Professor DeVries

English 3150

4 December 2009

                                               Distorted Archetypes

       When one speaks of a hero, one normally imagines a strong, capable, and good protagonist with an altruistically humanitarian attitude; a villain, therefore, would evoke images of an evil and unlikable foil to these character traits. However, this is not quite the case in Joss Whedon’s short, internet-based musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: through musical numbers composed by Joss and Jed Whedon, it is evident that the characters’ traits do not conform to such archetypes. For example, the evil-motivated Dr. Horrible is actually a sympathetic underdog— a “bad guy” operating as the story’s protagonist. Accordingly, the seemingly heroic Captain Hammer is an overly confident bully who lacks the moral, social, and political responsibility and compassion associated with conventional heroes. Also, their mutual love-interest, Penny, is overwhelmingly good-natured and practically oblivious to the real objectives of both men. Select songs from this musical, such as “A Man’s Gotta Do,” “So They Say,” and “Slipping,” best capture the depth of these characters, therein revealing a distorted version of the classic, archetypal characterizations and images of a “good” hero and an “evil” villain.

       One of the opening act’s compositions,” A Man’s Gotta Do,” illustrates the first encounter of a hero-versus-villain struggle between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. During this scene, Dr. Horrible is remotely-controlling a van which is carrying a precious chemical compound required for a weapon-in-progress. However, the remote malfunctions, inadvertently putting Penny’s— who is on the streets petitioning for a selfless and humanitarian cause— life in danger and thus allows Captain Hammer to intervene, singing: “Stand back everyone, nothing here to see/ Just imminent danger, in the middle of it, me” (Whedon, Jed). While this scene initiates a situation in which Captain Hammer could display his heroic forces in the face of Dr. Horrible’s “horribleness,” it rather highlights Horrible’s true determination and his concern for Penny and displays Captain Hammer’s arrogance and feigned heroism. For further instance, Horrible declares,

              A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

              Don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through

              all that matters: taking matters into your own hands. (Whedon, Jed)

This statement clearly provides that Dr. Horrible will conscientiously do what he has “gotta do” in order to execute his goals of evil; though, perhaps, it is reasonable to assume this even applies to his efforts of wooing Penny. Adversely, while Captain Hammer concurs that a man has to do what he must, he follows it by stating, “Seems destiny ends with me saving [Penny]/ When you’re the best, you can’t rest, what’s the use” (Whedon, Jed). This sentiment undoubtedly suggests Hammer’s own acknowledgment of his “good guy” status and illuminates his persistent self-aggrandizement: Captain Hammer continues inflating his reputation by concluding that the situation at hand “needs [his] saving expertise” (Whedon, Jed) Penny validates this claim, ignorantly, singing,

               Thank you Hammer man, I don’t think I can

               Explain how important it was that you stopped the van

               …Thank you sir for saving me. (Whedon, Jed)

Obviously, she is unaware of Dr. Horrible’s intervention— that he actually stopped the van with the remote control— and is therefore successfully swayed by Captain Hammer’s superficial heroism. Dr. Horrible, understandably annoyed, remarks at his situation,

              Are you kidding?

              …Did you notice that he threw you in the garbage?

              I stopped the van, the remote control was in my hand. (Whedon, Jed)

Furthermore, this lyric displays how Dr. Horrible, though motivated toward the label of “evil,” prevails as the more genuine and sympathetic character— since he actually saved Penny’s life— instead of the egotistic Captain Hammer. However, Penny still succumbs to the long-standing and stereotypical façade of Hammer’s heroism, for he is the reputed “good guy,” and dismisses Dr. Horrible as the evil villain that threatened her life.

