Psychoanalyzing Traumatic Childhood Events and the Heteronormative Personas They Create in Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain"
Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” examines the lives of two ranch hands and their struggles with coming to terms with their queer identity amid a homophobic, Midwest landscape. Each character experiences a traumatic event in his childhood which settles in his unconscious mind and contributes to the projection, or lack thereof, of his respective queer identity. By examining these traumatic events through Freudian psychoanalysis, one may conclude that these events shape the heteronormative, Jungian personas the characters of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist project and the extent to which they project these personas to others.
Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, founded the discipline of psychoanalysis in the late 19th century. Through his studies, he provided insight into the human mind, particularly how "psychological forces over which we have very limited control" motivate a great deal of a person's actions (Guerin 203). If we view the human mind as an iceberg, the conscious mind lies accessible above the water, whereas the unconscious, the psychological force over which a person has minimal control, lies beneath the surface in a dense expanse. As Freud explains in "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality" in 1932, "We call a process 'unconscious' when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time, although at that time we knew nothing about it" (Freud). Gary Grossman, author of "Queering Psychoanalysis," explains that psychoanalysis focuses on the "development of a sense of self and individual identity" (287). Essentially, events that occur can retract into a person's unconscious. It is the uncon...
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... Personality." New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1964. Print.
Grossman, Gary. "Queering Psychoanalysis." Annual of Psychoanalysis 30 (2002): 287-300. Web. 14 Nov 2011.
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. "Materialisms." A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 125-168. Print.
---. "Mythological and Archetypal Approaches." A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 225-252. Print.
---. "The Psychological Approach." A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 201-224. Print.
Proulx, Annie. Close Range: Wyoming Stories. New York: Scriber, 2003. Print.
Snider, Clifton. "Queer Persona and the Gay Gaze in Brokeback Mountain: Story and Film." Psychological Perspectives 51:54 (2008): 54-69. Web. 14 Nov 2011.
Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Harper & Row,
Paula Vogel’s play, How I Learned to Drive, artistically tackles the disturbing issue of incestual pedophilia. The play’s protagonist Li’l Bit narrates the action as she goes through her memory of specific events. Much like stream of consciousness, her narration does not lead chronologically to scenes in her past. Rather it jumps back and forth between the present and different points in her life. She tells of her memories of youth and her sexual and emotional relationship with her Uncle Peck. Rather than simply telling about her experiences, though, Li’l Bit shares her memories through vignettes which show the audience her role in the affair within the context of learning to drive (Greene 425).
Updike, John. "A&P." Thinking and Writing About Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 981-86. Print.
Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen. Literature: the Human Experience. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Print.
In Judith Halberstam’s piece “Female Masculinity,” she offers the audience a few potential definitions of the term ‘masculinity’ and how the term applies to “feminine masculinity.” She states that “although we seem to have a difficult time defining masculinity, as a society, we have little trouble recognizing it” (935). Halberstam suggests that female masculinity is often blatantly ignored in culture and studies due to the indifferent feeling often associated with the topic. Halberstam uses her essay to explain a variety of aspects associated with female femininity like tomboys, queer methodologies, and the bathroom problem. Halberstam’s description of the term ‘Tomboys’ is reminiscent of the character Emily Fields from the Pretty Little Liars book series by Sara Shepard. Progressing through middle school with a group of ‘girly’ friends, Emily is easily labeled with the term ‘tomboy’ due to her sporty exterior. Her overly conservative Christian family and classmates see no ‘threat’ or meaning behind Emily’s tomboy appearance because they believe it is just a stage in her life. As soon as Emily enter tenth grade and starts hanging out with a homosexual female, her family and classmates grow concerned about Emily’s masculine looks and behaviors. In the book titled Prettty Little Liars, one of the liars, Emily’s evident masculine ways raises concern to her thesis-go back and fix it .
