psychoanalytical criticism

• Sigmund Freud


  The father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist, and influential thinker of the early twentieth century
• Sigmund Freud


  • Articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression
  • Most noted for his research involving the "oedipus and electra complex"
• Id, ego, superego


  Freud saw the psyche structured into three parts, all developing at different stages in life
• Id


  • The primitive and instinctual part of the mind
  • Sexual and aggressive drives
  • Composed of libido (eros) and instinct (thanatos)
  • Responds directly to instinct
  • Present since birth
  • Pleasure principle - instant gratification
• Ego


  • Develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world
  • Comparable to reasoning
  • Uses realistic principals to satisfy the needs of the id
  • Calculates actions and consequences
  • Realization of right and wrong
  • Pleasure driven, but weighs options
• Superego


  • Incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others
  • Develops at ages 3-5
  • The concepts of morality / deny the id
  • The conscience self - the conscience can punish the ego resulting in guilt
  • The moral self drives our aspirations and "ought to's"
• Psychoanalytical criticism


  • Adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts
  • It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses
• Freud's psychoanalytic work


  1. Began in the 1880's while attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his Viennese patients

  2. Dubbed the disorders "hysteria" and began treating them by listening to his patients talk through their problems
• Unconscious


  • Influenced by childhood events
  • People develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death
• Psychoanalytic criticism: The Governess


  • A dramatization of a woman's psychosexual problem and the damage it does to the children in her charge
  • Ghosts explained through female hysteria and human physiognomy
  • Peter Quint: the projection of her own sexual hysteria in the form of stereotypes deeply embedded in the mind of the culture
  • The governess tries to block the emergence of the emerging sexuality of her charges, thus damaging their natural development
  • The governess is from a sheltered religious background - inexperienced, vulnerable, and susceptible to romantic emotions
  • The image of Peter Quint is the embodiment of the governesses puritanical fear of evil, which in Victorian times tended to mean sexual evil
  • It is not a ghost story but a psychological drama about the disastrous effects of Victorian sexual attitudes on the development of children
• Reader response


  • Focuses on the reader and their experiences of a literary work in contrast to other schools and theories
  • Focuses on the sole interpretation of the reader
  • Reader is important because they bring the work to "life"
  • Originated in the 1970's
  • Informed reader: someone who is experienced as a reader to have internalized the properties of literary discourse, including everything from the most local of devices, and is also in full possession of the "semantic knowledge"
  • Implied reader: hypothetical reader that a work addressed to who's thoughts, attitudes may differ from the actual reader to mean the reader "created by the work"
• Feminist strategy


  • Since the early 1970's, three strains have emerged: French, American, and British
  • French feminist focuses on language, analyzing the ways in which meaning is produced
  • American feminist began by analyzing texts rather than philosophizing abstractly about language
  • British feminists believe that American opposition to males stereotypes that denigrate women have often led to counter stereotypes of feminine virtue that ignore real differences of race, class, and culture among women
  • Began as a result of sweeping political and industrial changes in Europe and the U.S
  • Rooted in France
  • In 1610, a French noblewoman started the first salon which offered the first outlet for educated women to engage in such conversation with men
  • Revolutionary war (1774) and French revolution (1789): advanced the concepts of women's freedom
  • During the conflict in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft "Vindication of the Rights of Women" which argued for the equal education of women
  • Dates back to with female authors such as George Elliot and Margaret Fuller
  • First (19th and 20th century): concerned with women's right to vote, property, and the ownage of married women by their husbands
  • Second (1960's and 1980's): mostly concerned with discrimination and equality
  • Third (1990's): aimed to fixed problems with the second wave and responding to backlash
  • Fourth (2012-present day): focuses on women empowerment and the use of the internet as a tool for spreading the movement
  • Feminist theory: aims to understand the gender inequality between genders
  • Feminist criticism is concerned with the way that literature and society reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of women
  • In ancient Greece, Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman consul argued "as soon as they begin to be your equals, they will have become your superiors"
  • Formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that of boys
  • Problem with the story is that the strict viewpoint of a female is portrayed from a male writer
• Marxist theory


  • A theory of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict involving materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation
  • Originated from the works of Karl Marx German philosophers
  • Started eighty years before the Bolshevik revolution and has been thriving since the 1940's mainly in the West
  • Marxist perspective began to evoke in 1917 in Russia
  • Marxists generally view literature "not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria but as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era
  • Marxism emerged as a deviation from traditional philosophies and tried to change the perspective of how people used to view and interpret the world
• Deconstruction


  • Criticism that involves how a text contradicts itself
  • J. Hillis Miller said that "deconstruction is not the dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself"
  • Based around binary oppositions
  • One of the things of the opposition is often seen as a positive, and the other is often seen as negative
  • Created by philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1960's
  • Derrida was inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes
  • The term was introduced in Derrida's 1967 book "Of Grammatology"
  • Started by looking for things that counter the intended meaning or unity of a text
  • Deconstruction is only one kind of poststructuralist criticism, or can even be seen as poststructuralism itself
  • For instance, the governess could be seen as psychotic (creating the ghosts in her own head), or sane and actually seeing ghosts while everyone else is crazy
  • Miles could be aware that there is ghosts, and is just playing with the governess's head; or just an innocent boy that does not know what he has seen
  • Peter Quint could be seen as being "too free" with everyone, although some would argue that he is misunderstood
  • Flora could be seen as an innocent girl, or contemplating vicious plans
  • Shoshana Felman points out that in the last chapter, the word "grasp" is used both at the beginning and end of the final chapter, but has a dual meaning - at the beginning, the means to understand, but at the end, it means to literally grasp something or someone
  • Felman goes on to point out how this need to mentally grasp something also applies to the reader
• Persuasive techniques


  • Pathos: an appeal to emotion
  • Logos: an appeal to logic or reason
  • Ethos: an appeal to credibility or character
  • Avant garde: suggestion that using this product puts the user ahead of the times
  • Weasel words: used to suggest a positive meaning without actually really making any guarantees
  • Magic ingredients: suggestion that some almost miraculous discovery makes the product exceptionally effective
  • Patriotism: suggestion that purchasing this product shows your love for your country
  • Transfer: positive words, images, and ideas are used to suggest that the products are being sold is also positive
  • Plain folks: suggestion that the product is a practical product of good value for ordinary people
  • Snob appeal: suggestion that the use of the product makes the customer part of the elite group with a luxurious and glamorous lifestyle
  • Bribery: offers you something "extra"
  • Bandwagon: suggestion that you should join the crowd or be on the winning side by using a product