■ I. AIMS AND PRINCIPLES
Having discussed two of the basic
approaches to literary understanding, the traditional and the formalistic, we
now examine a third interpretive perspective, the psychological. Of all the
critical approaches to literature, this has been one of the most controversial,
the most abused, and—for many readers— the least appreciated. Yet, for all the
difficulties involved in its proper application to interpretive analysis, the
psychological approach can be fascinating and rewarding. Our purpose in this
chapter is threefold: (1) to account briefly for the misunderstanding of
psychological criticism; (2) to outline the psychological theory most commonly
used as an interpretive tool by modern critics; and (3) to show by examples how
readers may apply this mode of interpretation to enhance their understanding
and appreciation of literature.
The idea
of enhancement must be understood as a preface to our discussion. It is
axiomatic that no single approach can exhaust the manifold interpretive
possibilities of a worthwhile literary work; each approach has its own peculiar
limitations. As we have already discovered, the limitations of the traditional
approach lie in its tendency to overlook the structural intricacies of the
work. The formalistic approach, on the other hand, often neglects historical
and sociological contexts that may provide important insights into the meaning
of the work.
In turn, the crucial limitation of
the psychological approach is its aesthetic inadequacy: psychological
interpretation can afford many profound clues toward solving a work's thematic
and symbolic mysteries, but it can seldom account for the beautiful symmetry of
a well-wrought poem or of a fictional masterpiece. Though the psychological
approach is an excellent tool for reading beneath the lines, the interpretive
craftsman must often use other tools, such as the traditional and the
formalistic approaches, for a proper rendering of the lines themselves.
A. Abuses and Misunderstandings
of the
Psychological Approach
In the general sense of the word, there is nothing new
about the psychological approach. As early as the fourth century b.c., Aristotle used it in setting forth
his classic definition of tragedy as combining the emotions of pity and terror
to produce catharsis. The "compleat gentleman" of the English Renaissance,
Sir Philip Sidney, with his statements about the moral effects of poetry, was
psychologizing literature, as were such romantic poets as Coleridge, Wordsworth,
and Shelley with their theories of the imagination. In this sense, then,
virtually every literary critic has been concerned at some time with the
psychology of writing or responding to literature.
During the twentieth century,
however, psychological criticism has come to be associated with a particular
school of thought: the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) and his followers. (The currently most significant of these
followers, Jacques Lacan, will be discussed in chapter 6.)
From this association have derived most of the abuses and misunderstandings of
the modern psychological approach to literature. Abuses of the approach have
resulted from an excess of enthusiasm, which has been manifested in several
ways. First, the practitioners of the Freudian approach often push their
critical theses too hard, forcing literature into a Procrustean bed of
psychoanalytic theory at the expense of other relevant considerations (for
example, the work's total thematic and aesthetic context). Second, the literary
criticism of the psychoanalytic
extremists has at times degenerated into a special occultism with its own
mystique and jargon exclusively for the in-group. Third, many critics of the
psychological school have been either literary scholars who have understood the
principles of psychology imperfectly or professional psychologists who have
had little feeling for literature as art: the former have abused Freudian
insights through oversimplification and distortion; the latter have bruised
our literary sensibilities.
These abuses have given rise to a
widespread mistrust of the psychological approach as a tool for critical
analysis. Conservative scholars and teachers of literature, often shocked by
such terms as anal eroticism, phallic symbol, and Oedipal complex, and
confused by the clinical diagnoses of literary problems (for example, the
interpretation of Hamlet's character as a "severe case of hysteria on a
cyclothymic basis"—that is, a manic-depressive psychosis), have rejected
all psychological criticism, other than the commonsense type, as pretentious
nonsense. By explaining a few of the principles of Freudian psychology that
have been applied to literary interpretation and by providing some cautionary
remarks, we hope to introduce the reader to a balanced critical perspective
that will enable him or her to appreciate the instructive possibilities of the
psychological approach while avoiding the pitfalls of either extremist
attitude.
