Which two scholars are central to psychoanalytic readings of myth?

• A. Freud and Jung.
• B. Levi-Strauss and Barthes.
• C. Marx and Engels.
• D. Camus and Sartre.

Answer: (A)

Psychoanalytic readings of myth interpret myths through unconscious desires, drives, and psychic patterns rather than just cultural or social structures. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are the two scholars most closely associated with this approach. Freud treated myths as disguised expressions of repressed wishes and family dynamics, seeing them as the mind’s way of venting unresolved inner conflicts much like dreams do. Jung expanded the lens with the idea of the collective unconscious and archetypes—universal motifs that appear in myths across cultures, such as the hero, the mother figure, or the wise old man—revealing deep, shared psychic templates.

Other thinkers in your options belong to different theoretical currents: Levi-Strauss and Barthes are rooted in structuralism and semiotics, focusing on underlying codes and structures; Marx and Engels emphasize economic and material conditions; Camus and Sartre explore existentialist themes. That’s why Freud and Jung are the best fit for psychoanalytic readings of myth.