Furthermore, Freud and Abraham told us what is the interpretation children make when they discover that females do not possess a penis like their own: they are convinced that the female genital is a wound, inflicted on her by the male during sexual intercourse. Heterosexual intercourse is interpreted as a violent act through which the female loses her penis, she is castrated, and that is the precondition for her femininity ("An Infantile Neurosis", 1918, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Ed. and Trans. J. Strachey, Hogarth Press, London 1964, Vol.XVII, pp.85 - 6; Karl Abraham, "The Female Castration Complex" (1920), in Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, edited by Ernest Jones, Tr. Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, Hogart Press, London 1927, pp. 178-9).
The tale of Cinderella, losing her shoe while fleeing at midnight from the Prince, is telling of the same childish fantasy of feminine defloration - castration.
It is not casual that it happens in the middle of a dance, which, as every rhythmical activity, symbolizes sexual excitement (S.Freud, "Symbolism in Dreams", in op.cit, vol. XV, p. 157). The same is true for the stairs on which Cinderella loses her shoe = genital = virginity. Climbing or descending staircases stays for sexual intercourse (ibidem, pp. 157 - 8).
Midnight is the due time, the climax. The pulsation of the clock has been compared by Freud to that of the clitoris ("A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psycho-Analytic Theory of the Disease.", 1915, in op.cit., vol. XIV, p.270). Henceforth, the time which is running out, the exact hour, midnight, is equivalent to the moment of the libidinal discharge in orgasm.
Shakespeare told us what happens when time is due:
Then let thy love be younger than thyself,Women are roses, whose fair flower...doth fall that very hour, namely, women are flowers whose virginity falls when the right moment is due.
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent:
For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
Being once displayed doth fall that very hour.
(Twelfth Night, Act II, scene 4).
As Freud has shown:"Blosssoms and flowers indicate women's genital, or, in particular, virginity" ("Symbolism in Dreams", in op.cit., vol.XV, p.158).
Flowers - Still life: symbol of female castration
Still life in other languages is named "Dead Nature" (Natura morta - Nature morte, et.), confirming Freud's insight that death and castration are psychically equivalent. In our case, we are dealing with female defloration = castration (flower - defloration). In many languages, orgasm is called "little death". And we associate time and timing ("the time is due") with Death, too.
Therefore, the unconscious equivalence is: "the time is due" - defloration - orgasm - death.
Moreover, we know that "time is money", namely, something very precious, and what is more precious than the genital? (For jewels as the symbol of the female genital, see: S.Freud, op.cit). The Canticle's author too, as quoted afore, associated females' thighs with jewels (" Your rounded thighs are like jewels").
As part of religious rites, which have a clear connotation of puberty rites, such as Confirmation and Bar Mitzvah, it is custom to give to the novice a watch, as a gift, hinting that he/she is mature for sexual intercourse.
Einstein said that movement is a feature of time. As we have seen, movement - dancing - climbing have a strong erotic and orgiastic connotation. Life itself is synonimous of Eros. When time is due, life and Eros must give their place to Death, which Freud has defined as an urge (Todestrieb).
Time is measured by clocks. Henceforth, also the erotic connotation of clocks and watches, which measure the pulses of life and Eros.
As the say goes: Every foot finds its shoe
(Tr. from Italian: "What do you say about the shoes?")
Karl Abraham quotes one of his patients
'My eyes were attracted to women's shoes as though by magic force...Ugly shoes repelled me and filled me with feeling of disgust'. Henceforth, the sight of dainty shoes on women induced in him an 'inward joy'."Remarks on the Psycho - Analysis of a Case of Foot and Corset Feticism" (1910), in Selected Papers On Psycho - Analysis, H. Karnac (Books) Limited, London 1979, p.126.
The unconscious message of the advertising is very subtle: the woman is naked. Therefore, one can see very well that she does not own a penis. However, she has shoes, which are the symbol of her genital.
Do you desire it? Buy our shoes, which are its equivalent!
Moreover, the same message is strengthened by another equivalence, which, as in dreams representations, condenses with the first.
