"The
dream-thoughts which we first come across as we proceed with our analysis often
strike us by the unusual form in which they are expressed; they are not clothed
in the prosaic language usually employed by our thoughts, but are on the
contrary represented symbolically by means of similes and metaphors, in images
resembling those of poetic speech" [Freud]
Freud employed the method of “reading” to
understand the unconscious or the hidden psyche of the patients who visited his
clinic. It was mainly done by making the
patient speak. By interpreting his/her
words the diagnosis was carried out. So
words were the key to the psyche of a person.
Psychoanalytic criticism adopts this method to interpret a text. Psychoanalytic
criticism argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret
unconscious desires and anxieties of the author. Here a literary work is seen as a
manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular
character created by the author within a literary work , but it is usually
assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Lacan is another important figure in
Psychoanalytic criticism who said “Unconscious
is structured like language”. Here
we will see only the theories of Freud that paved the path for the
Psychoanalytical Criticism. Lacan
started from where Freud stopped.
ONE
Language is the medium
through which unconscious expresses its desires.
Freud emphasized that language
concealed, revealed or modified hidden desires, anxieties and fears. LANGUAGE IS THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH
UNCONSCIOUS EXPRESSES ITS DESIRES.
Freud’s point was that desire does
not express easily because culture does not allow or facilitate it, and we need
to pay attention to language and other forms of symbolic expressions—gestures,
sounds, facial expressions, writing—to discover it.
This way Freud was exploring the link
between the language and the unconscious; a move that was to become the core of
both Psychoanalytic practice and criticism.
FREUD EXPLORED THE LINK BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS.
Literary
texts allow the unconscious to express itself.
This was Freud’s insight. THE MECHANISMS OF UNCONSCIOUS, OF DESIRES AND FEARS ALSO
REQUIRED AND ACQUIRED A LANGUAGE OF THEIR OWN.
TWO
SEXUALITY
Since
society is the drive that is most subject to the social and cultural norms of
control, classical Freudian theory emphasizes the role of the individual’s sexuality
in making of an unconscious.
Sexuality
is most controlled by the society.
Individual’s sexuality builds the unconscious, and it unconscious builds
the subjectivity, and subjectivity builds the human psyche.
The structure of the
human psyche
a. The Super-Ego;
Is what can be called our conscience. It is drawn from social settings and cultural
codes. It does influence the way the
conscious works.
b. The Ego [conscious mind]
Is the conscious mind, which we work with, use
and most aware of. It mediates between
ID and SUPER-EGO.
c. The Id;
This is an area of instincts, dreams,
desires and all that does not come to the fore in our consciousness. This is the unconscious.
THREE
PARAPRAXIS [Freudian slips]
Freud proposed that the human psyche has an area into which go all those
desires and fantasies that cannot be expressed.
The area is UNCONSCIOUS; because we are not aware of its existence.
Repression = is the process through which certain desires,
especially sexual, are pushed into the unconscious so that they do not
influence our daily lives and our conscious mind. [The concept of repression according
to Freud is the CORNERSTONE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS.]
However, what is repressed does
not always stay repressed. The unconscious
emerges in particular moments as images, dreams, jokes and even art. These jokes are known as Freudian slips
or Parapraxis.
For literary
criticism this (the emergence of the
unconscious in the form of art, dreams, jokes, images) is an important
insight. Freud was proposing that ART DRAWS UPON THE
UNCONSCIOUS for its themes and images.
FOUR
TWO PRINCIPLES
All human life, for Freud, is caught in the tensions generated by
two principles. They are:
1.
THE
PLEASURE PRINCIPLE, and,
2.
THE
REALITY PRINCIPLE.
The Pleasure Principle is one where all our acts are governed by
the need to attain pleasure and avoid ‘un-pleasure’. All acts are for pleasure.
The Reality Principle enables us to understand that our pleasure cannot
all be fulfilled the way we want them, and, therefore, inspire us to seek other
routes of attaining pleasure.
Five
Libido
Sexuality is the primary ‘drive’
in our subjectivity according to Freud. He termed this the libido. What gets repressed primarily is the sex
drive.
An
individual’s sexual identity is, hence, partly the result of expression of
desires and partly the condition caused by a repression of the same.
In order to
explain the sexual identity or libido of a
person Freud developed the idea of the OEDIPUS COMPLEX.
Six
The Oedipus Complex
Step
1.
The problem with sexual desires begins with the (male) child’s
dependency on the mother. Love for the
mother is a dominant theme in child’s psyche.
Step
2.
Soon the child sees his father as a rival for the mother’s love. The father restricts the child’s expression
of love through a threat (a threat that the child imagines) of castration.
Step
3. The child therefore begins to develop
fantasies of killing his father so that he (the child) will have no rivals for
his mother’s love. This fantasy is what
Freud famously called the Oedipus Complex.
Step
4.
Soon the child sees the father as possessing the greater authority in
the relationship (child-mother-father). This
marks the shift in affiliation; the child now seeing the father as the source
of all power and desire, shifts his focus to the father.
Step
5.
The desire for the mother is shut away in the unconscious when the child
accepts the law that “you shall not make love to your mother”. This law becomes the threshold of the
conscious-unconscious.
Seven
Taboo
For Freud the Oedipus complex is the source of all repressed
desire, the emblem of all that is repressed because even love is antagonistic in nature.
The Oedipus complex enabled Freud to argue that all desire, repression
and anxiety are based on the CONDITION OF PROHIBITION or what he termed Taboo.
The child never really overcomes the complex, but merely shuts it
away.
Eight
Dreams and Unconscious
Freud described dreams as the royal road to the unconscious, arguing that dreams provide us with the best
understanding of the repressed desires in us.
Dreams are codes, presenting themselves as complex images so that the repressing force is bypassed.
For Freud [this is the link to
psychoanalytic criticism] dreams are a language, the language of the
unconscious and of repressed desires. This
language is termed DREAM WORK.
Nine
Dream Work
Dream work has two central dimensions:
a.
LATENT DREAM CONTENT : IS THE ACTUAL
CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS THAT SEEKS EXPRESSION
b.
MANIFEST DREAM CONTENT: IS THE EXPRESSION
OF THE CONTENT IN THE FORM OF IMAGES OR EVENT IN ONE’S DREAM
Freud argued that the latent
dream content undergoes four process or stages—the dream work—before
it expresses itself in the manifest dream. They are:
1. Condensation: the latent content is condensed in the
manifest dream.
2. Displacement: here the latent dream content works as
association, and then is expressed in complex images.
3. Representation and
Representability: the language of
the dream often uses complex images that have no apparent basis in reality.
4. Secondary Revision: the dreamer himself/herself interprets the
dream, but revises it in the process.
Ten
Conclusion
To conclude, at this point it becomes
clear that for Freud;
a.
Art and dreams are both means of
expressing desires.
b.
Art and dreams are mechanisms of
avoiding the censorship that prohibits desire or its expression.
c.
Art and dreams bypass consciousness
when they express the repressed desires.
end
