ABSTRACT
Life is filled with emotional ups and downs, and our hard times as well as our happy times play an important role in our personal growth. As psychoanalytic theory tells us, we all encounter life-events, as we grow up, that shape our psychological development, and these early experiences tend to play out in our adult lives. Most of us have experienced, for example, recurring episodes of sibling rivalry or other kinds of jealousy, of self-doubt or insecurity, or of loneliness or isolation. In other words, we all experience some sorts of psychological problems over the course of our lives. We can see the signs of those problems from time to time in what psychoanalytic theory calls dysfunctional behavior: for example, all those little (or big) ways in which we put ourselves unnecessarily at risk, get ourselves into trouble, or hurt the ones we love. While psychological problems are a natural and unavoidable part of being human, it is important to try to identify and understand them because, according to psychoanalytic theory, that’s how we can begin to heal those problems. In fact, our lack of awareness of our own psychological problems is what
makes us so vulnerable to them. For the less we know about our problems, the more we tend to “play them out” on other people without even realizing that we’re doing so. And it’s this playing out that can make trouble for ourselves and others. For example, have you ever had a co-worker who always seemed to feel slighted by others; who was convinced, without reason, that he was not receiving the recognition he deserved; or who took offense at things that were not at all intended to offend him? Have you ever had a roommate who habitually forgot to give you your telephone messages, who turned into a super-flirt whenever a date came by to pick you up, or who frequently borrowed your possessions and forgot to return them, or returned them soiled or broken? Have you ever had a friend whose romantic relationships always seemed to be with partners who were bad for her, partners who drank too much or cheated on her, or routinely stood her up to go out with the guys? Psychoanalytic theory would suggest that these individuals were playing
out psychological problems that they probably didn’t know they had, problems that were, nevertheless, the key to understanding their dysfunctional behavior. You’re probably familiar with the idea that we destructively play out on
ourselves and others such unresolved psychological problems as low self-esteem and fear of commitment. And no doubt you’ve had the experience of realizing that a family member or friend was in denial concerning a painful reality in his or her life. For these and other psychoanalytic concepts have come more and more into common use over the last several decades. Common use, however, usually includes some degree of misconception and is too incomplete to give us the full benefit of psychoanalytic theory. So I think you will find this chapter useful even if you’ve already encountered much of the psychoanalytic vocabulary used here. The concepts provided in this chapter come from the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whose ideas about human behavior are still very influential today in the field of psychoanalytic clinical practice and in the analysis of literature. His work is based on the recurring patterns of dysfunctional human behavior he observed during the many years he spent treating patients with emotional problems. It seems logical, then, that we can start to use psychoanalytic theory to
understand literature by asking the following question about any literary work we want to interpret: Do any of the characters exhibit what might be considered dysfunctional behavior, and if so, what are the psychological motives behind it? In other words, what emotional problems do the characters exhibit, and how are their emotional problems responsible for what the characters do? For a good deal of literature attempts to represent some aspect of human experience-especially its darker, more tragic dimension-and psychoanalytic theory, with its focus on the dysfunctional side of human behavior, seems a likely way to help us analyze literary works. So let’s start with a brief look at psychoanalytic theory’s most basic principles.
Although it’s important that you read through the “Basic concepts” section that follows, don’t be too concerned if you don’t feel you thoroughly understand every concept listed. You’ll begin to understand these concepts much better when we use them, later in this chapter, to help us interpret the literary texts that appear at the end of this book. And you’ll see that these fundamental psychoanalytic concepts can help us understand other works of literature, as well. Remember, too, that I’m offering you my own literary analyses in the
interpretation exercises provided later in this chapter. You might use the same psychoanalytic concepts I use but come up with different interpretations of your own. If you disagree with any of the analyses I offer in these exercises, don’t be afraid to look in the literary work in question for evidence that will support your viewpoint. A literary work can often support a number of different interpretations, even when readers are using concepts from the same theory.
