USE PSYCHOANALYST THEORY TO ANALYZE/ INTERPRETE ANY LITERARY WOLF / TEXT (S)

INTRODUCTION

The literary critism is the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. It applies as term to any argumentation about literature whether or not specific works are analyzed. “critism is the art of judgment which evaluate the authencity, truth, validity or beauty of a given subject manner”(Benhabib 2005).

            Literary theory is a body of knowledge which seeks to deal with the methods of analyzing literature with a view of provided philosophical foundations, aims, goals and approaches to literary critism. “Theory is where the intellectual juices are flowing” (Eagleton, T 1990).

PSYCHOANALYSIS THEORY

The origin of psychoanalysis can be traced to the work of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who coined the term “psychoanalysis”. During the 1890s, Freud worked with Austrian Physician and Physiologist Josef Breuer in studies of neurotic patent under hypnosis Freud and Breuer observed that, when the sources of patients ideas and the hypnotic state the patients showed improvement.

            Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques related to the study of unconscious mind, which together form a method of treatment for mental-health disorders. Founded by Sigmund Freud (1859-1939). Freud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining insight. It is sometimes described as “depth psychology”.

             Freud’s psychoanalytic theory outlines three elements of personality- the id, the ego and the super ego that work together to form personality which are part of the Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic personality theory. According to Freud, these three parts combine to create the complex behavior of human beings.

The id is the most basic part of the personality and wants instant gratification for our wants and needs if these needs and wants are not met, a person becomes tense or anxious.

The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. The ego recognizes that other people have needs and wants too, and the being selfish is not always good for us in the long run.

The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgments about right and wrongs even though the superego and the ego many reach the same decision about something the superego’s reason for that decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action will be.

The id, ego and superego work together in creating a behavior. The id creates the demands; the ego adds the needs of reality with super ego add morality to the action which is taken.

APPLICATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS THEORY IN INTERPRETING LITERARY TEXT

Psychoanalysis and literature (literary exploration or criticism) cannot be divorced from each other. The theory underscores the author’s personality while literature contains a rich understanding of literature of works of art. As Lynn puts it, “Freud’s work nicely illustrates the application of psychology to literature”.

            Psychoanalysis looks at the writer/his work, the reader and society, because criticism is not done in a vacuum. Creative works of literature are products of the author’s libido, hence, to Freud, the author or artist is a neurotic person (a fan of what he or she believes in; and he or she is mad about his vision). Since literary work is the author’s dream or fantasy, by employing psychoanalysis especially in the dream therapy, we decipher the hidden meanings housed in symbols (imageries) through the story and arrive at an accurate interpretation of the text (Bressler, 94). Bressler argues further that the theory “can be used to explain literary texts, in effect allowing the reader to become the analyst and the text the object of analysis or analyze and, thus privileging psychoanalysis as a discourse above that of the literary text and conferring on the reader a superior position.

            As previously mentioned psychoanalysis expounds the inner workings of the individual’s mind/psyche visa –a-vis the influence of societal norms and values among others. It explains why characters in literary texts behave the way they do, what people say about them, why people say such things. In Faceless (2013) we see how the author Amma Darko projects the moral decadence in the Ghanaisn society. Using major character like Fofo, Macho, Poison, Odarley, Baby T, Kwei and Kpako she attributes their bad character to their moral authority over their children roam the streets and even operate a “home” referred to as “Sodomand Gomorrah” symbolic of the Bible cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:1ff) characterized by all forms of sexual immorality, stealing and drinking. While not condoning sexual promiscuity, Darko sarcastically justifies the behavior of most of the female characters as using survival strategies (struggling to make ends meet).

            Critic like Umoren (2002), observes that “the patriarchal women is seen as a man’s concubine, a personified ‘other object’ that must be possessed, a slave, an invidious source of and an embossment of man’s valour”. In tandum with Umoren, Darko carefully portrays these “paradigms” of patriarchal typification in the lives of Kabria and the hairdresser who Darko endows with a psychological acceptance of these paradigms she projects them from the point of view of male chauvinistic characters like Kpako, Macho who use women and girls to gratify their sexual desires.

            In “Enume and Ritual Killers”  a story in Alani the Troublemaker by Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo (2008), we see that wari one of the major characters did not hand her friend Enume to the ritual killers out of hatred but rather to help offset her (Wari) father’s huge loan. Beside, the id, ego and superego influence her decision. Wari had lied that her uncle and his family lived in Diobu but on their way she suddenly told the taxi driver that their destination was Rumouka. This paper sees this chage of mind as struggle between good (morality) and evil in her.

            In the novel, The Dreamer (2008) by Olajire Olanlokun, there is also the interplay of id, ego as Babatunde Babayemi (BB) shuns y the idea of giving a bribe (N 1000) to secure a job even though he is desperately in need of one. He does not allow Mr.Okoye to convince him hence he says;

“No sir, I cannot, my aunt here is poor. She tries her best to feed me and give me money for transport in my search for jobs. My parents at home battle to pay the school fees of my younger brothers and sister. That is just the situation. Apart from this. I hate giving out brides notwithstanding the fact I need job desperately” (109)

Sherifat, one of the characters refuses gift as appreciation from one of her customers Madam Doherty in spite of the latter’s entreaties. This is also the interplay of id, ego and superego (152-153). Freud argues that if a character is terrified of ghosts and spirits (or other things), that he fear they are wandering all similarly, MaaBroni’s comment on her lack of peace or sleep since the demise of Baby T in Faceless in another instance of reaction formation:

Never! The image has never left me.

Not once since it happened.

Have I known peace or sleep.

When I am bathing.

I am afraid to close my eyes.

I see her everywhere.

I feel her unseen presence (320).

