Harry Potter: Oedipus Redux?

[monzaba at poczta.onet.pl]

No: HPFGUIDX 22929

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> This is in today's National Post (Canada) newspaper.  Comments
> anyone?

My comment is: oh my God!

> Harry Potter appeals to the masses because it satisfies our
> subconscious Oedipal fantasies, says a British study. 

HP Universe is no place for Oedipal complex.

> "Harry knows that his father died to preserve the exclusive
> relationship of Harry and his mother," the paper argues.

What the...! 

It's such a _cute_ description for "sacrifying one's life to save 
one's family"

BTW, don't you think that Harry had double potection against the 
Avada Kedavra course? After all, *both* his parents died trying to 
protect him.

> The fact his mother is also killed by Lord Voldemort, an evil 
wizard,
> leaving Harry unable to live out any subconscious sexual desire for
> her, does not negate murderous fantasies the character would have
> harboured before his parents died, said Ms. Noel-Smith.

Beg your pardon? Is it my English, or does Ms. Noel-Smith seriously 
thinks that a boy of one can have murderous fantasies? And does she 
really believe that Ms. Rowling could write about Harry living out 
his sexual desire for his mother?

> If you believe
> Freud, as I do, everyone has Oedipal issues," said Ms. Noel-Smith, 
an
> attorney and Masters student in psychoanalysis at the 
internationally
> recognized Tavistock Clinic and the University of East London.

I'm not a specialist, but I think I remember from school that quite 
many people didn't agree with Freud. Jung, for example. 

I've also heard that freudism is really a history of psychoanalysis - 
nowaday his theories do not dominate the field.

And wasn't Freud a great theoretician of sex with *very* little 
personal experience? :)

> Harry Potter, the bespectacled hero, represents the readers' ego,

I'm adult, I'm female, I can't do any magic, I never sat on a 
broomstick, but I have poor sight, so I guess that's why Harry 
represents my ego :)

> The research cites a number of
> Oedipal references in the books, including Harry's facial scar,
> inflicted when the evil wizard's curse rebounded off him during the
> attack on his family, which the study says "brings to mind other
> special marks, for example, the scars Oedipus had on his feet, where
> his parents pierced them before they left him to die, the mark of
> Cain, who murdered his brother, and the stigmata of Christ, who,
> being the Son of Man, was murdered by his collective parents."

Plus the scar on my leg I got when my mother didn't manage to stop me 
from riding my bike onto that silly little wall..

> Ms. Noel-Smith said she has sent Ms. Rowling's publisher a copy of
> her research but has not heard back from the author. Ms. Rowling and
> her agent were not available to comment yesterday.

Perhaps they were still laughing :)

Monika
(The Snape fan)