Wednesday, October 5, 2011
THE SANDMAN
I feel everyone is on point by saying this is by far if not the most awkward story written. i forgot if it is fiction or not. but i wonder whose crazy though nathaniel or is it the writer of this literature( mad scientist or frankinstein). On a more serious note the notion of nathaniel losing his eyes as a mirror effect of castration has some validity. they say the eyes are the window to one soul so losing one's eyes could mean losing your soul( the essence of you) and for a man losing his testicle could mean losing his place as a man and more over losing the opportunity to play the role of FATHER. its funny that most of the encounters in the story is Nathaniel trying to find love and i feel its more to have childeren so he can play the domineering role as head of the household. In the book of genesis it is said that a man should leave his mother and father and shall cleave unto his own wife, with that said i feel the fear of castration has been lurking since creation and is even more previlant in the animal kingdom. so if god created the animals first and adam after could we say this tendency came from us watching them versus an inate gene. know it sounds weird but going back to dreams could it be that dreams( or memory) can travel through generation, similar to how phobias do. i know its alot to absorb.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Gary, one way into this story is to take Freud's reading more generally: a story about family struggle. Or a story about romantic/sexual struggle. Or a hybrid of the two. I think a story like this one---so full of what seem like extraneous and uselessly weird details---seems tailor made for thinking of manifest/latent content.
ReplyDeleteAnd once you've done that you can start to consider not just the uncanny elements of the plot (which I've highlighted in my diagram), but the uncanny effect on the reader (maybe another diagram is needed?)