Freudian/Lacanian Support for H/H (long)

[naama]

No: HPFGUIDX 7318

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Ebony " <ebonyink at h...> wrote:
> <snip>
>  As I said, I don't have a 
> Freudian/Lacanian worldview... there's something in me that just 
> doesn't believe in what they're saying.  (My classmates and prof 
> said that this meant I was the perfect subject for psychoanalysis, 
> so repressed was I.  Whatever.)
> <snip>

I'm reminded of what Martin Gardner wrote in his preface to the 
Annotated Alice (fabulous book, BTW, and very much in the spirit of 
this e-group), regarding Freudian literary analysis: 
"The rub is that any work of nonsense abounds with so many inviting 
symbols that you can start with any assumption you please about the 
author and easily build up an impressive case for it. Consider, for 
example, the scene in which Alice seizes the end of the White King's 
pencil and begins scribbling for him. In five minutes one can invent 
six different interpretations. Whether Carrol's unconscious had any 
of them in mind, however, is an altogether dubious matter. More 
pertinent is the fact that Carroll was interested in psychic 
phenomena and automatic writing, and the hypothesis must not be ruled 
out that it is only by accident that a pencil in this scence is 
shaped the way it is. ... Are the many references to eating in ALICE 
 a sign of Carrol's "oral aggression", or did Carrol recognize that 
small children are obsessed by eating and like to read about it in 
books? .... The point here is not that Carroll was not neurotic (we 
all know he was), but that books of nonsense fantasy for chidren are 
not such fruitful sources of psychoanalytic insight as one might 
suppose them to be. They are much too rich in symbols. The symbols 
have too many explanation." 

On second thought, it may not be really relevant to your essay, since 
Gardner is referring to classical psychoanalysis and you're not. 
Still, I thought it very amusing and possibly insightful.

Naama