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The fact that the townspeople do not realize this dichotomous tension betwee n Richard Cory's outward and inner states is evidenced in the second tension of the poem — the tension between Richard Cory and the state of the townspeople. In stark contrast to the description of Richard Cory's apparent life of ease, the townspeople are depicte d as miserable, hardworking sorts : "So on we worked, and waited for the light, / And went without the meat, and cursed the bread." The word so comes immediately after the lin e "To make us wish that we were in his place" and thereby suggests that these people wer e driven by material urges to emulate Richard Cory. There is no indication in the poem that the townspeople realize the error of their pos- itive assumptions about Richard Cory. In addition, there is no internal evidence within th e poem to indicate that the people cease their material striving after Richard Cory's death ;
the most any close reader can say on this matter is that he or she simply does not know
what the townspeople's reaction is to Richard Cory's death. To infer anything else woul d
be to read into the poem something that is not there—a critical no-no in the interpretive
analysis of poetry. Also, the poem gives absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the caus e
of Richard Cory's suicide. Hence, it would be a mistake to interpret the poem as a mora l
lesson warning against the dangers of materialism. Rather, the safest interpretation i s
that appearances can sometimes be misleading.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICIS M
Novelists who go to psychiatrists are paying for what the y should be paid for. UNKNOWN SOURC E
Human beings are fascinating creatures. Readers can be said to take a psychologica l approach when they try to understand them. The questions asked about characters are the same ones likely to be asked about a person's friends. "Why would he wan t to do something dumb like that?" one might say. Another might shake her head an d comment, "I knew that wasn't going to work. I don't see why she had to try it ." People never seem to run out of speculations about others' motives, relationships, and con- versations or, for that matter, their own. They also speculate about dreams, puzzlin g as to their source. Bizarre in their form and ambiguous as to their meaning, dream s are yet powerful enough to frighten, please, and intrigue us.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUN D
Aristotle knew that human beings are endlessly interesting. As far back as the fourth century BC, Aristotle commented on the effects of tragedy on an audience, sayin g that by evoking pity and fear, tragedy creates a catharsis of those emotions. He was the earliest of many writers and critics down through the centuries to question wh y we are drawn to writing stories and poems and why we like reading them. Does literature make us better individuals? Matthew Arnold believed it could. Poetry, h e said, could "inspirit and rejoice the reader ." Where does the impulse to write com e from? William Wordsworth said poetry springs from "emotion recollected in tran- quillity." What is creativity? Samuel Taylor Coleridge thought there were two type s of creativity : the primary imagination, which he described as "the living power an d prime agent of all human perception," and the secondary one, which was capabl e of re-creating the world of sense through its power to fuse and shape experience. As Coleridge explained it, "[Creativity] dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order t o
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recreate ." Even Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of personalities as being Apollonian, by which he meant they were guided by the use of critical reasoning, or Dionysian , referring to personalities ruled by creative-intuitive power. All such questions and theories are psychological. They are efforts to explain th e growth, development, and structure of the human personality. Until the latter part o f the nineteenth century, however, such speculation lacked the broad theoretical basis that would support those early attempts at understanding ourselves. It was then that Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) advanced his startling theories about the workings o f the human psyche, its formation, its organization, and its maladies. His students and followers, such as Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, and Carl Jung, later built on Freud' s ideas of probing the workings of the human psyche to understand why people act a s they do. Of particular interest to literary critics is Jung, who provided the concepts o f the collective unconscious,^ myths, and^ archetypes,^ which have helped readers se e literature as an expression of the experience of the entire human species. Later, in th e 1950s, Northrop Frye developed Jung's ideas in ways that were more directly appli- cable to literature. More recently, Jacques Lacan has received serious attention for hi s efforts to build on Freud's work, turning to linguistic theories to assert that languag e shapes our unconscious and our conscious minds, thereby giving us our identity. Preceding the significant contributions of Jung, Lacan, and others, however, Freu d began the quest for understanding by providing new ways of looking at ourselves. Th e power of his theories is evident in the number and variety of fields they have affected — fields as disparate as philosophy, medicine, sociology, and literary criticism. Although they do not provide an aesthetic theory of literature, which would explain how literatur e is beautiful or why it is meaningful in and of itself, their value lies in giving readers a way to deepen their understanding of themes that have always been present in Wester n literature—themes of family, authority, guilt, as an example. In addition, they provide a framework for making more perceptive character analyses. With Freudian theory, i t is possible to discover what is not said directly, perhaps even what the author did no t realize he was saying, to read between (or perhaps beneath) the lines. The absence of an aesthetic theory makes psychoanalytic criticism both more and less useful to a reader. On the one hand, because it does not contradict othe r schools of criticism, it can be used as a complement to them. That is, instead of ruling out other perspectives on a text, it can exist alongside them, even enrich and exten d them. The French feminist critics, a case in point, have made good use of Lacan' s ideas in forming their own critical approaches. On the other hand, the lack of an aes- thetic theory means that psychoanalytic criticism can never account for the beaut y of a poem or the artistry that has created it. The reader must turn to other types o f analysis to explore those other dimensions of literature.
PRACTICING PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICIS M
To understand the discussion that follows, you should read the short story "Youn g Goodman Brown," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which begins on page 291.
Today the psychological literary critic can base his inferences on the works of numer- ous important theorists, but it is Freud's ideas that have provided the basis for thi s approach, and his ideas are still fundamental to it. To work as a psychological critic , whether you are directly applying Freudian theory or working with the ideas o f his followers, it is necessary to understand some of his concepts about the huma n psyche.
FREUDIAN PRINCIPLE S
As a neurologist practicing in Vienna in the late nineteenth century, Freud was trou- bled that he could not account for the complaints of many of his patients by citing any physical cause. Diagnosing his patients as hysterics, he entered upon analyse s of them (and himself) that led him to infer that their distress was caused by factors of which perhaps even they were unaware. He became convinced that fantasies an d desires too bizarre and unacceptable to admit had been suppressed, buried so deeply in the unconscious part of their being that, although the desires did not have to b e confronted directly, they led to neuroses that caused his patients' illnesses. He con- cluded that the unconscious plays a major role in what we do, feel, and say, although we are not aware of its presence or operations. Freud did not come by these ideas easily or quickly. As early as 1895, he pub- lished, with Joseph Breuer, Studies in Hysteria,^ an important work asserting that symptoms of hysteria are the result of unresolved but forgotten traumas from child - hood. Five years later, he wrote The Interpretation of Dreams,^ in which he addresse d the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, a treatment in which a patient talks t o an analyst about dreams, childhood, and relationships with parents and authority figures. Using free association, slips of language, and dreams, Freud found ways fo r an analyst to help a patient uncover the painful or threatening events that have bee n repressed in the unconscious to make them inaccessible to the conscious mind. In psychoanalytic criticism, the same topics and techniques form the basis for analyz- ing literary texts. Just after the turn of the century, Freud himself began to apply his theories t o the interpretation of religion, mythology, art, and literature. His first piece of psy- choanalytic criticism was "Delusions and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva"^ (1907). In i t he psychoanalyzed the central character, noting the Oedipal effects behind the plot. (Freud was not alone in asserting the close relationship between dreams and art. I n 1923 Wilhelm Stekel published a book on dreams, saying that no essential differenc e exists between them and poetry. Around that same time, F. C. Prescott, in^ Poetry an d Dreams, argued for a definite correspondence between the two in both form and con - tent .) The concern with literature soon turned to the writers themselves and to artist s in general, as Freud questioned why art exists and why people create it. In that search , he wrote monographs on Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, Leonardo da^ Vinci, Goethe, and others. Freud's sense of the artist, finally, was that he is an unstable personality wh o writes out of his own neuroses, with the result that his work provides therapeuti c insights into the nature of life not only for himself but also for those who read.
