WALT WHITMAN'S QUEERNESS AND WHY IT DOES(N'T) MATTER

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HOLY MOTHER OF...

Hey everybody! We recently covered Sigmund Freud in Critical Theory and we touched on some of the weird, traditional concepts like penis envy, the castration complex, and of course the Oedipus complex.

The "Oedipus complex" is inspired by the play Oedipus Rex by Greek playwright Sophocles. The main character murders his father, has sex with his mother, and then proceeds to gouge his eyes out and go blind.

Worst day ever?

As the hilarious comedian/singer-songwriter Bo Burnham says in one of his songs:

"Gay dads blow pops, another sucker,

Oedipus was the first motherfucker"

Freud named his concept after Oedipus because he embodies the violent tension between child and same sex parent and the sexual tension between child and opposite sex parent.

Being the lover of popular culture (TV in this case) that I am, I couldn't help but think of a really awesome example of the Oedipus complex from American Horror Story. None other than Dr. Oliver Thredson from the second season, Asylum.

Played by Zachary Quinto, Thredson epitomizes the Oedipus complex. He is, quite literally, a living testament to Freud's theory. Which is pretty damn ironic considering the fact that Thredson is a psychiatrist.

Disclaimer: I am not a psychoanalyst, therefore my views on Thredson are merely speculation and open to interpretation and criticism. My professor told us we needed to say this before we went around saying crazy stuff about people, fictional or not.

Now Thredson's version of the complex is pretty interesting, considering the fact that his mother was absent from his life from a young age and his father's whereabouts are questionable. Because his mother was absent and therefore neither physically or emotionally present, his desperate need for motherly love morphed into something sinister and also sexual. The Oedipus complex is usually resolved in children when they cease their harboring of negative feelings towards their same sex parent, but clearly Thredson's absent father makes that resolution quite difficult.

Thredson first discovered his sexual feelings towards motherly figures when he was in medical school, more specifically in his anatomy class. The cadaver that the class examines, and Thredson later on is alone with, is a thirty three year old woman, the exact age of Thredson's mother when she abandoned him. In his deluded mind, Thredson believes that the cadaver is his mother.

viewer discretion advised: if rape scenes make you uncomfortable, i would say skip the video

At one point in the season, Thredson kidnaps Lana Winters from the asylum. Lana is a reporter who visits the asylum with the intention of exposing the horrors that occur there, however she herself ends up experiencing those horrors for herself. Thredson tricks Lana into thinking that he is helping her escape the monstrous asylum but little does she know that the home of her accomplice holds much more terrifying secrets.

As the video shows, Thredson claims that Lana is "the one", the motherly figure that he has searched for his entire life. He breastfeeds from Lana against her will and proceeds to rape her while she is in a catatonic state.

Clearly this an extreme case of the Oedipus complex. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex is usually resolved with minimal internal conflict and life goes on without a hitch. The origin of Thredson's neuroses is almost definitely rooted in his unresolved Oedipus complex, however that's not to say that his instability isn't influenced by psychopathy.

I suppose it's only fitting, if not ironic, that he went on to become someone who makes a living telling other people everything that is wrong with them.

until next time, 

I'LL PUT A SPELL ON YOU: PORTRAYING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS IN MODERN CULTURE

Hi everyone! It's fall now (in New England, anyways) and that means colder weather, chunky sweaters, and watching the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus on repeat. Shoutout to Halloweentown, also a fantastic movie, but for the purpose of this blog post we're sticking to the former. I've loved Hocus Pocus since I was a wee child along with all of my peers. Even more so, I've been a little bit obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials for years now as it is of significant interest to me. Perhaps my interest in this subject was solidified by it's unusual and macabre nature, however I'm inclined to believe that the media's portrayal of this event is too what peaked my fascination. 

Why is the media so fixated on this particular historical event, even in today's popular culture? Are we fictionalizing it to the point where it becomes an unauthentic representation of "history", where real people are mere characters and their trials and tribulations become the plot of a dramatized soap opera of sorts?

Going back to Hocus Pocus for a brief moment...oh, quick little tid bit. My professor Robin shared with all of us today during her lecture on the trials that the Salem "witches" were not officially pardoned until 1992. Hocus Pocus came out the following year...coincidence? Although this is not quite relevant to my ultimate point, I think it is interesting to highlight the fact that this movie is still very much relevant, namely at this year's Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness? I want to high five whoever did the casting for this show, especially for Winifred, because they were all SPOT ON. Sadly, I highly doubt any of the young kids that were watching the show even know who the Sanderson sisters are, let alone have any idea about what the movie is meant to represent historically. Seeing as it is a children's movie, elements like death, evil, and witchcraft have a comedic spin put on them. However, applying comedic tropes to a serious and grotesque historical event, in this case, seems to mock instead of providing relief.

