Review of related Literature : Dessertation

 Hello readers...

This blog is in response of the dessertation that we are doing in our department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. This blog is about the topic Theory of Unconscious mind - Dream v/s Reality with reference to selected novels of william Shakespeare that I have selected for the dessertation.

Freud believed that the unconscious mind deals with human mind as how it works and what is the reality. In true sense if we see generally  what happens is people take the meaning of unconsciousness in a negative sense because mostly people think that unconsciousness is related with our dreams and dreams are not the reality. It is a part of our human cycle and its very normal not to consider the unconscious or the dream as reality. Freud believes that human tendency relies upon the fact that whatever is happening is reality means consciousness and whatever happens in the dream is unconsciousness. Freud often use a term “Freudian slips” also known as slip of tongue. This concept of Freud is a part of our day to day life and everyone experiences this thing. It happens when in our unconsciousness mind things are there but we hide it to spoke in front of the world so that thing sometimes we mistakenly spoke it unintentionally, this is what Freud thinks.

The Theory of Sigmund Freud and Carl Yung both refers to the same concept of human mind’s unconsciousness. Both analyzed the same meaning of dream as they refer to the concept of consciousness and unconsciousness. At the very same time there is a split between them on the matter of religion and sexual irges.

The notion that the unconscious mind exists at all has been disputed.

Franz Brentano rejected the concept of the unconscious in his 1874 book Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, although his rejection followed largely from his definitions of consciousness and unconsciousness.

Jean-Paul Sartre offers a critique of Freud's theory of the unconscious in Being and Nothingness, based on the claim that consciousness is essentially self-conscious. Sartre also argues that Freud's theory of repression is internally flawed. Philosopher Thomas Baldwin argues that Sartre's argument is based on a misunderstanding of Freud.

Erich Fromm contends that "The term 'the unconscious' is actually a mystification even though one might use it for reasons of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages. There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: 'the' unconscious."

John Searle has offered a critique of the Freudian unconscious. He argues that the Freudian cases of shallow, consciously held mental states would be best characterized as 'repressed consciousness,' while the idea of more deeply unconscious mental states is more problematic. He contends that the very notion of a collection of "thoughts" that exist in a privileged region of the mind such that they are in principle never accessible to conscious awareness, is incoherent. This is not to imply that there are not "nonconscious" processes that form the basis of much of conscious life. Rather, Searle simply claims that to posit the existence of something that is like a "thought" in every way except for the fact that no one can ever be aware of it can never, indeed, "think" it is an incoherent concept. To speak of "something" as a "thought" either implies that it is being thought by a thinker or that it could be thought by a thinker. Processes that are not causally related to the phenomenon called thinking are more appropriately called the nonconscious processes of the brain.

William Shakespeare explored the role of the unconscious in many of his plays, without naming it as such.

We can also turn to Shakespeare’s psychological genius to discover new insights into the mind, that may have been overlooked by psychoanalytic theory. Shakespeare has anticipated insights that later came from the psychoanalytic study of couples, families, and groups. As an example, scholars have discovered that the more closely Shakespeare’s text is read , the more hidden layers of meaning are unlocked. Freud focused on the child’s oedipal conflicts, downplaying the “Laius complex” of the father, whereas Shakespeare forces us to confront an overtly incestuous father in Pericles. Shakespeare also demonstrates an awareness with what are now considered our multiple, normative self states.In explaining the recent turn away from Freud in Shakespeare studies, Brown lists several attacks on his theory in general, and his approach to Shakespeare in particular. Some scholars consider it improper to view literary characters as comparable to real people. This is ironic, considering the widespread agreement that Shakespeare’s characters come close to literary perfection, in their verisimilitude. One suspects there may be a “turf ” aspect to this criticism of Freud, since psychoanalysts have something to say about real people, and literary theorists may not want us encroaching on their territory.

Three plays of Shakespeare’s that feature mental illness most prominently are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, while also managing to showcase the conception of umconsciousness.
However, Hamlet proceeds to murder and hide the body of Polonius, which leads to Ophelia’s insanity and the scene where everyone dies, as well as the completely senseless murders of minor characters Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Speaking of Ophelia’s madness, it becomes apparent to the audience that she is well and truly insane, when she enters, singing, 

“They bore him barefaced on the bier;Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--Fare you well, my dove!” 

which, even by the archaic standards of Shakespeare, is complete and utter nonsense. Ophelia, apparently, due to rejection by Hamlet, her boyfriend, and the death of her father, had become hysterical.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a mental disease commonly found among soldiers, but can be caused by the murders of close family members, and does result in delusions. Whatever the case may have been, Ophelia later commits suicide by drowning herself in the river, possibly due to delusions, or out of depression over her father’s death. Whatever the case may be, both Hamlet and Ophelia are prime examples of insanity and madness within Shakespeare’s writings.
Finally, Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s shortest and bloodiest works, is near infamous for its main characters, the Lord and Lady Macbeth, both of whom happen to be insane. 

Citations :

Vitz, Paul C. Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious. New York: The Guilford Press,New York.1988

 Baldwin Thomas. Ted Honderich (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.1995

Fromm, Erich. Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx & Freud.Sphere Books, London.1980

Searle, John. The Rediscovery of the Mind. MIT Press, 1994

Carolyn E. Brown,Shakespeare and Psychoanalytic Theory.Bloomsbury,London 2015.