ENG 318

LITERARY CRITICISM

*Written by Mark Lund, Carver Center for the Arts and Technology, Baltimore County Public Schools,
1996.

3 Purposes of Criticism
• (1) To help us resolve a difficulty in the reading.
• (2) To help us choose the better of two conflicting readings.
• (3) To enable us to form judgments about literature.

Introduction: What is Literary Criticism?

Literary criticism is the study, analysis, and evaluation of imaginative literature.  Everyone who
expresses an opinion about a book, a song, a play, or a movie is a critic, but not everyone's opinion is
based upon thought, reflection, analysis, or consistently articulated principles. As people mature and
acquire an education, their ability to analyze, their understanding of human beings, and their appreciation
of artistic craftsmanship should increase.  The study of literature is an essential component in this- growth
of reflection.
Sometimes students object to analysis and ask, "Why do we have to analyze everything? Why
can't we just enjoy the books we read in English?"  These are good questions, and there are some good
answers for them. First, talking about an experience, actual or vicarious, is one way of increasing
enjoyment.  Second, sometimes talking about an experience involves recreating it in words, but it can also
involve the search for meaning, in short, analysis.  Finally, as Socrates said, "The life which is
unexamined is not worth living." Analysis, or examination, increases awareness and understanding; it is
part of the maturation process. The analysis of literature has always been part of a liberal education.  
When a work of literature is studied without reference to history or to the life of the author, the approach
is intrinsic, or formalistic.  However, literature is related to two other humanistic disciplines: philosophy
and history.  Philosophy explores basic, general ideas, such as truth, beauty, and goodness.  History
attempts to ascertain what happened in the past and why it happened.  Philosophy may help readers to
understand the general ideas, or themes, of a literary work.  History helps to elucidate the life and times of
the author.
Traditionally, literary studies were conducted within the three humanistic disciplines of literature,
history, and philosophy.  In the twentieth century, the social sciences have been used to develop new
approaches to criticism.  Psychology has helped to illuminate the motivations of characters and the
writers who create them.  Sociology has revealed the relationships between the works the author produces
and the society that consumes them.  Anthropology has shown how ancient myths and rituals are alive
and well in the plays, poems, and novels that are popular today.
Literary criticism has been a social institution for many centuries.  Different ages take different
approaches, but the activity is constant.  Authors are aware of criticism so that it is probably not entirely
fair to say that the literary critic reads meanings into the texts that were never intended by the author. 
Literary criticism is not "reading between the lines" -it is reading the lines very carefully, in a disciplined
and informed manner.  This is why it is possible to speak of some of the approaches discussed in this
booklet as elements of literature.  That is, it is valid to speak of archetypal elements in a literary text,
sociological elements in a literary text, and formal elements in a literary text.  The approaches to literature
do not put the elements there; they are already there.  The approaches help to reveal and clarify them.

