Rob Gordon sucks on fags. Yes, it's true. Gordon, the main character from the novel "High Fidelity," is a British smoker. If he were American, he might ask for a light or a smoke. But since he is British, all he ever wants is a fag. Hey, that's just how it is. And you know that no one really ever smokes the cigarette. All a person does is suck on it to get the smoke to come out. I guess some might say that Gordon is a sucker for fags, but that's their own opinion.

        One man's opinion on situations like this warrants a whole psychological theory. A correct question to the above paragraph might not be what he would do, but actually W.W.F.S. What Would Freud Say? According to his psychosexual stages of development, the craving for phallic objects happens during the phallic stage. This takes place before the latency period, but right after the anal stage, which ironically, is the stage of obsession over the anus. Now I'm not saying that these ideas listed are true; maybe it's just ironic that Gordon has a craving for a phallic object. Maybe it's just ironic that he calls it his fag. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but you never know. Welcome to Freud...

        The story of Rob Gordon, a music store owner in London, begins innocently enough. He failed at relationships when he was a young kid growing up. In high school, he began to understand the problems... and only failed to correct them. In college, he realized that he had yet to understand anything about relationships. Once into adulthood, where the novel starts off, he is once again dumped in a relationship.

        This shows a pattern of attractions for Rob. No matter if he consciously or unconsciously chooses one girl over another, there's an unconscious, underlying theme to all of them in that they are simply not compatible with him. The problem therein lies with the fact that because this happens in the unconscious, Rob cannot consciously begin to detect what this trend is with the girls, so that he can avoid it in the future. He is, quite simply, "apparently doomed to be left" (Hornby 173). This could be his fault, though. He has always held out with every girl that he has been with, just in case something better comes along. By doing so, it leaves him to unconsciously choose women who are sub-par to what he would ideally like in a woman. Always getting dumped by them is an unfortunate side effect, but one that his mind set up for him in the very beginning. If he's always going to wait for what is perfect to him, then the women dumping him is what he unconsciously wants to happen.

       In the beginning of his courting years, he made no conscious decision to start dating his first girlfriend, Alison Ashworth, because he "had absolutely no input into the decision-making process" (5-6). He was twelve or thirteen and had suddenly found himself in his first relationship, although it was one that could be counted in hours rather than days. Two hours for three days straight, he and Alison sectioned themselves off from the rest of the gang. But on the fourth day, he went only to find her in the arms of another "man," Kevin Bannister. Without any clues or warning shots, without any breakup argument or state of the union addresses, he suddenly found himself dumped.

       Next up is Penny Hardwick. Rob actually broke up with her. He had yet to resolve the oral stage, which goes back to those psychosexual stages of development. Penny was a nice girl and full of qualities. But in high school, Rob didn't want great qualities in girls. He was only interested in breasts. When none came from his relationship with Penny, he dumped her.

       The oral stage of development starts during the time that someone is between the ages of newborn and two years old. That is when the need for contact with the mouth is formed, as the child learns to identify his mouth as the tool used to get things. If he is hungry, the mouth is what is used to quench that need. If no one knows he is hungry, then the mouth is used to signal that desire. Same thing applies when a diaper needs changing or when the baby is upset.

       During this time, needs can be insufficiently or over-sufficiently gratified. If it is too much to either extreme, then the person becomes stuck in the oral stage. Only with time is the person able to complete this level and move on to the anal stage. And as anal a reason as what Rob gave to Penny, he, too, was still stuck in the oral stage of development.

       During college, Charlie Nicholson managed to shatter Rob's heart. She was "the sort of girl [he] had wanted to meet ever since [he] had been old enough to want to meet girls" (20). Everything about her was what he always fantasized for women. She was beautiful. She said interesting things. Most of all, she liked him. At least he thought she did. He could never get comfortable around her, and eventually Charlie dumped Rob for one of the guys in her design class: Rocco.

