Psychoanalytic Criticism

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unconscious. The ‘idea of repression’, is linked to this, and is “ ‘forgetting’ or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires, or traumatic past events, so that they are forced out of conscious awareness and into the realm of the unconscious. A similar process is [called] sublimation, whereby the repressed material is “promoted” into something grander or is disguised as something ‘noble’” (Barry, 92-3). Sublimation can be alternatively defined as “a defense mechanism where undesired or unacceptable impulses are transformed into behaviors which are accepted by society.” “For instance, sexual urges may be given sublimated expression in the form of intense religious experiences or longings” or an individual “experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting frustration” Freud also “suggested a three-part…model of the psyche, dividing it into the ego, super-ego, and the id, these three ‘levels’ of personality roughly corresponding to, ...

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such mechanism is projection, when aspects of ourselves (usually negative ones) are not recognized as part of ourselves but are perceived on or attributed to another; our own desires or antagonisms, for instance, may be ‘disowned’ in this way” (Barry, 93-4)”. To illustrate, “if [one has] have a strong dislike for someone, [they] might instead believe that he or she does not like [them]” “Both these might be seen as defense mechanisms, that is as psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions recognitions” (Barry, 94).
“Another such is screen memory, which is a trivial or inconsequential memory whose function is to obliterate a more significant one. A well-known example of ...

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