While Hocus Pocus is a funny anecdote about three fictitious witches, WGN's scripted drama Salem takes a more serious approach to the subject of the witch trials. First of all, check out the kick ass intro:

  

Wicked creepy and bonus points for using a Marilyn Manson song. Props! Anyways, in my opinion, Salem is a hybrid of sorts. Yes, it most definitely has some historical truth in it and visually it provides a sense of what living in 1690's Salem would have been like. But, considering the fact that there is still so much uncertainty and mystery surrounding the Salem Witch Trials, the show is able to take creative license regarding the extent to which they dramatize the stories and how far they delve into the realm of the supernatural. Some of the characters, like Cotton Mather and his father Increase, are based on real figures during the trials but most are not.

In saying that Salem is a hybrid, I am saying that it is part historical drama and part cheesy soap opera. As Salem was a wholly religious community with an emphasis on purity in all aspects of life, it is difficult to swallow the highly sexualized nature of the society (and its relationship to witchcraft) as it is portrayed in the show. The sex seems out of place in a show of this nature and it is all too obvious that the inclusion of the sex is only an attempt to keep Salem on the same plane as other popular sexualized TV shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors. With all that being said, I wholeheartedly enjoy Salem. In my opinion, it is perfectly acceptable to like watching this show despite all of problems that encapsulate it, because in this case the outcome of consuming the media's representation of an event such as this is pure entertainment rather than edification.

People still flock to Salem, hundreds of years after hysteria engulfed the Puritan community that resided there. The tourists flood the city especially during the month of October, Halloween dredging up the screams of the afflicted and the accused alike. Modern culture, most notably literature and film/TV, too continues to dredge up this story, or parable if you will, but for what reason? To prevent the masses from forgetting the atrocities that occurred? To preserve a classic example of the battle between good and evil? To act as a drama in which we insert fictitious individuals into history to warp and distort the truth?

Regardless, the Salem Witch Trials serves as a moral paradigm and grotesque defining event in American history that will forever live on in Salem proper and in modern culture.

And that makes me very, very happy.

until next time,

ANNE BRADSTREET: PURITAN POET AND BADASS FEMINIST

Hi everyone! This is the first post I am doing for my Currents in American Lit class, and today I wanted to quickly introduce you to the gloriousness that is Anne Bradstreet.

Now, here's the deal: Anne Bradstreet is considered to be the first female author published in the New World, and that feat in itself is impressive. Which is kind of sad, because the fact that it is impressive speaks to the position of women during this time period and even more specifically (and especially) in the Puritan society that Bradstreet resided in. The surprise that follows the publication of Anne's work The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America is best summarized by her brother in law, John Woodbridge, as he writes in his prologue:

"The worst effect of his [the reader’s] reading will be unbelief, which will make him question whether it be a woman’s work, and ask, is it possible?"

This is exactly the point where Bradstreet's subtle feminism comes into play. Forget bra burning in the 60's, because this wonderful woman dethroned the patriarchy with her understated poetry and I'm not even quite sure she knew the power in her own words.

In her poem "Prologue", Anne addresses those who question her abilities as a writer, and in turn her womanliness:

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

Who says my hand a needle better fits.

A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong;

For such despite they cast on female wits,

If what I do prove well, it wont advance-

They'll say it was stolen, or else it was by chance."

To me this verse screams, "Hey men, I know you don't like me and you think I should stick to my womanly duties but screw you because I'm just as capable as you!" Her mocking tone and sarcastic rhetoric is somewhat hidden underneath her coy jabs at male views on women. 

Personally, I believe that Bradstreet's  In Honour Of The High And Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth is the most overtly feminist poem in the collection. In a world where men are consistently and simultaneously the author and the reader, Bradstreet turned this notion on its head by dedicating a poem to Queen Elizabeth who, "was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise, from all the kings on earth she won the prize". To praise a queen rather than a king could be considered treason in the eyes of men, so in doing so Bradstreet may be considered the first American feminist. The most intriguing part of Bradstreet's ode to Elizabeth can be found in the second epitaph at the conclusion of the poem. Here, Elizabeth is referred to as an "unparallel'd prince", which leads to the question: Why use a highly gender specific (ie male) term to refer to a powerful woman? Is it because she is trying to appeal to her male readers, perhaps making Elizabeth more manly and therefore more fit to rule in the eyes of men? Or is it because Anne Bradstreet is attempting to shake society to its core by stating that a woman can do just as good of a job, maybe even a superior job, when it comes to ruling than a man? Gasp!

