Cartoon Theories

× Peanuts ( pt. 4 ) ×

The Peanuts gang are all Patient in a 1950s insane asylum as perceived by Charlie Brown.

I'm almost ashamed about how much thought I put into this (almost) but once I started putting the pieces together I couldn't stop.

The Peanuts Gang are all patients in a 1950s insane asylum as perceived by Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown is a Korean War vet who survived being a POW.

When he returned home to America he was suffering from an extreme case of shell shock (what we know today as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.)

Charlie Brown had reverted to the mental state of a young child as a way of blocking the horrors he experienced as a POW.

Because he perceives himself as a child he also does the same with his fellow patients who each suffer their own mental illnesses.

Charlie is afraid of the world and believes that everyone is out to get him which in turn causes him to suffer from clinical depression.

Lucy is a Sociopath who enjoys torturing her fellow patients for her own amusement, she has a particular interest in Charlie and considers him her special pet.

She enjoys manipulating him by pretending to be a sympathetic ear and then using what he tells her against him (i.e. pretending to be a psychiatrist), she steals his meds and enjoys playing keep away with them (the football represents his meds) and the fact that Lucy keeps stealing them from him is one of the reasons he can’t get better.

He is also too afraid to speak up because he fears retaliation.

Linus is schizophrenic.

He suffers from delusions, mostly of a religious nature.

Aside from a religious fanaticism he also believes in other delusions such as The Great Pumpkin and the Easter Bunny.

He carries around a blanket as a literal security blanket because he believes it protects him.

Despite his delusions he is kind hearted and caring which is why Charlie considers him Lucy’s opposite, the ying to her yang so to speak and therefore he perceives them as brother and sister.

Linus may also suffer from impotence and uses religion as a way to vent his sexual frustrations.

Sally is a sex addict who is obsessed with Linus.

She seeks out validation from men and is obsessive by nature so when a man scorns her advances she tries ever harder to seduce him.

She is also possessive to the point of attacking other women she sees as rivals for a man’s attention.

Though not physically attracted to Sally nor she to him, (perhaps he had been disfigured during the war and this is why he perceives himself as a bald, round headed kid)

Charlie sees Sally as a vulnerable young girl who is seeking the attention she never received from her father.

Because of this he places himself in the roll of big brother.

Sally is also functionally illiterate.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie are both lesbians who were forcefully institutionalized by their respective disapproving families in the hopes of curing them of their homosexuality.