Sigmund Freud, as a nineteenth-century neurologist, studied the workings of the human mind in a complex way, leading him to develop a controversial theory called psychoanalysis. He distinguished between what we do and think consciously and what we repress unconsciously, building a model of the separate divisions of the human psyche and its processes. In this essay I will explain Freud's theory and outline its implications for literary criticism when the unconscious thoughts of both the characters and the writer come into play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay According to Freud's process of psychoanalysis, the mind does not exist as a single unit, but rather is separated into three distinct divisions: the conscious mind, the preconscious mind, and the unconscious mind. Freud uses the analogy of the iceberg to better explain his ideas about the levels of the mind. Here the conscious mind is compared to the tip of an iceberg, the only part clearly exposed above sea level. This level includes the thoughts and feelings we are aware of and our everyday rational thought processes. The preconscious exists just below "sea level" and can be accessed when needed, but it is not constantly present in awareness, just like human memories. These are stored just outside of our consciousness, but we can retrieve them in response to a trigger such as an old photo or a friend recalling a memory aloud. Most of the iceberg expanding underwater, hidden from view, is analogous to Freud's idea of ​​the unconscious. It is a vast set of mostly socially unacceptable desires, fears and anxieties. One of his key ideas about this part of the mind is the idea that it operates outside of our awareness, but still influences our behavior and personality without us realizing it. Most of this level is made up of what Freud called the “id,” the basic instincts and desires of the human mind. The id includes the life instinct (or eros), which drives sexual desire and the sustenance of life, and the death instinct (or theros) which is responsible for aggression and self-destruction. Freud argued that the "ego" develops during childhood as a way to integrate the primitive desires of the id into the reality of society in a safe and acceptable way. The “Superego” is, according to Freud, the part of the brain that acts in accordance with moral expectations. Unlike the ego, the superego makes us feel guilty when we allow ourselves to act on our primal desires without compromise. Freud outlined how this guilt or conscience prevents our unconscious desires from manifesting in a socially unacceptable way by arguing that “conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular desire operating within us”[1]. When applied to critical literature, Freud's theory has implications for the nature of characters and their unconscious motivations, leading characters to assume a new position in relationship in the story, perhaps even moving from protagonist to antagonist or vice versa. An example of this can be seen in Henry James' gothic novel, The Turn of the Screw[2]. Throughout James' novel, we are presented with the story of a woman who, if taken in literal form, is confronted with ghostly apparitions that haunt the house where she begins to work. However, when read in the light of Freudian theory, these ghosts are more psychological than supernatural. Leonard Orr supports this alternative point of view and affirms its alignment with Freud's theory as he claims that “seeing ighosts as hysterical projections of the narrator's disturbed mind... therefore children are victims; [is to place] attention on the unconscious mind of the housekeeper and on the tools of psychoanalysis”[3]. Indeed, from a Freudian perspective, the close and intimate relationship that the governess develops with Flora and Miles can be seen as more perverse than maternal. Gary Gillard supports this thesis because he suggests that the governess's repressed sexual desires "take the form of projections of perverse desire, directed at the children, but not manifestly emanating from the governess herself, but only latently revealed as such, after a process of psychoanalysis"[ 4]. Certainly, much of the governess's interaction with the children can be interpreted as having a sexual undertone, as when she describes how she "held [Miles] to [her] breast, where [she] could feel the sudden fever of his little body. The tremendous beat of his little heart”[5]. one must accept this vision, the ghosts may not simply be projections of his desire, but rather a product of his superego which experiences guilt actions are wrong, apparitions they could be a form of wish fulfillment, allowing her to alleviate her guilt by seeing herself as a protector of children rather than an antagonist Here, the governess has undergone a fundamental transition from hero and antihero when the text is approached from a Freudian perspective Another key aspect of Freud's theory that has implications for literature is the Oedipus complex. Taking its name from the famous Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex about the man who unintentionally kills his father and marries his mother[6], the theory dictates that all children must develop through an unconscious attraction to their parent. In the case of boys, this leads to an equally unconscious desire to be free from their father, who they see as their main competitor for their mother's affection. In fact, Freud himself stated that “Sexual