Perceiving Evil: Evil Women and the Feminine [1 ed.] 9781848880054, 9789004373839

Citation preview

Perceiving Evil

At the Interface Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher

Lisa Howard

Advisory Board Simon Bacon Katarzyna Bronk John L. Hochheimer Stephen Morris Peter Twohig S Ram Vemuri

Ana Borlescu Ann-Marie Cook Peter Mario Kreuter John Parry Karl Spracklen Peter Bray

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Evil Hub ‘Evil Women and the Feminine’

2015

Perceiving Evil: Evil, Women and the Feminine

Edited by

David Farnell, Rute Noiva and Kristen Smith

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2015 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-005-4 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2015. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction: Perceiving Evil: Evil, Women and the Feminine David Farnell, Rute Noiva and Kirsten Smith Part I

Myths and Tales: Fear and Adoration in the Feminine Sacrificing Narratives in Medea Colin Dignam

3

In the Wake of the Mermaid: Our Beautiful Monsters David Farnell and Rute Noiva

9

Laura Palmer: A Monstrosity of Multiple Meanings Anne Bettina Pedersen Part II

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The Cult of the Witch: Powerful Women as the Face of Evil Evil and Superstition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Religious Infanticide and Filicide Chima Agazue and Helen Gavin

35

Fearing the Witch, Hating the Bitch: The Double Structure of Misogyny in Stephen King’s Carrie Paris Shun-Hsiang Shih

49

Witchcraft and ‘Bitchcraft’: A Portrayal of the Witch Character in American Horror Story: Coven Elisabete Lopes

59

Xayide, Enchantress or Femme Fatale? Magic and Empathy at the Service of Manipulation in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story Saul Andreetti

69

Part III The Evil in Play: Female Evil Characters in Theatre and Film What is Evil Femininity in British Theatre? A Comparative Analysis of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Edward Bond’s Lear Susana Nicolás Román

79

Salome and Lulu Re-incarnated: Evil Women as Meta-Poetic Figures on the Croatian Modernist Stage Lada Čale Feldman

89

Women as the Devil: Demonic Possessions in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Irene Baena Cuder

Part IV

Part V

99

Monstrous Women and the Subversion of Patriarchy in Nikos Nikolaidis’ Films Singapore Sling and See You in Hell, My Darling Mikela Fotiou

109

Evil Women and the Feminine: The Eternal Vamp and The Construction of Pola Negri’s Star Persona in 1920’s America Agata Frymus

119

I Spy a Woman: Women and the War Effort ‘Keep Mum, She’s Definitely Not Dumb’: The Complex and Cunning Femme Fatale in Espionage Fiction and History Kirsten Smith

131

Maud Allan, the Cult of the Clitoris and the Future of Britain Anthony Patterson

139

Translation of Evil: Ken Kesey’s Miss Ratched in the Original and in the Russian Translation Natalia Kaloh Vid

149

The Evil among Us: Evil Women in Contemporary Society Jealous Men but Evil Women: The Double Standard in Cases of Domestic Homicide Helen Gavin

157

Evil Women and Hyperfemininity: Hyper-Gender Role and Sexual Offending by Women Theresa Porter and Jacquelyn Bent

167

Introduction: Perceiving Evil: Evil, Women and the Feminine David Farnell, Rute Noiva and Kirsten Smith The 6th Global Conference on Evil, Women and the Feminine was held 2-4 May in Lisbon, Portugal. As is typical of Inter-Disciplinary.Net conferences, all attendees presented papers, and all attendees were required to be present for all presentations. The result was an intimate, highly productive conference with lively discussion during Q&A periods as well as during coffee breaks, lunches, and evening get-togethers. This collection provides a snapshot of the conference, including chapters covering a wide range of topics within the overarching theme. The writers’ diverse backgrounds include literature, film, history, translation studies, forensic psychology, and veterinary medicine, from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. This diversity provides for a mix of views that even much larger conferences sometimes lack, but they do make sorting the papers into sections somewhat difficult. These chapters explore feminine evil in myth and on stage and screen, in real-world cults and real-world homes, in the pages of novels and newspapers. They are intended to dive deep into what society has sometimes been raised to perceive as deviant and malicious and, in contrast with this, what is beautiful and desirable in the feminine mind. It is this the thread we find binding many of them together: the creation of evil women or evilness in women. In mythology we see female monsters created to represent feminine evil, and women turned into monsters by lust and avarice both male and female. In modern examples of paper, stage and screen work, we find the most recent constructions of evil, supported by the ever-present foundations of those past, less enlightened times, hidden in plain sight in childhood fairy tales and whispers of the so-called ‘popular (or cultural) wisdom’. We see the multivalent views of the witch and how she is used to sow fear and reap profit, and how even witches use that fear to gain power. We see our fears given face in the form of evil mothers and evil daughters, fears of the loss of patriarchal control, of what flood may come after feminine power unseats the masculine. We see that real-world women can be as terrifying as men, given the right circumstances, and how this can be a flaw or a strength. In a great many cases, this terror of female strength results in rejection and denigration of women, and this strength, which could be channelled in positive ways, is often fought by redefining it as evil. So in many cases the ‘evil’ of these chapters is only evil as a matter of perception, with political and historical distance allowing us a reevaluation. Today, as political forces bring the world ever closer to the goals of feminism, reactionary forces are desperately marshalling a backlash in countries across the globe. Exploring what we mean by ‘evil’, particularly as it applies to women,

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__________________________________________________________________ therefore becomes ever more important. Hopefully this collection will provide a useful insight into this crucial issue. It is a journey in perception that we challenge the reader to take alongside the authors of each chapter. Through their eyes myths of old and stories new are presented, dissected and brought forth to the light and judgement of a new, better founded vision. Your own.

Part I Myths and Tales: Fear and Adoration in the Feminine

Sacrificing Narratives in Medea Colin Dignam Abstract The mythic character of Medea is an atypical figure, embodying two conflicting narrative roles. As a priestess, she provides Jason with magical aid in his quest for the Golden Fleece, conforming to the archetype of the mentor, or magical helper. However, as princess of Colchis, she becomes Jason’s love interest and wife. These two character molds indicate Medea’s role as a character that is wholly dependent upon the male protagonist, but this is resisted. Medea displays that she is in constant conflict with her identity within her story arc. Several versions of the Medea myth depict a series of attempted departures from her structural role, showing Medea as displaying individual autonomy even as she seeks to achieve acceptance within a community. Her selfhood thus fluctuates, composed through violence and sacrifice, as she transitions from a spiritual identity to a mortal one and back again. This chapter discusses the structural/narrative role of Medea and her attempts to subvert and reposition herself outside the confines of traditional and teleological narratives. This will mainly entail a reading of Euripides’ Medea, extending to Ovid’s account of her in his Metamorphoses, but also to a modern retelling of the myth in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film Medea. Each of these versions highlights the tools of ritual and sacrifice that Medea uses to achieve her transformations and by which she is vilified. Ultimately, this chapter addresses how Medea’s liminality and transgressive acts reveal the desire for self-formation and the limitations of that desire. Key Words: Medea, myth, narratives, sacrifice, identity, community. ***** The archetype of the mentor is often a marginalized one. Appearing as teachers, magical helpers, wise old men or women, the mentor possesses knowledge, wisdom or powers beyond other characters, yet occupies a liminal space both between and outside the individual and communal, sacred and profane. They exist as eternal exiles, able to put the protagonist on the path to a narrative resolution, but not typically able to gain the same for themselves. Quite often, they are removed, by death or other means, in order for the protagonist’s own growth to continue. Even though quite often their presence lingers in a spiritual form of one kind or another, their function is to act as a facilitator to the journey of the protagonist. What this chapter discusses is how the mythic character of Medea is an atypical mentor character that goes beyond the boundaries of her narrative structural role. Focusing upon her liminal nature and the subversion of classic quest motifs, this chapter will address the use of sacrifice as the method by which

