Blog #5

Psychoanalytical criticism refers to the interaction between our conscious and unconscious states of awareness. This concept is derived from various theories that originated from Freud and Jung. This concept can be applied to today's media and one can analyze it through various elements. For example, by looking at the show How to Get Away With Murder and focusing in on the character Laurel Castillo, one can see traces of  defense mechanisms and different conscious states. Defense mechanisms refer to the ways that people attempt to control their instincts and ward off their anxieties. They can also function as a way to enable self preservation. In the show, we can see a variety of characters using these mechanisms in order to cope with the situations they are put into. For instance, Laurel Castillo experiences ambivalence which is when she has a simultaneous feeling of love and hate, or attraction and repulsion towards something. In this case, her feelings are towards her aspirations to become a lawyer. Though she is passionate about the field, the audience can also detect a sense of disapproval and hesitation within her character as she realizes that in order excel in her career, she might have to take part in some morally questionable acts. She considers her self to be a just and ethical individual so this conflicts with her superego personality. The human personality consists of three parts, the id, ego, and superego. The id refers to meeting basic needs, the ego is when we deal with reality, and the superego is a state that is based on morals and judgement. Therefore one can see that clearly Castillo harbors the superego personality. So from this analysis on Castillo's character one can see that once we breakdown and understand the various concepts of psychoanalytical criticism, it is simple to apply and recognize how individuals and even a story line of a form of media can be interpreted through a psychoanalytical scope.