The Great Gatsby
discussion
Absurd theories and interpretations on books
Definitely the theory that Nick Carraway of the Great Gatsby is secretly gay. There, the theory has it that the way he escorts Mr. McKee home after the party is an indication that the two had sex. Not to mention that his admiration for Gatsby has to be latent attraction since there's no way he could have sympathized with a bootlegging criminal. Like most theories, it starts with an idea then follows up with conjecture and circular reasoning to make it fit. Blah!Another one I love (read: can't stand) is that Shakespeare was gay and encoded homoerotic themes in his plays. And while it doesn't have to do with literature per se, there's also the theory that Queen Elizabeth was a man, that ancient structures were built by aliens, and that the Egyptians must have made it to the New World before anyone else. It's the age of Counter-Knowledge, it seems, where any theory, regardless of how vapid and weak, can be treated as if it's valid.
Esther wrote: "Amusing works as well, of course. I changed the title to "absurd", which is closer to what I'm looking for than "annoying".""Exasperating" maybe? That might get both "absurd" and "annoying" in it, and I think you're trying to get both.
For instance, there are really absurd interpretations like the description of the film Top Gun as a man struggling with and succumbing to his repressed homosexuality. But that one isn't annoying because it's got a lot of entendre from the dialogue to support it, and it's also a really funny way to watch the film. (At least, it's funny if one isn't in the midst of repressing a sexual identity panic....)
But then there are just annoying ones, like Lolita being described as "the only convincing love story of our century” where you just wonder how someone with the ability to articulate a thought clearly could misread a book that badly.
The one that drives me nuts is my old English teacher's theory that Calvinist predestination is a major force in
True Grit
.
Matthew wrote: "Definitely the theory that Nick Carraway of the Great Gatsby is secretly gay. There, the theory has it that the way he escorts Mr. McKee home after the party is an indication that the two had sex. ..."I don't subscribe to that theory but I did have a moment when reading the book where I thought to myself that Nick's description of Gatsby sounded homoerotic (without knowing there was a theory like this out there). But you are right, there doesn't seem to be much support out there for it.
What the author intended isn't always relevant. In fact it often isn't. If you can use a book as a new tool to help you better understand an old problem then that can only be good. If the authors did not intend for people to read their own meaning into things then they wouldn't write fiction at all, just essays and newspaper articles.
Rebecca wrote: "What the author intended isn't always relevant. In fact it often isn't. If you can use a book as a new tool to help you better understand an old problem then that can only be good."I think that's true. In fact, I'd argue that all authors put some aspect of themselves into their work that they did not realize that they were describing. If they didn't, it wouldn't be worth reading their work.
However, the corollary is that at a certain point, the unintended meaning presented by an author is supplanted by that of the interpreter. That is, the interpretation is really revealing the critic's unintended meanings based on their own personality and issues rather than describing those presented by the artist that they use as a focus. The critic's work starts presenting his/er own unintended meanings... but in a fundamentally derivative way, and misattributing their own psychology on that of an almost certainly superior writer. That's when it gets frustrating to read because it's like looking at a work of art through a funhouse mirror.
Gary wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "What the author intended isn't always relevant. In fact it often isn't. If you can use a book as a new tool to help you better understand an old problem then that can only be good."..."I was just going to compare it to a mirror before I read your last sentence.
I suppose for me that is the fun of it. I don't think a bad writer could create something that would work so well as a mirror, or something that would work as a stage for ideas that came along sometimes hundreds of years later.
But yes, the critics should try to be self-concious of their own perspective. Say you are very interested in one particular issue, you can use a huge variety of literature and art to help you explore it, but you should acknowledge what you are seeing is always a reflection of yourself to some extent, and sometimes it is nothing but that!
Gary wrote: "But then there are just annoying ones, like Lolita being described as "the only convincing love story of our century” where you just wonder how someone with the ability to articulate a thought clearly could misread a book that badly. ..."You're so right! Nicholas Sparks is where I turn for realistic romance. Or Stefanie Meyer, of course.
o.0
Esther wrote: "Sometimes people come up with interpretations/theories on books that seem rather random and constructed or forced. Two I've read about recently and found immensely annoying:1) The Great Gatsby: Al..."
I thought Gatsby is described as being blond?
I've hear that Joseph Fieldings' 'Shamela' was a take-off on Richardsons's 'Pamela. Or, Virtue Rewarded' but I don't believe it.Also, some say that Alexander Pope's 'The Dunciad' was modeled on 'The Aeneid' by Virgil. But again..I remain unconvinced.
Rebecca wrote: "I was just going to compare it to a mirror before I read your last sentence."Heh. Yeah, it's a fairly obvious analogy.... There's a better one in there that I was fiddling around with, but it gets to be a bit unwieldy: The critic is bidding the reader to look at the copy of a book that the critic is holding in his hand through a funhouse mirror, but doesn't seem to realize that what the reader sees is the critic's reflection, not the author's....
Doesn't quite work. Gonna hafta think about that one.