       A common misunderstanding that emits from Freudian idea is the concept of penis envy. Rob hated Rocco. He hated him because he took his girlfriend, even though it was Rob's own fault that he lost her. But Rob did not have penis envy. He was not envious of a possible gift that Rocco might have had that enabled him to sway Charlie away from Rob. But people commonly misunderstand penis envy as something shared between two guys as they compete amongst each other.

       Men experience fear of castration. It is the women who experience the penis envy. A young boy, while growing up, will learn of genitalia. The thing is, what he learns to be true suddenly doesn't exist on females. This instills a fear inside of the boy that tells him if he makes a mistake, he might lose it, too.

       Penis envy is when growing females learn of the male anatomy and then question where they were while the extra skin was being given out. Suddenly, a penis is something to be desired, and the females grow envious of the males for having one. This instills penis envy in the females. This idea did not take place for Rob and Rocco, so the misperceptions of the Freudian idea can be dismissed as pure misinformed statements.

       This brings us up to Laura, the main female in "High Fidelity," and the cause for Rob's obsession of looking back over his past relationships. Many conscious and unconscious actions take place for Rob because of Laura. For instance, he asks her what the chances are of them getting back together. She gives him a small percentage, which was basically telling him that there was hardly any chance. He rationalizes it out in his head by thinking that if she wants him back, even with such a small chance, then all he has to do is simply deny the percentage given. By doing so, he has essentially been the one who really prevented them from getting back together. Suddenly, he's back in control of the situation. Much better off than he is when she moves out suddenly one night and doesn't say where she is going. Unconsciously, he is using Freud's coping mechanisms to counteract the sadness and depression that overwhelm him with Laura's leaving. This is intellectualization. Rob finally makes it to the genital stage in the psychosexual stages of development, thanks to Laura. When she tells him that she hasn't slept with her new love interest "yet," Rob goes right out and sleeps with the new folk singer in town. This stage is where heterosexual interest predominates. Some might say that he had it all along, but it reaches its ultimate peak with the casual sex with Marie Laselle.

       The random sex is also an example of Rob's id controlling his actions. The id seeks fun, enjoyment, and all things that are uncontrolled. The ego usually balances the id out with the superego, which seeks control, patience, and all things good. With Rob's one nightstand, the superego lost that battle. The ego couldn't form a compromise. The id just lashed out and did what it wanted, regardless of the consequences. Did Rob even stop to consider that he was doing exactly what he was celebrating Laura not doing yet? No.

       Speaking of sex, Freud proposes the idea of the Elektra complex. This is Freud's way of explaining the counter-gender effects of the Oedipus complex. In the Oedipus complex, it's a young boy's secret urge to want to marry his mother. He soon finds out that she holds a special attraction to her husband, the boy's father, and is hurt by the idea. From there, the idea of killing the father to get rid of that attraction is entertained, yet eventually submerged into the young boy's unconscious. It's too much to consider, so the best and easiest idea is to just pretend that it was never entertained a rational option. That way, and this is Freud's way of once again showing that he cannot be proved right or wrong, the boy will always say that he never thought of such. Freud would say that of course not, the idea has been buried into the unconscious. And this is the Elektra complex, except with all of the genders reversed.

       Laura went through this when her father dies. The unconscious finally makes itself apparent. Laura realizes that she can now never have her father. Her mother has won, like she had many years earlier during the forming stages of Laura's existence. When Laura cries, she not only cries because she will miss her father, but she also cries the lover's cry. This is when someone cries out of anger. They come to realize that all of the chances have slipped by and they will never have another chance of obtaining the person of their fantasies.

       In the end, like all good stories should be told, Rob and Laura get back together. The egos won. A compromise is formed in their heads and they see the sense in why they should be together. As she moves back in, Rob decides that things will be different. Whereas before, when Rob would unconsciously make statements or state bold opinions that defied Laura's interest, he now makes a conscious decision to focus on what makes her happy.

Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity. New York: Riverhead, 1995.