New Criticism

New criticism is also a theory to interpret the text like other theories. But it has its basic concepts. It is purely a non-political theory because it does not talk about socio-political affairs. It is only centered on the depth of the text and its form or contents. New criticism was developed in the 1940s and it dominated the literary field until 1960s. However, it is still relevant today because it analyses the text itself. This theory believes in the 'close reading’ of the text that helps us understand the meaning. New criticism shows that the text is enough for the interpretation. We should not go beyond the text for its meaning. We can find the meaning in its organic unity between form and content. 

Therefore, new criticism believes in the idea of the text itself as autonomous entity, the organic unity of the text, the intrinsic criticism and the single best interpretation. The concept of 'the text itself believes that the text is autonomous or self-sufficient for the interpretation. It discards the authorial intention and his biography. It believes that the author's biography does not matter the text. We should analyses the text factually to find what is written in it. So, the text itself is all that matters. If we say that the author has some intention, it becomes intentional fallacy. There is also effective fallacy because the same text may not have same effect on the reader. Likewise, New Criticism also believes in the organic unity which means the unity between form and content. Form is the external style of writing but content is the main subject matter. Form is related with 'how' the author says something and content is related with 'what' the author says in the text. New critics believe that we should find the unity between the forms and content that helps us find the meaning. They also assume that this theory is an intrinsic criticism because it does not go beyond the text. Some other theories like Marxism and feminism interpret the text in relation to socio-economic and political situation but new criticism does not go outside the text. Therefore, it is an intrinsic criticism. They also believe that it is a single best interpretation. It is a purely literary criticism.

New criticism is an intrinsic and objective criticism because it does not go outside the text for the interpretation and it does not use subjective ideas. This theory gives only focus to the text itself but no other external socioeconomic contexts. There are some other criticisms like Marxism, Feminism, etc. which interpret the text in relation to the external contexts. So, they are extrinsic criticisms but New criticism claims that it is directed inside. So, they claim that it is an intrinsic criticism. They focus on the organic unity of the text to find the meaning. They say that it is not necessary to go beyond the text for finding meaning. Their methodologies are intrinsic and their criticism is purely literary. Therefore, it is an intrinsic criticism in the same way; new criticism is also an objective criticism. It is objective because it focuses only to the object, the text. It focuses on the formal elements of the text. It does not focus on the biography, psychology or socio-economic contexts. It only relies on the context created by the text itself. New critics claim that the text dictates the meaning. It is the job of the reader to find the formal elements, organic unity and the context created by the text. It gives the original meaning but not the authorial intention. The readers should not interpret it according to their own ideas but they should interpret it according to what the text shows. So, they say that the meaning is already there and the reader's job is to find out it logically. A skillful reader can find the meaning after getting the formal elements, organic unity and the context of the text. Therefore, they say that new criticism is an objective criticism.  

Heroes, Villains and Martin's Characters

Always in almost all movies we got characters that were either good or bad. Aside from game of thrones I didn’t meet any characters in any movies that couldn’t specifically described as either good or bad towards end. But Martin’s character doesn’t enjoy the privilege of being crystal clear. Many good characters in the books have taken questionable decisions. And many ‘evil’ characters have shown some kind of virtues, this or that.

Ned, the hero of many fans actually cut off an innocent man’s head in the very first season. Did the deserter from the Night’s watch deserve the fate he got? He was scared beyond his life with the things he saw in the wild. Any honorable man, if he is not brave enough, would have done the same thing. And the lack of courage is no crime for such fatal punishment in the world I leave. You can say that Ned was just following law right? Couldn’t he have changed the law that was so unjust? He was the Lord of Winterfell after all, and a close friend of the king Robert Baratheon. He had the right, and more so a responsibility to change any laws that were unjust. But he didn’t do it. He was so engrossed with some virtues that he was almost blind to others.

