Definition Psychoanalytic criticism applies the psychological principle and theory of how and why people behave to literature to interpret and evaluate it Focus Tenet Main Points Key Concepts Most of the individuals mental processes are unconscious ID: 619145
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Slide1
Psychoanalytic TheorySlide2
Definition
Psychoanalytic criticism applies the psychological principle and theory of how and why people behave to literature to interpret and evaluate it.Slide3
FocusSlide4
Tenet/ Main PointsSlide5
Key Concepts
Most of the individual’s mental processes are unconscious
All human behavior is motivated ultimately by sexuality (libido)
Due to social taboos most sexual impulses, desires, and memories are repressed in human behaviorSlide6
Assumptions
The unconscious mind dominates the conscious mind
The unconscious mind expresses itself through symbols such as in dreams
Sexuality is a motivating force in human behaviorSlide7
Unconscious
The unconscious is the storehouse of those painful experiences and emotions, those wounds, fears, guilty desires and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know about because we feel we will be overwhelmed by them.Slide8
Symbolism
Freud: Behavior is motivated by sex
Some symbols are so ingrained in Id
Some have similar meanings for all peopleSlide9
Psychoanalytic critics look for
Sexual implications of symbols and imagery
Sexual development
Oedipus complexSlide10
Psychoanalytic Theory IcebergSlide11
Dreams
Fulfillment of repressed wishes coded in symbols
Latent Dreams
Manifest DreamsSlide12
Dreams
When we are asleep the unconscious is free to express itself and it does so in our dreamsSlide13
Stages of Psychosexual DevelopmentSlide14
Defense mechanism
Our unconscious desires not to recognize or change our destructive behaviors- because we have formed our identities around them and because we are afraid of what we will find if we examine them too closely- are served by our defenses.Slide15
Defense mechanisms
Defenses are the processes my which the contents of our unconscious are kept in the unconscious. In other words, they are the processes by which we keep the repressed repressed in order to avoid knowing what we feel we can’t handle knowing.Slide16
Defense mechanisms
Selective perception: Hearing and seeing only what we feel we can handle
Selective memory: modifying our memories so that they don’t feel overwhelmed or forgetting painful events entirely
Denial: believing that the problem doesn’t exist for the unpleasant incidents never happenedSlide17
Defense mechanisms
Avoidance: staying away from people or situations that are liable
and make
us
anxious, steering
up some unconscious
Displacement: taking it out on someone or something than the person who caused our fear, hurt, frustration or anger
Projection: attributing our fear problem or a guilty desire to someone else and then condemning him or her for in order to deny that we have it ourselvesSlide18
Defense mechanism
Regression:
Temporary
return to a former psychological state which is not just imagined but relieved. Regression can involve either return to a painful or a pleasant experience. It is a defense because he carries out thoughts away from some present difficulty. For example Willy
Loman
in
Death of a Salesman
flashbacks to his past lifeSlide19
Question to ask about literary texts
How does repression shape the work? Remember, the unconscious consists of repressed wounds, fear, unresolved conflicts and guilty desires.
Arthur any Oedipal dynamics or any other family dynamics ? That is, is it possible to relate the characters’ pattern of behavior to early experiences in the family as represented in the story?Slide20
Questions to ask about literary texts
How can character’s behavior, events and images be explained in terms of the cycle analytics concepts of any kind? For example, regression, projection, fascination with sexuality which includes love, romance as well as sexual behavior for the operations of
Ego,Id
, and Superego.Slide21
Questions to ask about literary texts
What doesn’t work suggest about the psychological being of its author?