Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

male genitals but in female ovaries as well. From here the first step of the dream-work analysis is complete;
the three characters condense into one main idea of the yearning for something, along with the symbolism
that the number three denotes male genitals, meaning that through condensation it is man’s desires that are
represented.
One can infer that Dorothy yearns for male genitals, but the dream-work is not “a word-for-word
or sign-for-sign translation; nor is it a selection made according to fixed rules…it is something far more
complicated” (Freud, 213-214). If we intend to say that the Scare Crow, Tin-Man, and Cowardly Lion
yearned for something they already had, which is what the reader knows by the end of the story, we would
be put into a dilemma that would not follow with our previous inference that Dorothy has male sexual
desires. Thus, it is upon the complication of all concepts that contribute to the dream-work.
The next phase in the dream-work is displacement. The first step in displacement is forming an
illusion that replaces a latent element (Freud, 214). In Dorothy’s dream one may propose it to be her
puberty that is put on display for an illusion of her being sexually aroused. The Wicked Witch of the
West’s broom is symbolized as an object of offense, what Freud calls, “the characteristic of penetrating into
the body and injuring” (Freud, 190). Her dream may have been a recall of something her friends may have
said about sex, or from the arousal feeling of kissing another in a game of truth or dare, or from
masturbation. All assumptions elucidate the concept of displacement, which is Dorothy being sexually
aroused.
The second step of displacement is where “the physical accent is shifted from an important element
on to another which is unimportant, so that the dream appears differently centered and strange” (Freud,
214). With Dorothy’s dream having the symbolism of the number three given by the Scare Crow, Tin-
Man, and Cowardly Lion (which means male genitals), the Wicked Witch of the West’s broom (which is
characterized as penetration), the occurrence of a balloon (which illustrates an erection), and the yellow
brick road (which exemplifies the female genital parts), all of these important elements shift from central
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