B. Freud's Theories
The
foundation of Freud's contribution to modern psychology is his emphasis on the
unconscious aspects of the human psyche. A brilliant creative genius, Freud
provided convincing evidence, through his many carefully recorded case studies,
that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we
have very limited control. He demonstrated that, like the iceberg, the human
mind is structured so that its great weight and density lie beneath the surface
(below the level of consciousness). In "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality,"
Freud discriminates between the levels of conscious and unconscious mental
activity:
The oldest and best meaning of the
word "unconscious" is the descriptive one; we call
"unconscious" any mental process the existence of which we are
obligated to assume—because, for instance, we infer it in some way from its
effects—but of which we are not directly aware. ... If we want to be more
accurate, we should modify the statement by saying that we call a process
"unconscious" when we have to assume that it was active at a
certain time, although at that time we knew nothing about it.
(99-100)
Freud further emphasizes the
importance of the unconscious by pointing out that even the "most
conscious processes are conscious for only a short period; quite soon they
become latent, though they can easily become conscious again"
(100). In view of this, Freud defines two kinds of unconscious:
one which is transformed into
conscious material easily and under conditions which frequently arise, and
another in the case of which such a transformation is difficult, can only come
about with a considerable expenditure of energy, or may never occur at all. . .
. We call the unconscious which is only latent, and so can easily become
conscious, the "preconscious," and keep the name
"unconscious" for the other. (101)
That most of the individual's
mental processes are unconscious is thus Freud's first major premise. The
second (which has been rejected by a great many professional psychologists,
including some of Freud's own disciples—for example, Carl Gustav Jung and
Alfred Adler) is that аll human behavior is motivated
ultimately by what we would call sexuality. Freud designates the prime psychic
force as libido, or sexual energy. His third major premise is that because of
the powerful social taboos attached to certain sexual impulses, many of our desires
and memories are repressed (that is, actively excluded from conscious
awareness).
Starting from these three premises,
we may examine several corollaries of Freudian theory. Principal among these is
Freud's assignment of the mental processes to three psychic zones: the id, the
ego, and the superego. An explanation of these zones may be illustrated with
Freud's own diagram:
perceptual-conscious
The diagram reveals immediately the
vast portion of the mental apparatus that is not conscious. Furthermore, it
helps to clarify the relationship between ego, id, and superego, as well as
their collective relationship to the conscious and the unconscious. We should
note that the id is entirely unconscious and that only a small portion of the
ego and the superego is conscious. With this diagram as a guide, we may define
the nature and functions of the three psychic zones.
1. The id is the reservoir
of libido, the primary source of all psychic energy. It functions to fulfill
the primordial life principle, which Freud considers to be the pleasure
principle. Without consciousness or semblance of rational order, the id is
characterized by a tremendous and amorphous vitality. Speaking metaphorically,
Freud explains this "obscure inaccessible part of our personality" as
"a chaos, a cauldron of seething excitement [with] no organization and no
unified will, only an impulsion to obtain satisfaction for the instinctual
needs, in accordance with the pleasure principle" (103-^1). He further
stresses that the "laws of logic—above all, the law of contradiction—do
not hold for processes of the id. Contradictory impulses exist side by side
without neutralizing each other or drawing apart. . . . Naturally, the id knows
no values, no good and evil, no morality" (104-5).
The id is, in short, the source of
all our aggressions and desires. It is lawless, asocial, and amoral. Its
function is to gratify our instincts for pleasure without regard for social
conventions, legal ethics, or moral restraint. Unchecked, it would lead us to
any lengths—to destruction and even self-destruction— to satisfy its impulses
for pleasure. Safety for the self and for others does not lie within the
province of the id; its concern is purely for instinctual gratification,
heedless of consequence. For centuries before Freud, this force was recognized
in human nature but often attributed to supernatural and external rather than
natural and internal forces: the id as defined by Freud is identical in many
respects to the Devil as defined by theologians. Thus there is a certain
psychological validity in the old saying that a rambunctious child (whose id
has not yet been brought under control by ego and superego) is "full of
the devil." We may also see in young children (and neurotic adults)
certain uncontrolled impulses toward pleasure that often lead to excessive
self-indulgence and even to self-injury
2.
