Freud Was Right/Literature: Difference between revisions

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* [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s [[Eldritch Abomination]]s. With so much emphasis on their "[[Naughty Tentacles|tentacles]]," their [[Mind Rape]] [[Go Mad from the Revelation|powers]] and their just plain "[[Squick|abominableness]]", compared to our own "insignificance".

** Bonus points for Lovecraft being inspired by chronic night terrors, in other words, what you see in his prose is straight out of the very abysses of the Subconscious Mind. Freud would be highly amused to psychoanalyze ol' H.P.

* The [[Spenser]] novel ''Crimson Joy'' by Robert B. Parker (which draws its name from William Blake's poem) features a man who kills black women in a particularly "symbolic" way and leaves a red rose at each scene. {{spoiler|His mother's name was Rose Black, and she had molested him.}}

* ''[[Harry Potter]]'' is full of this.

*** The extremely effeminate Lockheart is ''terrified'' to go down that long slimy tube? Until the two pubescent boys force him down, that is.

*** Harry stabbing the open diary with a fang that's squirting venom.

*** Isn't it actually mentioned somewhere in the books than her name is Ginevra?

** Also, in the first ''and'' third books, everyone is jealous of Harry's new broomstick. It's so much better than all the others. Everyone congratulates him on it and wants to stroke it. Ron can't wait to ride it. Malfoy is jealous until he gets [[Compensating for Something|super-brooms for all the Slytherin team]]. Hermione buys Harry a "Broomstick <s>polishing</s> ''Servicing'' kit". In contrast, Ron's wand breaks in two in the second book and won't work properly. He also only gets crappy broomsticks. Prof. Umbridge has an "unusually short" wand, and she punishes Harry, Ron and Fred by locking up their broomsticks. In general, Harry likes anything phallic (towers, brooms, wands) and hates anything resembling a womb or vagina (chambers, tunnels, dungeons, lakes, eggs, baths).

** Not to mention Harry spends his childhood in a closet under the stairs, forced to stay their by his intolerant family. Then, he is rescued and taken to a magical land where everyone is just like him. JK Rowling has denied that ''Harry Potter'' is an allegory for homosexuality -- but come on, he was living ''in the closet''. Plus, {{spoiler|Dumbledore's [[Word of Gay|Gay]]}}.

*** Also, before Harry got his Hogwarts letter, he was supposed to go to [[wikipedia:Stonewall riots|Stonewall]]] High.

** When Cormac and Ron are conversing about [[Love Interest|Hermione]], and it's clear to see that Cedric's broomstick is much, much larger than poor Ron's.]

** [http://bash.org/?111338 "Wand" to "wang", anyone?]

** In the fourth book there's that scene in the graveyard where Harry and Voldemort are firing spells at each other and "their wands connected and a shock of electricity ran between them. Time seemed to hold still."

*** The Room of Requirement from the same book? A hidden area where teenagers sneak off to engage in the forbidden activities Umbridge wants them not to do and risk getting into huge trouble if caught.

** And let's not forget Book 7, when Hermione ''snapped Harry's wand in half''. Sure, it was an accident, but Harry made it perfectly clear that he felt pretty much emasculated. He had to borrow Hermione's wand, and later a stolen wand, yet neither was able to replace the one he'd lost, and it just felt "wrong" to have them in his hand. Hermione refused to really believe any of this, as she had never had it happen to her, and didn't understand. Later, he's able to dominate Malfoy, and so claims his wand ({{spoiler|and also, the Elder Wand}}), both of which allow him {{spoiler|to defeat Voldemort, who threw away his own wand in order to gain a more powerful one}}. Harry later repairs his wand... which glows in joy and grows warm, ''ecstatic to be reunited with his hand''. Ron also has his wand broken in the 2nd Book, and goes through similar feelings of impotence until he gains a new one that's properly his. It helps that the wand he used before was his brother Charlie's, symbolizing Ron's jealousy of his brothers' successes and masculinity, and his desire to get out from their shadows and be as "Alpha" as them.

