Aspects of Sexuality in
Freudian Psychoanalysis
Freud's
theories place a significant focus on sexuality. He proposed that infantile
sexuality begins early in life, not at puberty, particularly through
the infant’s relationship with the mother. This is connected to the Oedipus
complex, where a male infant desires to eliminate the father and
become the mother's sexual partner. This conflict is believed to extend into
various forms of rivalry, such as professional competition, which can be seen
as reproducing sibling rivalry.
Freud also
introduced the concept of libido, the sexual energy drive. In
his classic model, the libido goes through three stages of focus: oral,
anal, and phallic. Over time, Freud expanded
the libido into Eros (life instinct) and Thanatos
(death instinct), with the latter being controversial.
Defence Mechanism
A defence
mechanism is an unconscious process aimed at protecting the individual
from anxiety caused by internal conflicts and external stressors. Healthy
individuals employ various defence mechanisms throughout their lives. However,
if the use of a defence mechanism becomes persistent and leads to maladaptive behaviour,
it can adversely affect mental or physical health.
Key Defence Mechanisms
1. Repression:
Repression prevents unacceptable thoughts and memories from entering conscious
awareness. Freud theorized that repression is a defence mechanism that forces
distressing memories into the unconscious. This idea arose when Freud observed
the difficulty patients had in recalling past events under hypnosis.
2. Sublimation: Repressed
desires are redirected into more socially acceptable activities. For example,
sexual desires might manifest as religious fervour or artistic creativity.
3. Transference: This
occurs when a patient redirects feelings from their past (such as resentment
toward a parent) onto the therapist. It is often a tool for psychoanalysis as
unresolved emotions from past relationships resurface.
4. Condensation: In
Freudian theory, condensation happens when multiple thoughts, memories, or
ideas are merged into a single image or symbol in dreams. This process allows
the unconscious to express itself through seemingly unrelated symbols in dreams
or symptoms.
5. Displacement: This is
when a person redirects an impulse, often negative, toward a less threatening
object or person. For example, a person frustrated at work might take out their
anger on a family member instead.
6. Screen Memories: These are
seemingly trivial memories that serve to obscure more significant or painful
ones. Screen memories help protect the individual from confronting distressing
or unacceptable childhood experiences.
7. Freudian Slip: Also
known as "parapraxis," this is a mistake or error in speech, memory,
or action that reflects an unconscious thought, desire, or wish. Common
examples include slips of the tongue or miswritten words, which reveal
repressed material.
Dream Work
Dreams are
the unconscious mind’s way of processing and transforming desires and memories
into dream images. Freud identified mechanisms like displacement
(where one image represents another) and condensation (where
multiple elements are combined into one image). This "dream work"
translates abstract feelings or desires into concrete representations, much
like how literature uses symbolism. Dreams often communicate indirectly, making
use of symbolic representations instead of straightforward statements.
How Freudian Interpretation Works
Freudian interpretation is commonly associated with attributing sexual
meanings to everyday objects, such as seeing towers or ladders as phallic
symbols. However, Freud himself once said, "Sometimes a cigar is
just a cigar." This illustrates that while Freudian interpretation can
be playful, it is also more nuanced and sophisticated than simply labelling
things as sexual symbols.
The
mechanisms of displacement and condensation in Freudian theory
serve two main purposes:
1. They allow repressed material (fears,
desires, memories) to bypass the censor that prevents them from entering
conscious awareness.
2. They transform repressed content into
something symbolic that can be expressed in dreams—images, metaphors, and
symbols. Dreams, like literature, don’t communicate directly but rather show
repressed desires symbolically. This connection between dreams and literature
has made Freudian interpretation highly appealing to literary critics.
Freud's The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
In his work, Freud explores everyday occurrences like forgetting,
slips of the tongue, bungled actions, and superstitions.
He argued that these seemingly trivial actions are not accidents, but
manifestations of repressed material attempting to return to consciousness. For
instance, a bungled action (such as putting the paper in your mouth instead of
the candy) can be seen as a product of unconscious wishes or fears trying to
resurface. Freud famously claimed, “There is always a return of the
repressed.” Even when repressed material is forced out of conscious
awareness, it finds ways to return.