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__________________________________________________________________ she transgresses her role as mentor, and how this transgression reveals the desire for self-formation and the limitations of that desire. While this reading focuses upon Euripides, her character arc as presented in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea will also be examined. Medea first appears within the tale of the Golden Fleece, where she acts as mentor and aid to Jason, the hero of the quest. As priestess of Colchis, she has access to divine powers, which she uses to help Jason bypass the obstacles leading to the Fleece. However, she is also a princess of Colchis, and, having fallen in love with Jason, she flees back to Greece with him to be his wife. This is significant in that Medea carries the burden of being both the mentor archetype and the love interest, the potential bride to the hero/would be king. Reading the quest for the Golden Fleece from the standpoint of narrative structures such as Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, it can be seen that each stage of Jason’s quest follows a departure, initiation, and return pattern quite accurately. While the focus is initially on Jason as he moves through these stages, aspects reserved for the hero can equally apply to Medea. Within the scope of her narrative beyond the tale of the Fleece, Medea follows the hero’s journey structure herself. A typical hero begins their journey by being led to a threshold that marks the boundary between primary and secondary worlds. In approaching and crossing this threshold, the hero leaves their community, their primary world, and enters the world of the adventure. This secondary world may be reached through anything from simply travelling to another land, to entering a dream state, an otherworldly realm, and so forth. Passing over this boundary is where the hero sheds the trappings and identity associated with the world they are leaving, and is therefore an act of self-annihilation as well as rebirth.1 As Jason makes his return journey across the threshold with the Fleece, Medea, by coming with him, simultaneously makes her first crossing into a new world, leaving her community and identity behind. The act of making this crossing allows Medea to reject the passive role seemingly intended for her, first in accompanying Jason back to Thessaly, and again when refusing to stand aside quietly after Jason leaves her in order to marry a Corinthian princess. Medea’s actions alter Jason’s own heroic narrative, for instead of a typical resolution, the hero’s tale ending with a wife and a kingdom, Jason ends up in ruin. The latter half of their story together is that after Jason leaves Medea, she takes vengeance upon him, by killing their children and his new bride. This leaves him without heirs or a throne, overturning the resolved ‘happy ending’ that she initially helped him build. Medea comes to function as a seed of violence planted within Jason’s story, carrying the rupture of his unity within her. In not exiting his story when her task as mentor is done, she alters both of their fates. This discrepancy in the typical heroic narrative allows for Euripides’ tragic play, where Medea’s tale as a protagonist/hero manifests.

Colin Dignam

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__________________________________________________________________ Rather than continuing to identify with Jason as the hero, it is with the Euripidean Medea that our sympathies lay – at least at first, until she murders her children. Initially, the image of Medea that we are presented with in the play is of a devoted but wronged wife and mother in the face of Jason’s desertion. As she is cast aside, Medea sees herself, no longer as an aide to Jason, but as the dominant character, and asserts herself as such, as evidenced in her first dialogue with him, where she attributes his past heroic deeds and successes to herself, and now regards him as her enemy. In this way of stripping Jason of his actions, Medea creates a divide that paints her as the hero and him as the villain. Unable to achieve a typical hero’s rewards in the form of family and community, however, Medea’s goal becomes one of vengeance, her journey no longer aimed toward communal unity, but toward the destruction of community. Bernard Knox describes her as a Sophoclean or Homeric hero, one whose unshakable ethic involves the conquest of the enemy at any cost. Medea, similar to the Homeric hero, may be resigned to die, and in her own words, seeks ‘...release in death and to leave hateful existence behind...’,2 but the death she seeks is the death of the self, in the form of the identity that she had tried to create with Jason. With the enactment of her revenge, she casts off this identity, and becomes once again, a magical, spiritual, character. Knox also points out that in the staging of Euripides’ play, after the killing of the children, Medea exits the main stage and re-enters on high in her dragon chariot, ‘assuming the attitude and using the language of the stage theos’. 3 The death of the children thus marks the crossing of worlds from mortal to spiritual. In the play, up until this point, we are given the account and trials of a mortal woman, one whom another mortal has wronged. With the ascendance into a divine state, this becomes a different matter, and we are forcibly reminded of her past attributes. This change of state signifies more than being a function of the deus ex machina within the play; it is a reassertion, to a degree, of the division of worlds. The significance of this transition lies in the means by which it is achieved – namely, sacrifice. Euripides’ version of the myth credits Medea with the death of her children as well as her own brother. These familial deaths are placed as wilful, meaningful acts, as opposed to other versions of the myth which attribute their deaths to others. Their deaths are therefore purposeful, linked as acts of sacrifice that each serve as a mode of transition from the spiritual world to the mortal and back again. For Medea, these acts of sacrifice separate her from the narrative script of a sister, mother or wife, touching instead on her place as a liminal being. The act of sacrifice allows access to the sacred as well as keeping the sacred at bay. It is this dualistic property of sacrifice that allows Medea to simultaneously shed her identity while gaining a new one. This exchange of roles, as previously mentioned, occurs on the threshold between worlds. The killing and dismemberment of her brother while fleeing with Jason and the Fleece allows her

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Sacrificing Narratives in Medea

__________________________________________________________________ to distance herself from the mentor role and her world in order to join Jason in his, creating a community with Jason while cutting the ties to the community of Colchis, politically, personally and structurally. As Rene Girard writes, ‘death contains the germ of life. There is no life on the communal level that does not originate in death’.4 In Corinth, she is accepted as a citizen, until once again, she performs the sacrifice of family members. It is only at the end, after the removal of her children, that her foreignness is revealed and re-established, both to the community of Corinth, and to the audience. The chorus of Corinthean women that support her throughout the play do not protest her actions when she is plotting against Jason or his fiancée. Even though her actions are criminal, they do not shun her – this only occurs after she has killed the children. The death of the children severs the tie to this community in the same manner as the death of her brother had. Medea, despite her crossing into Jason’s world, is still part of the sacred. Medea, and by extension, her children, from this view, represent a fracture within the community. Girard points out that ‘the sacred is “bad” when it is inside the community, it is “good” when it returns to the exterior’.5 Like Oedipus, who causes the plague of his city through the impurity of his incestuous relationship with his mother, Medea is a source of corruption, extending this stigma to her children as surely as Antigone inherits the social stigma from Oedipus. In removing the children, Medea removes both herself and the corruption to Corinth. The blood of sacrifice cleanses the taint of impurity from the community, a paradox that employs the use of violence as a prevention of violence.6 Sacrifice is seen thus to have the power to access and bind the spiritual, but also to expel and release those forces. The sacrificial aspect of the Medea myth is heavily emphasised in Pasolini’s modern retelling. The ritualistic act of sacrifice as a means of sacred access is a central, if not the central, aspect of the film, becoming a marker for Medea’s tragedy. Early scenes of human sacrifice as a fertility ritual serve as a foreshadowing of both the sacrifice of Medea’s brother and children, and produces visual and auditory echoes that point back to it at key moments. The separation, initiation, and return pattern is also very evident as both Jason and Medea’s tales unfold together, giving the audience the chance to see the two heroic journeys simultaneously. Pasolini uses fire as a visual representation of the barrier between worlds, one that Medea crosses when traversing sacred grounds, and one that she creates in setting fire to her and Jason’s house in the end, a barrier that Jason cannot cross. The use of fire as a threshold is particularly apt, I think, both because of the ties between fire, sacrifice and the divine, and due to its destructive/regenerative nature.

Colin Dignam

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__________________________________________________________________ Unlike the hero who crosses the threshold and returns to their original community, bettering it in some way, Medea cannot return to her community. Committing these acts of sacrifice allows her to go beyond her previous states, it is true, but also seals her from ever fully returning to them. She cannot return to Colchis, having killed her brother, and she cannot stay in Corinth, having killed the princess and the children. She becomes, once again, or remains, an eternal agent of violence that is and must be constantly repelled. These versions of the Medea myth testify to this, as her transitions into the ‘regular’ or profane world are limited, one from which she is forced to remove herself constantly. Medea’s translation from mortal to theos state is a cyclical or perhaps spiral progression, something which can only be seen when viewing the tale and character as a whole. Ovid’s Metamorphoses also shows that Medea, despite her attempts, cannot reconcile and unify both worlds, and she remains incompatible with her surroundings. Ovid tells her whole tale from Colchis to Corinth, then to Athens, where she tries again to become part of domestic life, marrying King Aegeus, but attempts to kill his son Theseus. Her efforts once again end in violence and she flees the mortal realm in a magical vehicle. Ovid uses her as a catalyst or signifier of violence and transformation – in short, she becomes a part of the violence of the sacred. Girard notes that the Latin word sacer translates as both sacred and accursed, encompassing the beneficent and maleficent, 7 something echoed in Pasolini’s film as Chiron the centaur tells Jason that ‘holiness is also a malediction’. 8 Such is Medea, who can traverse through worlds and work wondrous and terrible magic, but is not able to achieve the peace that she seems to constantly desire and strive for. The character of Medea thus remains for us a tragic one, someone to be pitied, not necessarily because of her plight with Jason or society, but because she is a character embodying frustrated desire. Her aims have been consistently toward achieving a unified life within the mundane world, yet since she is firmly tied to the sacred, she is forever bound to her liminal nature. Medea holds the dichotomy of self and other within her, and it is this complexity that allows us to both relate to and shun her actions. It is only when taken as a whole that we can reconcile, to an extent, the two images we are presented with, of the love-struck princess who helps and marries her hero, and of the revenge-driven murderer and enchantress. These two seemingly disparate characters provoke two differing responses by an audience, which is why she must be viewed in the larger context. The message that the myth of Medea teaches is one of possibility and failure, and the paradoxes or aporia that is inherent in human life. She stands as a critique of teleology, of trying to create or uphold a ‘unified’ self or world. The last words in Pasolini’s film are those of Medea as she cries out amidst fire and ruin that ‘nothing is possible!’, and this is perhaps both a cry to us and to the other incarnations of Medea, both classical and modern – that the achievable is myth and reality is only the attempt and endless desire.

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Notes 1

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Princeton University Press, 1949), 91. 2 Euripides, Medea, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Dover Publications, 1993), 6. 3 Bernard Knox, Word and Action (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 304. 4 Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 255. 5 Ibid., 258. 6 Ibid., 36. 7 Ibid., 257. 8 Medea, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini. San Marco: Vanguard Cinema, 1969, DVD.

Bibliography Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Princeton University Press, 1949. Euripides. Medea. Translated by Rex Warner. New York: Dover Publications, 1993. Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Knox, Bernard. Word and Action. London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Medea. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. San Marco: Vanguard Cinema, 2002. DVD. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983. Colin Dignam is a PhD student in Humanities at York University, Toronto, Canada. He has a background in Classics, Theory and Criticism, and Comparative Literature, and is currently researching narratology and quest narratives. His work examines the role that the mentor figure plays in identity formation.

In the Wake of the Mermaid: Our Beautiful Monsters David Farnell and Rute Noiva Abstract Irresistibly beautiful, the siren moves through myth and fiction in cultures around the world, taking other names and forms – the singing bird-women of Greek myth, the pious utopian seafolk of The Thousand and One Nights, the ningyo of Japanese tales, the soulless mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen, the orixá Iemanjá of the Candomblé Ketu religion of Brazil, the sereia of Portuguese poetry – an alluring temptation that, like the ocean her most well-known form calls home, is beautiful above, monstrous below. She is a multivalent symbol, interstitially innocent and deadly, in legend signifying the perils of equating a beautiful surface with a beneficent nature, a fair face with a fair soul. In some cases she is a symbol of the evil woman who cruelly tempts men to destruction; in others her cruelty takes an innocent cast, as in her immortal soullessness she has no understanding of the pain and death caused by her actions. And yet in others she is truly innocent; it is we mortals who bring confusion and misery to a creature of nature who has never suffered a Fall. Following the mermaid through depictions in ancient myth to modern poetry, fiction, and film across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, this chapter explores the ways these cultures interpret her and what these interpretations have to tell us about ourselves. Drawing upon the works of theorists Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Monster Theory), Noël Carroll (The Philosophy of Horror) and others, the nature of the mermaid in form and function is used as a mirror that reflects our own nature back at us, often revealing the monster hidden behind the beautiful woman, but also revealing the less-obvious beauty of the sinuous beast of the depths. Key Words: Art, beauty, evil, film, literature, mermaid, monster, myth, siren, woman. ***** 1. Introduction One of the most potent and instantly recognisable feminine symbols is the mermaid. Mermen, although they exist, do not captivate us the way their female counterparts do. Combing her long tresses, sitting on a rock amidst crashing waves, the nymph sings her siren song to lure sailors to their doom. Or perhaps she just wants to gain a soul, or learn to dance or learn what it is to love. She is at once a monster and an innocent girl, sometimes both in the same story, reflecting her dual physical nature. Like the sea in which she dwells, she is beautiful above, but hidden below lurks something frightening and alien. But can a creature that has never suffered a Fall from grace be good or evil?

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__________________________________________________________________ In his seminal essay, ‘Monster Theory (Seven Theses)’, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen states, Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return. And when they come back, they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and the history of knowing our place, but they bear self-knowledge, human knowledge – and a discourse all the more sacred as it arises from Outside. […] They ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance toward its expression. They ask us why we have created them.1 To attempt to answer these questions in relation to the mermaid is to struggle with our murky, ambiguous ideas about evil, women and the feminine. Is she the old warning of the dangers of equating a fair face with a kind heart? Has modernity remade her into nothing more than a young girl willing to give up her tail and voice for love, all surface with no hidden depths? Perhaps that sinuous tail something not to be afraid of, but to be prized, a source of wonderfully monstrous strength. 2. Other Times, Other Seas Today, the mermaid and siren are often considered different names for the same creature, but in the earliest Greek myths the Sirens were feathered, not scaled. Ovid described them as having ‘feathers and claws of birds, while still bearing human faces.’2 One of their most famous appearances is when Odysseus must sail past them after leaving the island of Circe. The witch tells Odysseus that the Sirens are […] enchanters of all mankind and whoever comes their way; and that man who unsuspecting approaches them, and listens to the Sirens singing, has no prospect of coming home […] They sit in their meadow, but the beach before it is piled with boneheaps of men now rotted away, and the skins shrivel on them.3 On Circe’s advice, Odysseus blocks his men’s ears with wax and has them tie him to the mast so he can hear their song and live. Perhaps the Sirens sang songs specifically aimed at their listeners, for they promise Odysseus that which he values most: wisdom.4

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__________________________________________________________________ Pausanias mentions a singing contest between the Sirens and the Muses, after which the Muses pluck the feathers of the defeated Sirens as prizes;5 this may be a mythical explanation for how they took their more familiar form as mermaids. For centuries the word for mermaid in many Mediterranean languages has been some variation on “siren.” And the image of the mermaid’s irresistible singing leading sailors to destruction has been commonplace for centuries in European legend. But Europe is not the only home of mermaids or mermaid-like creatures. In The Thousand and One Nights, the tale ‘Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman’ describes a utopian undersea civilisation of mer-folk who appear human, even having human legs, but who also have fish tails.6 Here, instead of a beautiful female voice leading men to their deaths, the narrator of the tale, Scheherazade, uses her voice to save women from death at the hands of a wretched, murderous king.7 We also find mermaids by various names in Africa and the African Diaspora. These are usually water orixás, spirits or gods, who may have become identified as mermaids by way of European and Arabic contact. Called by various names in their native languages – simbi, nkisi, kianda – but often called sirène, sereia, or mami wata in European languages and Creolisations, they may or may not be portrayed as humans with fish tails.8 Some Brazilians who follow the Candomblé religion pay respect to the orixá Iemanjá, known also as ‘“Sereia do Mar” (Mermaid of the Sea) and “Sereia Mukunã” (Mermaid Who Remains in the Water),’ but ‘even when invoked as a mermaid, Yemanjá9 retains her fundamental characteristic as a strong mother.’10 She is no monster luring sailors to their deaths, but a goddess worthy of worship and respect. On the other side of the world is the ningyo (human-fish), the mermaid of Japan. Sometimes described as a fish with a human head, in some stories eating its flesh grants immortality, but catching one brings storms or even tsunami. 11 According to a legend at Ryūgūji (Temple of the Dragon King) in Fukuoka, a dead ningyo washed ashore in the thirteenth century. A sixteenth-century scroll depicts the creature as looking very much like the European image of a mermaid, although a sign claims she was a shocking 147 metres long. One of the buildings on the small temple grounds is the mermaid’s tomb; the bones, on request, can be viewed by visitors.12 While this may seem to be an overreaching attempt to universalise the myth, we can see that due to cultural importation, even if the mermaid has not been a universal legend previously, it is more and more becoming one today. 3. Mermaid as Monster It is helpful to approach the mermaid from the point of view of monster theory. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seven theses all apply to the mermaid, but due to limited space, we can only examine a few of them here:

