Freud considered that, as penis symbols derived from the pubic hair, they serve to mitigate the horror of the complex,[2] as a form of overcompensation.
[5] Freud argued further that, because displaying the genitals (male and female) can be an apotropaic act - one aimed at intimidating and driving off the spectator[6] - so too was the defensive use of Medusa's head in classical Greece.
Representations of her head - the so-called Gorgoneion - were pervasive there, appearing on walls, gates, fortifications, armour, and personal amulets.
[7] The heroine of Possession: A Romance claims to be planning a paper "to do with Melusina and Medusa and Freud's idea that the Medusa-head was castration-fantasy, female sexuality, feared, not desired".
[8] A set of allusive references to the matters of Freud's essay also helps to organise a central concern with male consciousness and female sexuality in Iris Murdoch's 1961 novel A Severed Head.