In view of the id's dangerous potentialities, it is necessary that other
psychic agencies protect the individual and society. The first of these
regulating agencies, that which protects the individual, is the ego. This
is the rational governing agent of the psyche. Though the ego lacks the strong
vitality of the id, it regulates the instinctual drives of the id so that they
may be released in nondestructive behavioral patterns. And though a large
portion of the ego is unconscious, the ego nevertheless comprises what we
ordinarily think of as the conscious mind. As Freud points out, "In
popular language, we may say that the ego stands for reason and circumspection,
while the id stands for the untamed passions." Whereas the id is governed
solely by the pleasure principle, the ego is governed by the reality
principle. Consequently, the ego serves as intermediary between the world
within and the world without.
3.
The other regulating agent, that which primarily functions to protect
society, is the superego. Largely unconscious, the superego is the moral
censoring agency, the repository of conscience and pride. It is, as Freud says
in "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality" the "representative
of all moral restrictions, the advocate of the impulse toward perfection, in
short it is as much as we have been able to apprehend psychologically of what
people call the 'higher' things in human life" (95). Acting either
directly or through the ego, the superego serves to repress or inhibit the
drives of the id, to block off and thrust back into the unconscious those
impulses toward pleasure that society regards as unacceptable, such as overt
aggression, sexual passions, and the Oedipal instinct. Freud attributes the
development of the superego to the parental influence that manifests itself in
terms of punishment for what society considers to be bad behavior and reward
for what society considers good behavior. An overactive superego creates an unconscious
sense of guilt (hence the familiar term guilt complex and the popular
misconception that Freud advocated the relaxing of all moral inhibitions and
social restraints). Whereas the id is dominated by the pleasure principle and
the ego by the reality principle, the superego is dominated by the morality
principle. We might say that the id would make us devils, that the superego
would have us behave as angels (or, worse, as creatures of absolute social
conformity), and that it remains for the ego to keep us healthy human beings by
maintaining a balance between these two opposing forces. It was this balance
that Freud advocated—not a complete removal of inhibiting factors.
One of the most instructive applications
of this Freudian tri-partition to literary criticism is the well-known essay
"In Nomine Diaboli" by Henry A. Murray (435-52), a knowledgeable
psychoanalyst and a sensitive literary critic as well. In analyzing Herman
Melville's masterpiece Moby-Dick with the tools provided by Freud,
Murray explains the White Whale as a symbolic embodiment of the strict
conscience of New England Puritanism (that is, as a projection of Melville's
own superego). Captain Ahab, the monomaniac who leads the crew of the Pequod
to destruction through his insane compulsion to pursue and strike back at
the creature who has injured him, is interpreted as the symbol of a rapacious
and uncontrollable id. Starbuck, the sane Christian and first mate
who struggles to mediate between the forces embodied in Moby-Dick and Ahab,
symbolizes a balanced and sensible rationalism (that is, the ego).
