1. Sigmund Freud and His Contribution to Literary Theory Mr. M. Auciello English 3 British Literature

2. Sigmund Freud  Sigismund Schlomo Freud (1856-1939), was an Austrian neurologist usually credited with creating psychoanalytic theory and, by extension, psychiatric therapy.  Freud believed that unconscious sexual drives were the basis for all human behavior, and that dreams were an important indicator for understanding human behavior.

3. Psychoanalysis  Called “the talking cure” by Freud’s most famous patient, “Anna O.”, psychoanalysis was an attempt to unseat deeply-rooted memories bound to conflict, insecurity, trauma, and the like. Through dialogue, Freud and colleagues believed, the patient’s issues would “out” themselves and the patient could eventually live a life of what Freud called “ordinary misery”.

4. Psychoanalysis  If psychoanalysis can help us better understand human behavior, then it must certainly be able to help us understand literary texts, which are about human behavior  Psychoanalytical Criticism shows how human behavior is relevant to our experience of literature

5. Freud ’ s Theories: The Origins of the Unconscious  The goal of psychoanalysis is to help us resolve our psychological problems (called disorders or dysfunctions)  Psychoanalysts focus on correcting patterns of behavior that are destructive  One of Freud ’ s most radical insights was the notion that human beings are motivated by unconscious desires, fears, needs, and conflicts

6. The Freudian Mind  The conscious mind is the part of the mind that interacts with the outside world. It is the decisions we make and the actual thinking we do.  The unconscious mind is made up of the impulses and instincts that dictate our behavior without us knowing about it; Freud believed these impulses were driven by sexuality, Jung believed they were driven by cultural archetypes, and some other psychologists believe the unconscious mind to be made of drives for power, for love, or for any other number of impulses.

7. What is the Unconscious Mind?  The unconscious is the storehouse of those painful experiences and emotions, wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know about  We develop our unconscious mind at a very young age through the act of repression  Repression is the expunging of the conscious mind of all our unhappy psychological events  Our unhappy memories do not disappear in the unconscious mind; rather, they exist as a dynamic entity that influences our behavior

8. Psychoanalytic/Freudian Theory  The Psychoanalytic or Freudian Theory encompasses two almost contradictory critical theories: 1. The first focuses on the text itself, with no regard to outside influences; 2. The second focuses on the author of the text.

9. Psychoanalytic/Freudian Theory  According to the first view, reading and interpretation are limited to the work itself. One will understand the work by examining conflicts, characters, dream sequences, and symbols.  One will further understand that a character’s outward behavior might conflict with inner desires or might reflect as-yet-undiscovered inner desires.

10. Main Areas of Study/Points of Criticism of the 1 st View  The Oedipus Complex  The Electra Complex  The Interpretation of Dreams

11. Family Conflicts  The Oedipus Complex: young boys between the ages of 3-6 develop a sexual attachment to their mothers. The young boy competes with his father for his mother ’ s attention until he passes through the castration complex, which is when he abandons his desire for his mother out of fear of castration by his father.  The Electra Complex: young girls compete with their mothers for the affection of their fathers.  Freud believed all children must successfully pass through these stages in order to develop normally. Freud also believed that a child ’ s moral sensibility and conscious appear for the first time during this stage.

12. The Oedipus Complex There are strong Oedipal connotations in Freudian theory: the son’s desire for his mother the father’s envy of the son and rivalry for the mother’s attention the daughter’s desire for her father the mother’s envy of the daughter and rivalry for the father’s attention. Of course, these all operate on a subconscious level to avoid violating serious social mores.

13. The Oedipus Complex  Essentially, it involves children's need for their parents and the conflict that arises as children mature and realize they are not the absolute focus of their opposite-gendered parent’s attention.  The literal version of the Oedipal/Electra complex is that the child wants to “marry” their opposite-gendered parent, but might figuratively refer to a desire to go back to an earlier stage of connectedness to that parent (“back to the womb,” if you will).

14. Dreams  Our defense mechanisms do not operate in the same way while we are asleep as they do when we are awake. This is why psychoanalysts are so interested in dream analysis  When we are asleep, the unconscious mind is free to express itself and it does so in the form of dreams  Dream displacement: when we use a “ safe ” person, event, or object as a “ stand-in ” to represent a more threatening person, event, or object.  For example, dreaming about a child almost always reveals something about our feelings toward ourselves, toward the child that is still within us and that is probably still wounded in some way.

15. The Meaning of Dreams There is an emphasis on the meaning of dreams. It is in dreams that a person’s subconscious desires are revealed. What a person cannot express or do because of social rules will be expressed and accomplished in dreams, where there are no social rules. Most of the time, people are not even aware what they secretly desire until their subconscious goes unchecked in sleep.

