Honors Vocabulary:

Psycoanalytical terms:
Id: irrational impulses, desires, devil
Ego: regulator
Superego: internalized conscience, angel
Oedipal Complex: love mother, kill father
Regression: return to a former or less developed state.
Denial: The refusal of something requested or desired.
Projection: a defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her
own negative attributes by ascribing them to the outside world instead
Repression: unconscious exclusion of painful impulses, desires, or fears from the
conscious mind
Displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects
affects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe
or acceptable
Sublimation: a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses
by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form. For example, a person
experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting
frustration.
Fear of intimacy: the fear of forming close relationships with someone
Fear of abandonment: the fear of being left behind; often resulting in clinginess
Sibling rivalry: the competition of fighting for the attention of ones parents against
siblings
Oral fixation: the first psychosexual development stage where in the mouth of
the infant is his or her primary erogenous zone.
Freudian slips: a slip of the tongue where thoughts that arent meant to be said
aloud are spoken. It peers into ones deeper sub-conscious thoughts.
Marxist terms:
Bourgeoisie: they own the worlds resources
Proletariat: the workers that own nothing and sell their labor (which is all that they
have)
The American Dream: ideology that anyone can be wealthy through hard work
Classicism: the belief that the upper class is smarter, ethical, and deserves to be rich
Patriotism: the belief that the poor should fight the poor in other countries for their
nation rather than identifying as an oppressed social class worldwide
Religion: opiate of the masses which promotes nonviolent stagnation
Individualism: natural to promote self-needs over others and societies
Consumerism: the belief that we show our self-worth by buying what society says it
values
Culture: primary bearer of ideology because it reaches so many people in what
seems to be an innocent form of entertainment

Literature: must raise class consciousness (Marxists focus on social awareness and
historical reality)
Use value: what an object can be used for
Exchange value: what it can be exchanged for
Sign-exchange value: what societal status says it brings
Ideology: a belief that masks that truth and promotes an agenda for seeing the world
Commodification: using people for exchange or sign exchange value

Feminist terms:
Patriarchy: male-dominant society
Male gaze: women are valued as they conform to male ideas
Binary thought: concepts that are completely opposite of one another; one is always
dominant
Sexage: women are obligated to sell themselves, work, and care for their family
without limitations
Ecriture feminine: a style of writing central to women that had multiple
interpretations
Patriarchal women: women who take on mens roles and are judged because thats
not the norm
Traditional gender roles: women are confined to cooking, cleaning, and caring for
the family while men are confined to working and making the money, for example