The narrator's psychological journey in Atwood's Surfacing In Surfacing, a novel by Margaret Atwood, the narrator undertakes three fundamental journeys: a physical quest to find his lost father, a journey biographical into his past and, above all, a psychological journey. The psychological journey allows the narrator to reconcile his past and ultimately brings the physical journey to a close. In this psychological journey into himself, the narrator, as he travels from cognitive rational reasoning to subconscious dissociated reality, progresses through three stages. In the first phase, the narrator is in contact with reality; lives and exists in a state of mind known in Freudian psychology as the Ego. The Self is defined as “the element of being that consciously and continuously enables an individual to think, feel, and act.” (Barnhardt, 667). The ego is based on a reality principle, in which a person reacts in “realistic ways that will bring long-term pleasure rather than pain or destruction” (Meyers, 414). The narrator's inability to cope with unpleasant thoughts such as his father's possible death is highlighted early in the novel. The narrator states: "nothing is the same as before, I no longer know the way. I run my tongue over the ice cream trying to concentrate, now they've put seaweed in it, but I start to tremble, why?" it's the different route, he shouldn't have let him, I want to go back and go back to the city and never find out what happened to him, I'll start crying, it would be horrible, none of them I would know what to do and I wouldn't either. I bite into the cone and for a minute feel nothing but pain like a blade down the side of my face... middle of paper ... ...to reality: "The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, without asking and without giving anything" (Atwood, 224). Thus, the narrator has completed a psychological journey from meanness to madness and then back again in a full circle, traveling through three distinct phases: the Ego, the Superego, and the Id. The narrator by completing the psychological journey into the subconscious is able to resolve the biographical and physical journeys. Therefore, once the past and present conflicts are resolved, it is very likely that we can assume that the narrator will assimilate to reality again. She might have a chance to become human again. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Outcrop. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1972Barnhardt, Clarence L. Ed. The World Book Dictionary, Field Enterprises Publishing Co: Chicago, 1975. Meyers, David. Psychology. Worth posting: USA., 1992