Give a detailed outline of the Freudian theory on psychosexual development in which the female child possesses a never fully resolved Oedipal complex, in your outline provide the stages of psychosexual development but concentrate on the effects of castration anxiety which turn the female child from active sexual desires to passivity when the Oedipal complex begins. Then, using Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”, show how the girl protagonist idealizes the father’s work and presence as meaningful and desires to be acknowledged and of use to him as opposed to her attitude towards her mother and the household’s domestic chores and spaces. Finally, show how the story, despite the lack of sexualized content, still illustrates the Oedipal complex and resulting castration anxiety that Freud theorizes.
This is what each paragraph should look like:
Paragraph 1 – Thesis.
Paragraph 2: In this section outline the three stages of sexual development for males and females. You can finish this section with a brief outline of male castration anxiety which results in social acceptance.
Paragraph 3: In this section outline female castration anxiety and its resolution. Make sure you get to the whole section on where the female child shifts to a socially acceptable male – there’s also a possibility that you could apply the concept of vanity to her that is in the lecture notes.
Paragraph 4: Transition Notes: Either do this at the end of paragraph 3 or write a whole paragraph in relation to it. Transition -explain how Freud’s strict psychosexual development theory is not particularly useful in analysing the story but how the separate stages within it, especially in relation to the rejection of the mother, the idolization of the father and the movement from active self idealization to passive(the dreams) can be understood as her psychosocial development which is deeply analogous to the Freud.
Paragraph 5: Using QUOTATIONS – show how the girl idealizes her father’s work as important and meaningful and his presence as dominant in her life. Concentrate your discussions on the separation of male/female work and masculine/femine status in that social/home environment.
Paragraph 6: Contrast the father with the mother and using QUOTATIONS – show how she distances herself from her mother’s work and presence. Again, reference the “analogous” (it can be compared in certain ways but not exactly) Freudian terms.
Paragraph 7: In this section you need to apply the theory (especially in relation to social castration) to the explanation of the story(separation of masculine/feminine status, active/passive self idealisation) that you’ve brought forward in the last two paragraphs.