Tywin Lannister in the other hand might seem some evil lord. But he is just protecting his family right? And in a world like that if he prefers to massacre a few thousand people than to let his own die, can anyone really blame him? Even Daenerys Targaryen the favorite character of many people is not out of this grey area. She introduced dragons to the world. Does anybody even comprehend what that mean? She is ready to put anything and anybody in risk so long has she gains what is rightfully hers. Yes she does have an ethical standard and she lives by it but the rigidity and intolerance in her nature doesn’t quit amount up to heroic.

The only characters as far I’ve seen, who doesn’t belong to this grey area that Martin has created are Jon Snow, Bran Stark and the others themselves. Bran Stark is still a child and possesses the innocence of a child so he may not have done any evil deeds yet. And the Others’ intentions we have yet to know. But the famous character Jon Snow is the only true hero that Martin has created in this book named ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. So far he is the only character who possess all such virtues that a hero should possess. And now he is dead. Most likely it seems like he will return. But the question remains. Will this one character be the exception of all Martin’s characters? Will he remain the white wolf, different from the litter? Will he remain a hero till the end? Or will he come back with a change in character, a loss of virtues. Will he the last remaining hero come back again, but a villain this time?

Dreams and dream symbols

According to psychoanalysis, our dreams have also some meanings. Our unconscious is free to express itself during our dreams. Our dreams give some message from the unconscious. There are some deep fears or desires to produce such dreams. They are called latent content. When these deep fears and desires take the forms of a visual dream, it is called manifest content. When the latent content is transformed into manifest content, it goes through two processes: dream displacement and dream condensation. Dreams displacement means to replace a safe person or event instead of unsafe person or event. For e.g. if you are attracted to your relative which is unsafe to have sex, you may replace-a safe person in your dream. On the other hand, dream condensation means to visualize the fearful scene for our unconscious troubles, wounds and mental conflicts. Sometimes we fight with tigers, bears and dogs in our dreams. The dream displacement and condensation are collectively called primary revision. But when we start to analyze the cause behind such dreams, it is called secondary revision.

Dreams have also symbolic meanings. Very often our dreams are guided by sexual psychology. So, there are male imagery and female imagery. Male imagery represents male genital organ and female imagery represents female genital organ. Male imagery is also called phallic symbols. The symbols for male organ are towers, rockets, guns, arrows, swords, stick and the like. These things stand upright or go off like male organ. But the symbols for female organ are different. The female symbols are the caves, rooms, walled gardens, cups, enclosures, containers and the like. The female imagery is also milk, fruit, other foods. The milk, fruit and food represent their breast while eaves, rooms and containers represent genital organ. Therefore, dreams and their symbols have important meaning in psychoanalysis.

(Mirror stage, Imaginary order and the symbolic stage)

One of the famous French psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan developed the concept of 'Mirror Stage‘ in his study of child psychology. He said that the infant, in the early months, cannot experience itself. The infant experiences itself and its environment as a random, fragmented and formless mass. The infant does not know its own body and organs. lts legs are also strange to it. But when the baby is between six to eight months, is goes through the 'Mirror stage'. The baby develops a sense of itself as whole rather than a fragmented or formless mass. The child develops its own image in whole like the image reflected by mirror. If you show the mirror, it can understand that it is its own body. This development of the infant's psychological stage is called the mirror stage. Lacan says that mirror stage is the beginning of the 'imaginary order’ which means the world of images. The child makes the images of the things, image of its own body and the image of its mother. But it still feels that it is closely related to mother. It has the sense of union with the mother. The attachment to the mother is very powerful for the child. This attachment continues until the child learns the language. The child's acquisition of language is very important stage. This stage is called ‘symbolic order. This stage is the process of learning symbolic meaning of the words in language. Now, the child learns the difference between "I' and 'you’. He thinks that he is different from mother and other people. He makes his own separate identity. He also learns that he is a boy or vice versa. This separation from the mother gives a sense of loss which haunts all over his life. This sense of loss is never fulfilled in his life. So, he is attracted with his mother for the hope of fulfilling this loss. He says that this lack or loss is like metaphor and metonymy. He also says that metaphor is condensation and metonymy is displacement.

