Three Faces of Eve - Essay Example

In the movie “The faces of Eve” the main heroine Eve White is suffering from dissociative identity disorder. It becomes evident when her personality splits into two which are symbolically called Eve White and Eve Black. The protagonist, Eve White, is a humble, traditional and a very reserved housewife. Her role of a mother and a wife and her conservative education serve as limits for her self-expression. However, unexpectedly for herself she starts suffering from terrible headaches and loss of memory during some episodes.

The psychiatrist to whom she addresses with her complaints notices her timid character and understands that Eve White suppresses most of her instincts and emotions. Trying to fit in the image of perfect woman Eve White creates a mask which she wears to hide her split personality. It turns out that there is a dark side of Eve White which is even called in such a way to reflect everything shameful, weird, and unacceptable for a woman - Eve Black. This part of Eve is absolutely opposite to the one who is already familiar.

Eve Black is open-minded, overfree, and sarcastic. That is the woman who adores having fun, changing dresses, and seducing men with her charm and wilderness. Eve White is absolutely different from Eve Black in appearance, manners, tone of the voice. Eve Black is self-confident and ambitious; she neglects her family responsibilities and sees herself as a free woman.It is obvious that such an extreme shift from one personality to another must have been provoked by some serious stressful situation in the past that made Eve split herself in two to remain psychologically and emotionally stable.

But what was the reason of development of a dissociative identity disorder in such a seemingly healthy and attractive woman? The first reason lies in childhood according to the film. The psychiatrist makes Eve get back to her childhood to recall some extraordinary painful moment in her life that caused serious emotional breakdown in a girl. It turns out that the girl had to kiss her dead grandmother at the funeral and that caused serious shock. Aversion to a dead body and the necessity to kiss her in front of the whole family worked in some specific way: in order to do that Eve had to split in two: Eve Black and Eve White.

Eve Black was a bad girl who could do ugly and strange things, for her it was acceptable to kiss dead because she forgot about it instantly. Eve White remained pure and innocent in the same time. But it seems that this episode in childhood was only the initial stress, the social pressure on a woman could serve as a second reason for further splitting. Eve White`s husband was unable to see a woman in her: playful, seductive, sexually attractive. He regarded her as a wife and a mother who had to care about the family first of all.

So Eve Black was forced to progress inside Eve White to express all the subconscious desires. Having accepted both Eve White and Eve Black as equally important sides the woman managed to create a wholesome personality- Jane. The third personality was the one who could remember everything about both and could control light and dark sides when needed.