Psychoanalytic criticism

Psychoanalytic literary criticism refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic reading has been practiced since the early development of psychoanalysis itself, and has developed into a rich and heterogeneous interpretive tradition.

It is a literary approach where critics see the text as if it were a kind of dream. Psychoanalytic criticism is any form of criticism that draws on psychoanalysis, the practice of analyzing the role of unconscious psychological drives and impulses in shaping human behavior or artistic production

Three main schools of psychoanalysis Freudian criticism Jungian criticism Lacanian criticism

Freudian criticism The view of art as the imagined fulfillment of wishes that reality denies. According to Freud, artists sublimate their desires and translate their imagined wishes into art. We, as an audience, respond to the sublimated wishes that we share with the artist. Working from this view, an artist’s biography becomes a useful tool in interpreting his or her work. “Freudian criticism” is also used as a term to describe the analysis of Freudian images within a work of art.

Freud's model of the psyche Id - completely unconscious part of the psyche that serves as a storehouse of our desires, wishes, and fears. The id houses the libido, the source of psychosexual energy. Ego - mostly to partially conscious part of the psyche that processes experiences and operates as a referee or mediator between the id and superego. Superego - often thought of as one's "conscience"; the superego operates "like an internal censor [encouraging] moral judgments in light of social pressures"

Jungian criticism A school of criticism that draws on Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, a reservoir of common thoughts and experiences that all cultures share. Jung holds that literature is an expression of the main themes of the collective unconscious, and critics often invoke his work in discussions of literary archetypes.

Lacanian criticism Criticism based on Jacques Lacan’s view that the unconscious, and our perception of ourselves, is shaped in the “symbolic” order of language rather than in the “imaginary” order of prelinguistic thought. Lacan is famous in literary circles for his influential reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”

Lacan's model of the psyche Imaginary - a preverbal/verbal stage in which a child (around 6-18 months of age) begins to develop a sense of separateness from her mother as well as other people and objects; however, the child's sense of sense is still incomplete. Symbolic - the stage marking a child's entrance into language (the ability to understand and generate symbols); in contrast to the imaginary stage, largely focused on the mother, the symbolic stage shifts attention to the father who, in Lacanian theory, represents cultural norms, laws, language, and power (the symbol of power is the phallus--an arguably "gender-neutral" term). Real - an unattainable stage representing all that a person is not and does not have. Both Lacan and his critics argue whether the real order represents the period before the imaginary order when a child is completely fulfilled--without need or lack, or if the real order follows the symbolic order and represents our "perennial lack" (because we cannot return to the state of wholeness that existed before language).

Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses.

The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be traceable within the behavior of the characters in the literary work. all such characters are projections of the author's psyche.

How to Read a Text using Psychoanalysis The job of the psychoanalytical critic is to see which concepts are operating in the text that will yield a meaningful psychoanalytic interpretation. For example: You might focus on the work’s representation of oedipal dynamic of family dynamics in general You might focus on what work tells us about human beings’ psychological relationship to death or sexuality You might focus on how the narrator’s unconscious problems keep appearing over the course of the story.

Use the characters in the text! A great way to practice psychoanalytical criticism is to analyze the behavior of the characters in the text. Often the characters’ behavior represents the psychological experience of the author or of human beings in general.

An important thing to keep in mind: To some extent, all creative works are a product of the author’s conscious and/or unconscious mind. Any human production that involves images, that seems to have narrative content, or relates for the psychology of those who produce or use it can be interpreted using psychoanalytic tools

Some Questions Psychoanalytic Critics Ask about Literary Texts What unconscious motives are operating in the main characters? What is being repressed? Remember that the unconscious mind consists of repressed wounds, fears, unresolved conflicts, and guilty desires Is it possible to relate a character’s patterns of adult behavior to early experiences in the family (as represented in the story)? What do these behavior patterns and family dynamics reveal?

Some Questions Psychoanalytic Critics Ask about Literary Texts How can characters’ behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of regression, projection, fear of or fascination with death or sexuality? If you are familiar with the works of Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe, you can have a field day with this question

Some Questions Psychoanalytic Critics Ask about Literary Texts In what ways can we view a literary work as a dream? How might recurrent or striking dream symbols reveal the ways in which the narrator/author is projecting his unconscious desires, fears, wounds, or unresolved conflicts onto other characters or the events portrayed? What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader? Look for symbols relevant to death and sexuality (phallic symbols)