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UNIT 4: PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM

4.0 Intended Learning Outcomes

a. Identify important terms, personalities and dates relative to the definition, principles
and historical development of Psychological Criticism.
b. Explain the distinct features of Psychological Criticism.
c. Make a reaction about Psychological criticism as an approach.
d. Evaluate a text using Psychological criticism.

4.1 Introduction
In order to understand any genres, it is essentially indispensable to catch up on literary
criticism because it is considered as a first step toward developing an understanding of some
rather difficult and at times provocative concepts, principles, and methodologies for textual
analysis. Of all the critical approaches to literature, the psychological has been one of the most
controversial for many readers. Yet, for all the difficulties involved in its proper application
to interpretive analysis, the psychological approach can be fascinating and rewarding.
In this lesson, we are going to discuss psychological criticism – its definition, historical
context and the guide questions that would help you in doing your analysis. At the end of
this unit, you are expected to understand the nature of this theory and its distinction from
other literary theories. Most importantly, you will be required to write your own analysis
using psychological lens.

4.2 Topics
4.2.1 What is Psychological Criticism?
Are you familiar with Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory, Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory and
Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory? I think so, because these theories were tackled in some of
your Prof. Ed. courses. Well, some of the terms that you will encounter in this unit are from those
Psychological theories.
First, let us define what Psychological Criticism is…
PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM, also known as Psychoanalytical Criticism, is the
analysis of an author’s unintended message. The analysis focuses on the biographical
circumstances of an author. The main goal is to analyze the unconscious elements within
a literary text based on the background of the author.
Psychological criticism in literature refers to the way in which the work of a
particular writer is analyzed through a psychological lens. This approach psychologically
analyses:

✓ the author of the work

✓ a character in his work

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It helps the readers understand the motivations of the writer as well as the
characters. In other words, this criticism helps us to understand:
▪ Why the writer writes the way he does?
▪ How do his biographical circumstances affect his writing?
▪ Why do characters in the story behave in a particular way?

For example, suppose the protagonist in the story is a

murderer; evaluating the psychological state, the past of the
character might help the reader to understand why he became a
murderer. This criticism approach can explore the writer’s
motivations in selecting this subject and how his past has
influenced his choice. For instance, being aware that the writer was
a victim of a violent crime may cause the reader to interpret the
story very differently.

Further, Psychoanalytic criticism encourages the reader/ critic to be creative in

speculating about the character’s/ author’s motivations, drives, fears or desires. The belief here
is that creative writing is like dreaming – it disguises what cannot be confronted directly – the
critic must decode what is “disguised”. A direct relation between the text and the author is
presupposed and made the center of inquiry.

4.2.2 Historical Context

Psychoanalytic criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology.
The Unconscious, the Desires, and the Defenses
Freud began his psychoanalytic work in the 1880s while
attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his Viennese patients.
He dubbed the disorders 'hysteria' and began treating them by
listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this
work, Freud asserted that people's behavior is affected by their
unconscious: "...the notion that human beings are motivated, even
driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are
unaware..." (Tyson 14-15).
Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by
childhood events. Freud organized these events into
developmental stages involving relationships with parents and SIGMUND FREUD
drives of desire and pleasure where children focus "...on different (1856-1939)
parts of the body...starting with the mouth...shifting to the oral, Father of Psychoanalysis
anal, and phallic phases..." (Richter 1015). These stages reflect base
levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents,
loss of life) and repression: "...the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological
events" (Tyson 15).
Tyson reminds us, however, that "...repression doesn't eliminate our painful experiences
and emotions...we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to 'play out'...our conflicted
feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (15). To keep all of this conflict
buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective

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memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among
others.
Id, Ego, and Superego
Freud maintained that our desires and our
unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the
mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from
infancy, to childhood, to adulthood:
▪ id - "...the location of the drives" or libido
▪ ego - "...one of the major defenses against the
power of the drives..." and home of the
defenses listed above
▪ superego -the area of the unconscious that
houses Judgment (of self and others) and
"...which begins to form during childhood as a
result of the Oedipus complex" (Richter 1015-
1016)