The Formalistic Approach

The formalistic approach began with Aristotle (384-322 BC), a philosopher of ancient Greece,
who in his book The Poetics attempted to define the form of tragedy.  Aristotle wrote that the tragic hero
was an essentially noble individual who, nevertheless, manifested a flaw in character that caused him or
her to fall from a high position to a low position. The flaw in character (hamartia) was a kind of blindness
or lack of insight that resulted from an arrogant pride (hubris).  During the course of the tragic action, the
hero came to a moment of insight-today it might be seen as an epiphany-that Aristotle called anagnorsis. 
Thus the tragic plot moves from blindness to insight.  As an imitation (mimesis) of a serious action, the
tragic plot had to be written in a dignified style.  The effect of the tragedy was supposed to be catharsis or
the purging of the emotions of pity and fear.  All the elements of tragedy went together to produce a
formal unity: this is the essence of the formalistic approach.
The twentieth century formalistic approach, often referred to as the New Criticism, also assumes
that a work of literary art is an organic unity in which every element contributes to the total meaning of
the work.  This approach is as old as literary criticism itself, but it was developed in the twentieth century
by John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), Allen Tate (1899-1979), T.S. Eliot (1888- 1965), and others.
The formalist critic embraces an objective theory of art and examines plot, characterization,
dialogue, and style to show how these elements contribute to the theme or unity of the literary work. 
Moral, historical, psychological, and sociological concerns are considered extrinsic to criticism and of
secondary importance to the examination of craftsmanship and form.  Content and form in a work
constitute a unity, and it is the task of the critic to examine and evaluate the integrity of the work. 
Paradox, irony, dynamic tension, and unity are the primary values of formalist criticism.
Because it posits an objective theory of art, there are two axioms central to formalist criticism.  
One of these is The Intentional Fallacy which states that an author's intention (plan or purpose) in
creating a work of literature is irrelevant in analyzing or evaluating that work of literature because the
meaning and value of a literary work must reside in the text itself, independent of authorial intent.
Another axiom of formalist criticism is The Affective Fallacy which states that the evaluation of a work of
art cannot be based solely on its emotional effects on the audience. Instead, criticism must concentrate
upon the qualities of the work itself that produce such effects.  The formalistic approach stresses the close
reading of the text and insists that all statements about the work be supported by references to the text. 
Although it has been challenged by other approaches recently, the New Criticism is the most influential
form of criticism in this century.
Formalism is intrinsic literary criticism because it does not require mastery of any body of
knowledge besides literature.  As an example of how formalistic criticism approaches literary works,
consider Shakespeare's Macbeth.  All the elements of the play form an organic whole.  The imagery of
the gradual growth of plants is contrasted with the imagery of leaping over obstacles: Macbeth is an
ambitious character who cannot wait to grow gradually into the full stature of power, but, instead, must
grasp everything immediately.  A related series of clothing images reinforces this point: because Macbeth
does not grow gradually, his clothing does not fit.  At the end of the play, his "Tomorrow and tomorrow
and tomorrow" soliloquy drives home the point as we see, and pity, a man trapped in the lock-step pace of
gradual time.  Formalistic critics would immediately see that the repetition of the word "tomorrow" and
the natural iambic stress on "and" enhance the meaninglessness and frustration that the character feels. 
References to blood and water pervade the play, and blood comes to symbolize the guilt Macbeth feels
for murdering Duncan.  Even the drunken porter's speech provides more than comic relief, for his
characterization of alcohol as "an equivocator" is linked to the equivocation of the witches.   Shakespeare's
craftsmanship has formed an aesthetic unity in which every part is connected and in which the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts.

1. Formalism / New Criticism / Aristotelian

• Focusing on the elements such as the exposition, rising action, conflict, complication, climax,
falling action, and conclusion (denouement).
• This also includes characters, setting, theme, point of view, and literary devices employed by the
author.
• There is no need to bring in outside information about the history, politics, or society of the time,
or about the author's life.
Terms used in New Criticism
• tension - the integral unity of the poem which results from the resolution of opposites, often in
irony of paradox
• intentional fallacy - the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by the
author's intention
• affective fallacy - the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by its affect
on the reader.
• external form - rhyme scheme, meter, stanza form, etc.
• objective correlative - originated by T.S. Eliot,
• this term refers to a collection of objects, situations, or events that instantly evoke a
particular emotion. (symbolism)
• Practitioners: I.A. Richards, William Emerson, John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren,
Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, and others.
•
Advantages of Formalism
• This approach can be performed without much research, and it emphasizes the value of literature
apart from its context (in effect makes literature timeless). 
• Virtually all critical approaches must begin here.
•
Disadvantages of Formalism
• The text is seen in isolation.
• Formalism ignores the context of the work.(other factors)
• It cannot account for allusions.
• It tends to reduce literature to little more than a collection of rhetorical devices.

Examples
• A formalistic approach to John Milton's Paradise Lost would take into account the physical
description of the Garden of Eden and its prescribed location, the symbols of hands, seed, and
flower, the characters of Adam, Eve, Satan, and God, the epic similes and metaphors, and the
point of view from which the tale is being told (whether it be the narrator's, God's, or Satan's).
• But such an approach would not discuss the work in terms of Milton's own blindness, or in terms
of his Puritan beliefs.
• Therefore when the narrator says "what in me is dark / Illumine," a formalistic critic could not
interpret that in light of Milton's blindness.
• He would have to find its meaning in the text itself, and therefore would have to overlook the
potential double-meaning.

2. Historical and Biographical Approaches

• Literature is seen both a reflection and product of the times and circumstances in which it was
written.
• It operates on the premise that the history of a nation has telling effects on its literature and that
the piece can be better understood and appreciated if one knows the times surrounding its
creation.
• Historical / Biographical critics see works as the reflection of an author's life and times (or of the
characters' life and times).
• They believe it is necessary to know about the author and the political, economical, and
sociological context of his times in order to truly understand his works.