Though many scholars are reluctant
to accept Freud's tripartition of the human psyche, they have not reacted
against this aspect of psychoanalytic criticism so strongly as
against the application of his sexual theories to the symbolic interpretation
of literature. Let us briefly examine the highlights of such theories. Perhaps
the most controversial (and, to many persons, the most offensive) facet of
psychoanalytic criticism is its tendency to interpret imagery in terms of
sexuality. Following Freud's example in his interpretation of dreams, the
psychoanalytic critic tends to see all concave images (ponds, flowers, cups or
vases, caves, and hollows) as female or yonic symbols, and all images whose
length exceeds their diameter (towers, mountain peaks, snakes, knives, lances,
and swords) as male or phallic symbols. Perhaps even more objectionable to some
is the interpretation of such activities as dancing, riding, and flying as
symbols of sexual pleasure: for example, in The Life and Works of Edgar
Allan Poe: A Psycho-Analytic Interpretation, Marie
Bonaparte interprets the figure of Psyche in "Ulalume" as an
ambivalent mother figure, both the longed-for mother and the mother as superego
who shields her son from his incestuous instincts, concluding with the
following startling observation: "Psyche's drooping, trailing wings in
this poem symbolise in concrete form Poe's physical impotence. We know that
flying, to all races, unconsciously symbolises the sex act, and that antiquity
often represented the penis erect and winged." For the skeptical reader
Bonaparte provides this explanation:
“Infinite are the symbols man has
the capacity to create, as indeed, the dreams and religions of the savage and
civilized well show. Every natural object may be utilised to this end yet, despite
their multiple shapes, the objects and relations to which they attach are
relatively few: these include the beings we loved first, such as mother,
father, brothers or sisters and their bodies, but mainly our own bodies and
genitals, and theirs. Almost all symbolism is sexual, in its widest sense,
taking the word as the deeply-buried primal urge behind all expressions of love,
from the cradle to the grave. (294)
Although such observations as these
may have a sound psychoanalytic basis, their relevance to sound critical
analysis has been questioned by many scholars. We may sympathize with their
incredulousness when we encounter the Freudian essay that interprets even a
seemingly innocent fairy tale like "Little Red Riding Hood" as an allegory of the age-old conflict between
male and female in which the plucky young virgin, whose red cap is a menstrual
symbol, outwits the ruthless, sex-hungry "wolf" (Fromm 235-41).
Perhaps even more controversial
than Freudian dream symbolism are Freud's theories concerning child
psychology. Contrary to traditional beliefs, Freud found infancy and childhood
a period of intense sexual experience, sexual in a sense much broader than is
commonly attached to the term. During the first five years of life, the child
passes through a series of phases in erotic development, each phase being
characterized by emphasis on a particular erogenous zone (that is, a
portion of the body in which sexual pleasure becomes localized). Freud
indicated three such zones: the oral, the anal, and the genital.
(Note that the uninitiated layman, unfamiliar with the breadth of Freud's
term, generally restricts the meaning of "sexuality" to "genital
sexuality") These zones are associated not only with pleasure in
stimulation but also with the gratification of our vital needs: eating,
elimination, and reproduction. If for some reason the individual is frustrated
in gratifying these needs during childhood, the adult personality may be warped
accordingly (that is, development may be arrested or fixated). For
example, adults who are compulsively fastidious may suffer, according to the
psychoanalyst, from an anal fixation traceable to overly strict toilet training
during early childhood. Likewise, compulsive cigarette smoking may be
interpreted as a symptom of oral fixation traceable to premature weaning. Even
among "normal" adults, sublimated responses occur when the individual
is vicariously stimulated by images associated with one of the major erogenous
zones. In his Fiction and the Unconscious, Simon O. Lesser suggests that
the anal-erotic quality in Robinson Crusoe (manifested in the hero's
scrupulous record keeping and orderliness) accounts at least partially for the
unconscious appeal of Defoe's masterpiece (306).
According to Freud, the child
reaches the stage of genital primacy around age five, at which time the Oedipus
complex manifests itself. In simple terms, the Oedipus complex derives from the
boy's unconscious rivalry with his father for the love of his mother. Freud
borrowed the term from the classic Sophoclean tragedy in which the hero
unwittingly murders his father and marries his mother. In The Ego and the
Id, Freud describes the complex as follows:
. . . the boy deals with his father by identifying
himself with him. For a time these two relationships [the child's devotion to
his mother and identification with his father] proceed side by side, until the
boy's sexual wishes in regard to his mother become more intense and his father
is perceived as an obstacle to them; from this the Oedipus complex originates.
His identification with his father then takes on a hostile colouring and
changes into a wish to get rid of his father in order to take his place with
his mother. Henceforward his relation to his father is ambivalent; it seems as
if the ambivalence inherent in the identification from the beginning had
become manifest. An ambivalent attitude to his father and an object-relation
of a solely affectionate kind to his mother make up the content of the simple
positive Oedipus complex in a boy. (21-22)
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