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 As it is a form of literary criticism, it uses

 Techniques of Psychoanalysis in the interpretation and analysis of literature.
 A Psychoanalytic critic exposes the “Latent Content” of “Manifest
Content” of a work.

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Importance of Psychoanalytical Criticism

 Decodes symbols, images, metaphors

 Asserts that nonsense is meaningful
 Distortion is inescapable and creative
 Analyzes and evaluates the characters
 Enables the readers to penetrate deep into human psychology
 Expression of both the reader and the writer’s inner conflicts

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 Within each piece of literature, there exist clues to guide the reader to a deeper
understanding of the literary work, of the author of the work, and even of the
inner workings of the individual reader. Using psychoanalytical theory to
analyze a work of literature allows the reader to consider how the writing
represents the author’s repressed desires, fears, and impulses.

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 Psychoanalytical analysis also considers how the literature presents the author’s
isolation from events or even the denial of the existence of certain events and
circumstances through identification of the inner workings of the mind. Modern
psychoanalytic theory, based largely on the work of Dr. Sigmund Freud,
provides the literary critic with a guide to discovering, revealing, and examining
the truths that are hidden in literary works.

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 After 1950, psychoanalytic critics began to emphasize the ways in which

authors create works that appeal to readers’ repressed wishes and fantasies. In
addition to appealing to and revealing the unconscious desires of a work’s
anticipated audience, authors reveal their own unconscious desires in their
writing. The key components of psychoanalytical theory are the struggle among
Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego; Freud’s understanding of the unconscious; and
literature as a representation of the inner workings of the mind.

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 Psychoanalytical theory works from this belief and seeks images in a text that
will provide an illustration of the author’s unconscious life. Literary texts, like
dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author.

 Even when an author is not writing autobiographically, the speech and behavior
of the author’s characters and the descriptions of settings and events are usually
imbued with some of the author’s personality, desires, and fear.

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Difference between Psychological Criticism
and Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychological Criticism Psychoanalytic Criticism

 Psychological criticism is  Psychoanalytical criticism

a kind of Biographical is a theoretical frame
criticism. work for the analysis of
literature.

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Theorists/Critics of Psychoanalysis

 Sigmund Freud: (1856-1939) Austrian neurologist and founder of

psychoanalysis
 Carl Gustav Jung: (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist  
 Jacques Lucan: (1901-1981) French psychoanalyst & psychiatrist
 Harold Bloom: (born 1930) American literary critic

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  Psychoanalytic theory was the first of many psychodynamic theories to

follow many within a direct line from Freudian thinking.

  Freud ‘discovered’ the unconscious which is the basis for all psychodynamic
theories.

  Psychodynamic theories hold that human behavior is primarily the function

of reactions to “internal” (thus mostly unconscious) stimuli instincts, urges,
thoughts.

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Two Models of Human Psychology

Model 1 consists of:

 Consciousness
 Sub-Conscious
 Un- conscious
Model 2 consists of:
 Id
 Ego
 Super ego
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 1. UNCONSCIOUS
 • Contains all the feeling, urges or instinct that are beyond our awareness but it
affect our expression, feeling, action (E.g. Slip of tongue, dreams, wishes).
 2. Sub-CONSCIOUS
 • Facts stored in a part of the brain, which are not conscious but are available for
possible use in the future (E.g. A person will never think of her home address at
that moment but when her friend ask for it, she can easily recall it).

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 3. CONSCIOUS
 • Only level of mental life that are directly available to us. The awareness of our
own mental process (Thoughts/feeling).
 STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
 Consist of three parts :
 1.Id
 2.Ego
 3.Superego

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 ID

 Resides completely at the unconscious level acts under the pleasure

 Principle immediate gratification, not willing to compromise Generates all of

the personality’s energy.

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 Super Ego
 Part of the mind that houses morals/values

 The moralist and idealistic part of the personality.

 Resides in subconscious.

 Operates on “ideal principle”

 Essentially your “conscience”

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 conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt or shame,
reward us by feeling proud when we live up to it.
 Ego ideal: ultimate standard of behavior as a “good” member of society.

  The interaction of these three parts of ourselves is characterized by conflict.

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 EGO

 Resides in all levels of awareness.

 Operates under “reality principle”

 Attempts negotiation between Id and Superego to satisfy both realistically

 The ego has no concept of right or wrong

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Conflicts of Personality Components

 Conflicts between the Id, Superego and Ego arise in unconscious mind
  Can’t be reached in unconscious
  Come out in various ways
 – Slips of tongue (“Freudian slip”)
 – Dreams
 – Jokes
 – Anxiety
 – Defense Mechanisms

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DEFENSE MECHANISMS

 Defense mechanisms operate unconsciously to protect the ego from threats from
the id and from external reality.
 Denial
 Censor
Repressed wishes desires slip into unconscious
 FIXATION: When one's desire is tied to an object of desire connected to an
earlier phase in one's psychosexual development.

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 OEDIPAL COMPLEX: a child's desire, that the mind keeps in the unconscious
via dynamic repression, to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite
sex (i.e. males attracted to their mothers, and females attracted to their fathers).
 Electra complex: girl's sense of competition with her mother for the affections
of her father.
 Freudian Slip of Tongue: An error in speech, memory, or physical action
that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of an unconscious
subdued wish or internal train of thought.

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Conclusion

 Human psyche consists of unconscious and conscious spheres, with most of its
contents lodged out of sight in the unconscious and covered over by a relatively
smaller and less dense consciousness.

 Keys to the dark and inaccessible unconscious lie, psychoanalysts say, in free
association, fantasies, slips of the tongue, and especially dreams, all of which
reveal deeply buried, repressed, and self-censored wishes.

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Repression

 Unpleasant experiences are stored deep in the subconscious mind and

cant be access by the conscious mind.
 •Basic defense mechanism
 DISPLACEMENT: In Freudian psychology, displacement ("shift, move") is an
unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim
or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or
unacceptable.

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 Rationalization

 Providing a reasonable explanation to make undesirable behavior appear logical.

 Example

 A student who fails a test because she did not study hard enough blames her
failure on the teacher for using ‘tricky’ question.

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 Denial

 DESCRIPTIONS EXAMPLE

 •Reality is distorted to make it suit to the individual’s wishes.

 Example

 •An alcoholic fails to acknowledge that he is addicted to alcohol.

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 Reaction Formation
 DESCRIPTIONS EXAMPLE
 •Thinking or behaving in a way that is the extreme opposite to
 those that are of real intention.
 Example
 •A woman who loves an unobtainable man and behaves as though she hates him.

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 Free Association
 Interpretation
 Dream Analysis

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