Advantages
 • This approach works well for some works--like Edgar Allan Poe’s works;
• It also is necessary to take a historical approach in order to place allusions in their proper
classical, political, or biblical background.
Disadvantages
• New Critics refer to the historical / biographical critic's belief that the meaning or value of a work
may be determined by the author's intention as "the intentional fallacy." 
• They believe that this approach tends to reduce art to the level of biography and make it relative
(to the times) rather than universal.

Central Historical Questions:

 Historical events help shape a work

 What specific historical events were happening when the work was being composed? (See
timelines in history or literature texts.
 What historical events does the work deal with?
 In what ways did history affect the writer's outlook?
 In what ways did history affect the style? Language? Content?
 In what ways and for what reasons did the writer alter historical events?

Historical criticism seeks to interpret the work of literature through understanding the times and
culture in which the work was written.  The historical critic is more interested in the meaning that the
literary work had for its own time than in the meaning the work might have today.  For example, while
some critics might interpret existential themes in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a historical critic would be more
interested in analyzing the play within the context of Elizabethan revenge tragedy and Renaissance humor
psychology.
Biographical criticism investigates the life of an author using primary texts, such as letters,
diaries, and other documents, that might reveal the experiences, thoughts, and feelings that led to the
creation of a literary work.  For example, an investigation of Aldous Huxley's personal life reveals that
Point Counterpoint is a roman a clef: the character Marc Rampion is a thinly disguised imaginative
version of Huxley's friend, D.H. Lawrence.
Historical criticism and biographical criticism are used in tandem to explicate literary texts.  
Sometimes the very premise of a novel may seem more probable if the circumstances of composition are
understood.  For example, students often wonder why the boys in Lord of the Flies are oil the island. 
Their plane has crashed, but where was it going, and why?  The book may be read as a survival
adventure, but such a reading would not account for the most important themes.  Knowing that William
Golding was a British naval commander in World War II and knowing some of the facts of the British
involvement in the war help in an understanding of the novel. The most important fact relating to the
premise of the novel is that during the London Blitz (1940-1941) children were evacuated from the
metropolitan area: some were sent to Scotland, some to Canada and Australia.  Golding imagines a
similar evacuation happening during his scenario of World War III.  The itinerary of the transport plane is
detailed at the beginning of the novel: Gibraltar and Addis Ababa were stops on an eastward journey,
probably to Australia or New Zealand.  The aircraft was shot down, and the boys are stranded on a Pacific
atoll.  In the age of the intercontinental ballistic missile, the evacuation seems impossible, but the novel
was published in 1954 when atomic weapons were still delivered principally by bombers.  The history of
the rise of Hitler and World War n also helps readers to understand why Ralph's democratic appeasements
crumble under the ruthless aggression of Jack's regime.
In short, the historical approach is vital to an understanding of literary texts.  Sometimes,
knowledge of history is necessary before the theme of the work can be fully grasped.

The Archetypal Approach

 The archetypal approach to literature evolved from studies in anthropology and psychology.  
Archetypal critics make the reasonable assumption that human beings all over the world have basic
experiences in common and have developed similar stories and symbols to express these experiences.  
Their assumption that myths from distant countries might help to explain a work of literature might seem
a little far-fetched.  However, critics of this persuasion believe it is valid.
Carl Jung (1875-1961), a student of Freud, came to the conclusion that some of his patients' -
dreams contained images and narrative patterns not from their personal unconscious but from the
collective unconscious of the human race.  It was Jung who first used the term archetype to denote plots,
characters, and symbols that are found in literature, folk tales and dreams throughout the world.  Some of
the principal archetypes are described in the following paragraphs.

The Hero and the Quest

According to Joseph Campbell, the story of the hero is the monomyth, or the one story at the
bottom of all stories.  The hero is called to adventure.  This means that the hero must go on a quest.  The
first stage of the quest is separation: in this stage the hero separates from familiar surroundings and goes
on a journey.  The second stage of the quest is initiation: the hero may fight a dragon, conquer an enemy
or in some other way prove his or her courage, wisdom and maturity.  The final stage is the return: the
hero must return to society to use the courage and wisdom gained in the initiatory phase.   Often the
initiation involves a journey to the underworld, and the return phase is regarded as a kind of rebirth.  This
links the myth of the hero to the next archetypal motif.  (Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958) is a
good actualization of this pattern.)