I pictured Gatsby as blond, too. Not sure if that's how he's described in the book, but does it really matter? This was the 1920s. It's highly unlikely that Gatsby was black. As for the people who think Gatsby was gay, did they miss the entire Daisy plot? I don't understand.
Lilac wrote: "I pictured Gatsby as blond, too. Not sure if that's how he's described in the book, but does it really matter? This was the 1920s. It's highly unlikely that Gatsby was black. As for the people wh..."
I don't they people are saying Gatsby is gay, but Nick the narrator is gay.
Melanie wrote: "Lilac wrote: "I pictured Gatsby as blond, too. Not sure if that's how he's described in the book, but does it really matter? This was the 1920s. It's highly unlikely that Gatsby was black. As for..."
I think he was just lonely.
Melanie wrote: "Lilac wrote: "I pictured Gatsby as blond, too. Not sure if that's how he's described in the book, but does it really matter? This was the 1920s. It's highly unlikely that Gatsby was black. As for..."
People are saying as much, but there's no proof to substantiate that point. Just speculation.
ABSURD theory: that Hamlet was sexually attracted to his mother (heard this in English when we studied Hamlet - I think it's a Freudian interpretation)
Lilac wrote: "I pictured Gatsby as blond, too. Not sure if that's how he's described in the book, but does it really matter? This was the 1920s. It's highly unlikely that Gatsby was black. As for the people wh..."
I am sure I read in the book that he is blond because I remember connecting it to the recent movie. I can't remember where in the book though.
Tesh wrote: "ABSURD theory: that Hamlet was sexually attracted to his mother (heard this in English when we studied Hamlet - I think it's a Freudian interpretation)"Very true! And it was Freud himself who got that ball rolling, claiming that Hamlet was the perfect example of the Oedipal complex, that his angst over losing his father and seeing his mother remarry was due to unresolved feelings of jealousy and the desire to possess her. Somehow, that nutty theory has remained part of the canon on this play.
I don't think a Freudian lecture of Hamlet is completely uncalled for.
Benja wrote: "I don't think a Freudian lecture of Hamlet is completely uncalled for."Meaning you think there's some merit to that interpretation?
Benja wrote: "Yesh."But would that interpretation even exist were it not for Freud projecting his theory onto the work? This is how the great pioneering psychiatrist worked, you know. He was notorious for not helping his patients because he chose to see their problems in terms of his own theories, rather than proceeding from available evidence to diagnosis.
And the same is true for these kind of literary theories. It begins with conjecture and then moves on to trying to make the text fit that interpretation. Much in the same way that A.C. Bradley claiming Hamlet's central flaw is inaction, it's an idea that really doesn't fit all the available evidence, but has become mainstream simply because an accepted authority said it.
I don't mind the Freudian reading of Hamlet, but it does strike me as being an extra-textual interpretation. That is, it's the reader (or those enacting the performance) putting a spin on the dialogue and plot more than something actually intended or inspired by the author. It's a fairly apt interpretation, mind you, and it fits in neatly with a lot of 19th-20th century culture, but I'm pretty confident it wasn't what Shakespeare had in mind.
Sincé when did Freud not help his patients? What evidence do you have there? He had a very lucrative psychiatric practice and was a very popular shrink, so why would you think he not proficient?
Geoffrey wrote: "Sincé when did Freud not help his patients? What evidence do you have there? He had a very lucrative psychiatric practice and was a very popular shrink, so why would you think he not proficient?"His case files are the evidence, Geoffrey, the details of which were often suppressed in order to protect his reputation. Yes, Freud was famous within Vienna's professional and social circles, which is precisely why this was done in the first place. But it didn't reflect the reality of his practice.
Take for example the case study of Herbert Graf - aka. "Little Hans" - who was sent to him because he had become agoraphobic after witnessing a horse die in the street. Rather than treat the root of the boy's anxiety (seeing death up close) Freud subjected him to weeks of analysis in which he claimed the boy's fears were actually suppressed psychosexual desire for his mother, and that seeing the horse (a symbol for castration in Freud's universe) triggered it. After many weeks of pressuring the boy to accept this as truth, Graf finally relented and accepted Freud's interpretation. He did not recover from his anxiety problem, but Freud claimed victory since he stopped thinking about the horse and moved onto other anxieties. It was obvious to many who read the case afterward that the boy was merely a victim of Freud's desire to publish a paper on the subject of infant psychosexual behavior.
Then there was Ida Bauer - aka. Dora - who came to Freud with a case of aphonia (loss of voice) and was suffering from anxiety dreams. She claimed that her father's friend made a sexual advance at her, which prompted her father to subject her to treatment. During therapy, she also claimed her father was having an affair with his friend's wife. Freud quickly diagnosed her with hysteria, and his pressuring her to accept this made her symptoms worse. She eventually left him, sought other treatment, and got better. But Freud claimed another victory and published a paper on it.
The third case study was Sergei Pankeyev - aka. "The Wolf Man" - a Russian aristocrat who came to Freud because he was suffering from depression. Apparently, he had a family history of this, and he himself had been sexually abused as a child. However, Freud missed this due to the way he had chosen to focus on a single dream (involving wolves attacking him) as the basis of his analysis. He concluded that this was a repressed memory of him seeing his parents having sex from behind, or some other primal scene, possibly involving animals, which he displaced onto his parents. Freud again claimed victory and published the case study, and it became a focal point of his theories of psychosexual development and psychoanalysis.
