1. Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism
Or, why all characters, authors, and readers have issues.

2. Psychoanalytical Criticism
This kind of literary criticism sees a text like a dream-everything represents something deeper, below the surface
Can be about the author’s “hidden life”. This analysis of the text could be an expression of the secret, repressed life of its author, explaining the textual features as symbolic of psychological struggles in the writer’s life.
Can be about the “secret life” of the characters, applying psychoanalytical theory to explain their hidden motives or psychological makeup (“armchair psychology”)
This can overlap Reader Response Criticism in that you can look at ways in which specific readers reveal their own obsessions, neuroses, etc. as they read a particular text. Why do you like the books you do? What does that say about YOUR repressed issues?

3. Two subcategories that we’ll study
Freudian
based on the theories of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
Terms to know: unconscious, repression, Oedipus Complex, libidinal
Jungian
based on the theories of psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
Terms to know: collective unconscious, archetypes (innocent, trickster, wise fool, teacher/prophet

4. Freudian Analysis
The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud spent much of his life exploring the workings of the unconscious.
the unconscious--the big iceberg which contains the hidden, repressed desires of life for an individual

5. Freudian Ideas Everyone has repressed, or hidden emotions
An author may manifest their issues through the types of characters or plot lines they write
Meaning in a piece of literature can come from finding those hidden meanings

6. More Freudian analysis terms: It can be all about sex
Can be looking for examples of the Oedipus Complex
Based on Greek tragedy story where a orphaned prince later finds out that he’s killed his father and married his mother without ever knowing it. He finds out, freaks out, and blinds himself.
In working out instinctual desire to possess mother, leading to inevitable conflict with father, the child forms a personality.
Yes, I know, creepy…but don’t a lot of issues come from the dynamics of family power? Don’t kids often wish they had more power or authority over their parents?
look for libidinal imagery:
yonic (sexual symbolism for a female)
phallic (sexual symbolism for a male)

7. Connection to Formalism
Formalism says that a piece of work is not about author’s intent, but about what actually ended up on the page and what meanings are present in the work regardless of intent.
Despite the importance of the author’s role here, psychoanalytic criticism does not concern itself with "what the author intended," but instead what the author never intended (that is, what was repressed or in the author’s subconscious).

8. Jungian Analysis
Freudian analysis assumes that images and ideas in a text mean something else than they apparently mean. He usually assumes their meanings are inherently about repressed sexual issues.
In contrast, Jung assumes that images essentially imply (or symbolize) something based on the “collective unconscious” of the population, or, based on what the most people would generally recognize to be true.

9. Collective Unconsciousness
Carl Jung's collective unconscious: man shares knowledge, experiences, images with entire human race, resulting in archetypes that affect how people respond to life--when certain images are in literature, they call up our archetypal feelings
Archetype: something that serves as the model or pattern for other things of the same type

10. Common Archetypes
“The innocent”: a character that despite being simple or child-like, has a intuitive wisdom. Charlie from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Pollyanna
“The trickster”: a character who succeeds through playfulness, often irreverent and disrespectful. Pee Wee Herman, Ferris Bueller
“The warrior”: a character who does not subvert the system, but faces it head on. Superman, Batman
“The teacher/prophet”: a character who has learned from experiences and uses their wisdom to guide others. Yoda, Merlin