The Death and Rebirth Pattern

Many myths from around the world reflect the cycle of the seasons.  Sometimes mythic thought
requires a sacrifice so that the seasons can continue.  A sacrificial hero (in myth it is usually a god or
king) accepts death or disgrace so that the community can flourish.  Although the sacrifice is real, it is not
necessarily to be regarded as final: the god who dies in the winter may be reborn in the spring.  Characters
like Oedipus and Hamlet, who sacrifice themselves to save their kingdoms, are based on the archetype of
the dying god.  Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" reflects this archetypal pattern in a contemporary setting.
Mother Earth Father Sky
A surprising number of cultures regard the earth as the mother of all life, and she is sometimes
seen as the original divinity who was wedded and superseded by the archetypal male divinity, the sky
god. The offspring of the earth mother and the sky father are all of the creatures that inhabit the world.  
Earth mother characters in literature are characterized by vitality, courage, and optimism.  They represent
embodiments of the life force.  Shug Avery in Alice Walker's The Color Purple represents a modern
version of the earth goddess: she gives Celie the courage to live.

Culture Founder, Trickster, Witch

Culture founders are heroes who invent rules, laws, customs, and belief systems so that society
can function and people can live.  Prometheus was the great culture founder of the Greeks.  He created
mankind and invented writing, mathematics, and technology so that human beings could survive. 
Because he stole fire from the gods and gave it to men, he also became a sacrificial hero, condemned to
be tortured in the Caucasus Mountains until he was freed by Heracles.  Modern characters who derive
from the culture hero archetype would include Mr. Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth and Finny in A
Separate Peace.  Both of these characters are creative inventors, organizers, and leaders.  The antithesis
of the culture hero is the trickster.  Representing the forces of chaos, the trickster delights in mischief.  At
times the trickster may appear evil, but the essential quality embodied by this archetype is childishness.  
Hermes is the trickster in Greek myth; Loki, in Norse myth.  Native American myths have many trickster
figures.  In William Golding's Lord of the Flies Ralph's culture-founding efforts are constantly subverted
by Jack, a trickster figure who is motivated only by the idea of fun.   The female trickster contrasts with
the earth goddess figure in that she devotes herself to pleasure rather than nurturing: she is referred to as
the outlaw female or witch.  Medea comes close to epitomizing this archetype.

Four Elements = The World

Earth, water, fire, air: these are the symbolic elements that compose the world. Earth usually has
the connotations of nurturing life.  Water may purify, and flowing rivers represent the flow of life; but
water may also destroy when it is uncontrolled, as in a flood.  Fire represents destruction, but it can also
purify and make way for the new.  Air is the spiritual element; words denoting the spirit are often derived
from the words for wind.
The other term for archetypal criticism is myth criticism.  Literary critics, poets, and storytellers
all use myths in the creation and interpretation of literature.  This reflects their belief that the old myths,
far from being falsehoods, reveal eternal truths about human nature.

Deconstruction
Most people would identify the current era of literature as the modern period; surprisingly,
literary critics and historians do not.  Contemporary literature (1945 to the present) is called
Postmodernist.  Modernism as a literary term is applied to the writers of the first half of the twentieth
century who experimented with forms of writing that broke age-old traditions: writers like T.S. Eliot,
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes, and William Faulkner.  These writers viewed human
beings as trapped in tragic paradoxes that could only be expressed by difficult and unorthodox styles. 
The writings of the modernists are regarded as classics of the twentieth century, but contemporary writing
has moved beyond them.  The tragic stance has given way to irony, and the break up of the culture is
treated with sardonic humor.  Since 1945 everything is disposable: books, culture, social mores, even-
with nuclear weapons- planet Earth itself.  Television, with its thousands of stories and its parodies of
literary classics, cuts against the privileging of any story as a work of art.  In the Postmodern Age, there is
no literature, there are only stories; there is no wisdom, there is only information, and information is,
almost by definition, disposable.
Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead illustrates some of the principal
qualities of Postmodern literature.  Aristotle's notion of the noble hero is undercut by two bumbling
antiheroes who don't have enough individual identity to be able to tell themselves apart. They intrude
from the margins of Shakespeare's Hamlet, wander and wonder aimlessly, and are finally packed off to a
meaningless execution, disposable tools in a nasty internecine conflict.  Shakespeare's play has form and
purpose; the hero has a role to play in life, even though he may have doubted this at the beginning of the
play.  Stoppard's heroes make jokes about death, about fate, about everything.  Stoppard's plot doesn't
really go anywhere because like Pirandello's six characters and Beckett's two tramps, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are characters in search of a plot.  Worse, they are characters in search of personalities.  In
the film version, pages of dramatic scripts float and swirl about all the scenes like autumn leaves or trash
escaped from the recycling bin.  The tragic world of Hamlet is subverted by the ironic Postmodern
interlopers, proving that even a mighty Shakespearean text can be deconstructed, that is, reduced to
meaninglessness. Deconstruction is the movement in criticism that best expresses the Postmodern
consciousness. It has supplanted New Criticism in most of the literature departments of American
colleges and universities.
Deconstruction might be regarded as the antithesis of formalism.  Where the formalist critic seeks
to demonstrate the organic unity of a literary work, the deconstructionist tries to show how attempts at
unified meaning are doomed to failure by the nature of language itself.  Thus, to deconstruct a literary
work is to show that it is self-contradictory.

