Kacie Beland
10/03/17
Bibliography Analysis of Ed Gein
What I Aim To Learn
From learning about Edward Theodore Gein, I hope to gain a new personal aspect of what goes on inside of killer’s minds, and how each theory deeply relates to the physical thought of people. I want to find out if, and how the past or early life of someone can affect them in the future. I hope to learn more about Gein’s family life, and past life and his experience inside of a mental institute, as that is something that deeply interests me.
Introduction
Edward Theodore Gein, otherwise known as “ The Butcher of Plainfield”, was one of the most well-known murderers to this day. Ed was otherwise known as “ The real Leather face” and “American Psycho.” Ed Gein had inspired many horror films and aspects that we all recognize today, such as “Buffalo Bill” in Silence Of The Lambs, And was inspired for many more films including: “Maniac”, “Three on a Meat hook” and “Deranged” (Schechter, 1997). He was classified as a murderer and a body snatcher. What Edward Gein did in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin was highly widespread after people were discovering that he had dug up corpses from local graveyards and made keepsakes with their skin and bones. Along with taking the bodies he did more to mutilate them. Ed had preferred to dig up the coffins of newly buried middle aged women. He chose his prey by watching for the in the obituaries. He would take the body parts that he wanted and leave them in the grave. Sexual assault to the bodies is called necrophilia, which ed denied doing, beside masturbation. He never had sex with the bodies because he claimed that “they smelled too bad.” Since this had been happening, there was an increase in missing person cases in his area. With the bodies he made several skin covered chairs, skulls on his bedposts, mutilated female skulls, bowls made from human skulls, a corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist, leggings made from human leg skin, masks made from skin and so many more. (Cahill, 2015) Along with taking the bodies of innocent men and women; Ed also committed murder, twice. In 1954, Ed visited a bar and saw a woman named Mary. She was a middle aged woman who looked exactly like Ed’s mother,and this triggered him to kill Mary Hogan. In 1957, he killed a woman named Bernice Worden. Bernice had disappeared from the store that she owned and she was found in a field dressed like a deer and skinned and cut like an animal.(Akbar) After the confession of these two crimes, Gein was sentenced to time in Mendota Mental Health Institute on November 16th, 1957 after being tried as “legally insane”; where he died at age 77 of a cancer-induced liver and respiratory failure on July 26th, 1984. (Editors, TheFamousPeople.com, 2017.)
Gein’s family life was average, but just like anyone’s family, they encountered problems. He had a mother named Augusta Wilihmine Gein, and a father named Henry George Gein. He was born in a small town in Wisconsin where he grew up on a farm. The first time Ed had witnessed anything die was when he was 7 years old and his parents slaughtered a hog behind the shed at their family store. He then experienced an ejaculation from viewing that. He lived a quiet childhood with not many friends or did he participate in many social activities. Ed had always been self-conscious about his masculinity and had even been so low that he had considered amputating his penis. While in the times, Christine Jorgenson was in the Hollywood spotlight for transsexual surgery, Ed had highly considered to try and get his esteem up. Ed was bullied in school since he had a lazy eye, and was very shy. He had a lesion on his tongue that caused him to speak a little funny (Maria, 2017). Since his mother was verbally abusive towards him, his mother would punish him for attempting to make friends, as this soon lead to him having even lower self-esteem and feeling alone. Ed was beaten by his father when he came home from school crying and he would get beat until his ears would ring. Since then, he had had a sexual interest in the female bodies anatomy. His father was an alcoholic who was sometimes abusive, and his mother was verbally abusive towards him. He nevertheless still loved his mother, even though she abused him and did not treat him well. His brother Henry, was highly concerned about Ed’s love and affection towards his mother. In 1944, Ed’s father Henry died mysterious circumstances due to a fire on the family’s farm. Oddly enough, when the police showed up to their family farm after Gein reported his brother as missing, he was able to tell the police just where the burned body could be found. Four years later his brother died while fighting a fire. After his father died, he began to do “odd jobs” including babysitters or handyman, this made him very trustworthy by the townspeople. When Ed was 38 years old, his brother Henry died while helping Ed fight a fire. Ed told the police that he was unable to locate him, but when the police showed up he directly located him. Ed was left depressed and isolated after his mother died in 1945 from a stroke, and this seemed to be when he started his addiction with preserving aspects of people and their lives. He began making nightly visits to local cemeteries, often over 40 different locations. After the death of his mother, he blocked off all areas of where his mother would frequently be in the house, almost as locking them away as a shrine or trophy. His interest in the human anatomy of the female body had just started when his mother died. (Akbar)