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morality principle, for it provides the sense of moral and ethical wrongdoing. Parents , who enforce their values through punishments and rewards, are the chief source o f the superego, which furnishes a sense of guilt for behavior that breaks the rules give n by parents to the young child. Later in life, the superego is expanded by institution s and other influences. Consequently, the superego works against the drive of the id an d represses socially unacceptable desires back into the unconscious. Balance betwee n the license of the id and the restrictions of the superego produces the healthy person- ality. But when unconscious guilt becomes overwhelming, the individual can be sai d to be suffering from a guilt complex. When the superego is too strong, it can lead t o unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the self. For Goodman Brown, the descent into the unconscious (the night in the forest ) presents a conflict between the superego (the highly regulated life he has know n in Salem) and the id (the wild, unrestrained passions of the people in the forest). Lacking a viable ego of his own, he turns to Faith, his wife, for help. Unfortunately, she wears pink ribbons, a mixture of white (purity) and red (passion), which indicate s the ambiguity of goodness and Brown's clouded belief in the possibility of goodnes s throughout the remainder of his life.
The Significance of Sexualit y
Prior to Freud, children were thought to be asexual beings, innocent of the biologi- cal drives that would beset them later. Freud, however, recognized that it is durin g childhood that the id is formed, shaping the behavior of the adult to come. In fact, Freud believed that infancy and childhood are periods of intense sexual experienc e during which it is necessary to go through three phases of development that serv e specific physical needs, then to provide pleasure if we are to become healthy, func- tioning adults. The first phase is called the oral phase, because it is characterized b y sucking—first to be fed from our mother's breast, then to enjoy our thumbs or, later, even kissing. The second is the anal stage, a period that recognizes not only the nee d for elimination but also the presence of another erogenous zone, a part of the bod y that provides sexual pleasure. In the final phase, the phallic stage, the child discovers the pleasure of genital stimulation, connected, of course, to reproduction. If thes e three overlapping stages are successfully negotiated, the adult personality emerge s sound and intact. If, however, these childhood needs are not met, the adult is likely to suffer arrested development. The mature person may become fixated on a behavio r that serves to fulfill what was not satisfied at an early age. The early years, therefore , encompass critical stages of development because repressions formed at that tim e may surface as problems later. Around the time the child reaches the genital stage, about the age of five, he o r she is ready to develop a sense of maleness or femaleness. To explain the process b y which the child makes that step, Freud turned to literature. Referring to the plot of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, (^) Freud pointed out that the experience of Oedipus is that of all male children. That is, just as Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marrie s his mother, a young boy forms an erotic attachment to his mother and unconsciously
grows to desire her. He consequently resents his father because of his relationshi p with the mother. Fearing castration by the father, the male child represses his sexua l desires, identifies with his father, and anticipates his own sexual union. Such a step i s a necessary one in his growth toward manhood. The boy who fails to make that ste p will suffer from an Oedipal complex, with ongoing fear of castration evident in hi s hostility to authority in general. In the case of girls, the passage from childhood to womanhood requires suc- cessful negotiation of the Electra complex. In Freudian theory, the girl child, too , has a strong attraction for her mother and sees her father as a rival, but because she realizes that she has already been castrated, she develops an attraction for her father , who has the penis she desires. When she fails to garner his attentions, she identifie s with her mother and awaits her own male partner, who will provide what her femal e physiognomy lacks. In "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne clearly implies that Brown's troublin g impulses are sexual and that they are not his alone. The sermon of the devil figur e promises Brown and Faith that they will henceforth know the secret sins of the peopl e of Salem : "how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton word s to the young maids of their households ;... how fair damsels—blush not, sweet ones—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant's funeral ." The catalogue leaves no doubt that sexual passion is part of th e human condition, and left unrestrained, it leads to grave offenses. Freud explains that as both boys and girls make the transition to normal adulthood, they become awar e of their place in a moral system of behavior. They move from operating according to the pleasure principle, which dictates that they want immediate gratification of al l desires, to an acceptance of the reality principle, in which the ego and superego rec- ognize rules, restraint, and responsibility. Goodman Brown, unable to discern reality or define moral behavior, remains outside the adult world. We are told, "A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream ." On the Sabbath, he cannot bear to listen to the singin g of the psalms nor hear the words of the minister's sermon. He lives separate and apart from his society.
The Importance of Dream s The vast unconscious that exists beneath the surface of our awareness seems closest to revelation when we sleep. Our dreams, according to Freud, are the language of th e unconscious, full of unfulfilled desires that the conscious mind has buried there. Thei r content is rarely clear, however, for even in sleep the ego censors unacceptable wishes. Through the use of symbols that make repressed material more acceptable, if no t readily understandable to us, the ego veils the meaning of our dreams from direc t apprehension that would produce painful recognition. As in literature, the proces s may take place through condensation. For example, two desires of the psyche might be articulated by a single word or image in a dream, just as they are in a poem. Condensation can also take place through displacement—moving^ one's feeling for
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a particular person to an object related to her, much as metonymy uses the name o f one object to replace another with which it is closely related or of which it is a part. When dreams become too direct and their meanings too apparent, we awaken or, unconsciously, change the symbology. Interestingly, Young Goodman Brown is never certain whether he has dreamed his experience or lived it. Indeed, the ambiguity an d uncertainty about the other villagers and their part in the satanic communion haun t him for the rest of his life. He returns to the village and the light of day, but what i s real and what is fantasy elude him. The meanings of the symbols remain unrevealed to him. As a window into the unconscious, dreams become valuable tools for psycho- analysts in determining unresolved conflicts in the psyche, conflicts that a perso n may suspect only because of physical ailments, such as headaches, or psychologica l discomfort, such as claustrophobia. When dreams appear in literature, they offer rich insights into characters that the characters' outer actions, or even their spoken words , might never suggest. Because dreams are meaningful symbolic presentations tha t take the reader beyond the external narrative, they are valuable tools for critics usin g a psychoanalytic approach.
Symbols Freud's recognition of the often subtle and always complex workings of sexualit y in human beings and in literature led to a new awareness of what symbols mea n in literature as well as in life. If dreams are a symbolic expression of represse d desires, most of them sexual in nature, then the images through which they operat e are themselves sexual ones. Their sexuality is initially indicated by shape. That is, physical objects that are concave in shape, such as lakes, tunnels, and cups, ar e assumed to be female, or yonic, symbols, and those that are convex, those whos e length exceeds their diameter, such as trees, towers, and spires, are assumed to b e male, or phallic. Although Freud objected to a general interpretation of dream symbols, insistin g that they are personal and individual in nature, such readings are not uncommon. Although this approach to understanding symbols has sometimes been pushed t o ridiculous extremes, it undeniably has the capacity to enrich our reading and under - standing in ways that we would not otherwise discover. The symbols in "Young Goodman Brown" are replete with sexual suggestio n that is rarely made explicit in the story. Many of those that play a part in Brown' s initiation, such as the devil's staff, which is described as "a great black snake... a living serpent," are male images, suggesting the nature of Brown's temptation. The satanic communion is depicted as being lighted by blazing fires, with the implicatio n of intense emotion, especially sexual passion. The burning pine trees surrounding the altar, again masculine references, underscore that the repressions of nature exercise d in the village give way to obsessions in the forest. There are female symbols, too. For example, entering the forest suggests returning to the dark, womblike unknown. What if Young Goodman Brown had not actually undergone the experience and had
only dreamed it? The event is still significant, because dreams can function as sym- bolic forms of wish fulfillment. Brown's nighttime journey, the nature of which is powerfully deepened by the sym - bolic imagery, leaves its mark on him. He is thereafter a dark and brooding man, leadin g Richard Adams in "Hawthorne's Provincial Tales" to argue that Brown fails to matur e because he fails to learn to know, control, and use his sexual feelings. That is, he canno t love or hate ; he can only fear moral maturity. He never manages to emerge from hi s uncertainty and consequent despair. He has been required to acknowledge evil in himsel f and others, including his wife, so that he can recognize goodness, but having failed the test, he is left in a state of moral uncertainty. The result is moral and social isolation.
