I have never been a fan of Sigmund Freud. I know he made great leaps in Psychology with his ideas of the unconscious but I get sick of reading words like erotic and incest which always seem to come quickly after his name. Like the whole Oedipus story, has Freud never read the end? Doesn't he realize that Oedipus doesn't know he married his own mother, and when he finds out he gouges his eyes out?
Honestly, I believe Psychoanalytic Criticism has done a lot of damage to the old stories. Beowulf has suffered greatly from this form, which is demonstrated in the somewhat new movie Holly Wood did. Grendel's Mother looks nothing like Angelina Jolie, in the poem she is disgusting and needs to be killed not sexually satisfied. This story is a grand tale of heroism and brutal masculinity not sexuality. When all you are looking for is sex you will find it, but you can also lose track of everything else the story is saying.
I did like the part in the chapter when it talks about characters and how the author describes the character and the reader recreates it. Often times just by explaining the personality of a character it gives a physical picture of that person in the minds-eye of the reader. When people can make a book character their own is when a book comes alive. There can only be an attachment between a character and a reader if there is a strong personality and enough left up to the imagination to create someone that is likable to each reader.
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I agree with you on the Freudian complexes. I never have agreed with those, perhaps because it’s never happened to me or anyone I know—not that anyone would ever admit to something like that. So how would we ever know? I do know that I disagree with it, for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is a beautiful line:
“There can only be an attachment between a character and a reader if there is a strong personality and enough left up to the imagination to create someone that is likable to each reader.”
I’m learning more and more that the best pieces of literature do involve the reader. And by that, I mean: the best literature makes the reader imagine, as you have stated. I recently read an article “Reading Rape: Sanctuary and The Women of Brewster Place,” by Laura Tanner that sums this up beautifully. If you have a chance, check it out. It talks about artists involving the reader/spectator. Tanner’s article uses an art piece in The Philadelphia Art Museum, “Etant Donnes” by Marcel Duchamp, (you should google this thing) as an example of art that makes the spectator get involved and become a piece of the work. This is really just a preface to two literature pieces that Tanner focuses on: Faulkner’s “Sanctuary” and Naylor’s “Women of Brewster Place.” Each of these pieces has a rape scene that is powerful because the writing styles make the reader actively participate in the recreation of the horrid events. Anyway, if you ever have time, I think the article is worth checking out.