16. The Meaning of Death  Death is a difficult subject to analyze, often because we have a tendency to treat death as an abstraction.  By treating death as an abstraction, we can theorize about it without feeling its force too intimately because its force is much too frightening.  Freud theorized that death is a biological drive which he referred to as the “ death drive ”  The “ death drive ” theory accounted for the alarming degree of self-destructive behavior Freud observed in individuals  Our fear of death is closely tied to our fear of being alone, our fear of abandonment, and our fear of intimacy

17. The Three Tiers of “Self”  According to psychoanalytic theory, there are 3 parts to the subconscious, which is the largest part of the human personality: 1. The id—the basic desire  The id has no sense of conscience, thus making it everyone’s “inner child.” Children, before they are taught social skills, operate entirely through the id. They cry in public, perform bodily functions with no sense of shame, and demand immediate gratification of their needs and desires.

18. The Three Tiers of “Self” 2. The superego—the opposite of the id.  The superego is the repository of all socially imposed behavior and sense of guilt. While the id is innate, the superego is learned. Humans develop a superego by having parents scold them and other members of society teach them.  How one is socialized—by punishment and shame—will have a lifelong impact on the functioning of his or her subconscious.

19. The Three Tiers of “Self” 2. The ego—reality.  The ego struggles to achieve a balance between the id and the superego. The ego takes the desires of the id, filters them through the superego, and devises an action that satisfies both. The ego realizes that the id must be satisfied but that there are certain socially acceptable ways to achieve satisfaction.  Freudian theory asserts that psychological problems are all the result of imbalances between the id, superego, and ego.

20. The Three Tiers of “Self”  “Schlomo” broke down the unconscious into three components that dictate conscious human behavior:  The ID seeks pleasure and avoids pain; we normally associate inborn instincts (such as the behaviors of an infant or an animal) with the id.  The EGO seeks to placate the id, but in a way that will ensure long-term benefits (such as trying to get what the id wants without breaking laws or social standards). Mediates between the id and reality. Maintains our “self – how we see our “self” and wish others to see it.  The SUPER-EGO is a lot like a conscience – it punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt. Since the super-ego is concerned with societal norms, it stands in opposition to the id. The development of an individual’s super-ego replaces a parent’s discipline.

21. The Meaning of Sexuality  Sexual behavior is a product of our culture because our culture sets down the rules of proper sexual conduct and the definitions of normal/abnormal sexual behavior  Society ’ s rules and definitions concerning sexuality form a large part of our superego. The word superego implies feeling guilty (even though some of the time we shouldn ’ t) because we are socially programmed to feel guilty when we break a social value (pre- marital sex, for example).

22. The Meaning of Sexuality  The superego is in direct opposition to the id, the psychological reservoir of our instincts and libido. The id is devoted to gratifying all our prohibited desires (sex, power, amusement, food, etc.)  Because the id contains desires regulated or forbidden by social convention, the superego determines which desires the id will contain  The ego plays referee between the id and the superego; it is the product of the conflict we feel between what we desire and what society tells us we cannot have.

23. Main Areas of Study/Points of Criticism of the 2 nd View  An essential relationship exists between the author of the work and the work itself. In order to understand a work, one must fully understand the author’s life and values.  Although a work might not be blatantly autobiographical, psychoanalysts argue that there is always something of the author in the work, whether it be a character, character trait, theme, or motif.

24. Main Areas of Study/Points of Criticism of the 2 nd View  Often, authors will satirize characters they dislike or will be overtly sympathetic to those they do like.  This author’s bias often has an effect on the reader, which is exactly what the author wants. When reading, people are extremely vulnerable to the author’s chosen point of view (the only way they hear the story is through the author’s narrator).

25. This type of Psychoanalytic reading includes the following:  Reference to what is known or surmised about the author’s personality is used to explain and interpret a literary work. For example, Charles Dickens grew up poor and later wrote books sympathetic to boys growing up poor.  Reference to a literary work is made in order to establish an understanding of the mind of the author. For example, judging by Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one might reasonably conclude that Harper Lee herself was sympathetic to the plight of black Americans.

26. This type of Psychoanalytic reading includes the following:  Studying the literary work of an author is a means of knowing the author as a person. The more novels by Charles Dickens one reads, the more one can infer about the author’s beliefs, values, hopes, fears, etc.

27. This type of Psychoanalytic reading includes the following:  An artist may put his or her repressed desires on the page in the form of actions performed by characters.  For example, an author who consistently writes stories in which his female characters are weak, dependent, or unintelligent might be expressing latent misogynist tendencies.  Likewise, a female author might express her latent misandry through weak, blatantly evil, or thoroughly inconsequential male characters.