Creativity The connection between creative expression and the stuff of dreams was not los t on Freud. His curiosity about the sources and nature of creativity is reflected in th e monographs he wrote on creative artists from various times and cultures, includ- ing Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Michelangelo. Freud recognized that th e artist consciously expresses fantasy, illusion, and wishes through symbols, just a s dreams from the unconscious do. To write a story or a poem, then, is to reveal th e unconscious, to give a neurosis socially acceptable expression. Such a view makes the writer a conflicted individual working out his or her problems. Freud explaine d the idea this way in Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis : The artist has also an introverted disposition and has not far to go to become a neurotic. He is one who is urged on by instinctual needs which are too clamorous. He longs to attain to honor, power, riches, fame, and the love of women ; but he lacks the means of achieving these gratifications. So, like any other with an unsatisfied longing, he turn s away from reality and transfers all his interest, and all his libido too. to the creation of his wishes in the life of fantasy, from which the way might readily lead to neurosis. In the process of engaging in his or her own therapy, said Freud, the artist achieve s insights and understanding that can be represented to others who are less likely t o have found them. Such views have led some critics to focus their attention not on a text but on th e writer behind it. They see a work as an expression of the writer's unconscious mind , an artifact that can be used to psychoanalyze the writer, producing psychobiography. (A good example of this genre is Edmund Wilson's The Wound and the Bow.) Of course, to do such a study, one needs access to verifiable biographical information , as well as expertise in making a psychological analysis. Most literary critics, thoug h they may be able to find the former, usually lack the latter. Indeed, one might as k whether such an undertaking is literary criticism at all.
Summing Up In the end, when you make a Freudian (psychoanalytical) reading of a text, you wil l probably limit yourself to a consideration of the work itself, looking at its conflicts,
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parts of the ego, our conscious personality. The former mediates between the ego an d the outside world, the latter between the ego and the inner one. To become a psychologically healthy, well-balanced adult—or, as Jung put it , for individuation to occur—we must discover and accept the different sides of our - selves, even those we dislike and resist. If we reject some part of the self, we are likel y to project that element onto others—that is. we transfer it to something or someon e else, thereby making us incapable of seeing ourselves as wrong or guilty. Instead , we see another person or institution to be at fault. In these terms, Young Goodman Brown's despondency can be seen as the result of his failure to achieve individuation. He projects his shadow on the forest companion and later on the entire community. He fails to nurture his anima, leaving Faith behind and, in the end, suspecting her o f the faithlessness he has committed. And, finally, his persona, the face that he show s to the world, is a false one. He is not the "good man," the pious Puritan, he claims t o be. The healthy individual develops a persona that exists comfortably and easily wit h the rest of his personality. Young Goodman Brown, unable to integrate all parts of his personality, dies an unhappy neurotic, or as Hawthorne puts it, "They carved n o hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. " There are, of course, many different archetypes, with some more commonly me t than others. Some of the characters, images, and situations that frequently elicit simi - lar psychological responses from diverse groups of people can be found in the list s that follow. Whenever you meet them, it is possible that they carry with them more power to evoke a response than their literal meanings would suggest.
Characters
- The hero. Heroes, according to Lord Raglan in^ The Hero : A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama, are distinguished by several uncommon events, including^ a birth that has unusual circumstances (such as a virgin mother) ; an early escap e from attempts to murder him ; or a return to his homeland where, after a victor y over some antagonist, he marries a princess, assumes the throne, and only later falls victim to a fate that may include being banished from the kingdom only t o die a mysterious death and have an ambiguous burial. The archetype is exempli- fied by such characters as Oedipus, Jason, and Jesus Christ. Sometimes the stor y may involve only a journey during which the hero must answer complex riddles , retrieve a sacred or powerful artifact, or do battle with superhuman creatures t o save someone else, perhaps a whole people. The quests of some of the knights i n Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, such as those made by Gawain an d Galahad, are examples. - The scapegoat. Sometimes the hero himself becomes the sacrificial victim wh o is put to death by the community in order to remove the guilt of the people an d restore their welfare and health. On occasion, an animal suffices as the scapegoat , but in literature, the scapegoat is more likely to be a human being. Again, Jesu s Christ is an example, but a more recent retelling of the story is found in Shirle y Jackson's "The Lottery ." - (^) The outcast. The outcast is a character who is thrown out of the community a s punishment for a crime against it. The fate of the outcast, as can be seen in Th e Ancient Mariner, is to wander throughout eternity. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown also finds himself separated from his community following his refusal t o join in the forest communion. He cannot listen to the hymns of the assemble d congregation on the Sabbath, kneel with his family at prayer, or trust in the virtu e of Faith, his wife. He is lonely and alone. - The devil. (^) The figure of the devil personifies the principle of evil that intrude s in the life of a character to tempt and destroy him, often by promising wealth , fame, or knowledge in exchange for his soul. Mephistopheles in the legend of Faust is such a figure, as is the old man whom Young Goodman Brown meets in the forest. The latter carries a snakelike staff and purports to have been present a t ancient evil deeds. Brown even refers to him as "the devil. " - Female figures. (^) Women are depicted in several well-known archetypes. Th e good mother, such as Ma Joad in (^) The Grapes of Wrath, is associated with fertil- ity, abundance, and nurturance of those around her. The temptress, on the other hand, destroys the men who are attracted to her sensuality and beauty. Like Delilah, who robs Samson of his strength, she causes their downfall. The female who inspires the mind and soul of men is a spiritual (or platonic) ideal. She has no physical attractions but, like Dante's Beatrice, guides, directs, and fulfills he r male counterpart. Finally, women are seen as the unfaithful wife. As she appear s in Flaubert's (^) Madame Bovary, the unfaithful wife, married to a dull, insensitiv e husband, turns to a more desirable man as a lover, with unhappy consequences. - (^) The trickster. A figure often appearing in African American and American Indian narratives, the trickster is mischievous, disorderly, and amoral. He dis- rupts the rigidity of rule-bound cultures, bringing them reminders of their les s strict beginnings. For example, in the tales of Till Eulenspiegel, which date bac k to the sixteenth century, Till, a shrewd rural peasant, outwits the arrogant towns - people and satirizes their social practices.
Images
- Colors. (^) Colors have a variety of archetypal dimensions. Red, because of its asso- ciation with blood, easily suggests passion, sacrifice, or violence. Green, on the other hand, makes one think of fertility and the fullness of life, even hope. Blu e is often associated with holiness or sanctity, as in the depiction of the Virgi n Mary. Light and darkness call up opposed responses : hope, inspiration, enlight- enment, and rebirth in contrast with ignorance, hopelessness, and death. - Numbers. (^) Like colors, numbers are invested with different meanings. The number three points to things spiritual, as in the Holy Trinity ; four is associated with the four seasons (and, by extension, with the cycle of life) and the four ele- ments (earth, air, fire, and water). When three and four are combined to mak e seven, the union produces a powerful product that is perfect and whole an d complete.
