Ego Failure and ID Dominance in Danarto’s Godlob: A Freudian Psychoanalytic Reading

Abstract

This study examines the failure of the ego to regulate id-dominated impulses in the father character in Danarto’s short story Godlob through Sigmund Freud’s structural model of personality. A qualitative interpretive textual analysis was conducted on the complete short story. Six excerpts were purposively selected because they represent instinctual demand, rationalization, moral inhibition, traumatic setting, interpersonal resistance, and social grievance. The data were coded into four analytical categories—id dominance, ego failure, superego weakening, and contextual pressure—and interpreted through repeated close reading and contextual comparison. The findings show a sequential psychological mechanism: repeated loss and wartime violence intensify the father’s demand for recognition; the ego then ceases to mediate reality and instead rationalizes the id’s destructive desire; and the superego is displaced by an ideology of heroism that converts filicide into an allegedly meaningful sacrifice. The study’s novelty lies in tracing this mechanism as a narrative process rather than merely identifying separate examples of the id, ego, and superego. Theoretically, the analysis demonstrates that ego failure in the story is both intrapsychic and socially produced. Practically, the findings support the use of psychoanalytic reading in literary education to develop critical discussion of trauma, moral responsibility, violence, and ideological manipulation.