Psychological

Criticism
Prepared by: Lisha Athena Gersava
 OBJECTIVES
1. To deeply understand Psychological Criticism
2. To be able to apply Psychological Criticism to a
literary text
3. To appreciate Psychological Criticism as a
Literary Approach

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What is psychological criticism?

 Draws upon psychological theories in its

interpretation of a text

 Critics view works through the lens of

psychology

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 PROS CONS
• Can reveal useful clues to • Critics tend to see sex in
symbols, actions, and settings everything, missing the text’s
in a literary work that are hard wider significance and
to understand perhaps even the essential
aesthetic experience it should
provide.
• Useful in understanding works
in which characters obviously
have psychological issues • Can turn a work into a
psychological case study,
neglecting to view a text as a
• It addresses the importance of
piece of art
the unconscious that makes up
the majority of all human
being’s personalities
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 FREUD’S TRIPARTITE PSYCHE
I want to Okay, I’ll
But, I am
eat just eat a
chocolates! small piece
on a diet .

ID SUPER-EGO

EGO

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 ID
 Unconscious part of our pysche

 Selfish and wishful in nature

 Illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented

 Reservoir of libido
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 EGO
 Rational and logical

 Decision-making component of the self

 Works out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s

demands, often compromising to avoid
negative consequences
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 SUPER-EGO
 Conscience, self-image, pride

 Moral restrictions/repressions of the Id

 Represses those drives that are unacceptable to

the standard norms of society

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 the id is dominated
by the pleasure principle, the ego
by the reality principle, and the
Super-ego is dominated by the
morality principle

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 Reported by :
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Jhasper
William Shakespeare
☼ baptized on the 26th of
April ,1564
☼ His father, John was a
glover (maker of gloves)
☼ His mother is a woman
from nearby Wilmcote
called Mary Arden
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Siblings:
☼ At 18, he married a woman
1. Joan named Anne Hathaway
2. Margaret
3. Gilbert ☼ They got married in
4. Joan November 1582
5. Anne
6. Richard ☼ Had a daughter named Susana
7. Edmund

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☼ Had a twin boy & girl named Hamnet and
Judith

☼ Heprospered and in 1597 he bought a house

and gardens in Stratford

☼ He died on 23 April 1616 and was buried in

the parish church

☼ Inthe 19th century, Stratford upon Avon

became famous as his birthplace
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Characters
 ☼The Prince of Denmark,
the title character, and
the protagonist.

☼the son of Queen Gertrude

and the late King Hamlet
Prince Hamlet
☼and the nephew of the
present king, Claudius
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☼ melancholic, bitter, and cynical, full
of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and
disgust for his mother’s sexuality

☼ often indecisive and hesitant, but at

other times prone to rash and
impulsive acts

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 ☼The specter of Hamlet’s
recently deceased father

☼claims to have been

murdered by Claudius

The ghost ☼calls upon Hamlet to

avenge him
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 ☼ The Queen of Denmark,
Hamlet’s mother, and is
recently married to
Claudius

☼ She loves Hamlet deeply,

but she is a shallow,
weak woman who seeks
Queen Gertrude
affection and status
more urgently than
moral
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rectitude or truth
 ☼ The King of Denmark,
Hamlet’s uncle, and the
play’s antagonist

☼ a calculating, ambitious
politician, driven by his
sexual appetites and his
King Claudius lust for power, but he
occasionally shows signs
of guilt and human
feeling
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 ☼ The Lord Chamberlain of
Claudius’s court, a
pompous, conniving old
man

☼ Polonius is the father of

Laertes and Ophelia
Polonius
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 ☼ Polonius’s daughter, a
beautiful young woman
with whom Hamlet has been
in love with

☼ a sweet and innocent young

girl, who obeys her father
and her brother, Laertes
Ophelia
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 ☼ Polonius’s son and
Ophelia’s brother

☼ Passionate and quick to

action, Laertes is clearly a
foil for the
reflective Hamlet
Laertes
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 ☼ The young Prince of Norway,
whose father the king (also
named Fortinbras) was killed
by Hamlet’s father (also
named Hamlet)

☼ wishes to attack Denmark to

avenge his father’s honor,
making him another foil for
Fortinbras Prince Hamlet.
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Analysis
☼ Shakespeare is indeed the poet of nature so he knows the
“deep psychology” of humanity

☼ In the family, the son (Hamlet) whose libidinous Id is

repressed by both his spiritual father (super-ego) and his
corporeal father (shadow) and whose ego is pulled
between the two fathers as between his good angel and
his bad angel

☼ As the son, he is not yet weaned from his oedipus

complex, he cannot achieve individuation, thus
psychologically still staying in the Imaginary Order
though he is already immersed in the Symbolic Order
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☼In the play, we see a split Hamlet whose conscious
self is in conflict with his unconscious self, while his
persona appears sanely above and his true ego lies
madly below, attracted by his anima Gertrude, who
is occasionally displaced by Ophelia, and repressed
by his fathers

☼Thus, the play Hamlet is not a traditional revenge

tragedy, but a new revenge tradegy in which the
revenge is upon oneself and suicide is a jouissance
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☼This fact, then, can account for the hero’s inactivity
or delay in taking vengeance, and can bring forth
the playwright’s particular vision regarding the
theme of war and woman in its sexual and symbolic
aspect

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 Reported by
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: Lisha
William Blake
☼ a famous poet, painter and
engraver of the late 18th
century and early 19th
century

☼ was born at 28 Broad Street

in Soho, London

☼ 28th of November 1757

☼ married Catherine Sophia Boucher on
August 18, 1782

☼ Church of St Mary in Battersea

☼ died on 12 August 1827
☼ He was buried in Burnhill Fields in
London
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 O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,

The Sick That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Rose
By: William Blake
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

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Analysis
 Applications of theory
SYMBOLISM – images are interpreted in terms of sexuality

a.) Concave Images (flowers, caves, vases, tunnels etc.)

are considered as yonic symbols

b.) Long / Erect Images (worms, poles, missiles, swords,

etc.) are considered as phallic symbols

c.) Activities (riding, flying) are symbols of sexual

pleasure
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 Yonic symbol
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm, Phallic symbol
Sexual pleasure That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
unconscious

lust / strong desire

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 The persona
was dominated
by his Id
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy: Satisfaction of
rape
And his dark secret love Id
Does thy life destroy.

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 The man in the poem is obviously dominated by
his id. He was not able to control his sexual desires.
That is why his cravings led him to commit such
hideous crime. He did not even think of the lady being
sick, instead he used the physical condition of the
lady to fulfill or satisfy the cravings of his flesh.

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