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- Water.^ Another common image, water is often used as a creation, birth, o r rebirth symbol, as in Christian baptism. Flowing water can refer to the passage of time. In contrast, the desert or lack of water suggests a spiritually barren state , as it does in T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. - Gardens.^ Images of natural abundance, such as gardens, often indicate a paradise or a state of innocence. The best-known, of course, is the Garde n of Eden. - Circles. Circles can be presented simply or in complex relationships with othe r geometric figures. By their lack of beginnings and endings, circles commonl y suggest a state of wholeness and union. A wedding ring, for example, brings to mind the unending union of two people. - The sun. Like the seasons, the sun makes one think of the passage of time. At its rising, it calls to mind the beginning of a phase of life or of life itself ; at it s setting, it points to death and other endings. At full presence, it might sugges t enlightenment or radiant knowledge.
Situations
- The quest.^ Pursued by the hero, mentioned earlier, the quest usually involve s a difficult search for a magical or holy item that will return fertility and abun- dance to a desolate state. Certainly, the boy in James Joyce's "Araby" goe s to the bazaar in search of a fitting offering for Mangan's sister, whom he has sanctified with his young love. It is both a holy quest and a romantic one. A related pattern is that of the need to perform a nearly impossible task so tha t all will be well. Arthur, for example, must pull the sword from the stone if h e is to become king. Often found as part of both these situations is the journey , suggesting a psychological, as well as physical. movement from one place, o r state of being, to another. The journey, like the travels of Ulysses, may involv e a descent into hell. - Death and rebirth. Already mentioned in connection with the cycle of th e seasons, death and rebirth are the most common of all archetypes in literature. Rebirth may take the form of natural regeneration, that is, of submission to th e cycles of nature, or of escape from this troubled life to an endless paradise , such as that enjoyed before the fall into the sufferings that are part of mortal- ity. For example, in "Kubla Khan," Coleridge presents a landscape that is bot h savage and holy, a landscape of heaven and hell, ending with a vision of a transcendent experience in which the speaker/holy man has "drunk the milk o f Paradise ." - Initiation. Stories of initiation deal with the progression from one stage of life to another, usually that of an adolescent moving from childhood to maturity, from innocence to understanding. The experience is rarely without problems, althoug h it may involve comedy. In its classic form, the protagonist goes through the ini- tiation alone, experiencing tests and ordeals that change him so that he can retur n to the family or larger group as an adult member.
NORTHROP FRYE AND MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICIS M
In 1957, Northrop Frye advanced the study of archetypes, at least as they apply to lit - erature, with the publication (^) of Anatomy of Criticism, in which he presented a highl y structured model of how myths are at the basis of all texts. Although he did not accep t Jung's theories in their entirety, he used many of them as the basis of his efforts t o understand the functions of archetypes in literature. He spoke of a "theory of myths, " by which he really referred to a theory of genres as a way of understanding narrativ e structures. All texts, he concluded, are part of "a central unifying myth," exemplified in four types of literature, or four mythoi, that are analogous to the seasons. Together they compose the entire body of literature, which he called the monomyth. The mythos of summer, for example, is the romance. It is analogous to the birth and adventures of innocent youth. It is a happy myth that indulges what we want t o happen—that is, the triumph of good over evil and problems resolved in satisfyin g ways. Autumn, in contrast, is tragic. In the autumn myth, the hero does not triump h but instead meets death or defeat. Classic tragic figures, like Antigone or Oedipus , are stripped of power and set apart from their world to suffer alone. In the winter myth, what is normal and what is hoped for are inverted. The depicted world is hope- less, fearful, frustrated, even dead. There is no hero to bring salvation, no happy end - ings to innocent adventures. Spring, however, brings comedy : rebirth and renewal , hope and success, freedom and happiness. The forces that would defeat the hero ar e thwarted, and the world regains its order. According to Frye, every work of literatur e has its place in this schema. Currently the mythic or archetypal approach is less frequently used than it was in earlier decades. Some readers complain that it overlooks the qualities of individua l works by its focus on how any given text fits a general pattern. When a novel is seen as but one of many instances of death and rebirth, for example, its uniqueness i s ignored and its value diminished. However, the process of relating a single work to literature in general and to human experience as a whole gives the work of literatur e stature and importance in the eyes of other readers. It relates literature to other area s of intellectual activity in a reasoned, significant manner. Certainly the archetypal approach is worth knowing and sometimes using, for it yields insights about bot h literature and human nature that other approaches fail to provide. It considers a work in terms of its psychological, aesthetic, and cultural aspects, making such an analysi s a powerful union of three perspectives.
JACQUES LACAN : AN UPDATE ON FREU D Since the 1960s. the Freudian approach, which had waned in popularity, has expe- rienced a renaissance due to the ideas of a French psychoanalyst named Jacque s Lacan. His work has been described as a reinterpretation of Freud in light of th e ideas of structuralist and poststructuralist theories (see Chapter 8). Looking a t Freudian theory with the influence of the ideas of the anthropologist Claude Lévi - Strauss, and linguists Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobsen, Lacan's work is
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When the awareness of being separate comes, as it must if the individual is t o move from nature to culture, the sense of unity with others and other objects is los t and, along with it, the sense of security that it provided. With the baby desiring a return to that earlier period of oneness with the mother, its needs at this point tur n into demands, specifically demands for attention and love from another that wil l erase the separation that the baby knows ; but such a reunion is not possible. One can never return. When the infant realizes it is not connected to that which serves its needs, its sense of irretrievable loss makes it necessary for language to take the place of wha t is lacking. The Symbolic Order, (^) which overlaps with the Imaginary, introduce s language—something a person must enter to become a speaker and thereby des- ignate the self as "I ." By stopping the play and movement of signifiers so that the y can have some stable meaning, language masters the individual and shapes one' s identity as a separate being. In the Symbolic Order everything is separate ; thus, to negotiate it successfully, a person must master the concept of difference, differenc e that makes language possible (that is, we know a word such as (^) light because it i s not the word (^) fight) (^) and difference that makes genders recognizable. According to Lacan, there are biological sexual differences, but gender is cultur - ally created. Whereas the Imaginary Order is centered in the mother, the Symbolic Order is ruled by what he called the Law of the Father, because it is the father wh o enforces cultural norms and laws. Because the power of the word and being male ar e associated, the boy child must identify with the father as rule giver, and the girl mus t acknowledge that, as such, the father is her superior. Both male and female experi- ence a symbolic castration, or a loss of wholeness that comes with the acceptance o f society's rules. Lacan calls the ultimate symbol of power the (^) phallus, referring not to a biological organ but to a privileged signifier, the symbol of power that gives mean- ing to other objects. Neither males nor females can possess the phallus totally, though males have a stronger claim to it. Instead, human beings go through life longing fo r a return to the state of wholeness when we were one with our mother, manifested i n our desire for pleasure and things. But wholeness will always elude us. Not surprisingly, Lacan has met with some criticism about his description of th e Symbolic Order, with its emphasis on the superiority of the father that the girl mus t acknowledge. The positive outcomes of the challenge that his ideas present hav e
been the adaptations and extensions of his theories by such feminist critics as Juli a Kristeva, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gubar. Some disagreement exists about the nature of the (^) Real Order, partly because it is a difficult concept to grasp and partly because Lacan himself changed his min d about it. In general it can be said that the Real symbolizes what is external to an indi - vidual, the physical world that one is not. It is the final phase of psychic development, beyond language, resisting symbolization. In his Seminar XI, Lacan defined the Rea l as "the impossible," because it is unattainable. Consequently, the Real is evidence o f one's lack and loss, creating further fragmentation of the individual. Obviously Lacan's ideas are interesting to the literary critic, because they pro - vide more ways of understanding and analyzing characters. A reader can look for
symbolic representations of the Imaginary Order, the Symbolic Order, and the Real (or its separation from the other two—its evidence of what they do not possess) t o demonstrate how the text depicts the human being as a fragmented, incomplete being. In "Young Goodman Brown," for example, evidence of the three orders points to lac k and absence that make wholeness impossible. The protagonist longs for the whole- ness provided by the Real, but it eludes him. He does not know and can never kno w the true "self," and he resists the acceptance of society's rules, the power of the group. Clearly suffering from a loss that he can never recover, he exemplifies the fragmente d being who is unable to achieve the completeness he desires.
