Psychoanalytic literary criticsm

1.      Definition: Psychoanalytic literary criticism is defined by Michael Delahoyde as "Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche." ("Psychoanalytic Criticism").

2.      Examples: The website Oxford Reference uses the example of Hamlet "Hamlet feels unable to kill his uncle because Claudius's crimes embody his own repressed incestuous and patricidal wishes, in a perfect illustration of the Oedipus complex." ("Oxford Reference").

The authors of "A Study of Kafka’s the Metamorphosis in the Light of Freudian Psychological Theory" interpret Kafka’s story as "The Metamorphosis is a projection of his own life, even when Gregor Samsa transferred into a verminous bug. Kafka’s stories present symbolically his inner personality so professionally that understanding his stories is possible just when one has a precise view of his life. " ("A Study of Kafka’s the Metamorphosis in the Light of Freudian Psychological Theory 1").

3.      Sources:

Delahoyde, Michael. “Psychoanalytic Criticism.” Psychoanalytic Criticism, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2023.

"Psychoanalytic Criticism." Oxford Reference, www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100352643. Accessed 22 Oct. 2023.

Barfi, Zahra, et al. "A Study of Kafka’s the Metamorphosis in the Light of Freudian Psychological Theory." Research Journal of Recent Sciences, vol. 2, 2013, pp. 107-109, https://doi.org/http://www.isca.in/rjrs/archive/v2/i10/16.ISCA-RJRS-2013-202.pdf.

Dominik Pazdera