       Moreover, the song “So They Say,” offers similar insight to the characters’ roles, such that it comments on the media’s perception them, as the titular phrase inherently suggests. For instance, an average, blue-collar worker states,

              So they say

              Captain Hammer’s become a crusader

              Political – He’s cleaning up the streets. (Whedon, Joss)

However, the real sociopolitical effort belongs to Penny: she asked Captain Hammer to sign her petition for the homeless shelter because, as the lyrics indicate, the media expects that the supposed hero is morally good and socio-politically compassionate, therein unconsciously substantiating Captain Hammer’s generic and shallow heroic image. Similarly, it appears that Captain Hammer’s motives for attempting to assist Penny were for spiteful and sensual reasons: he obviously wanted to humiliate his enemy, Dr. Horrible, as well as seduce Penny for his own interest and conquests. He arrogantly and disrespectfully croons, “This is so nice/ Just might sleep with the same girl twice” (Whedon, Joss). Even when Penny thanks him for helping with the homeless shelter— a project aided and promoted by his celebrity status no doubt— he replies assuredly, “Thanks to me!”

       Meanwhile, the pragmatic and pitiable Dr. Horrible is aware of Captain Hammer and Penny’s new courtship, and thus insists,

              There’s no happy ending

              So they say

              Not for me anyway

              Stop pretending

              Take the chance to build a brand new day. (Whedon, Joss)

Since he pursues a “brand new day” in the face of conflict, one can infer that this active resistance to being defeated is an honorable quality, one that a hero or “good guy“ may possess. Persistently in the second act, it is obvious that Captain Hammer is not a noble, selfless hero and Dr. Horrible is not as unlikable as a categorical villain.

       The lyrical content of the penultimate song “Slipping” offers yet another glimpse of the theme of good versus evil, and its corruption from its conventional rendition: after he attempts to assassinate Captain Hammer at a banquet for Penny’s homeless shelter, Dr. Horrible sings to his enemy and some stunned bystanders,

              Why can’t they see what I see?

              Why can’t they hear the lies?

              Maybe the fee’s too pricey for them to realize

              Your disguise is slipping. (Whedon, Joss)

Here, Dr. Horrible is addressing a now visibly vulnerable and weak Captain Hammer and begging the audience to realize Captain Hammer’s entire career was simply as a phony, disguised “hero.” Although Dr. Horrible seems to be quite malicious in this instance, he makes an important comment about the commercialization of the heroic image that people like the fraudulent and defeated Captain Hammer embody:

              Heroes are over with

              Look at him – not a word

              Hammer, meet nail

              Then I win – then I get

              Everything I ever

              All the cash – all the fame

              And social change. (Whedon, Joss)

The last three lines of this excerpt, specifically, echo the circumstances of how Captain Hammer was able to offer assistance and leverage to Penny’s program for the homeless: Hammer was capable through his celebrity and his supposed superhero stature to persuade the city to save the building for Penny while simultaneously boosting his own ego— hence, Horrible’s remark: “all the fame/ and social change.” Still, as Dr. Horrible’s song reflects his rage and concludes that there is “no time for mercy,” he inevitably considers the well-being of his beloved Penny, in which he is pleased initially that he cannot find her: “No sign of Penny – good. / I would give anything not to have her see…” (Whedon, Joss). Therefore, although a misanthropic villainy is apparent here, Dr. Horrible exposes for the final time his true concern for Penny and Captain Hammer’s heroic ineffectiveness, and thus complements the theme of an inverted representation of good and evil.

        Clearly, the transposed exemplification of good and evil in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a prevalent theme. Dr. Horrible, contrary to an unpleasant name, acts as an authentic and sympathetic protagonist, while the Captain Hammer character— the suspected superhero— portrays an obnoxious antagonist, one that is truly a menacing contrast to what is morally good about Dr. Horrible; their mutual love interest, Penny, is virtually unaware of Captain Hammer’s ego-centrism and Dr. Horrible’s sincere interest and concern for her. Thus, the aforementioned featured songs help substantiate these assumed roles: the lyrical content of each do not just simply complement the plot, but effectively illuminate how the characters operate as uniquely distorted archetypes of good versus evil, hero versus villain.