Antirealis m In addition to changing the way characters are analyzed, Lacan's theories of lan- guage, in particular his assertion that language is detached from physical reality, also affect literary analysis. For example, his theories make it difficult to read a narrativ e as being realistic. The traditional assumption that a fictive world exists as a real one is no longer valid if language is not connected to referents outside of it. Instead, the reader must accept that a narrative is likely to be broken and interrupted. It may , like other signifiers, refer to other narratives.
Jouissanc e Lacan's ideas are also germane to the work of the critic, because he acknowledge d that literature offers access to the Imaginary Order and a chance to reexperienc e the joy of being whole, as we once were with our mother. The word Lacan used, jouissance, means "enjoyment , " but it also carries a sexual reference ("orgas m" ) that the English word lacks. As Lacan used it, it is essentially phallic, although he admit - ted that there is a feminine jouissance.
WRITING PSYCHOLOGICAL^ CRITICIS M
PREWRITIN G Once you are accustomed to taking a Freudian, mythological, or Lacanian approach , you will begin to notice meaningful symbols and will pay close attention to drea m sequences as a matter of course. If you are not used to reading from these perspec- tives, however, you may want to be intentional about noting aspects of a work durin g prewriting that could be significant. If you are interested in using Freudian theory, you can begin by making note s about a selected character, then writing a descriptive paragraph about her. Th e following questions can help to get you started : What do you see as the character's main traits? By what acts, dialogue, and attitudes are those traits revealed?
68 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM (^) WRITING PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM 6 9
What does the narrator reveal about the character? In the course of the narrative, does the character change? If so, how and why? Where do you find evidence of the id, superego, and ego at work? Does the character come to understand something not understood at the outset? How does the character view him- or herself? How is he or she viewed by other characters? Do the two views agree? What images are associated with the character? What principal symbols enrich your understanding of the characters? Which symbols are connected with forces that affect the characters? Does the character have any interior monologues or dreams? If so, what do yo u learn from them about the character that is not revealed by outward behavior o r conversation? Are there conflicts between what is observable and what is going on inside th e character? Are there any revealing symbols in them? Are there suggestions that the character's childhood experiences have led to problems in maturity, such as uncompleted sexual stages or unresolve d dilemmas? Where do the characters act in ways that are inconsistent with the way they ar e described by the narrator or perceived by other characters? Who is telling the story, and why does the narrator feel constrained to tell it? How can you explain a character's irrational behavior'? What causes do you find? What motivation?
An archetypal approach can start with these questions : What similarities do you find among the characters, situations, and settings of th e text under consideration and those in other works that you have read'? What commonly encountered archetypes do you recognize'? Is the narrative like any classic myths you know? Where do you find evidence of the protagonist's persona? Anima/animus? Shadow'? Does the protagonist at any point reject some part of his or her personality an d project it onto someone or something else? Would you describe the protagonist as individuated, as having a realistic and accu - rate sense of self'?
You can begin a Lacanian approach by considering the following questions :
Where do you recognize the appearance of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and/or Rea l orders? How do they demonstrate the fragmented nature of the self? Are there instances where the Imaginary interrupts the Symbolic Order? Is the character aware of the lack or absence of something significant in the self? Are there objects that symbolize what is missing or lacking? Do you find examples of the mirror stage of the developing psyche? Is the text an antirealist one that subverts traditional storytelling?
DRAFTING AND REVISIN G The Introductio n When you write an analysis of a work of literature from any of these three form s of psychological criticism—Freudian, mythological, or Lacanian—your reader wil l find it helpful if you announce at the outset what your primary focus will be. Becaus e such studies can look at a single character, the relationships among characters, mean - ingful symbolism, narrative patterns, or even the life of the author, an indication o f the direction your paper will take makes it easier for others to follow the developmen t of your discussion. Another approach is to comment on similarities and differences between th e work with which you are dealing and other works by the same author. If you have determined that the elements of the poem or story you are analyzing are typical of a given writer—for example, that the conflicts faced by a particular character are simi- lar to those that have been developed in some of the author's other works—notin g those correspondences in the introduction can help convince the reader that what yo u say is valid. However, if the work under analysis is atypical of what one anticipate s from a given writer, then revealing at the beginning that this work is a departure fro m the expected can garner attention as well. If you have discovered parallels between the text you are writing about an d others that you have read, you may want to mention the similarities you have dis- covered. If the situations or relationships among the characters have reminded yo u of those found in classic myths, fairy tales, Greek drama, or even more moder n works, mentioning those correspondences will turn your discussion toward a mythi c perspective.
The Body Because of the number and diversity of topics you have to choose from when doin g psychoanalytic (and related) criticism, there is no formula for the organization of th e body of the paper. There are only suggestions that may help you structure the wa y you report your ideas. As always, you cannot expect your audience to accept your analysis simply a s stated. You will have to prove your case by using tenets of psychological or critical theory to explain, for example, that a certain character cannot keep a job becaus e he is resistant to authority because he has unresolved issues with his father, or tha t another is projecting an undesirable part of her personality when she blames a goo d friend for provoking a quarrel that she herself began. You do not have to refer to al l the principles explained in this chapter, but you should incorporate all the points tha t help support your position. If you have chosen to take a character as the principal topic of a Freudian analy - sis, you may have already discovered what you want to reveal about him when yo u prewrote. If not, it may be necessary to return to those notes to expand and deepe n them so that you eventually arrive at an understanding of some struggle the character
72 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL. CRITICISM MODEL. STUDENT ANALYSES (^) 7 3
Imaginary Order (^) A term used by Jacques Lacan to refer to the psychic stage during whic h the infant begins to recognize its separateness from other objects and to develop a sens e of self. Individuation Successful discovery, acceptance, and integration of one's own shadow , anima/animus. and persona. It is a psychological maturation. Jouissance Jacques Lacan's term for the sense of being whole. It means enjoyment and car- ries a sexual reference. Libido (^) The instinctual energies and desires that are derived from the id. Mirror stage (^) A term used by Jacques Lacan to refer to an event that occurs near th e end of the Imaginary Order, involving an infant seeing him- or herself in a mirror an d thereby starting to become aware of him- or herself as a being that is separate from th e mother. Monomyth Northrop Frye's term for literature, composed of four mythoi. Mythoi Four narrative patterns that, according to Northrop Frye, exhibit the structural prin- ciples of the various genres. He associated each with a season of the year. Persona Carl Jung's term for the social part of an individual's personality. It is the being tha t other people know as one's self. Personal conscious (^) A state of awareness of the present moment. Personal unconscious A storehouse of past personal experience no longer extant in th e personal conscious. Phallic symbol A masculine symbol. It is recognizable because its length exceeds it s diameter. Phallus (^) A term used by Jacques Lacan that refers to a privileged signifier, the symbol o f power that gives meaning to other objects. Psychobiography (^) The use of a psychoanalytic approach to understand a writer. Real Order (^) A term used by Jacques Lacan to refer to the physical world beyond the indi- vidual, language, or representation ; in it, there is no loss, lack, or absence. Most reader s understand the Real to be the final phase of psychic development, which is unattainable. Shadow (^) Carl Jung's term for the dark, unattractive aspects of the self. An individual's impulse is to reject the shadow and project it onto someone or something else. Sign (^) The combination of a signifier and a signified. Signified (^) The concept or meaning indicated by a signifier. Signifier (^) A conventional sound, utterance, or written mark. Superego (^) The part of the psyche that provides discipline and restraint by forcing unaccept- able desires back into the unconscious. It is formed early on by parents and later by socia l institutions and other models. Symbolic Order (^) A term used by Jacques Lacan to refer to the psychic stage in which a n individual learns language and in which language shapes his or her identity. Yonic symbol (^) A feminine symbol. It is recognizable because it is concave—for example , a bowl or a cave.
