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Tortilla Flat was John Steinbeck’s first hit and influenced on his later popular novels, and the paisanos’ eccentric activities have been treated on a “non-teleological thinking method”, and the protagonist’s foolhardy challenge to the world(165) has been argued an active way of rebellion against the system of the established society. In response to this, this paper aims to analyze the characters’ behaviors in a psychoanalytical way based on Civilization and its discontents by Freud. The object-instinct of Eros (life) and the ego-instinct of Thanatos (death) shown in Tortilla Flat can explain the tragicomic aspects of the novel. This psychoanalytic research on Tortilla Flat will contribute to the answer to the question of what humans are.