Psychoanalytic Criticism

Content

• Psychoanalysis
• Freudian psychoanalytic critics
• Lacanian psychoanalytic critics
• (General) example

Psychoanalysis:

investigating interaction of conscious and unconscious in the mind

Founding Father: Freud

Depends on:

• unconscious
• repression
• sublimation

unconscious = decisive

repression of unconscious

sublimation of the repressed

three-part model:

• ego (consciousness)
• superego (conscience)
• id (unconscious)

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Sexuality

• Infantile sexuality
• Oedipus complex
• Libido

General drive

• Life instinct
• Death instinct

Defence mechanisms

• transference
• projection
• screen memory

transference of emotions

projection

screen memory

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Dream work

• displacement
• condensation
• censors the true wishes underneath the dream

displacement (metonymy)

condensation (metaphor)

Freudian psychoanalytical criticism

Characteristics

• distinction: conscious and unconscious
• unconscious motives of author or characters
• demonstrate presence of psychoanalytic concepts
• apply psychoanalytical concepts to literary history
• privileging individual drama above 'social' drama

Lacanian psychoanalytical criticism

Characteristics

• excavate text itself for unconscious motives
• demonstrate presence of Lacan theories (Imaginary, mirror-stage, Symbolic)
• treat literary text as part of broader Lacanian orientations (Lack or Desire)
• favour anti-realist text which challenges conventions of literary representation

(General) example

But in the meanwhile the Wolf went, with a grin,

At the Grandmother’s cottage to call;

He knocked at the door, and was told to come in,

Then he ate her up—sad cannibal!

Then the Wolf shut the door, and got into bed,

And waited for Red Riding Hood;

Psychological: The Wolf as humanity‘s animal instincts and specifically man‘s instinct to hunt women is clearly shown. The grandmother as an older non-fertile woman deserves little attention. The waiting and work for the nubile young girl is the primary focus of this wolfish being.

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