Literary Theory - Week 7

Psychoanalysis

A systematic field of knowledge developed by Sigmund Freud in late nineteenth-century Vienna that focuses on anxiety, fear of persecution, and the fragmentation of the self as constituted in a new way.

Sublimation

The force that switches and harnesses our instincts to higher goals, leading to cultural history and civilization itself.

Unconscious

The place to which we relegate the desires we are unable to fulfill.

Instincts

Biologically fixed needs human beings have for nourishment and warmth.

Oral Stage

The first phase of sexual life, associated with the drive to incorporate objects.

Anal Stage

A stage where the anus becomes an erotogenic zone, and with the child's pleasure in defecation a new contrast between activity and passivity.

Phallic Stage

A stage that begins to focus the child's libido on the genitals, but only recognizes the male organ.

Narcissism

A state in which one's body or ego as a whole is taken as an object of desire.

Oedipus Complex

The mechanism by which a child is taken in hand and socialized, involving incestuous desires and identification with the parent of the same sex.

Superego

The awesome, punitive voice of conscience within the child, formed by introjecting patriarchal law.

Dreams

Symbolic fulfillments of unconscious wishes, often concealed and distorted to avoid shocking the dreamer.

Parapraxes

Unaccountable slips of the tongue, failures of memory, bunglings, misreadings, and mislayings which can be traced to unconscious wishes and intentions.

Neurosis

A psychological disturbance where unconscious desires are both protected against and covertly expressed, leading to symptoms such as obsessions, hysteria, or phobias.

Oedipus complex

The nucleus of the neuroses

Psychosis

A condition in which the ego comes under the sway of the unconscious, rupturing the link between the ego and the external world, and building up an alternative, delusional reality.

Paranoia

A more or less systematized state of delusion, including delusions of persecution, jealousy, and grandeur, rooted in an unconscious defense against homosexuality.

Transference

In psychoanalysis, the unconscious 'transfer' of psychical conflicts onto the analyst, providing insight and intervention opportunities.

Death Drive (Thanatos)

I choose life.

Eros

Force which builds up history.

Tyrannical Repressiveness

A condition in which a society has not developed beyond a point at which the satisfaction of one group of its members depends upon the suppression of another.

Imaginary

A term used by Lacan to describe a condition in which we lack any defined centre of self, in which what 'self we have seems to pass into objects, and objects into it, in a ceaseless closed exchange.

Jacques Lacan

rewrites Freudianism in ways relevant to all those concerned with the question of the human subject, its place in society, and above all its relationship to language.

Ideology

A term Althusser employees to describe the set of beliefs and practices which centers a subject. It is far more subtle, pervasive and unconscious than a set of explicit doctrines

Semiotic

A force we can detect inside language, which represents a sort of residue of the pre-Oedipal phase.

Psychotic

Where language is unable to symbolize experience, a person becomes

Feminist

A political label indicating support for the aims of the new women's movement which emerged in the late 1960s; a critical and theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism.

Sexual Politics

Kate Millett's study defining the essence of politics as power and exposing male dominance over females

Appropriation (in feminist context)

Creative transformation of existing critical methods and theories to serve feminist political ends, acknowledging patriarchal contamination but emphasizing productive use.

Female

A matter of biology; the state of being biologically a woman.

Feminine

A set of culturally defined characteristics; social constructs (patterns of sexuality and behavior imposed by cultural and social norms).

Essentialism

The belief in a given female nature; plays into the hands of those who want women to conform to predefined patterns of femininity.

Biologism

The belief that a female essence is biologically given.

Binary Oppositions

Hierarchical structures where the feminine side is seen as negative and powerless; deconstructed by feminists like Cixous to challenge patriarchal metaphysics.

Phallogocentrism

The conjuncture of logocentrism and phallocentrism; a system that privileges the phallus as the symbol or source of power. (Derrida)

Différance

Derrida's concept that meaning is produced through the free play of the signifier, not in the static closure of binary opposition.

Marginality (in Kristeva's terms)

A position, that which is marginalized by the patriarchal symbolic order; relational and shifting with forms of patriarchy.

Female Criticism

Criticism which in some way focuses on women; may or may not be feminist, and may conflate female with feminine.

Gynocritics

The study of women writers, as emphasized in American feminist criticism.

Feminine Theory

Theories concerned with the construction of femininity; prone to attacks of biologism and often turns into theories about female essences instead.

Bildungsroman

A novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education.

Patriarchal Society

A social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, property ownership, and control of women.

Enclosure and Escape

A recurring theme in Jane Eyre representing the protagonist's struggle against physical, social, and emotional constraints.

Gateshead

The Reed family's residence, symbolizing Jane's initial oppression and lack of belonging.

Lowood

The charity school where Jane experiences hardship and learns to govern her anger.

Thornfield

Rochester's mansion, representing a place of passion, secrets, and moral challenges for Jane.

Marsh End (Moor House)

The Rivers family's home, symbolizing refuge, familial connection, and a moral test for Jane.

Bertha Mason

Rochester's mad wife, serving as Jane's double and a symbol of repressed rage and societal constraints on women.

St. John Rivers

Jane's cousin, representing a rigid adherence to principle and a patriarchal figure offering a loveless marriage of duty.

Ferndean

Rochester's secluded estate, symbolizing a place of equality, healing, and a more balanced relationship between Jane and Rochester.

Red-room

Represents Jane's vision of the society in which she is trapped, an uneasy and elfin dependent.

Miss Temple

Represents ladylike virtue and kindness, but also repression. She is a mother figure for Jane.

Helen Burns

Represents self-renunciation and spirituality.