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In the Wake of the Mermaid

__________________________________________________________________ Thesis I: The body of the mermaid is a cultural construction, it ‘quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy.’ 13 Cohen’s etymological note of monstrum – ‘“that which reveals,” “that which warns”,’14 – applies as well, for the mermaid offers to reveal one’s heart’s desire while also being a warning (for everyone knows, through the legends, that a siren song must be feared). And indeed, ‘siren,’ in its forms in various Latinate languages and in English as well, means not only a singer of irresistible songs, but also the sound which warns of danger. Thesis II:15 Mermaids cannot be kept captive or bottled as specimens. Even the Sirenus Oceanus was a pieced-together fake in Hudspeth’s fantastical anatomical drawings in The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black,16 a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and the sewn-together Feejee Mermaid of carnival sideshows.17 Attempts to keep the mermaid against her will tend to turn out badly for the captor; if he survives, he is often left bereft, heartbroken. And the mermaid herself slips back into the ocean, or gives up her life for freedom, turning into sea foam, preferring death to captivity and/or slavery, often taking with her something precious to her captor in revenge.18 Theses III-IV:19 The mermaid violates categories, upsetting what is considered acceptable and even possible. According to philosopher Noël Carroll, impurity – that is, ‘categorical interstitiality’ – is a defining characteristic of monsters.20 The creation of categories, of clear lines between what is sacred and mundane, male and female, human and inhuman, natural and unnatural, plays a crucial role in the development of culture. Crossing these boundaries is threatening, and those who cross them, in fiction or in reality, are often labelled monster, ‘transgressive, perversely erotic, a lawbreaker, and so the monster and all that it embodies must be exiled or destroyed.’21 There is a reason certain LGBTQ groups have identified with the mermaid: 22 although boundary lines are being redrawn and categories redefined, full acceptance of non-heterosexuals by societies is an ongoing process with numerous setbacks. Thesis VI:23 It is undeniable that the mermaid is an eroticised symbol, not only because of her nymph-like upper half, but because of her sinuous lower half, an uncomfortably alluring call toward bestiality. She is also, because of her animal nature, free in ways that humans, particularly human women, are not, and even ardent supporters of patriarchy can secretly thrill at the thought of a woman who is truly free to go anywhere in the great ocean. As Cohen states, ‘The same creatures who terrify and interdict can evoke potent escapist fantasies; the linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a temporary egress from constraint.’24 The body of the mermaid beckons as much as her fabled voice, even from the signs of shops, telling passersby to come in, relax, have a coffee. Thesis VII: As quoted in the introduction, Cohen calls monsters ‘our children.’ 25 Our fears and desires are projected onto our creations, and by

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__________________________________________________________________ externalising them we see ourselves, piecemeal. By holding up a warped mirror, mermaids teach us what our societies really think about women: sometimes cruel, evil, even anthropophagic; other times innocently, unthinkingly cruel, hardly to be blamed for the destruction they cause; still other times free, beautifully uncivilised, hardly monstrous at all, but still an incomprehensible Other. 4. ‘The Little Mermaid’, The Little Mermaid and Ponyo Perhaps the most famous depiction of the mermaid is Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, ‘The Little Mermaid’.26 Though this is not the first time the mermaid or siren has been presented in a sympathetic light, by its cultural impact it marks a major shift from the association of mermaids with danger. The Little Mermaid, as a character, is appealing in almost every way – the only way in which she seems monstrous, really, is her lack of a soul. And yet that is what she wants more than anything. The love she pursues is only a means to an end: immortality. There is a carnal aspect to the story, but it is essentially a spiritual one. Andersen has been accused of ‘transforming the traditional seductive, aggressive mermaid figure into a passive, self-effacing heroine who sacrifices her own goals and fulfilment for the sake of the happiness of an unattainable male prince.’27 As usual with Andersen, the child endures terrible suffering, but self-denial ennobles her, so that in the end, after having her tongue cut out, losing her family, enduring an agonising transformation and the pain of defective legs on which ‘Every step […] was as though she were treading on sharp knives,’28 and even losing her beloved Prince to another – after all that, she refuses to commit murder to save herself from extinction. She casts away the knife and dies, but is rewarded by becoming an angelic ‘daughter of the air,’ and is promised immortality after three centuries of good deeds.29 The tale ends with a cautioning that good children who make their parents happy will help shorten the time it takes for the Little Mermaid to gain her soul, and bad children will lengthen her period of servitude,30 making more explicit the implication that children should strive to emulate the Little Mermaid. Rather than a creature to fear, the mermaid is now a Christ-like role model. Much of this, for good or ill, is tossed aside in the 1989 Disney film.31 Ariel is an impulsive explorer, trying to understand the human world by collecting its objects and spying on its people. There is no quest to gain a soul. In her longings – knowledge, adventure, freedom from her father’s strictures – she reflects the ‘contemporary American cultural industry.’ 32 She becomes a model of the rebellious, but not too rebellious, modern Western teenager, and though she causes a great deal of trouble, she is rescued from her mistakes by her male animal friends, her Prince, and her father, taking little effective action herself. Ariel is portrayed as a wayward child in need of rescue rather than one of the progressively stronger, social-order-upsetting Disney Princesses to be featured in later films.

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__________________________________________________________________ Though they are often contrasted, Andersen’s Little Mermaid and Ariel are both ‘safe’ characters for their times, reinforcing societal expectations for girls. The monstrous power of the mermaid has been largely erased in Andersen’s story, and erased completely in Disney’s, leaving our most recognisable modern mermaid nothing more than an ordinary girl. But much of the monstrousness is restored in Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. 33 This hallucinatory, magical-realist fable portrays the title character as a young ningyo child, a fish with a human head. Her human father is a wizard who has rejected the cruel surface world, which he plans to destroy in order to save the ocean. Ponyo falls in love with a five-year-old boy and, through a sort of self-willed evolution, becomes human herself. Her childish lack of concern for consequences provokes a world-threatening imbalance, and it takes the intervention of her mother, the titanic Gran Mamare – who reflects the enormous mermaid of Ryūgūji, as well as Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Mercy, and also the maternal strength of Iemanjá – to restore balance to the world, allowing Ponyo to give up her monstrous power and become a normal human girl. His favourite daughter now a human, Ponyo’s father realises he cannot solve the world’s problems by simply destroying humanity. 5. Monstrous Strength Despite the overwhelming cultural recognition of the Andersen and Disney versions of the Little Mermaid, a parallel tradition retains the sense of monstrosity, embracing it rather than giving it up. The idea of the dangerous, seductive siren wavers and transforms almost as frequently as the accounts surrounding her physical aspect, even within the same culture or closely related cultures – these usually with strong, historical ties to the sea. Camões (1572) brings us, in Os Lusíadas, Sirena, daughter of Thetis, in everything resembling the beautiful sea nymphs – human in shape and divine in nature – singing the future great deeds of the Portuguese in her angelic voice, turning the siren into a voice of warning and prophecy.34 In the same country, but nearly 370 years later, the siren has changed once more. Now an image of strength and as much a part of the oceanic picture as coral and fish, she becomes the portrait-in-myth of Vitorino Nemésio’s idea of human strength and resilience as he uses the beautiful beast to characterise the people of the Azores Islands, so used to earthquakes and floods. His statement, “Like the sirens, we are dual in nature: made of flesh and stone. Our bones dive into the sea […]” describes like no other the classical view of the mermaid: passionate and vulnerable as humans (flesh), and cold and heartless as the great rocks against which she sends enamoured sailors, lured to their deaths.35 And it is the latter that we again find, a century before Nemésio and across the Atlantic Ocean, in the hand of Bernardo Guimarães (1879), a Brazilian surrealist poet who returns the mermaid to her deceiving ways – but not to her half-woman,

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__________________________________________________________________ half-fish form – when she becomes the target of a poor fisherman’s attention by singing her grief over being stuck on a rock, away from the sea of her birth. Eu sou pérola das vagas, Que não sei, nem quero amar; O meu peito é como a rocha, Onde em vão esbarra o mar. Mancebo, vai noutra parte Teus amores suspirar.

