Some Thoughts on Pelafina

So I was thinking about what we talked about in class a few meetings ago, about how Whalestoe is slang for camel toe, which seemed really silly at the time. But the more I thought about it, the more things started to makes sense, once I got past my third-grader response of giggling over bathroom humor (not that there's anything wrong with that). Anyway, I got to thinking that since it's a camel toe we're talking about, it's very clearly a vaginal image - and of course, the Whalestoe houses Pelafina, Johnny's mother. So that's a connection right there - the mother is a vaginal image. From here, I started thinking in Lacanian terms again (please bear with me):

If the letters were supposedly hand written, but we only receive them as typographical works, could we then read them as Johnny's work? If Johnny wrote the letters, or even if Johnny only altered them, perhaps he is trying to retrieve the Phallus, which the Mother is lacking. Perhaps the letters are an attempt to get at truth and thus, some modicum of power, for his mother. If Johnny wrote the letters, is this a way to connect to her, giver her some sort of existence? Without the Phallus, she is a lack, and if she possesses the Phallus, she is a lack, but if Johnny can "author" his mother through these letters, he can (attempt to) make her into the Phallus, which is, of course, impossible. But through this attempt to "author" a mother through these letters, he might be attempting to find some Truth, which is also impossible, though tempting to believe.