The Electra Complex

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THE ELECTRA COMPLEXIN

SYLVIA PLATHAND

ANNE SEXTONS POEMS

Shu-hua ChungApplied Foreign Languages, Tung-Fang Institute of Technology


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INTRODUCTION

one of the recurrent themes in theconfessional poetry which was a prominent

mode in the United States in the 1960s

and early 70s


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To explore the similarities and dissimilarities in SylviaPlath and Anne Sextons poetry ofthe theme of the

Electra complex

to examine their creation of the father image along

with their description of their ambivalent feelingstowards their fathers.

Purposes

Significance

To enrich the knowledge in literary criticism especially

in psychoanalysis


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LITERATURE REVIEW


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PSYCHOANALYSIS

responses to any and every kind of situation that

life presents. It is all forms of activities, experiences

and adjustment like perceiving, imagining, feeling,

thinking, remembering, and acting (Williams, 1997).

One of literary criticism which is pioneered by

Sigmund Freud


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SIGMUND FREUD

THEORY

Freud believed that the human

mind was composed of three

elements: the id, the ego, and

the superego. (Ridgway: 1990)

Psychoanalytic theory includes:1. Structural Theory

2. Libido Theory

3. Topographical Theory of mind

4. Theory of Narcissism

(Barry:2002)


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LIBIDO THEORY

o Libido theory assumes that biological needs

(drives) fuel behaviour.

o The aim of behaviour is to gratify the drive.

o Drives are either sexual or aggressive in nature.

o The discharge of libido is experienced as pleasure.

(Ridgway: 1990)


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ELECTRA COMPLEX

The Electra complex: is a collection of the

feelings a young girl has during their phallic

stage.

According to Freud, girls this age are supposed

to have very strong feelings for their father and

because of those feelings they develop a

jealousy toward their mother.

Sometimes the feelings are so strong that they

want to kill their mother.

(Freuds Psychosexual Theory, 1994)


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METHODOLOGY

Method

Descriptive analytical study

Approach

Psychoanalysis


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Source of Data

Sylvia Plaths poetry:

Full Fathom Five,

Electra on Azalea Path,

The Beekeepers Daughter,

TheColossus

Wintering

Anne Sextons poetry

The Moss of His Skin,

All My Pretty Ones,

And One for My Dame,

The Papa and Mama Dance,

BriarRose

Data

All phrases, words, sentences which shows the electra complex in each

poetry


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Data CollectionProcedures

1. Reading the poetry thoroughly

2. Identifying the data

3. Inventorying (list and put on table)

Data AnalysisTechnique

analysis is begun with analysis the data using electra

complex


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DATA

Full Fathom Five

Old man, you surface seldom. / Then you come in with thetides coming / When seas wash old, foam- / Capped: white

hair, white beard, far-flung, / A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves

/ Crest and trough. Miles long

Electra on Azalea Path

The day your slack sail drank my sisters breath / The flat seapurpled like that evil cloth / My mother unrolled at your last

homecoming

The Colossus,

A blue sky out of the Oresteia / Arches above us. O father, all

by yourself / You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum./ I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress. / Your fluted bones

and acanthine hair are littered

Briar Rose

I have kisses for the back of your neck. / A penny for your

thoughts, Princess. / I will hunt them like an emerald


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The Beekeepers Daughter,

My heart under your foot, sister of a stone

Wintering

Into which, on warm days, / They can only carry their

dead. / The bees are all women, / Maids and the long

royal lady. / They have got rid of the men, / The blunt,

clumsy stumblers, the boors

And One For My Dame

I sit at my desk / each night with no place to go, /

opening the wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo


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RESULT

In Full Fathom Five and in Electra on Alazea Plath

as Poseidon, compares his father death to

Agamemnons murder in connection with her fathers

funeral

And One for My Dame, exposing her privacy in

public, Sexton portrays her father as a born salesman

who sells wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.

In Briar Rose she showed her passion to be loved

by her father


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CONCLUSION

Both of the poetry shows their passion to be loved by

their fathers

Their past trauma showed their Electra Complex

Documents

The Electra Complex