The Great Gatsby Psychoanalytic Analysis Essay

1. The psychoanalytic analysis in general

Psychoanalytic criticism was developed by Austrian neurologist and the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. His theory is based on conscious and unconscious functioning, stages of growth, developments in human behavior and normal and abnormal experiences. If we apply some psychoanalytic techniques like flashbacks, childhood memories and regression, we can uncover the hidden meanings, motivations, repressed dreams and wishes within the text.
Major principles of Freud’s theory are the models of human psyche, the psychosexual stages, defense mechanism, the Oedipus complex, dreams and dream symbols.

2. Summary of the book

The story takes place in the summer of 1922 and it starts with the narrator, Nick Carraway explaining his life, professional career, how he moved from Midwest to West Egg (an

3. The psychoanalytic analysis of The Great Gatsby

First, we should focus on the fear of intimacy. We can see that every character goes through great measures to avoid being in a deep relationship. For example, Gatsby is crazy and obsessed with Daisy even though he knows she is married and he will probably never be with her.
After that, we can recognize some signs of Oedipus complex in a sense that Gatsby sees Daisy as the woman who is totally different from his mother. Daisy is graceful and rich. Except the Oedipus complex, we can see some signs of Inferiority complex. It is the low self- esteem of some characters. Daisy shows symptoms of Inferiority complex due to the treatment of her husband.
Talking about death, we can explain that everything happens for a reason. The reason for causing all those deaths was the carelessness of the characters.

If we focus on defense mechanisms throughout the novel, we can see examples of many stages. Firstly, it is important to mention what each mechanism