Psychoanalytic Criticism

Carl Jung

Carl Jung - History

• Born on July 26th, 1875

• His father was a minister.

• Jung began observing parents, teachers, and friends at an early age.

• Questioned Christian viewpoints and differed from his father’s teachings.

Carl Jung - History

• Attended the University of Basel and Zurich to study medicine and become a Psychiatrist.

Carl Jung - History

• Began studying under Freud in 1904. • Separated from Freud in 1913 and began to

really develop his own theories, based on personal experience from his patients and himself.

• After his separation, many scientists and scholars discounted his ideas and believed he was too much involved in mythology.

• Continued to treat patients and work on his final writings up until his death.

• Jung died on June 6, 1961

Carl Jung – History of Theories

• He differentiated between two types of people according to attitude types, extraverted and introverted.

• Later he separated four functions of the mind, thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.

• He was very interested in the study and interpretation of dreams and how they affected the unconscious and conscious mind.

• Jung believed that symbols found throughout history in religion, arts, alchemy, and stories also occurred in the dreams of his patients.

• Psychological complexes were his term for the presence of groups of thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions, organized around a central theme.

Carl Jung – History of Theories

• He related this with his study of words and how they give clues to a unique psyche make-up in schizophrenic patients at the Burghoelzli Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland.

• Studied the Christian Religion and discovered that it was part of a historic process necessary for the development of the unconscious.

• He also studied the Nazi revolution and therefore was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer.

• Going beyond Freud’s basic approach to treat neuroses, Jung also incorporated the mentally deranged, psychotics, and “normal” persons into his theories.

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud - History

• May 6, 1856-Sept 23, 1939

• “Father of Psychoanalytics”

• Frieberg, Moravia

Sigmund Freud - History

• University of Vienna  

• was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

• known for his theories of unconscious mind and redefinition of sexual desire as mobile and directed towards a wide variety of objects.

Sigmund Freud - History

• Developed the theory of human mind and human behavior as well as clinical techniques for attempting to cure psychopathology.

• The goal of Freudian therapy, or psychoanalysis, was to bring to consciousness, repressed thoughts, and feelings.

• Theory of Unconscious Mind: suggested that such declarations of free will are in fact delusions; that we are not entirely aware of what we think and often act for reasons that have little to do with our conscious thoughts. He proposed that awareness existed in layers and that some thoughts occurred "below the surface."

Sigmund Freud - Theory

Id

• Allows us to get our basic needs met

• The Id is based on our pleasure principle

• The id doesn't care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction.

Ego

• The ego is based on the reality principle

• Its the ego's job to meet the needs of the id, while taking into consideration the reality of the situation

Superego

• The Superego is the moral part of us.

• Develops due to the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers

• Dictates our belief of right and wrong

Carl Jung - Archetypes

• Archetypes are patterns which exist at the subconscious level

• The Shadow• The Anima and Animus• The Syzygy • The Child• The Self

The Shadow

• The shadow projects the dark side of ourselves onto others and interprets them as ‘enemies’

Anima

• The feminine inner personality, as present in the unconscious of the male.

• It can be identified as all of the unconscious feminine psychological qualities that a male possesses.

• The anima is usually an copy of a man's mother but may also incorporate aspects of sisters, aunts, and teachers.

Animus

• Animus is considered to be that natural and primitive part of the mind's activity and processes remaining after dispensing with persona, which is the "mask" displayed in interactions with others and which has been shaped by socialization.

Syzygy

• Carl Jung used the term "syzygy" to denote an archetypal pairing of contra sexual opposites, which symbolized the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds. The conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.

The Child

• It can take the form of a child who displays adult-like qualities giving, for example, wise advice to their friends or viceversa

The Self

• It signifies the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person. The Self, according to Jung, is realized as the product of individuation, which in Jungian view is the process of integrating one's personality.

Application

Application

• Jung’s archetype the animus, or the inner opposite of the female soul, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the woman the narrator perceives is behind the pattern of the wallpaper. Her shadow woman is a personification of her unconscious desire to be free. She sees the woman “shake” the paper, as her unconscious is fighting to escape her predicament. The shadow woman is also able to leave the room, something the narrator is unable to do. The narrator projects her inner yearnings to the shadow woman for her to carry out.

Application

• This shadow woman is also an example of Freud’s fantasy and displacement. The narrator summons the woman as a link to a place other than that room and displaces her feelings upon her, using her as an outlet for behavior (“creeping by daylight” (Gilman 927)) she would not succumb to herself until these feelings overwhelm her in the end. Repression is also another one of Freud’s defense mechanisms. The narrator, by projecting her condition to the woman in the wallpaper, represses and denies her feelings to the point where she cannot handle it any longer.

Application

• The narrator’s id is repressed throughout the story to the point where it breaks free in a fit of spastic behavior, the creeping. She struggles with the battle between her id and superego throughout. The superego in that she wants to do what is morally acceptable for a woman with her condition at that time, and to please her husband. The id in that she wants to write and work despite her husband’s forbidding her to. In repressing the selfish nature of her id, the narrator dwindles into madness.

Works Cited• "AllPsych." Psychology Classroom at AllPsych Online. 01 July 2004. 11 Apr 2007

<http://allpsych.com/>.• "Freud." SAU-Magnolia Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences. 05 May 2006.

10 Apr 2007 <http://peace.saumag.edu/>. • Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology

for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb John Clifford. Boston, 2006.• “Jung, Carl.” Encylopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 10 April

2007. Collin County Community College Library, Plano Texas. http://search.eb.com/eb/articles-9044155

• I love you. 02 June 2006. 10 Apr 2007 <http://www.IloveUlove.com>. • Olds, Mason. Humanist. “Being, Courage, and Love”. Vol. 67. Springfield College.

Feb 2007. • “Sidelights.” Gale Literary Database. 10 April 2007. Collin County Community College

Library, Plano Texas.http://galenet.galegroup.com