PENIS Envy?Phallic personality?

Friday is perhaps the best day of the week. I only have two classes in the morning - both are equally interesting; feature writing (research and write, nothing else) and world literature. We had three presentations for world lit today. Firdaus and Nuha did a great job discussing on two central characters in R.K Narayan's The Guide. Kuhan talked about the setting, comparing the railway station and the sacred temple. But, the most interesting presentation would be Raf's. He introduced new "exciting" psychological terms which he borrowed from Freud. Let me first introduce you to this guy.

I've known him since matriculation. He's the kind of guy who has dark and "mysterious" background. He's always in black, from head to toe. Yup, he wears kopiah to class - black kopiah (eih, not kuih popiah ok...head cover, something like songkok, erm, not really...it's more like the head cover that the Jewish men wear). It's more like a trendy thing rather than trying to portray his alim-alim kucing side. Years ago, people badmouth'ed' him, saying that he worshipped skulls and bones. But, I'm sure you guys are matured enough to understand that people like to bitch about others. From my "observation", he only talks to people that he knows (I'm not a stalker OK, I just like to observe people especially those who are kinda "different") but most of the time he's a quiet person, I guess.

So, during his presentation, he mentioned about PENIS ENVY i.e. the envy that a woman has against MAN-kind because the man has a penis and the woman doesn't. In simpler terms, she's envy of the manly attributes that she doesn't have. The whole class burst into laughter. The funny thing was not the term itself, but it was caused by Raf's seriousness in explaining such geli-geli terms in class. FYI, he appears to be "serious" all the time - garang face lah! He then continued to "lecture" us about all these psychological terms, and related them to Shirley Lim's Joss and Gold. He then concluded that Lim has Phallic Personality - hey, I'm soooo not into psychology, so I don't really understand this term. Raf explained to us, Phalic Personality is like when you believe women are superior to man and it develops from this penis envy thingy. He elaborated that Lim has Phalic Personality because her female characters in Joss and Gold appeared to be "stronger" than the males. During Q n A session, I voiced out my opininon,

"This is merely an opinion. Just now you mentioned that Lim has Phallic personality, but I don't think you should simply judge a writer through her writings especially when you've only read one of her many works. Most of the time, the writer will "get into the character" - you might see some of her qualities reflected in the character, but that doesn't justify that the character is the writer in actual world. This is a fictional character, it's drawn from real life...but it doesn't totally represent the writer's personality"

"Erm, (husky voice)...no, I'm saying she has phallic personality because it is evident in Li An, Allen and Meryl. All of them are strong female characters - stronger than the male counterparts. So Lim has phallic personality"

Husna told the class that she agreed with me simply because a writer's personality shouldn't be judged only through her writings, Lim mentioned the other day, Li An to a certain extent is her, but when she decides to marry Henry, she's no longer Shirley Lim.

Raf again tried to defend his stand - "Lim has phallic personality...bla...bla...bla...penis envy shown through the female characters bla...bla...bla"

I was already tired and bored by that time...

"So, if I write about prostitution, does that mean I am a PROSTITUTE?" (central character is a prostitute)

He managed a weak smile...and said, " So the conclusion is Lim has a phalic personality right?"

Husna and I "NOOOO!"

Prof. Q couldn't help it...he quickly asked Raf to come back to his seat. Hehehe...I guess the penis-envied female devils win today!!

Although Raf's point on Lim's phalic personality is questionable, I think he would be a great politician because he stood by his opinion even though he's losing! It's better to have these kind of people in the class rather than those passive "nodder' - saying YES to what ever opinion voiced out by others.

By the way, I think Raf's explaination on phallic personality was not quite clear and correct. I've checked the internet...erm, I found out that phallic stage is part of the Freud's theories of development. And it concerns mostly erm, children development, but Sherwin, if I'm wrong please don't bang me hehehe...

revelations of the day:
- drilling technique in teaching would result in repetitious answer, evident in Raf's argument
- indulging too much in psychology (without sound knowledge on it) will turn you into a psychopath :P