Psychology of Richard Cory

Psychology of Richard Cory

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is a great poem to look at through the psychology lens. This poem is about the life story of a man. The man is very wealthy, he is educated, has manners, and is highly admired by all the people in his town. Although everyone loves him in his town, he ends up committing suicide in the end. I believe the main theme of this play is not judging people by their appearance. Usually people are more then what they appear to be, they are more then what they portray. Also, everyone believes that since he is very wealthy he is happy. A second theme, which shows that this is wrong, is the fact that money does not buy happiness.

What forces are motivating the characters? Given their background, how plausible is the character's behavior? We learn that Richard Cory is a very wealthy man and adored by all the people of his town. Although all the people of his town adore him, he is still lonely and he does not have the one thing everyone needs to survive, friendship. What usually comes to your mind when you think of someone who is wealthy? Personally, I would think that the individual has a lot of food, and is most likely chubby. We learn that Richard Cory was the complete opposite of that.

"He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean-favored and imperially slim".

The last thing a person would think of, when speaking about a wealthy and adored man is that he would commit suicide. Although all the people in the town admire him and want to be like him one day, none of them truly speak to him. Richard Cory makes the attempt to speak to the people of the town when he says "Good morning" to them. We can tell that the people rejected him when we hear that he said good morning "with fluttering pulses and he then glittered while walking". We don't truly know what motivated the character to commit suicide, but we get the idea it is most likely because of loneliness.

Do any of the characters correspond to the parts of the tripartite self? The tripartite self are known as the id, ego, and superego. We can definitely see this aspect in the Richard Cory. His id self, is the most likely the reason why Richard spoke to the people of his town and said Good morning. The id is the component of our personality, which is responsible with meeting all of our basic needs. Since the character was lonely and did not have friends, he decided he should say something to the people.