SUGGESTED READIN G
Benvenuto, Bice, and Roger Kennedy. (^) The Works of Jacques Lacan : An Introduction. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986. Bergler, Edmund. (^) The Writer and Psychoanalysis. Madison, CT : International Universitie s Press, 1991. Bodkin, Maud. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. (^) New York : AMS Press, 1978.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.^ Princeton, NJ : Princeton^ UP, 2004. Felman, Shoshana. Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight: Psychoanalysis in Contempo- rary Culture. Cambridge : Harvard University Press,^ 1987. Fiedler. Leslie.^ Love and Death in the American Novel.^ Normal. IL : Dalkey Archive Press,^ 1997. Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough.^ New York : Oxford^ UP, 1998. Freud, Sigmund.^ introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.^ Trans. Joan Riviere. London : Heron Books, 1970.
. The Interpretation of Dreams.^ Trans. A. A. Brill. Mineola, NY : Dover.^ 2006. Frye, Northrop.^ Anatomy of Criticism : Four Essays.^ Toronto : Univ. of Toronto Press, 2006. Hoffman, Frederick J. Freudianism and the Literary Mind.^ Westport, CT : Greenwood Press. 1977. Holland, Norman. The Dynamics of Literary Response.^ New York : Columbia UP,^ 1989. Jung. Carl. The Integration of the Personality.^ Trans. Stanley Dell. New York: Farrar an d Rinehart, 1939. . "Psychology and Literature ." In^ Modern Man in Search of a^ Soul,^ trans. W. S. Del l and Cary F. Baynes, pp. 175-199.^ New York: Harcourt,^ 1955. . The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.^ Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton. NJ : Princeton UP, 1980. Lesser, Simon O. Fiction and the Unconscious.^ Boston : Beacon Press,^ 1957. Murray. Gilbert. The Classical Tradition in Poetry.^ New York : Russell and Russell,^ 1968. Phillips, William, ed. Art and Psychoanalysis.^ New York : World Publishing,^ 1963. Trilling, Lionel. Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture.^ Boston : Beacon Press,^ 1955. Wheelwright, Philip. Metaphor and Reality.^ Bloomington : Indiana UP,^ 1962. Winnicott. D. W. Playing and Reality.^ New York : Tavistock,^ 1980. Wright, Elizabeth.^ Psychoanalytic Criticism : Theory in Practice.^ New York : Methuen,^ 1984.
CENGAGENOW Web sites devoted to some of the topics covered in this chapter shoul d he used with particular caution. Although some can be helpful, many sites that ar e connected to philosophical, psychological. and religious slants, both traditional an d nontraditional, are not. Some take extreme positions of belief. In particular, the Web surfer looking for information on Carl Jung, archetypes, and myths must be awar e that a search can lead to so many different topics that the initial quest can get lost. For these reasons, it is recommended, as before, that you begin by consulting academic. cengage .com/eng/dobie/theoryintopractice2e for creditable online information.
MODEL STUDENT ANALYSE S
Water, Sun, Moon, Stars, Heroic Spirit, in Tennyson's "Ulysses " : A Mythological Analysi s Tiffany N. Spee r
In the poem "Ulysses," Alfred, Lord Tennyson turned to one of^ the classic heroes^ o f literature to explore the nature of^ the heroic spirit as it approaches death. Throughout the poem, the aging king remembers all that he has achieved. He realizes that he is no longer physi- cally capable of performing^ such great acts, but that his heroic virtue remains. Though age has
74 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM^ MODEL STUDENT ANALYSES^^75
conquered his body, he insists that his triumphant spirit will not rest. The poem is paradoxica l because the hero continually compares the deterioration of his physical capabilities with th e rekindling of his heroic heart and his will to survive. Just as its speaker is an archetypal figure, s o are the poem's descriptions of life and death often allusions to universal symbols and archetypes. In the first few lines of the poem, Ulysses introduces the topic of debate : acceptance of age and retirement without settling for submission. He signals his refusal to stop livin g when he says, "I will drain / Life to the lees ." This statement, the intense rejection of death , the image of drinking the full cup of tea, or drinking life "down to the last drop" is a recur- ring idea in this poem. Perhaps Ulysses's most significant instance of acceptance in the poe m comes when he pauses and states, "I am become a name ." He realizes that his name alon e will live on in glory because of the reputation that he made from years of leading others. It is in this first proclamation of identity that Jungian archetypes of self are introduced. He is shadow, anima, and persona combined to make a trinity of personalities that hove r around acceptance of what is to come. Through this poem, Ulysses shows all three parts o f his personality—the weak, the realistic, and the strong. In fact, the poem itself becomes a trilogy of archetypes combined to suggest Ulysses's image of himself. The idea of becoming an "idle king," weary from a life of glorious reign, is unacceptabl e to Ulysses. He refuses to accept that because he is aging, he will no longer roam the worl d as he did as a young hero. He says, "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rus t unburnished, not to shine in use!" Words such as dull, (^) end, rust, barren, aged, and dim indi- cate a sense of death and decay. It is in these words that Ulysses uncovers the "shadow " that he is trying to conquer. He is aware that it exists, but because he prefers not to live i t out in full, he attempts to continue on with life as he did before. Second, Ulysses's "anima," his sense of inevitable death, controls all that he does. Afte r stating that he will always be a valiant warrior and that "every hour is saved / From that eterna l silence," Ulysses begins to reflect on the possibility of passing down his reign to his son. He con - tradicts himself slowly as he comments on Telemachus's abilities as a leader and begins to fac e the fact that he, Ulysses, will soon die. At this transition, death is personified as a "vessel, " a feminine object that holds his fate. She is his anima. He seems to whisper, "There lies th e port; the vessel puffs her sail ; / There gloom the dark, broad seas ." Because Ulysses can see that he will soon die, he is revived in the final portion of the poem. Ironically, the vision of deat h is the "life force" that causes him to remember that he does not have to die in spirit. Once again, Ulysses realizes that death does not have to take hold of his heart as it doe s his body. He says optimistically, "Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ." His persona, or th e mask that he wears for the sake of others, is the attitude that he shows at the end of the poem. He admits that death is drawing near, but he also says that it is never too late to live life t o the fullest. He says, "[F]or my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of al l
the western stars, until I die." His public stance is a positive one that encourages his people to
believe that no matter what happens to their bodies, their spirits and souls will never age.
Not only does this poem contain the Jungian trinity of archetypes of the self, but it als o contains other physical symbols that support its structure. There is a repetition of water images , of sailing away "beyond the sunset," and "on shore, and when / Thro' scudding drifts the rain y Hyades / Vext the dim sea ." These references to water indicate the passing of time, as the y wash away what was old while the new things come to surface. It is always the water or shi p that takes Ulysses away when he speaks of death ; therefore, water indicates his eternal fate. I n the beginning of the poem, he speaks of being an idle king "among these barren crags," suggest - ing that his life now is without water, dying, desolate, or useless. Without water, he cannot live, just as without duty and adventure, he refuses to live. But it is the water that continually sail s him off to death. The duty, or the water of his life, is the very thing that gives him life. Ulysses also makes many references to the elements of the sky. He mentions rain, sun , stars, moon, and sunsets, all of which are in reference to light in some kind of darkness. First, he says, "[A]nd vile it were / For some three suns to store and hoard myself, / An d this gray spirit yearning in desire / To follow knowledge like a sinking star ." Hiding behin d the sun, and not following his dreams or pursuing further knowledge are repugnant to him. Just as stars fall, his knowledge will also fall from his memory. He also uses the image "Th e long day wanes ; the slow moon climbs" to indicate the approach of death. Each referenc e to elements of the sky is a description of Ulysses' s inevitable end, his final adventure. Tennyson used many mythological elements in his approach to the topic of death i n "Ulysses ." Not only does the voice of Ulysses echo the three parts of the Jungian shadow , anima, and persona, but it also uses references to death as water and sky. Ulysses argues with himself that despite age and fate, the truly heroic spirit never dies. It is through these universal symbols that Tennyson is able to completely capture the undying soul of a dyin g hero. The memory of him will always be present, just like the water, sun, moon, and stars.
