Which criticism would most likely examine the subconscious motives and archetypes in a story, drawing on Freud and Jung?

Which criticism would most likely examine the subconscious motives and archetypes in a story, drawing on Freud and Jung?

• A. Historical Criticism
• B. Marxist Criticism
• C. Psychoanalytic Criticism
• D. Reader-Response Criticism

Answer: (C)

The question asks you to identify the critical approach that analyzes a story’s hidden motives and universal patterns using Freudian and Jungian ideas. Psychoanalytic criticism fits because it looks for what characters really want beneath the surface, exploring repressed desires, fears, and unresolved conflicts, and it uses Jung’s archetypes to read recurring symbols and character types like the hero, the shadow, or the mentor. Other approaches focus on different angles: historical criticism examines the time and context in which the work was produced; Marxist criticism emphasizes class, power, and economic forces; reader-response centers on the reader’s own interpretation and experience. None of these foreground subconscious drives and archetypal patterns the way psychoanalytic criticism does.

The question asks you to identify the critical approach that analyzes a story’s hidden motives and universal patterns using Freudian and Jungian ideas. Psychoanalytic criticism fits because it looks for what characters really want beneath the surface, exploring repressed desires, fears, and unresolved conflicts, and it uses Jung’s archetypes to read recurring symbols and character types like the hero, the shadow, or the mentor.

Other approaches focus on different angles: historical criticism examines the time and context in which the work was produced; Marxist criticism emphasizes class, power, and economic forces; reader-response centers on the reader’s own interpretation and experience. None of these foreground subconscious drives and archetypal patterns the way psychoanalytic criticism does.