Historically, the representation of gay, African-American men on television has fallen short of the mark . We have seen “sissies, faggots and finger-snapping queens” sashaying across the screen, feminizing and marginalizing African-American men by these racially insensitive and homophobic caricatures. In this paper I examine the characters: Keith Charles of HBO’s Six Feet Under, Omar Little of HBO’s The Wire, Lafayette Reynolds of HBO’s True Blood, and Julien Lowe of FX’s The Shield and how their characters manifest their masculinity. The three characters that appear on HBO shows are portrayed as strong, masculine, openly gay men. Only Lowe, the sole African-American gay man who has appeared on a basic cable hour-long television drama is a closeted gay character. Since the “out” characters appear on HBO and the closeted character appears on basic cable, is it possible that an audience who can afford to pay for HBO is tolerant of the representation of masculine gay men while an audience watching on basic cable is not tolerant of that representation? Or is HBO’s marketing campaign, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO” an experimentation with “genre, coupled with their strategy of distancing themselves from broadcast television culminating in a distinguishable brand name and a noticeable schism between pay cable and broadcast television” (Jaramillo 60). Or rather, is the HBO audience one that is able to pay for a subscription to HBO, just gazing at these characters? Are these characters just a twist on the “big black buck” stereotype for a post-modern audience – one comfortable with explorations of masculine, racialized, gay desire? HBO’s marketing certainly attempts to position itself as a step above broadcast TV, airing programming that is de...
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
Gender Outlaws (Smith, 2010) breaks the laws of gender by defying gender normative rules that exclude trans, queer and other non-conforming gender expressions often oppressed by “gender-norming rules,” rules, “expected to observe” or be subject to ridicule and often times labeled as freak by those who consider themselves as normal (p. 28). A gender outlaw seeks to, redefine the notion of gender and are carving out spaces of their own” (p. 30).
Gay suggests another way characters within pop culture are portrayed as unlikable or at least not powerful, is by being a person of color. As stated earlier, there exists a narrow conceptualization of womanhood and femininity, which primarily mirrors the privileged class, which dominates pop culture in terms of the books we read, television we watch, ads we consume, heroines we aspire to be, and music we listen to. However there does exist different identities of what it means to be a woman. In Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens. Cathy J. Cohen imagines the contemporary view and power of women to be in relation to their homogenized identity. This meaning, to be a woman also depends on other factors of identity; to be a woman in relation to if you are poor or rich, black or white, gay or straight, queer or fall into the dominant class. Luckily, this understanding of womanhood has somewhat expanded. The scope of racial expansion somewhat increases by moving to include Gay’s idolized Black Miss America. Unfortunately, this expansion follows the privilege trend where only a certain type of green girl is able to satisfy the role of Black Miss America. A large issue that Gay has with representation of women of color is that they are tokenized, they are stereotyped, and they are grossly generalized. Instead of this poor misrepresentation of women of color, both Gay and Cohen seek, “a new political direction and agenda, one that does not focus on integration into dominant structures but instead seeks to transform the basic fabric and hierarchies that allow systems of oppression to persist and operate efficiently” (Cohen 165). Gay concludes that inclusion of women of color in pop culture fails to portray them as more than one dimensional characters. This lack of depth is attributed to the lack of respect that women of color face in real life as well. While the
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
Guerin, Wilford L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1979.
...ve begins generating rumors for male peers who do not qualify as a stereotypical male. For instance, Olive pretends to have sex with a male peer during a popular house party (Gluck, 2010). This imaginary hook-up benefits the male peer’s bullying dilemma. Again, gender policing occurs between men when masculinity is questioned (Kimmel, 2008). “One survey found that most Americans boys would be rather be punched in the face than called gay” (Kimmel, 2000, p.77). The gender police govern Olive’s and the male peer’s status in social standings. America’s obsession with sex disregards if a girl truly sleeps around.
This analysis went much better than I initially thought it would. As I read through Act I, I discovered so many references to Psychoanalytic Theory that it was unbelievable. Granted, this could be the case because I am an English/Psychology double major. But what it that connection is merely an illusory correlation? I also discovered that the separation between Queer Theory and Psychoanalysis is thin. This seems to suggest that homosexuality is the result of a brain process.
In Brenda Cooper’s article “Chick Flicks,” she argues, the film, Thelma and Louise employs mockery as a narrative tool, and functions to produce a defiant narrative which fiercely confronts and denounces patriarchy. Societal norms are able to create a kind unconscious compliance, resulting in self-imposed coercion and oppression. A film like Thelma and Louise brings consciousness to women’s own complicity in social norms like patriarchy, so they can no longer blindly follow these norms. This leaves women in either a state of denial and resistance or a state of evolution and change. Through mockery this film sheds light on accepted norms, and in some, causes a defensive response, as it