LEARNER’S HANDOUT!

ID - Motivated by instinct, the id contains the

libido along with urges and impulses that we
PSYCHOANALYTIC LITERARY typically do not give into.
CRITICISM EGO - acts as the intermediary between the id
and the socially oriented external world.
- Adopts the methods of "reading" employed by SUPEREGO - the voice of our conscience and
Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. also our self-criticism.
- Seeks evidence of unresolved emotions,
psychological conflicts, guilts, ambivalences, 2. Dreams
that a literary work is a manifestation of the
author's own neuroses Freud thought of dreams as the ultimate insight into
- Author's own childhood traumas, family life, an individual’s unconscious mind. This was based
sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be on a dream that he had in 1895 about a patient, Irma,
traceable who was not responding well to treatment. Freud
- Validates the importance of literature, as it is dreamt that Irma’s condition was caused by an
built on a literary key for the decoding. infected syringe that was used by her previous
doctor. This lead Freud to conclude that dreams
FOUNDER function as a wish fulfilment exercise for our
There are two influential psychoanalytical theorists: unconscious mind.

Sigismund ‘Sigmund’ Schlomo Freud (May 6,1856 to Dream terminology

September 23, 1939)
two types of content:
• The founder of psychoanalysis, was born in
Austria and spent most of his childhood and adult life in
manifest - the dreamer’s memories that have
Vienna (Gay, 2006). He entered medical school and
materialised in their dream
trained as a neurologist, earning a medical degree in
1881. latent - the symbolic or underlying interpretation of that
• Soon after his graduation, he set up in private dream
practice and began treating patients with psychological
Displacement involves dreaming of one thing as another
disorders. His colleague Dr. Josef Breuer’s intriguing
thing, usually with that thing taking on a symbolic
experience with a patient, “Anna O.,” who experienced a
meaning.
range of physical symptoms with no apparent physical
cause (Breuer & Freud, 1895/2001) drew his attention. Condensation is the act of combining multiple images
• Dr. Breuer found that her symptoms abated or symbols into one thing. This allows for symbols in
when he helped her recover memories of traumatic dreams to take on multiple meanings.
experiences that she had repressed from conscious
Freud calls the process of translating an individual’s
awareness. This case sparked Freud’s interest in the
unconscious desires into the manifest content
unconscious mind and spurred the development of some
dreamwork. Dreamwork transforms the wishes of the id
of his most influential ideas. (which may be forbidden or socially unacceptable) into a
more palatable form in an individual’s dream.
PROPOSED:
1. The unconscious mind Secondary elaboration refers to the unconscious mind
ordering a sequence of wish-fulfilment events into an
According to Freud, the unconscious is a part of the order that is believable to the dreamer, thus hiding the
mind that you are not aware of. It sits outside the latent content of the dream.
conscious mind and contains elements of repressed
or forgotten memories and urges that the individual
either cannot acknowledge or refuses to
acknowledge in their conscious mind.

3. Oedipus complex
The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) was when • His teachings and writings explore the
Sigmund Freud first introduced the theory of the significance of Freud’s discovery of the
Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex is named unconscious both within the theory and practice of
after the eponymous main character of Sophocles’ analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide
Oedipus Rex (429 BC). Oedipus was abandoned as range of other disciplines.
an infant after a prophecy that he would grow up to
kill his own father and marry his own mother. He • He re-conceptualized Freud’s theory of the
was eventually rescued and adopted by another unconscious by delving into the self as the human
King until he came across the prophecy himself and, being is created through social interaction i.e.
unaware that he was adopted, left his parents in culture (language) which creates desire.
order to protect them from his fate. On the journey
away from his supposed parents, Oedipus Mirror stage
unknowingly meets his biological father and kills
him in an argument. He then arrives at Thebes, This refers to the period when a child develops a sense
where he solves a riddle from the Sphinx and of self through noticing a distinction between the self
marries the newly widowed Queen Jocasta, as a and the other. Lacan named this stage the ‘mirror stage’
reward. After a plague strikes Thebes, Oedipus as it is around this period that a child will recognise their
makes the gradual discovery that he has married his own image in a mirror, suggesting that they have
own mother, whom he widowed by killing his own developed the concept of self identity. This is also the
stage in which language emerges.
father, thus fulfilling the oracle’s prophecy.
Three ‘orders’ to the mind: the symbolic, the
Drawing from this story, Freud puts forward the
imaginary, and the real.
suggestion that both modern and classical audiences
were captivated by Oedipus as it depicts a Symbolic is a register that encapsulates things like the
subconscious desire that all humans experience as law, language, and tradition. It is the symbolic register
children. According to Freud, all sons and daughters that affords us names and the ability to communicate
develop a sexual attraction to their parent of the through language, and our relationship with our own
opposite sex. Not only do they desire that parent, relatives are governed by the symbolic register.
but they also desire to kill the other parent due to
Real As Lacan explains, whatever we do not say or
viewing them as competition for their desired
symbolise through communication, we leave in the ‘real’
parent’s affection. For Freud, this was an essential
register.
part of a child’s development process.
Imaginary is the relation between the self and the self
PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT image. Lacan theorised that when identifying one’s
image in the mirror, the disharmony between the
• Oral cohesive image and the fragmented self produces the ego
• Anal (not to be confused with Freud’s definition of the ego).
• Phallic
• Latency Psychoanalytic literary criticism focuses on the
• Genital following:

