1. Psychoanalytic Criticism

2. Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychoanalytical criticism examines:
How human mental and psychological development occurs
How the human mind works
The root causes of psychological problems
How the id, ego, and superego are represented

3. Psychoanalytic Criticism
This information can be used to analyze literature using two different approaches:
Psychoanalysis of the author
This often requires research of the author’s life, but some academics make inferences based on the author’s writing
Psychoanalysis of the character(s)

4. Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychoanalytic Criticism is an application of the specific psychological principles of
Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.

5. Key Terms
Unconscious: the irrational part of the psyche unavailable to a person’s consciousness except through dissociated acts or dreams. Id
Ego
Superego

6. The Id, the Ego, the Superego
ID SUPEREGO

8. Freud’s model of the psyche:

9. Lacan’s model of the psyche:

10. Lacan’s model of the psyche:
Imaginary—a preverbal/verbal stage (6-18 months of age)
Development of a sense of separateness from her mother as well as other people and objects; however, the child’s sense of self is still incomplete.
Symbolic—the stage marking a child’s entrance into language (the ability to understand and generate symbols)
Shifts the attention to the father who, in Lacanian theory, represents cultural norms, laws, language and power.

11. Lacan’s model of the psyche:
Real—an unattainable stage representing all that a person is not and does not have.
Both Lacan and his critics argue whether the real order represents the period before the imaginary order when a child is completely fulfilled—without need or lack
or if the real order represents our “perennial lack” (because we cannot return to the state of wholeness that existed before language).

12. Lacan’s model applied to Hamlet
Act
Can you identify any repressed urges that Hamlet may be dealing with at this moment?
What might Hamlet’s id be telling him and how do you know this?
What does Hamlet’s superego tell him and how do you know this?
What conflict might these messages create?
Why do you think Gertrude remarried so quickly?

13. Psychoanalytical Critical Questions
For psychoanalytical criticism that focuses on
the author:
To what extent does the text reveal the author’s repressed desires?
What conflicts exist among the author’s id, ego, and superego?
Does the text indicate any problems in the author’s psychosexual maturation process (e.g. Oedipus Complex, oral fixation)?

14. Psychoanalytical Critical Questions
For psychoanalytical criticism that focuses on
the character(s):
In what way does the text reflect the psychosexual development of the character?
Does the character demonstrate any neuroses or psychoses?
Is the character’s behavior indicative of or influenced by repressed desires or conflicts among the id, ego, and superego?