Skip to main content

How to use Psychoanalysis to engage more with what you read? Even if it's Shakespeare

How to use Psychoanalysis to engage more with what you read? Even if it's Shakespeare 



I used to be confused about which major to focus on, Literature or Psychology? Initially I thought there was something wrong with me for I had such varied interests. I recalled what I knew about literature: It was frivolous and more often than I liked to recall, I had been called impractical and childish for expressing my inclination towards it. Before I had researched more about it, I brushed it off just as other people around me had done. My other interest gleamed in its empty place. Psychology!


Psychology was as practical as you could get. It is the reason you are able to understand any of this. It’s breadth gave me freedom and depth excited me. In contrast to what I learned about Literature, was that it was a girlish pass time and nothing substantial could yield from it. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Literature, as I am starting to learn, is the representation of human experience. The topics it deals with are as vast.

Another thing I learned when I decided to discard my preconceived notions about it and started with a clean slate, was that how often can we misunderstand things. The biases I had were based off what the people around me had said rather than a close inspection of the topic using my own reasoning. 

To learn more, I started to dig deeper and wanted to know more about literary analysis. I wanted to engage more with what I read. To analyse literature we use critical theories. One of them is psychoanalysis.

To give a better idea of what it is and how we use it in Literature, let me illustrate with some differences in psychoanalysis and other literary approaches. It is still a comparatively new field as opposed to using historical or socioeconomic theories.

 One key difference is that instead of just noting what the characters do and coming up with reasons based on the incidents that happen in the story, we use psychoanalytic concepts to understand their state of mind. A story doesn’t necessarily have to be a psychological thriller to yield to this theory.

You might think it is futile to do so as literary characters do not exist in real life. You are only half right. They might not exist but are reflections of how people are in real life based on the writers personal experiences. That is why we are able to relate with them. You instinctively wouldn’t like a portrayal of someone perfect. Why? Because you can't relate. Because humans are bound to have flaws. Whether your goal is to understand psychology through a context, for which literature is a great start because it takes place in a unique setting, or to engage more with fiction, psychoanalysis wouldn’t disappoint you.

The key takeaways would make you better in analysing situations and the people involved, in your life.

How to start with psychoanalysis? 

A  good place to start would be to understand the driving force behind the characters. More often than not, people have a fear driving them. Some fears may be core issues if they are deeply rooted and these signs can be seen repeatedly. Dysfunctional relationships with family while growing up are the most deeply scarring. They can also act as defense mechanisms later in life. Anxiety is an important factor to notice because it crops up when our defense mechanisms fail, signaling to the existence of deeper core issues. Most common fears are:

·       Fear of intimacy

·       Fear of abandonment

·       Fear of betrayal

·       Low self-esteem

·       Insecure or unstable sense of self¹

·       Oedipal complex: an unhealthy competition with the parent of the same sex to get attention of the other.

This can be a good analysing point to start with. These fears can noticed through the relationships the characters have with others and how they affect their behaviour.


Using psychoanalysis to understand Shakespeare:

To illustrate let’s analyse a scene from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:

 

“Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?” Singer (Act 3, Scene 2)

 

 

In the scene, Bassanio (one of the main characters) has to choose a casket from the three given: gold, silver and lead,  to win Portia’s hand in marriage. The lottery was designed by her dead father to choose a suitor for her.

 

 Let's first understand the literary context:

In the quote, Shakespeare questioned the nature of infatuation and where it originates. Does it originate from your emotions and feelings (heart) or your thoughts (head)? To analyse it through the eyes of a literary critic, you can claim that the sentence follows alliteration (repetition of consonants). Here you would be analysing the structure and aesthetic. Keeping in mind the context of the scene, we can interpret it that Portia had willingly given Bassanio a hint through the song in the background when he was choosing the casket that would decide her marriage. 

The hint was to not depend on the outward appearance similar to the way infatuation depends on loving gazes so that he can prove his love and win her hand in marriage. The incident raises the question of their love because her anxiety and insecurity indicates that he may not be the right suitor and choose the wrong casket. I look more closely through the text, I can trace back to Bassanio’s description of Portia to his best friend Antonio at the beginning of the play. He talked about her beauty and excessive wealth through which he could pay off his debts. Wasn’t that based on outward appearances? Though Shakespeare does not highlight this aspect and perhaps he did not intend it, the character of Bassanio at times contradicts the description of the ideal suitor by Portia’s father. 

We come across a moral dilemma begging us to inspect whether doubts about the lover are an indication of an untrustworthy relationship or point towards fear of losing him/her. 

If it is the latter, then why is that fear there? If we analyse it thoroughly, the question no longer remains about the story. It pushes us to think about our idea of an ideal love and expectations from a relationship.