** In the movie, Cormac MacLaggen's deluxe-model broom, as compared to Ron's smaller thinner hand-me-down one in ''Half-Blood Prince.''

** The scene where Hermione is tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. It happens offscreen in the book, but you get to see plenty of it in the film adaptation, and it strongly resembles rape.

** Legilimency, end of. It's even worse in the movie, mostly because of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdLqBkNYA4g this speech.]

** In that last movie there's the incredibly awkward moment where Voldemort [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZW_dwd_WJY moans] while hugging Draco and saying his name making it seem more like they're having sex.

* Pick a story about [[Vampires Are Sex Gods|vampires]]. ''Any'' story. In fact, start with the classic: ''[[Dracula]]'' forces a young woman to drink his blood, after quietly invading her bedroom. And consider the two violent stakings of female vampires.

** [[Brain Bleach|You've scarred me for the rest of my life]]

** It's actually worth noting here that the most common interpretation, and one supposedly even supported by Stevenson himself, is that the story is a metaphor for cocaine addiction. During the time when the story itself was written, people were just starting to become aware of the psychological effects of such addiction and how the dependence on the drug (the formula) became more dominant over time (Hyde), and begn to subjugate the more normal individual (Jekyll) to its dependence. Of course, when one also takes into account the effects cocaine has on sexual ability (e.g., impotence, repressed libido, and more...), the story itself is still not completely inappropriate as an example here.

** Within the Discworld novels Nanny Ogg has written a recipe book, a book of traditional folk tales, and a book of etiquette and household management. All of them are really about sex (although the third one, which exists in the real world as ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' isn't ''quite'' as much about sex as the first two, since the publishers had to recall them).

{{quote|'''Granny Weatherwax:''' Maids of Honour?

** And Lord Vetinari, Ankh-Morpork's Patrician (and iron bachelor), ''Does Not Have Balls''. In fact, there's even a famous saying about it in Ankh-Morpork. And a humorous song. Ankh-Morpork's citizens take their amusement where they can find it. Only not during state balls because there aren't any. Obviously.

*** Neither do the wizards. They do not have balls. They do have their annual Excuse Me, though.

{{quote|'''Fassel:''' [...] they say cigars are--

'''Healstether:''' That is a fallacy!

'''Fassel:''' [[That's What She Said|That's right, that's what I read.]]}}

* In the novel ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'', the staple crop of the igbo village is yams, they're long, cylindrical and the more you have, the more manly you are perceived. You can probably figure out the symbolism here.

* ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' has Jay{{spoiler|feather}}, who is roughly a teen-aged male protagonist who is forcibly sworn to a [[Celibate Hero|life-long vow of celibacy]] and spends a lot of time [[A Date With Rosie Palms|playing with a stick]] whenever he feels anxious. Yeah.

** And {{spoiler|Honeyfern}} talking about having kits with {{spoiler|Berrynose}} just before being killed by a ''snake''.

* ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]''. If [[Dan Brown]] sees as many phallic symbols everywhere as his [[Author Avatar]] Robert Langdon does, he surely has a problem.

* Most likely an accident ([[Epileptic Trees|unless Stephenie Meyer is writing the world's biggest]] TrollFic), but the apple on the front of ''Twilight'' is totally a clitoris (the hands are the hood pulled back, the wrists and arms... You get the picture).

* ''Dragonfly in Amber'', from Diana Gabaldon's ''Outlander'' series, is full of this, but especially in the second book when Jamie enters a brothel armed with an enormous Dordogne sausage.

* "The Ball Poem" by John Berryman, a poem about a boy who is grief-stricken after losing his ball. After all, it ''is'' irreplaceable.

* In ''[[Jane Eyre]]'', the title character has a very charged exchange during the dead of night with her brooding [[Byronic Hero|Byronic]] boss, after she rescues him from a fire. In his bed. Dr. Freud need not trouble himself.

 

[[Category:Banned On TV Tropes]]