(Blogwriting-06) Freudian thinking on Jack Bauer

Freud’s infantile sexuality suggests that experience in childhood can affect the infant’s adulthood. He introduces the concept of the Oedipal complex and the castration anxiety.
The Oedipal complex suggests that a boy infant desires sexual union with his mother and his mother’s love and affection. Therefore, the boy sees his father as his rivalry. There comes the castration anxiety. The boy sees a girl infant without a penis, and thinks that the girl has been punished and castrated. He unconsciously feels anxiety and wants to protect his penis, which later becomes the symbol of power and control. This anxiety represses the desire for his mother into the unconscious level.

Jack Bauer in the 24 is the head of a family, a heterosexual man, and a government agent. He likes to have everything under his control. When his daughter runs away, he asks his co-worker to find out the password to hack into his daughter’s e-mail account. He is ruthless and confident when working for the nation. He give orders to co-workers and does what he thinks is right no matter what. His aggressive and confident behavior can be seen as the result of his castration complex in childhood. Freud would say, as a boy fears of losing his penis, a grown man fears of losing his power and control.
Jack’s masculinity is the result of his addiction towards his penis from his childhood.

[Extra]
Also, he obviously had an affair with his co-worker. Freud would link this adultery to the Oedipal complex’s characteristic of the forbidden relationship. A boy infant gradually gives up his desire for his mother because this desire is forbidden. The desire for forbidden relationship surfaces as an adultery in adulthood. This abnormal resolution of the complex resulted in, in the story, the unstable family.