Psychoanalyzing Awe

Psychoanalytic theory takes the psychology of people and puts it into literature. Whether you are looking at the author, the characters, or the reader, psychological analyses of people will help us understand the text and the people involved with a text. Understanding the psyche is key in understanding awe; more specifically, it will help us understand how one becomes susceptible to experiencing and re-experiencing awe by what they experience in reading or within life.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud Iceburg Model for the State of Mind
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Psychological or psychoanalytic theory and criticism is based on Freud's analysis of the human psyche. There are three different models for analyzing the human psyche (Cowles):

1. The Dynamic Model: examines the relationship and interactions between the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious mindset; it looks at how what we are unaware of affects what we are aware of and vice versa.
2. The Economic Model: focuses on the relationship between the pleasure principle (the unconscious seeking/getting instant gratification) and the reality principle (the conscious deciding what is realistically available/obtainable).
3. The Topographical Model: looks at the interaction between the id (unrepressed, pure desire), the superego (the hyperactive conscience controlling us via morality and social norms), and the ego (the intermediary which keeps both the id and superego under control).

The picture to the above-right is Freud's Iceburg Model. The Ego is the personality shown to society. It develops through life experiences. The Id is hidden deep below the surface in the unconscious. It is driven by the pleasure principle (defined above). The Superego splits all three, for it is made up of the conscience (which helps us distinguish between right and wrong in morality and considering social norms) and the ego-ideal (which contains the unadulterated ideal view of your self). The three levels of conscious are explained below:

• Conscious Level: active mental events such as thoughts and perceptions
• The Preconscious Level: mental events that can become conscious through attention; these involve memories, stored knowledge, fears, and doubts
• The Unconscious Level: mental events that are more or less unavailable to the conscious; these mental events concern selfish motives, aggression, socially unacceptable desires, and irrational wishes

Application to Awe
Psychoanalytic theory has been met with a lot of criticism, just as awe has been met with many questions for its cause. Karl Popper says psychoanalysis makes the "most interesting psychological suggestions, but not in a testable form" (Popper 9). Awe suggests many causes, like feelings of the sublime, wonder, fear, and is associated with the unknown, the undefined. To make it testable, to avoid making every experience an awe-experience, we examine the psychology of the person experiencing awe to determine how it has become an awe-experience and not a pseudo-awe-experience. If we examine the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels of a person, we can see how awe can be created or re-experienced because people are preconditioned to feel awe with certain content. Both in my own research accumulated from many discussions with peers in and outside of class, and Juliet's post about void in awe, there is something about revisiting and re-experiencing awe that is closely tied with how our nostalgic needs or conscious/subconscious predispositions towards feeling awe are fulfilled by going back in tiers or cycles of awe.

Application to Literature
Patricia Waugh in talking about psychoanalysis theory and criticism says "all variants endorse, at least to a certain degree, the idea that literature...is fundamentally entwined with the psyche" (Waugh 200). I would venture to add that just as literature is entwined with the psyche, so is awe. All of our posts about ten inspiring works shows just how people tie with literature because it has personally affected them in some way. Psychoanalysis theory in terms of analyzing literature includes the following criticisms:

• Identity Theme: argues that each reader shapes the text by interpreting it according to his or her identity; therefore, in analyzing a reader's interpretation as compared to the actual text, you can see the psychological make up of the reader.
• Freudian Masterplot: asserts that every text has a drive towards the end of the story (the death drive) and continuing the story (the sex drive).
• Anxiety of Influence: argues that each artist strives to assert his or her own identity where they write.

Psychoanalysis theory in its application to literature parallels how people experience or re-experience awe. The human to book connection are similar to the ways humans and awe connect. Our own identity, shaped by how we interpret something as a source of awe, and our psychological make up leads to our own unique experiences of awe. The drive of a person determines whether we experience awe once (the death of awe) or re-experiencing awe (continuing awe). We assert what things constitute as sources of awe for us as individuals because of our own identity. But I don't just want to make this parallel for my own research use, but in other aspects of literature.

Maud Ellmann uses psychoanalysis theory to examine tragic literature and its theater productions in his book Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism.  Carly is researching musicals, so it may be helpful to look at the psychoanalysis of theater when determining how awe is associated with musicals. Ellmann's research shows that tragic theater "depends upon the contradiction between the 'power that knows and reveals itself to consciousness, and the power that conceals itself and lies in ambush' ...the boundary of the stage performs the same function as the boundary established by repression of the psyche" (Ellmann 39). Since awe has been associated with the unknown, perhaps the idea between what is consciously known to the audience and the appeal of the unknown in the play is why we seek theater as a source to explain the unknown or open up our psyche. Ellmann also talks about spectacle starting on page 41, which could be helpful for Shelly who is looking at spectacle in Jane Austen. He also talks about "phantasy" for just a little bit on the bottom of page 40, which could be useful for Andrew's research on Brandon Sanderson and awe in fantasy. There are so many ways in which literature can involve psychoanalysis or create psychoanalysis. Whether looking at a genre, characters, or the people interacting with the text, psychoanalysis ties into how people connect with literature and how literature shows and creates awe.

Works Cited

Cowles, David and Mike Austin. The Critical Experience: Literary Reading, Writing, and Criticism. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Pub Co, 2009.

Ellmann, Maud. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Routledge, 2014. <Link>.

Popper, Karl. "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge, 1963.<Link>.

Waugh, Patricia. Literary Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.