However, Pankeyev did not get better and sought treatment from other doctors for many years to come. He even tried to leave Vienna when he learned of how Freud had used his sessions to publicize his theories, but was convinced by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society to stay since they considered his case so important to the establishment of their new science. He stayed and kept his mouth shut, but once again, Freud's misdiagnosis and obsession with his own theories proved to be counter-productive to patients he claimed he cured.
That's three major case studies, half of the total number he published, and they all contain the same instances of Freud forcing his views on his patients, making them worse, and then claiming victory in the process. This, combined with his general attitudes towards women and his obsession with infant sexual development, is why he is criticized as being an ineffective psychiatrist and a biased personality.
Granted, Freud was incredibly influential and a pioneer of much of the psychoanalytical method, but his behavior and his process contradicted the very basis of that method, which prided itself on a scientific approach. The irony of it all is that Freud would be considered a quack by the standard's that he himself helped to establish.
Freudian readings of Hamlet make plenty of sense, and the text is rich enough to support these readings. Over simplifications of these readings (such as insisting that Hamlet is attracted to his mother) are absurd. But paying close attention to the text and arriving at an explanation for why Hamlet is so focused on his mother's sexuality lends itself to a Freudian gloss. What's so difficult about accepting the perspective that Hamlet suffers from arrested Oedipal development? We easily talk about his vast ranging mind using contemporary psychological terms such as "clinical depression" and."bipolar disorder"; referring to his odd fascination with his mother's sexuality as "Oedipal" is no different, as long as the text bears it out.For me, a more interesting Freudian reading of the play is to think of the three aggrieved sons in terms of the Id (Laertes), the Ego (Hamlet), and the Superego (Fortinbras).
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Freudian readings of Hamlet make plenty of sense, and the text is rich enough to support these readings. Over simplifications of these readings (such as insisting that Hamlet is attracted to his mo..."Well that's just it, Peter. It's not difficult to accept this, it's easy. It's the easiest thing in the world to see evidence of something when you're already convinced its there. You have to consider the source, and whether or not the text actually bears it out, or if it's something that the source projected onto it. And I think I've already demonstrated that Freud was famous for that.
Having said that, I would agree that it's easy to see the text in these terms, regardless of whether or not Shakespeare intended it that way. That's the thing about Hamlet, it lends itself to certain creepy interpretations from our modern standpoint. And why wouldn't it? A young man's loses his father, and his mother marries his uncle less than a month later, knowing they are having sex under the same roof. That's some screwed up stuff!
But I (and I hope you, too) would not focus so much on my mother's sexuality to the extent that Hamlet does. In fact, I rarely if ever dwell on my mother's sexuality. I'd rather not. Hamlet, however, obsesses over it. The situation in Elsinore is troubling for sure, but if you go back and read the lines and count the lines, he's not worried as much about the death of his father as he is about his mother's perceived betrayal of that father and her (according to him) outrageous sexual behavior.And Hamlet's not that young, either. Maybe you could forgive an adolescent for this response, but not a man of 30. (Hamlet is arrested in a number of ways, isn't he?)
There's nothing creepier about a "modern standpoint" than an Elizabethan one. In fact, the Elizabethans were probably a whole lot creepier than we are today as a collective society. (Or maybe exactly as creepy as we are, and that's the beautiful constancy of human behavior. We love to pretend things were different in the past, but they weren't, and they were usually worse.) But Shakespeare is opening the door wide to these understandings and theories of Hamlet's psycho-emotional character. And Freud may have named the complexes, but he sure didn't invent them. Shakespeare presents more in the psychology of Hamlet than most readers can handle in multiple readings or multiple performances. But that's the beauty of Shakespeare and that's why he's the best at what he does.
And by the way, nobody has to go looking for something in Hamlet's character or project something into his character. Hamlet gives it all to us because Shakespeare has put it all in there, and the more you read it or see it acted, the more you discover exactly how much indeed Shakespeare has put into this fascinating character.
Hell's bells, the theory I rejected most about the play is the idea that the ghost doesn't exist at all, that it's all the twisted imagining of Hamlet. And yet, over repeated readings of the text, I can even see how that interpretation has merit. It's a stretch if you ask me, but I don't pooh-pooh it anymore. It, like the Oedipal overtones, is worthy of discussion.
There are more things in Hamlet, Matthew, than are dreamt of in most people's philosophies.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "But I (and I hope you, too) would not focus so much on my mother's sexuality to the extent that Hamlet does. In fact, I rarely if ever dwell on my mother's sexuality. I'd rather not. Hamlet, howeve..."Uh-huh, and do you have any proof to back this up, or just that oft-misused quote and the argument that an author's genius is proof that speculative theories about their work are somehow valid? You made the same argument about good ol' Fitzy, but failed to offer any textual proof to substantiate it, as I recall. And in this case, Shakespeare being subtle and layered in his work does not prove that he shared Freud's own sexual preoccupations.
