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Literary analysis macbeth
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One of the facets of psychoanalytic theory is the role of the unconscious and the conscious. In the text, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice Charles Bressler claims that Freud’s contemporaries viewed the conscious as only observing and recording external reality and claimed that the conscious accounted for the basis of reason and analytical thought while the unconscious merely accumulates and retains our memories (121). Therefore, many psychoanalytic theorists believed that the conscious was solely accountable for our behavior and daily actions (Bressler 121). However, Freud challenged this widely accepted notion by claiming that the unconscious not only stores our memories but also includes our suppressed and unresolved conflicts (Bressler 121). Freud also argued that the unconscious also collects and accrues our hidden desires, ambitions, fears and passions (Bressler 121). Consequently, Freud asserted that the unconscious guides a significant part of our actions and behaviors by amassing disguised truths and hidden desires that want to be exposed through the conscious (Bressler 121).
In Jacques Lacan’s essay “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud,” he agrees with Freud’s claims that the unconscious influences our behavior and actions. As a result, Lacan created three different categories to explain the transformation from infant to adulthood, namely need, demand, and desire and labeled these three psychoanalytic orders, as the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real stage.
Lacan claims that during the Symbolic stage the child is initiated to language, and the unconscious and repression appear in the psyche. The child now learns that words symbolize objects, and he ...
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... theory of metonymical language. Moreover, Lacan’s theory of metaphor is clearly evident in the skillful writing of Shakespeare escalating metaphors of guilt. Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is often viewed as a tale of greed and ambition. However, read from a psychoanalytic context, the play could have a much deeper meaning about our unconscious desires.
Works Cited
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 5th ed. 2011.
Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David Richter. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. 1123-1128. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1915. Google Books.
Web. 3 Sept. 2014.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
Hall, gives a wonderful explanation of psychoanalysis and includes Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. He interprets the ideal of how both Freud and Lacan view psychoanalysis and their similarities as well differences. The story: As you get into it, you find very interesting facts about the way human behavior can be the start of psychoanalysis issues. David S. Jeffrey, Ph.D. Psychology Concepts and Applications. Boston: Charles Hartford, 2003.
Pressure is inevitable – it is something that is felt by all, whether the source is from within or as a result of other people and events. Throughout Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the main character is faced with many pressures, both internal and external. Although his pressures are external at first, they later become internal and affect his character as well as his sanity. Macbeth feels externally pressured by his wife and the three apparitions given to him by the witches. Consequently, he begins to feel mentally pressured by his fear to secure the throne, his paranoia, and his sense of tyranny and blood lust. These pressures cause his character to change, which leads him into greater downfall. When one is faced with pressure, both from within or from an outer source, their character is greatly influenced and subject to many changes.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism. (3rd ed.) Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. 2003
In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the protagonist, Macbeth, murders the king of Scotland and eventually murders several other people. In the end, Macbeth meets his tragic fate of being killed by the nobleman Macduff. Throughout the play, Macbeth makes decisions that affect his fate, but other characters manipulate his choices and his actions. Early in the play Macbeth, Macbeth has control over his actions, but due to the influence of other characters and his subsequent insanity, by the end of the play, Macbeth has no control over his fate.
Freud begins to create the map of mental life through the ideas of the ego, the id, and the superego. The ego, or consciousness, is the manner in which a person first realizes tha...
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. Print.
Macbeth, one of the darkest and most powerful plays written by Shakespeare, dramatizes the disastrous psychological effects that occur when evil is chosen to fulfill the ambition for power. Throughout the play, Macbeth’s character loses mental stability and becomes enthralled with the idea of being king. Empowered by the three witches, this situation consumes Macbeth’s consciousness until his mental state becomes deranged. This mental deterioration is evident in what he says and does as he evolves into a tyrannical ruler attempting to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. In an attempt to fulfill his ambition for power, Macbeth displays mental deterioration and becomes increasingly bloodthirsty.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. Print.
Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an
Forum 19.4 (Winter 1985): 160-162. Rpt. inTwentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 192. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is “accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance” (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has “very strong resistances” to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which “contains everything…that is present at birth… – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization” (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes “under the influence of the real external world” (14). This changed portion b...
According to Jacques Lacan, desire arises from lack and one lacks what one desires. Thus it seems to be a paradoxical situation at the outset. Lacan has explained the concept of desire and lack by taking an infant as his subject. He describes the transition from infancy to childhood in different stages i.e. the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. Imaginary is the state of infant’s oneness with the mother. Here the concept of “the mirror stage” is introduced by Lacan. The mirror stage is a bridge between imaginary and symbolic order. When the infant sees his image in the mirror, he identifies himself with that ideal image which is unified as compared to his own fragmentary experience. So, there comes a split in the infant which is further aggravated through his entrance into the symbolic order i.e. social structures and laws embodied in language. The subject gets divided. The subject feels alienated because he is lacking ...
In terms of the unconscious and conscious, Freud situates these conceptions in a topographic model of the mind. He divided it into two systems called the unconscious and the preconscious. Their knowledge in the unconscious system is repressed and unavailable to consciousness without overcoming resistances (e.g., defense mechanisms). Thereby, the repression does not allow unconscious knowledge to be completely aware; rather, it is construed by means of concealing and compromise, but only interpretable through its derivatives dream and parapraxes that overcome resistance by means of disguise and compromise. Within the preconscious system, the contents could be accessible, although only a small portion at any given moment. Unconscious thought is characterized by primary process thinking that lacks negation or logical connections and favors the over-inclusions and 'just-as' relationships evident in condensed dream images and displacements. Freud asserted that primary process of thinking was phylogenetically, and continues to be ontogenetically, prior to secondary process or logical thought, acquired later in childhood and familiar to us in our waking life (1900, 1915a).