Individual Development
Ed had many tragic events in his life that would cause him to develop the way he did. I think that some of the most important events were the fact that all three of his family members died within such close range of each other. Another is that Ed was always bullied throughout school, and didn’t end up graduating high school or even completing his junior year of high school. Years after ed dropped out of high school, his mother was concerned about his reading skills. So, when Ed was 38, she decided to give him books on human anatomy, which started his obsession with sexuality. A large aspect of Ed’s mental health and view of sexuality would be when he got his first ejaculation, when he was caught masturbating in the bathtub by his mother, and when his mother made him and his brother promise to always remain virgins as she was very religious, and thought this was the right choice for the lifestyle. From his mother, he also learned that all women are prostitutes. His mother taught him many things about sex, including that women were objects of sex through religion. Religion caused his mother to set aside time in the afternoons so that they could read the bible together, and she used to make Ed read parts of the Bible involving graphic verses from the old testament using death, murder, and retribution. ( Bungui, 2015) A big aspect to this would also be that Ed had an unhealthy attachment to his mother. Even though his mother was mortality abusive towards and Ed and his brother, Ed still loved his mother regardless of what she did to him. As for the death of his mother was the greatest impact on his life.
Psychodynamic approaches personality
I decided to analyze Ed Gein using Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. I think that the three biggest stages that Ed relates to are in are the anal, phallic and genital stage. The anal stage occurs from 18 months- to 3.5 years of age. This stage focuses on the anus and having self-control, and when not met can lead to being anally retentive including; rigid, overly organized, and having little self- control and becoming hostile with age. I see this in Ed because he was growing up because he had a parent (his mother) who was too controlling on the sexuality of her son. He also had a parent (his father) who was not controlled enough and would use his addiction to alcohol as an excuse to abuse his child. Having a parent who was too controlling now leads Ed to the Phallic Stage.
The Phallic Stage occurs from age 3.5 to 6 years. This stage focuses on the penis, and that children become interested in their own genitals at this age. This stage brings along sexual identification and figuring out what it means to be a boy. Ed was highly relative at this stage because at this age Ed was doing some self-exploration. He would see other women and transsexual adults and wonder what it would be like to be a woman. Gein also had an Oedipus Complex for a love connection towards his mother, causing him to have an obsessive attachment towards her Ed’s mother’s attitude restricted him to properly develop her, causing him to have no relationships with the opposite sex… Since in the time period and acceptance of his family he became hostile. This did not help him become mature and well adjusted, which brings us to the next stage, the Genital stage (post-puberty.)
The Genital stage is post-puberty, which is mainly focused on the genitals. This occurs when the sexual urges are awakened. This causes people to learn to direct their sexual urges to the opposite sex, and with the goal of sexual pleasure in the genitals. Ed was never allowed to date or have any sexual relationships with women, causing him to not become exposed in any way. As a result of this, he had no sexual relationships and had guilt about sexuality.
Erik Erikson’s theory stages of Psychosocial Development apply to Ed when it comes to Initiative vs. Guilt. Ed was stuck at this stage because he had a secure attachment to his mother. When Ed’s mother died, Ed felt like he had no one. He had no connections to anyone else in the world because his mother had raised him to be alone and not socialized when he was younger. This was the time that he could no develop completely and correctly because he could not come out of the box that he lived in which was the house he was entrapped in for years. His mother also began giving him biblical rules at the young age of 3. Both Ed and his brother had clear guidance on how to live their life through the Bible, as described by their mother. Their mother also told them both that socialization and making friends was wrong, and that they needed to be independent and alone, which caused them to be stuck in industry vs. inferiority at the ages between 6 and 12.
