PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The Psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud

“It was not I, but the poets who discovered the unconscious.’

The major criticism of psychological analysis results from the overuse of erotic symbolism by psychoanalytic critics.

Concave images = female or womb symbols: ponds, cups, caves, wells etc.

Images that have greater length than diameter = male or phallic symbols: swords, knives, towers, snakes, arrows, keys etc.

Freud asserts that:

1. The unconscious mind is pre-eminent

2. The psyche is organized into three zones: id, ego, and superego

3. Dreams are manifestations of the unconscious mind

4. Infantile behavior is basically erotic

5. Neurosis is closely related to creativity

The Unconscious Mind

Psychic Zones: Id, Ego, Superego

• ID – the pleasure principle

• EGO – the reality principle

• SUPEREGO – the morality principle

Dreams

• Deep hypnosis

• Unintentional expressions

• Dream analysis

Infantile Behavior

• Oral stage of development [Birth to one year]

• Anal stage of development [ One to three years]

• Phallic stage of development [Three to six years]– Oedipus complex– Electra complex

Neurosis and Creativity

Freud believed that literature was his laboratory

1. Psychoanalyze writers by viewing their works as expressions of neurotic tension produced by frustrated and repressed id drives

2. Psychological result of characters’ infancy and childhood problems

3. Repressions and complexes of society that writers are able to reveal

Hieronymus Bosch

Salvador Dali

Jackson Pollock

H. R. Giger