Psychoanalysis and Beloved

This past week, I presented about the psychoanalytic theory and how it relates to Beloved.

The main point that my group took from this lens was the characters as aspects of the personality, that Freud brought up in his studies. There is the ego, which makes the decisions based on the needs and wants of the id and the superego. The id goes off of instinctual desires, and wants things just for the instant need and pleasure of them. The superego is the most rational, and suppresses the needs of the id, to convince the ego to make the better, smarter choice.

Now as was stated in my presentation, the ego is represented as the character Sethe, the id is Beloved, and the superego is represented as Baby Suggs, Paul D, and eventually Denver. All of Sethe’s motivations and decisions are what drives the plot, so it is obvious that she represents the ego. Beloved is needy and draining, and only goes off of her instinct, so that obviously makes her the id. Denver goes through a transformation from an id (because she was underdeveloped) into a superego. Paul D’s personality fits with the idea of a superego, and so dies Baby Suggs’.

The presentation explained more of this in detail, but I would like to talk about here why this lens is important. While Freud kind of started this whole theory with his studies, and my presentation focused on a part of his studies, he is not the most important part of this theory. Psychoanalytic studies can go way beyond what he has studied, and they an important way to study literature, because this theory cuts through to the emotional aspect of a novel or other work. While reader response or author intent or any other theory could possibly get to the emotional heart and meaning of a work, psychoanalytic theory gets straight to it, and is based off of emotions and how the mind works. This helps to understand an overall meaning to a work, especially one like Beloved.

How this theory can go beyond Freud’s studies, is by looking at the multiple ways psychoanalysis, and other theorists work on the subject. In an essay that talks about psychoanalytic strategies in Beloved by Iyunolu Osagie, she states that “psychoanalysis provides an environment conductive to both the production and resistance of narratives”. She talks about Western psychoanalysis and African psychoanalysis and how these are different ways to approach texts within this lens. Western psychoanalysis mostly revolves around Freud, and Osagie says that this approach helps to understand Beloved, which I have shown. Osagie says that African psychoanalysis gets into the social and cultural aspects of the text, which gives a deeper understanding. I find her opinion on this fascinating, and this overall theory as an interesting and important approach to literature. If someone were to argue against psychoanalysis because of the problems with Freud, I would have to disagree, as this theory is an understanding of the mind and the heart, I suppose. This is a basic, yet complicated approach that really can be applied to anything.

Here is the link to Osagie’s essay, if anyone is interested:  Is Morrison Also among the Prophets?: "Psychoanalytic" Strategies in Beloved