Literary text and Psychoanalytic critics

There are some important questions that the psychoanalysts ask while interpreting a text. Though these questions are not all, they may be helpful in psychoanalytic interpretation. First of all they ask the issues related to the unconscious of the characters and the author. They ask what the unconscious motives are operating in the psychology of the characters. . What core issues they display? What repressed wounds, fears, unresolved conflicts and guilty desires affect them? And the like are very important in the psychological interpretation of the text. The unconscious is the storehouse of many unfulfilled desires, fears and psychological wounds that affect our daily activities. Similarly, they ask themselves whether there are any oedipal relationships between the characters. The relationship with the family is very important to see oedipal complex in them. Sometimes we find some attachment between the children and their opposite sexed parents. Likewise, there are still many other issues that a psychoanalytic critic asks while interpreting literary texts. The critic can find some regression, trauma, fear of death and sexuality in the closer analysis of the character. These psychological troubles also determine the conduct of the character.

Sometimes, the character might be suffering from some recurrent dreams. At that time, a psychoanalytic critic must be more insightful because dreams have always some remarkable meaning. A person does not suffer from recurrent dreams without any cause. The dreams show the character’s mental troubles. It is more important that the psychoanalytic criticism also reveals the psychology of the author. We need to delve into the author’s psychology in relation to the text he produces. According to the theory of psychoanalysis, literary text is one of the major outlets of the author’s traumas. There are mainly three outlets of their psychological troubles. They are dreams, tongue-slips and\literature. Both dreams and literature is the subject of psychoanalyst’s investigation. So, another issue of psychoanalytic criticism is the author’s psychology manifested in the text. Moreover, it will help the readers or the critics understand their own psychology. They compare the psychology of the characters and the author with their own which enables them to know their own psychology. On the other hand, some critics have also said that Lacanian psychoanalysis is equally important. Psychoanalytic criticism believes that the mirror stage, imaginary order and the symbolic stage are crucial for the formation of the subjectivity. It determines how subjectivity of a person is formed. The subjectivity is an inner core of a person’s identity. It is the combined sense of mental and psychological identity. These are some important issues that we should deal with as a psychoanalytic critic. We can also deal with only one of these issues .or all of them when using psychoanalytic criticism. We might come up with even new ideas related to psychoanalysis. The above issues summarize general psychoanalytic approach to literary texts.

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Psychoanalytic criticism is a method of interpretation based on psychological principles. Human behavior is always guided by their psychology. When we understand their psychology, we will know the deeper reality about them. The great 20th century psychologist, Sigmund Freud developed the theory of human psychology. He is the father of psychological theories. He talked about the conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious states of mind. He also developed the concepts of id, ego and super ego. He invented many other concepts such as oedipal complex, castration complex, sibling rivalry, dream displacement, dream condensation, repression and many other ideas. Psychoanalytic criticism tries to analyze all these elements found in the characters.

 Here, we mainly discuss the origin of the unconscious, defenses, anxiety and core issues, dreams and their symbols, meaning of death and sexuality and location psychoanalysis. According to psychoanalysis, unconscious is the storehouse of fears, needs, worries, guilty desires, troubles, wounds, and unsolved conflicts. We have many evil desires and fears. We try to control those guilty desires by our conscious mind but they are not erased. They are stored in the unconscious level. Therefore, unconscious is the storehouse of our mental wounds. Similarly, we try to control ourselves from these mental troubles and guilty desires in the conscious level. This effort is called the defenses. When we cannot control ourselves from these guilty desires, we enter into the stage of anxiety. They make us anxious. At that time, we have many hidden mental troubles which are called core issues. If the guilty desires are not fulfilled in our reality, they appear in our dreams. Our dreams are always guided by our psychology. Therefore, dreams have also important symbols. When we talk about dreams in psychoanalytic criticism, we should also know about dream displacement and dream condensation. Dream displacement means to replace the safe person in our sexual dream instead of unsafe person like close relatives. Dream condensation means to have the horrible dreams because of our mental troubles. All these ideas are the, subjects of psychoanalytic criticism. So, psychoanalysis is a method 0f interpretation that analyses all these elements.

