Sigmund Freud 18561939

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Sigmund Freud1856-1939
Shiloh Carroll ENGL 420 Spring 2006 Wawrzycka
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Born May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia
(Now Pribor, Czech Republic)
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Enrolled in medical school at University of
Vienna in 1873 (17 years old)
Graduated 1881 (25 years old)
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1882-1885 Studied zoological research at
Physiological Institute of Ernst Brüke
26-29 Years Old
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1882
Martha Bernays
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1882 - 1883
Studied at Vienna General Hospital
Met Anna O., first patient of talking cure
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1885-1886
Studied at Salpetiere Hospital, Paris
Began medical practice in Vienna
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Married Martha Bernays
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1895
Began developing psychoanalytic theory
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Overview of Writings
Studies on Hysteria (1895) Interpretation of
Dreams (1900) Psychopathology of Everyday Life
(1901) Jokes and Their Relation to the
Unconscious (1905) Theory of Sexuality
(1905) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
(1921) Autobiographical Study (1925) The Future
of an Illusion (1927) Civilization and Its
Discontents (1929) Assorted essays case studies
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Overview of Psychoanalysis

• Began with studies of hysteria

• Freud and Josef Breuer attempted to find a
• psychological reason for hysteria

• Tension from traumatic events,
• suppression of wishful impulses

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Overview of Psychoanalysis

• Led to theory of unconscious mind

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Overview of Psychoanalysis
Freud does not always mean sexual in the
sense that we think of sexual. He is referring to
ANYTHING that causes pleasurable excitement of
the senses.
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Literary criticism
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Oedipus Rex
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Oedipus Rex

• Freud compares process of uncovering Oedipus
• past in the play to psychoanalysis

• Analysis of Oedipus Rex is supposed to uncover
• the psychodynamics of Sophocles, not Oedipus

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The Oedipus Complex
Children and adolescents wish to have the full
attention of the parent of the opposite
sex. This impulse is suppressed as the child
matures, but leaves a mark on the unconscious.
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Hamlet
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Hamlet
Hamlet is considered one of Shakespeares
most important plays and therefore offers
psycho- analytic insights into the mind of
Shakespeare
Its continued popularity means that it speaks to
all of us on some level
There have been approximately 50 film versions
of Hamlet
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Hamlet
The mystery of Hamlet
Why is Hamlet so hesitant in avenging his
fathers death?
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Hamlet
Hamlet gives varied, contradictory, and
implausible excuses not to kill Claudius
THEREFORE he must not know why he doesnt want
to (unconscious)
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Hamlet
He is upset by his fathers death
BUT
He is completely devastated by his
mothers remarriage even to the point of
contemplating suicide
THEREFORE
He must have expected to have his mother all to
himself
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Hamlet
Reawakening of his Oedipus Complex
This is a reflection of a similar condition in
Shakespeare himself
The fascination with the play over the years is
due to the Repressed Oedipus Complex in all men
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Other Criticism
A Midsummer Nights Dream King Lear Macbeth The
Brothers Karamazov Gradiva
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1930
Awarded Goethe Prize for Literature
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1939
Migrated to England
Died of physician-assisted morphine overdose due
to pain from cancer
67 Years old