If you could choose to erase an ex-girlfriend or an ex-boyfriend from your mind, would you? This is the decision Joel Barrish faces in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Would it be worth erasing all of a person's memories in the long run? There are complications in erasing memories, as losing someone's bad memories would mean losing the good parts too. Maybe there are lessons that this person has taught you throughout your relationship and without these lessons you would not be the person you are today. We are the sum of our experiences and our memories. It can be argued that Joel and Clementine decided to date again because they would rather have memories of each other, both good and bad, than have no memories of each other at all; through the theories of Freud and Nietzsche, this will be demonstrated. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay When you watch the movie, you feel like you are watching the couple's first meeting. We find out towards the end of the film that this is the second time they have met, without each other knowing each other because it is post-procedure. Mary, the receptionist at Lacuna Corporation, the company that performs the memory erasing procedure. Mary ends up acting on the feelings she has for her boss, Dr. Mierzwiak, due to a memory-wiping previous relationship. This leads him to tell her that he has performed the procedure to erase it from her memory. His response to discovering this information is to send back any pre-procedure tapes that reveal personal information about why the patient wants a particular person erased. Joel and Clementine receive their tapes in the mail and listen to them. These tapes contain each other's worst traits and habits. They also decide after listening to the tapes that their relationship will be worth reliving. The way the brain is analyzed and visualized in the film is similar to Freud's theories of the mind. In the first half of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud explored the psychoanalytic approach to the mind. The psychoanalytic approach is the theory that people can suffer from an unconscious idea, emotion, or charged memory that they are unaware of, and these repressed memories can be relieved by bringing them into consciousness. The tripartite division of the mind is attributed to Freud. He thought of the mind as divided into three parts: Id, Ego and Superego. This theory of mind explains the levels of organization of consciousness. These levels of consciousness are related to behavior, traits, motivations, control, socialization, dynamic energy of the personality. The id is the instinctive drive that seeks immediate gratification. A young child is an example of the id because young children focus on pleasure and what benefits them. The ego or “I” is the perception of self with conscious mental states that can be articulated. Real-world perceptions and decisions about how to act fall into this category. The ego is governed by the reality principle; whatever comes is the ego. The Superego contains the person's conscience derived from morals and norms learned during childhood. Confronts the ego with rules and prohibitions like a strict parent, causing feelings of guilt or anxiety. Repression is caused unconsciously by the ego and the superego. Freud's theories can be found in many scenes of the film. The one scene in particular that shows the id is the one with Joel as a four-year-old. He hides under the table because he wanted his mother to find him. She says he is always close to her. Then it starts to happenpanic that she (his mother) is not looking at him and that she never looks at him. This may be why Joel is very insecure and clingy as an adult. Joel asks Clementine if she had slept with other men when she came home late one night. His trust issues in this matter may have also developed from his mother. Mary's identity, or subconscious, slips away when she kisses Dr. Mierzwiak. She says she loves him for a long time. At the time, he didn't know about this past affinity with Dr. Mierzwiak and their relationship which had been erased from his memory with the same procedure Joel is going through. Both Joel and Clementine go through the emotions "I feel", I want" and "I think" throughout the film. This represents the ego of their personality. The Superego comes from childhood repression and can cause outbursts as adults. The sense of guilt and anxiety may be the result of this. Joel is reserved and insecure while Clementine is a free spirit and impulsive. Their personalities are the result of their childhood. Nietzsche also wondered why humans do the things they do. Nietzsche believed that our human lives are driven by the will to power. We also desire hunger, sex, and the will to power is an authentic form of self-expression It means you embrace who you are. The choices you make shape who you are and who you become. We have the desire to assert ourselves in the world. You develop personal strength from life's struggles and challenges. Before we are burdened by the troubles of life, we are a free spirit. Nietzsche believed that a true and free spirit appears like a child playing. Children are usually not burdened by pain, rules, or hurt. They play without a care in the world; that's because they haven't experienced many bad things yet. They essentially have a “spotless mind.” The character traits come from their childhood. In the flashback scenes of Joel's youth, he was teased quite often. This may be why Joel is a very private and introverted person as an adult. In another scene, Clementine asks Joel if she is ugly. She said that as a child she thought she was ugly. He starts to cry and then says he doesn't think people understand how lonely it is to be a child. He said it's like I don't matter. She recalls a memory from when she was eight years old and had many dolls. His favorite was an ugly doll named Clementine. She kept yelling at the doll, “You can't be ugly, be pretty.” It was as if she could transform the doll and then herself. This childhood memory shaped how Clementine saw herself and how she wishes she could see herself. Deep down, she is insecure about her appearance but hides it with her outgoing personality. Children are born with “immaculate minds” and as they grow, their minds become tainted with many memories. Good and bad memories are created and shape the child's behaviors, traits, and will to power. The title of this film is taken from a poem from Heloise to Abelard by Alexander Pope. Mary recites a portion of the poem in the film right before kissing Dr. Mierzwiak. He is reading a book of quotes and points out that it is an idea of ​​Nietzsche's. Someone wanted and prayed for the bad memories to be taken away. Removing the bad memories would mean that there would be eternal happiness. But usually, memories that teach us a lesson are caused by mistakes we made. To create their immaculate mind, Joel and Clementine begin by bringing in any physical object they remember.