And where's your proof that Hamlet's objections to his mother remarrying to her brother-in-law constituted obsession? In the course of his speech in Act I, Scene II, where he addresses it for the first time, he mentions sex only once, and indirectly by saying the words "incestuous sheets". Everything else in the speech is directed at how she appeared to love his father, but moved on so quickly. That hardly seems like obsession over her sexual habits, merely her being a liar.
The next time he addresses her behavior is during Act III, when he presents her and his uncle with the play "The Rat Trap" where he indirectly accuses her of breaking her bond to his father. No mention of sex is made. And in the next scene, when he confronts his mother, he rails on for some time about forsaking his father in favor of his inferior uncle, and sex is again mentioned only once at the end, when he tells her she's doing something terribly immoral by sleeping with him, before he once again accuses his uncle of being a murderer.
And it makes little sense to compare his behavior to today, seeing as how this was the Middle Ages and women were seen as passive subjects, their behavior controlled by men and convention. And by Medieval law, a woman marrying her husband's brother was seen as incest, something that was considered morally and religiously deplorable. Under those circumstances, Hamlet's objections are entirely normal. His mother remarried in a way that seem disloyal to the memory of his dad, and was considered wrong by any standard. If anything, he was showing disgust, not sexual interest.
But please, if you have any textual evidence to back up the case that Hamlet was taking an unusual interest in his mother's sexuality, I would like - well, not exactly like, but be interested in - hearing it.
Again, don't get caught up in the "Hamlet's in love with his mother" foolishness when you're talking about something as textured as this play and, even more important, something as well developed as Hamlet's mentality. I hope you'd at least agree with me that Hamlet's character, especially his finely tuned mind, is among the very most thoroughly developed in the canon of literature. So of course we have to go to the text, and go to it more thoroughly than a discussion thread will allow.And worse, I hope you don't get distracted by things like Zeffirelli's presentation of the closet scene with Gibson and Close. Folks get all excited by that scene, and frankly it's not only shocking but a lot of fun to watch it played out with Hamlet on top of his mom punctuating every line with vigorous hip thrusts. I never get tired of seeing it--it may be Gibson's finest moment!
But rather than really go to the text and look at it closely, you are content to quickly skim over the passages and note a few obvious references to the sex act. But the reason why this theory exists and people like us still talk about it is because Shakespeare gives us permission to. It's there and you can choose to follow that thread or not, but Shakespeare creates a 30-year-old man with a very unhealthy pre-occupation with his mother's sexuality. Call it whatever you like, but "obsession" is a fine enough word that will serve.
Let's look at the first thing Hamlet says to Gertrude: "Ay madam it is common." That line alone resonates with enough meaning for us to spend a lot of time here thinking about it. The word has multiple meanings here and one in context with everything else Hamlet goes on to say to her is, "Mom, you're acting like a big whore here." Has she acted inappropriately? Is it really incest? Sure it's pretty speedy, as Hamlet says later, but if it's so darn awful and out of place in the spectrum of human behavior, why is Hamlet the only one who thinks so? Why is Hamlet the only one who uses the "i" word? Why is Hamlet not content to let his mother attend to affairs of state and heart without him interfering and insulting her and her sexuality here in this first line of the play in a public forum in front of the court? I could say more about it, but that's enough for now.
Don't get me wrong here, Matthew. Hamlet's not in love with his mother any more than you are. But he has a very unhealthy fixation, and if you don't see it you don't see part of what Shakespeare is doing with his character.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Again, don't get caught up in the "Hamlet's in love with his mother" foolishness when you're talking about something as textured as this play and, even more important, something as well developed a..."Peter, it seems we're going around in circles here. Once again, you are taking the position that Shakespeare's reputation for nuance and depth are proof of something more at work here. This is not only a very poor basis of proof, its a perfect example of the "bestowing virtue". You're bestowing hidden meaning on this text, rather than going by the text itself, and bestowing the capacity on the author in order to make it seem possible.
It seems you've done this before, and there too, could offer no real proof. A single line from Hamlet combined with your own feelings about his motives isn't an appreciation for what's going on. If anything, its working backwards to make it fit with a preconceived notion. And as I've already said, Hamlet's objections were entirely rational given the context of the story. It is shown in the notes of the play that by contemporary law, remarrying to an in-law was seen as incest and immoral.
Combined with Hamlet's angst over having lost his father and seeing his mother move on as if nothing's happened after less than a month makes his feelings seem perfectly normal under the circumstances. The reason no one else is objecting is obvious, this is a royal court! Royalty does what it wants and flouts convention, and people pretend not to notice. If you're going to ignore this in favor of your belief that Hamlet's got some "fixation over his mother's sexuality", then it's you who's missing things.
You realize that you're also being ambiguous, yes? Saying an Oedipal complex is too crude in one breath, and then saying in another that it's understandable given Hamlet's obsession with his mother's sex life. But again, where's the proof? You offer three words of text, backed up by speculation and opinion, whereas I offered every speech in the play and the context in which it was written. I don't like shooting people down, I just prefer we keep our talks of literature grounded in the actual literature itself, not our anachronistic interpretations.
