Psychoanalytic literary criticism Essays

  • Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

    2483 Words  | 5 Pages

    characters? Absolutely, most critics have adapted psychoanalytic literary criticism theory based upon the works of psychoanalysis by famous psychologists Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jacques Lacan to literary works. 'Psychoanalytic literary criticism does not constitute a unified field....However, all variants endorse, at least to a certain degree, the idea that literature...is fundamentally entwined with the psyche' (wiki).The three literary works which will be analyzed in this essay

  • Nella Larsen's Passing

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    familiar and unfamiliar. The uncanny can be defined as something that creates a feeling of familiarity but also unfamiliarity, and this unfamiliarity is what is fearful to the individual. Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” can be related to the field of literary criticism because he explains how the feeling of the uncanny relates to the author’s attempt to convey a certain response from their audience. This type of analysis bridges Freud’s work and Larsen’s novel in order to re-examine and debate certain moments

  • Heart of Darkness: Psychoanalytic Criticism

    4505 Words  | 10 Pages

    Heart of Darkness: Psychoanalytic Criticism Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated

  • Lacanian Psychoanalytic Criticism in Harry Potter

    4051 Words  | 9 Pages

    Lacanian Psychoanalytic Criticism in Harry Potter The inhabitants of a faraway country known for its ivory towers and for its export of literary monographs were forever quarreling over who might best represent them. One day two tiny factions decided to join forces: the adherents of the Princess Childlit and the followers of Prince Psychian, the great-great-grandson of Empress Psyche. Both groups had for a long time felt themselves unduly spurned… by the powerful Board of Canonizers who had

  • Five Ripe Pears Essay

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    Criticism of William Saroyans' Five Ripe Pears The boy declared that the pears were both the evidence of theft and the proof of innocence. In William Saroyans Novel, Five Ripe Pears, the critical approach that I decided to use is psychoanalytic criticism. I do know about Five Ripe Pears as a novel because I have done a paper on this novel before but I had no idea what psychoanalytic criticism was. Saroyans device of addressing Mr.Pollard (the principal) directly and using I really dominated

  • Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism On Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    998 Words  | 2 Pages

    A Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism on Kate Chopin's “The Awakening” Did you know that 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them? (Epstein par. 1). That the life they’ve experienced, sprouted, and learned countless lessons from giving them the initiative to write. That is exactly what Kate Chopin had in mind when she wrote the book, “The Awakening.” In, “The Awakening” Chopin writes about the culture she lived in, the situations she went through, and the feelings she felt in the society. “The

  • William Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    best known and most popular tragedies. Based on its popularity, critics alike have taken various viewpoints and theories in order to explain Hamlet's actions throughout the play. The psychoanalytic point of view is one of the most famous positions taken on Hamlet. Psychoanalytic criticism is a type of literary criticism that analyzes and classifies many of the forms of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. As the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines psychoanalysis, as a form of therapy

  • Psychoanalytic Criticism

    1152 Words  | 3 Pages

    Psychoanalytic Criticism Introduction The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud spent much of his life exploring the workings of the unconscious. Freud's work has influenced society in ways which we take for granted. When we speak of Freudian slips or look for hidden causes behind irrational behavior, we are using aspects of Freudian analysis. Many literary critics have also adopted Freud's various theories and methods. In order to define Freudian literary criticism, we will examine how various critics

  • My Antonia Essay: Psychoanalytic Criticism

    1867 Words  | 4 Pages

    Psychoanalytic Criticism of My Antonia Abstract: This essay uses psychoanalysis as the strategy of interpretation to read Willa Cather's My Antonia.  Freud's well-known theory--the Oedipus complex--and Lacan's theory of the Mirror Stage are used as the modes of approaching the novel. I use psychoanalytic criticism as a means of interpreting Willa Cather's My Antonia because I find some similarities between My Antonia and Peter Pan, between that and The Awakening when reading Keith Green's

  • Psychoanalytic Criticism on Emily Dickinson

    1087 Words  | 3 Pages

    Psychological criticism is known as the type of criticism that analyses the writer’s work within the realms of Freud’s psychological theories. Such approach can be used when trying to reconstruct an author’s position throughout their literary writings, as well as understanding whom the author was and how their mind created such works. When considering the work of Emily Dickinson, psychoanalytic criticism comes into play with the role of explaining the many meanings behind her poetry, as to make the