            Sibling rivalry and Oedipus complex are related to family relationships while inferiority complex could be found in any relationships of hierarchy. Defense mechanism belongs to our psychological effort to defend ourselves from some difficult situation.

  Sibling rivalry is a kind of ego between brother and sisters in a family, Generally, We find sibling ego to get more love from their parents. If the parents love one child more than the other, the other becomes envious from the love one gets. Both of the children suffer from some kind of psychological trouble of the ego. The child who gets more love becomes afraid that he could lose love at any time. And the child, who gets less love from the parents, becomes envious to the other who has got more. As a result, they develop some kind of rivalry between them. This hidden psychological enmity between the siblings is called sibling rivalry in the theory of psychoanalysis. In the same way, Oedipus complex is another psychological trouble we find in family relations. Directly put, it is a kind of unconscious attraction between the children and their opposite sexed parents. According to classical psychoanalysis, human beings are sexual animals. Sigmund Freud says that there is some unconscious sexual attraction between the children and their opposite sexed parents. This unconscious sexual attraction between them is called Oedipus complex. Psychoanalysis contends that this unconscious attraction plays very important role even in the daily activities of them.

Next, inferiority complex is also a psychological trouble hidden in the mentality of some people who feel themselves inferior. It is the feeling of inferiority which causes detrimental humiliation in the person. It also causes the loss of self-esteem, and the unstable self. Inferiority complex is also as important as other psychological traumas. Finally, the defense mechanism is our psychological effort to save us from the unnecessary nervousness. Defense mechanism includes defense, anxiety and core issues. In other words, defenses are the processes to keep the troubles repressed. The process of defenses includes selective perception, selective memory, denial, avoidance, displacement, projection, and regression. If our defense mechanism became effective, we become normal and seem unaffected, but if the mechanism could not work, we enter into the stage of anxiety. At the time of anxiety, the defenses our defense mechanisms are broken as cannot work. We experience loneliness, frustration, depression, low self-esteem (loss of confidence), unsecure self, etc. In other words, anxiety manifests many core issues.

French feminism

Feminist movement that took place in France is referred as French feminism. French feminist movement has taken two different forms: materialist feminism and psychoanalytical feminism. Materialist feminism focuses on the social and economic oppression over the women and the psychoanalytical feminism centers on the psychological experience of the women.

The most important materialist feminist are Simone de Beauvoir and Christine Delphy. They criticized the social and economic discrimination for the women. Beauvoir said that the patriarchal ideology is basically false. She said woman is not born but made. It means the concept of is not born but this concept is made by society. There is great difference between gender and sex for her. The concept or the image of the woman is not biological but social and cultural. Patriarchy believes that men are essential and women are inessential. This concept is false for her. She said that marriage has also trapped and stunted women’s intellectual growth and freedom. Therefore, Simone de Beauvoir criticizes economic system of the patriarchal tradition. Another materialistic feminist is Christine Delphy. She said that marriage is a labor contract that ties women to unpaid domestic labor. The women become labors in the hand of the men for the housework and childbirth. Patriarchy defines them as the non-workers and they don’t have to pay anything. Men get the labor free of charge. This is the view of Delohy. Another materialist feminist is Colette Guillaumin who said that women are defined as sexual beings but men are defined as decision makers. Some of the important psychoanalyses feminist are Helene  Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Helene Cixous said that patriarchy is false because they believe that women are guided by the mind. The patriarchal concept that women do not have logic and intellect is false for her. Patriarchal psychology says that reason lies above lies above the neck and women are guided by the heart which is under the neck. So ,Cixous criticized the psychological issues. Another woman Luce Irigaray suggests that the whole psychological theory is wrong because it is developed by the male, Sigmund Freud. He is guided by the patriarchal thinking. Finally Julia Kristeva said that whole cultural semiotics is false because the term semiotics is the sign system which is basically false. In this way, French feminist reject the patriarchal values. This movement of the women that took place in France is called French feminism     

