PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM

            The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “psychoanalysis” as a form of therapy which aims to cure mental disorders by investigating the interaction of Conscious and Unconscious elements in the mind. Psychoanalytic criticism uses some of the concepts and techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature.

            Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychologist, is the first to develop the techniques of psychoanalysis and his ideas, in turn, have greatly influenced various disciplines. According to Freud, all our activities are prompted by a wish for pleasure. This is what he calls pleasure principle. He divides the human mind into three psychic zones – Id, Ego and Super-ego.

Id is the source of all instinctive energy and is the great reservoir of libido. Libido is the sexual energy or the prime psychic force. It is the region of passions and instincts. It is dominated by the pleasure principle. It is amoral, asocial and illogical. It has neither plan nor unity of purpose. All repressed impulses become merged into it.

Ego stands for realistic principle. It is rational and of governing nature. It prompts a person to be tactful and pragmatic. The chief functions of the Ego are to allow harmless gratification of the urges of the Id and to induce the Id to renounce, modify or postpone such gratification if it seems necessary. Though it is in control of the Id, the Ego does not succeed in suppressing all urges emanating from the Id.

The Super-ego stands for a perfection principle or a moral principle. It will not allow anything that does not have moral or social sanction. The Super-ego tries to destroy the instincts of the Id. The primary function of Super-ego is criticism and it creates in the Ego an unconscious sense of guilt. It is also the depository of all previous experiences including the purely instinctive ones.

Freud has written elaborately on the connection between art and neurosis. According to him, the repressed impulses, desires and wishes which are the contents of the Id appear in dream of wish fulfillment. He says that every writer is a neurotic. He succeeds in resolving his complexes by works of creation and attains a sense of release. The value of his work lies in the fact that it helps other people to realize their own conflicts and deal with them. It is also possible that the artist reflects the neurosis of his age in his work.

Freud considers dreams as the main outlet for repressed desires. Literature is considered to be something like dreams because literature, like dreams, communicates symbolically. According to Freud, literature is the “return of the repressed”. A literary piece is taken as the conscious (or the overt) and the interpretation of the “covert” or the unconscious is the aim of the psychoanalytic criticism. The unconscious is that of the author or the characters in the work and unveiling the psycho drama is the function of psycho-analytic criticism.

For example, hakespeare’s Hamlet has been studied from the psycho-analytic point of view. It has been argued that Hamlet has an Oedipus complex, a repressed desire for his own mother and a wish to remove his father. Hamlet’s uncle has done what Hamlet himself wishes to do, and as a result he is unable to take revenge on his uncle. This accounts for Hamlet’s dilemma and delay.