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fandomhigh2010-10-26 01:42 am
steel-not-glass.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2010-10-26 01:42 am
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Is A Cigar Just A Cigar, Tuesday, Period 3
"So last week, we discussed how sex is almost always symbolic of something else in literature," Cindy said. And they'd handled the discussion so well, too. Their reaction wasn't why she was continuing the theme--after all, it was on the syllabus--but it did make it all the more amusing. "Sex can stand in for rebellion, for life, for death, for power. Anything at all, except sex. But that's okay: everything else makes up for it. There's tons of sex in literature, it's just not always evident at first glance."
She leaned against the desk again. "Sex very rarely looks like sex when it's first introduced. We have two groups to thank for this: Sigmund Freud and his fellow psychoanalysts and the arbiters of good taste before the modern era, most specifically, the Victorians. In the Victorian age, honest, bald, unhidden sex was nearly impossible to find in polite literature. Shakespeare was edited, fairy tales Bowdlerized, and even chair and table legs were covered by draping fabric so no one would be sullied by the idea that furniture had limbs and so did people. Interestingly enough, with Thanksgiving either just past or around the corner, depending on your view, that's where we got the terms 'white' and 'dark' meat, because asking for a slice of chicken breast or a turkey leg was unsuitable for dinner. But just because sex was unmentionable doesn't mean it was unthinkable. Which is why pornography was so prevalent. But because people liked to pretend they didn't care about it, writers had to find ways to slip it in--" pun not intended "--in such a way that everyone could know what was going on and the censors could pretend it didn't count."
"This idea of sex-disguised as Other got a real jump after Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and introduced the idea of phallic imagery. Anything tall, long, and thing? Secretly a penis. Anything round, deep, or curving? A vagina." Look, kids, she was even using the proper terms here. If you were embarrassed, get over it. "Suddenly it puts things like the Arthurian mythos into a whole new perspective. What's the grail quest? A story about a young man equipped with a lance sent off to find a chalice, an empty vessel, and upon finding it, brings newfound fertility through a parched and famine-stricken land. You don't need a degree in psychology to figure out some of the symbolism there. Don't believe me? Watch this scene from the end of North by Northwest, produced under the Hayes Code of Hollywood. Please note how he refers to the actress--who'd been Eve Kendell throughout the film--as Mrs. Thornhill, his last name in that last scene."
"Still not enough? Let's talk about the basic plot of a famous short story often taught in school. It's about a young boy who wants to please his mother very much and 'he went about with a sort of stealth,' engaging in a constant, strenuous physical activity all by himself. It's rhythmic and frenetic--even frenzied. It makes his sisters and the adults in the house uncomfortable. When he's done, his eyes have a 'strange glare' in them and when he's done, when he 'gets there' as he calls it, he is transported for a moment before he sinks back down, exhausted. What does that sound like to all of you?" Cindy looked out at the students, eyebrow raised. She was curious if someone would be willing to say what most of them, at least, were thinking. "In this case, the boy, Paul, is riding his rocking-horse, but D.H. Lawrence--you remember him from last week, right?-- read Freud and consciously used a lot of psychoanalytic thinking in his stories."
"Now, writing disguised sex isn't so much about creating witty double-entendres or using or being so blatantly obvious about what you really mean that your average twelve year old can understand. It needs to take more an a nudge and a wink to get your point across. The easiest way is to chose a single metaphor and stick with it: food is often used, because not only is it the shared act of consuming, but it also opens up a world of suggestive vocabulary: gnawing, sucking, leering, slurping, licking, groaning. A properly-written meal can sound like something out of the back pages of a certain kind of magazine only read for the articles. Keys are also often used, as they're both phallic and suggestive of house and home. I'm sure you can all catch the symbolism behind a woman who won't let her husband toss his keys into the bowl her lover gave her, or a man singing about how his woman changed the locks on her door and now his key won't fit." She handed out the lyrics while Move It On Over began to play.
