A Phallic Ponder . . ., not news, but nicely discussed

[aramantha]

http://hogwartsprofessor.com/?p=120

Steven Greydanus, the Catholic film critic, once wrote me to say that he thought my ideas about the battle in Chamber of Secrets were risible; that story, he said, could as easily be understood as a Freudian adventure in phallic and yonic imagery (giant serpents, swords and broken wands, chutes and floods in the girls bathroom, etc) as a Morality Play. He saw these interpretations as exclusive rather than complementary so neither could be true rather than both. We return to the meaning of swords, wands, wand cores, and wand mastery in Deathly Hallows with a vengeance, and, necessarily, to how Ms. Rowling is using these phallic images. Men and women pursue more powerful wands, have their wands broken or taken, replaced or not, and the decisive battle turns on who is the Master of the Elder Wand. Harry ends the drama by a semi-miraculous “healing” of his broken holly and phoenix feather original. Is Ms. Rowling using wands as tokens of power, identity, ego, sexuality, or what?


Go into link -- about 30 responses follow, some of them pretty smart.

[aramantha]

Oooh -- suddenly came to me -- the Elder Wand may be code for Biggus Dickus (or am I showing my age too much, with intertextual referencing of The Life of Brian?)

[jemlibris]

Wands are for power, I'd say. The real phallic/sexual symbol is the basilisk from Chamber of Secrets, which also correlates with the somewhat tamer scaly monster purring in Harry's chest, when he first sees Ginny and Dean kissing behind the tapestry in HBP. And also with the murderously exploitative Diarycrux which summons the basilisk.

Now that the series has finished everything in Chamber of Secrets is about lust, friendship, fraud, true love and the use and misuse of sex. Even Moaning Myrtle who loves to perve on Harry, Cedric and Draco isn't called 'Moaning' for nothing, now is she? I'd say that during her lifetime she would be addicted to True Confessions magazines if they were around.

Though mind you that sounds too much like that colourful Aussie expression:
The one-eyed trouser snake. That Tom Riddle, Bigus Dickus, himself, might only see masculinity in terms of power though.