desires towards the mother become more intense and the father is perceived as an obstacle; this gives rise to the Oedipus complex"[7]. Added to this is what Freud called "castration anxiety". During this time, boys fear that their father will take away their penis which classifies them as male, as a result of this perceived rivalry for their mother's love. To avoid this, boys resolve their fears by imitating their father's masculine traits and behaviors in hopes of one day achieving a sexual relationship with an equally maternal woman. Girls, Freud argues, are subject to the phenomenon of penis envy, in which they come to blame their mother for their lack of male genitalia, and subsequently shift their unconscious sexual desire from their mother to their father. Instead of an Oedipus complex, girls develop a similar complex, later called the Electra complex by Carl Jung, in which they experience rivalry with their mother for their father's attention. Unlike the male, the female need for dominance by a parent manifests as anger as opposed to anxiety. This anger leads the little girl to fear the loss of her mother's love as she begins to emulate her in the same way the male child emulates his father. In relation to literary criticism, Freud's theories on the Electra and Oedipus complexes can have significant implications when applied to literary texts that feature a central parent-child relationship. What may appear to be a simple conflict over trivial matters may actually be the sign of an unconscious and unresolved Oedipus or Electra complex. A key example of this can be seen in the poem Medusa by Sylvia Plath[8]. From a Freudian perspective, the unnamed person to whom the speaker addresses the poem may beinterpreted as the speaker's mother. The tone of the poem seems caught between resentment towards the mother and longing for the mother. She is clearly bitter towards him as she states that "there is nothing between [them]" and perhaps, as Freud might suggest, this is the result of an enduring anger towards her mother for her unresolved penis envy and tension over the desire for the father. This is further hinted at as the speaker explains how her supposed mother is still "paralyzing the kicking lovers", implying that in her eyes not only has her mother robbed her of her father's love, but is also destroying her relationship with her lover acting as her father's stand-in. In light of Freud's theory of the Electra complex, the meaning of the poem becomes that of maternal rivalry and the unresolved desire to possess the father. In addition to a Freudian psychoanalysis of fictional literary characters, his theory can also be applied to writers themselves. . According to Freud, literary texts are similar to dreams in that they exist as manifestations of the dreamer's or writer's subconscious desires and anxieties. Indeed, he suggested that literary texts should receive similar treatment to dreams regarding the process of interpreting and understanding their content. This is outlined in detail in Freud's text The Interpretation of Dreams[9] where he proposes that dreams are a form of realization of the mind's repressed unconscious desires that enter awareness during sleep. According to Freud's work, “The interpretation of dreams is the main path towards knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”[10]. According to him, a dream is a combination of recent events that have occurred in reality, together with the repressed content of the unconscious, which undergo the process of condensation to form an image or a dream. From a Freudian perspective, literature and other works of art are similar in nature to dreams. This theory has several implications for writers, as Freudian critics may attempt to analyze their own unconscious thoughts through psychoanalysis of their work. Hank de Berg underlines this when he states that “a psychoanalytic interpretation of literary texts and reactions to these texts can tell us a lot about people's unconscious desires, about how they have or have not been able to fulfill these desires, about their upbringing and their interaction with the social environment”[11]. However, it is important to note that, from the Freudian point of view, the projection of the author's psyche onto the literary text is completely involuntary. In other words, the writer is not aware not only that his subconscious desires and anxieties can manifest themselves in this way, but that they even exist. This is also very similar to the Freudian view of the dream, which contains both manifest and latent contents. The latent content is the manifestation of the unconscious within the dream, while the manifest content is everything that is remembered upon awakening. In conclusion, Freud's theory as a school of literary criticism serves to discover hidden meanings in narratives to delve into the unconscious of both. the characters and the writer. Literary works may appear on the surface to be products of rational thought and creativity. However, when studied from a Freudian point of view, they are seen as products of the writer's subconscious desires and anxieties. What may seem like an innocuous event or description may actually be a window into the author's deepest, darkest subconscious. Likewise, Freudian criticism encourages us to engage in a similar analysis of characters, stripping away appearances to find the unconscious roots of their actions and nature. These characters are often driven, 2004), 11.