“A Man’s Gotta Do.” Whedon, Jed. From Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion. Hulu. 2009.  5 October 2009

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion. Hulu. 2009. http://drhorrible.com/linernotes.html 28 September 2009.

“Slipping.” Whedon, Joss. From Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris. Hulu. 2009 .http://drhorrible.com/linernotes.html 5 October 2009

“So They Say.” Whedon, Joss. From Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. Hulu. 2009.  http://drhorrible.com/linernotes.html  5 October 2009

Brainstorm of furthering my literary studies:

I would be interested to take a closer look at the main theories in literature…our time and discussion on them were pretty brief.  I would also like to be introduced to other examples and applications of literature in general.  Additionally, I think it would be beneficial and interesting to study linguistic and language theories, to see just how language and literature have evolved.

In his short story Missolonghi 1824, John Crowley artistically portrays the ultimate days of the English Romantic poet Lord Byron, who suffered and died from a cold in Missolonghi, Greece, in April of 1824. Crowley alludes to biographical details to depict Byron’s narration of a youthful encounter with a mythical satyr to his beloved servant, Loukas. However, Crowley creates an unsettled and ambiguous state of consciousness at the close of the story, one in which the distinction of Byron’s reality and a dreaming subconscious is left unresolved. Since this story principally pertains to this hazy relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness and specifically the matter of dreams, a psychoanalytical approach—in accordance to the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud and his theory of dream interpretation—to the examination of this story appears to be most prudent. No scholarship of this issue has been created as of yet, so this essay may well be the first to explore and examine the literature’s likenesses to Byron’s life in accordance Freudian concepts, such as the symbolic use of the satyr through of condensation and secondary elaboration, in this short story. In doing so, it will thus investigate the application of Freudian theory as Crowley crafts a believable extension of Lord Byron and his unconscious mind.

Although not overtly stated until the concluding author’s note, many textual clues indicate that this short story indeed refers to the biography of Lord Byron. One aspect of his life that is particularly vital to this story is Byron’s notoriety for his frequent—and sometimes homosexual or incestuous—sexual exploits. For example, along with having an illegitimate child with Claire Clairmont and an affair with his presumable half-sister Augusta Leigh, it is noted that his attendance at Harrow School and his friendships to younger boys “gave the first impetus to his sexual ambivalence,” and that during his final stay in Greece he suffered “the emotional strain of his friendship with Loukas Chalandritsanos, a Greek boy” (“The Life of Lord Byron”). This incidence is reflected by Crowley as the story opens with the misinterpretation of sexual advances of the then-unidentified Englishman—Byron—from the servant boy, Loukas: the protagonist states, “‘It’s not your fault; you have swept me to impropriety. I misunderstood your kindness, that is all…” (Crowley 1). As he aged and became ill, friends such as Percy Bysshe Shelley noticed his “hair long and turning grey, looking older than his years, and suck in promiscuity” (“The Life of Lord Byron): this is seen in Crowley’s work by his descriptions of the Englishman being “thirty-six, and looked and felt far older: sick and lame…his moustache white—foolish to think he could have been the object of Loukas’s affection” (10). Further, he continues to evidence this Byronic attitude as he states to the servant, “You see, in England, where people are chiefly hypocrites and thus easily scandalized, the offer that I just foolishly made to you, my dear, should it have become public knowledge, would have got us both…in a deal of very hot water” (Crowley 3). Here again, this statement undoubtedly mirrors the scandalous activities and persuasions of the real Lord Byron.

