A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO THE CHARACTERS IN PSYCHO, SPLIT AND MRS. DALLOWAY

Abstract

Literature and psychology are two disciplines that should draw nourishment from one other, since their area of concern is essentially human. While psychology uses its techniques to explore what lies in the human mind, literature turns over the same ground using symbols and images. In other words, the mind creates ways to express its thoughts. Hence, art can become a tool of psychology, revealing what the artist otherwise supresses. Marble, color, letters, or visual symbols can be used by artists to create moods and change emotions, but to see the underlying reality it is necessary to understand why an artist creates art. Even though the form might change from age to age, there is one question that always remains relevant: what is the source of creating art? In this thesis, although the correlation between them is highly complex and incontestable, the relationship between psychology and literature in both written and visual works in the 20th and 21st centuries will be analyzed. It is widely accepted that Freud is among the most influential psychoanalysts, and that is why this study seeks to analyze the significance of Freudian concepts in the films “Psycho” and “Split” and in the novel Mrs. Dalloway. It attempts to provide close readings of these films and book through the lens of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. This work will try to show how human psychology is affected by society and its problems. Either war or the conduct of parents shaped the behaviours of the characters, generally in a negative way, and made them troublemakers for society. Ultimately, in this thesis, the effects on artistic creation of feelings, pain, inner conflicts, identity confusion, personality clash, and identity disorders that war, society, and parents brought about, will be viewed. The relationship between psychoanalysis and literature and their effects on the texts and the creators of those texts will be shown through the lens of Freud’s ideas. That is, in this study, the characters of “Psycho”, “Split”, and Mrs. Dalloway will be analyzed through the Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism of Sigmund Freud