Analysis #4 - Is It Psychological or Just Plain Evil?
Freud states in the Imp of the Perverse, “The psychical value of erotic needs are reduced as soon as their satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required in order to heighten libido…” (2412) This is only partially true in the case of serial killer, Ted Bundy, who sexually assaulted and killed over thirty women before he was executed on January 24, 1989.
Ted Bundy’s perpetual erotic need to be satisfied through sadistic and violent sexual assaults, were never fulfilled. Some say he killed anywhere from 29 to 100 women. He did, however, use many tools and created obstacles in his primitive game of hunter, to intensify his sexual excitement to lure his prey into his lair – a Volkswagen Beetle. He would fake a broken leg or arm in order play on the naivety of college girls. The results were mostly the same; the violent deaths of young, beautiful women.
Freud concluded that a criminal’s psychotic behavior stemmed from the inability to successfully develop a healthy relationship between the ego and superego. Bundy, however, apparently had little, if no, issue with his id - “if it feels good, do it.” While sadistic acts of murder are not normal, for Bundy this unresolved battle between the ego and superego may have led to his demise through execution. According to Freud, having the incapacity to feel guilt, affection, or to learn from an experience is a result of a defective superego.
In the case of Ted Bundy, other psychoanalytic theories played into his destructive tendencies. His bizarre childhood of growing up with his mother, believing she was his older sister, may have led to an unresolved Oedipus complex thus directing his aggressions toward women. In addition many speculated his abusive grandfather was in fact his father. Could his violent tendencies have been genetically inherited? Bundy’s impulsive desires for violent pornography and the inability to express those desires in a healthy manner...