Furthermore in the story, in order to put Loukas at ease after this improper advancement, Byron relates to him an encounter with a humanoid beast in the “ancient forests” of Aracady, or “Pan’s country,” during his first trip to Greece (Crowley 4). Not only does the narrative describe this creature as having “ridged recurving horns that rose from the matted hair of his head” and his “sex, big, held up against his belly by a fold of fur, like a dog’s or a goat’s,” (Crowley 9), but therein blatantly alludes to a common description of a satyr—a “male [companion] of Pan …that roamed the woods and mountains” that “are often associated with sex drive and…often portrayed…with perpetual erections” (“Satyr”). Therefore, this description is also employed as an allusion to Byron himself, who, as aforementioned, had an adequate sex drive to fuel his disreputable exploits. As satyrs are genrally understood to be debauched and even rougish, Byron’s scandalous behavior and reputation ostensibly connect to a satyr’s “own power of unrefusable ravishment” (Crowley 10). Crowley’s narrator straight-forwardly states, “He had accepted the love that he attracted, and sought more, and had that too. Satyr he had been called, often enough” (10).

At the close of this story, however, Crowley throws a narrative curveball: “He raised himself to his elbows. What had he dreamed? What story had he told?” (10). Thus, it is unclear to the reader, too, at this point to determine which aspects of Byron’s fantastical story of his encounter with the satyr were intended as truth and what had been unconsciously invented: what may have started as an allegorical tale for Crowley’s Byron to relate to his servant boy to explain his rampant sexual desires has perhaps more accurately become an unconscious metaphor that is more personal and revealing to Byron himself.

Therein, if one is to recognize this story as a dream, it would then be of interest to understand the relationship Crowley creates between Byron’s consciousness and unconsciousness through a psychoanalytic perspective, specifically that of dream interpretation. As Eagleton asserts in his analysis of Freudian theory, “…the unconscious is…completely indifferent to reality…The ‘royal road’ to the unconscious is dreams” (136). Crowley, by posing this story as a possible dream, attempts to tap into Byron’s subconscious by employing the biographical knowledge he has of the poet. Because of this, it is foremost to assume that the short story will deliberately make metaphorical connection to Byron’s real life, for the reader and Crowley have absolutely no way of knowing exactly what Byron would have been thinking of consciously or unconsciously; in his The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud asks:

But how, then, are we to imagine the psychic condition of the sleeper which precedes dreaming? Do all the dream-thoughts exist side by side, or do they pursue on another, or are there several simultaneous trains of thought, proceeding from different centres, which simultaneously meet? (321)

No way of knowing what the real Byron thought or dreamt of exists, so it is interesting and creative that Crowley would embark on such a task and still effectively relate to Byron.

Moreover, because of this ineffability of Byron’s mind and because the satyr embodies the aforementioned similarities to him, it is an obvious choice for Crowley to use the satyr symbolically; it is such a palpable symbol that its conspicuousness reinforces that fictitious nature of the story. What is interesting by this narrative move by Crowley, however, is that, given the subjective nature of the human mind, he utilizes this symbol to be self-reflective to Byron: this is Byron’s dream, or so one could think, so Crowley is effectively, in Freudian terms, condensing Byron’s own actions and behaviors insofar that he identifies himself as a metaphorical satyr (Freud 320). To state another way,

…the unconscious is rather poor in techniques for representing what it has to say, being largely confined to visual images, and so must often hastily translate a verbal significance into a visual one: it might seize upon the image of a tennis racket to make a point about some shady dealing. (Eagleton 137)

Crowley indicates Byron’s hedonistic conduct was so prevalent that even Byron himself had to be at least subconsciously aware of it. Additionally, since Byron is indeed noted for being born with a clubbed foot (“The Life of Lord Byron”), it appears Crowley deliberately intended to incorporate a sense of self-consciousness and comment on a fine example of physiognomy, or a physical manifestation of internal characteristics: “Cloven: that foot the Christians tool from Pan and Pan’s sons to give to their Devil. The poet has always taken his own clubbed foot as a sort of sign of his kinship with that race” (Crowley 8). Clearly, it is ambitious that Crowley would create a situation in which he simulates Byron’s subconscious condensation.

