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Freudian anachronism
9 January 2021 05:24 pmAtter spending a couple of hours this afternoon writing 400 words or so on Hertha's story of having been 'mesmerised' (hypnotised) as a child by an 'alienist' in Jewish Vienna, which was supposed to tie in with a suggestion that she is particularly susceptible to this sort of influence and hence was affected by the Phantom's call to Christine -- which we know is possible from Leroux canon at least -- I finally got round to doing some fact-checking.
Hertha would have been nine circa 1870 (depending on the date of the action, which I've assigned to the usual early 1880s). Nobody in the 1870s could possibly have been referring to Jung's archetypes, because Jung was 20th century. And even Sigmund Freud -- whom I'd carefully avoided naming, but was thinking of as a rival/contemporary of my nameless mind-doctor -- was only a medical student at that era, and couldn't possibly have been influencing anyone. Mesmerism was around all right, but well past the peak of its craze.
(And the whole issue of 'Hertha's family are Jewish', or at least converted Jews, is becoming a bit awkward, because it has been implied in various places but never explicitly stated. Can I/should I dodge the question indefinitely? I was imagining it coming up more openly in the final scene with Christine, but it's a bit of a weird (and tasteless?) reveal -- my instinct at this point is to hint at it but never actually state it at all.)
Hertha would have been nine circa 1870 (depending on the date of the action, which I've assigned to the usual early 1880s). Nobody in the 1870s could possibly have been referring to Jung's archetypes, because Jung was 20th century. And even Sigmund Freud -- whom I'd carefully avoided naming, but was thinking of as a rival/contemporary of my nameless mind-doctor -- was only a medical student at that era, and couldn't possibly have been influencing anyone. Mesmerism was around all right, but well past the peak of its craze.
(And the whole issue of 'Hertha's family are Jewish', or at least converted Jews, is becoming a bit awkward, because it has been implied in various places but never explicitly stated. Can I/should I dodge the question indefinitely? I was imagining it coming up more openly in the final scene with Christine, but it's a bit of a weird (and tasteless?) reveal -- my instinct at this point is to hint at it but never actually state it at all.)
