Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930s-present)

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalytic criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology. While we don't have the
room here to discuss all of Freud's work, a general overview is necessary to explain
psychoanalytic literary criticism.

The Unconscious, the Desires, and the Defenses

Freud began his psychoanalytic work in the 1880s while attempting to treat behavioral disorders
in his Viennese patients. He dubbed the disorders 'hysteria' and began treating them by
listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this work, Freud asserted that
people's behavior is affected by their unconscious: "...the notion that human beings are
motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware..."
(Tyson 14-15).

Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these
events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and
pleasure where children focus "...on different parts of the body...starting with the
mouth...shifting to the oral, anal, and phallic phases..." (Richter 1015). These stages reflect base
levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents,
loss of life) and repression: "...the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological
events" (Tyson 15).

Tyson reminds us, however, that "...repression doesn't eliminate our painful experiences and
emotions...we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to 'play out'...our conflicted
feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (15). To keep all of this conflict
buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception,
selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of
death, among others.

Id, Ego, and Superego

Freud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the
mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood:
• id - "...the location of the drives" or libido
• ego - "...one of the major defenses against the power of the drives..." and home of the
defenses listed above
• superego - the area of the unconscious that houses Judgment (of self and others) and
"...which begins to form during childhood as a result of the Oedipus complex" (Richter
1015-1016)
Oedipus Complex

Freud believed that the Oedipus complex was "...one of the most powerfully determinative
elements in the growth of the child" (Richter 1016). Essentially, the Oedipus complex involves
children's need for their parents and the conflict that arises as children mature and realize they
are not the absolute focus of their mother's attention: "the Oedipus complex begins in a late
phase of infantile sexuality, between the child's third and sixth year, and it takes a different form
in males than it does in females" (Richter 1016).

Freud argued that both boys and girls wish to possess their mothers, but as they grow older
"...they begin to sense that their claim to exclusive attention is thwarted by the mother's
attention to the father..." (1016). Children, Freud maintained, connect this conflict of attention
to the intimate relations between mother and father, relations from which the children are
excluded. Freud believed that "the result is a murderous rage against the father...and a desire to
possess the mother" (1016).

Freud pointed out, however, that "...the Oedipus complex differs in boys and girls...the
functioning of the related castration complex" (1016). In short, Freud thought that "...during the
Oedipal rivalry [between boys and their fathers], boys fantasized that punishment for their rage
will take the form of..." castration (1016). When boys effectively work through this anxiety,
Freud argued, "...the boy learns to identify with the father in the hope of someday possessing a
woman like his mother. In girls, the castration complex does not take the form of anxiety...the
result is a frustrated rage in which the girl shifts her sexual desire from the mother to the father"
(1016).

Freud believed that eventually, the girl's spurned advances toward the father give way to a desire
to possess a man like her father later in life. Freud believed that the impact of the unconscious,
id, ego, superego, the defenses, and the Oedipus complex was inescapable and that these
elements of the mind influence all our behavior (and even our dreams) as adults - of course this
behavior involves what we write.

Freud and Literature

So what does all of this psychological business have to do with literature and the study of
literature? Put simply, some critics believe that we can "...read psychoanalytically...to see which
concepts are operating in the text in such a way as to enrich our understanding of the work and,
if we plan to write a paper about it, to yield a meaningful, coherent psychoanalytic
interpretation" (Tyson 29). Tyson provides some insightful and applicable questions to help
guide our understanding of psychoanalytic criticism.

Typical questions:
• How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work?
• Are there any Oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics - at work here?
• How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of
psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example, fear or fascination with death,
sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a primary
indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)?
• What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author?
• What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological
motives of the reader?
• Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings?
Could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"?
OWL Purdue Uni ni gikan, Ma'am Beck.