Physiological Criticism

Psychological criticism

Psychological criticism uses psychoanalytic theories to understand the reader, the piece of literature, and the writer. The underlying concept of this application reveals the human unconscious, desires, and true feelings about which the character is unaware of. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is interwoven in many psychological criticisms.

In one example, the stripper in the novel symbolizes the narrator's sexual desire. Before the white men makes the black boys fight each other, a stripper, dances in front of the black boys. The narrator says, "in spite of myself" which represents his unconscious sexual desire of the stripper (Ellison 19). This represents Freudian's psychoanalysis of repression of forbidden wishes and desires. During the early 20th century, it was not proper for black men to love- nevertheless, think about- white women. He tries to repress his desires for the stripper. Therefore, his sexual desire for the white woman represents his ID while another side of him wants to think about society's values, the superego.

Another example is the interesting story of Jim Trueblood. He is known to have had sex with his daughter while he was sleeping. Freud stated that the "unconscious harbors forbidden wishes and desires, often sexual, that are in conflict with an individual's or society's moral standards." The fact that Trueblood unconsciously had sex with his own daughter Matty Lou reveals a lot about Trueblood's heart. It is clear that Trueblood was dreaming while deciding to have sex because he states "I wakes up intendin to tell the old lady bout my crazy dream" (Ellison 59) but instead he woke up during his sexual inter course. This shows Trueblood's true sexual desires. It is uncertain to whether his desire was for Matty Lou or if it was for women in general, but the act he committed was viewed immoral in society, going well with Freud's definition.

During the narrator's stay at the hospital factory, he drifts in and out of consciousness as the doctors are treating him. He feels captured with no control over his own body or self. The doctors have complete control over him, such as shocking him when they feel it is necessary and not responding to his cries of pain. He wants to escape the machines and hospital that is confining him but he realizes that his freedom is actually being withheld from him not by his physical surrounding but by his lack of identity. When he thought of plotting ways of short-circuiting the machine, he realized that even though he may succeed in destroying the machine but it would destroy himself also, which he had no desire of doing. The narrator "wanted freedom, not destruction" (Ellison 243). He wanted to live a life that was his own and to be able to make his own choices rather than destroying his life. The narrator then realizes, "when