Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism

Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism Or, why all characters, authors, and readers have issues.

Psychoanalytical Criticism • This kind of literary criticism sees a text like a dream-everything represents something deeper, below the surface • Can be about the author’s “hidden life”. This analysis of the text could be an expression of the secret, repressed life of its author, explaining the textual features as symbolic of psychological struggles in the writer’s life. • Can be about the “secret life” of the characters, applying psychoanalytical theory to explain their hidden motives or psychological makeup (“armchair psychology”)

What are the benefits of Psychoanalytical Criticism? • A reader can explore the psychology of: • A writer as expressed in his/her work • fictional characters • The form of the work itself (symbols and motifs) • A culture or society (both historical and fictional)

Two subcategories that we’ll study • Freudian • based on the theories of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. • Terms to know: unconscious, repression, Oedipus Complex, libidinal imagery • Jungian • based on the theories of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. • Terms to know: collective unconscious, archetypes (innocent, trickster, wise fool, teacher/prophet), hero’s journey (innocence, initiation, chaos, resolution)

Freudian Analysis • The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud spent much of his life exploring the workings of the unconscious. • the unconscious--the big iceberg which contains the hidden, repressed desires of life for an individual

Freudian Ideas • Everyone has repressed, or hidden emotions • An author may manifest their issues through the types of characters or plot lines they write • Meaning in a piece of literature can come from finding those hidden meanings

More Freudian analysis terms: It can be all about sex • Oedipus Complex: • A son’s unconscious resentment toward and rivalry with his father for his mother’s love. He unconsciously wants to eliminate his father in order to take his father’s place with his mother. • This is based on the Greek tragedy. • In literature this can appear in relationships with parents and older women.

It can be all about sex • Electra Complex: • A daughter’s unconscious resentment toward and rivalry with her mother for her father’s love. • Also based on a Greek tragedy. • This can be seen in relationships with parents as well as older male figures. • This is a normal phase for children to go through; it prepares us for adult relationships with the opposite sex. look for libidinal imagery/diction in literature and relationships with parents: • yonic (sexual symbolism for a female) • phallic (sexual symbolism for a male)

Freud’s Theory of WAnts

Conscious vs. unconscious mind • Conscious Mind • Includes everything we are aware of • Rational thinking • Memories that we can access when we want to • Unconscious Mind • A reservoir of feelings, thoughts, and memories outside of our conscious awareness • Suppressed memories • Unconscious mind influences us even though we are unaware

Methods to Deal with Conflict • Repression: hiding one’s desires and fears in the unconscious • “Selectively forgetting about whatever is troubling” (Lynn 211) • Isolation: disconnecting one’s emotions from a traumatic event • “Understanding something should be upsetting, but failing to react to it” (Lynn 211) • Displacement: replacing an unacceptable object of one’s emotion • “Shifting one’s emotion s from a threatening target to a less threatening one” (Lynn 224) • Denial: refusing to accept one’s unacceptable desires or fears, or refusing to accept a traumatic event.

Methods to Deal with Conflict • Projection: placing one’s unacceptable or unworthy desires or fears onto another. • Intellectualization: avoiding one’s desires and fears by analyzing and rationalizing them – instead of feeling them. • Reaction Formation: believing the opposite is true to avoid facing the truth about a traumatic event.

Repression • We often repress what the id encourages us to think and do because of the ego and superego tell us not to think and do, therefore forcing these unacceptable wishes into the unconscious. • Repressed desires emerge in disguised forms: dreams and language (better known as slips of the tongue).

What to look for • Instances of repression, isolation, sublimation, displacement, denial, projection, intellectualization, and/or reaction formation in the actions of characters. • Internal conflicts present in characters that cause them difficulty fitting into society or being happy. • Expressions of the unconscious in characters – dreams, voices, creative acts (or any actions), slips of the tongue, jokes, etc. • Descriptions of the unconscious in texts. • Patterns or repeated behavior in the text. • How a character’s identity is developed

Questions a Freudian Analysis might ask of a piece of literature • What was the relationship like between the author and his family? • How successful did the author feel in romantic relationships? • What kind of person would identify with this book? (OR, “Who’s messed up enough to like this book?” ) • What is the character’s relationship between his/her family? • What are the conscious or unconscious desires of the character? • How successful in the character in his/her romantic relationships?

Jungian Analysis • Freudian analysis assumes that images and ideas in a text mean something else than they apparently mean. He usually assumes their meanings are inherently about repressed sexual issues or issues of power. • In contrast, Jung assumes that images essentially imply (or symbolize) something based on the “collective unconscious” of the population, or, based on what the most people would generally recognize to be true.

Collective Unconsciousness • Carl Jung's collective unconscious: man shares knowledge, experiences, images with entire human race, resulting in archetypes that affect how people respond to life--when certain images are in literature, they call up our archetypal feelings • Archetype: something that serves as the model or pattern for other things of the same type

Common Archetypes • “The innocent”: a character that despite being simple or child-like, has a intuitive wisdom. Charlie from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Pollyanna • “The trickster”: a character who succeeds through playfulness, often irreverent and disrespectful. Pee Wee Herman, Ferris Bueller

Common Archetypes cont…. • “The warrior”: a character who does not subvert the system, but faces it head on. Superman, Batman • “The teacher/prophet”: a character who has learned from experiences and uses their wisdom to guide others. Yoda, Merlin

Common Archetypes Cont.. • The shadow: a character often known as a villain in literature. They embody chaos and wildness of character. They may seduce through false friendship or threaten with callous disregard. Darth Vader, Little Finger

The Hero’s Journey • Another archetypical format for analysis: • Innocence: Starts with a character who is pretty happy, no real conflicts, lack of worldly experiences • Initiation: Some fall from innocence. Could be death, tragedy, awareness of evil, emotional or sexual relationship • Chaos: After that cruddy fall from innocence, a time of trial. Will the character come through it, or regress back to a false innocence or denial? • Resolution: If the character has made it through chaos, they’re smarter, stronger, and more stable. They have learned from their issues and are now looking towards a bright future. • Can you name any literary character which would fit this archetype?

Questions a Jungian Analysis may ask of a piece of literature • What role does this character play? • What images are representative of other ideas in our culture? • What stage of the hero’s journey is our character in currently? • How did the character “fall from innocence”?

Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism