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Daddy would you like some sausage?
Alright, Sam's arc in Supernatural as a subverted Oedipal (Freudian rather than mythical) narrative:
First, here's the Oedipal complex's basic structure: boy desires mother, has murderous/jealous thoughts toward father-as-competition. Boy sees mother's lack of penis, deduces from this a castration carried out by the father. Fear/threat of castration overwhelms the desire for the mother; boy submits to the law of the father, giving up the mother with the promise that he'll grow to fill his father's shoes, so to speak, and find a replacement mother (ie. female mate) in future.
So, how does that fit with Sam? [I should note here that I'm looking at this in terms of a metaphoric text with a character representing ideas; I'm not trying to psychoanalyse 'Sam-the-person'.]
Mary dies when Sam is a baby - arguably pre-Oedipal. Sam is practically birthed right out into the law of the father, without having a chance to pass through the mother-lust stage. The law of the father is quite blatant in the show - the Winchesters' power dynamic is quite masculine with their military/warrior training and the boys' relationship with the father - they clearly have been raised to quite literally submit to the law of the father.
So Sam's Oedipal stage plays out later, when he goes off to college. Rejecting the law of the father, the masculine warrior-hood (so to speak), he turns instead toward the 'normal', the domestic - when we first come across him it's clear that this is where he's aligned himself (he's not in a dorm, he's home-making with the little lady) - i.e. the mother. Jess is clearly visually linked to Mary in her appearance (considering Cassie, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the show is being narrow-minded in making all the love interests blonde and caucasian) as well as her death/style of death.
So then what happens? Jess is killed - castrated - by the Big Bad, and Sam submits to the law of the father with the idea that one day he will dominate (aka overcome) the dominating force (aka the demon; which is blatantly aligned with the father in the pilot, when Mary assumes the figure standing over Sam's crib is John). And (once again, but officially now) submitting to the law of the father (who, in true psychoanalytic tradition, is actually absent, and exists as ingrained on his unconscious/super-ego).
So when we see Sam in 'Shadow' talking about how he wants 'a normal life' - wants to go back to the motherly/feminine domesticity, we can take heart in what the Oedipal narrative tells us - Sam is nostalgic for this kind of pseudo-childhood, in which he (symbolically, at least) possesses the mother; but that way lies sickness (according to Freud) - Sam must accept his lot and remain in the realm of the patriachal in order to remain powerful (i.e. avoid castration, and avoid becoming like Norman Bates).
So, okay - how does all this subvert these Freudian concepts?
Because it's a contemporary cultural text that's closely connected to the contemporary culture and society - it addresses issues of gender and hegemony. It addresses the structure of a postmodern mainstream - in which consumer culture, which is traditionally aligned with the feminine (aka the mother) has become 'normal'. (Supernatural's close linking of the Winchesters' 'normal' lives with their mother figures supports this.) Traditionally when looking at the Oedipal narrative and how it reflects upon (Western) civilisation, it's in terms of the larger structure of the patriarchy and the law of the father (masculine); the hegemony is an normality dictated by the patriarchy.
And yet Supernatural posits 'normal' - the way society enforces we live - with the mother; and the Other - the Winchesters are on the outside of society, dealing with things reviled and denied by the mainstream - is aligned with the father.
That's not to say that in doing so the text is creating a heirarchy of power in the same way Freud did with his Oedipal narrative (aka the lack of penis is, without question, assumed as unthinkably bad). The 'normal' in the Supernatural 'verse is not constructed as the opposite to their life of Otherness - they did not choose that life as a violent reaction against normality. 'Normal people' in the show are constructed as being worthy (for all the shallowness of most of the freak-of-the-week characterisation), or rather, not negatively - and after all, the 'normals' are worth saving - that's what the Winchesters Jnr are doing, at any rate - Dad's off finding who killed Mom, the boys are saving the lives of people who don't exist in the Other-space.
Because the position of the Other is traditionally occupied by those outside of the hegemony - the minorities; aka all those who are not middle-class-and-above western white heterosexual non-disabled adult males. Of course, by positioning characters that fill that description in place of the Other, the text isn't only challenging that heirarchical structure, but (*cough*) inviting a queer reading (just as it is with Dean's relationship with Cassie - minority/Other!sex is so gay).
But it's also interesting to look at in terms of who/what they are fighting exactly - how the 'enemy' is positioned in the text. A lot of the time it's not as enemy, not as us-against-them conflict - rather, the monsters are frequently positioned as victims - Others who are suffering from the ill-effects of submitting to a hegemony. Think of the first woman in white in the pilot, the boy in Dead in the Water, the Wendigo and the Indian tribe in Bugs (and think of how these villians are often vanquished by being 'healed', not merely subdued/destroyed); and think of the other victims they save, how the villains are constructed - the girls in Scarecrow and Hookman; both the Scarecrow and Hookman are patriarchal/hegemonic figures attempting to enforce a traditional/patriarchal order (fertility, heterosexuality, no free love!).
Sam and Dean are the Champions Of Otherness, working on the assumption that everyone has a right to live, something underlined by the fact that they ought not traditionally be filling the role of the Other - thus breaking down the boundary/binary of norm/Other (because it's enforced through acknowledgement, whichever side you're on).
So, to get back to the Oedipal narrative - Supernatural clearly outlines it and addresses it, but through this breaking of the norm/Other binary (that is so blatant in Freud's work) manages to subvert it.
First, here's the Oedipal complex's basic structure: boy desires mother, has murderous/jealous thoughts toward father-as-competition. Boy sees mother's lack of penis, deduces from this a castration carried out by the father. Fear/threat of castration overwhelms the desire for the mother; boy submits to the law of the father, giving up the mother with the promise that he'll grow to fill his father's shoes, so to speak, and find a replacement mother (ie. female mate) in future.
So, how does that fit with Sam? [I should note here that I'm looking at this in terms of a metaphoric text with a character representing ideas; I'm not trying to psychoanalyse 'Sam-the-person'.]
Mary dies when Sam is a baby - arguably pre-Oedipal. Sam is practically birthed right out into the law of the father, without having a chance to pass through the mother-lust stage. The law of the father is quite blatant in the show - the Winchesters' power dynamic is quite masculine with their military/warrior training and the boys' relationship with the father - they clearly have been raised to quite literally submit to the law of the father.
So Sam's Oedipal stage plays out later, when he goes off to college. Rejecting the law of the father, the masculine warrior-hood (so to speak), he turns instead toward the 'normal', the domestic - when we first come across him it's clear that this is where he's aligned himself (he's not in a dorm, he's home-making with the little lady) - i.e. the mother. Jess is clearly visually linked to Mary in her appearance (considering Cassie, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the show is being narrow-minded in making all the love interests blonde and caucasian) as well as her death/style of death.
So then what happens? Jess is killed - castrated - by the Big Bad, and Sam submits to the law of the father with the idea that one day he will dominate (aka overcome) the dominating force (aka the demon; which is blatantly aligned with the father in the pilot, when Mary assumes the figure standing over Sam's crib is John). And (once again, but officially now) submitting to the law of the father (who, in true psychoanalytic tradition, is actually absent, and exists as ingrained on his unconscious/super-ego).
So when we see Sam in 'Shadow' talking about how he wants 'a normal life' - wants to go back to the motherly/feminine domesticity, we can take heart in what the Oedipal narrative tells us - Sam is nostalgic for this kind of pseudo-childhood, in which he (symbolically, at least) possesses the mother; but that way lies sickness (according to Freud) - Sam must accept his lot and remain in the realm of the patriachal in order to remain powerful (i.e. avoid castration, and avoid becoming like Norman Bates).
So, okay - how does all this subvert these Freudian concepts?
Because it's a contemporary cultural text that's closely connected to the contemporary culture and society - it addresses issues of gender and hegemony. It addresses the structure of a postmodern mainstream - in which consumer culture, which is traditionally aligned with the feminine (aka the mother) has become 'normal'. (Supernatural's close linking of the Winchesters' 'normal' lives with their mother figures supports this.) Traditionally when looking at the Oedipal narrative and how it reflects upon (Western) civilisation, it's in terms of the larger structure of the patriarchy and the law of the father (masculine); the hegemony is an normality dictated by the patriarchy.
And yet Supernatural posits 'normal' - the way society enforces we live - with the mother; and the Other - the Winchesters are on the outside of society, dealing with things reviled and denied by the mainstream - is aligned with the father.
That's not to say that in doing so the text is creating a heirarchy of power in the same way Freud did with his Oedipal narrative (aka the lack of penis is, without question, assumed as unthinkably bad). The 'normal' in the Supernatural 'verse is not constructed as the opposite to their life of Otherness - they did not choose that life as a violent reaction against normality. 'Normal people' in the show are constructed as being worthy (for all the shallowness of most of the freak-of-the-week characterisation), or rather, not negatively - and after all, the 'normals' are worth saving - that's what the Winchesters Jnr are doing, at any rate - Dad's off finding who killed Mom, the boys are saving the lives of people who don't exist in the Other-space.
Because the position of the Other is traditionally occupied by those outside of the hegemony - the minorities; aka all those who are not middle-class-and-above western white heterosexual non-disabled adult males. Of course, by positioning characters that fill that description in place of the Other, the text isn't only challenging that heirarchical structure, but (*cough*) inviting a queer reading (just as it is with Dean's relationship with Cassie - minority/Other!sex is so gay).
But it's also interesting to look at in terms of who/what they are fighting exactly - how the 'enemy' is positioned in the text. A lot of the time it's not as enemy, not as us-against-them conflict - rather, the monsters are frequently positioned as victims - Others who are suffering from the ill-effects of submitting to a hegemony. Think of the first woman in white in the pilot, the boy in Dead in the Water, the Wendigo and the Indian tribe in Bugs (and think of how these villians are often vanquished by being 'healed', not merely subdued/destroyed); and think of the other victims they save, how the villains are constructed - the girls in Scarecrow and Hookman; both the Scarecrow and Hookman are patriarchal/hegemonic figures attempting to enforce a traditional/patriarchal order (fertility, heterosexuality, no free love!).
Sam and Dean are the Champions Of Otherness, working on the assumption that everyone has a right to live, something underlined by the fact that they ought not traditionally be filling the role of the Other - thus breaking down the boundary/binary of norm/Other (because it's enforced through acknowledgement, whichever side you're on).
So, to get back to the Oedipal narrative - Supernatural clearly outlines it and addresses it, but through this breaking of the norm/Other binary (that is so blatant in Freud's work) manages to subvert it.
no subject
This positing of the Normal as the motherly, muggle-mundane, supernatural-worryfree life, and the Winchester/manly protectors as the Otherness *could* lead one simply wrap it up like
"It's a pussies world out there, thank God there are True Men like us around", the classic "macho-isation" wot often happens when the heros of a narrative are heros by virtue of being the only ones in possession of s secret that concerns the whole wide world/population (here, a series of secrets, really).
Also, The Other is the Father? Dude, psychoanalytically that's nothing short of classic, in terms of the father being the third one, the otherness of the world breaking into the mother-infant fusional relationship...
[i fully admit, this does not relate to Sam-as-Oedipus at all, though]
Not to say I don't buy yours, because I think I do! Just random thoughts, and, stuff. *naps in your postmodern lap*
no subject
Okay, father as the other maybe in the scope dyadic relationship, but taking a step out of that - the very examining of the dyad through psychoanalysis is patriarchal, and the dyad is Other, quite extremely - bordering on abject, and needing to be destroyed (thus, Oedipal stage). The father is 'other' in that situation linguistically, if you're thinking of the POV of the child (and I guess that distinction's made clearer by Lacan... then again, the child is forced to acknowledge its own reflection as Other by Lacan)... but in the larger scale of that dynamic, it's the child scrabbling to the law of the father to avoid the otherness of the mother.
Also, yep - I don't see where the dyadic relationship is represented in SPN... even in the mother/baby stuff in the pilot, it's more about the Winchesters as self-contained and normal, not a freaky-deaky Mom/Sammy and vicious Daddy thing.
"It's a pussies world out there, thank God there are True Men like us around",
You have a point; they could be constructed as the law-of-the-father 'doing what's best' for them who don't know themselves... but I don't know if that's the case. I think it's interesting to look at the spaces they occupy and boundaries they quite blatantly flit back and forth over in the show - in terms, most obviously, of their 'disguises'. Visually, beneath the costumes, they are the most unconvincing policemen/MIB/priests/repairmen I’ve ever seen. And yet they’re able to take on the costumes (of the patriarchy) and move within that space without challenge. But I don’t read that as a patriarchal insult to the Other who is fooled by them – it’s more of an insult to the patriarchy itself (like drag is an insult to the concept of gender-that-isn’t-constructed) – and indeed, Dean is quite scornful of the ‘two-bit operation’ of, say, the police force.
It’s more often about manipulating the patriarchal order, when they disguise, than manipulating those under the order – and think about pretty much the only time when they’re sprung – by the policewoman, who is a character pretty un-typical in terms of her own Otherness and dichotomy (a strong female existing on the ‘norm’ side of the patriarchal order, and her control of the phallus/weapon, but on the flipside of that coin – how she can use it to carry out abject acts of vengeance for family, not so much ‘justice’ through the patriarchal order).
And it seems to me that so little of the show, aside from this fascinating performance/costuming thing, is spent hiding the Truth from the unwashed masses (as, say, the conspiracy theory construct in X-Files was). I think you’re yet to convince me that the ‘normal’ world is constructed negatively (and thus Othered and dominated) in SPN ;)
no subject
Like I said, hee, I wasn't really trying to do tha, jsut rambling early morning reaction to your post wot made me think - but if nothing else, God, am I happy I spurred you to write 3 more paragraphs!
I totally buy yours :) - manipulating the patriarchal order with the disguise, yes, and the sense that this is drag for them, the whole queerness of it included, and how that's an insult to the patriarchy - which is the real system being 'fooled', indeed (not merely 'mocked' as in mimicked but insulted because it happens under its nose), rather than the people they use the costumes to get in contact with. Which is like you says, SoNotXFiles in that often the 'secret' is not to be protected very fiercely; at least it's not to be protected from the mundanes, it's only to be kept hidden from the structural authority-enforcement instances as they stand, because those are not individuals but machinic bodies, destined to crush individuality and otherness and, I guess, all those damn queers, huh?
Gah, anyway. Yes, you rock. BUT I KNEW IT ALREADY! *licks you*
no subject