally, the id knows no values, no good and evil, no morality (pp.156-157, 2005).
In the same way, the contradictory impulses evoke by Flora, posits Carla in doubt and lack of certainty.On one hand, Carla dreams independence and flight.It is certain that she is tired of her condition and desires change.The journey might help her to achieve self-recognition but she halts and returns to her home consequently.On the other hand, she is unable to think of a world without constraint and limitation.On the way to Toronto, she chides herself because of her decision.A world of her own is what she dreams but is unable to attain it.Not being oppressed completely, she always thinks about Flora.Flora symbolizes freedom and delight.It implicates that Carla always has the thought of flight.She struggles in contradictory impulses of her id in particular and Flora's temptation as the id in general.The paradoxical forces within and without Carla's psyche is displayed in Flora.The sequence of Flora's presence, absence and final arrival and absence reinforces the symbolization of her character as the id.Narrated in analepsis, Munro explains the strong psychological tie between Flora and Carla.Like the id, "her resemblance to a guileless girl" (New Yorker 2003) implicates the unconscious, the hidden quality and role of Flora.She is disguised as a companion of Carla to provide her pleasure and like the "id" directs her to self-destruction.In a Freudian reading, the story could be the battle between angelic face of the "ego" and demonic force of the "id".Carla breaks the barriers of family relationships for twice.Both of them constitute the morality, value and healthy connections of humanity that are ignored by Carla.In Freud's psychological view, the id is governed by the "pleasure principle".Flora in the story appears in the way that fulfills Carla's pleasure of independence and rebellion.Oscillating between the pleasure principle which echoes her independence and the reality principle of her familial condition, Carla doubts and resists against temptation.D. A Leeming and K. Madden in Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion assert: "Ruled by no laws of logic, and unconstrained by the resistance of external reality, the id uses what Freud called the primary process, directly expressing somatically generated instincts" (p.273, 2010).
The epilogue of the story is significant from two aspects.Munro narrates: "Carla found that she had got used to the sharp thought that had lodged inside her… she was inhabited now, by an almost seductive notion, a constant low-lying temptation" (New Yorker 2003) and "she held out against the temptation" (New Yorker 2003).The temptation rose by Flora and reinforced by an external condition of Carla are the signals of the forces of the id.She endured Clark's bad temper and at the present time "she didn't find it difficult to be cooperative" (New Yorker 2003), signifying how Carla attempts to avoid the aggressive forces of the id.The id role of Flora and her destiny is awakening in Carla by the hidden forces of her id.In Freudian terms, to "held out against temptation" means that Carla resists against the id forces of Flora.She even tries to wipe out the memory of Flora but she is unable to resist.She is merging into the chores but now and then she feels a "murderous needle somewhere in her heart".It is not difficult to translate the needle into Carla's desire to have Flora again and the thought of flight.
Carla suspects Clark of Flora's vanish.She thinks that Clark has killed Flora or "taken her back to the place they'd got her from" (New Yorker 2003).Flora's destiny remains unknown but the story ends with Carla's suspect to Clark.The gap between Flora's appearance in the fog and Clark's return to home could be filled with Clark's attempt to get rid of Flora.It is significant to be reminded that Clark does not inform Carla about Flora's return.It could be concluded that Clark has killed Flora as well as killing Carla's source of id's powers.He removes the object and reservoir of temptation to prevent more dangers and problems.He represses the unconscious desire of Carla towards disharmony and rebellion.He represses the conflicts between Carla's outward and inward worlds when disconnects the relation between Carla and Flora.Carla's blind desire finds no destination, therefore the temptation and "id" keeps its vital power.
Clark -the male protagonist of the story-is represented according to the "ego" in Freudian tripartite agencies of the human psyche.Munro's male characterization in many of her stories is rational and objective.The most important characteristic that symbolizes Clark as ego is repression.In fact, it is the mechanism of repression that determines the destiny of Flora, Carla and even Sylvia Jamieson indirectly and it is the patriarchal tool of Clark.The whole story narrates the battle between the powers of the id and the powers of the ego, incarnating in Carla and Clark respectively.Marcia Cavell in Becoming a Subject writes: "Much of the ego ('das Ich') is repressed; but the ego is also that which acknowledges and attempts to reconcile conflicting beliefs and desires, and in doing so sometimes represses" (p.100, 2006).He acts as a foil character that displays Carla's weaknesses and desires in the best way.During Carla's flight, he manages the condition and her complicated mental status.He is the external "gatekeeper" (Atkins, p.197, 2005) of Carla's desire.Clark stands as the social and moral normalization of Carla's discordant behavior.Daniel K. Lapsley and Paul C. Stey write: The ego is a modification of the id that emerges as the result of the direct influence of the external world.It is the "executive" of the personality in the sense that it regulates libidinal derive energies so that satisfaction accords with the demands of reality.It is the center of reason, reality -testing, and commonsense, and has at its commands a range of defensive stratagems that can deflect, repress, or transform the expression of unrealistic or forbidden drive energies (p.1, 2011).
