Psychoanalytic Criticism and TTOTS

Psychoanalytic Criticism and TTOTS

1. What is psychoanalytic criticism?

   • Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods based on the work of Sigmund Freud.
   • Psychoanalysis seeks to elucidate connections among unconscious components of patients’ mental processed.
   • When reading a text from a psychoanalytical perspective, a critic might be concerned with characterisation, as well as what a text might reveal about the author’s psychology. One might focus on what the text’s language reveals about a character or author, and what the reader’s response may reveal about his or herself.
   • Unconscious- the part of the mental functioning of which subjects make themselves unaware.
   • Subjects- one who has subjective experiences i.e. the conscious self.
   • Repression- the process by which one actively subsumes content under the level of conscious thought.
   • Superego- the part of consciousness containing internalized norms, morality and taboo.
   • Id- the primitive desires (hunger, sex, anger)
   • Ego- mediates between super-ego and id, and gives rise to the idea of the ‘self’
   • Oedipal Complex- a concept developed to explain neuroses with inception in childhood, derived from the classical mythology of Oedipus Rex. The Oedipus complex applies to men, and refers to the unconscious desire for the exclusive love of his mother, and the subsequent jealousy of the father and desire for his death.
   • Jentsch- ‘one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton, and to do it in such a way that is attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear up immediately’.

2. Zacharias

   • ‘To read a narrative as a confession is also to recognise the governess’s attempts to represent her acceptance of her employer’s authority, the place of desire’
   • ‘it is through the governess’s unconscious work to maintain the fantasy, even though it is not fully pleasant, that she seeks psychic wholeness’

3. The uncanny

   • The uncanny in literature is more fertile than the uncanny in real life as it contains the whole of the latter and something more besides, something that cannot be found in real life.
   • The Freudian concept of an instance where something can be both familiar yet alien at the same time.
   • You could argue that the children in The Turn of the Screw are uncanny as Miles and Flora are constantly spoken to be ‘beautiful’ and ‘angelic’ yet in the first chapters of the book the children, particularly Flora, show no real emotion and have not spoken.
   • Bly can be understood to be uncanny also.
   • The Governess’ sexual desires could also be considered to be uncanny as the uncanny is what unconsciously reminds us of our own id, her forbidden and thus repressed sexual impulses towards the master.

4. In this theory, the ghosts are analogous to sexual corruption, and the reason why the children can’t see them is because they are too innocent to fear or be aware of this sort of corruption.

5. The Lacanian notion is that Turn of the Screw is subtly referencing medieval interrogation techniques: thumbscrews, for example, were common forms of torture, and throughout the text there are many, many times in which words like ‘pressure’, ‘press’, and ‘pinch’ are used when other, less meaning-heavy words could have been easily substituted. The subtle references to torture might also be indicative of Henry James’ feelings about the stigma thrust upon sexuality during the Victorian era, and his desire to see the stigma and resulting alienation thrust back upon those applying it, seen when the children turn upon their governess, in this case their interrogator.

6. Quint is the product of the Governess’ repressed love for the master and the ‘alien’ is simply part of the Governess’ id.

7. Miles ‘kissed’ the Governess.

   • Freudian critics would argue that Miles is acting in accordance to the pleasure principle- his actions avoid pain and seek pleasure. Him trying to kiss her is natural for him, according to Freud.
     • Children are not in control of their id. Miles ‘kissed’ the Governess, as he has not learnt to control his internal and basic drives

8. Governess insinuates that Jessel ‘fixed’ Flora. When Flora becomes ‘at a distance’ to the Governess it is inferred that she is with Jessel. Freud provides a reason for this- latency stage of development: it is normal for children to bond close bond with children of the same gender. Miles and Flora had to look elsewhere: to Quint and Jessel.