Gass, William H. - Kevin J. H. Dettmar (essay date Fall 1991)

Kevin J. H. Dettmar (essay date Fall 1991)

SOURCE: “‘Yung and Easily Freudened’:1 William Gass's ‘The Pedersen Kid,’” in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 11, No. 3, Fall, 1991, pp. 88-101.

[In the following essay, Dettmar provides analysis of initiation themes, postmodern literary techniques, and psychoanalytic associations in Gass's story“The Pedersen Kid.” Dettmar concludes, “Jorge is not just another ‘little Oedipus’—rather he's a little Freud, both author and subject of his own case history.”]

Hans: “What I've told you isn't the least true.”

Father: “How much of it's true?”

“None of it's true; I only told you for fun. …”2

William Gass's first story, “The Pedersen Kid,” is a weird and unsettling piece; but in spite of the menacing atmosphere it evokes,...

[The entire page is 7563 words long]

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