Psychological Criticism

1. Psychological Criticism

2. Psychological Criticism • Humans are fascinating • When we, the reader, try to understand them, it can be said that we take a psychological approach • Why would he want to do something dumb like that? I knew that wasn’t going to work. I don’t see why she had to try it.

3. Psychological Criticism • People are always speculating about others’ motives, relationships, and conversations, (as well as their own). • Speculate about dreams, where do they come from? • Bizarre as they may be, and ambiguous to their meaning, dreams are powerful enough to frighten, please and intrigue us.

4. Freud • Freud’s ideas have provided a basis for psychological criticism. His ideas are fundamental • Freud was troubled as he could find any physical cause for his patients suffering. • Determined that they were suffering from “hysterics” • This led him to infer that his sufferings were caused by factors that they were unaware of

5. Freud • Convinced that fantasies and desires were too bizarre and unacceptable to admit • they had to be suppressed. • Buried deep in the unconscious part of their being • These desires were not confronted directly, but they led to neurosis that caused the patients illness.

6. Freud • Concluded that the unconscious played an important role in what we do, feel and say, although we are not aware if its presence or operation • Published “Studies in Hysteria” – symptoms of hysteria are the result of unresolved, forgotten traumas from childhood • Published “The Interpretation of Dreams” – psychoanalysis where patients talk about dreams, childhood, and relationships with parents and authority figures.

7. Freud • Using free association • slips of language • dreams • to uncover painful or threatening events • that have been repressed in the unconscious • this makes them inaccessible to the conscious mind.

8. Freud • Why am I telling you all this? • In psychoanalytical criticism, the same topics and techniques for the basis of analysing texts. • “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”

9. The Unconscious Freud Theory • Hidden from the conscious mind • Iceberg, visible above the surface of the water, • tip of the iceberg is the conscious mind • the unconscious is like the powerful mass UNSEEN mass below • conscious mind is not aware of its submerged counterpart • our actions are the result of forces we do not recognize and therefore cannot control

10. Three Parts Unconscious - Freud Theory • Id • Superego • Ego • id – always trying to satisfy our hunger for pleasure – psychosexual desires • without thought of consequences, anxiety, ethics, logic, morality, or precaution

11. Id • always trying to satisfy our hunger for pleasure • psychosexual desires • without thought of consequences, anxiety, ethics, logic, morality, or precaution • resembles the devil figure in literary texts • offers strong temptation to take what we want without concern for consequences

12. ego • help the id to postpone or divert its desires to a more socially acceptable actions or an appropriate time. • closest to the conscious of the three

13. superego • operates on the morality principle • provides sense of moral and ethical wrong doing • parents enforce values through punishment and rewards, form the child’s superego • superego works against the drive of the id, represses socially unacceptable back into the unconscious • balance the id and the superego builds a healthy personality

14. Freud Theory • Freud Human Psyche • balance the id and the superego builds a healthy personality

15. Summary • Freud is interested in the behaviour of the conscious personality by analysing the unconscious • Freud’s concept of the unconscious is a force that determines our actions and beliefs • This upset many as we have a long held ideal that we are beings who control our own destinies