I found that very entertaining too. Thank you for sharing it. I think that for a book to be living it musht have many different interpretations. It is what feeds thhe imagination. Fairytales have many different interpretations and thus feed the soul. I have found allthe discussions here very fasinating. I want to go read Hamlet now and see bboth view points. Thanks to everyone for broadening my appreciation of different works.I personally have been working on Breaking the Code of The Catcher in the Rye. I have been looking at it from the point of view of WW2. Amazing because we have google. Even if it never becomes the definititve interpretation of the Catcher in the Rye I have learned an amazing amount about WW2 and in my opinion how Salinger digested and saw the world then. It was a popular war. It was the war that got us out of the depressioon. But it had a dark side as all wars do. Only the victors tell the history from their point of view. Salinger was in my opinion going against the grain by including in it the movie/book The 39 Steps. As well as Out of Africa and then if you start looking up names and places and putting the pieces to gether like a code breaker you do come up with a different story. AAnd they you understand that Salinger wanted to be a Catcher in the Rye and what that means. He doesn't explain a lot of things inside the book. Sure you can just pass that off as menatal illness if you want but I think that maybe the unnamed is a mental illness and so Salinger was maybe even trying to show though his book that there were things that people were not ready to come to terms with but he was.
I didn't get to see the PBS series. I know that they say that Salinger was a recusse. Maybe you would be too if you didn't see the worl as your peers and you ut didn't feel llike one of them anymore. You were willing to pretend so you would just rather face the world on your own terms. Again I haven't yet read more than Wiki's bio on Salinger and plan to read his autobiography soon...but I know that he had a classical education at Valley Forge and I know t hat he knows where the ducks go in winter...but maybe he was talking about the DUKW (colloquially known as Ducks) By the way the same company that made them made the Holden.
Mimi wrote: "Mimi I can't say I particularly care how other people interpret a work. I love reading different interpretations, even if I didn't get that from the book personally. For example, I found a fascinating psychological theory of Les Miserables that I enjoyed, though it seems far-fetched and contradicts certain aspects of the book:"That is an amusing one.
Sometimes when people spin out these elaborate, conspiracy level explanations they can be outright hilarious.
Have you heard of The R2D2 Theory? I read it a couple years back.
http://km-515.livejournal.com/746.html
Speaking of Shakespeare: this isn't really an interpretation of his work, per se, but plenty of people will argue that there was no William Shakespeare, and that the plays published under that name were, in fact, written by any number of candidates. I've heard people hold up anyone up to and including Queen Elizabeth as the "real" Shakespeare. I find those conjectures pretty absurd (and annoying.)
Edit: Yeesh. There's a wikipedia article that lists all the possible "real Shakespeare" candidates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
Thank you Matthew. Your writings were particularly cogent. I have read the three cases that you have cite and I confess, am not up on psychiatric theory so it was very difficult Reading. Yes, I have suspected as much what you have said, but I didn´t know what the upshot of the treatments were. I have to question as well as to whether the other shrinks were able to do much for his patients.Psychiatry and Psychological counseling are difficult medical fields. The success rate of counseling is not quantifiable such as physiological treatments of bodily infirmities and sicknesses. This is the awkward position of the psychological fields in that recovery can´t be measured in terms of rate of heart beat, blood pressure or changes in body temperature.
In Freud´s case however, I find his theorising to be brilliant and convincing, but not necessarily applicable to the clients he served. If you read MOSES AND MONOTHEISM or TOTEM AND TABU, you get the sense of an extraordinary mind at work. But yes, the suspicion upon Reading THREE CASES, is that the man doesn´t know diddley shit of whereat he speaks.
Geoffrey wrote: "Thank you Matthew. Your writings were particularly cogent. I have read the three cases that you have cite and I confess, am not up on psychiatric theory so it was very difficult Reading. Yes, I hav..."This is true. It's also the case that psychiatry was in its infancy during Freud's time, so much of what he established would come to be criticized and rethought no matter what. As it stands, I do believe that these case studies were successfully helped by other doctors, but the notes on those cases are sketchy. All that is known for sure is that they sought treatment after him and I believe in most cases, got better.
In any case, Freud did influence every single field of psychiatry, even if in his own time his colleagues were debating and refuting just about everything he had to say. So I do tend to defend him whenever anyone starts going into how he has been totally "debunked" over time.
Cosmic wrote: "I found that very entertaining too. Thank you for sharing it. I think that for a book to be living it musht have many different interpretations. It is what feeds thhe imagination. Fairytales ha..."Although, honestly, I don't see what you see in the Catcher In The Rye (admittedly, I didn't see much of anything at all in it), I would recommend you read Catch 22 because I do see similarities in what you're describing of Salinger's work, and Heller's work. You might find it really interesting....
Gary wrote: "Edit: Yeesh. There's a wikipedia article that lists all the possible "real Shakespeare" candidates:"
That's the biggest list of possibilities I've seen so far. Anne Hathaway is a name I hadn't heard before, and that's a real lollser if you ask me.