28. Essential Questions for a Psychoanalytical Analysis  What are the traits of the main character?  How does the author reveal those traits?  What do you learn about the character through the narrator?  What do you learn about the character from the way other characters relate to him or her?  What do you infer about the character from his or her thoughts, actions, and speech?

29. Essential Questions for a Psychoanalytical Analysis  What discrepancies exist between the author’s portrayal of the character and how other characters react to him or her?  What discrepancies exist between the author’s portrayal of the character and the reader’s inferences?  Is the main character a dynamic character (does he or she change throughout the course of the story)? If so, how and why?  How does the character view him or herself?

30. Essential Questions for a Psychoanalytical Analysis  What discrepancies exist between a character’s view of him or herself and other characters’ reactions, the author’s portrayal, and/or reader inference?  How do the characters view one another?  Is there any discrepancy between a character’s personal opinion of him or herself and how others think about him or her?  What types of relationships exist in the work?

31. Essential Questions for a Psychoanalytical Analysis  What types of images are used in conjunction with the character? What do they symbolize?  What symbols are used in the course of the story? What do they symbolize?  Do any characters have dreams or inner monologues? What is revealed about a character through dreams that would not otherwise be revealed?

32. Essential Questions for a Psychoanalytical Analysis  Are there any inner conflicts within the character? How are these conflicts revealed? How are they dealt with? Are they ever resolved? How?  Do any characters perform uncharacteristic actions? If so, what? What could these actions mean?

33. Primal Fears  Probably self- explanatory, primal fears/wishes are those fears/wishes we harbor within us that unconsciously shape our behaviors. These fears/wishes are rooted in “associations” or experiences where the fears initially formed and took root.

34. Sublimation  The process of repressing or restraining memories, fantasies, urges, or insecurities that threaten to unseat the conceptions of ourselves we’d most like to present to the world.  According to Freud, sublimated thoughts and memories cannot remain sublimated forever. Because of a number of factors, they will eventually “rise” and what better way to deal with them before they do than through psychoanalysis?

35. Latency  Something that lies partially in the unconscious during what Freud coined its “gestation period.” A life experience can trigger it’s ultimate surfacing. Latency periods determine one’s future neurosis or normalcy. (e.g., someone who’s harboring deep-seated fears of public speaking).

36. Objectification This term is used to describe the treatment of a human being or animal as a thing, disregarding his/her personality or sentience. Philosopher Martha Naussbaum has argued that something is objectified if any of the following factors is present:  Instrumentality – if the thing is treated as a tool for one's own purposes;  Denial of autonomy – if the thing is treated as if lacking in agency or self- determination;  Inertness – if the thing is treated as if lacking in agency/free will;  Ownership – if the thing is treated as if owned by another;  Fungibility – if the thing is treated as if interchangeable with another object;  Violability – if the thing is treated as if permissible to damage or destroy;  Denial of subjectivity – if the thing is treated as if there is no need to show concern for the 'object's' feelings and experiences.

37. Projection and Displacement * The transference of uncertain, unsettled or unwanted feelings about ourselves onto someone or something else rather than coming to terms with them ourselves is called projection. * When we displace or reassign our particular energies and/or interests that may threaten our status quo onto something or someone else, it’s called displacement. (Consider a mid-life crisis in which a man might buy a new sports car and date a younger woman in an attempt to displace his worries about aging and his desire for a new life).

38. The Locus of Control  According to Freud, humans possess internal and external “locus of control”, or, rather, places that are the source of our sense of control in our lives. For example, if we have a high external locus of control, we believe our life is defined primarily by forces OUTSIDE of us such as family, social codes, the general environment, etc. If we have a high internal locus of control, we believe our life is defined primarily by forces INSIDE of us such as through intellect, skill, will, discipline, good luck, etc.

39. Psychoanalytic Literary 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. It approaches an author’s work as a kind of textual “talk therapy”.  One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche.  Like psychoanalysis itself, this critical endeavor seeks evidence of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilt, ambivalences, and so forth within the author’s literary work. 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.

40. Psychoanalytic Criticism, cont’d  Despite the importance of the author here, psychoanalytic criticism is similar to New Criticism in not concerning itself with "what the author intended." But what the author never intended (that is, repressed) is sought. The unconscious material has been distorted by the censoring conscious mind.  Psychoanalytic critics will ask such questions as, "What is Hamlet's problem?" or "Why can't Brontë seem to portray any positive mother figures?"

41. Now, what do you think we can tell about poor Edgar?

42. fin