Sexuality in HP/Freud

[fakeplastikcheese]

No: HPFGUIDX 40155

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "dicentra63" <dicentra at x> wrote:

<snip, snip>

> Freudians would say that wand = phallus = potency.  But it's true in
> GoF only if JKR buys into Freud.
> 
> Because maybe a cigar, in this case, is just a cigar.

...and Buttercup says:

It's interesting that the Freudian aspect has come up, because I've 
noticed a lot of psychoanalytical symbolism in PoA too. Ok, maybe 
I've been studying psychology too long, but here goes. A theory:

Assuming that he was mistreated by the Dursleys from day one, Harry 
would not have experienced his Oedipal complex (which according to 
Freud should happen around the age of five) at all (it's pretty 
obvious that he doesn't identify with Uncle Vernon). At the beginning 
of PoA, whenever Harry encounters a dementor, he hears his mother 
screaming and feels the need to protect her. He also feels hatred for 
Sirius (not his actual father, I know, but a substitute in a sense). 
When he begins Lupin's anti-dementor lessons and tried to produce a 
patronus, he is only able to produce small spurts of white stuff from 
the end of his wand (ahem). At the end of the book, when he 
encounters Sirius and identifies with him, he also identifies with 
his real father and is able to produce a proper, full-on patronus, a 
stag, which "erupts" from the end of his wand.

Like I say, maybe I'm reading *far* too deeply into all this.....

Buttercup (who is meant to be revising for a psychology exam on 
Monday. Does this count?)