Further, Freud introduced a concept known as secondary elaboration or revision, in which the result of this process’ “efforts is that the dream loses the appearance of absurdity and incoherence, and approaches of an intelligible experience” (Freud 456); as Eagleton explains, “‘secondary revision’, consists in the reorganization of the dream so as to present it in the form of a relatively consistent and comprehensible narrative. Secondary revision systematizes the dream, fills in its gaps and smooths over its contradictions, reorders its chaotic elements into a more coherent fable” (157). This notion is particularly applicable to the logistics of this story because it insures that Byron’s story makes sense; that is to say, if the reader came to the end of the story after reading a chain of absurd and unconnected ideas, it would be more obvious that it was a dream. To clarify, Freud quotes Havelock Ellis:

“As a matter of fact, we might even imagine the sleeping consciousness as saying to itself: ‘Here comes our master, Waking Consciousness, who attaches such mighty importance to reason and logic and so forth. Quick! gather things up, put them in order – any order will do – before he enters to take possession.” (464)

So, although the absurdity is evident because the tale dealt with a mythological creature, the fact that it was still fluid and coherent before the narrator asks if had all been a dream—that it was indeed an overall “intelligible experience”—demonstrates that the structure of a dream that has undergone this secondary elaboration.

However, Freud makes an interesting comment on secondary elaboration, connecting it to waking, conscious thought: “It is natural…to create order…to construct relations, and to subject it to the requirements of an intelligible coherence,” Freud wrote (463). For example, people unknowingly make spelling or grammatical mistakes and fail to catch them because we imagine what is supposed to be written or how it is meant to sound (Freud 463), thus allowing ourselves to neglect the mistakes in order to find logic and consistency. Still, though, the notion of this common human phenomenon makes the claim of secondary elaboration that much stronger: its common prevalence in one’s waking life reflects the likelihood of its existence and role in this story as a component of Byron’s unconscious, dreaming mind.

Although other theories could likely be applied and utilized in an analysis of this story, what makes the psychoanalytic, dream-interpretive approach so intriguing is how it highlights Crowley’s challenge of manipulating and creating Byron’s unconscious mind; by using biographical information, one could argue that Crowley effectively formulates and simulates the deeply subjective matter of Byron’s subconscious. In this undertaking, Crowley may or may not have knowingly considered the psychoanalytical approaches in his formation of his short story, yet still purposely used the metaphor of the satyr as an appropriate condensation of Byron’s behavior on public and personal levels to reflect his debatably real, allegorical, or unconscious encounter with a satyr. Likewise, as this essay takes this psychoanalytical approach, the mechanics and prevalence of secondary elaboration are validated: in this way, the story unfolds in a coherent manner, and thus, until fictional Byron awakens and the reader approaches those final unsettling questions—“Had he dreamed? What story had he told?”—this dream is actually logical. By delving into the psychoanalytical aspects of Crowley’s Missolonghi 1824, the story becomes much more rich and ingenious.

Crowley, John. Missolonghi 1824. N.d. 11 Nov. 2009. http://kdevries.net/teaching/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/John-Crowley-Missolonghi-1824.pdf

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Malden: Blackwell, 1996. 11 Nov. 2009 http://kdevries.net/teaching/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Eagleton.pdf

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. & ed. A.A. Brill. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Modern Library, 1938.

“The Life of Lord Byron.” n.d. http://englishhistory.net/byron/life.html 15 November 2009.

“Satyrs,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 15 Nov. 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyr

In John Crowley’s short story Missolonghi 1824, he artistically portrays the ultimate days of the English Romantic poet Lord Byron, who suffered and died from a cold in Missolonghi, Greece, in April of 1824. Crowley alludes to biographical details to depict Byron’s narration to his beloved servant, Loukas, of a youthful encounter with a mythical satyr. However, Crowley creates an unsettled and ambiguous state of consciousness at the close of the story, one in which the distinction of Byron’s reality and a dreaming subconscious is left unresolved. Since this story principally pertains to this hazy relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness and specifically the matter of dreams, a psychoanalytical approach—in accordance to the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud and his theories of dream interpretation—to the examination of this story appears to be most prudent. No scholarship of this issue has been created as of yet, so this essay may will be the first to explore and examine the literature’s likenesses to Byron’s life as well as the relevant application of psychoanalytic theory to the dream sequence—and specifically the symbol of the satyr—in this short story. In doing so, it will thus investigate the application of Freudian theory as Crowley crafts a believable extension of Lord Byron and his unconscious mind.

