[HPforGrownups] Harry Potter: Oedipus Redux?

Tue Jul 24 18:08:02 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 22923

Just listen to the ouverture of Mozart's Don Giovanni.
There's that bit that's repeated during the final
scene whith the violins doing that wave-like up and
down movement. Remember that some stupid git of
freudian musicologist said it was erections and
orgasms and erections etc. etc.? I would put this
article into the same category.

Sorry about that rant, but why are some people
incapable of recognising a beautiful piece of art, be
it music or literature, and just leaving it at that?

Susanna (annoyed with Freudians, probably because she
herself is Viennese and Jewish)

 --- Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at yahoo.com> ha
scritto: 
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<tt>
This is in today's National Post (Canada)
newspaper. Comments<BR>
anyone?<BR>
<BR>
HARRY POTTER ARTICLE<BR>
<BR>
Harry Potter appeals to the masses because it
satisfies our<BR>
subconscious Oedipal fantasies, says a British study.
The popular<BR>
children's books represent the fulfillment of readers'
suppressed<BR>
Freudian desires to kill their father to be closer to
their mother,<BR>
according to the study published in the summer issue
of the journal<BR>
Psychoanalytic Studies.<BR>
<BR>
"The Harry Potter character almost certainly
would have had murderous<BR>
fantasies but he is in the unfortunate position of
them having come<BR>
true. As a reader, there is the satisfaction of the
fantasy without<BR>
the awfulness of the reality," said Kelly
Noel-Smith, author of the<BR>
study.<BR>
<BR>
In the books, which have been made into a movie to be
released this<BR>
fall, Harry Potter is an orphaned wizard whose father
is killed<BR>
trying to save the boy and his mother.<BR>
<BR>
"Harry knows that his father died to preserve the
exclusive<BR>
relationship of Harry and his mother," the paper
argues.<BR>
<BR>
The fact his mother is also killed by Lord Voldemort,
an evil wizard,<BR>
leaving Harry unable to live out any subconscious
sexual desire for<BR>
her, does not negate murderous fantasies the character
would have<BR>
harboured before his parents died, said Ms.
Noel-Smith.<BR>
<BR>
It might even hint at what Sigmund Freud theorized was
a common<BR>
childhood struggle with bisexual feelings, leaving
Harry with<BR>
ambivalent feelings toward both parents, she said.<BR>
<BR>
Ms. Noel-Smith, who was interested in researching the
universal<BR>
appeal of the books that have sold 100 million copies
and been<BR>
translated into 42 languages, said J.K. Rowling, the
author, likely<BR>
shares the same subconscious fantasies as her
readers.<BR>
<BR>
"She has more ability to express them in a
creative way than the rest<BR>
of us. People who are successful with literature are
more able to<BR>
access the energy from suppressed Oedipal fantasies.
If you believe<BR>
Freud, as I do, everyone has Oedipal issues,"
said Ms. Noel-Smith, an<BR>
attorney and Masters student in psychoanalysis at the
internationally<BR>
recognized Tavistock Clinic and the University of East
London.<BR>
<BR>
Harry Potter, the bespectacled hero, represents the
readers' ego,<BR>
which explains why millions of people identify with
the character's<BR>
loss of his parents, argues the study. The research
cites a number of<BR>
Oedipal references in the books, including Harry's
facial scar,<BR>
inflicted when the evil wizard's curse rebounded off
him during the<BR>
attack on his family, which the study says
"brings to mind other<BR>
special marks, for example, the scars Oedipus had on
his feet, where<BR>
his parents pierced them before they left him to die,
the mark of<BR>
Cain, who murdered his brother, and the stigmata of
Christ, who,<BR>
being the Son of Man, was murdered by his collective
parents."<BR>
<BR>
Lord Voldemort is "the repository of evil"
that allows Harry to<BR>
idealize his parents in a way that would not have been
possible when<BR>
they were alive, according to the study.<BR>
<BR>
Ms. Noel-Smith said she has sent Ms. Rowling's
publisher a copy of<BR>
her research but has not heard back from the author.
Ms. Rowling and<BR>
her agent were not available to comment yesterday.<BR>
<BR>
Allan MacDougall, president of Raincoast Books, the
Canadian<BR>
publisher of Harry Potter books, said Ms. Rowling
would likely find<BR>
it amusing and admits her books come from her
subconscious.<BR>
<BR>
However, he dismissed the study's arguments as largely
spurious. "The<BR>
author may be an excellent student of Freud but that
is not how<BR>
people buy books. They buy them because of
recommendations and<BR>
reviews, not because they have Oedipus
references."<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
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