With all things considered, Ms. Bradstreet was surely onto something with these poems of hers. Whether she was aware or not of the effects her work would have on society and how women were viewed within it, who knows. But regardless, Anne Bradstreet's radical poetry paved the way for female voices in the New World and that in itself is a contribution to be proud of.

until next time,

    

AMERENGLISH?

Hi everyone! I'm back in the U.S. (boo) but my trip to the UK and beyond has caused me to ponder a bit about myself. (don't worry, this post wont be nearly as existential as it sounds...maybe!)

I took a class at my university in the fall entitled Global Literature (it sounds really easy, but actually it kicked my butt) and we talked in great detail about where people are from and how that influences their life experiences and in turn their writing. Almost all of the authors we studied were born in one country and lived in countless others for a multiplicity of reasons. My newfound knowledge regarding cultural identity and how it affects basically everything about an individual combined with my recent travels (in this context, primarily my UK travels) has sparked my curiosity about how I define myself and the way I talk/think/eat (yes eat, sounds weird but it will make sense soon)

My passport says I'm American.

My heart says I'm British. Despite the fact that I don't have an accent.

My parents tell me I'm French Canadian and Native American.

My name denotes that I'm Irish (Shannon) and Welsh (Griffiths).

My brain informs me (and then everyone else that asks) that I live in New Hampshire but I'm originally from California.

When I went to England the first time to study for 3 months, I felt awkward and out of place among the Brits. (well, I still feel that sometimes even now...but definitely less so than before) Despite the fact that we speak the same language, the language barrier is still a thing between Americans and Brits. It took time for myself and my American friends to feel truly comfortable in conversation with our British peers, and personally I occasionally still feel self-conscious about my "accent" when I speak around Mike/his family and friends.

However, this trip to England was different. I was fully immersed as I spent three weeks with Mike and his family/friends, the American influence that previously had acted as a sort of comfortable counterbalance for the newness of British culture and lingo vanished. However, I felt confident in my ability to discuss football (not soccer) on a very basic level with Mike's dad, order food and pay for it without feeling like an idiot and having to rummage through my purse for ages wondering which coins I should use (that's wallet for all the Americans reading this), and eat food in public without putting down my knife and fork every five seconds (in the UK and Europe the norm is to hold your knife and fork the entire time while you're eating, unlike in the U.S. where we pick our knife up to cut our food and then put it down again and so on) 

*cue existential questions about identity now*

I know I don't have a British accent and I wasn't born in a borough of London like Mike was, but I've spent enough time in England now that I feel like I belong there. I want to belong there. Perhaps it is my Irish and Welsh heritage that contributes to the strong magnetic pull that I feel towards England. Or, possibly my obsession with Harry Potter. Maybe it's both. I know that the connection that I feel is strong, but is it enough to say that I'm British because I feel British? Because I lived there for 3 months? Because I adore their way of life and their food? Because the person that I love is British?

I'm not a British citizen, but I might be in the future. wink wink Either way, my experiences in England have shaped the way that I view myself in a way that wasn't possible before. When Mike and I went to New York City last summer, we went into H&M and I spotted the most perfect shirt: a flag, half American and half Union Jack. I persuaded Mike to buy it, mostly because it was sweltering outside and he needed something cooler to wear but also because it was so fitting for us. Now that I think about that shirt, it not only represents Mike and I's relationship, but my relationship with England. My heart is there in more ways than one, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

until next time,

#STUDYABROADSUNDAY: BATH, ENGLAND

Hi everyone! This post is the next installment in my #StudyAbroadSunday series! Second stop: Bath, England! I traveled to Bath with a big group of my American friends and the other international students, and we were all amazed to be surrounded by so much history! (That can be said about pretty much everywhere I went, the UK is overflowing with history...) Bath was one of my favorite trips, as it has always been on my list of places to see! We spent the first part of our day just wandering around the city, and then we ventured into the baths themselves! (Well...not into the water...you know what I mean) Hope you enjoy perusing my photos :)

One of the many beautiful cathedrals that I visited

Here we are in front of the cathedral! I'm sporting the purple hood ;)

Ooooh...steamy!

Me in front of the bath!

And me not following the rules and touching the water...I'm a rebel :)

until next time,