Although not overtly stated until the concluding author’s note, many textual clues indicate that this short story indeed refers to the biography of Lord Byron. One aspect of his life that is particularly vital to this story is Byron’s notoriety for his frequent—and sometimes homosexual or incestuous—sexual exploits. For example, along with having an illegitimate child with Claire Clairmont and an affair with his presumable half-sister Augusta Leigh, it is noted that his attendance at Harrow School and this friendships to younger boys “gave the first impetus to his sexual ambivalence,” and that during his final stay in Greece, he suffered “the emotional strain of his friendship with Loukas Chalandritsanos, a Greek boy” (englishhistory.net). This incidence is reflected by Crowley as the story opens with the misinterpretation of sexual advances of the then-unidentified Englishman—Lord Byron—from the servant boy, Loukas: the protagonist states, “‘It’s not your fault; you have swept me to impropriety. I misunderstood your kindness, that is all…” (Crowley 1). Further, he continues to evidence this Byronic attitude as he states to the servant, “You see, in England, where people are chiefly hypocrites and thus easily scandalized, the offer that I just foolishly made to you, my dear, should it have become public knowledge, would have got us both…in a deal of very hot water” (Crowley 3). Here again, this statement undoubtedly mirrors the scandalous activities and persuasions of Byron.

Furthermore, in Missolonghi 1824, in order to put Loukas at ease after the improper advancement, Byron relates to him an encounter with a humanoid beast in the “ancient forests” of Aracady, or “Pan’s country,” during his first trip to Greece (Crowley 4). Not only does the narrative describe this creature as having “ridged recurving horns that rose from the matted hair of his head” and his “sex, big, held up against his belly by a fold of fur, like a dog’s or a goat’s,” (Crowley 9), but therein blatantly alludes to a common description of a satyr—a “male [companion] of Pan …that roamed the woods and mountains” that “are often associated with sex drive and…often portrayed…with perpetual erections” (“Satyrs”). Therefore, this description is also employed as an allusion to Byron himself, who, as aforementioned, had an adequate sex drive to fuel his disreputable exploits. “He had accepted the love that he attracted, and sought more, and had that too. Satyr he had been called, often enough,” Crowley’s narrator states (10).

At the close of this story, however, Crowley throws a narrative curveball: “He raised himself to his elbows. What had he dreamed? What story had he told?” (10). Thus, it is unclear to the reader, too, at this point to determine which aspects of Byron’s fantastical story of his encounter with the satyr were intended as truth and what had been unconsciously invented: what may have started as an allegorical tale for Crowley’s Byron to relate to his servant boy to explain his rampant sexual desires has perhaps more accurately become an unconscious metaphor that is personal and revealing to Byron himself.

Therein, if one is to recognize this story as a dream, it would then be of interest to understand Crowley’s relationship between Byron’s consciousness and unconsciousness through a perspective of psychoanalysis and dream interpretation. As Eagleton asserts in his analysis of Freudian theory, “…the unconscious is…completely indifferent to reality…The ‘royal road’ to the unconscious is dreams” (136). Crowley, by posing this story as a possible dream, attempts to tap into Byron’s subconscious by employing the biographical knowledge he has of the poet. Because of this, it is foremost to assume that the short story will deliberately make metaphorical connection to Byron’s real life, for the reader and Crowley have absolutely no way of knowing exactly what Byron would have been thinking of consciously or unconsciously; in his The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud asks:
“But how, then, are we to imagine the psychic condition of the sleeper which
precedes dreaming? Do all the dream-thoughts exist side by side, or do they
pursue on another, or are there several simultaneous trains of thought, proceeding
from different centres, which simultaneously meet?” (321).
No way of knowing what the real Byron thought or dreamt of exists, so it is interesting and creative that Crowley would embark on such a task and still effectively relate to Byron.

