FitzGerald M
University of Texas, Department of English, Austin 78712.
J Homosex. 1990;19(4):55-65. doi: 10.1300/J082v19n04_04.
In her poem "Rapunzel," Anne Sexton maps out a model of lesbian etiology that at once parodies the model proposed by Freud and significantly amends it. Freud's famous model for female development, as he articulates it first in "Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes," and later in "Female Sexuality," may be profitably compared to the model implied by Sexton's poem. The female pre-Oedipal phase is crucially at stake in such a comparison, as Sexton's account suggests that the pleasures of the pre-Oedipal mother-daughter dyad are dangerously strong for the girl child, and seem to be the force that compels the majority of girls into the rechanneling of libidinal desire from the mother to the father. Sexton's poem emphasizes the continuous pressures exerted by the pre-Oedipal phase upon the psyche of the developing girl. Sexton's emphasis on the pre-Oedipal phase, and her depiction of heterosexual love, in "Rapunzel" and elsewhere, as regressive, suggests that the "normal" heterosexual female, who seeks a father figure in order to save herself from re-absorption into the primal mother-daughter dyad, is actually acting out an infantile fantasy of the devouring mother. The morbid irony of Sexton's "Rapunzel" stems from its depiction of a young woman who flees the boundary-less world of the pre-Oedipal state, only to resurrect the infantile fantasy of the devouring mother in the arms of a father substitute.
在她的诗作《长发公主》中，安妮·塞克斯顿勾勒出一种女同性恋病因学模式，该模式既戏仿了弗洛伊德提出的模式，又对其进行了重大修正。弗洛伊德关于女性发展的著名模式，他最初在《两性解剖学差异的一些心理后果》中阐述，后来在《女性性欲》中进一步阐述，与塞克斯顿诗作所暗示的模式相比会很有收获。在这样的比较中，前俄狄浦斯阶段的女性情况至关重要，因为塞克斯顿的描述表明，前俄狄浦斯阶段母女二元组的快乐对女童来说危险地强烈，似乎正是这种力量迫使大多数女孩将力比多欲望从母亲转向父亲。塞克斯顿的诗强调了前俄狄浦斯阶段对成长中女孩心理持续施加的压力。塞克斯顿在《长发公主》及其他作品中对前俄狄浦斯阶段的强调，以及她将异性恋爱情描绘为退行性的，这表明那个为了避免重新融入原始母女二元组而寻求父亲形象的“正常”异性恋女性，实际上是在演绎吞噬母亲的婴儿幻想。塞克斯顿《长发公主》的病态讽刺源于其对一位年轻女子的描绘，她逃离了前俄狄浦斯状态无边界的世界，却在一个父亲替代品的怀抱中重新唤起了吞噬母亲的婴儿幻想。
