Throughout her work, Angela Carter continually distorts and transforms conventional ideas. Whether Carter puts a feminist spin on traditional stories or challenges conventional thinking by raising questions, her writing reveals innovative ideas. Her latest novel, Wise Children, is no exception. In this novel, Carter creates the character Dora Chance, who attempts to write her life story in response to Freud's work Dora, an analysis of a case of hysteria, in which he analyzes the events of the life of a young girl. Carter plays on Freud's interpretations of sex as perversion by recreating situations from Dora Chance's life in Wise Children; in this book, she experiences sexual desire and activities as healthy, pleasurable, deep, and even comical. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Throughout Freud's Dora, the psychologist emphasizes sex as the root cause of hysteria and of neurotic action, and attributes Dora's problems to her exposure to sexual knowledge. and sexual experiences. Freud claims that Dora received much of her knowledge of sexual activity from her childhood governess. Freud describes the governess as “a single woman…educated and of advanced opinions” (29). By "advanced opinions" Freud means advanced sexual conceptions, which he clarifies by stating: "The governess read all kinds of books on sexual life and similar subjects, and she spoke about them to the girl, while asking her . ..not to tell her parents about their conversations" (29). Because the governess asked Dora not to tell her parents, Freud assumes that their sexual discussions were somehow perverse or taboo, thus implying a dark side of sex that is somehow "inappropriate." Furthermore, Freud notes that the governess opens Dora's eyes to her father's sexual promiscuity in an act of jealousy (29-30). Freud positions the governess as a sexual villain who disrupts Dora's life and impacts her negatively. Carter parallels the character of the governess with the figure of Dora and Nora Chance's caregiver, Grandmother Chance, who provides education. positive sexuality to the twins Dora Chance, who tells her own life story, positively recalls the knowledge that Grandma passed on to the twins. First, Dora describes Grandma Chance as a nudist who raised the twins in their. youth. She says: "She never wore stitches... She thought it was good for us children to have the air and the sun on our skin, so we... often frolicked naked in the garden, great astonishment of the neighbors” (27). By practicing nudism, Grandma taught the girls to be comfortable with their bodies. Grandma Chance also provided Dora and Nora with “comprehensive sex education” (84). Dora explains that before her encounters with men, “[she] had never seen a naked man before, even though Grandma had drawn pictures for us” (85). Dora mentions this sex education just before describing her first sexual encounter on her 17th birthday, thus emphasizing the fact that she considers her grandmother's education to be the foundation of her sex life. While Freud depicts Dora's sex education by the governess in a negative light, Carter offers positive sex education to Dora through Grandma Chance. Just as Carter exploits Freud's idea that premature sex education has a negative influence on Dora's life, she also emphasizes the characternatural of oral sex - rather than describing it as a perversion, as Freud does. Freud claims that Dora knows about oral sex only through her negative sexual upbringing (a premature and inappropriate education for a young girl), and that this knowledge leads her to fantasize about oral sex with her father's friend Herr K ( 41-43). ). Furthermore, Freud describes oral sex as an “excessively repugnant and perverse fantasy” (45). Although he claims that young women experiencing the male organ who took pleasure in thumb sucking while children naturally fantasize about oral sex, he considers the act itself a perversion. Carter distorts Freud's interpretation of oral sex in Dora Chance's encounter with her first sexual partner on her 17th birthday. Carter uses Dora's first encounter to show the naturalness of sexual intercourse and the variations of sexual intimacy. Before Dora has sex with the young man, he approaches her naked and Dora focuses on his penis. She states: “There was a small clear drop of moisture quivering on the tip, it came to me to lick” (85). This example seems to fit with Freud's assertion that young women with prior knowledge of the male organ will think about oral sex. However, Carter uses this incident to prove that oral sex is natural and not a perverted fantasy. Dora's use of the phrase "It came to me to lick him" speaks to the naturalness of this act. In describing her own encounters with sex, Dora effectively states that she does not view oral sex in the same repugnant way as Freud. Just as Freud views oral sex as a perversion, he also views sexual interaction as the root of disease. In Dora, Freud focuses on Dora's past sexual experiences, fantasies, and knowledge as the root of her physical ailments and hysteria. Freud states: “For where there is no knowledge of sexual processes, even in the unconscious, no hysterical symptoms will appear; and where there is hysteria, there can no longer be any question of “innocence of mind”” (42). Freud believes that sexual intercourse is the cause of mental illness. Additionally, Freud asserts that sexual encounters and fantasies cause the physical ailments associated with hysteria as well as other ailments. For example, Freud states that “nocturnal enuresis…has no more probable cause than masturbation” (66). Furthermore, he states that masturbation causes continual discharge in young girls (68). In both cases, Freud explains to his patient that her sexual habit of masturbation causes her vaginal region to excrete “negative” substances: urine and discharge. In doing so, Freud promotes a view of sexual encounters as a source of negative evils. In the same way that Cater objects to Freud's interpretation of oral sex and sex education, she also denounces Freud's argument that sex causes disease. In Wise Children, although sex can cause heartache and even anxiety, as in Tiffany's case, these are usually the result of the breakdown of long-standing romantic relationships that also include sex, and are not strictly the negative effects of the sexual act. Similarly, Cater depicts happiness and pleasure as the result of sexual encounters. For example, when Nora has her first sexual encounter with an older man at age 16 in an alley, Dora describes the experience in positive terms. She explains: "Don't be sad for her. Don't run away with the idea that it was a sordid, furtive, miserable thing, to make love for the first time on a cold night in aalley... He was the one she wanted, warts and all, she would have him, by hook or by