2. 3 The importance of Freudian approach in literature There are certain psychoanalytic concepts expressed by Sigmund Freud that can be applied to interpret literary texts. literary texts, like dreams, articulate the secret unconscious desires and concerns of the author, that a literary work is a expression of the author’s own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are outcrops of the author’s psyche. The interesting side of this approach is that it confirms the importance of literature, as it is built on a literary key for the making out. Lois Tyson points out, aspects of psychoanalysis have become so embedded in our culture that …show more content…
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. By applying the methods of psychoanalysis both to literary characters and their authors, one can better understand and interpret literature often at the same time. This is most regularly done by treating the work as a dream and interpreting the content to find the hidden meaning, achieved through a close analysis of the language and symbolism. But psychological material will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as “symbolism” (the repressed object represented in disguise), “condensation” (several thoughts or persons represented in a single image), and “displacement” (anxiety located onto another image by means of …show more content…
They let go their neurotic tension through creative work. Such creative work offers us insights into the nature of realism and the people who exist in it. Thus, psychoanalyzing a literary text provides us a deep understanding of the ‘unconscious’ of the author which is supported by Freud’s first theory “Primacy of the Unconscious”. In fact all of Freudian concepts can be set up in the study of characters and their actions in a literary text, and at the same time provides us with a thorough understanding of the nature of man in all-purpose. Freud also emphasizes that artists own extraordinary abilities that put them apart from the neurotic personality. This special genius not only allows the artist to overcome, at least partly, personal conflicts and repressions, but also makes it possible for the audience or readers to gain comfort from their own unconscious sources of fulfillment which had until that time become unreachable to them. Thus, literature and art, distinct from dreams and neuroses, may serve the artist as a mode of fantasy that opens “the way back to
Willbern, David. "Reading After Freud." Ed. G. Douglas Atkins and Laura Morrow. Contemporary Literary Theory. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. 158-179.
The professors who composed Psychological Science explain that, “For [Sigmund] Freud, the powerful forces that drive behavior were often in conflict. A key aspect of his thinking was that we are typically unaware of those forces or their conflicts” (Gazzinga et al. 570). To Freud, conflicts in the mind consisted of the never ending battle between the ego, id, and superego. The “id” is the mechanism that drives humans to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The superego is a person’s conscience and morality principle. The “ego” is the mediator between the superego and id. In fact, Freud developed a theory based on analyzing these unconscious struggles which he called the psychoanalytic, sometimes psychodynamic, theory. He recorded peoples’ words and actions to describe their unconscious desires, wishes, fears, and hidden memories. The psychoanalytic theory was later translated into literature as a kind of criticism. This criticism can be applied to any type of literature including dramas. The drama “Naked Lunch” by Michael Hollinger is a good representative of the dramas in which the reader can perceive the unconscious conflicts between the characters through the use of dialogue and non-verbal cues. The reader senses the desires, fears, thoughts, and underlying mechanisms at work behind the conversation and in turn is able to come to a greater understanding of how a person’s word and non-verbal actions describe the person’s subconscious mind.
Max Ernst’s work has several dimensions and characteristics, most notably the dubious character of his illustrated worlds that have contributed to the appeal of the audiences. His prime concern was to present irresolvable isolation. As his father inspired his son a penchant for challenging the authority whilst being interested in painting and sketching nature, Ernst was motivated to take up painting himself. Moreover, he studied philosophy and psychology in 1909 at the Bonn University but also later dropped out. Most notably, during the course he visited an asylum and studied the work of the insane, a study inspired by Freud’s theory of the unconsciousness. This proved to be absolutely crucial in his development as an artist and took many ideas incorporated in Freud’s work and used them in order to identify himself – like other surrealists, he used it...
When this story is viewed through Sigmund Freud’s “psychoanalytic lens” the novel reveals itself as much more than just another gory war novel. According to Sigmund Freud psychology there are three parts of the mind that control a person’s actions which are the id, ego, and superego. Psychoanalysis states that there are three parts of the human mind, both conscious and subconscious, that control a person’s actions. The Id, ego, and
Psychoanalysis refers to the interconnection in the mind between conscious and unconscious. Sigmund Freud is the theorist behind the study of psychoanalysis and Jacques Lacan, his successor, also helped develop the theory. Psychoanalysis plays an important role in the novel The Metamorphosis because the reader is left to decide what portion of the novel exists in reality and what portion of the novel exists within Gregor’s mind. The line of conscious and unconscious becomes blurred in the novel, but through the work of Freud and other scholars, readers are able to make sense of it.
As we have seen through my analysis of this novel, the ideals of Lacanian psychoanalysis can be applied to situations found throughout the novel in order to interpret the actions of the main character. We have seen that Goldmund has developed through the different phases of development set forth by Lacan in his work. We also have identified that the ‘desire’ of the main character is to meet his mother, while his ‘signifiers’ are the many women that he has brief relationships with. From this interpretation of Goldmund and his desire, you can see that Lacanian psychoanalysis is an effective and exceptionally useful way to approach critically examining literature.
The myth of Oedipus is a template that explains a developmental processes that all children undergo. Myths are an important component of our psyches, our media and popular culture of our everyday lives. Psychoanalytic criticism is a structure of literary theory criticism which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. It aims to cure mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind. Now, a Freudian analysis of Sophocles’s Oedipus The King would show that Oedipus truly possessed an incestuous nature. This was revealed not only by Oedipus 's marriage to his own mother, by whom he had children,
Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an
“The period from 1700 to 1840 produced some highly sophisticated psychological theorizing that became central to German intellectual and cultural life, well in advance of similar developments in the English-speaking world” (Bell i). Some of the psychologists that have helped German literature, advanced are Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, and Carl Rodgers. Originally, Sigmund Freud studied personality and developed a theory of neurosis and later, Karen Horney built upon his theory, changing some ideas, making her own theory of neurosis. Using Horney’s newer concepts of neurosis, and additional psychological notions from other psychologists, one can apply these to the German literary work, “The Sufferings of Young Werther.”
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe aims to reach into the stratosphere of mythological patricidal figures. Even though the main character of this story isn’t as ill-fated as Oedipus, or as godly as Cronus, his inner conflict is just as epic. The main character’s inner conflict is just as interesting as Poe’s actual life is. In particular, Poe’s relationship with his foster father may shed some light on the reason why the main character’s disposition is so hostile, murderous, and yet, oddly loving towards is father. Psychoanalytical criticism will help shed light on the repression, denial, and intellectualization of the main character and how it corresponds with Poe himself.
"Fragmentation of Personality as it Applies to the Character of Sabina in Anaїs Nin's The Spy in the House of Love, and the Works of Sigmund Freud"
By considering such arguments, psychoanalysis can be said to have no ultra fundamental meaning when assessing an author’s work. For former advocate of this analysis, Frederic...
The poetry of Sylvia Plath can be interpreted psychoanalytically. Sigmund Freud believed that the majority of all art was a controlled expression of the unconscious. However, this does not mean that the creation of art is effortless; on the contrary it requires a high degree of sophistication. Works of art like dreams have both a manifest content (what is on the surface) and latent content (the true meaning). Both dreams and art use symbolism and metaphor and thus need to be interpreted to understand the latent content. It is important to maintain that analyzing Plaths poetry is not the same as analyzing Plath; her works stand by themselves and create their own fictional world. In the poems Lady Lazarus, Daddy and Electra on Azalea Path the psychoanalytic motifs of sadomasochism, regression and oral fixation, reperesnet the desire to return to the incestuous love object.
Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary