Stephanie Trinidad

            Psychoanalytic Criticism is an approach of critical thought that follows “how and why people behave the way they do,” this theory is practiced in more than one field outside of literature. Some theories have been developed alongside other literary theories and those have been further developed by different theorist. Psychoanalysis as a school of literary theory can focus on one or more than one aspect of a literary work by focusing on the author, a specific character, the literary text, and even the audience that is reading the text. The most famous critic of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud who developed the original theory consisting of the unconscious mind, the desires of a person or character, and a defense. Freud further developed this into the id, the ego and the superego. Each of these aspects of the theory is dominated by a particular aspect; the id is dominated by pleasure, the ego is dominated by realit...

            “ Overcoming timidity. Overlooking consequence. Finally ending with the future. Take comfort. You were going nowhere. You were not alone.”(91) Mary Jo Bang’s book of poems The Eye Like a Strange Balloon is a book of ekphrasis poems. All of the poems are based on a form of art whether it’s a mixed media painting or a movie. The poems within the book are filled with enough imagery so that it would help the reader see beyond what is inside the work of art. The poems give the reader of the poems a chance at reading a story that maybe within the artwork, almost as though the speaker of the poem was within the artwork, or was the subject of the art itself. Even though it may be confusing to the reader if they did not know that the poems are based off of artworks. The poems are very linear with almost no sporadic spaces or line that being in off areas, yet they’re filled with images of people who are speaking to the w...