1. Psychoanalytical criticism
Freud was a dude

2. Sigmund freud Austrian neurologist and early psychologist
Developed theories and techniques of psychoanalysis– a psychological theory that focuses on the conscious and unconscious drives people experience (with a focus on repressed childhood memories and dreams)
Big beliefs of Sigmund Freud:
People act partly based on unconscious drives/urges
Mother/father complexes shape people’s their relationships with opposite gender
Dreams are very important to understanding how people think subconsciously
Much of human behavior can be explained as a battle between balancing instincts and morality with the reality of life

3. Psychoanalytic literary theory
Although very few people actually think Freud was right with most of his ideas, for some weird reason Freud’s ideas are still often used to understand literature, through what’s called psychoanalytical criticism
Psychoanalytic theory asks the following questions:
What sort of family relationships are there in the book? How do those influence how characters relate to other characters of the same/opposite gender?
What are the main characters’ strongest urges and drives– Death drive? Sexuality?
What does the story suggest about the psychological being of its author?
Do repressed memories or subconscious drives motivate characters or the author?

4. Psychoanalytic terms:
Subconscious : Everything that goes in our minds we aren’t actually aware of.
Psyche: Another word for our minds (not the physical brain itself).
Id : Instincts, subconscious drives, animalistic selfishness (the devil on the shoulder)
Ego : Reality, sense of self, the conscious self
Superego : Morality, the conscience of a person’s conscious mind (angel on the shoulder)
Oedipus Complex :
The name Oedipus comes from a Greek tragedy, where a man marries his own mother
The Oedipus Complex is Freud’s theory that men look for women like their mothers
Electra Complex : Same as Oedipus Complex but how women look for men like their fathers