Psychoanalytical Analysis of Tsotsi

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1PSYCHOLOGY
Introduction
The film “Tsotsi” directed by Gavin Hood explicitly portrays the way a person’s
childhood and experiences tend to impact psychological development in the conflict for
redemption. The following paper will provide a psychoanalytical analysis of Tsotsi by focusing
on his shift from a life of crime to ultimate transformation.
Discussion
Wedding, Wongpakaran and Wongpakaran (2017) while analysing the context of the
movie has stated that the opening scene of the film has established a strong sense of direction of
the story by showing an individual rolling dice and has further drawn attention to the standard of
the dice representing prospect and further showing individual’s lack of control over his or her
future. Drawing relevance these contexts, Lahera et al. (2017) have shed light on the
determinants which exhibit the way Tsotsi’s life has been significantly leverage a several
external forces rather than his own free will. These external forces ranged from a critical impact
on Tsotsi’s character due to the absence of his parents during his childhood that led him to be
refrained from gaining ethics, morals and suitable behavioural patterns while approaching others.
The turbulent expression of Tsotsi revealed in the close shot of his face not only shows us an
implication that Tsotsi’s id chiefly had been liable to cause an incident but further distinctly
articulates the lack of contentment in himself similar towards Boston, one of the members of
Tsotsi’s gang. At this juncture, Hesselink and Jordaan (2018) have shed light on the Tsotsi’s
absence of morality which symbolically represents Boston as a dog. On the other hand, authors
have applied significant dismal fallacy in order to describe the perception which viewers are
likely to gather about Tsotsi’s character.