Originating in a radical skepticism about the capacity of language to mean anything,

deconstruction thrives on the paradoxes of twentieth century thought.  As Freudian psychology destroyed
the notion that the conscious self controls the person, as Einsteinian physics undermined ideas of
objectivity, deconstruction assaults the belief that language is unequivocal in its meaning and that literary
works have a stable meaning intended by the author.  Formalist critics accepted the intentional fallacy
because they thought that the literary text could stand on its own without reference to authorial intention,
but for the deconstructionist literary texts crumble into contradictions under analysis.
Before deconstruction became a trend in criticism, even before the word deconstruction entered
the language, Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), wrote what might be regarded as the classic deconstructive
narrative, The Alexandria Quartet.  Completed in 1960 and composed of four novels that relate the same
events from different points of view, the Quartet does not attempt to establish one version of the story as
definitive.  Rather, in a relativistic universe perspective rules the world: one step to the left or right and
the whole picture changes.

Feminist Criticism
During the 1960s a new school of criticism arose from the struggles for women's rights.  While
social and economic justice were the most obvious goals of the feminist cause, many women realized that
the roots of the inequality were cultural. This perception led to the development of feminist literary
criticism.  Using psychological, archetypal, and sociological approaches, feminist criticism examines
images of women and concepts of the feminine in myth and literature.
Feminist critics have shown that literature reflects a patriarchal, or male dominated, perspective
of society.  Patriarchalism is an ideology that causes women to be depicted in two ways: as goddesses
when they serve the patriarchal society in the role of virtuous wives and mothers as prostitutes and
witches when they do not.  Plays and novels often reveal both views of women.  Thornton Wilder
parodies these stereotypes with the characters of Mrs. Antrobus and Lily Sabina in the play The Skin of
Our Teeth.  Wilder does not spare the patriarchal Mr. Antrobus, whose foibles are plain for all the
audience to see.
A fresh approach to the investigation of literature, feminist criticism often focuses on characters
and issues that have been neglected or marginalized in previous studies.  So much has been written about
Prince Hamlet, that feminist interpretations of the motivations and conflicts of Queen Gertrude and
Ophelia are often striking in their originality.  Similarly, Charlotte Gilman-Perkins "The Yellow
Wallpaper" brings feminist criticism to the foreground.  It is this freshness of approach that makes
feminist criticism one of the most exciting contemporary approaches to literature.
As a form of sociological criticism, feminist criticism shares some qualities with Marxist
approaches.  Both are critical of society, as it is presently constituted.  Both are concerned with the lives
of those oppressed or marginalized by the dominant culture.  Both investigate literature as a means of
bringing about changes in attitudes and ultimately in society.

The Philosophical Approach

3. Moral or Humanistic Approach

• Literature is viewed to discuss man and its nature.
• It presents man as essentially rational; that is, endowed with intellect and freewill; or that the
piece does not misinterpret the true nature of man.
• The approach is close to “morality” of literature, to questions of ethical goodness or badness.

Central Questions to ask?

• What behaviors do the characters display that the author wants us to think are “right”?
How can you tell?
• What behavior is “wrong”? How can you tell?
• What religious or ethical beliefs does the text deal with directly? Are there any religions or
philosophies mentioned specifically in the text?
• What religious or ethical beliefs or philosophies does the author seem to favor? How can
you tell?
Practitioners:
 • Matthew Arnold -- argued that works must have "high seriousness"
• Plato -- insisted that literature must “exhibit moralism and utilitarianism”
• Horace - felt literature should be "delightful and instructive"
Advantages
• This approach is useful for such works as Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," which does
present an obvious moral philosophy.
• Question like: what is the philosophy embedded in the story?
• It is also useful when considering the themes of works.
• This approach is useful for such works as Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," which does
present an obvious moral philosophy.
• Question like: what is the philosophy embedded in the story?
• It is also useful when considering the themes of works.
Disadvantages
• Detractors argue that such an approach can be too "judgmental." 
• Some believe literature should be judged primarily (if not solely) on its artistic merits, not its
moral or philosophical content.

