Pinokyo

Fotoğraftaki Pinokyo’yu Salı Pazarı’ndan aldım. 1 TL’ye. Sonrasında okuduğum aşağıdaki makaleyi, onunla birlikte, kişisel olarak çokça çağrışıma izin verdiği için paylaşmak istedim. Tıpkı buraya kaydettiğim pek çok metin gibi bu da, gösterdiklerinin ötesinde anlamlar taşıyor. Kimi eski, kimi sadece kirli eşyaların doldurduğu az sayıdaki tezgahların içinden neden Pinokyo’yu seçtiğimi anlamama yardımcı oluyor. Tamamına buradan ulaşabileceğiniz yazı, bloğun bütünlüğüne katkı sayladığını düşündüğüm özelliklerinin dışında da ilgiyi hak ediyor.

Iakow Levi - The Tale of Pinocchio and the Puberty Rites of Savages: “It is already more than a century that the tale of Pinocchio has been charming children and adults alike. This touching tale has already passed the exams of time. But why do we find it so touching? What is it telling us between the lines, which penetrates us, without even passing through the threshold of conscience?  A child is born. However, he is not a child but a puppet. And he is not born by a Mom, like every child, but from a bulk of wood. Where is his mother? How can a child be born without a mother? When he makes his first appearance, he is already a big child, at school age and beyond. All the most important stages of childhood evolution are skipped. Pinocchio has never felt maternal warmth, he has never been kissed, patted, or coaxed by a mommy, and he was only a piece of wood in need of maternal love. The first thing that he does is behaving badly and telling lies.

A child who receives the affection that he needs does not tell lies. Lies are told when reality is unacceptable; they are a fantasized substitute for it. The unacceptable reality to Pinocchio was that he had no mother. However, is it true? Is it the true story, or the tale conceals behind a screen a reality, which has been covered by the veil of repression. As, in Biblical myth, the screen opens on a Father -- god, who bends on the earth to create the first Man out of it, in the same way the story of Pinocchio begins with a father bending on a bulk of wood, to create his son. As soon as Pinocchio begins moving and telling lies, his nose grows. We know from psychoanalytical research that the nose is a male phallic substitute. If Pinocchio's nose grows, it means that he has an erection. Byzantine emperors, when they wanted to prevent from a relative or a competitor the possibility of ascending to the throne, they cut his nose, meaning they castrated him. In this way, they definitely excluded him from being a potential competitor.

What a strange story! A newborn child, who is not a child but a puppet, born from a bulk of wood by the hand of a carpenter --  father, and who immediately has a lot of erections. And he is not behaving himself. Therefore, he has to be continuously admonished and punished. Where do we find in real life new born children, without a mother, made (i.e. born) from a father, already at puberty age, which have erections and are admonished and punished? Only in one place: in the camp of the young novices in the midst of the forest. Reik has studied the puberty rites of the savages, and he says:

Perhaps the most important prohibition they have to observe during this period is that which forbids association with women.  The circumcised youths among the Amaxosa  remain in their huts in isolation. If they leave the huts for a short time, they have to cover their faces in case they should see girls and women, and in particular, they must not see their own mothers.

In the story of Pinocchio, the mother is indeed absent. He can only fantasize her in the image of the Blue Hair Fairy, who appears and disappears into the fine air, like in a dream.  During those rites, mothers and sisters are told by the men of the tribe that the monster has eaten their sons and brothers. As Sarah died of grief while Isaac was passing his own puberty rite on the mountain, so the mother of Pinocchio, who in the tale condenses with that of the sister, dies of grief for the death of her son -- brother.

Seized with a sad presentiment he began to run with all the strength he had  left, and in a few minutes he reached the field where the little white house had once stood. But the little white house was no longer there. He saw instead a marble stone, on which were engraved these sad words: HERE LIES THE CHILD WITH THE BLUE HAIR WHO DIED FROM SORROW BECAUSE SHE WAS ABANDONED BY HER LITTLE BROTHER PINOCCHIO”