Tony's Dreams in The Sopranos
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Tony's Dreams in The Sopranos
Intro
Television has always tried to provide a true representation of the human condition. This is evident in the emergence of reality shows, shows based on true stories, and very realistic fiction. The sopranos is one of the few fictional shows that faithfully simulate the situations it tries to recreate. The sopranos is a show on HBO about Tony Soprano and his life in the mob. The show, created by David chase, shows immense Freudian influence in many scenes involving psychotherapy, Freudian theories, symbolism and dreams. David chase himself studied psychology in collage and admits it’s influence on the show. This report will deal with a series of dreams Tony soprano experiences in one episode of the show (season 2, “funhouse”).
Background
Tony soprano is the main character of the show. He is the boss of the soprano crime family and his life is divided into two sections. His family life and his criminal life. Even though they are mixed, both provide a separate view of Tony soprano as a man. At home, he lives with wife Carmela, son Anthony, and daughter meadow. His family, while at times dysfunctional, manages to stick together. He constantly cheats on his wife and doesn’t spend much time with his children. Meadow leaves the family to go to collage and Anthony Jr. struggles to make it through out high school. Even thought Tony shows consistent disappointment of Anthony Jr., it doesn’t come close to the emotions he has toward his mother. She mistreated Tony as a child and provided nothing but bad memories. His experience with his mother might have let him to posses a subconscious hatred for females, which he displays by only viewing them as sex objects. Tony didn’t have a bad relationship with his father growing up, but that’s because he always blamed his mother. His uncle Jr., conspired with Tony’s mom to kill him after he was out of jail. This, and other events, let to they’re lack of communication.
Tony’s crime family consist of his cousin, Christopher, under bosses like Big Puss, Pauly walnuts, Silvio Dante and other business associates. This group is loyal, but never hesitate to kill any one for they’re own benefit. They treat each other with the illusion of respect and honor, which (the lack of) is the cause for many of the conflicts present in the show. Involve in the middle of all of this is his psychothe...
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...f by the ducks right?”. Verbal word play initiates and it eventually leads to sex.
This dream shows us that the music indeed is a sexual cue. This is true because when the sexual acts start, the music gets louder and louder. Tony shows that he is able to control a lucid dream to a certain extent. The fact that he is aware of the dream shows that he is more in touch with his sub conscious then previously thought. Again, Tony is discussing Big Puss. Tony seems to realize that Big Puss is the enemy he has being hearing about.
Sixth Dream
This dreams concludes the series of dreams that define this episode. In this dream Tony is near a fish stand and talks to a fish. The fish is the same type of fish that he eats at the Indian restaurant. The fish that talks, is talking with Big Puss’ voice. He confesses, that he has being ratting out the mafia to the FBI. Tony questions him and gets angry.
This scene displays obvious influence by the godfather. The term “sleep with the fishes” is used here by a dead fish. This forshawdoes the death of Big Puss and brings the story full circle.It is also ironic that the fish that got tony sick, gave tony the answer to solve his problem.