Feminism and literature

Feminism feedback is a technique to decipher the content and comprehend the general public from the feminism points of view. Here, we ought to comprehend what a feminism viewpoint is. Feminism point of view basically intends to take a gander at the content from the eyes of the lady to recognize abuse of the patriarchal social framework. Woman's rights tries to discover the bad form over the ladies forced by the patriarchal philosophy. As indicated by the radical feminism, patriarchal social framework is fundamentally off-base. It doesn't treat men and ladies similarly. They say that patriarchal framework considers men unrivaled and ladies second rate. This social framework has expected sex as the sex. In any case, woman's rights sat that sexual orientation and sex are distinctive. Patriarchy is discriminating for them. Every one of these ideas is identified with the woman's rights. Thusly feminism feedback examines these issues in writing.

When we read feminism feedback, it is extremely important to think about patriarchal social framework, conventional sex parts feminism presumptions, premises and different feminism developments. Every one of these components is fundamental ideas of woman's rights.

Woman's rights trusts that patriarchal qualities are out of line. Feminism don't prefer to us the comprehensive pronoun "he" to allude both men and ladies. They say that this framework is made by patriarchy. Indeed, even the pharmaceutical is tried in the men and utilized as a part of the ladies. In this way, ladies experience the ill effects of symptoms. Patriarchal society gives low pay for the ladies laborers notwithstanding for the same work. Men are considered as more keen, intelligent, bold, solid, and courageous however ladies are considered as passionate, sensitive, feeble, outlandish, and dolly. Thus, patriarchal philosophy is exceptionally discriminating. In any case, Feminist trusts that patriarchy has abused the ladies monetarily, politically, socially and mentally. They trust that the patriarchy has regarded lady as the other. The entire western reasoning is established in the patriarchal belief system. They bring up the sex and sex is distinctive in light of the fact that sexual orientation is developed by the general public and sex is organic. The objective of woman's rights is to change the world and bring equity for the ladies. Feminism feedback implies a technique to translate the content utilizing this whole idea.

Woman's rights works writing for finding patriarchal and unfair worth. It examines how the female characters are abused in social, monetary and mental connections. Feminist is additionally an apparatus to translate writing as indicated by fundamental standards. Be that as it may, it centers goes to patriarchal philosophy. The greater part of the writing from old to cutting edge time is composed in the patriarchy yet Feminist makes an operation of it. The most ideal method for feminism perusing is 'perusing contrary to what would be expected'. It implies that the feminism peruses read the content against the authorial goal. The creator and his content attempt to venerate patriarchy yet feminism detest it. Patriarchal writing is oblivious about sexist belief system and segregation. It expected that everything is right in patriarchal framework. In any case, feminism says everything isn't right. Patriarchy is the harsh philosophy for the feminism. Feminism investigates how male's control works in writing. Feminist is a radical perspective to look the world. It has scrutinized all the patriarchal writings including the book of scriptures. They say book of scriptures is only a fiction made by guys. In book of scriptures the part of ladies is minor and shrewdness. As indicated by the book of scriptures, the primary lady eve was produced using the rib of man Adam and she had tempted him to eat illegal apple which brought on the fall of man. Along these lines, the part of ladies is depicted as the underhanded character by the book of scriptures. Feminism has censured the story due to the mediocre part of ladies. Similarly, woman's rights investigate all the scholarly messages in the radical perspective. It revamps the idea newly. The prior idea is broken and new idea is framed to comprehend the content.