Lou Buscio Experiences in Literature 2-11-2014 Journal 5 Frankenstein on the couch: how literacy critics help us explore our

dreams, secret, and fears is the video I watched. In this video Dr. Sarah Barnsley explains her thoughts on how literacy critics help us explore our own minds. She starts with asking the crowd to think of the best thing that they have ever created and think why did they do it? After asking she explains what you would study in the University of London and then touch son her main point. The main point being that modern English studies are a lot more than just reading books, it has changed to humanities subjects like phycology, philosophy, sociology and etc. These subjects let us discover who we are and what it means to be human. She then moves on to explaining the different ideas of former literary critics and she starts with Freud. Talking about Freud she tells us his way of reading books to investigate how early childhood experiences may impact adult decisions. She then talks back about their best creations, and connects that with the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. This monster that is made on a cold, dreadful night in November was made to be a beautiful creation and turned horribly wrong. Barnsly uses different types of critics that analyzed this same story to prove her argument that these different analytic views can help you open your mind to literature. She does this when she explains Freuds conception of the mind in the three parts, the first part being the ego which is our conscious and present mind. Then comes the super-ego that is the part of the mind that serves consciousness and the Id where there is no conscious and holds the part of us that is wild and creeps out of us in dreams and

jokes. She goes on to say that the actual monster is the id of doctor Frankenstein conscious; it is a symbol of retreat into his own mind. Later in the presentation she talks about when Dr. Frankenstein tries to build a woman and he fails so he throws the remains and parts in to the dark sea in defeat. She uses another specific group to explain their theory of this event when she talks about a feminist group saying that he is throwing the concept of women hood away and that he cannot cope with female presence. Barnsley follows that by adding that feminist critics might also say that the rejection of women in this book reflects Mary Sherrys own experiences as one of the first female novelists struggling to be taken seriously. In this presentation I believe everything was clear and that she started by making the audience think and ended by making them believe that taking idea from the past and using them while reading literature will further help you understand the true meaning.