In high school, Ed didn’t have many friends due to the ruling of his mother. She told Ed and his brother that they were not allowed to socialize, and would often get beat by their father when they tried to make friends. In school, Ed often let the fact that he didn’t’ have many friends get in the way of his schoolwork and grades. This lead to him dropping out of high school, and feeling inferior that he never finished school. (Bungui, 2015) This brings me to the next theorist and point, of Adler’s Self Actualization.
Self-actualization begins with the words “perfect” and “ideal”. Ed matches this theory because he wanted to see himself as a woman, which in his view would have been perfect or his “ideal self.” Since perfection doesn’t exist, it can’t be reached. This can cause a lack of motivation which was seen in two ways, when Ed wasn’t able to become a woman, and when he dropped out of high school because he wasn’t perfect. He didn’t think he was perfect because he had bad grades and got bullied, causing him to have low self-esteem.
Trait Approaches Personality
Gordon Allport’s theory says that your personality is made up of the traits you possess. I think that this highly relates to Ed because he had many different secondary traits, including shyness, anxiety, and anger. These connect closely with Ed because secondary traits only appear in certain situations.
Eysenck’s theory says that there are three dimensions of personality including extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Eysenck then discovered that behavior could be represented by two dimensions, introversion, and extroversion. I believe that Ed closely resembles an unstable person because the physical and emotional traits of an unstable person are the same as Ed’s. These traits include: moody, anxious, rigid, sober, pessimistic, reserved, unsociable, quiet, touchy, restless, aggressive, excitable, changeable, impulsive, optimistic, and active. A neurotic person/ unstable person tends to be anxious, worrying and moody. They also tend to have an autonomic nervous system that usually responds quickly to stress, not giving the individual time to respond to stress well. I see this trait in Ed because he was often very reserved from having a social life because of what his mother and father told him about having friends. He was also sober, as Ed never had a problem with drugs or alcohol. Ed was also very excitable towards the end of his life when he started committing these crimes, as the thought of digging up the bodies and having them would cause him to become excited.
Another aspect of Eyesneck’s theory that I think more relates to Ed is psychoticism. This trait shows that people are lacking in empathy, are harsh, usually alone, aggressive and troublesome. This trait highly shows in Ed because of all the crimes he committed, he felt no empathy for anything or anyone he hurt. It’s hard to think that someone could have no empathy after what he had done, but with Kelley’s theory we will look and see what he thinks about life, and how his past events affect Ed now.
Cognitive Theory Of Personality
Gene Kelly’s cognitive theory of personality focuses on what goes on in someone’s thoughts. Kelley developed the thought of a healthy vs an unhealthy person. A healthy person has an accurate and valid construct system and a flexible view of the world, while an unhealthy person is one who continues to use constructs that are invalid, and this is where Ed fits in. Some traits of an unhealthy person include; being diagnosed with schizophrenia ( Which Ed was), they have poor organization and consistency, they have paranoid delusions and illogical connections between constructs, weak and simplistic perceptions of themselves, and simple and stereotypical perceptions of others.
Ed often had paranoid delusions and used a few traits to describe himself, as he was merely self-conscious of himself. Ed had a very hard constructing his cognitive world because he was always having unclear thoughts which were blocking the way to clear thinking. Ed thought about his life in a very negative way because he grew up in a very controlled household, which limited Ed to controlling his own thoughts, emotions, and actions. He was constantly bullied, brought down, and told what to do, which resulted in him having low self-esteem throughout his lifetime.
Humanistic Theories Of Personality
Carl Rogers developed a theory of the personality that shows what traits a person needs to have to become “fully functioning.” The first trait that Rogers developed is that they are open to new experiences. Ed was not open to new experiences because his parents never allowed Ed to have friends or go outside of his house and socialize. Some more traits regarding this theory include: trusting their organisms, being creative, and living rich lives.