Despite, however, the extensive nature of that list, the folks at Wikipedia seem to have missed one name, the true author of Shakespeare's work, the Klingon playwright Wil'yam Sheq'spir.
TaH pagh taHbeh!
Sheila wrote: Althought , honestly, I don't see what you see in the Catcher in the Rye (admittedly, I didn't see much of anything at all in it), I would recommend you read Catch 22.Thank you for the Catch 22 suggestion. I am reading The Catcher again in the String Challenge and will have to put this in my string of next reads.
Here is a link to my discussion and if you are interested you can look here:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Matthew wrote: ...the theory I rejected most about the play is the idea that the ghost doesn't exist at all, that it's all the twisted imagining of Hamlet. And yet, over repeated readings of the text, I can even see how that interpretation has merit. It's a stretch if you ask me...I agree with Matthew that the idea of the ghost not existing is silly. After all, it does seem on the surface at least that Shakespeare wants us to believe it's real. And I think that Hamlet seeing his father's ghost can explain a lot of Hamlet's 'madness' and mother/sexuality issues.
Matthew wrote: "The reason no one else is objecting is obvious, this is a royal court! Royalty does what it wants and flouts convention, and people pretend not to notice. If you're going to ignore this in favor of your belief that Hamlet's got some "fixation over his mother's sexuality", then it's you who's missing things."Whether you want to call it an Oedipal Complex or not is up to you, that's the whole reason why we're on the topic in this thread because it's a theory embraced by many a critic that strikes some readers as "absurd."
But for you to try and argue that Hamlet doesn't have an unhealthy fixation on his mother's sexuality is even more absurd, and shows that you don't know the play that well. Since you don't appreciate the subtleties of that first line Hamlet speaks to his mother in the play, I'll jump to the most obvious place in the play, the closet scene where he directly addresses her sexuality multiple times.
He starts off by telling her she's behaving like a poxy whore and goes on to tell her she's too old for sex in the first place. Then he gets into a fairly vivid description of her in bed with Claudius pumping away at her (this is where Zeffirelli's wonderful scene with Gibson and Close comes into play), calls her a dirty pig and suggests that the sheets of her bed are filthy with his uncle's jiz.
Fixated enough for you?
No? Then keep going. Hamlet coaches his mother about her sexuality, telling her not to go to his uncle's bed tonight, and then he really spends way more time than necessary on what she should do sexually as she weans herself off her uncle: "Refrain to-night, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy." I'm not sure if we should read that line as more funny or more pathetic on Hamlet's part, but it's pretty ridiculous...
And then several lines later when his mother asks him, "What shall I do?", probably thinking either about the killing of Polonius or the shocking news about the king's murder, Hamlet is right back on the sex thing: "Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: / Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed; / Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; / And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses..."
Yeah, okay, we got it Hamlet...And yet you question whether or not Hamlet is fixated on his mother's sexuality?
Actually when I started typing this posting I was more interested in responding to your comment about the incest. There are many a private conversation in the play between individuals where a mention of incest could come up, and yet it doesn't. Only Hamlet uses the word (and the ghost, I believe, but that's fodder for another conversation). I don't think anyone in the play even mentions being troubled by the speed of the marriage, let alone its propriety, and there's ample opportunity for someone to have said something, especially in conversation with Hamlet. Even Horatio never mentions the "i" word, and Hamlet invites him to comment on a number of occasions. Horatio only placates the prince, never voicing his own feelings that the marriage is incestuous or even improper.
Do we even know what medieval Scandinavian marriage practices are like? And would that even matter since Shakespeare is less interested in history than in story telling and character development? One could easily make the claim that the marriage between Claudius and Gertrude is for the good of the kingdom, especially in a time of crisis. Claudius, master at using language to his own ends, even says so in his opening address. And apparently there is a council of elders in Elsinore who weighs in on such importan matters (they chose Claudius over Hamlet for the crown, yet another issue troubling Hamlet); why hasn't this body had something to say if the marriage is so wrong? As for not speaking out against royalty, Laertes and his mob goes right to the throne room with their grievances. It seems to me if Shakespeare didn't want Hamlet to appear overly fixated with the "incest" in comparison to everyone else, there would be more characters using the word.
Consider, in fact, Shakespeare's own recent English history...Henry has married the widow of his elder brother, and with the blessing of the Church! Now that's something worth thinking about...
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Matthew wrote: "The reason no one else is objecting is obvious, this is a royal court! Royalty does what it wants and flouts convention, and people pretend not to notice. If you're going to ignore ..."Peter, you are once again putting your interpretations in front of the proof, rather than the other way around. And, once more, you're saying that I'm missing something if I don't see things as you do. This is not only blatantly subjective, it's also quite arrogant. If you choose to interpret it this way, fine, but you've still not demonstrated anything other than your own views here.
And let's face it, all your interpretations come down to you imposing your own standards of what's normal on the text, but only in the case of the sexual undertones. Elsewhere you're using lack of proof to establish your point, which is the act of trying to use a negative to prove a positive.
