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It is a distinctive merit of Dr. Veszy-Wagner's paper that she states and then demonstrates in rich detail how “the LRRH fantasies are much more complex than would seem at first sight.” It is this issue of complexity of meaning in such folktales that constitutes the theme of my remarks. In this connection, Dr. Veszy-Wagner takes us, I think, further than we were, but still not far enough. She reveals complexity of meaning but still tacitly assumes that such tales have a definite pattern of meaning, however complex. This view is by no means unique to Dr. Veszy-Wagner; indeed it is a typical view, and I think it is wrong.
Dr. Veszy-Wagner notes that “each patient mentioned the story spontaneously but used it in differing ways and with different intensity.” I would argue that the crucial methodological truth lies in this statement rather than in the attempt to single out the oedipal meaning, the preoedipal meaning, or the “nucleus” (i.e., the primal scene fantasy). I do not mean to assert that such a folktale can mean just anything at all: it would be incredible that the wolf should not represent some significant degree and kind of aggression, whatever else he might signify. But just as with elements of the manifest dream or other derivatives of the unconscious, so many additional factors enter into the picture that the contextual significance of the wolf can be quite different from person to person. For some persons, the exciting series of questions ending with the gobbling up of Red Riding Hood could be intensely erotically colored, the aggression being best understood as a mode of (passive) sexuality. For another, the erotic element will, in the particular dynamic context, be minimal. In one context the wolf as male may be significant, whereas in another—
as Dr. Veszy-Wagner shows in detail—the wolf is a mother figure. There is obvious oral imagery in the tale, but this may or may not be of special importance to a particular person: it may be that the tale takes o