What Is The Psychological Criticism Of Black Swan

The text “Letting the air into a relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in ‘Hills Like White Elephants” by Wyche David aims at analyzing and synthesizing the short story by Hemingway “Hills like White”. The analysis would provide new knowledge to readers of the short story or provide the readers with a new point of view of analyzing it. The subject of the text is to present his ideas on the short story and well as critique other critics who had previously critiqued it. The story illustrates broken relationships of Hemingway and the pain it caused him, which led him to write the short story. The whole text is therefore an analysis and synthesis of the short story written by Hemingway.

When emotion overwhelms you, you have two choices; let it eat away at you slowly, each and every day, or attempt to purge it from your memory. Into Thin Air is Jon Krakauer’s way of preventing himself from going insane and parting with his overwhelming emotions. Although I have not first-handedly experienced traumatizing events in the same way Krakauer has, I relate to the want, or need, to dispose of extreme thoughts through art. Contrastingly, I often part with my emotions through vague paintings only I can accurately decipher, while Krakauer parts with his emotions through a twenty one chapter novel in which he gives the readers nearly excessive details about not only his emotions, but also the emotions and hardships of others. While reading

‘Swan Lake' is a four act ballet, which is a common element amongst the classical era of ballets. During the romantic era they were usually only two acts, where as they were up

Psychoanalysis can be inscribed in many poems subliminally. Authors tend to use psychoanalysis to solve the concern of a psychological issue or dysfunction problem that they have encountered. It is the conscious awareness of not knowing what the problem is that gives it so much control of our destructive behavior. As human beings, we often repress our deepest fears, emotions and experiences that tend to unfurl in the future beyond our control. Until we can acknowledge and openly admit to ourselves the cause of this, we will continue to disguise the problems unconsciously. It benefits our mental state for a certain length of time, but we ultimately suffer from it in the end. In her poem, Surprise, Jane Kenyon utilizes fear of betrayal, the double and being forced into a regressive state that creates her fear to be intimate.

It is easy to get caught up in one’s own world when life picks up the pace and everything seems hectic; along the way decisions are made unconsciously to let go of people who were once held dear. It is easy to be torn between what appears to be important and what is trivial. Amidst the mess that is life, various things contend for one’s attention, and what really matters might not be so clear. In “The Last Rung on the Ladder” the guilt that consumes the narrator over his sister’s suicide becomes an essential part of his identity even as he tries to adjust to her loss. In “Sanctuary” Jim Hammer is in the very first stages of realizing he is guilty of his friend’s death, and the responsibility has not yet taken its toll on him. The history and experiences of one’s identity affect the way an individual reacts to guilt, if one has never understood the impact that relationships have upon past and present selves then it is difficult to fully digest the impact of his/her actions.

“A Sorrowful Woman” features a superficially simple narration style. “Now the days were too short. She was always busy,” Stylistically clipped, with a clear passive, detached, voice the narration style seems to be a banal, unimportant feature of the text. Yet the exact mendacity that prompts this description actually serves as a prerequisite to developing an understanding for the principal character’s mindset, and consequently the theme of the text. The last passage contains numerous examples of detached narration but the clearest occurs when “She was always busy. She woke with the first bird. Worked till the sun set. No time for hair brushing. Her fingers raced the hours.” The concise, third person narration in this segment allows the reader to experience the slightly off viewpoint of ‘the mother.’ Specifically, given the lack of motivation present through the text coupled with the concluding suicide it becomes evident in the text that ‘the mother’ is suffering from depression. Given the societal stigma surrounding mental illness authors generally face an uphill

Horacio Quiroga's gothic romantic story “The Feather Pillow,” and other works such as Richard Matheson’s “Prey” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” all encompass the reoccurring theme of psychological issues. In “The Feather Pillow,” Quiroga illustrates the balance between life and death and a healthy versus tainted relationship. Alicia is mentally and physically destroyed by her marriage to Jordan. When Alicia is bedridden with an incurable disease, the nightmares and hallucinations slowly begin. One night while she was sleeping she was suddenly awoke and “her staring she was suddenly transfixed. After a while she opens her mouth to scream and her nostrils and lips were headed with sweat” (Quiroga 1). This continued to happen to Alicia. The parasite was sucking the life out of her. After being sick for some time, “Alicia began to hallucinate. The visions were confused and floating to start with and then came to ground level” (Quiroga 1). The psychological issues and hallucinations suddenly became worse.