Mama Mary and Mother Medusa : A Magic Carpet Ride Through James' s Psychical Landscape in Ernest Gaines's "The Sky Is Gray " Rhonda D. Robiso n
"It takes no psychoanalytical finesse, but only^ simple observation^ of childhood^ to rec- ognize that in the history of every human^ being^ language originates in the infantile life of play, pleasure, and love that centers round the mother ; over this primary function i s built the secondary function^ of^ organizing human energy in socially productive work. " Norman O. Brown
The "sky is gray," the "wind is pink," and the "grass is black"—In Ernest Gaines's short story , "The Sky Is Gray," these phrases create a dreamscape, that when viewed through a Freudian , Lacanian, Jungian, and object relations lens, demonstrates how the text's poetic qualities revea l universal psychical motivations related to Oedipal desire. Unconscious processes relevant to al l human relationships manifest in textual analysis, yet each parent/child dynamic is unique. The
78 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM (^) MODEL STUDENT ANALYSES (^79)
nurturing mother and the castrating father. From a Jungian perspective, the archetype of th e phallic mother, or animus (Jung 25), is deeply consolidated in our collective memory. On e archetype representative of the phallic mother is Medusa, a gorgon, or feminine monste r from Greek mythology, whom Freud viewed as "the terror of castration" (Freud, " Medusa "
- because she turns men, not women, to stone—an idea that triggers the boy's castra- tion anxiety (Paglia 47).
The "Wind Is Pink" : Libido and the Phallic-Mother Imag e Octavia is paradigmatic of the phallic mother. Her name, whose Latin origins suggest thing s that come in "eight," reminds one of a spider (eight legs) and an octopus (eight tentacles). It is also interesting to note that James is eight years old, which is another of the story' s subverted symbols, intimately connecting him to Octavia as the Medusa archetype. One instance that clearly demonstrates Octavia's masculine role is the café scene in Bayonne , when a man asks her to dance, and she throws him against the wall : "The little man jumps up off the floor and starts toward my mama. 'Fore you know it, Mama done sprung open her knife and she's waiting for him ." The mother possesses the phallic power, represente d by the knife in this scene—she is the original castrator in James's psychical landscape. When James cannot bring himself to kill a redbird as his mother demands, she grows angr y with him, grabs the fork, and stabs the bird "right in the neck ." Octavia then taunts th e child by holding the dead bird in front of him. Octavia, the mad Medusa, a sadistic castra- tor, has killed James's "bird ." She has destroyed his hopes for complete possession of her , because she maintains ownership of the symbolic phallus. Unconscious symbolism related to the Medusa archetype, or phallic mother, firs t occurs when James provides the reader with a description of the physical landscape, whic h is also a symbolic description of James's psychical landscape. Furthermore, this descriptive vignette serves as a synopsis of the story's psychological framework:
It's a long old road, and far's you can see you don't see nothing but gravel. You got dry weeds on both sides, and you got trees on both sides, and fences on both sides, too. And you got cows in the pastures and they standing close together. And when we was comin g out here to catch the bus I seen the smoke coming out of the cows' noses.
James describes the mental journey, connected to the past and headed for the future, wit h
nothing but psychological "gravel" in sight. The parted weeds are a yonic symbol, repre- senting James's mother, whereas the phallic trees represent the father—interestingly, th e weeds and trees are on "both sides," an indicator that feminine and masculine element s are integrated as single symbols in the story. James's description of the cows, which are symbolically (^) connected to the mother's breast (milk), are, as in the handkerchief fantasy,
keyed to the symbiotic/oral stage of development in infancy, which is both a sadistic an d passive stage. The child "takes in" the world through its sensory system during the ora l phase, primarily sucking milk from the mother's breast, from which the child's perceptio n of the "good mother" is introjected. Later in the oral phase, the infant develops aggressiv e tendencies toward the mother, as demonstrated when the baby bites the mother's nippl e during feeding. This finds the child introjecting a "bad mother" image (Klein 5), resultin g in psychical ambivalence—the child both loves and hates the mother, and his underlyin g wish in the oral stage is to incorporate the mother's body, "making them a part of himself " (Holland Dynamics 36-37). James's internalization of the phallic mother at the oral stag e is further demonstrated by the fact that the cows (feminine) ejaculate smoke from thei r noses, a phallic reference. "I look at my mama and I love my mama," James informs the reader in the story's opening, "and I want to put my arm around her and tell her. But I'm not supposed to do that ." Conflict is evident in James's affection for his mother in this statement, but it can als o be detected in his shift to second person in the succeeding dialogue : "She say that's weak- ness and that's crybaby stuff, and she don't want no crybaby round her. She don't wan t you to be scared either [italics added] ." James displaces castration anxiety related to fea r of the phallic mother, from self, where the ego could be damaged, to "other"—"you," th e invisible reader who poses no threat to his ego. Another instance of displacement occur s in James's next statement, when he shifts the threat of the phallic mother onto his littl e brother: "'Cause Ty's scared of ghosts and she's always whipping him ." Love is "combat, " a "wrestling with ghosts" (Paglia I4), who represent condensed images of our past inter- nalizations of experiences and impressions of our parents. After this double displacement, James admits, "I'm scared of the dark too, but I make 'tend I ain't. " The dark, symbolizing unconscious processes, is the phallic mother's abyss, home to her, who, in the child's mind , both loves and simultaneously seeks to destroy him. James further explains that the reaso n he pretends courage is because he is "the oldest" and must "set a good sample for th e others ." James serves as a "sample" of the universal Oedipal complex and its resulting cas- tration anxiety, which he displaces onto the reader, then Ty, and back to self, "ty"ing he an d his brother, and all other boys, to universal fear of the castrating father. Interestingly, fears related to castration anxiety are displaced in this story, because Octavia, as the Medus a archetype, is the castrator James fears. James, like the mythical Perseus, slayer of Medusa, embarks on his own psychical battl e with the "castrating mother" in an effort to resolve Oedipal conflict and enter the Lacania n Symbolic Order, the realm of language and culture. Medusa's head full of phallic snakes an d her ability to fossilize men, even after she is decapitated, clearly conveys that she possesse s the phallic power and is to be feared. This mythological reference,^ psychologically^ symboli c of castration anxiety in the child (Medusa's head represents the castrated penis), locates the
80 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM MODEL STUDENT ANALYSES S I
root of anxiety in the tension created between the child's fantasy of the sadistic, or "bad " mother, and the nurturing, or "good" mother. The tension between any opposing pair cre- ates "drive." The drive, or tension, related to James' relationship with the split mother , whose phallic "presence" is highlighted by the "absent" or "lacking" father, manifests a s castration anxiety. Castration anxiety, or the tension created between presence and absence related t o the story's "good mother/bad mother" theme, is realized in Gaines's textual inclusion, ye t exclusion, of the Hail Mary prayer and Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee ." Prayer an d poem are referenced in the text, thus their "presence" is critical to interpretation ; just a s important, the prayer and poem's words are "absent" in the story, indicative of significant , yet subverted/feminine/poetic textual, aspects. Examination of the poem and prayer's dic - tion, when drawn in from outside the story space, says much about James's struggle wit h castration anxiety, which is located in the phallic mother's "presence," juxtaposed with the story's "absent-father" theme. The Hail Mary prayer is introduced into the story whe n Monsieur Bayonne instructs James to recite a Catholic prayer while he prays over James's sore tooth. James says the only Catholic prayer he knows :
Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee , blessed art thou among women, and blesse d is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God , pray for us sinners, now and at th e hour of our death. Amen. (254)
The Mystic Rose of Mary, as the symbolic figure who is "hailed" in this prayer, is Octavi a dressed in the imaginary red coat James dreams of buying her "when cotton come ." Mary is the "reverse image" of the gorgon, Medusa (Paglia 47), as represented by Octavia in th e "black coat" James "ain't go'n get" for her. Associated with Mary is the symbolic red rose , which is further associated with James's desire for the "good mother," while his refusal t o purchase the black coat for Octavia is a rejection of Medusa, the evil, or dark mother. As Medusa's opposite, Mary is unconsciously incited as the "good mother" when James recite s the prayer, suggesting his desire for Octavia's love. From a psychoanalytical viewpoint , within the context of this story, Jesus can be viewed as symbolic of every child's health y identification with the "good mother," which depends on those aspects of her split imag e that one has internalized as Self. James's narcissistic fantasy includes the idea that he is th e
"blessed fruit" of Octavia's womb, who, like Jesus, may someday be touted as a savior of hi s people. This is indicated within the story space in James's identification with the intellectual
in the dentist's waiting room. When James begs the "good mother" to pray for him an d other boys (sinners because they "aren't supposed to" love their mamas), he is appealin g to the "good mother" for protection from the "bad," or "castrating" mother, Medusa, wh o slithers out from the text's dreamscape as the foreboding and mysterious goddess to who m the "sinners" succumb at that "hour of death," which symbolically signals castration and th e subsequent impossibility of "union" between boy and mother. Castration anxiety, such a s that attached to James's recollection of the Hail Mary prayer, precedes the child's resolu- tion of the Oedipus complex, which is resolved upon his entrance into the Symbolic Order , when the "Law of the Father," including the incest taboo, causes the child to sublimate hi s desires. James's tooth pain subsides when he recites the Hail Mary, because the child expe - riences pleasure in his imago of the "good mother," which reduces "unpleasure" associate d with the "bad mother." The resolution of James's conflict with the internalized Mary an d Medusa archetypes is implied in the shift from "womb to tomb," when Poe's "Annabel Lee " is referenced. "Annabel Lee," like the Hail Mary prayer, is an absent text with a powerful pres- ence in the story. James feels certain his teacher, Miss Walker, a mother-substitute , will make him recite the poem when he returns to school, because "[t]hat woma n don't never forget nothing ." James's anxiety is manifested in the idea that he neve r actually recites the poem within the story space—he merely "worries" about recitin g it. The poem's content arouses repressed emotions related to castration anxiety an d the boy's loss of Mother as his love-object. Miss Walker "never forgets," representin g that aspect of unconscious life, repetition compulsion, which causes both a remem- bering and forgetting. Its appearance here, as a triple negative (woman do not neve r forget nothing), highlights female lack, and thus male fear. Woman cannot "forget nothing," because, in the Freudian sense, she has nothing (no penis). The threat to hi s own penis ensures that the castration theme will repeat itself in James's life again an d again. In Poe's poem, the narrator is in love with a maiden who "live[s] with no othe r thought / Than to love and be loved by [him]" (lines 3-5). The love between Annabe l Lee and Poe's narrator is presented as a child's fantasy, in which "She was a child an d [he] was a child" [italics Poe], with a love so intense, even "the winged seraphs o f Heaven / Coveted [their love]" (lines 7-12). A "wind" comes and "chills and kills " Annabel Lee, and her "high-born kinsmen" come and take her away from the narrato r (lines 15-18). The love relationship between Poe's narrator and Annabel Lee paral- lels the childlike fantasy in which James imagines himself and his mother on that magi c hankie ride to symbiotic bliss. Annabel Lee's death symbolizes the child's realizatio n that the fantasy cannot be actualized, and the relationship with the mother is trans - formed. The fantasy "dies ." As the poem's narrator notes, however, nothing can ever
84 CHAPTER 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICIS M
Mary emerges as symbolic of the "good mother" whom James worships, whereas Medusa rep - resents the child's wish to gain the mother's phallic power, which can only be accomplishe d through the construction of appropriate psychic defenses that find desire sublimated t o healthier outlets. The intellectual boy's references to societal injustices suffered by Africa n Americans, the white majority that perpetuates those injustices, the passivity of African
Americans who allow their subversion in society by conforming and refusing to take appro-
priate action, and James's identification with the intellectual indicate not only that Jame s
may employ intellectualism as a defense to overcome his own Oedipal issues with the sadis-
tic mother, but also that in the future he can affect injustices related to the master/slav e
dichotomy overall.
The "sky is gray," "the wind is pink," and "the grass is black" in Gaines's short stor y
symbolically suggest three themes central to James's development as an autonomous self.
The sky, symbolic of the mind, suggests that James is a child in process (as suggested b y
the color "gray"), working his way through the psychosexual stages of mental developmen t
toward autonomy. The pink wind, used as a language example by the intellectual to demon-
strate the deceptive nature of language, can also be read as representative of James's libido ,
symbolized by the "wind" (libido is that which "drives" us and spurs us to action). James's
libido is driven by his relationship with Octavia, whose affect is symbolized by the feminin e
color, pink. One reason the "grass is black" in the story is because it reflects James's identi-
fication with his African American heritage. The "black grass" suggests that he is grounded /
rooted in African American culture and that, like the intellectual, his libido can be subli-
mated into endeavors that lead to positive change. Multitudinous poetic or subverted ele-
ments of the text in "The Sky Is Gray" reveal Octavia and James's journey as both a physica l
undertaking and a psychical adventure that finds the reader aboard that carpet's magic rid e
through the gray skies and pink winds of Oedipal conflict, toward resolution, where th e
heroic James engages Mother Medusa for the love of Mama Mary and the discovery of Sel f
and Other.
Works Cite d
Freud, Sigmund. "Lecture XXV : Anxiety. " Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Trans.
James Strachey. New York : W. W. Norton,^ 1966. 487-.
. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books, 1998. "Medusa's Head ." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans. James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey, and Alan Tyson. London : Hogarth Press, 1964. 18 : 273-74. . "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality ." Freud: A Life for Our Time. Ed. Peter Gay. New York : W. W. Norton, 1988. Grosskurth, Phyllis. (^) Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work. Cambridge : Harvard UP, 1987.
MODEL STUDENT ANALYSES 85
"Hail Mary." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Rev. ed. 1987. Holland, Norman. The Dynamics of Literary Response. New York: Columbia UP, 1989. Klein, Melanie.^ Our Adult World.^ Great Britain : Pitman,^ 1963. LaPlanche, J ., and J. B. Pontalis. The Language^ of^ Psychoanalysis. Trans. Donald Nicholson - Smith. New York : Norton, 1973. Paglia, Camille.^ Sexual^ Personae. New York : Vintage Books, 1990. Poe, Edgar Allan. "Annabel Lee ." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and^ Writing. 6th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle River : Prentice Hall, 2001. 869. Winnicott, D. W.^ Playing and^ Reality. London : Tavistock, 1971.