Oedipus Complex
Freud believed that the Oedipus complex was "...one of the most powerfully determinative
elements in the growth of the child" (Richter 1016). Essentially, the Oedipus complex involves
children's need for their parents and the conflict that arises as children mature and realize they
are not the absolute focus of their
mother's attention: "the Oedipus
complex begins in a late phase of
infantile sexuality, between the child's
third and sixth year, and it takes a
different form in males than it does in
females" (Richter 1016).
Freud argued that both boys and
girls wish to possess their mothers, but
as they grow older "...they begin to sense
that their claim to exclusive attention is
thwarted by the mother's attention to the
father..." (1016). Children, Freud maintained, connect this conflict of attention to the intimate
relations between mother and father, relations from which the children are excluded. Freud
believed that "the result is a murderous rage against the father...and a desire to possess the
mother" (1016).
Freud pointed out, however, that "...the Oedipus complex differs in boys and girls...the
functioning of the related castration complex" (1016). In short, Freud thought that "...during the
Oedipal rivalry [between boys and their fathers], boys fantasized that punishment for their rage
will take the form of..." castration (1016). When boys effectively work through this anxiety, Freud
argued, "...the boy learns to identify with the father in the hope of someday possessing a woman
like his mother. In girls, the castration complex does not take the form of anxiety...the result is a
frustrated rage in which the girl shifts her sexual desire from the mother to the father" (1016).
Freud believed that eventually, the girl's spurned advances toward the father give way to a desire
to possess a man like her father later in life. Freud believed that the impact of the unconscious,

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id, ego, superego, the defenses, and the Oedipus complex was inescapable and that these
elements of the mind influence all our behavior (and even our dreams) as adults - of course this
behavior involves what we write.

Freud and Literature

So, what does all of this psychological business have to do with literature and the study
of literature? Put simply, some critics believe that we can "...read psychoanalytically...to see
which concepts are operating in the text in such a way as to enrich our understanding of the
work and, if we plan to write a paper about it, to yield a meaningful, coherent psychoanalytic
interpretation" (Tyson 29).

4.2.3 Guide Questions for Psychological Criticism

The following questions will help you in doing psychoanalytic analysis:
a. What forces are motivating the characters?
b. Which behaviors of the characters are conscious ones?
c. Which are unconscious?
d. What conscious or unconscious conflicts exist between the characters?
e. Given their backgrounds, how plausible is the characters’ behavior?
f. Are the theories of Freud or other psychologists applicable to this work? To what degree?
g. Do any of the characters correspond to the parts of the tripartite self? (Id, ego, superego)
h. What roles do psychological disorders and dreams play in this story?
i. Are the characters recognizable psychological types?
j. How might a psychological approach account for different responses in female and male
readers?
k. How does the work reflect the writer’s personal psychology?
l. What do the characters’ emotions and behaviors reveal about their psychological states?
m. How does the work reflect the unconscious dimensions of the writer’s mind?
n. How does the reader’s own psychology affect his response to the work?

4.2.4 Model Analysis

To better understand the sample analysis below, read first the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.
(see copy of the text in Appendix A)

Psychoanalytical Analysis on Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily

By: STEVEN PETHERBRIDGE

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner tells the story of Emily Grierson, a woman
controlled by her father and shunned by the town. When she meets Homer Barron, she takes a
liking to him and appears to the townspeople as having married him. However, when she later
dies, the townspeople discover that Homer had lain dead for years, and she kept his decaying
corpse in bed with her for the entirety of that time. From this, one can infer that Emily clearly
experienced underlying self-esteem issues that later sparked a fear of abandonment and,
consequently, an unhealthy need for control.
Throughout her life, Emily was constantly barraged with her father’s insistence upon
maintaining the bloodline of the Grierson family, and she had no mother to speak of to help
combat that immense sense of duty and responsibility as the only child. The narrator explains

