The Alligator Room is a study into childhood repression.
During early adolescence, the basic urges of evolutionary heritage (r-complex) begin to compete against higher-order functions imposed with the organic growth of mental and emotional capacity (internal) and via social and familial subordination (external).
This contradiction is a battleground.
What absurd and dreadful icons come from this ferment?
Since these images have no proper outlet, how are they
expressed and what alienation is caused by their denial?
Where is the final sanctuary that the overt
savagery
of the conflict may be assessed?
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During this time a paradox emerges. A child is expected to subliminate their urges while thinly veiled examples of the supposedly taboo behavior play out around them.
Children are far more willing than most adults to accept the actuality of the most demonic biological compulsions. Yet, they are regularly inundated with images and experiences that convey these compulsions without allowing their recognition. In terms of anatomy, the R-complex capacities are reinterpreted to conform to the predilection of higher functions. The symbolic need of the R-complex must be satiated at the cost of authenticity (Figure 2).
I cannot speak for all children, but I feel confident saying there many adolescents that feel the tremors of this bizarre balance during their formative years. I certainly did.