•
The philosophical (or moral) approach to literature evaluates the ethical content of literary works
and concerns itself less with formal characteristics.  Philosophical criticism always assumes the
seriousness of literary works as statements of values and criticisms of life, and the philosophical critic
judges works on the basis of his or her articulated philosophy of life. Assuming that literature can have a
good effect on human beings by increasing their compassion and moral sensitivity, this form of criticism
acknowledges that books can have negative effects on people as well.  For this reason, philosophical
critics will sometimes attack authors for degenerate, decadent, or unethical writings.
While this description may make philosophical critics seem similar to censors, these critics rarely
call for burning or banning of books.  Unlike censors, they try to deal with the whole literary work rather
than with passages taken out of context.  Some people might criticize J .D. Salinger's The Catcher in the
Rye because Holden Caulfield is a poor role model.  The book might also be attacked because of its
profane language.  In fact, these aspects of the novel have led to its being banned in many school districts
throughout the United States.  Although the philosophical critic may find both of these aspects of the
novel disturbing, he or she might still believe that, on balance, the book was to be commended for its
indictment of hypocrisy and materialism.  For the philosophical critic, it is not a question of objectionable
characters and passages; it is a question of the totality of the work.  Instead of banning books that they
find to be without redeeming social merit, philosophical critics write scathing reviews explaining why
they consider the books they are attacking to be decadent or unethical.  In the twentieth century,
philosophical critics have tended toward a humanistic belief in reason, order, and restraint.   This explains
their reluctance to ban books despite their moral concerns: if human beings are rational, as the
philosophical critic believes, they will listen to reason when it is spoken; and they will reject evil and
embrace the good.

The Psychological Approach

The psychological approach has been one of the most productive forms of literary inquiry in the
twentieth century.  Developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his
followers, psychological criticism has led to new ideas about the nature of the creative process, the mind
of the artist, and the motivations of characters.
Freud's principal ideas are essential to an understanding of modern literature and criticism. 
Although the works of Freud consist of many complex volumes, there are four main ideas that have been
so influential that it is hard to believe they were not always with us.

The Unconscious
 According to Freud, human beings are not conscious of all their feelings, urges, and desires
because most of mental life is unconscious.  Freud compared the mind to an iceberg: only a small portion
is visible; the rest is below the waves of the sea.  Thus, the mind consists of a small conscious portion and
a vast unconscious portion.

Repression
Observing the conservative, prudish upper middle classes of the late nineteenth century, Freud
came to the conclusion that society demands restraint, order, and respectability and that individuals are
forced to repress (or sublimate) the libidinous and aggressive drives.  These repressed desires, however,
emerge in dreams and in art. The artist and the dreamer are both creators; both have a need to express
themselves by creating beautiful or terrifying images and narratives.  But the lust and aggression may not
be represented directly.  This leads to the use of symbols and subtexts in dreams and literature.

The Tripartite Psyche

Freud developed his psychoanalytic theory around three principles: the ego, the id, and the
superego.  The ego is conscious and represents the part of the mind that interacts with the environment
and with other people in social situations.  As the conscious waking self, the ego is the reasonable, sane,
and mature aspect of the mind capable of mastering impulses and dealing effectively with the stresses of
daily life.  Common parlance may show disrespect for the "big ego," but for Freud the supercilious
attitude denoted by this phrase would, paradoxically, be an indication - of a weak ego.   The id is
unconscious and is comprised of the basic drives of hunger, thirst, pleasure, and aggression.   The id is
removed from reality, that is, from the outer world of society and environment.  The id is the mind of the
infant, demanding instant gratification, incapable of tolerating the delayed gratification that makes the ego
socially acceptable.  At first, Freud thought that the id had only one principle, the pleasure principle, also
known as the libido or sex drive. However, he found he could not account for aggression, violence, and
self-destructiveness without postulating a second principle, the aggressive drive, also known as the death
wish.  The superego is the final part of the tripartite psyche. Representing parentally instilled moral
attitudes, the superego may seem to be like the conscience. Like the id, however, the superego is largely
unconscious.  Sometimes the superego is thought to represent an idealized image (ego-ideal) towards
which the ego strives.  During the normal course of development, an individual gains in ego strength and
is able to master basic drives and mediate the demands of the id, the superego, and the environment.
Many works of literature contain characters who embody mental forces. Some of these works
were written long before Freud formalized his psychological theory.  Three famous works of Victorian
literature were published at about the time Freud was developing his ideas: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of
Dorian Gray (1891), Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Joseph Conrad's
"The Secret Sharer" (1912).  Probably the most notorious id character ever created, Mr. Hyde incarnates
the aggressive drive of the unconscious; however, Dr. Jekyll makes it clear in his statement of the case
that he admired Hyde's tremendous love of life.  In a similar way, the captain in Conrad's story recognizes
that Leggatt has killed a man, but he allows Leggatt to swim to a nearby island because he admires the
freedom and self-possession of Leggatt.  Both Dr. Jekyll and the captain live in L-shaped dwellings: like
Freud's iceberg, part of the dwelling is seen and part remains hidden.  Wilde's Dorian Gray resorts to
hiding his portrait (which shows his moral state) in the attic. In each of these works, an ego character
must mediate between the social environment and the desires of the id character.  The id is not so much
immoral as amoral.  It is the way in which the ego character deals with the drives of the id that constitutes
the moral action of the story.

