Psychoanalysis Study
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Tennessee Williams' a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Words communicate ideas but beautiful words live forever and may keep telling a different story every time. The English literature has a rich heritage of dramas and plays that are often written in early or mid-20th century yet they are as applicable today as they were at the time these were written. The two texts are taken for psychoanalysis namely Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee and A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. The dramas are plotted against the American modern lifestyle where people have issues in their relationships as well as work life that affects the quality of life. The Lacanian psychoanalysis approach is used to comment on the two texts. This approach guides that the human conscious self is different from the unconscious self. Also this approach tells that if a person wants to understand true psychology of a man, he needs to see what the man is hiding. And normally one can find true secrets in the unconscious of a person. Thus, the Lacanian approach does not only believe in what the person says in his conscious state of mind without understanding it in the light of his unconscious behavior. While a person uses words and sentences to express conscious ideas, he uses real and imaginary symbols to express his unconscious thoughts. While the dramas advocate that the characters in the stories are psychologically not unified, it is not something unusual. Human beings generally lead split-lives and it is ordinary to have fragmented selves. Even these fragments of a self often collide with each other but this is the reality. Man can surrender to the fragmented life and psychologically partial self so as to accept his weaknesses and enjoy relationships rather regretting them.
Keywords: A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Edward Albee, Lacanian psychoanalysis approach, Tennessee Williams, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Part I
Introduction
psychoanalysis
The psychoanalysis, as the name suggests, deals with assessment of psychology of something. The approach involves set of psychological as w ell as psychotherapeutic theories that were initially forwarded by Sigmund Freud determine how personality is composed not only of inherited characteristics but also the events since a man's childhood. The approach also suggests that behavior, experience and cognition of a person are up to much extent based on the irrational drives that are predominantly unconscious. The psychoanalysis theory aims to make these unconscious irrational desires a part of awareness and also acknowledges that conflict between unconscious and conscious drives can cause mental imbalances and disturbances.
The psychoanalysis is thus an approach that offers psychological treatment to analytic patient by verbalizing their thoughts by means of liberating associations, fantasies, and dreams thus the unconscious conflicts are induced to reveal symptoms of mental disturbance so that they can be treated. The psychoanalyst understands irrational defenses, wishes and guilt of the patient and describes how people can be enemy of their own. The psychoanalysis shows how different we are from our selves i.e. conscious us is far different than the unconscious us.
Lacanian psychoanalysis approach
Lacan or Jacques Marie Emile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst. He believed that the reality can never be fully expressed in words and language. Lucan based his psychoanalysis theory on the Freud's work. He did not try to find a connection between psychoanalysis with the social theory. He focused his efforts on the desires of people and called it a subject of social interaction (Literary Theory and Criticism, 2011). He said that the desire is stated by means of language, culture and the connection among people. He concentrated on the deep human structures of sexuality and gender and studied how human are different from themselves. He was criticized for using sex as a means of understanding psychology of patients too. He wanted to use the unconscious mode of human beings for understanding their psychology like Freud and not the conscious part because people can lie in consciousness but their unconscious never lies. This is often considered an aggressive approach since entering the world on unconscious of a person is a tough game. Humans are fragmented in their conscious and unconscious beings and thus they are different than themselves which everybody does not accept easily.
The Lacanian psychoanalysis approach is often considered coldblooded because it aggressively challenges the sense of completeness. This approach considers that the self-mastery...
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