1 / 18

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Psychoanalytic Criticism. Psychoanalysis. Focuses on the subconscious mind Explores repressed wishes and fantasies. Sigmund Freud. Besides being a doctor, he was also a literary critic. Examples of psychoanalytic concepts. Oedipus complex—.

ltimberlake
Download Presentation

Psychoanalytic Criticism

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Psychoanalytic Criticism

  2. Psychoanalysis • Focuses on the subconscious mind • Explores repressed wishes and fantasies

  3. Sigmund Freud • Besides being a doctor, he was also a literary critic.

  4. Examples of psychoanalytic concepts

  5. Oedipus complex— • the childhood wish to displace the parent of one’s own sex and take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex • Elements from myths are interpreted as symbolic representations of this complex

  6. Freud's Iceberg Analogy

  7. The Three Principles The Freudian view is that the three parts of the mind compete for superiority. Contemporary thinkers believe the id, ego and superego coexist as partners

  8. Conflicting Desires:Thantos & Eros Freud likens our hidden desires to enemies

  9. Conflicting Desires:Thantos & Eros Libido (Sexual drive) The contents of the unconscious mind consist primarily of repressed sexual desires. These desires, said Freud, are natural and insistent Death Drive is the body's instinct to return to our dormant, pre-birth state. Freud said this drive causes us to be compulsively drawn to pain and trauma

  10. Manifest Dream Most dreams occur during REM sleep in the second half of the night • The manifest content of a dream is what the dreamer remembers about the dream

  11. Latent Dream Meaning • The real, hidden meaning of the dream is called "the latent dream" • Freud believes that dreams are a vehicle to express feelings unacceptable to society.

  12. Displacement • An element of dreamwork which shifts emotion from one idea to the other; often using metaphor • In language, metonomy replaces one the whole idea with a part

  13. Freudian Slip (Parapraxes) • A mistake in speech or action in which a person shows his or her true subconscious desires: there are no accidents • Jokes always indicate hidden desires

  14. Psychoanalysis today • Creating a neurotic society? • Creating a narcissistic society?

  15. Psychoanalysis today • Has been discredited as a form of therapy as being ineffective • Freud is praised for starting psychotherapy; however psychoanalysis has virtually disappeared from the medical world … • … except in … • France – the last bastion of psychoanalysis

  16. Psychoanalitic Criticism • Explores the author’s subconscious and unconscious mind • Appeals to the reader’s subconscious desires

  17. What wishes and desires might be in Hamlet's unconscious mind? • Eros? • Thanatos? How might Hamlet's desires Manifest themselves?

  18. What might a psychoanalytical criticism reveal about the "Heart of Darkness"? What might the steamboat travelling up the Congo River represent? What might constantly building uphill and sliding back mean?

More Related