Approach of the Study
A psychological approach is an approach that applies principles of modern psychology to characters or situations within literary work or to the person
who wrote the work.
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories as cited in Kennedy 1999: 1947 have changed our understanding about human behavior by exploring
human’s thoughts such as wish fulfillment, sexuality, the unconscious and repression. According to him language in literature is able to reflect unconscious
fears and desires. He admitted himself had learned psychology mostly from studying literature. He believed that author of literary work “had such profound
insight into human nature that his characters display the depth and complexity of real people.
Unresolved conflicts that give rise to any neurosis are the stuff literature. A work of literature, he believes, is the external expression of the author’s
unconscious mind. According to Freud, literary work must be treated like a dream, applying psychoanalytic techniques to the text to uncover the
author’s hidden motivations and repressed desires Bressler, 1999: 153. According to Freud, as taken from Bressler 1999: 159, an author’s chief
motivation for writing any story is to gratify some secret desire, some forbidden wish that probably developed during the author’s infancy and was immediately
suppressed and dumped in the unconscious. The outward manifestation of the suppressed wish becomes the literary work itself. Freud declares that the literary
work is therefore the author’s dream or fantasy. Psychoanalytic criticism focused mainly on the author. Known as psychobiography, this method of analysis begins
by amassing biographical data of an author through biographies, personal letters, lectures, and any other document deemed related in some way to the author.
Psychoanalytic critics believed they could theoretically construct the author’s
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personality with all its idiosyncrasies, internal and external conflicts, and most importantly, neuroses. In turn, such devised theory, they believed, could
illuminate an author’s individual works, giving rise to latent content in the author’s texts. By gaining an in-depth understanding of the author, these critics
assumed they would be better able to interpret an author’s cannon. In later studies, the psychoanalytic critics focused on character analysis, studying the various
aspects of characters’ mind found in author’s cannon. Individual characters within a text now became the focus, believing that the author had in mind a particular
personality for his or her characters. A character’s motivations and actions, then, became more complex than simply the author’s ideas.
According to Freud, playwright had such profound insight into human nature that his characters display the depth and complexity of real people. Freud
and disciples believed that great literature truthfully reflects life. Psychological criticism employs three approaches. First, it investigates the creative process of
the artist. Second is the psychological study of particular artist. Most modern literary biographies employ psychology to understand their subject’s motivation
and behavior. The third is the analysis of fictional characters. Freud’s study shows psychological approach tries to bring modern insights about human behavior into
the study of fictional people is act Kennedy, 1999: 1947.