I am the pearl of the waves, I don’t know, nor want to love; My heart is like the rock, That the sea strikes in vain. Young man, go elsewhere And mourn your loves there.36

To the fisherman’s attempts at romance, she responds with a heart of stone, only to finally give in to his promises of undying love and disappearing with him amidst the rocks. His boat sinks and soon after, the cries of the mermaid are heard again, suggesting an unfortunate end to the fisherman.37 6. Conclusion: Hybrid Vigour Monstrosity, as defined by Cohen and Carroll, is to be feared for its categorical interstitiality, but it is also to be valued. Women are continually placed into categories not of their own choosing: the fair sex, the weaker sex, virgin or whore. Even calls for fair treatment of women often reference their categorical relations to men: mothers, daughters, sisters, wives – rarely people. And women who express their opinions, their leadership, their strength are often categorised as bossy, aggressive, and pushy by those who are threatened by their attempts to move into categories traditionally occupied by men. Women who insist on being taken seriously often find themselves being treated as ‘one of the boys,’ their femininity denied, or even become anti-feminist, like Ursula from Disney’s Little Mermaid, who sings that Ariel should use her body, not her voice, to get her man: The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber They think a girl who gossips is a bore Yes, on land it’s much preferred For ladies not to say a word And after all, dear, what is idle prattle for? Come on, they’re not all that impressed with conversation True gentlemen avoid it when they can But they dote and swoon and fawn On a lady who’s withdrawn It’s she who holds her tongue who gets her man38 The hybridised nature of the mermaid can serve as a powerful metaphor for those who breach the barriers between categories, who refuse to give up anything

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__________________________________________________________________ in their demand for equality and respect. Unapologetically female, but with a tail that smashes boundaries and remakes categories, she is a symbol for the rapidly changing age we are in.

Notes 1

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ‘Monster Culture: Seven Theses’, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996), 20. 2 Ovid, The Metamorphoses (New York: Penguin, 2009), 263. 3 Homer, The Odyssey of Homer (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1975), 186. 4 Ibid., 189-90. 5 Pausanias, Description of Greece, Volume I, (New York: Macmillan, 1898), 486. 6 Richard F. Burton, trans., The Arabian Nights, Complete and Unabridged (Houston: Halcyon Press, 2010), Kindle edition. 7 Karen E. Rowe, ‘To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale’, in The Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (New York: WW Norton, 1999), 3023. 8 Ras Michael Brown, ‘“But the Mermaid Did Not Rise Up”: The Death of a Simbi in the Carolina Lowcountry’, Southern Quarterly 42 (2010): 124-6 9 The spelling of Yemanjá and Iemanjá varies depending on the source, but the latter is the more-standard Brazilian spelling. 10 Brown, ‘Death of a Simbi’, 126. 11 Matthew Meyer, The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons (Matthew Meyer, 2013), 109. Kindle edition. 12 This information all comes from a personal visit to the temple, reading the signs, and discussing the legend with the priest and his family. 13 Cohen, ‘Monster Culture’, 4. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 4-6. 16 E. B. Hudspeth, The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2013), 78-89. 17 Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009), 136. 18 Manuel Bandeira, ‘Balada do Rei das Sereias’, In Poesias completas de Manuel Bandiera (Rio de Janeiro: Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1951), 184. To quote the passage: ‘The king threw/ his daughter into the sea/ And told the sirens/ – Go get her/ For if you don’t/ You’ll turn into foam/ Of the waves of the sea// The mermaids went […]/Who saw them return! [...]/They never returned!/They turned into foam/ Of the waves of the sea.’ (Trans. Rute Noiva.) 19 Cohen, ‘Monster Culture’, 6-16.

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__________________________________________________________________ 20

Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York: Routledge, 1990), 32. 21 Cohen, ‘Monster Culture’, 16. 22 Finn Hauberg Mortensen, ‘The Little Mermaid: Icon and Disneyfication’, Scandinavian Studies 80 (2008): 441. 23 Cohen, ‘Monster Culture’, 16-20. 24 Ibid., 17. 25 Ibid., 20. 26 First published as ‘Den lille havfrue’, 1837. 27 Lauren Dundes and Alan Dundes, ‘The Trident and the Fork: Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” as a male construction of an Electral fantasy’, Psychoanalytic Studies 2 (2000): 119. 28 Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Little Mermaid’, in The Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (New York: WW Norton, 1999), 227. 29 Ibid., 231-2. 30 Ibid., 232. 31 The Little Mermaid (Tokyo: Walt Disney Animation Japan, 2013). Original release 1989. 32 Mortensen, ‘Little Mermaid’, 449. 33 Ponyo (Gake no Ue no Ponyo) (Tokyo: Studio Ghibli, 2010). (Original release 2008.) 34 Luís Vaz de Camões, Os Lusíadas (Lisbon: RBA Editores, 1994), 276-86. (First printing 1572.) 35 Vitorino Nemésio, O Bicho harmonioso: poemas (Coimbra: Revista de Portugal, 1938), 83-4. (Translation by Rute Noiva.) 36 Bernardo Guimarães, A ilha maldita. O pão de ouro (Rio de Janeiro: B. L. Garnier, 1879), 67. 37 Ibid., 92. 38 Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin, ‘Poor, Unfortunate Souls,’ performed by Pat Carroll, in The Little Mermaid (Tokyo: Walt Disney Animation Japan, 2013).

Bibliography Andersen, Hans Christian. ‘The Little Mermaid.’ The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, 216-232. New York: WW Norton, 1999. Asma, Stephen T. On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Bandeira, Manuel. ‘Balada do Rei das Sereias.’ In Poesias completas de Manuel Bandiera (5th ed.), 184. Rio de Janeiro: Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1951. Brown, Ras Michael. ‘“But the Mermaid Did Not Rise Up”: The Death of a Simbi in the Carolina Lowcountry.’ Southern Quarterly 42 (2010): 120-150. Burton, Richard F., trans. The Arabian Nights, Complete and Unabridged. Houston: Halcyon Press, 2010. Kindle edition. Camões, Luís Vaz de. Os Lusíadas, 1572. Lisbon: RBA Editores, 1994. Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge, 1990. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses).’ In Monster Theory: Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, 3-25. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Dundes, Lauren and Alan Dundes. ‘The Trident and the Fork: Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” as a male construction of an Electral fantasy.’ Psychoanalytic Studies 2 (2000): 117-130. Guimarães, Bernardo. A ilha maldita. O pão de ouro. Rio de Janeiro: B. L. Garnier, 1879. Homer. The Odyssey of Homer. Trans. Lattimore, Richmond. New York, Harper and Row, 1975. Hudspeth, E.B. The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2013. The Little Mermaid. DVD. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. 1989. Tokyo: Walt Disney Animation Japan, 2013. Meyer, Matthew. The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. ??: Matthew Meyer, 2013. Kindle edition. Mortensen, Finn Hauberg. ‘The Little Mermaid: Icon and Disneyfication.’ Scandinavian Studies 80 (2008): 437-454.