The Oedipus Complex

In Greek myth, Oedipus was a king of Thebes who, having been abandoned in childhood and
consequently ignorant of his own identity, unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.   In
describing the psychosexual development of children, Freud analyzed the powerful feelings that develop
between mother and son.  Freud believed that boys develop strong attractions to their mothers during the
phallic period (3-6), with a corresponding rivalry developing between the boy and his father.  Usually
these conflicts are resolved as the boy matures and develops love interests outside the home, but some
neuroses of adult life are supposed to result from insufficiently resolved Oedipal conflicts.
The Oedipus Complex has been very controversial and some psychoanalysts have modified or
rejected it. Alfred Adler (1870-1937), one of Freud's pupils, reinterpreted the Oedipus Complex when he
developed his own theory of the Inferiority Complex. Adler believed that the primary motivation for
human beings is not the libido, as Freud had posited, but the will to power.   For Adler, then, the Oedipus
Complex is essentially a power struggle between the boy and the father, in which the boy tries to
overcome feelings of inferiority by successfully capturing the mother's attention. Adler also coined the
term masculine protest to refer to the rebellion of by young women (and some young men) against the
inferior status that women have in many societies.  Masculine protest consists of aggressive behavior
towards others in an attempt to allay feelings of inferiority.
Writers were interested in the powerful conflicts that arise in families long before Freud, but
writers of the twentieth century exploring these conflicts in their works will be labeled Freudian whether
they acknowledge the influence of Freud or not.  D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers explores the influence
of a possessive mother on her sons; the same author's story " The Rocking- Horse Winner" depicts a boy
who believes he can win his mother's love by being lucky in gambling on racehorses.  Frank O'Connor's
"My Oedipus Complex" is a humorous treatment of Freud's ideas.  The same author's "Masculine Protest"
makes use of the Adlerian notion of the inferiority complex.
The literature of the past has been reexamined in the light of psychoanalysis.  Freud himself
started this trend when he named a complex after Oedipus: this reinterpreted the play.  In fact, the play
was profoundly psychological in its original conception.  Oedipus goes to Delphi and receives, prophecies
from the gods: what better way to express the working of the unconscious?  Jocasta tells Oedipus that
many men have dreamed of sleeping with their mothers: dreams do reveal unconscious desires.  Finally,
having sorted out his identity, Oedipus, analyst and patient in one paradoxical person, blinds himself and
leaves the stage to wander the world, a sadder and a wiser man.
Since the late 1940s Shakespeare's Hamlet has been interpreted as having an Oedipal Complex. 
He expresses love for his mother, and seems obsessed by the idea of Claudius and Gertrude sleeping
together.  His jealousy and aggression towards Claudius are overt.  Of course, c Claudius is not Hamlet's
father but his stepfather. Hamlet idealizes and adores his real father.  These facts do not deter the
psychological interpreters.  Perhaps the concept of masculine protest is as, applicable to the playas the
Oedipal conflict.  Hamlet feels that Gertrude is weak; worse, he feels implicated in her weakness.  Much
of the play dwells on Hamlet's feelings of weakness and inferiority, and his aggressive behavior at the end
may be interpreted as masculine protest.
Poets, dreamers, and madmen all tap the fountainhead of the unconscious, the source not only of
aggressions and desires but of the will to live. The psychological approach to literature delves into the
symbolic fictions that arise from the primordial springs of the imagination and attempts to explain them to
the rational, waking selves who inhabit the daylight world.

