Reference no: EM133500300

Discussion: Freud's Literary Criticism

PROMPT

A central claim that emerges from Freud's Interpretation of Dreams is that literary texts tell us about the unconscious psychic impulses, repressions, and workings of their authors. In his reading of Oedipus Rex, Freud argues that "it is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and murderous wish against our father" (790). Freud again repeats this claim in his reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet when he argues that "Hamlet is able to do anything-except take vengeance on the man who did away with his father and took that father's place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized" (792). In The Dream-Work, Freud lays out the principles of symbolism, condensation, displacement, and representation that allow dreams to function as texts that can similarly be analyzed for the repressed and unconscious impulses therein.

Question: Do you buy Freud's claim that interpretation yields an understanding of the unconscious impulses of the author/dreamer? How do we understand the blindspots of gender and sexuality that are implicitly foregrounded in these claims?