crook" (81). Describing a situation in which Nora has sex in dirty conditions with a man unadmirable, Dora could assert the horrible nature of sexual relations However, she warns the reader to refrain from doing so by describing the encounter in a positive light The sexual encounter takes place on Nora's terms: she knows what. she wants it and she knows when she wants it. Nora gets pregnant after her night with this gentleman, but Dora makes it clear that Nora doesn't see this as a negative consequence. Instead, when Nora has a miscarriage, Dora explains: “Nora cried her eyes out, but not because she had lost [the man]… No. She cried over the loss of the baby” (81). layer is the negative. In this story, Dora does not emphasize the negative effects of sex, instead focusing on Nora's control over her sexual desires and her maternal loss. Although Carter depicts serious love stories between couples (such as Dora's night with her young man and Nora's relationship with her longtime American boyfriend, Tony), she also presents the lighter side of sexual relationships. One such example occurs during Dora's first sexual encounter with the young man she is in love with. Dora explains that the young man is actually Nora's boyfriend and only sleeps with Dora on the night of her birthday because Nora agrees to play a trick on him in bed. Nora agrees to let Dora sleep with him, because he cannot decipher the difference between them (83-84). Although this relationship evokes feelings of true love in Dora, a bed trick is a traditional comedic device. By using such a trick to create feelings in Dora, Carter shows how sex can be both serious and lighthearted at the same time. Another example in which Carter directly opposed Freud's negative view of sex was during the production of the film What! You will be!. On the set of the film, when Peregrine removes a bird from the crotch of Melchior's costume which causes a huge bulge, the bird repeats the phrase "It's not a sin!" dancing around the scenery (133). By placing the bird in the crotch of Melchior's pants, Carter wants the reader to view the bird as a sex symbol. Carter depicts the bird as a dancing, singing messenger of sexual freedom – an indirect response to Freud's view of sex as a perversion. Not only does Carter depict the light-hearted nature of sex, but she also opposes the idea of ​​sex as perversion by describing sex as an act that everyone engages in. Carter gives almost every character in the story, including supporting characters, sexual encounters. For example, Tristam has a sexual relationship with Tiffany and Saskia, Genghis Khan propositions Nora, Peregrine Hazard is known for his sexual exploits, and Dora and Nora both have numerous sexual partners. many of whom cannot be named. Additionally, Carter includes a scene in which a multitude of individuals have sex with their respective partners at the same time. During the burning of Lynde Court's Twelfth Night costume ball at Melchior Manor, Dora and her first sexual partner have sex again. After finishing, Dora notes that she and her lover "weren't the only ones who succumbed to nature" during the disaster (103). Many cast members also had sex during the fire. She states “that there was an orgiastic aspect to that night of disaster” (103). By using the expression "to succumb to nature", Dora once again emphasizesplus his view of sex as natural. Second, by having all the characters have sex, Carter emphasizes the fact that sexual desires are a universal experience; everyone commits sexual acts, and an act cannot be perverse if it is the norm. Just as Carter uses the sexuality of a variety of characters to counter Freud's idea that sexuality is perverse, she focuses specifically on Dora Chance's sexual encounters to counter Freud's analysis of Dora's sexuality. Carter provides a parallel character to Freud's Herr K in the character of Peregrine, Dora Chance's uncle. It is evident that Carter considers Peregrine to be Herr K's parallel for several reasons. First, Peregrine and Dora interact frequently, just as Herr K often does with Freud's Dora. Second, Peregrine is the older male character who is related (although through family rather than friendship) to Dora's father. Third, Peregrine treats Dora the same way Herr K treats Freud's Dora. Freud writes that Herr K often gave Dora elaborate gifts (52) and that Peregrine lavished gifts ranging from expensive toys and food to kittens on Dora throughout his life (226). Finally, Dora is sexually attracted to Peregrine, just as Freud speculates that Dora is attracted to Herr K. On several occasions, Dora Chance notes her attraction to her uncle. Dora remembers her first meeting with Peregrine: "Ooh, wasn't he a handsome young man in those days. If I find myself describing him in the language of pulp romance, then you must forgive me - there has always had this quality in Perry” (30). In this quote, Dora shows her excitement at his attractiveness despite being his niece in the same way that Freud assumes that Dora is physically attracted to Herr K despite his status as an older friend of the family. Once the reader sees that Carter intentionally created the attraction between Dora Chance and Peregrine to mimic the attraction between Dora and Freud's Herr K, one can easily see how Carter uses the relationship to once again apply elements of Freud's case to refute his argument that sex is a perversion. In Freud's Dora, Herr K sexually proposes to Dora (19). trauma that caused Dora's hysteria, which he indicates throughout the text: "Dora told me about an earlier episode with Herr K., which was... calculated to act as sexual trauma" ( 21). This encounter includes a kiss from Herr K, although he also makes sexual propositions to her at first (19). Freud states that it was the traumatic events that led to his hysteria. Although he sometimes claims that Dora feels attraction to Herr K, even fantasizing about performing oral sex on him, he always characterizes these events as traumatic and therefore negative. Once again, Freud describes the girl's sexual experiences as negative, despite the girl's attraction to the man. To counter Freud's claims, Carter creates a positive sexual relationship between Dora Chance and his Herr K figure, Peregrine. First, Dora continually portrays Peregrine as a father figure in one instance and as an object of attraction in another. In most of the text, she separates these descriptions. However, she combines these descriptions when she speaks of Peregrine as a father figure and also as an object of desire at her father's birthday party: "[he] really loved us...he saw the girls we would always be under the thin, withered shell that time had imposed on us because...he was also faithful, and, where he loved, he never changed, nor saw any change” (208). This part of the quote.