Critical Theory notes to augment those you got in class

Crtical Theory and 'What's up with Cindy?'

Hello 12s,
Today we began to look at the cognitive/analytical tool of ‘critical theory’.

For next block, please consider the following:

• Review the handout on Critical Theory
• Consider the ways that gender is presented in Cinderella. Carrying on from last day consider how the prince, and how are princes as a fairy tale entity, are almost always presented. Consider looks, expectations, behaviours, as well as what they are not expected to do or to be.

We will continue our study of modes of analysis (critical theory) over the next while and look at Cinderella  in particular next class.

While this can be engaging work as a sort of a puzzle or a game, please consider that critical theory is really about seeing the world from various points of view. The ramifications of being able to do that could, done well, change the way our world functions.

The notes on Psychological theory are agmented here with background reading/viewing for you here.

Here is a link to view a background lecture on this theory and Freud in particular video (I recommend you focus on :7:39-25:35 and again 44:17-you decide)

NOTES:

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalytic criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology. While we don't have the room here to discuss all of Freud's work, a general overview is necessary to explain psychoanalytic literary criticism.

Freud asserted that people's   is affected by their unconscious: "...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware..."

Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and pleasure

"...repression doesn't eliminate our painful experiences and emotions...we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to 'play out'...our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.

Id, Ego, and Superego

(see video)

Freud/psychology and Literature analysis:

Typical questions:

·                How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work?

·                Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics - are work here?

·                How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)?

·                What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author?

·                What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader?

·                Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings? Could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"?https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/72

Ha