Myth and Dreams: Psychoanalytic Theory

-Freud

-codensation, displacement

-fantastic elements

-wish fulfilment

-express taboo desires/ emotions

Oedipus Complex

-sons have a natural bond w/ their mothers

-this results in a desire for them and animosity toward their fathers

-these infantile emotions must be abandoned by an indiidual to mature into an adult

Criticism: overemphasis on sexual motives, Oedipus does not have the complex himself

How did Freud's followers differ from him?

-viewed myth more positivley

-myths are subjeted to collective morality; thereby can teach members of a society to put aside immature feelings/desires

Jung and Archetypes

-w/ links individuals in collective unconscious was the existence of archetypes (basic patterns or types of individuals that can be found across cultures/time)

-individuals internalized certain archetypes as basic models to understand themselves and their world: the health of one's psyche depends on the nature of the archetypes and their relationship to one another

Criticism: archetypes cannot explain the narrative sequence of a myth, does collective unconscious really exist?

Charter Theory

-Malinowski

-myth served as a charter that validated/justified state of affairs

ex. Athena voted for acquittal in the first court cases of Athens; was to justify practise of having a tied verdict be judged in favour of the defedant

Structuralism and Myth

-Levi-Strauss

-structure is not narrative structure but deep structure found by breaking a myth down into its parts and analyzing them

-deep structure parallels the human mind; repitition of certain figures/events in different mythologies across cultures/ times is a result of the consistency of the human mind

-binary opposites in human thought and physical reality

-myth is not a distortion of the real world; it has its own real structure/meaning

Criticism: reductive, igores historical context and narrative sequence