Criticisms of Great Expectations: Psychoanalytic and Gender Perspectives Psychoanalytic and gender literary criticisms are important as individual analyses and are similar in some respects, namely sexual and gender issues, which make them ideal choices for analyzing Great Expectations. Reading the novel from a psychoanalytical perspective invites an interpretation based on symbols, repression, dreams, and the nature of the conscious vs. the unconscious mind. The central thesis of psychoanalytical criticism is based on the theories of Sigmund Freud, who recognized the link between literary…
