Psychoanalytic Criticism

1. Psychoanalytic Criticism

2. Psychoanalytic Criticism • Psychoanalytical criticism seeks to explore literature by examining: • how human mental and psychological development occurs • how the human mind works • the root causes of psychological problems

3. Psychoanalytic Criticism • This information can be used to analyze literature using two different approaches: • Psychoanalysis of the author • Psychoanalysis of the character(s)

4. Freudian Criticism • Based on the work of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). • Earliest application focused on the text as a window into the psyche of the author – dream analysis • Later applied to character and reader analysis

5. The Id, the Ego, the Superego • ID: the oldest mental province in the human organism, present at birth, instinctual • EGO: the intermediary between the ID and the external world. The ego seeks pleasure and avoids displeasure, to satisfy the demands of the id. • SUPER-EGO: the mental province that responds to the demands of parental and immediate social influences on behavior and propriety

6. Examples of Id/Ego/Superego • Superego: Parents and teachers tell you to do your homework. (authority) • Id: You feel the need to be entertained rather than forcing yourself to focus on your studying. (primal desire) • Ego: You compromise by agree to work for an hour if your parents give you money for the movie theater. (satisfaction of both desires)

7. Parental Relationships • In Freudian psychology, one’s relationship with one’s parents is the most significant determiner of how that person will relate with other humans throughout life. • In general terms, we tend to seek life partners that resemble our opposite-sex parent, whether consciously or unconsciously. • Freud believed the id desired the destruction of the same-sex parent, and union with the opposite-sex parent. (Oedipus, Electra)

8. In Freudianpsychology, psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalyticsexual drive theory, that human beings, from birth, possess an instinctuallibido (sexual appetite) that develops in five stages. Each stage — the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital — is characterized by the erogenous zone that is the source of the libidinal drive. Sigmund Freud proposed that if the child experienced sexual frustration in relation to any psychosexual developmental stage, s/he would experience anxiety that would persist into adulthood as a neurosis, a functional mental disorder.

9. Psychosexual Stages of Development

10. Stages Continued…

11. Psychoanalytical Critical Questions • For psychoanalytical criticism that focuses on the author: • To what extent does the text reveal the author’s repressed desires? • What conflicts exist among the author’s id, ego, and superego? • Does the text indicate any problems in the author’s psychosexual maturation process (e.g. Oedipus Complex, oral fixation, etc.)?

12. Psychoanalytical Critical Questions • For psychoanalytical criticism that focuses on the character(s): • In what way does the text reflect the psychosexual development of the character? • Does the character demonstrate any neuroses or psychoses? • Is the character’s behavior indicative of or influenced by repressed desires or conflicts among the id, ego, and superego?

13. Let’s Practice!!! • How many folks like Dr. Seuss?

14. Questions for Green Eggs & Ham: • Where is the Id present? Be specific. • Where is the Superego present? Explain. • Where is the Ego present? How does it resolve the conflict between the Id and Superego? • Through this lens, how can one interpret the story’s meaning? Why? How is this different than the original or standard interpretation?