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__________________________________________________________________ Nemésio, Vitorino. O Bicho harmonioso: poemas. Coimbra: Revista de Portugal, 1938. Ovid. The Metamorphoses. Trans. Horace Gregory. New York: Penguin, 2009. Kindle Edition. Pausanias. Description of Greece, Volume I. Translated by J.G Frazer. New York: Macmillan, 1898. Ponyo (Gake no Ue no Ponyo). DVD. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. 2008. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli, 2010. Rowe, Karen E. ‘To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale.’ In The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, 297-308. New York: WW Norton, 1999. David Farnell is an associate professor of English with the Language Education and Research Centre at Fukuoka University, Japan. His research focus is on utopian and dystopian themes in literature, and he has published on authors such as Herman Melville, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, H.P. Lovecraft and Paolo Bacigalupi. Rute Noiva is a M.Sc. D.V.M. and Ph.D. student in veterinary health at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Research in Animal Health (CIISA) – Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (University of Lisbon). Her research area is avian pathology, and she has published papers on animal pathology and presented on embryology and embryodiagnosis.

Laura Palmer: A Monstrosity of Multiple Meanings Anne Bettina Pedersen Abstract Cocooned in plastic and bejewelled with tiny pebbles, the corpse of Laura Palmer of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks (1990-1991) counters Julia Kristeva’s definition of the abject cadaver. Instead of displaying signs of decay, Laura’s corpse mirrors the iconic photograph of her in full Homecoming Queen regalia. Further, Laura echoes Edgar Allan Poe’s concept of the female corpse as an aesthetic object, as her beautiful dead body provokes necrophiliac desires; death has not diminished the sexual prowess of this lethal seductress. As this chapter explains, the confluence of tragedy and beauty proves a trademark of Lynch’s, as his films often portray ‘troubled women.’ Laura contains traces of other Lynchian females in trouble as well as elements of an abandoned project on Marilyn Monroe. Simultaneously deceased and ever-present, through doppelgängers, Laura defies logic and signifies chaos by displaying both a lack of and an overabundance of meaning. This chapter suggests that the numerous cultural references to written and visual texts such as, for instance, Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939), Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944), Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place (1956), and Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962) found in Twin Peaks cause Laura to become a monstrosity of multiple meanings, as evinced by her demonic transformation, warding off Agent Cooper/viewers trying to solve her mystery. Laura’s simultaneous invitation to and struggle against the investigation of her secrets further complicate any critical analysis of her persona(s). By containing clues to solving Laura’s murder, her corpse embodies her mystery. From beyond the grave, Laura beckons investigators, on-screen as well as off-screen, to solve her murder. Yet, she also guards her secrets fiercely and struggles against additional layers of meaning. Finally, Laura’s uncanny harbouring of multiple identities, her housing all these different female characters, has turned her body beastly, projecting the abject chaos within. Key Words: Twin Peaks, abjection, female body, empty/unstable signifier, Lolita, Peyton Place, Monroe, Poe. ***** 1. Introducing Laura [People are] [a]lways touching me and taking something, always wanting more, and more and more.1

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__________________________________________________________________ In 1990, two images from David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult TV-series Twin Peaks (1990-1991) became instant icons: the photo of Laura Palmer as Homecoming Queen, complete with dazzling smile and tiara, and the shot of her corpse, wrapped in plastic, her bluish yet beautiful face exposed. Laura proves a presence today also, as the series continues to titillate long-term fans as well as new audiences. Laura’s murderer may have been revealed, but her enigmatic story still invites (re)visits to Twin Peaks. The pilot episode launched an obsessive investigation into the psyche and the body of the dead girl, as on-screen characters and real-life audiences endeavored to unveil Laura’s secrets. From the moment Laura’s body is found, washed up on the shore, it becomes a symbol of the mystery surrounding both her life and her death. The corpse itself provides clues to her murder, since the killer has placed the letter R under one of Laura’s fingernails. In the show’s title sequence, a sign welcomes viewers to Twin Peaks (the show) and Twin Peaks (the fictional town). The snow-capped mountains depicted on the sign have often been linked to the female anatomy; the twin peaks have been said to echo breasts. However, the mountains may also represent the raised legs of a female (the peaks become knees). The legs are just about to be spread with the purpose of entry into and exploration and/or violation of the female body. Investigators/transgressors should be able to enter Laura’s dead body without resistance. Yet the secrets contained within the young girl prove at times impenetrable. In the series, a still frame from a video of Laura suggests that she encourages the exploration of her body: softly, she whispers ‘Help me.’ At other times, however, Laura warns off on-screen as well as off-screen investigators by becoming monstrous, thus indicating that forced entry into her mystery/her body mimics the abuse she has endured at the hands of her father/the evil entity known as BOB. The image of the welcome sign appears again when FBI Agent Dale Cooper drives into town and begins his investigation of Laura’s murder. Throughout the series, Agent Cooper, Lynch and audiences endeavor to reach an essential definition of her – a TRUTH. However, Laura remains a mystery: ambiguous, appealing and horrific. The discovery of Laura’s cadaver sets in motion the action of the story, and through the use of doppelgängers she remains ever-present in the small town. Not only do the other young females in Twin Peaks echo Laura; she also embodies numerous cultural references, which add further layers to her identity. By watching and analysing the series, viewers take on Cooper’s role and follow clues leading to, for instance, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Philosophy of Composition’ (1846), Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939), Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944), Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962), based on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, Grace Metalious’s controversial novel Peyton Place (1956), adapted to the screen by Mark Robson in 1957, and the tumultuous life and mysterious death of movie star Marilyn Monroe.

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__________________________________________________________________ As explained by David Lavery in ‘The Semiotics of Cobbler: Twin Peaks’ Interpretive Community’ (1995), Twin Peaks’s principal appeal lies in the pleasure viewers derive from ‘tracking its intertextual, allusionary quotations’ which ‘[invite] fanatic, cultic participation, generating discourse about discourse.’2 These layers of cultural reference provoke numerous interpretations of Lynch’s Laura, who is characterized by both her acceptance of other people’s definitions of her and her resistance to being defined; every clue, in the action of the series as well as in the cultural references, leads merely to another. The puzzle of Laura is never solved; she possesses no meaning and all meanings at the same time. In true deconstructionist spirit, her monstrosity, embodied by her status as an empty as well as an unstable signifier, both frustrates and stimulates viewers. 2. Laura: The Corpse Beautiful In her secret diary, penned by Jennifer Lynch in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (1990), Laura details a nightmare she has had: ‘I became invisible. I broke up into empty space and floated around Twin Peaks … through school … No one noticed me.’3 Ironically, after her death, Laura’s absence at school, signaled by her empty chair, accentuates her dominant role in the series. Despite being dead, Laura’s presence permeates Twin Peaks, as her name dominates the discourse in the series. For instance, Laura’s mother, Sarah Palmer, continuously cries out her daughter’s name, reflecting the pain of her loss. Further, photos of Laura, disguising her dark secrets with a smile, loom in the background. These haunting images call to mind Preminger’s film noir Laura, in which Detective Mark McPherson becomes obsessed with the painting of a (presumably) dead woman, Laura Hunt, whose murder he is investigating. Both Lauras exude a sexual desirability, which extends beyond death. As suggested in my 2008 thesis, ‘Ladies in Red: The New Eves of America’, ‘[o]n several occasions, [Laura Palmer’s] corpse invites necrophiliac appetites.’4 During an altercation with Sheriff Harry S. Truman at the morgue, FBI Agent and forensics expert Albert Rosenfield accidentally ends up on top of Laura’s dead body, thus parodying the missionary position. Similarly, at her funeral, Laura’s coveted corpse proves too tempting for BOB/her father, Leland Palmer, who has abused her sexually for years; in a desperate attempt to violate Laura’s body one last time, Leland/BOB throws himself on top of her coffin. Publicity photos of actress Sheryl Lee testify to the uncanny sexual allure of Laura’s cold, dead body: partly shrouded in plastic, but with open eyes and a come-hither smile, Laura/Lee invites the photographer and audience to desire her, in direct defiance of Julia Kristeva’s definition of the human corpse as ‘the utmost of abjection.’5 As Kristeva explains in Powers of Horror: An Essay of Abjection (1982), the cadaver ‘is death infecting life. […] [It] disturbs identity, system, order.’6 Whereas Laura, due to her paradoxical status as deceased yet ever-present, defies logic and signifies chaos by having no fixed identity, she also embodies