Like social punishments and moral regrets, Clark awakens in Carla the alarms of her consciousness.To keep Carla away from the drives of her id, he uses the patriarchal device of repression which is translated into Freudian term.Consequently, Clark transforms Carla's desire of freedom and asocial action into domination of his male power and male perception of women.When Sylvia asks where Carla is now, Clark answer is: "my wife Carla is at home in bed.Where she belongs" (New Yorker 2003).Captured and repressed by Clark, Carla is prevented of deeds outside the definition of society as a woman and family relationships as a wife.Elisa Vancoppernole in "Hunted Families: Gothic Realism in Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness" calls these women "subservient woman " (p.33, 2010).Sylvia informs Carla about the return of Flora but Carla burns the letter; afraid of more aggression.In this way she refuses to face the reality and prevents to commit what is defined by ego as "libidinal drive energies" (Lapsley and Stey, p.1, 2011).She deceives herself and like mechanism of self-deceit which calms down the drives of the id, Carla resists against the id.
Repression in "Runaway" appears in two distinct ways but both have the same purpose: to oppress the desires of the id in Carla.In the first case, it appears in the form of the constant external power of ego symbolizing by Clark.Clark has a bad mood and it is narrated that Carla suffers his nasty temperament.Munro writes: "he was mad at her all the times."(New Yorker 2003) and some lines further: "He despised her.He could not stand it when she cried and she could not help crying because he was so mad.She did not know what to do" (New Yorker 2003).In this respect, ego appears in the form of laws and orders to keep the id in order and harmony with reality.The ego power is maintained through the story in the form of Clark.Symbolizing Clark as ego, he mediates between the impulses of the id and the demands of the reality.Like social organs and moral agencies, he uses his constant repressive power to limit the scope and choke the destructive desires of the individual.In the second form, repression appears in its cruel way.Accordingly, Clark kills Flora as the story narrates Carla's suspect to her husband during Flora's disappearance.Clark represses the source of temptation and in the id terms, the reservoir of evil.In this way, Clark prevents more aggressive deeds and rebellious desires.Carla's innate rebelliousness against constraints and pressures impose by her husband is encapsulated in Flora.So Clark removes her to banish Carla's thought of freedom and escape.Killing Flora is the peak of repressive power in its obvious shape.
The third part of Freudian tripartite agencies symbolized as superego is Sylvia Jamieson; the young couple's neighbor.Although symbolizing Sylvia as superego resists the theory because of the complexities of Sylvia's characterization through the story, but in some ways she appears to act like superego finally.In fact Sylvia acts like a coin in the story.On the one side she represents her id and on the other side she displays superego.Sylvia encourages Carla to run away and helps her to this destination.She paves the way for Carla to decide when she sympathizes with her.She lends her money and clothes and phones her old friend -Ruth-in Toronto to accept her at her home.Fugitive girl -Carlaconfesses to Sylvia her suffering of Clark's bad temperament.In this respect, Sylvia is the counterpart of Flora and Carla in the sense that keeps alive the idea of flight as the best option against Clark and appears as the id consequently.Symbolizing as the id, Sylvia tempts and awakes in Carla her id desires.As narrated in the story, Sylvia suffers the same problem in her relationship with her husband.The lack of affection and respect is the common suffering point between two women.Emily LeDuc asserts: "in denying herself her desired identity, Sylvia's despair can be read as indicative of Carla's future" (p.78, 2012).Outside repression of the ego power in the shape of their husbands and inside power of repression in the form of their own identity is the great common bond between them.As indicated earlier in this paragraph, Sylvia appears like the id at first.The rebellion and aggression is what is encouraged by Sylvia and Carla -answering to her inward desire-accepts Sylvia's tantalization.