Freud and Literary Criticism
Freudian analysis has been influential in literary criticism because
both the unconscious mind and literature express themselves
indirectly. Literature, like the unconscious, often uses symbols, metaphors,
and imagery to convey meaning rather than making explicit statements. As
a result, psychoanalytic interpretations of literature often seek to uncover
these hidden meanings and have thus been central to literary studies. However,
such interpretations can be controversial due to their subjective nature
and the judgmental element involved in interpreting hidden desires and
motivations within texts.
What Freudian Psychoanalytic Critics Do
1. Conscious vs. Unconscious Mind
Freudian critics place central importance on the distinction between the
conscious and the unconscious mind in literary analysis. They
view the overt content of a literary work as related to the conscious mind,
while the covert content—often the deeper, hidden meanings—is associated with
the unconscious. These critics aim to uncover the unconscious aspects of the
text, as they believe that these hidden elements reveal the true meaning of the
work.
2. Unconscious Motives
They focus on uncovering unconscious motives and feelings, both in the author
and in the characters within the text. By analysing the hidden desires,
fears, and psychological drives, critics seek to better understand the
underlying motivations that shape the narrative and characters.
3. Psychosexual Stages
Freudian critics often identify classic psychoanalytic symptoms,
conditions, or phases, particularly the oral, anal, and phallic
stages of infant emotional and sexual development. These stages are seen as
influencing the characters' psychological development and are often traced in
literary works to highlight deep-seated unconscious drives.
4. Psychoanalytic Concepts in Literary History
They apply psychoanalytic theories broadly to literary history. For
instance, Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence (1973) uses the
Oedipus complex to explain the struggle poets face in creating their own identity
in the shadow of past masters. This struggle is seen as a psychoanalytic
process where the artist's creation is influenced by both admiration and
rivalry with previous generations.
5. Psychic vs. Social Context
Freudian critics emphasize the psychic context of a work (i.e.,
the individual's psychological struggles) over the social or historical
context (e.g., class conflict). They focus on internal conflicts, such as
the Oedipal struggle between generations, sibling rivalries, or the
tension between competing desires within the same individual. These internal
dynamics are considered more significant than social or political issues, such
as class struggles, in the Freudian approach to literary analysis.
Jacques Lacan and Literary Theory
Jacques
Lacan (1901-1981), a French psychoanalyst, made significant contributions to
literary theory, particularly through his development of the concept of the
unconscious and its relationship to language. His work challenged traditional
Freudian ideas and had a profound influence on literary studies, especially in
the context of post-structuralism.
Lacan's Background
Lacan
began his career with a medical degree and psychiatry training in the 1920s,
focusing initially on paranoia and publishing a thesis about his patient Aimee.
His theory of the 'mirror stage' was first presented in 1936 and later
shaped his broader psychoanalytic framework. Lacan's ideas evolved under the
influence of leading intellectual figures such as Claude Lévi-Strauss,
Ferdinand de Saussure, and Roman Jakobson. In the 1950s, Lacan rejected the
traditional focus on the conscious mind, emphasizing instead the role of the
unconscious in shaping human experience.
The Unconscious and Language
Lacan
famously declared, "the unconscious is structured like a
language." This statement highlights his view that the unconscious
mind operates in ways similar to language—through symbolic systems, structures,
and signifiers. Lacan was particularly influenced by Saussure's theory of
language, which posits that meaning is derived not from a direct relationship
between words and things but from the differences between words. This
structural view of language became a central element in Lacan's psychoanalytic
theory.
For Lacan, language is
not merely a tool for communication but the very structure through which
human beings understand themselves and the world. The unconscious, then, is not
a chaotic mass of repressed desires, as traditionally thought, but an ordered
system of signs, much like the structure of language itself.
Freud and Linguistic Mechanisms
Lacan’s
analysis of the unconscious draws from Freud's dream work mechanisms—condensation
and displacement—which Lacan correlates with metaphor and metonymy
in language:
1.
Metonymy: In language, one word can stand in for another (e.g., a part
representing the whole). Lacan sees this in dreams where a characteristic
(e.g., an object like a car) stands for something larger (e.g., a person or an
idea).
2.
