Heart of Darkness: Psychoanalytic Criticism Essay -- Psychoanalysis Si

Heart of Darkness Psychoanalytic CriticismPsychoanalytic rebuke originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a possibleness that encompassed pitying psychology. His theories atomic number 18 directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his bigeminal case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are prompt by psychological forces over which we piddle very limited fake (Guerin 127). One of Freuds most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his conjecture of repression the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires, feelings, memories, wishes and instinctual drives many of which have to do with sexuality and violence. These unconscious wishes, according to Freud, can find conceptualization in dreams because dreams distort the unconscious materia l and make it appear assorted from itself and more acceptable to consciousness. They may also appear in an separate(prenominal) disguised forms, like in language (sometimes called the Freudian slips), in notional art and in neurotic behavior. One of the unconscious desires Freud believed that all human beings supposedly suppress is the childhood desire to displace the parent of the selfsame(prenominal) sex and to take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the turnabout sex. This so-called Oedipus Complex, which all children experience as a rite of enactment to adult gender identity, lies at the core of Freuds sexual theory (Murfin 114-5).A principal element in Freuds theory is his subsidization of the mental processes to three psychic zones the id, the ego and the superego. The id is the passional, irrational, and unconscious part of the psyche. It is the grade of the energy of the mind, energy that Freud characterized as a combination of sexual libido and othe r instincts, such as aggression, that propel the human organism through life, move it to grow, develop and eventually to die. That primary process of life is completely irrational, and it cannot sleep together reasonable objects and unreasonable or socially unacceptable ones. Here comes the thirdhand processes of the mind, lodged in the ego and the superego. The ego, or I, was Freuds term for the predominantly rational, logical, dapper and conscious part of the psych... ...ut Librairie Du Liban Publishers SAL, 1994. Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to literary works. 4th ed. impudent York Oxford University Press, 1999.Hewitt, Douglas. Conrad A Reassessment. World Literature Criticism. Ed. Polly Vedder. Vol. 4. Detroit Gale, 1992. 789-92. Hughs, Richard E. The Lively Image Four Myths in Literature. Cambridge, MA Winthrop Publishers, 1975.Karl, Frederick R. A Readers Guide To Joseph Conrad. World Literature Criticism. Ed. Polly Vedder. Vol. 4 . Detroit Gale, 1992. 785-9. Leavis, F. R. From The Great Tradition. A Practical Reader in Contemporary literary Theory. London Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. 246-7 Mudrick, Marvin. The Originality of Conrad. World Literature Criticism. Ed. PollyVedder. Vol. 4. Detroit Gale, 1992. 782-5. Murfin, Ross C. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. New York St. Martins Press, 1989. Sad, Edward W. agriculture and Imperialism. New York Knopf, 1979. Wright, Elizabeth. Psychoanalytic Criticism. Encyclopedia Of Literature And Criticism. 1991 ed. 765-7.