But just to be fair, let's review your citations and interpretations. I've already addressed the scene in Gertrude's bedroom, but to show his his exact words and how you portrayed them:
" Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths—oh, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow O'er this solidity and compound mass With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act."
No mention of sex here or whoredom. He's accusing her of being false and immoral for breaking her voes. In fact, the vast majority of what he says here has to do with her being "senseless" and "blind", meaning she has no excuse for such a quick turnaround on her mourning. But you've bypassed this in favor of a sexual undertone. Also, the poxy he describes is an image that is used to define the morality or lack thereof in what she's done. The addendum of the word "whore" or the implication that he is referring to sex is you're own.
Which brings me to the next part you referenced:
"You cannot call it love, for at your age
The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment. And what judgment
Would step from this to this?"
He is saying that at her age, she cannot claim she was motivated by mad love because she is older and supposed to be wiser. Hence, why did she do it, settle for the inferior brother so soon after his father died? This ties in directly with what he is saying about her being crazy for her speedy remarrying. You are one again affixing sex to this when it seems like pure anger over the way she managed to move on so speedily from the man Hamlet called dad.
And then this line, which is the only time sex is mentioned:
"Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed, Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty—"
He talks of lying in corruption and a sty making love, ergo saying that the act of her doing it is wrong and disgusting. No mention of semen, pumping, or anything else you say he's implying, these are your own additions. And really, this passage elicits Hamlet's disgust, which would seem obvious given his qualms over the union in the first place. I would say the only reason you have the mental imagery of pumping is because Mel Gibson and Glen Close's performance put it there. A key example of semantic reading in my opinion.
Then, the line you imbue with such significance, he says:
"Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy."
Yes, he's telling his mother to refrain from sleeping with his uncle that night, and says that she would have an easier time avoiding him in the future if she does it now. But considering that he sees her as weak willed and senseless, this would seem like advice on his part, not fixation. He's saying "break the habit now, and you will find you have more strength later". Also, consider that he just saw his father's ghost beckoning him on. Consider that he's asking her to not go to his uncle's bed because he's planning on killing him now, which is what he attempts to do thereafter.
And in the midst of this, the part where Gertrude admits under duress that Hamlet is right:
"O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grainèd spots As will not leave their tinct."
Here, she admits at last that Hamlet is correct and is telling Hamlet to stop because what he's saying is forcing her to examine her own decisions and see how they were wrong.
Alas, you claim that what Hamlet is doing is unnatural and evidence of a fixation, mainly by asserting that you would never take such an interest in your mother's activities. This makes the fatal mistake of imposing your own modern views on this Renaissance play. As I've said before, women were seen as passive subjects in this day, and father's, husbands and eldest sons were seen as being responsible for the women in the family. The fact that Hamlet is objecting so strongly seems perfectly rational under the circumstances. The fact that she is married and sleeping with the man who murdered his father fills him with disgust and loathing, not jealousy, angst, or Oedipal desires.
As for the rest, you are trying to prove your point by raising a negative. Why didn't anyone else say "incest"? Why didn't the Council of Elsinore object to the union? Why didn't they bring their objections to the throne as they did later? Why, because it's a play, sir. And Shakespeare was not above contrivances or speeding things along for the sake of plot development. And seeing as how he could not have anticipated what people would be interpreting hundreds of years hence, I doubt he felt compelled to illustrate how others objected to the union to make it seem like Hamlet was NOT fixated on his mother's sexual behavior.
And besides, you can't use a negative to prove a positive. The lack of anyone else objecting to Claudius marrying Gertrude in the play does not prove that everyone else was behind it, or that Shakespeare was subtly trying to show that Hamlet was doing something unhealthy. Like I said, royalty in Shakespeare's day got away with all kinds of immoral or unethical behavior. But this is all irrelevant since Hamlet is the main character and his feelings on the subject are supposed to be the only one's that truly matter. His journey is the audience's journey; everyone else is just the supporting cast next to him.
Everything else, as they say, is silence. And by that I mean our personal speculations. Thinking that the playwright intended for them or agreed with us on that would be entirely arrogant on our part.
You're an odd guy, Matthew, but I've known that for quite some time. I do appreciate the lengths you go to make your point, but what exactly do you think an "enseamed bed" is? And the "honeying"? Oh, my...Of course, our discussion is proof of why Hamlet is such a rich play, and far smarter people than you and I have discussed these very lines.
However, speaking of discussing, do you discuss your mother's sexuality with her? Or did you? Not me...and that alone passes for an unhealthy fixation on the part of our prince. Then, of course there is the text which you have a funny way of skipping right over.
I'm not forcing any readings on the play. These aren't my standards or interpretations; they're what pass for Shakespeare scholarship. I didn't invent them. Sorry, but I'm not the arrogant one in this discussion thread.
Esther wrote: "Sometimes people come up with interpretations/theories on books that seem rather random and constructed or forced. Two I've read about recently and found immensely annoying:1) The Great Gatsby: Al..."
