Psychoanalytic
Who? Freud, Lacan
When? 1900’s – 2000’s
What?
The fundamental idea behind psychoanalysis is that we have
an unconscious mind that is somehow sealed off from our conscious mind and
where we hide all of the things that we don’t want to deal with such as
memories that are too painful for us to confront.
The unconscious can, however, sometimes break through and
affect our behaviour or our consciousness in subtle ways: in dreams, for
example, or in Freudian slips where we say something that we didn’t want to say
but actually really mean. The unconscious can also be accessed through
hypnosis, hence people getting themselves hypnotised to re-live past lives or remember
traumatic events. The idea behind hypnosis – and the stereotypical
Psychoanalysts couch in the movies – is that by putting the conscious mind in a
relaxed state it won’t be able to keep the unconscious thoughts so tightly
controlled so they will slip through into our conscious minds and we can talk
about them.
These days we are all quite happy with the idea of the
unconscious but this wasn’t always the case and when Freud introduced this idea
in the 1900’s it was fairly radical. After all, it basically amounts to saying
that we are not really fully in control of ourselves, we are not fully free,
and that, worse still, we are sometimes controlled by this mysterious little
untouchable monster locked away in the back of our heads somewhere.
Freud’s explanation of where the unconscious comes from is a
little bit weird but is quite interesting. This is a simplification of the
process:
·
As
children we are a mess of unrestrained desires and do whatever we have to, to
get pleasure.
·
We
can get pleasure from our mouths, our sexual organs and even our bowel
movements.
·
Even
more bizarrely, Freud believes, we have a secret sexual desire for our parents.
This is called the Oedipus complex in boys or Electra complex in girls.
·
Needless
to say having a child that takes pleasure in his or her own bowel movements or
secretly fancies his or her parents is going to be quite upsetting. So parents,
representing society, train the child that certain behaviours are wrong and
forbidden.
·
All
of these unacceptable desires get pushed to the back of the child’s mind and
become the unconscious. This store of pent up, unacceptable, childish desires
is called the ‘Id’ and the ‘Ego’ is what is in charge of telling us what is and
is not socially acceptable and keeping the Id in its place.
This relates to the ideas of ‘Discourse’, ‘Ideology’ and ‘
So, how does this affect the way that we read? Well, critics
who read texts from a psychoanalytical perspective believe that, just like
people, texts have an unconscious too and all of the things that are
unacceptable in the society where the text was written will be buried in that
unconscious. However sometimes, again just like people, these unacceptable
things will break through to the surface in unusual ways. Psychoanalytical readings
of texts look out for these break-throughs in the
following places:
·
In
symbols, images, metaphors and allusions
·
In
descriptions of scenery and nature
·
In
the gaps and silences in a text
A psychoanalytical reading might also look out for examples
of this process of socialisation, where the parents teach the children how to
behave acceptably in society, at work in a text. Lord of the Flies is a great
text to read psychoanalytically: in addition to the scenery, which is heavily
sexually charged, the inexplicably close relationship between boys and the
almost orgiastic killing of Simon there is clearly the idea that, having been
removed from the control of society, the boys are gradually unleashing all
their unconscious desires with destructive and disastrous results.