Resolving Oedipus Complexes 2

After the dream sequence,
we enter the next phase of the latent or hidden story
in which the son tries to force himself on the mother.

But, having undergone a symbolic psychoanalysis
in the journey into the dream
in which she experiences her fear of her son as a devilish lover
and also experiences her desire to let her defenses
melt into the arms of love,
the mother flees to the other option
and is scared into living a full life with Curly, her husband.

Where Jud as the son forced himself on Laurey, as the mother,
she is now the welcome aggressor with her husband, Curly,
as she passes the essential test
and rejects incestuous, defensive, love,
choosing love with an appropriate mate, instead.

But the son then becomes a would-be attacker
as he tries to castrate Curly, the husband and father,
by showing him the licentious sexuality
in the picture viewer, the Little Wonder,
which has the blade that will pop out and wound him.

Given its phallic shape and name,
the Little Wonder is Jud's penis, but it is also
an imitation vagina with a mysterious interior
that promises forbidden pleasures,
which makes it a demonic version of those picnic baskets.

In inviting Curly to look into it,
Jud is inviting the father to use his (Jud's) penis as a vagina
and turn his masculinity into femininity.
Little does the father suspect that this substitute vagina
is really a trap that draws in the unsuspecting male
and then castrates (or wounds) him.

Jud's devilish plan to castrate his father, Curly,
makes his "Little Wonder" not so harmless after all.
The father had threatened to plug the son's winking knothole,
turning his masculinity into an anal imitation of femininity.
Now the father is being tricked into sexually using his son
as a woman, little suspecting that a reversal is planned
in which he will be the one who loses his genitals.

Like Dracula, Jud is clearly the setter of traps and the seducer,
who tries to ensnare Laurey and Curly
into the enchanted realms of both the dream and the Little Wonder,
so he can destroy their potency.

When his plan fails, Jud as the son
becomes a murderous, monster
who tries to kill his tormenters with fire,
and must be killed in order for their marriage to be happy.
Fire is commonly used to represent urination.
In place of phallic entry and thrust, it is dispersed.

Finally, at the end, Jud reveals his knife
and phallicly threatens the father, Curly, directly.

We now see Jud from Curly's perspective,
as Curly stands above him on the haystack.
It is as if we are looking through the father's eyes,
down on his smaller son, who is threatening him.

Although Jud isn't a supernatural monster,
he is still a moral monster
and a good example of what monsters represent
in unconscious thought -- castrated, analized, and rejected,
males and females who go on the rampage.

His rage and rampage are based
on his belief that he has been rejected by the world
and forced into a trap. It is also based on the deeper belief
that he must be stuck in oedipal desire and rebellion,
which is the ultimate trap.

But, since all of this is based on disguised depictions,
there is no reason Jud, or any other character,
has to correspond precisely to
a single character or idea in the underlying fantasy.
Thus, we can also view Curly and Jud as different parts of man,
as we did in the narrative description of the movie, earlier.
Here, we see Laurey as a woman fleeing from
the good and potent side of man, represented by Curly,
and thereby arousing his dark castrated side, in Jud.
She then flees back into the arms of his good side,
in an effort to get his good side
to protect her from his dark motives,
which are based on feeling powerless
(a theme that is found in other works of fiction, as well).

The movie signals in an early scene that
Jud and Curly are indeed different aspects of one man.
After Laurey has the fight with Curly,
and goes into the house, Jud immediately appears
on the scene and faces Curly.
Jud shows up right after the fight
because he is Curly's dark side,
aroused by Laurey's resistance and spitefulness.
"Hello Jud," Curly says to Jud in the scene.
"Hello yourself," Jud replies.
This is depicted as a common response in the movie
but it is particularly appropriate here
since, in saying hello to Jud,
Curly has said hello to an aspect of himself.
Jud then follows Laurey into the house
where he will ask her to the social.

When Curly, who is concerned that Laurey
may be seeing someone else,
then asks Aunt Eller,
who the "low filthy sneakin" man is who is romancing Laurey
Aunt Eller jokes that he, Curly, is.
Curly is the "low filthy sneakin" man,
because he is also the evil character, Jud,
who is asking Laurey to the social, inside the house.

Laurey and Jud then emerge from the house
and it is announced that they will go to the social together.
Somehow, fearing sex and man and adulthood
Laurey has aroused, and linked up with, the dark side of Curly.

Later, in the dream that is supposed to reveal what is in Laurey's heart,
what she sees is Curly's double replaced by Jud.

It is as if her heart is telling her
that if she runs from life and sexual adulthood,
the alternative is the living death
of endless impotence and entrapment
with the dark side of man.

Still later, when Laurey fires Jud, she says
"...don't ya as much as set foot inside the pasture gate
or I'll sic the dogs onto ya," which echoes Curly's earlier statement
when, after Aunt Eller claims Laurey likes him, Curly replies:
"If she liked me any more she'd sic the dogs onto me."
The similarity once again highlights
the similarity between Curly and Jud.

We thus have (at least) two underlying meanings
in which Jud is the analized, oedipal, child
challenging the father, Curly,
for the mother, Laurey's, affections,
and he is also Curly's dark side,
aroused by the scorn of a fearful woman.
The two ideas are a condensed image of the same thing
since, when Laurey rejects Curly,
she arouses his sense of oedipal rejection,
and he regresses into being a spiteful child.

We see something similar in the underlying fantasy
of the movie, Frankenstein, in which
the male's fear of marriage causes him
to produce a monster that is his dark and murderous side.
The monster then interferes with his marriage,
disrupting the wedding.
Not surprisingly, the monster in Frankenstein
is anal in character and it approaches the bride from behind.

Jud can also be viewed as the personification
of neurotic fears and desires,
who tempts and menaces the male and female characters
and tries to lead them away from the path
that will take them to healthy adulthood.
This makes him a depiction of both a person
and the neurosis embodied in that person.

And he can be viewed as
a powerless, childlike, father,
who tries to keep Laurey for himself,
while Aunt Eller is the more mature mother.

Certainly, in the dream, he seems powerful
enough to be more like a father figure,

although the minute Laurey comes out of the dream,
he stands over her looking like
a dressed up little boy.

The second love triangle with Will, the Peddler and Annie,
involves the issues of oedipality and independence, as well.
In some scenes the Peddler is intimidated
by Annie's father, such as when the father threatens to
shoot him in the rear and make him
waddle like a (castrated) duck.

In other scenes, the worldly-wise Peddler,
and the father who picks the Peddler as a mate for his daughter,
are collectively an image of an oedipal father
who is seductive to his daughter, Annie,
and interferes with her choice of a mate.
As one would expect of a father figure,
the Peddler is older than Will and Annie.

When Annie takes his seductions seriously,
the Peddler becomes the good father,
conniving to set her up with Will, a mate her own age,
by seeing to it that Will has the money
-- and thus the manhood -- he needs to claim her.

Thus, in each of the love triangles,
the female avoids an oedipally-based choice
of a mate who is in her household or older,
and picks someone who is her true heart's desire.


Curly, the father	is challenged for Laurey, the mother,	by Jud, the oedipal son, who may also be a regressed version of the father.

Will, the young male	is challenged for Annie, the young female,	by her father, who ultimately lets her go.