Psychoanalytic Theory Definition Psychoanalytic criticism applies the psychological

Psychoanalytic Theory

Definition Psychoanalytic criticism applies the psychological principle and theory of how and why people behave to literature to interpret and evaluate it.

Focus Author Text Audience Character

Tenet/ Main Points Language Unconscious Dreams Symbolism

Key Concepts Most of the individual’s mental processes are unconscious All human behavior is motivated ultimately by sexuality (libido) Due to social taboos most sexual impulses, desires, and memories are repressed in human behavior

Assumptions The unconscious mind dominates the conscious mind The unconscious mind expresses itself through symbols such as in dreams Sexuality is a motivating force in human behavior

Unconscious The unconscious is the storehouse of those painful experiences and emotions, those wounds, fears, guilty desires and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know about because we feel we will be overwhelmed by them.

Symbolism Freud: Behavior is motivated by sex Some symbols are so ingrained in Id Some have similar meanings for all people

Psychoanalytic critics look for Sexual implications of symbols and imagery Sexual development Oedipus complex

Psychoanalytic Theory Iceberg

Dreams Fulfillment of repressed wishes coded in symbols Latent Dreams Manifest Dreams

Dreams When we are asleep the unconscious is free to express itself and it does so in our dreams

Stages of Psychosexual Development 0 -1 1 -3 3 -5 6 -11 12 -18 Oral Anal Phallic Latency Genital Pleasure from eating and vocalizing Pleasure from retention or repulsion of feces Touching genitals (Oedipal and Electra) Identification with same sex parent Sexual attractions

Defense mechanism Our unconscious desires not to recognize or change our destructive behaviors- because we have formed our identities around them and because we are afraid of what we will find if we examine them too closely- are served by our defenses.

Defense mechanisms Defenses are the processes my which the contents of our unconscious are kept in the unconscious. In other words, they are the processes by which we keep the repressed in order to avoid knowing what we feel we can’t handle knowing.

Defense mechanisms Selective perception: Hearing and seeing only what we feel we can handle Selective memory: modifying our memories so that they don’t feel overwhelmed or forgetting painful events entirely Denial: believing that the problem doesn’t exist for the unpleasant incidents never happened

Defense mechanisms Avoidance: staying away from people or situations that are liable and make us anxious, steering up some unconscious Displacement: taking it out on someone or something than the person who caused our fear, hurt, frustration or anger Projection: attributing our fear problem or a guilty desire to someone else and then condemning him or her for in order to deny that we have it ourselves

Defense mechanism Regression: Temporary return to a former psychological state which is not just imagined but relieved. Regression can involve either return to a painful or a pleasant experience. It is a defense because he carries out thoughts away from some present difficulty. For example Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman flashbacks to his past life

Question to ask about literary texts How does repression shape the work? Remember, the unconscious consists of repressed wounds, fear, unresolved conflicts and guilty desires. Arthur any Oedipal dynamics or any other family dynamics ? That is, is it possible to relate the characters’ pattern of behavior to early experiences in the family as represented in the story?

Questions to ask about literary texts How can character’s behavior, events and images be explained in terms of the cycle analytics concepts of any kind? For example, regression, projection, fascination with sexuality which includes love, romance as well as sexual behavior for the operations of Ego, Id, and Superego.

Questions to ask about literary texts What doesn’t work suggest about the psychological being of its author?