Abraham Maslow created hierarchy of needs . These include basic, safety, belongings and love, and esteem. Basic needs include physiological needs including: food, water, sleep, temperature, avoid pain, eliminate waste, and sex. The second level to the tier is safety. Safety includes: security, protection, freedom from fear and chaos, law and order. The tier that I believe Ed belongs in is belongings and love. This tier includes a sense of community, affiliation, membership in groups, being cared about by others, “D love” which is defined as deficiency love, or selfish concern with seeking love from others. I believe that Ed falls under this tier because first of all, he had no sense of community. His family members didn’t allow Ed to socialize at school, or in his community. The only time Ed and his brother were ever able to go anywhere but the farm was to go to school. (Cahill, 2015) This also tied into affiliation because he has no sense of community or associations with anyone but himself and his family. Him belonging to any memberships or groups was also very vague, as he was punished for going out and trying to make friends. (Cahill, 2015) Being cared about by others is another big thing that Ed didn’t have. The only people that even moderately cared about him were his family members, who barely cared about him at all. His being cared for by his family, was overuse of control and abuse. “D-love” is something that is highly attached to Ed. I personally think that since “D-love” is defined as someone who has selfish concern with seeking love from others. I think that Ed used the bodies of the women he dug to try and sacrifice their body parts to try and make not only a sexual connection with them, but a relationship feeling as he had someone there with him. When he dug up the bodies, I think that he felt a sense of companionship when he saw a woman that close to him because his mother had never let him have any sort of sexual or intimate relationship with a woman, yet alone, let him talk to a woman before.
Behavioral and Cognitive Behavioral approaches to personality
Skinner has developed something called operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is an establishment of an association between a behavior and its consequences. This means that all behavior takes place in situations and produces outcomes. This applies to Ed because when he would come home from school, he would repeatedly get beaten by his father or mother for trying to make friends. His mother would beat him for disrespecting the bible, so from that he learned that he should not disobey the bible or that will result in punishment, or abuse.
Bandura’s social cognitive theory includes a few key points that I believe apply to Ed. The first being observational learning, personality development that includes the parents having a negative influence, and the parents being a positive impact on their child’s life.
Observational learning is defined as much of behavior is learned by example, not by direct reinforcement. This is shown in Ed because he learned from his father that un-ethical treatment of his mother was the correct thing to do. He grew up seeing himself and his brother get beaten by their parents, which taught him that this was “normal.”
Ed’s parents definitely did not have a positive impact on Ed. From his father to being an abusive alcoholic, to his mother being a defiant religious abuser, Ed never really had the support system a young boy needed to succeed. As Bandura states, “Abusive parents provide poor role models- children learn that violence is a way to response to behavior we don’t like.” This shows in Ed because he grew up to have no empathy for others.
Conclusion
This paper has helped me learn many new aspects of psychology. I learned that a lot of these theories focus on the past and the physical and emotional trauma of someone’s past life. I learned that there is so much more to an analyzation then thinking that someone is “crazy.” A theory that I found particularly helpful was Maslow’s theory. I never thought this deeply about not having such basic needs like safety or love could cause someone such deep psychological damage. I also had a hard time learning this theory myself, so to be able to deeply analyzed with it and learn more about it really helped me. A theory that I thought was not very helpful was Skinners behavioral and cognitive approach to behavior. I could not find very many connections to this at all, maybe it was just because I picked someone who didn’t fit in to this topic or maybe it was because I simply didn’t understand it.
In conclusion, I thought that learning about Ed Gein was such an interesting topic. This essay helped me learn so much more about myself and how much I can learn from psychology. It also helped me learn that there is always more to a story than the top layer.
References
1. Who is Ed Gein? Everything You Need to Know. (n.d.). Retrieved December 04, 2017, from https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ed-gein-29946.php
2. Ed Gein's Childhood | Twisted Minds – a website about serial killers. (n.d.). Retrieved December 04, 2017, from http://twistedminds.creativescapism.com/most-notorious/ed-gein/
3. Bugni, S., Says, C., Says, B. C., Says, K. L., & Says, R. A. (2015, September 19). Sierra Bugni. Retrieved December 04, 2017, from http://sites.psu.edu/sierrasspace/2015/09/19/the-serial-series-part-2-ed-gein/
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