In Victorian fiction it was very common to kill off parents. I suppose it reflected reality, in that there were so many things that you could die of: childbirth to start with, in the case of many mothers. It's the same further back: Shakespeare, for example, is obviously very interested in parent-child relationships, but it's very unusual for both parents to still be in the picture. Leontes and Hermione are one exception, but they're not exactly a happy couple, and Hermione is believed to be dead, by Leontes and by their daughter, for many years. Nowadays, the death of one parent is not assumed to be likely, but the absence of one parent through divorce is taken almost for granted in many novels for children. It often makes a good story, of course.
I don't know what Freud have to say about kids that don't grow up with their mothers/fathers. Do they fail to develop an oedipus/electra complex, or do they just project it onto the nearest male/female adult? It's all bunk anyway, in my opinion.
Passionate, but not (homo)sexual, friendships between people of the same sex seem to be taboo just now. Isn't it funny how, the more we are exhorted to see homosexuality as 'normal', the more horrified 'straight' people are if they're accused of it? In past times (take Shakespeare again!), expressions of passionate affection for a same-sex friend were taken entirely for granted. Personally, I can't see anything wrong with that, even in nighties, though what goes on in the murky depths of Dostoevsky's imagination may be another thing altogether.
You're absolutely right to say that JRRT leaves little if any room for introspection in LoTR, except occasionally among the hobbits. The only Aragorn introspection I can remember is when he's wondering what to do at the very beginning of TT. You have to deduce what's going on in the minds of most of the LoTR characters, including Faramir of course, from what they say or do. The fascinating thing is how easy this seems to be - even if we don't all agree on the interpretation. It was the same in medieval fiction, which was where JRRT got most of his inspiration of course. Medieval writers didn't have our sophisticated psychological vocabulary, but they understood people well enough. They just applied that understanding in a different way.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: twice self-conscious
Date: 2007-07-19 04:45 pm (UTC)I don't know what Freud have to say about kids that don't grow up with their mothers/fathers. Do they fail to develop an oedipus/electra complex, or do they just project it onto the nearest male/female adult? It's all bunk anyway, in my opinion.
Passionate, but not (homo)sexual, friendships between people of the same sex seem to be taboo just now. Isn't it funny how, the more we are exhorted to see homosexuality as 'normal', the more horrified 'straight' people are if they're accused of it? In past times (take Shakespeare again!), expressions of passionate affection for a same-sex friend were taken entirely for granted. Personally, I can't see anything wrong with that, even in nighties, though what goes on in the murky depths of Dostoevsky's imagination may be another thing altogether.
You're absolutely right to say that JRRT leaves little if any room for introspection in LoTR, except occasionally among the hobbits. The only Aragorn introspection I can remember is when he's wondering what to do at the very beginning of TT. You have to deduce what's going on in the minds of most of the LoTR characters, including Faramir of course, from what they say or do. The fascinating thing is how easy this seems to be - even if we don't all agree on the interpretation. It was the same in medieval fiction, which was where JRRT got most of his inspiration of course. Medieval writers didn't have our sophisticated psychological vocabulary, but they understood people well enough. They just applied that understanding in a different way.