People experience different emotions that can drastically change within seconds and, cannot remain controlled. During the course of “The Most Dangerous Game”, “Scarlet Ibis” and “The Use of Force”, the author demonstrates how a person can change from calm and collected to an assailant. Sickness comes in many forms, both physical and mental. Together both can affect emotions, actions which those two then lead into flaws and faults being revealed. All humans have flaws and the authors are attempting to aid the reader in understanding flaws and that can be embraced or overpower a person. The narrators and characters of these stories have many flaws these faults which are both extremely subtle and obvious.

Louis, the swan was a trumpeter swan who couldn't make a sound, so instead, he used a brass trumpet to make his trumpet sound. This book changes, because the swan was a voiceless swan who was given a trumpet and could read,write, and play the trumpet. He also collected lots of money while trying to pay is fathers debt. This trumpeter swan was different.

The use of counter culture and ideology can provide unique perspectives on the issues faced by everyone, even those who do not acknowledge it. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh portrays a drug addict who rejects any conventions of normalcy in the pursuit of an alternate reality. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis does the same through the depiction of a rich and greedy Wall Street tycoon. This essay will closely analyze the themes of illusion and reality in Trainspotting and American Psycho. The relationship between the fantasy world and the “real” world in these texts are closely linked and aid the narrative in a criticism of social and structural issues. The texts are often criticized as glorifying drug use and violence however through analyzing the effect of narrative, drug use and culture on the characters reality and illusions will argue that the elements of drug use and violence help in the deconstruction of greed and popular culture in the texts.

In the film, Black Swan, the plot centers on Nina Sayers, a ballerina whose only goal is to play the role of the Black and White Swan in her company’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet. While she easily embodies into the innocence and grace of the White Swan, her shy and fragile personality does not fit the seductiveness and mysteriousness of the Black Swan. As a result, she struggles to become the opposite of who she is, worsening her issues with depression and anorexia.

The main character in the film Black Swan, twenty-eight year old female Nina Sayers, displays signs of numerous disorders through her abnormal behavior. Nina’s life is consumed by her occupation: professional ballerina/dancer. Nina resides with her mother and rarely socializes with others. She has difficulty concentrating, is restless, irritable, suffers from muscle tension, and sleep disturbances from nightmares. Nina also feels very uncomfortable in social and intimate situations. She appears to be unable to successfully interact with those around her. The interaction that Nina has with her fellow dancers appears to be strained and superficial. Nina exhibits behavior that indicates she views all other dancers as competition instead of

Black Swan and Whiplash both feature intense practice sequences that build upon the narrative of obsessing over a craft. This intense and obsessive practice leads up to the conclusion of the films; where each character gives their absolute best performance. Nina’s final transformation into an impure and sinful character is completed when she grows black wings and slams her mother’s hand in her door. During the performance, Nina gets into an altercation with herself and stabs herself in the pure White Swan costume. Andrew transforms into “one of the greats” as he is embarrassed by Fletcher on stage. They both have their careers riding on their performances. They both fail to begin with; Andrew not knowing the chart the rest of the band is playing and Nina falling during act I of Swan Lake. Yet their greatness is proven when they give the final goodbye to their parental figures and former youth. Andrew runs off stage, hugs his dad and his former reality, as he knows his life will never be what it once was. Nina exchanges eye contact with her crying mother as she looks proudly onto her daughter dancing like she never could.

Black Swan is a psycho thriller film that narrates the life of a ballerina called Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman). She is a young, ambitious dancer working for a prestigious NYC ballet company. According to the movie, she was around twenty-some year old when the story begins. Even though the main point of the movie is how bad Nina wanted the lead role for a theater production called Swan Lake, the dark drama around the movie is built by the psychological illness of its protagonist. Nina’s disordered relationship with her roommate/mother Erica, played by Barbara Hershey, sets the stage for Nina’s psychological breakdown. In the movie, the role that Nina always wanted requires her to play both the black and white swans. Her innocent, almost child-like personality makes her a perfect hite swan; however, she was having trouble getting into the character of the white swan’s dark and seductive counterpart. This film brilliantly captures the brutal physical and emotional demands that ballerinas face in their short-lived career span.

Psychoanalytic film theory, which is derived from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, appears in the discussion of cinema early in the 1970s. As the conjunction of psychoanalysis and film theory, scholars use this theory for textual analysis and different elements like the monstrous-feminine, mirror stage identification, and the Oedipus complex are concluded and developed. To reexamine the mother-child relationship, I will argue that these key elements of psychoanalytic film theory are useful to understand the psychic activities of protagonists of Black Swan and The Babadook. Additionally, they provide some evidence to explain the mode of how a mother gets along with her child. I will begin by discussing the term