In her troubled state of mind poison tells her to shun fear. In other words, to adopt regression (selectively forgetting about whatever is troubling one; hiding desires and fears)

In her words:

Poison couldn’t care less when I told him. He warned me to pull myself together and stop acting like a child. He wasn’t the one hearing the sounds in the head and feeling weight of baby T’s spirit (322).

Yet another useful phenomenon to literary criticism is Psychoanalysis use of sarcastic denial which runs through the three genres. Psychoanalysis thus enable us see how characters falsify reality flatly and directly by out rightly refusing to accept it (denial). In other words, it is a break with reality. Fofo’s reaction to her mother’s atrocities and the death of Baby T shows denial, in fact, weightier than denial she pretends as though she is not touched or worried.

The narrator says:

Fofo disentangled herself form Kabria’s hold, picked an old cloth of her mother’s from the bed, blew her nose generously into it, wiped her face and then, smiled unexpectedly at Kabria. It was a smile through pain (258).

 Again, in A Man of the people, the enigma of denial is seen in the character, the Hon. Minister Nanga when he tells another teacher:

That is very good. Sometimes I use to regret ever leaving the teaching field. Although I am a minister today I can swear to God that I am not as happy as when I was a teacher … True to God who made me. I use to regret it. Teaching is a very noble profession (10).

The Hon. Minister is only sarcastically expressing this “regret” of no longer being a teacher. In the play, The goods are not to blame(1971), which is a portrayal of man’s helplessness in the hand of fate or the struggle between humanity and the divine (gods), we see how characters bare their individual minds. In the words of Kennedy and Gioia, “dialogism is when we enter a character’s mind and come to him through his own words, thoughts, feelings and perceptions (92). On this note, dialogism is in agreement with psychoanalytic posture.

Furthermore, the setting of the play is (Yoruba land), a patriarchal society with male dominance and women as appendages to men. This is typified by characters like Odewale (the central charater ), king Adetusa, Gbonka, Aderopo, first, second and third chiefs and Alaka, who play roles that project the male gender as subject and absolute, leaving the weak other as the female characters. For example, Queen Ojuola and Abero are projected as passive, confined, weak, powerless and docile. This again, is the expression of the writer’s Iibido.

We find Freud’s principle of sublimation (the channeling of an unacceptable urge into some artistic creating) in the protagonist Odewale who the play wright makes commit murder (kill his father, king Adetusa) and incest (marry his mother Queen Ojuola). The play clearly portrays neurosis on the part of Odewale who out of his reckless and impulsive anger kills his father. He again accuses Baba Fakunle (the old seer) and Aderopo of conspiracy. Alaka Calls him’ the scorpion that must be vexed’ and says of him: “I am glad to see that your youthful hot temper is still with you, my brother”. This trait of anger in Odewale can be interpreted as psychotic, a failure of his ego to adequately suppress the instinctively violent reactions of the psychotic, a failure of his ego to adequately suppress the instinctively violent reactions of the id. Similarly, Baba Fakunle himself manifests neurosis when he angrily calls Odewale murderer and bedsharer.  In fatc, Rotimi “explores the character of individuals who project their fears and suppressed and unacknowledged desires on other people (Odewale on Baba Fakunle and Aderopo).

Split personality is another psychoanalytic theory feature in the play. We see this in Odewale who is determined to find out his true identity because of the accusations against him of a murderer and bedshare. The attempts by other characters to conceal his real identity did not deter him. And when he finally discovered the truth, he plucked out his eyes. We may say that the superego in him made him pluck out the eyes. In other words, the superego condemned him and created in him a feeling of shame and guilt. The same could be said of Queen Ojuola who committed Suicide.

 The Oedipus complex in Sophocles’ work is also evident in the play. Odewale’s actions though unconscious, go beyond the realm of childhood fantasy to that of reality which shows that the crime of patricide committed by Odewale was propelled, not by king Adetusa’s insult to the Ijekun tribe, but by Odewale’s unconscious desires to remove the father figure to enable him possess his mother (unknowingly though)”. This is the ultimate expression of his repressed Oedipus desires (Wikipedia, the encyclopedia).

With heavy deployment of ironic twist, Rotimi carefully carries his audience along as he makes them traverse his own route which is the reason for their being emotional at the end of the paly. The show/feel pity for both Odewale and Queen Ojuola.

CONCLUSION              

Through a careful analysis of the novels, plays and poems, and the working of some of the major characters in the societies of the works as a microcosm of the macrocosm, it is demonstrated that: firstly, novels’ characters, writers are influence of the society and other suffocating factors on their psyche. This leaves a little or no line between psychoanalysis and literary exploration: - this is a clear indication that the former is necessary to understand the latter which contains a rich evidence of man’s subconscious mind manifesting in even his physical actions. Suffice it to say that psychoanalysis is relevant in identifying and solving problems pertaining to individuals and the society at large. This therefore makes psychoanalysis in literary analysis an inseparable pair. Neurosis is a common feature of humans generally, though varied in degrees but now more, in our complex and fast growing world. Psychoanalysis would enable us find out why people indulge in certain odd and immoral behavior so that they could be assisted to enable them fit appropriately into the society.  This is even very urgent today as the whole world is grappling with the issue of terrorism, Boko Haram, suicide bombing, ritual killing, kidnapping and other such heinous and dastardly actions difficult to explain why human beings (male and female) have thrown sanctity of life aboard.

REFERENCES

Umar, M. (2014) “Titbits on literary criticism”. P. 35-39

The novels include Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966)

AkachiAdimora-Ezeigbo’sAlanithe troublemaker (2008)

OlajireOlanlokun’s The Dreamer (2008)

AmmaDarko’s Faceless (2013)

Ola Rotimi’s  The gods are not blame (1971),