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__________________________________________________________________ Poe’s notion of the female corpse as a sublime aesthetic object. In ‘The Philosophy of Composition,’ Poe concludes that ‘the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical subject in the world.’7 Poe populated his works with dead or dying female characters, presumably using his late wife Virginia as his muse. In Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (1992), Elizabeth Bronfen explains: ‘Precisely in her proximity to death Virginia Clemm unwittingly served as the muse who gave birth to Edgar Allan Poe’s creative powers.’8 The desire, felt by several males in Twin Peaks, for physical contact with Laura’s cadaver mirrors the necrophiliac longing of Poe’s protagonist in ‘Annabel Lee’ (1849) to ‘lie down by the side / Of my darling – my darling – my life and my bride, / In her sepulchre there by the sea.’9 Poe’s obsession with the tragic female resounds in Lynch’s favorite subject: the ‘woman in trouble.’ As evinced by his oeuvre, Lynch has been preoccupied with this type of character since Blue Velvet (1986). Lynch’s ‘women in trouble’ may not all be deceased, yet their ‘troubles’ always bring them into close contact with death. In Twin Peaks, Lynch has taken Poe’s trope of the seductive dead muse to the extreme: instead of corrupting Laura’s beauty, death accentuates it. Pebbles adorn her face like tiny jewels, testifying to the aesthetic property of the dead female body. In ‘Laura and Twin Peaks: Postmodern Parody and the Musical Reconstruction of the Absent Femme Fatale’ (2004), John Richardson suggests that ‘the main plot [of Twin Peaks] is concerned with the relationship between Laura Palmer and Agent Cooper.’ 10 By extension, the narrative also involves Lynch and his obsession with the ‘woman in trouble.’ Primarily, Laura functions as Lynch’s muse. Bronfen says of the dead female as muse that ‘[w]hat she gives is not her song but rather her body and her life.’11 Laura is sacrificed not only to protect the town’s secrets, but also for Lynch to be able to explore fully the story of his troubled female. Lynch has even infiltrated the story; he appears on-screen as FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole, so as to study first-hand the consequences of killing off his female archetype. 3. Laura or Lauras? According to Lynch, ‘It [Twin Peaks] started with Marilyn’ and ‘the idea of this woman in trouble.’12 The series was inspired by an abandoned project on Marilyn Monroe, based on Anthony Summers’s Goddess, his 1985 biography of the legendary actress. Allegedly, the project became wrought with controversy, and Lynch and Frost started working on different ideas instead. As Lynch recounts, ‘all of a sudden, Mark and I had this image of a body washing up on the shore of a lake.’ 13 Thus, they transferred the mystery shrouding Marilyn’s death onto a grueling fictional tale of a young woman’s tragic life and demise. Twin Peaks contains many references to Marilyn: sexual abuse, the hypersexualized female body, drug addiction, a mentally unstable mother, blond hair, and a secret relationship with two powerful brothers. Also, Marilyn and Laura both represent

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__________________________________________________________________ the American Dream as American Nightmare. In The Complete Lynch (2001), David Hughes elaborates: ‘Monroe can be seen as a blueprint for Laura Palmer: the all-American girl whose smile is frozen in a portrait, yet whose eyes reveal a tortured soul, which she sells, piece by piece, in a desperate effort to be loved.’14 Further, both women may be viewed as performers, constantly shifting between identities. In Goddess, Summers explains that ‘Marilyn was a mass of contradictions and a mistress of transformation.’15 In Laura, Marilyn’s ambiguous nature is mirrored; during the day, Laura takes on the role of the rosy-cheeked school girl, volunteering for the local Meals-On-Wheels service, but at night she dons the guise of the vampiric femme fatale, inhabiting a world of drugs and prostitution. ‘Laura’ is a role performed not only by Laura herself but also by her doppelgängers, as when Donna Hayward puts on Laura’s sunglasses, thus adopting the dead girl’s hypersexualized behavior, sucking suggestively on her boyfriend’s finger through the bars of his jail cell. Laura’s cousin, Maddy Ferguson (also played by Sheryl Lee), becomes the ultimate doppelgänger, when she is killed in Leland/BOB’s reenactment of Laura’s brutal murder. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), David Lynch chronicles the disintegration of Laura’s psyche; gradually, the pressure from having to embody multiple identities destroys her. Laura’s secret diary elaborates on the concept of ‘the “two Lauras”’16 and the consequences of having to navigate between different personas. As Laura concludes, ‘I have gone insane.’17 In Circling Marilyn: Text Body Performance (2010), Clara Juncker describes Marilyn ‘as a universal signifier,’18 absorbing and reflecting meaning according to other people’s desires. Similarly, Jennifer Lynch constructs Laura, Marilyn’s doppelgänger, as an unstable or empty signifier, containing at the same time many identities and no identity at all: ‘My life is whatever the other person in the room wants it to be. Therefore, when I am alone, my life is nothing.’ 19 Laura’s lack and overabundance of meaning cause her to become monstrous. In the final episode of the series, Agent Cooper runs into Laura’s shadow self in The Red Room/The Black Lodge, a nightmarish world ruled by BOB. Sphinx-like, Laura guards her secrets fiercely; her visage turns demonic, complete with snarling mouth and milky, white eyes, deliberately veiling the secrets of her soul. Resisting Agent Cooper’s (and the viewer’s) attempt to solve her mystery, Laura lets out horrible screams, scaring off her investigator(s). Laura’s physical monstrosity starkly contrasts the iconic images of the Homecoming Queen and the beautiful corpse; yet another layer of meaning has been added to her. 4. Laura: Victim or Victimizer? Through visual references, phrasal echoes and the reenactment of a slapstick scene, Twin Peaks showcases Lynch’s fascination with Kubrick’s 1962 adaptation of Lolita and, by extension, Nabokov’s novel. The archetype of the

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__________________________________________________________________ nymphet/Seductive Daughter dominates the classic movie as well as the series. In ‘The Knowing Spectator of Twin Peaks: Culture, Feminism, and Family Violence’ (1993), Randi Davenport discusses the trope of the Seductive Daughter, perfectly embodied by Lolita. As Davenport explains, the Seductive Daughter ‘corrupts men by forcing them to be sexual with their children,’20 a definition echoing Nabokov’s characterization of the nymphet as ‘the little demon [hiding] among the wholesome children.’ 21 To Davenport, however, Laura is not a typical nymphet. Instead, Davenport believes Lynch portrays Laura as the innocent victim of incest and Leland as the cruel offender. Yet, as Leo Johnson explains in episode two of the series, ‘Laura was a wild girl.’ Thus, Laura’s father, who was possessed by BOB when he molested his daughter, is partly exempted from blame. In her diary, Laura also reveals that she sometimes intentionally performs the role of the nymphet because ‘it is so much easier to get what I want when I say it sweetly, and like a little girl.’22 As illustrated in my thesis, ‘Lolita functions as a New World Eve, a dangerous juvenile temptress.’23 The young girl, ‘holding in her hollowed hands a beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple,’ 24 initiates her physical relationship with Humbert. He denies all responsibility and simply states: ‘it was she who seduced me.’25 In the same manner, Laura is hypersexualized and described as using her sexuality to manipulate her sexual partners, many of whom are older males. Her behavior, then, supports Humbert’s belief that nymphets are rare, almost supernatural creatures; they are not like ‘ordinary children, with their purity and vulnerability.’26 Seductive Daughters will naturally attract and corrupt full-grown men, who cannot be held accountable for their own actions. Twin Peaks also functions as Lynch’s update of Metalious’s infamous story of illegal abortion, rape, sexual maturation, murder, and small-town hypocrisy. In Twin Peaks, Lynch restores a crucial part of the original plot line of Peyton Place, which Metalious’s publishers found too controversial for print: the incestual relationship between blood relatives (father and daughter). Laura mirrors Peyton Place’s Selena Cross, an uncannily attractive teenager who is, therefore, naturally appealing to her stepfather, Lucas Cross. As evinced by a description of Selena, the young girl seems much older than her years: ‘At thirteen, she has the look of a beautifully sensual, expensively kept woman.’27 Selena does not actively initiate the semi-incestuous relationship with her stepfather, yet, she does display sexual agency when she instructs her boyfriend Ted Carter to ‘[r]eally kiss’28 her. Lolita, Selena, and Laura, highly sexualized and beautiful creatures, become marked as partly culpable for their own abuse. Laura is echoed again in Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), when Sheryl Lee appears dressed as Glinda the Good Witch from Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz. Linking Laura to Glinda further complicates the young girl’s tragic story; oscillating constantly between doing good deeds (charity work) and giving into her dark desires (orgies in the woods), Laura seems ever on the verge of collapsing, as highlighted by Lee’s melodramatic performance in Fire Walk with Me. Lynch