1. The mind of the author: psychoanalytic

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (April 13, 1901 to literary criticism treats the work of the
September 9, 1981) author as a manifestation of their own
unconscious desires. A psychoanalytic
• He was a major figure in Parisian reading may attempt to relate certain aspects
intellectual life for much of the twentieth century. of a text to its author’s life to give the text a
Sometimes referred to as “the French Freud,” he is psychoanalytically biographical meaning.
an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. 2. The mind of the characters:
psychoanalytic literary criticism can be used
to analyse and explain the motivations and
actions of certain characters in an author's
 work. This is the most common form of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism - Key
analysis, which we will apply to Hamlet takeaways
(below).
3. The mind of the audience: Freud makes • Psychoanalytical readings focus on the
references to universal anxieties and desires relationship between literature, the
that we, as human beings, all innately share. unconscious mind and our conscious actions
Psychoanalytic literary criticism can be used and thoughts.
to explain why certain works are very • There are two influential psychoanalytical
appealing to a wide audience, as it appeals to theorists: Sigmund Freud and Jaques Lacan.
the universal unconscious mind. • Freud developed theories on the Oedipus
4. The text: psychoanalytic literary criticism Complex and the interpretation of Dreams.
can be used to analyse why certain linguistic He also developed ideas about our
and symbolic choices are made by the author unconscious mind and separated our psyches
to be used in a text. into the id, ego and superego.
• Lacan expanded on Freud through
Theory Benefit: developing the mirror stage theory, and
Outside of knowing of the author’s life to understand the separating the psyche into the symbolic, real
text, psychologically, readers can also understand the and imaginary realm.
character/s’ mind by what they go through within the
story, especially if they have psychological problems.
Theory Disadvantage:
Theorists tend to ask questions that relate to the author’s
past and the mind state of the reader when interpreting
the text which poses problems if the reader’s state of
mind is in the positive or negative of what the author’s
state of mind was or the condition of what the story is.

Questions of Psychoanalytic Theorists to Interpret a

Text:

Through understanding the text’s author and

characters readers can begin to understand their own
psyche and how it plays out in society.

• How do operations of repression structure

the world of the text? What repressed
desires/wounds lie underneath?
• Where are there oedipal (family/sexual)
dynamics? Where are the patterns in
behaviors in the character/s?
• Can character’s behavior/motivation be
explained psychologically? Is this behavior
a product of the culture it’s around?
• What dreamlike symbols can be
identified? Are there any phallic symbols?
• What do these repressed symbols/desires/
fears suggest about the author?
 the paper until everyone has drawn. He calls all the
The Lottery names, greeting each person as they come up to
draw a paper. Mr. Adams tells Old Man Warner that
The villagers of a small town gather together in the people in the north village might stop the lottery,
square on June 27, a beautiful day, for the town and Old Man Warner ridicules young people. He
lottery. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but says that giving up the lottery could lead to a return
there are only 300 people in this village, so the to living in caves. Mrs. Adams says the lottery has
lottery takes only two hours. Village children, who already been given up in other villages, and Old
have just finished school for the summer, run Man Warner says that’s “nothing but trouble.”
around collecting stones. They put the stones in
their pockets and make a pile in the square. Men Mr. Summers finishes calling names, and everyone
gather next, followed by the women. Parents call opens his or her papers. Word quickly gets around
their children over, and families stand together. that Bill Hutchinson has “got it.” Tessie argues that
it wasn’t fair because Bill didn’t have enough time
Mr. Summers runs the lottery because he has a lot to select a paper. Mr. Summers asks whether there
of time to do things for the village. He arrives in the are any other households in the Hutchinson family,
square with the black box, followed by Mr. Graves, and Bill says no, because his married daughter
the postmaster. This black box isn’t the original box draws with her husband’s family. Mr. Summers
used for the lottery because the original was lost asks how many kids Bill has, and he answers that he
many years ago, even before the town elder, Old has three. Tessie protests again that the lottery
Man Warner, was born. Mr. Summers always wasn’t fair.
suggests that they make a new box because the
current one is shabby, but no one wants to fool Mr. Graves dumps the papers out of the box onto
around with tradition. Mr. Summers did, however, the ground and then puts five papers in for the
convince the villagers to replace the traditional Hutchinsons. As Mr. Summers calls their names,
wood chips with slips of paper. each member of the family comes up and draws a
paper. When they open their slips, they find that
Mr. Summers mixes up the slips of paper in the box. Tessie has drawn the paper with the black dot on it.
He and Mr. Graves made the papers the night before Mr. Summers instructs everyone to hurry up.
and then locked up the box at Mr. Summers’s coal
company. Before the lottery can begin, they make a The villagers grab stones and run toward Tessie,
list of all the families and households in the village. who stands in a clearing in the middle of the crowd.
Mr. Summers is sworn in. Some people remember Tessie says it’s not fair and is hit in the head with a
that in the past there used to be a song and salute, stone. Everyone begins throwing stones at her.
but these have been lost.

Tessie Hutchinson joins the crowd, flustered

because she had forgotten that today was the day of
the lottery. She joins her husband and children at
the front of the crowd, and people joke about her
late arrival. Mr. Summers asks whether anyone is
absent, and the crowd responds that Dunbar isn’t
there. Mr. Summers asks who will draw for Dunbar,
and Mrs. Dunbar says she will because she doesn’t
have a son who’s old enough to do it for her. Mr.
Summers asks whether the Watson boy will draw,
and he answers that he will. Mr. Summers then asks
to make sure that Old Man Warner is there too.

Mr. Summers reminds everyone about the lottery’s

rules: he’ll read names, and the family heads come
up and draw a slip of paper. No one should look at
QUESTIONS:

1. What repressed desires or fears

might be influencing the characters'
behavior in the lottery? Is this behavior
a product of the culture it’s around?
2. How does the ritual of the lottery
serve as a manifestation of the
characters' unconscious conflicts or
desires?
3. In what ways does the community's
collective participation in the lottery
serve as a form of psychological
coping mechanism?