Condensation: Multiple ideas or images are fused into a single symbol, similar to
how a metaphor works in language, where two separate images (e.g., a ship
cutting through waves and a plough cutting through soil) combine into one.
This linguistic nature
of the unconscious is further demonstrated in Freudian mechanisms like
puns, wordplay, and other forms of verbal expression that reveal hidden
meanings.
Reconceptualizing the Self
Lacan's
work challenges the traditional view of the self as a unified, conscious
entity. Drawing on Descartes’ "I think, therefore I am," Lacan
reverses this by asserting that "I am where I think not," meaning
that true selfhood lies in the unconscious. According to Lacan, the conscious
self is merely a linguistic construct, not a stable, essential entity. The
self is "deconstructed" and exists only in relation to language—a
system that precedes the individual and structures their understanding of the
world.
Implications for Literary Theory
1.
Characterization
Since Lacan deconstructs
the notion of the self as a stable entity, traditional characterization in
literature is called into question. Literary characters, then, can no
longer be seen as fully realized, autonomous individuals but rather as assemblages
of signifiers. Characters are understood as symbolic representations that
function within a network of meaning, much like words in a sentence.
2.
Language and Reality
Lacan’s view of language as
detached from the external world also rejects literary realism. In
realist literature, the text is assumed to reflect the real world. However,
from a Lacanian perspective, language doesn’t mirror reality; instead, it
creates its own world. This view aligns with modernist and postmodernist
literature, where texts often break from conventional narrative structures and
engage in self-referential, fragmented forms. Literary works that play with
language and reference other texts reflect Lacan’s belief in the
self-referential nature of language.
Mirror Stage
The Mirror Stage happens
when a child sees its reflection and begins to recognize itself as separate
from the world. This marks the start of language acquisition and socialization,
symbolizing the formation of the ego. In literature, this can reflect a
character’s fragmented or evolving identity.
Imaginary
The Imaginary is the realm
of idealized self-images and unity. It focuses on immediate, image-based
understanding and is connected to the ego’s creation. In literary terms, the Imaginary
represents illusions or the idealized self.
Symbolic
The Symbolic is the world of
language, law, and social structure. It shapes the individual through
signifiers, creating order. In literature, it aligns with realist narratives,
rooted in logic and order.
Real
The Real refers to what
cannot be symbolized—those aspects of experience that resist representation. In
literature, the Real signifies the ineffable, often the unexpressed or
unresolvable elements of a story.
Imaginary vs. Symbolic in
Literature
Realist literature typically reflects
the Symbolic, structured and logical. In contrast, anti-realist works
like metafiction or magic realism tap into the Imaginary,
disrupting structure and exploring irrationality and fragmentation.
What Lacanian Critics Do
1.
Uncovering
the Text's Subconscious
Lacanian critics, like Freudian critics, explore unconscious motives,
but rather than focusing on the author or characters, they look at the
unconscious of the text itself. This involves identifying contradictory
meanings and hidden undercurrents within the text, much like a subconscious
beneath the text's conscious surface. This approach is akin to deconstruction,
which seeks to reveal these underlying contradictions.
2.
Identifying
Lacanian Psychoanalytic Phases
They also analyse literary works through Lacanian phases or symptoms,
such as the Mirror Stage or the influence of the unconscious. This could
manifest in characters' development or the text’s structure, revealing aspects
of identity formation, separation, and desire.
3.
Exploring
Lacanian Concepts
Lacanian critics interpret the text through broader Lacanian concepts
like lack and desire. They look for how these concepts manifest
in the narrative, characters, and symbolism, emphasizing the deep psychological
structures at play.
4.
Focusing
on Language and the Unconscious
A primary concern for Lacanian critics is how language shapes the
unconscious. They highlight how signs, symbols, and language often elude clear
meaning, reflecting Lacan's idea that the signified (the concept behind
a word) is always elusive. They argue that literary works are enactments of
Lacanian ideas, especially the central role of the unconscious and how language
shapes identity and meaning.
5.
Favouring
Anti-Realist Texts
Lacanian critics tend to favour anti-realist texts that question or
disrupt conventional literary representations. These works, such as metafiction
or magic realism, reflect the instability of the self and the fluidity of
reality, engaging with Lacanian notions of the fragmented self and the
interplay between the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real.
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