Harry Potter: Oedipus Redux?

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 22934

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> This is in today's National Post (Canada) newspaper.  Comments
> anyone?
> 
> HARRY POTTER ARTICLE
> 
> Harry Potter appeals to the masses because it satisfies our
> subconscious Oedipal fantasies, says a British study. The popular
> children's books represent the fulfillment of readers' suppressed
> Freudian desires to kill their father to be closer to their mother,
> according to the study published in the summer issue of the journal
> Psychoanalytic Studies.
> 

It's kind of old hat as psy-A goes - Freud wrote the same thing about 
Hamlet.  Niether Freud nor I suspect this writer goes into the 
positive attributes of fatherhood that JKR and Shakespeare portray, 
other than to dismiss them as defense mechanisms.

I'm surprised no mention is made of the Sphinx that pops up during 
the Third Trial in GoF.  That would seem to settle the matter, 
especially in light of the fact the Harry answers the Sphinx's riddle.

And speaking of Riddle - does the author note the uncanny parallels 
between Riddle and Harry?

   - CMC (basically pro-Frued, but not with the Oedipal theory)