Agreed. Nutty and annoying.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "You're an odd guy, Matthew, but I've known that for quite some time. I do appreciate the lengths you go to make your point, but what exactly do you think an "enseamed bed" is? And the "honeying"? O..."And so are you, Peter. Like me, you're willing to argue insistently and passionately about what you think is true. The difference is, you're arguing in favor of revisionist interpretations and judging the text by modern values whereas I prefer to stick to the context and the time in which it was written. And it seems to me we've already argued what I think those citations mean, but since you insist:
enseamed: greased (i.e. corrupted, as Hamlet was saying)
honeying: sweetening (i.e. making love, again within the context of Hamlet talking about her immoral love)
Once again, consider the context, not single words or passages in isolation. In both cases, these fit with Hamlet calling what his mother is doing immoral and unnatural. If you insist of seeing these words as metaphors for cumming or an example of Hamlet having a sex-obsessed mindset, than you are demonstrating a subjective mentality, nothing more. It doesn't mean you're wrong, but it also doesn't mean you're right on the money.
And what did I say about imposing your modern views on a play? Of course I don't discuss these things with my mother, but that's because I'm not a Renaissance man! My mother's sexuality is her own because she's a modern woman, whereas it would be seen as my business were we living in the 1600's and my father was dead. Seems to me we've been over this many times now, I would think it obvious.
And I've skipped over no text, btw, I've dealt with everything you yourself raised and plenty besides. And that would be terribly apparent to anyone who's examined our arguments. I repeatedly cited text, quoted it in full, and offered concise interpretations, whereas you cited indirectly, made direct citations only once, and let your arguments rest overwhelmingly on your personal takes. I also showed how you ran over a lot of things (blindness, senselessness) while in the pursuit of making a point.
And yes you are forcing your interpretation on the play, repeatedly. And you've done it again just now, first when you applied the standards of modern behavior to the play, and then again when you said "they're what pass for Shakespeare scholarship". That's the other point you've insistently made, that Shakespeare's genius lends itself to fringe theories about his work. But that's not a basis of proof anymore than our modern values are, just an argument of convenience.
And yes, it is arrogant to assume you're on the same page as the author and don't need to reach beyond your own opinions to learn more. So is telling people they are "obviously missing" the point if they don't agree with you. One could make the case that calling a person odd is too for that matter. Perhaps I've been arrogant as well, but like you, I'm passionate about what I think, and I'm willing to go to the mat for it. But I've always been on the side of proof first, and my own desires to see what I want to see second.
The interpretation that I find absurd is Camille Paglia's assertions that Emily Dickinson was a masochist.
Oh, oh! I just remembered the theory that Queen Elizabeth was in fact a man. Yeah, it's not a literary theory, but it is one of many historical theories that is just as absurd as some of the ones we've shared here. And if you think about it, the field of literature and history share this modern obsession for the weird and conspiratorial, don't they? ;)And don't even get me started on these "aliens built monuments all over the world" and Egyptians visited the New World before anyone else did. That stuff is just plain crap, and kinda racist...
You aren't really equating "Queen Elizabeth was a man" and "aliens built the pyramids" with 400 years of Shakespeare scholarship, are you? Really?Throughout this discussion, it almost feels like you want to reduce Hamlet to a simple revenge tragedy. You ignore nuance in favor of plot, and rich characterization in favor of stick figures. Shakespeare did not have (what you seem to be saying here) a simplistic Renaissance view of womanhood and women's sexuality. He has created not only the strongest, most interesting female characters of that time period, but also of all time, some would argue. (Certainly Harold Bloom would--but is he one of those guys you dismiss so easily?)
Here's a literary argument from Hamlet worth looking at and even maybe arguing over: Is Gertrude a weak, facile female dominated by both the men in her life as well as by her emotions, especially lust, or is she a strong figure, crafty even, holding her own as best she can in this male-dominated society and making choices for herself, navigating as best she can the difficult position she finds herself in here in Elsinore?
Critics have written convincingly on either side, and I think they're both right on both ends of the argument. Shakespeare allows for both.
Hamlet is simply angered by Gertrude´s betrayal of his father´s memory in marrying his murderer. Certainly there is nothing Oedipal in that.Certainly if my uncle assessinated my Dad, I would speak with my mother in the same tone of voice as Hamlet did with his. Wouldn´t both of you do the same, or would you simply regress from the situation?
There's nothing simple about anything Hamlet says or does in the play, and he's already fallen into a miserable funk regarding his mother's hasty marriage to his uncle long before news of the ghost is brought to him and the notion of "murder" is dropped into his mind. He's already (not "fixated," Matthew doesn't like that word) consumed by his mother's behavior, and her marriage seems to bother him more than his father's death. (Where's the proof of that? Look at the first soliloquy and count the number of lines dedicated to his father's death compared to his mother's behavior.) and yeah, right from the start is a disgust with her sexuality, the word "common" tossed in her face (the first thing he says to her is telling, ain't it?) and Hamlet's great later line, "O wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets." You gotta love the anger in that line. And there's the "I" word for the first time in the play.
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Most of them I find amusing rather than annoying, but I was bothered by two in particular:
First, Harold Bloom's assertion/argument that the Western concept of the human personality was invented by William Shakespeare.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Then... this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...