If I analyse the quote mentioned in the beginning of the article through the lens of psychoanalysis, I would notice that Shakespeare questions about the fundamental basis of the relationships we form. How do we form impressions of people? Why do we feel attraction to some and how is it different from love?


I zero in Portia’s anxiety that makes her almost break the vow she had taken with her dead father to not tell any suitor of the nature of the caskets. Her fear of abandonment makes her act in contradiction to her virtues.

Portia’s fear of losing Bassanio could stem from the fact that  she had already lost her father and suitors came in abundance in greed of her wealth. Her desperation and indecisiveness contradict her usual calm nature in dealing with crisis. If I use psychoanalysis, I can decipher that misplaced anxiety are signals to deeply rooted core issues. 

Portia was a woman characterized as having heavenly beauty. Her label had emotionally and physically restricted her. Being kept at a pedestal of an ideal is distressing. Her being regarded as an ideal, is apparent from the description of her given by the eligible suitors who think of her as a goddess rather than a human being. High expectations and lack of emotional support have made her develop a low self-esteem. 

When she sees Bassanio she wants to give up everything to be his wife which is opposed to her independent thinking. Perhaps her loneliness made her anxious or even signified repressed anger at her dead father for taking away her power to choose her own suitor.

"the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father" – Portia

 

She does not show any sympathy towards her father and almost resents his actions.

Using psychoanalysis, I am able to understand Portia better and even relate to her.

Through a play that was written four centuries ago, I can understand how familial and social obligations decide how a majority of one’s life is spent in dealing with them and how they can affect one’s emotions and behaviour. 

You do not have to be a master at psychology to practice psychoanalytic criticism. 

All you need is to be aware of a few principles and closely read whatever piece of literature you choose.

As we move through the story understanding patterns and trying to form an opinion about the characters, there comes a point where we no longer argue over what the author wanted to say, but how and why have we interpreted it the way we have? Why did I not like the main character? What made the story relatable to me even though it took place where I have never visited and probably never will?

 Experiences and reactions are a window to repressed feelings that erupt when you critically engage with the text. You may turn your attention inwards and try to understand yourself or outwards and understand the society you live in but you will never walk away being the same person as you were before.

Popular

My TKS Application journey

My journey  I applied for The Knowledge Society in February 2022. Initially, I had opened an application but then decided not to go for it, thinking that I wasn't smart enough to get in. Mia Nguyễn was my application advisor who mailed me about my incomplete application, asking me if there was anything I needed help with. There were few interview slots remaining and she asked if they should close my application. I opened her mail and began typing an apology letter, telling her that I would not be applying. As I finished the letter, my finger hovered over the send button. I sighed, selected my mail and pressed backspace. What was the harm in trying? I typed out a quick message, asking her to hold my slot. I opened MS Word and started on the essays I needed and stayed up all night, only to submit them a few hours before the deadline.  In late April, I was accepted into the 10 month Global Virtual Program as a TKS Innovator with considerable financial aid. Unfortunately, my finan...

The summer of the beautiful white horse: Analysis, Summary and Theme

The summer of the beautiful white horse. : An Analysis  This short story written by William Saroyan is part of the CBSE Class 11 Snapshots NCERT Syllabus. While high school students would certainly benefit from the articles, literary enthusiasts are encouraged to join the discussion of how the author uses diction, literary terms and tone to portray the meaning of through the text.   Nostalgia marks the tone of narrator in the opening line of the sentence, reminiscing over how the world used to be magnificent and delightful. The sentence “life was still a delightful and mysterious dream” aptly describes how the narrator perceived the world as a nine year old. The theme of exaggeration and awe is repeatedly seen throughout the story through the character of uncle Khosrove and the narrator’s admiration of the horse. So awe stricken was Aram that he could not believe his eyes when his “crazy” cousin Mourad brought a beautiful white horse outside the window of his room around daybr...

Mistakes I have made as a high-school student

I was introduced to the U.S. College admissions in my Grade 10 when I saw an Instagram advert of Stanford. The pandemic was still raging and that was my excuse for not being able to work on my extracurriculars which were practically none. I postponed the activities to next year, the year 2021. I look back and think how naive I was. I was waiting for schools to open and blissfully waiting. The next year came and the situation still seemed bleak. It was then I realized that I cannot wait for things to go offline. My final exams of a grade that was spent online got cancelled and I was free by mid April. I was so fickle minded when it came to which college degree I wanted to have. All I knew was I wanted to study abroad. My junior year school admissions were postponed too. For a while I was happy about being cut off from the tethers of board exams. But satisfaction does not stay for long in my mind. When May came I was frantic about my extracurriculars. I was so desperate fo...