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I. Aims and Principles

Psychological approach to literature: most
controversial, most abused and least appreciated.
Our purposes:
1. to account briefly for the misunderstanding
psychological criticism.
2. to outline a psychological theory often used as an
interpretive tool by modern critics.
3. to show by examples how readers may apply this
model of interpretation to enhance their
understanding and appreciation of literature.
(p.152)
Limitation of Psychological
Approach
Every approach has its own peculiar limitation.
In psychology, the limitation is its aesthetic
inadequacy: it can seldom account for the beautiful
symmetry of a well-wrought poem or of a fictional
masterpiece.(p.153)

(advantage)
Abuse and Misunderstanding of
the Psychology Approach
Resulted from an excess of enthusiasm.
1. The practitioners of Freudian approach often push
their critical theses too hard.
2. The literature criticism of the psychoanalytic
extremists has at times degenerated into a special
occultism.(p.154)
3. Many critics of the psychological school have been
either psychology imperfectly or little feeling for
literature as art.
Freuds Theories
The foundation Freuds contribution: emphasis on the
unconscious aspects of the human psyche.
Iceberg
The Anatomy of the Mental
Personality
Discriminates between the levels of conscious and
unconscious mental activity.
We call a process unconscious when we have to
assume that it was active at a certain time, although at
that we no thing about it.
Most conscious processes are conscious for only a short
period; quite soon they become latent.(p.155)
Two kinds of unconscious
1. is transformed into conscious material easily and
under conditions which frequently arise.
2. transformation is difficult, can only come about with
a considerable expenditure of energy, or may never
occur at all.
Unconscious which is only latent, and can easily
become conscious, the preconscious, keep the name
unconscious for the other.
Major Premises
1. Most of the individuals mental processes are
unconscious.
2. All human behavior is motivated ultimately by what
we would call sexuality.(libido, or sexual energy)
3. Because of the powerful social taboos attached to
certain sexual impulses, many of our desires and
memories are repressed.
Three Psychic Zones
1. ID:
the reservoir of libido, the primary source of all
psychic energy.(p.156)
to fulfill the primordial life principlepleasure
principle.(an impulsion to obtain satisfaction for the
instinctual needs.)
Without consciousness or semblance of rational order,
the id is characterized by a tremendous and
amorphous vitality.
self-indulgence and even self-injury.(p.157)
Three Psychic Zones
2. EGO:
regulating agent protects the individual
be released in nondestructive behavioral patterns.
A large portion of the ego is unconscious, the ego
nevertheless comprises what we ordinarily think of as
the conscious mind.
is governed by reality principle.
Three Psychic Zones
3. SUPEREGO:
the other regulating agent protects the society.
Largely unconscious, the superego is the moral
censoring agency, the repository of conscience and
pride.(p.158)
attributes the development of the superego to the
parental influence.
An overactive superego creates an unconscious sense
of guilt.(guilt complex)
is dominated by the morality principle.
Sexual Theories
Freuds sexual theories to the symbolic interpretation
is mostly against by scholars.(p.159)
In dreams, concave images(ponds, flowers, cups or
vases, caves, and hollows) as female or yonic symbols.
Images that length exceed its diameter(towers,
mountain peaks, snakes, knives, lancers, and swords)
as male or phallic symbols.
Activities such as dancing, riding, and flying as
symbols of sexual pleasure.
Erogenous Zones
During the first five years, the child passes through a
series of phases in erotic development.(p.160)
Oral , anal, and genital.
These zones associate not only with pleasure in
stimulation but also with the gratification of our vital
needs.
If during childhood, the individual is not gratifying,
the adult personality may be warped.

0-1
1-3
3-6
6-12
12
Oedipus Complex
The child reaches genital zone around age 5, at the
time Oedipus complex manifests.
The boys unconscious rivalry with his father for the
love of his mother.
A fear of castration
An identification of the father with strict authority in
all forms the youth expressing his unconscious joy in
being released from parent.(p.161)
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