Psychoanalytic Criticism The object of psychoanalytic literary

criticism, at its very simplest, can be the psychoanalysis of the author or of a

particularly interesting character in a given work

Background

Sigmund Freud 1856-1939 Provide the foundation forPsychoanalytic criticism

Model of human psyche Dynamic modelEconomic model Typographical model

Dynamic modelFreud asserted that our minds have a duality

consisting of the conscious ( rational ) and the unconscious (irrational) . The conscious ,Freud argued perceives and records external reality and is the reasoning part of the mind

The unconscious receives and stores our hidden desires ambitions , fears, and irrational thoughts,

parapraxes or Freudian slips

Economic modelFreud’s second model enlarges the ideas of

his previous model and add two concepts

Pleasure principle : craves only pleasures and it desires instantaneous satisfaction or instinctual drives, ignoring moral and sexual boundaries .

Reality principle : that part of the psyche that recognizes the need for societal standards and regulation on pleasure .

Typographical model (tripartite)The ID : containing our secret desires our

darkest wishes and our most intense fear , it houses the libido the source of al psychosexual desires

The ego : the rational, logical , waking part of the mind . Whereas the ID operates with pleasure principle , the ego operates in harmony with reality principle.

The superego: acts like internal sensor causing us to make moral judgments in light of social pressures , protecting us of the ID , representing all society restrictions

.

Significance of dreamAccording to Freud , even though the

passage into manhood or womanhood, may be successful , the child has stored many painful memories of repressed sexual desires, anger ,rage ,and guilt in his or her unconscious these feelings and emotions repressed come into the conscious in form of inferiority , irrational thoughts and feelings , dreams and nightmares

The psyche may create a window to the ID in a variety of ways through the process of :

Displacement: for example , the unconscious may switch a person’s hatred for someone named Mr. Appleby onto a rotting apple in a dream

Condensation: the psyche may consolidate one’s anger toward a variety of people or objects into a simple sentence

Assumptions One Freud’s assumptions is that all artist ,

including authors are neurotic unlike other neurotics artist escape from neurosis by creating his or her art

Motivation for writing any story is to gratify some secret desire , some forbidden wish that probably developed in the author’s infancy

Latent content : it is the wish of the dreammanifest content : when the unconscious

allow the dreamer to remember a somewhat changed and oftentimes radically different dream

Methodologypsychobiography : this method of analysis

begins amassing biographical information about the author through biographies , personal letters, and any other document related to the author

Canon : all the collected works

Yonic symbol(female): any concave images such as a flower , a cup

Phallic symbol(male): a tower , a sword , a pen

Thanks