The Sociological Approach

4. Sociological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of man with a given social situation which is reduced to
discussions on economics, in which men are somewhat simplistically divided into “the haves and
the haves not”, thus passing into the “proletarian approach” which tends to underscore the conflict
between the two social classes.

 They believe that the Social conditions and notions of the origins and cultures of
humanity affect literature.
 What does the writer seem to like or dislike about this society?
Central Sociological Questions:
  What sort of society does the author describe? (How is it set up? What
rules are there?
 What happens to people who break them? Who enforces the rules?)
 What changes do you think the writer would like to make in the society?
 And how can you tell?
 What sorts of pressures does the society put on its members?
 How do the members respond to this pressure?
Sociological criticism focuses on the relationship between literature and society.  Literature is
always produced in a social context.  Writers may affirm or criticize the values of the society in which
they live, but they write for an audience and that audience is society.  Through the ages the writer has
performed the functions of priest, prophet and entertainer: all of these are important social roles.  The
social function of literature is the domain of the sociological critic.
Even works of literature that do not deal overtly with social issues may have social issues as
subtexts.  The sociological critic is interested not only in the stated themes of literature, but also in the
latent themes.  Like the historical critic, the sociological critic attempts to understand the writer's
environment as an important element in the writer's work.  Like the moral critic, the sociological critic
usually has certain values by which he or she judges literary work.

5. Cultural Approach
Literature is seen as the manifestations and vehicles of a nation’s or race’s culture and tradition.

It includes the entire complex of what goes under “culture” - the technological, artistic, sociological,
ideological aspects; and considers then literary piece in the total cultural milieu.

 The thrust is to make full use of the reciprocal function between culture and literature.
 One of the richest ways to arrive at the culture of the people.
 The most pleasurable ways of appreciating the literature of the people.

Central Questions for Cultural Approach

 What particular cultural practices, traditions are shown in the literary piece?
 How does the author present these culture or traditions?
 What is the attitude of the author to these culture and traditions? How about your reaction?

Marxist Criticism
One of the most important forms of sociological criticism is Marxist criticism.  Karl Marx (1818-
1883) developed a theory of society, politics, and economics called dialectical materialism.   Writing in
the nineteenth century, Marx criticized the exploitation of the working classes, or proletariat, by the
capitalist classes who owned the mines, factories, and other resources of national economies.  Marx
believed that history was the story of class struggles and that the goal of history was a classless society in
which all people would share the wealth equally.  This classless society could only come about as a result
of a revolution that would overthrow the capitalist domination of the economy.
Central to Marx's understanding of society is the concept of ideology.  As an economic
determinist, Marx thought that the system of production was the most basic fact in social life.  Workers
created the value of manufactured goods, but owners of the factories reaped most of the economic
rewards.  In order to justify and rationalize this inequity, a system of understandings or ideology was
created, for the most part unconsciously.  Capitalists justified their taking the lion's share of the rewards
by presenting themselves as better people, more intelligent, more refined, more ethical that the workers.  
Since literature is consumed, for the most part, by the middle classes, it tends to support capitalist
ideology, at least in countries where that ideology is dominant.
 Marxist critics interpret literature in terms of ideology.  Writers who sympathize with the working
classes and their struggle are regarded favorably.  Writers who support the ideology of the dominant
classes are condemned.  Naturally, critics of the Marxist school differ in breadth and sympathy the way
other critics do.  As a result, some Marxist interpretations are more subtle than others. Take the Marxist
approach to Shakespeare's The Tempest for example.  The standard Marxist party line would be to
interpret Prospero as the representative of European imperialism. Prospero has come to the island from
Italy.  He has used his magic (perhaps a symbol of technology) to enslave Caliban, a native of the island. 
Caliban resents being the servant of Prospero and attempts to rebel against his authority.  Since Prospero
is presented in a favorable light, the Marxist critic might condemn Shakespeare as being a supporter of
European capitalist ideology.  A more subtle Marxist critic might see that the play has far more
complexity, and that Caliban has been invested with a vitality that makes it possible for audiences to
sympathize with him. Certainly, the Marxist view of the play brings out ideas that might be overlooked by
other kinds of critics and, thus, contributes to the understanding of the play.
Sociological criticism, then, reflects the way literature interacts with society.  Sociological critics
show us how literature can function as a mirror to reflect social realities and as a lamp to inspire social
ideals.