As I have shown in Why is the Lady so Sexy?, a naked woman, lacking a penis, is unconsciously perceived as a whole penis herself. She all is a penis. Henceforth, the eroticisation of her whole body: the breasts, the shoulders, the legs, the skin, et. It does not happen with the male body, because there the eroticisation is focused on the penis, which is in place. Have you ever seen a man (a normal one) wearing a mini - skirt or a décolletage?
Henceforth, a naked woman represents a whole female penis, perceived by our unconscious as being like the one of the male. The penis penetrates into the shoes = vagina. Sexual intercourse is subliminally represented by the advertising illustration, activating the libido which relates to that drive. The activated libido triggers the urge of buying the shoes.
The naked woman, represented in the advertising is equivalent to
As I have shown in Pinocchio
and in Isolamento e qualche gatto, the cat, with its dense fur, is the symbol of the female genital. We all know what "pussy" means. And the same, as Freud has shown, are the shoes.
The image of the Puss with the Boots is the condensation and the repetition of the same thing as in the naked woman with the shoes, represented in the advertising. As Freud stated: "repetition of penis symbols means castration" (Medusa's Head, 1940).
The castration - lack of a penis in the female is expressed by the repetition of the symbols of the same thing (boots - cat) in the representation of the Puss with the Boots.
The tale The Puss with the Boots is interesting at more than one level. The cat helps his master in all his adventures, she saves him, and finally she makes his fortune by driving him into a rich matrimony.
Therefore, she is a Saviour female genital.
As I have shown in Three Women: the Penis , the phallic monsters of Greek mythology, which are the personification of the missing female member, the Moires, the Parches, the Erinnyes, represent also the Fatum (Destiny), which may be destructive or redeeming. The same mysterious female penis may cause destruction as salvation. In the case of the hero of the tale, the female genital made his fortune.
Another fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses , by the Grimm Brothers, speaks of shoes:
THERE was once upon a time a King who had twelve daughters, each one more beautiful than the other. They all slept together in one chamber, in which their beds stood side by side, and every night when they were in them the King locked the door, and bolted it. But in the morning when he unlocked the door, he saw that their shoes were worn out with dancing, and no one could find out how that had come to pass. Then the King caused it to be proclaimed that whosoever could discover where they danced at night, should choose one of them for his wife and be King after his deathThe princesses' shoes were worn out with dancing, namely, their genitals were "worn out" by sexual intercourse, symbolized, like in Cinderella's tale, by dancing. In other versions, after the dancing, the princesses' shoes had "holes".
A double penis symbol: the shoe and the hood
(like in Little Red Riding Hood)
Boots and Soul
To primitive people, and to our unconscious, the soul is something very concrete. It is similar to the body, with shape and weight, just not visible (see: James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, Oxford University Press, New York 1994, Chapter 11). Only later civilizations made of it an abstract concept. As Frazer reports, some Indians, when a man is supposed to have lost his soul,
"catch a man's lost soul in his boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into them" (op.cit. p.158). In this case, the unconscious associative chain is: soul - boots - feet. As we already know, the foot is a penis substitute (S.Freud, "Symbolism in Dreams", in op.cit., pp.155-6), like in Oedipus' myth, whose name means "inflated legs", and - as such - its right place is in the boot, which is synonymous of female genital. Henceforth, the soul is a penis.
Now we can better understand the real substance of the medieval theological ruminations on whether women have a soul, too. What really preoccupied the theologians is whether women have a penis like men. It is the childish wondering on the substance of the female genital, which has been displaced into the heavenly sphere.
Joe Tilson: Snow White and the Black Dwarf (1969-70) Screenprint on paper
In the work by Pop artist Joe Tilson we can see a collage of the symbols of the female genital: dwarf - serpent for the fantasized missing penis, and the shoe for the vagina. Snow White - for sure - is the virgin in the woods awaiting for her defloration - initiation. The eye adds the voyeuristic dimension. The erotic connotation of the ensemble is obvious. Moreover, works of art express themselves by condensation, and straight from unconscious to unconscious.
Links:
Rapunzel and Other Stories of Beautiful Hair
Girls' Desire for Incest in Myth and in the Bible
The Three Little Pigs and Bruno Bettelheim. How not to make an interpretation
Truth Is a Woman: Bernini - Giorgione - Manet
Three Women: the Penis
Superman and the Myth of the Heroes
Pinocchio. The Puberty Rite of a Puppet