  • Comparing Sedgwick's Paranoid Reading And Reparative Reading

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    for the oscillatory linguistic meanings and identities that transcend realistic temporality, relying on a self-reflexive mode of criticism as a means of tracing linguistic development. However, its strong argument against the influence of literary canon is also its weakness, as it appears to reject the paranoid influence of canonical, philosophical texts in modern literary practices, including her own. As such, Alexander Veselovsky’s strand of

  • Critical Criticism Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    its first publication is 1962, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has endured both an extensive range and wide audience for criticism. Despite being published over 50 years ago, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has managed to maintain a firm readership due to its adjuration to both high and low literary audiences. While displaying a number of critical literary theories, this shows that Kesey’s novel remains open to a pop culture, yet at the same time provides sophisticated readers with a complex

  • The Freudian Model in Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    using that model I will explicate Conrad's ambiguous tone in Heart of Darkness. First, I must define each figure in Conrad's novel with its appropriate Freudian psyche. These psyche are defined in an essay by Ross C. Murfin's essay, "Psychoanalytic Criticism in The Awakening": "the human mind is essentially dual in nature. He called the predominately passional, irrational, unknown, and unconscious part of the psyche the id, or "it". The ego, or "I", was his term for the predominantly rational

  • Psychoanalytic Literary Analysis: Unveiling the Unconscious

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    from books and other literary works is known as psychoanalytic literary analysis. This analysis seeks to identify the nature of relationships between characters as well as the author’s relationship with the characters. In the analyses the critic will discuss interactions between characters and with the author and often go so far as to make assertions about the author’s conscious and unconscious reasons for telling their story in the way they did. While psychoanalytic criticism is well accepted it

  • Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory by Peter Barry

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory” by Peter Barry is a book that presents literary and cultural theory in a systematic, simple and coherent way. The book provides clear explanations and demonstrations of 12 important critical and cultural theories, the main ones include: Structuralism, Post Structuralism, Post Modernism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Feminism, Lesbian/gay criticism, Marxist criticism, New historicism, Postcolonial Criticism, Stylistics, Narratology and Ecocriticism

  • Althusser Critical Criticism

    2198 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chapter Five Contemporary Literary Theory and Culture The main aim of this study is to identify and evaluate Althusser’s thoughts on art, literature and criticism so as to determine his position as a literary critic in the context of Marxist literary theory and criticism. Apart from his socio-political and economic thoughts, Althusser, as we observe, possesses the significant attributes of a literary critic. The close analysis of this study opens up a number of possibilities for the new identification

  • The Introduction of Feminist Criticism

    1814 Words  | 4 Pages

    feminism. Such literary women as Austin, Brontës, Eliot and Dickenson appeared that time. In the early 20th century, women finally gained the suffrage which marked the climax of the women's liberation movement. In the 1960s, New Feminism concerned with the human rights for black people again came to its climax. This time, it was more pervasive and comprehensive in all fields of society, according feminist literary criticism found its way to critical theories. 2. Feminist Criticism Feminist criticism

  • Modernism and New Criticism

    2988 Words  | 6 Pages

    Modernism and New Criticism The ways in which we define the importance of texts is constantly changing. We can look back and see critical theories used, such as Historical Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism and Psychoanalytic Criticism. Each of these theories offers a different way to interpret a text. However, when looking back over the texts of a specific era, shouldn’t the type of criticism we used for a book be based on that time period? Defining the Modernist Era of literature seems

  • Introduction to Reading the Romance by Janice A. Radway

    2600 Words  | 6 Pages

    teaches in the literature program at Duke University. Before moving to Duke, she taught in the American Civilization Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She says that her teaching and research interests include the history of books and literary production in the United States, together with the history of reading and consumer culture, particularly as they bear on the lives of women. Radway also teaches cultural studies and feminist theory. A writer for Chronicle of Higher Education described

  • Ligeia as a Triumph Over Patriarchy

    3576 Words  | 8 Pages

    critics have searched for meaning within Poe's story of a beautiful woman who died and returned in another's body. While all critics have moved in different directions, many have arguably found an allegorical meaning behind the tale. Because many literary theories depend on each other, contemporary critics tend not to limit themselves to any single theory. Many critics employ multiple theoretical perspectives at once so that a text can be best understood. Many critics have looked to Poe's relationship