Critical Lenses

1. Critical Lenses Psychoanalytic Criticism: Freudian

2. Psychoanalytic criticism • Psychoanalysis seeks to understand • how human mental and psychological development occurs • how the human mind works • the causes and – hopefully – the cures for psychological problems

3. Psychoanalytic criticism • This information can be used to analyze literature using one of three approaches: • Psychoanalysis of the author • Psychoanalysis of the character(s) • Psychoanalysis of the audience

4. Freudian Criticism • Based on the work of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). • Earliest application focused on the text as a window into the psyche of the author – dream analysis • Later applied to character and reader analysis

5. Freudian Criticism “Freud’s Concept of the Personality.” Making the Modern World. The Science Museum. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. • The psyche • Id: desire, the pleasure principle • Ego: self, the reality principle • Superego: conscience, morals, the perfection principle (ego ideal)

6. Freudian Criticism • The mind • Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious • Hevern, V. W. “Theorists and Key Figures: E-F-G.” Narrative Psychology: Internet and Resource Guide. Le Moyne College, Mar. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.

7. Psychosexual Development Stages • 0-2 years: oral phase • Focus on mouth (nursing, thumb-sucking, etc.) • Mother becomes first “love-object”; Oedipus Complex • Id in control • 2-4 years: sadistic-anal phase • Connected with potty training; human desire to create and control • Ego develops

8. Psychosexual Development cont’d • 4-7 years: Phallic Phase • Separation of the sexes • Identifying with the same sex parent • Learn to delay gratification (ego strengthens) • Develop guilt and shame (superego) • 7-12 years: Latency Period • Repression of earlier sexual desires fantasy • Learn to adhere to the reality principle • Assertion of independence

9. Psychosexual Development cont’d • 13+ years: Genital Phase • Desire to procreate develops • Separation from parents asserted fully

10. Terms to know: • Repression • The stoppage of desires, actions, or impulses • Neuroses • Represents an instance where the ego’s efforts to deal with desires fails. • Transference • Placing desires for something or someone onto something or someone else

11. Parental Relationships • Relationship with parents is most significant determiner of how we will relate with others • We tend to seek life partners who resemble our opposite-sex parent • Id desires the destruction of the same-sex parents and union with the opposite-sex parent: Oedipus Complex (Electra)

12. Freudian Critical Questions • For psychobiography (focus on author) • To what extent does the text reveal the author’s repressed desires? • What conflicts exist among the author’s id, ego, and superego? • Does the text indicate any problems in the author’s psychosexual maturation process (e.g. Oedipus Complex, oral fixation, etc.)?

13. Freudian Critical Questions • For psychoanalysis of character(s) • In what way does the text reflect the psychosexual development of the character? • Does the character demonstrate any neuroses or psychoses? • Is the character’s behavior indicative of or influenced by repressed desires or conflicts among the id, ego, and superego?

14. Freudian Critical Questions • For psychoanalysis of audience • What is the source of the text’s appeal to the audience? • Does it reflect universal issues of psychosexual development? • Does it allow the reader to vicariously experience repressed desires?