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that the townspeople imagined Emily’s father sending away
any suitors she had, deeming they were not good enough.
By the time she was thirty, she still had yet to marry, which
leads to the inevitable for a woman of that time: low self-
esteem. Low self-esteem is “the belief that we are less
worthy than other people and, therefore, don’t deserve
attention, love, or any other of life’s rewards. Indeed, we
often believe that we deserve to be punished by life in some
way (Tyson, 2006).” With the mantra her father engrained
into her mind of keeping the bloodline alive and strong,
how could her mind resist the fall into low self-esteem? The
text itself gives cause to infer that Emily eventually lost even
her will to maintain her thin figure and her health: “When
we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was
turning grey (Faulkner).” There is ample room to liken
Emily’s behavior to low self-esteem.
That unfortunate level of self-esteem is not the only
contention Emily seemed to be dealing with
psychologically; there is room to consider Emily
experiencing a fear of abandonment in addition to low self-
esteem. This can be attributed to the idea that one core psychological issue can lead to another
psychological issue. For example, “…if low self-esteem is my core issue, I might develop fear of
abandonment as a core issue as well. My belief that I am unworthy of love might lead me to
expect that I will be abandoned eventually by anyone I love (Tyson, 2006).” Within the text, Emily
is seen as a recluse, and she deals very minimally with the outside world. She doesn’t allow
anyone to get close to her, and she eventually kills the one man that befriends her before he can
leave her. This fear of abandonment can also stem from her father’s death and mother’s absence.
There is no evidence of childhood or adulthood friends either, which supports the idea that she
pushed away anyone with the potential to get close to and leave her.
Those two core issues combine to form Emily’s largest psychological issue: the need for
absolute control. Emily’s low self-esteem and subsequent fear of abandonment result in her
obsessive need for control, and her father’s controlling nature throughout her childhood haunts
her unconscious into her adulthood. One’s defenses can repress memories that are painful, and
they can eventually resurface with unfortunate consequences: “Our unconscious desires not to
recognize or change our destructive behaviors—because we have formed our identities around
them and because we are afraid of what we will find if we examine them too closely—are served
by our defenses. Defenses are the processes by which the contents of our unconscious are kept in
the unconscious. In other words, they are the processes by which we keep the repressed in order
to avoid knowing what we feel we can’t handle knowing (Tyson, 2006).” Evidence of that need
is integrated throughout Faulkner’s entire work. Emily would not pay her taxes per decree by
General Sartoris that the town owed her father money; in later years, however, the townspeople
changed their minds. She simply claimed, “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris
explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves
(Faulkner).” She refused to let slip her grasp on the state of her taxes. Emily also did precisely
what she wanted, controlling every aspect of her life despite the opinions of the townspeople.
When Homer Barron moved to town, Emily took a liking to him and him to her, but the women
of the town deemed their Sunday jaunts inappropriate. They sent the Baptist minister to speak

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with her about her behavior: “He would never divulge what happened during that interview,
but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets…
(Faulkner).” Emily didn’t stop until she gained complete control of the situations around her,
even if that meant the ultimate form of control: control after death. The text explains her tendency
to deny the death of and kill her relatives and close friends. When her father died, she remained
in denial and kept his body for three days. Psychologically speaking, his death was her chance
to gain complete control over the man who had held control over her for her entire life; in a way,
she finally had a chance for revenge. She utilized her obsession with Homer as well, except she
physically bought the arsenic and killed him to maintain control. She even kept him in a bed as
he decayed so she could sleep with him every night and avoid the loneliness and
uncontrollability that crept up on her. The townspeople didn’t realize the horrors within Emily’s
house until her passing:
The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace…What was left of him, rotted
beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay…Then we
noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and
leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-
grey hair (Faulkner).
Emily was extremely thorough in her quest for control.
Throughout Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” one can infer that Emily Grierson suffered
from low self-esteem, which fed a deep-seeded fear of abandonment and obsessive need for
control. Traumatized by her controlling father, absent mother, and lack of sociality, Emily’s
unconscious brewed quite the assortment of psychological conundrums. These eventually led
her to lead a reclusive, lonely, murderous life, completely devoid of rationale. Emily Grierson is
the definition of a psychologically impaired woman.

To know more about Psychological Criticism, please watch What is Psychological

Criticism? through this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4NXNfBEwZg

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4.3 References

Delahoyde, M. (n.d.) Psychoanalytic Criticism. https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html

Dobie, A.B. (2012). Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism (Third Edition).
Cengage Learning
EPEDIAA. (17 October 2016). What is Psychological Criticism in Literature.
https://pediaa.com/what-is-psychological-criticism-in-literature/

Osborn, F. (21 June 2014). Psychoanalytical Theory: A Rose for Emily.

https://faithosborn.wordpress.com/governors-school-portfolio/portfolio/psychoanalytical-
theory-a-rose-for-emily/

Pagliawan, D.L. (2017). Literary Criticism: A Resource, A Guide, A Reader. Texts and Visuals

4.4 Acknowledgment
The images, tables, figures and information contained in this module were taken from the
references cited above.

C. M. D. Hamo-ay