The second side of Sylvia's appearance in the story is her superego.Eli Sagan in Freud, Women, and Morality: The Psychology of Good and Evil states that one of the most important characteristics of the superego in Freudian analysis is the "sense of guilt and Conscience" (p.270, 1988).Freud viewed conscience as one of the three functions of the superego.The revelation of this symptom is obvious in Sylvia's letter to Carla pervaded with the sense of "personal sense of guilt" (Roth, p.15, 1997).Encompassed by a sense of guilt, Sylvia accepts that she had made a mistake to interfere with the young couple's life.As narrated in the story:" she was afraid she had involved herself too closely in Carla's life and had made the mistake of thinking somehow that Carla's freedom and happiness were the same thing" (New Yorker 2003).So the sense of guilt in result of superego's activation pervades her letter.Priscilla Roth in The Superego: Ideas in Psychoanalysis regarding the power of superego writes: "its power comes from capacity to create guilt and the bad feelings connected with guilt, and it can dictate our behavior and even our thoughts."(p.13).Work with the mechanism of morality and social norms and laws, Sylvia in the letter had written: "All she cared for was Carla's happiness, and she saw now that she -Carla-had found that in her marriage" (New Yorker 2003).Loyalty to moralities of marriage and family life is what Sylvia confesses in her words.In some further lines it is narrated that: " Carla's flight and turbulent emotions had brought her true feelings to the surface, and perhaps a recognition in her husband of his true feelings as well" (New Yorker 2003).It indicates that Sylvia's conscience has raised in her the sense of guilt during Carla's flight although Sylvia had contributed in Carla's Escape.In this respect, superego acts like an "internal critical agency" (Roth,p.18) that maintains the obligation to social and moral organizations.This internal voice is what obliges people not to transgress social and moral norms and it keeps them in order.P. Roth states that "This voice of authority…becomes part of the self, confronting the rest of the self ('the ego') and making demands upon it" (p.18).Sylvia retires from the young couple and resides a new apartment at a distance, away from them.It is not wrong to say that, filled with the sense of guilt Sylvia seeks punishment and keeps away from them consequently.Retreat from her previous decision, she tries to remunerate her action when indirectly apologizes Carla.Accordingly, she returns to morality and social conventions in the sense of marriage and family life.

Conclusion
The psychological analysis of Alice Munro's "Runaway" (2003) based on Freudian psychology makes clear the deep and complicated layers of characterization.Freud's idea towards the world of dreams and its direct connection with the individual's unconscious had been scrutinized in this paper.The main female protagonist's twin dreams reveal the reflection of her unconscious.In her life with Clark, Carla could not fulfill her wishes regarding an authentic life and her dreams appear as wish-fulfillment in Freudian terms.In her dreams she could run away and her id desires towards freedom and independence prove to be true.The most important impulse and stimulus behind Carla's drives is repression which is happening in her life with Clark regularly.Along with her inward repressive power, Clark incarnates as the most obvious process of outward repression mechanism.Self-deceit is Carla's inward repressive mechanism when she turns to her husband and yields to previous oppressive conditions.Accordingly, both dreams indicate Carla's repressed desires to have a new identity as an independent woman.Clark's bad temperament and his cruel behavior pave the way for Carla to think of flight and the dreams -rooted in her unconscious-led her to her wish.Symbolizing Flora, Clark and Sylvia as the id, ego and superego respectively, the paper had analyzed Freudian three mental agencies.Flora, the little white goat is the embodiment of the id.She is the outside reservoir of desires and drives and tempts Carla to aggression and rebellion.She escapes and in Carla's dreams encourages her to do the same.Governed by the pleasure principle, Flora as the symbol of the id fills Carla's pleasure of freedom.Oscillating between the pleasure principle offered by Flora and the reality principle of her family status, Carla lives in constant doubt.In the next part, Clark stands as the outside embodiment of ego power.He is mediating the conflict between Carla's id desires and reality demands.Repression is the most important mechanism that classifies Clark in the ego group.His ever-bad temper in one hand and removing Flora as the incarnation of id powers, on the other hand are manifestations of Clark's repressive power.As the indication of the reality principle, Clark pushes her wife back into limitation like social law.Carla's innate rebelliousness against constraints is silenced by Clark.Sylvia Jamieson is the symbol of the superego.In a much more complicated development, she is filled with the sense of guilt as one of the symptoms of the superego.She confesses that Carla's happiness is to be with Clark in her home.She is the embodiment of superego which tends to morality and order.Her conscience, representing the internal voice of the superego, is what makes her to confirm Carla's return to her family.