Therein, since no one could possibly truly understand Byron’s own mind other than Byron himself and because the satyr embodies the aforementioned similarities to him, it is an obvious choice for Crowley to use the satyr symbolically; it is such a palpable symbol that its conspicuousness reinforces that fictitious nature of the story. What is interesting by this narrative move by Crowley, however, is that, given the subjective nature of the human mind, he utilizes this symbol to be self-reflective to Byron: this is Byron’s dream, or so one could think, so Crowley is effectively, in Freudian terms, condensing Byron’s own actions and behaviors insofar that he identifies himself as a metaphorical satyr (Freud 320). To state another way,
“…the unconscious is rather poor in techniques for representing what it has to say, being largely confined to visual images, and so must often hastily translate a verbal significance into a visual one: it might seize upon the image of a tennis racket to make a point about some shady dealing” (Eagleton 137).
Crowley indicates Byron’s hedonistic conduct was so prevalent that even Byron himself had to be at least subconsciously aware of it. Additionally, since Byron is indeed noted for being born with a clubbed foot (englishhistory.net), it appears Crowley deliberately intended to incorporate a sense of self-consciousness and comment on a fine example of physiognomy: “Cloven: that foot the Christians tool from Pan and Pan’s sons to give to their Devil. The poet has always taken his own clubbed foot as a sort of sign of his kinship with that race” (Crowley 8). Clearly, it is ambitious that Crowley would create a situation in which he simulates Byron’s subconscious condensation.

Further, Freud introduced a concept known as secondary elaboration or revision, in which the result of this process’ “efforts is that the dream loses the appearance of absurdity and incoherence, and approaches of an intelligible experience” (Freud 456); as Eagleton explains, “‘secondary revision’, consists in the reorganization of the dream so as to present it in the form of a relatively consistent and comprehensible narrative. Secondary revision systematizes the dream, fills in its gaps and smooths over its contradictions, reorders its chaotic elements into a more coherent fable” (157) . This notion is particularly applicable to the logistics of this story because it insures that Byron’s story makes sense; that is to say, if the reader came to the end of the story after reading a chain of absurd and unconnected ideas, it would be more obvious that it was a dream. So, although the absurdity can be seen in that the tale dealt with a mythological creature, the fact that is still was fluid and coherent before the narrator asks if had all been a dream—that it was overall an “intelligible experience”—indicates that the structure of a dream that has undergone this secondary elaboration.

**still working on a conclusion

Works cited:The Life of George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron. n.d. http://englishhistory.net/byron/life.html Web. 15 November 2009.

Missolonghi 1824. John Crowley. N.d. 11 November 2009. http://kdevries.net/teaching/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/John-Crowley-Missolonghi-1824.pdf

“Satyrs,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), vol. 24, p. 234.

Freud, Sigmund. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Trans. & ed. A.A. Brill. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Modern Library, 1938. 319-467. Print

DrHorriblePresentation

Working thesis:
In John Crowley’s short story Missolonghi 1824, he artistically portrays the ultimate days of Lord Byron, who suffered and died from a cold in Missolonghi, Greece, in April of 1824. Crowley depicts Byron’s narration to his beloved servant, Loukas, of a youthful encounter with a mythical satyr. However, Crowley creates an unsettled and ambiguous state of consciousness at the close of the story, one in which the distinction of Byron’s reality and a dreaming subconscious is left unresolved. Since this story principally pertains to this hazy relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness and specifically the matter of dreams, a psychoanalytical approach—in accordance to the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud and the later Jacques Lacan—to the examination of this story appears to be most prudent. Correspondingly, this essay will explore and examine the likenesses to Byron’s life as well as the relevant application of psychoanalytic theory to the dream sequence in this short story.