Lakhasly

Chapter One. Psychological or Psychoanalytical Criticism .This could be considered from the perspectives of Sigmund Freud ( 1856-1939 ) , Jacques Lacan and Carl Gustav Jung ( 1875-1961 ) . The centrality of psychological criticism is to define literature as an expression of the author's psyche pivoted on his or her unconscious being which requires an interpretation like a dream . A leading tradition in psychological criticism is the Freudian's . According to its followers , the meaning of a work of literature depends on the psyche and even on the neuroses of the author . Thus , a literary work is valued based on the author's unconscious . A Freudian reading of A Walk in the Night ( 1974 ) for example reveals that Michael Adonis is violent because of his frustrated desire to live in South Africa that is devoid of racial bigotry . Some Freudian adherents emphasise the author's psyche and see A Walk in the Night as an expression of his disgust with the apartheid regime in South Africa . Other Freudian critics see the effect of the novel on the reader as an expression of the rebirth of South Africa . While Lacanian psychology ( and the critical theory produced by it ) acknowledges " the unconscious as the realm of repressed desire " , it romances with the Deconstructionist's view of using language to express the abstract ( metaphysical ) . The abstract expressed in the word ( language ) belongs to the unconscious desire whose attainment is illusive or unattainable .A more concrete and popular dimension of Psychological criticism is that which was founded on Carl Gustav Jung's Psychoanalysis commonly referred to as Jungian symbolism or Jungian criticism . The principle of Jungian criticism hinges on the assumption that all mortal beings have a common universal or what is technically termed collective unconscious ; within which individual and racial unconscious functions . Carl Gustav Jung and his followers posit that within the collective unconscious , individual and racial unconsciouses are found as archetypes ( universal symbols , forms of human experiences and pattern ) . In literature , archetypes are usually represented in recurring themes , characters , plots , events , settings and other indices of literary production .An important issue in archetypal criticism is the universality of those images , symbols , patterns and experiences called archetypes . Archetypes , though associated with history and the antiquity , they have serious implications for the contemporary society . For instance the theme of jealousy one finds in Kunene's Emperor Shaka the Great ( 1979 ) is what we find in Clark's The Ozidi Saga ( 1977 ) . The trickster symbolism associated with the tortoise is universal . The mother - image found in every literature featuring the mother figure is the same over the ages . Thus , archetypes are the appearances of " the primordial image of a figure , whether a demon , man or process that repeats itself in the course of history where creativity manifests .From the foregoing discussions on archetypes , it would be logical to argue that it is possible to subject all phenomena to archetypal criticism . The reason is that every phenomenon is a prototype of another already deposited in a person's unconscious . What literature does is to appeal to the individual , racial or universal unconsciouses for a particular literary production . Modern archetypal critics include Maud Bodkin , Masizi Kunene , John Pepper Clark among others .