Mother Mary

The summer before sophomore year we had to read one of Freud's books which was a collection of his studies, one being the "Interpretation of Dreams". When I read this study I assumed Freud would translate dreams and tell his patients that they needed to decrease the amount of stress in their life or something mild like that, but wow was I off, Freud directed each patient's dream to the tiniest detail and could trace it back to the libido, or the sex drive, even though they had these dreams when they were children. I was stunned that he could relate the smallest details like a girl's yellow dress or climbing a tree back to the patients sexual manners. But most of all I disgusted at humans in general and that we could be possible of these thoughts subconsciously at such a young age. Why so young? Why so driven? Reading Freud's discoveries, I could only agree with some of them because of how disgusted I was, but now I am slowly accepting more and more of those ideals and teachings that almost anything can symbolize sex.

Foster explains that since these discoveries were thrown out in the world, literature has used them to their advantage to symbolize sex when they couldn't show sex. He reminds us that they weren't always allowed to explain the actual sexual intercourse, but instead use sexual references like a key and a bowl. Also, on the screen directors would use specific shots to indicate what was going to happen and foreshadow what could happen. For example the shot would be a train entering a tunnel and leaving it to the viewers for translation. These symbolic references to sex were encoded daily to protect innocence. It is something we don't cherish enough and throw away to quickly. Innocence should be praised rather than discouraged. For example the Catholic church honors and praises the most innocent and pure human they know- the Mother of their God, Mary. I think its important that writers preserve this innocence by continuing to write in a symbolic manner that allows only those looking for it to understand. If they don't then we would be desensitizing the youth and allowing for undesired behavior  because of the knowledge gained from literature and eventually the media.