Significant Moments: The Old Man Exposed by a Naughty Boy

"Hermann's theft of figs discovered."

From the entries in his mother's diary and from the extensive exchange of letters between both parents and various members of the family, which have been available since 1966, it is possible to guess at the small boy's painful path.

Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child. 

Today, . . . 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn.

 ... at the hotel, . . . 

Wilkie Collins, The Evil Genius.

 . . . the boy . . . 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn.

 . . . decides to make fireworks for himself and sets fire to the curtain! Great alarm. He speechless, draws attention to the fire by rattling the door, and disappears through the back door; . . . 

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, June 13, 1875).

 . . . the boy's father . . . 

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage. 

. . . changing his clothes, puts out the fire in a state of complete nudity; as he is doing so, something happens which he has so often experienced in dreams: the entire Kurhaus sees the fire from outside and storms in to put it out; . . . 

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, June 13, 1875).

 . . . the father . . . 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn.

 . . . has trouble withdrawing in his ridiculous state. In good spirits afterward, . . . 

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, June 13, 1875).

 . . . the little fellow . . . 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn.

 . . . surely cured forever of playing with matches, I almost ill with shock. 

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, June 13, 1875). 

The boy . . . 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn.

 . . .does not want to sleep in his room anymore, thinks it is still burning! 

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, June 13, 1875). 

The next morning, . . . 

Peter J. Boyer, The Jesus War: Mel Gibson's Obsession.

 . . . my mother asked . . . 

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

 . . . father . . . 

Hermann Hesse, Demian. 

. . . not to read the newspaper until he had had his coffee. 

Peter J. Boyer, The Jesus War: Mel Gibson's Obsession. 

The newspaper had quite an account of the affair, and, even . . . 

Victor Appleton, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.

 . . . described me as . . . 

Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of England.

 . . . "an unwholesomely willful child playing with matches. The immediate temptation ..." 

Peter J. Boyer, The Jesus War: Mel Gibson's Obsession.

 . . . continued the reporter, . . . 

Gaston Leroux, The Secret of the Night.

 "... may be to let the little brat learn the lesson that burnt fingers will teach." 

Peter J. Boyer, The Jesus War: Mel Gibson's Obsession. 

To my father, who was . . . 

Hermann Hesse, Demian. 

. . . simply concerned with appearances . . .

 J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst

 . . . the newspaper account . . . 

Victor Appleton, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.

 . . . had been a personal embarrassment to him as a . . . 

J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst

 . . . respectable member of the community. 

Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Breaking Point.

 My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity with . . . 

Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited.

 . . . my antics . . . 

Zane Grey, The Young Forester.

 . . . said what first came into his mind. 

Fergus Hume, The Green Mummy.

 "The boy will come to nothing!" 

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. 

Those were his words; aye, they are his very words! 

Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit. 

I became so fervent and headstrong that I was too much for . . . 

Hermann Hesse, Demian.

 . . . father and . . . 

J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst

 . . . I was thrown . . . 

Jack London, The Sea Wolf. 

. . . into such a rage that I became horrible, did and said things so awful they seared my heart even as I said them. 

Hermann Hesse, Demian.

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This excerpt provides two examples of "playing with metaphors."

An article in The New Yorker Magazine by Peter J. Boyle about Mel Gibson titled "The Jesus War: Mel Gibson's Obsession" compares the actor to a small boy playing with matches.  I took that metaphor and used it in its literal sense.

This excerpt also plays upon the double meaning of the word exposure.  The father is depicted in his state of nudity and is seen by (or exposed to) a crowd of people.

The father is then depicted as the subject of a newspaper article in which his actions are exposed in print.  A subtext of the theme of exposure is the action of the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson in exposing K.R. Eissler and Sigmund Freud to the embarrassment of exposure in The New York Times.  I suppose that is homospatial.  I superimposed the image of the little boy exposing his father onto the image of Jeffrey Masson exposing Kurt Eissler in The Times.


http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/01/pinocchio-and-old-geppetto.html