Emily Psychoanalytic Analysis

Psychoanalytic criticism usually adopts behavioral theories to interpret texts. It compares literary texts to dreams that put forward the secretive unconscious desires of an author. It regards a literary work as a manifestation of the neuroses of the author him/herself. While one can psychoanalyze individual characters in a literary work, it is assumed that the character is a projection of the author’s psyche. The aim of psychoanalysis is to uncover the unresolved guilt, emotions, conflicts, and ambivalences among others in a disunified literary work. In this analysis, it is able to trace the author’s family life, childhood traumas, sexual conflicts and other personal characteristics within the characters used by the author in the literary …show more content…
In her upbringing, she lacked close relationship with family or even friends. As a result she was in a state of disconnect with strife for education or things that impacted her future. Emily felt that those things would really not matter in the near future when everyone dies (Olsen 127). Absence and the lack of her mother’s support during her upbringing means she lacked affection which conversely led to her withdrawal from life and diminished her urge to connect with her mother. Since her mother had to go out to work to help them survive the harsh times, Emily was always left by someone to take care and watch over her. Her mother left her sometimes with neighbors, family members, day care facility or even the convalescent home (Pratt 132). Despite her mother’s absence being more of a necessity rather than choice, it impacted on Emily’s ability to communicate and interact with …show more content…
The author then recognizes the important role that financial stability plays in our families; she observes that improvement of a person’s financial situation in turn helps improve their quality of life. After the narrator remarried, her financial situation improved which reduced her financial stress. This enabled her to approach her family responsibilities with a new “face of joy” as opposed to a face of “worry” (Olsen 123). At this time, the narrator felt the urge to reach out to Emily but it appears that the damage on her young daughter was already done as she would “push away” (Olsen 124) her mother’s attempts. In her upbringing, Emily faced alienation which affected her ability to interact emotionally not only with her mother but with the society in general. Olsen leads us to conclude that the narrator’s “wisdom came late” (Olsen 127) and was of little benefit to the child. She was already mature and always turned down her mother’s attempt to offer her