In my department there are a lot of students writing literary criticism as undergrad thesis using psychoanalysis as theoretical approach. I have nothing against Freud and his theory that heavily influenced the development of critical theory. It is annoying, however, how his theory is perceived and used and abused in academia.
“Id, ego, superego again?” My colleague Ignatia likes to cynically remark whenever a student is applying for a thesis, and also this morning when I was about to examine a thesis.
That’s basically how psychoanalysis is dead in academia. Some students and lecturers alike like to do a glorified character analysis using Freud’s personality theory. Whatever happens with the characters they will indiscriminately use id, ego, superego analysis. Why the character kills himself? Because she loses her superego.
“Why do you use personality theory at all?” I asked the student who I examined this morning. Her object of study was about sexual disorder in a novel. Her main argument has nothing to do with personality theory. But nevertheless she spent 80% of her analysis talking about the characters’ id, ego, and superego.
She was nervous but firmly said, “Because the character’s sexual disorder is caused by childhood trauma.”
“Is the personality theory one way or another related to the issue of childhood trauma?”
“No… But… it’s part of the character’s personality.”
I gave up.
It becomes the laziest approach in literary criticism. But I don’t understand why it exclusively happens with psychoanalysis. Every branch or school in critical theory can equally be abused into shallow and lazy studies. Marx’s class theory, for example, can be used to analyze any relationship in fictitious society.
But why psychoanalysis is a special case, I think it has something to do with what I called earlier as anti-realism trend in Indonesian literary realm. We are romantic society–we are obsessed with feelings, nature, and the supernatural. We really like to talk about feelings and the whole social media is readily available for evidence. And what is the better theory that talks a lot about feelings than psychoanalysis.
“Pecinta kopi. Penikmat senja.” There, our obsession to defining personality.
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