"For our class activity today, you're going to write a sex scene. One that contains no sex at all. Pick your metaphor and run with it. It doesn't have to be about two people--Paul's rocking-horse and Thorogood's keys certainly weren't. But you have to write something with sex as a central theme that doesn't explicitly mention sex anywhere. You may begin."
[All links should be SFW, though both the clip and the song have sound.]
She leaned against the desk again. "Sex very rarely looks like sex when it's first introduced. We have two groups to thank for this: Sigmund Freud and his fellow psychoanalysts and the arbiters of good taste before the modern era, most specifically, the Victorians. In the Victorian age, honest, bald, unhidden sex was nearly impossible to find in polite literature. Shakespeare was edited, fairy tales Bowdlerized, and even chair and table legs were covered by draping fabric so no one would be sullied by the idea that furniture had limbs and so did people. Interestingly enough, with Thanksgiving either just past or around the corner, depending on your view, that's where we got the terms 'white' and 'dark' meat, because asking for a slice of chicken breast or a turkey leg was unsuitable for dinner. But just because sex was unmentionable doesn't mean it was unthinkable. Which is why pornography was so prevalent. But because people liked to pretend they didn't care about it, writers had to find ways to slip it in--" pun not intended "--in such a way that everyone could know what was going on and the censors could pretend it didn't count."
"This idea of sex-disguised as Other got a real jump after Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and introduced the idea of phallic imagery. Anything tall, long, and thing? Secretly a penis. Anything round, deep, or curving? A vagina." Look, kids, she was even using the proper terms here. If you were embarrassed, get over it. "Suddenly it puts things like the Arthurian mythos into a whole new perspective. What's the grail quest? A story about a young man equipped with a lance sent off to find a chalice, an empty vessel, and upon finding it, brings newfound fertility through a parched and famine-stricken land. You don't need a degree in psychology to figure out some of the symbolism there. Don't believe me? Watch this scene from the end of North by Northwest, produced under the Hayes Code of Hollywood. Please note how he refers to the actress--who'd been Eve Kendell throughout the film--as Mrs. Thornhill, his last name in that last scene."
"Still not enough? Let's talk about the basic plot of a famous short story often taught in school. It's about a young boy who wants to please his mother very much and 'he went about with a sort of stealth,' engaging in a constant, strenuous physical activity all by himself. It's rhythmic and frenetic--even frenzied. It makes his sisters and the adults in the house uncomfortable. When he's done, his eyes have a 'strange glare' in them and when he's done, when he 'gets there' as he calls it, he is transported for a moment before he sinks back down, exhausted. What does that sound like to all of you?" Cindy looked out at the students, eyebrow raised. She was curious if someone would be willing to say what most of them, at least, were thinking. "In this case, the boy, Paul, is riding his rocking-horse, but D.H. Lawrence--you remember him from last week, right?-- read Freud and consciously used a lot of psychoanalytic thinking in his stories."
"Now, writing disguised sex isn't so much about creating witty double-entendres or using or being so blatantly obvious about what you really mean that your average twelve year old can understand. It needs to take more an a nudge and a wink to get your point across. The easiest way is to chose a single metaphor and stick with it: food is often used, because not only is it the shared act of consuming, but it also opens up a world of suggestive vocabulary: gnawing, sucking, leering, slurping, licking, groaning. A properly-written meal can sound like something out of the back pages of a certain kind of magazine only read for the articles. Keys are also often used, as they're both phallic and suggestive of house and home. I'm sure you can all catch the symbolism behind a woman who won't let her husband toss his keys into the bowl her lover gave her, or a man singing about how his woman changed the locks on her door and now his key won't fit." She handed out the lyrics while Move It On Over began to play.
"For our class activity today, you're going to write a sex scene. One that contains no sex at all. Pick your metaphor and run with it. It doesn't have to be about two people--Paul's rocking-horse and Thorogood's keys certainly weren't. But you have to write something with sex as a central theme that doesn't explicitly mention sex anywhere. You may begin."
[All links should be SFW, though both the clip and the song have sound.]
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