Scott Joplin realized his talent, playing the piano, during the latency stage of his development. He was eleven when he realized he could play very well (Preston, 27). He was a very anal type person due to his way of organization and his determination to be the best. He began to have a very hectic schedule and put a lot of effort into his work because he always wanted it to be the best it possibly could be.
Scott experienced instant gratification for most all of his work, which falls under the id system. The id is the want in life, and Scott desperately wanted the love of his audience and received it most of the time (Preston, 17). His superego kicked in when he discussed freeing his people from poverty, ignorance, and superstition (Preston, 94). He put it in his music, especially his opera Treemonisha, hoping to get the point across (Preston, 93). Those were his moral decisions and showed his good-heartedness. The ego is the system that made him rational and kept him in reality. Scott, in a way, overlooked the ego and did little rationalizing. He did not look hard enough at reality, such as when a piece of his music was not published or popular. When this happened, he forgot about all his wonderful work and focused too much on his failures, such as his opera Treemonisha (Jackson, 160). He stepped away from reality by thinking all of his work was going to be successful and pleasing to the public, so when his opera failed, he was unable to cope. He suffered a nervous breakdown and died in a mental hospital (www.ddc.com). This failure also ties in with defense mechanisms and balancing the id, ego, and superego. Scott, however, forgot about reality, leaving him unable to recover from his failure.