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__________________________________________________________________ never allows Laura to possess a stable identity, and she seems unable to do good deeds without somehow tainting them. For example, Laura exploits sexually one of her Meals On Wheels recipients, the agoraphobic Harold Smith. In her diary, Laura relates the story to Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, her psychiatrist, and explains ‘that half the time I hated it [forcing Harold to have sex] and the rest of the time it made me feel strong and hot between the legs.’ 29 Thus, Laura is portrayed as both the tormented and the tormentor: she is the self-loathing, masochistic incest victim who lets men tie her up in the woods and mistreat her, because she has become convinced that she ‘belong[s] in dark places,’30 as well as the sadist who punishes people by taking them ‘into a very dark erotic place.’31 5. Goodbye, Laura While filming Fire Walk with Me, which details the horrors of Laura Palmer’s existence, Sheryl Lee experienced emotional turmoil, as ‘[d]esperation, fear, pain, and weeping were her [Lee’s] constant companions.’32 Just as Laura continually ventures to a dark place, sexually, Lee had to access a place of darkness within herself in order to portray Laura’s mental breakdown. Similarly, every visit to Twin Peaks leads viewers to a dark underworld of horrible secrets, in which new clues are revealed constantly, often leading to dead ends. As Alice Kuzniar explains in ‘Double Talk in Twin Peaks’ (1995), ‘[m]oving from one frame to the next, this necrophiliac ultra-soft porn [Twin Peaks] never quite penetrates the woman to answer the question – not who killed Laura Palmer, but who she is.’33 Gradually, Laura loses control of her own identity, as layers of meaning are added onto her, causing her to become a monstrosity of multiple meanings. Laura proves an indecipherable poem, a sphinx, guarding her Russian doll-like body of secrets – by following the clues, peeling off the layers, on-screen and off-screen investigators reveal the numerous identities housed by Laura: Poe’s tragic beauty, Lynch’s ‘woman in trouble,’ Marilyn Monroe, The Seductive Daughter, etc. Analysing Twin Peaks, constantly finding new references, and choosing which aspects of her identity to focus on prove daunting tasks. BOB/Leland may have raped and killed Laura, yet the series also suggests that the young girl’s extraordinary sexual prowess makes her partly responsible for her own molestation and subsequent murder. Further, Lynch forces Laura to inhabit too many identities and cultural references for her to be able to exist on screen; to complete the auteur’s vision, Laura, the muse, must die. According to Greg Olson in David Lynch: Beautiful Dark (2008), Lynch takes viewers on ‘a journey leading to Laura’s blood sacrifice – and beyond.’ 34 Laura’s demise is also a beginning; after her body expires, it stiffens, then softens and opens up, launching the exploration/violation of the female body. Under Laura’s fingernail, Agent Cooper finds the letter R, yet at the heart of her mystery, clouded in darkness, investigators encounter a question mark.

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Notes 1

Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 139. 2 David Lavery, ‘The Semiotics of Cobbler: Twin Peaks’ Interpretive Community,’ in Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, ed. David Lavery (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 6-7. 3 Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 209. 4 Anne Bettina Pedersen, ‘Ladies in Red: The Eves of America’ (Master’s thesis, University of Southern Denmark, 2008), 72. 5 Julie Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 4. 6 Ibid. 7 Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Philosophy of Composition,’ in Complete Poems and Selected Essays: Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Richard Gray (London: J. M. Dent, 1993) 109. 8 Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 366. 9 Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Annabel Lee,’ in Complete Poems and Selected Essays: Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Richard Gray (London: J. M. Dent, 1993), 92-93; 38-41. 10 John Richardson, ‘Laura and Twin Peaks: Postmodern Parody and the Musical Reconstruction of the Absent Femme Fatale,’ in The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, American Nightmares, ed. Erica Sheen and Annette Davison (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), 80. 11 Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body. Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 365. 12 Chris Rodley, Lynch on Lynch (London: Faber and Faber Limited), 156. 13 Ibid., 157. 14 David Hughes, The Complete Lynch (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd., 2001), 68. 15 Anthony Summers, Goddess (London: Orion Books Ltd., 2000), 76. 16 Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 221. 17 Ibid., 202. 18 Clara Juncker, Circling Marilyn: Text Body Performance (Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2010), 11. 19 Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 219. 20 Randi Davenport, ‘The Knowing Spectator of Twin Peaks: Culture, Feminism, and Family Violence,’ Literature/Film Quarterly (1993): 256. 21 Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 17.

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Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 75. 23 Anne Bettina Pedersen, ‘Ladies in Red: The Eves of America’ (Master’s Thesis, University of Southern Denmark, 2008), 68. 24 Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 57. 25 Ibid., 132. 26 Ibid., 20. 27 Grace Metalious, Peyton Place (London: Virago Press, 2002), 52. 28 Ibid., 68. 29 Jennifer Lynch, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 235. 30 Ibid., 144. 31 Ibid., 228. 32 Greg Olson, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008), 371. 33 Alice Kuzniar, ‘Double Talk in Twin Peaks,’ in Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, ed. David Lavery (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 123. 34 Greg Olson, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008), 384.

Bibliography Bronfen, Elisabeth. Over Her Dead Body. Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992. Davenport, Randi. ‘The Knowing Spectator of Twin Peaks: Culture, Feminism, and Family Violence.’ Literature/Film Quarterly (1993): 255-259. Hughes, David. The Complete Lynch. London: Virgin Publishing Ltd., 2001. Juncker, Clara. Circling Marilyn: Text Body Performance. Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2010. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay of Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Kuzniar, Alice. ‘Double Talk in Twin Peaks.’ In Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, edited by David Lavery, 120-129. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ Laura. Directed by Otto Preminger. 20th Century Fox, 1944. Lavery, David. ‘The Semiotics of Cobbler: Twin Peaks’ Interpretive Community.’ In Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, edited by David Lavery, 121. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995. Lolita. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 1962. Lynch, Jennifer. The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. London: Penguin Books, 1992. Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place. London: Virago Press, 2002. Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. London: Penguin Books, 1997. Olson, Greg. David Lynch: Beautiful Dark. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008. Pedersen, Anne Bettina. ‘Ladies in Red: The Eves of America.’ Master’s thesis, University of Southern Denmark, 2008. Poe, Edgar Allan. ‘Annabel Lee.’ In Complete Poems and Selected Essays: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Richard Gray, 92-93. London: J. M. Dent, 1993. Poe, Edgar Allan. ‘The Philosophy of Composition.’ In Complete Poems and Selected Essays: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Richard Gray, 105-114. London: J. M. Dent, 1993. Richardson, John. ‘Laura and Twin Peaks: Postmodern Parody and the Musical Reconstruction of the Absent Femme Fatale.’ In The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, American Nightmares, edited by Erica Sheen and Annette Davison, 77-92. London: Wallflower Press, 2004. Rodley, Chris. Lynch on Lynch. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2005. Summers, Anthony. Goddess. London: Orion Books Ltd., 2000. Twin Peaks. Directed by David Lynch, et al, ABC, 1990-1991.

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__________________________________________________________________ Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Directed by David Lynch. New Line Cinema, 1992. Wild at Heart. Directed by David Lynch. The Samuel Goldwyn Company. 1990. Anne Bettina Pedersen is Assistant Lecturer at University of Southern Denmark, Odense. She teaches classes on American Literature Before 1922, American Horror, American Cultural Studies, English Written Communication, and English Oral Communication. Her main areas of interest are American literature, film, and popular culture.

Part II The Cult of the Witch: Powerful Women as the Face of Evil

Evil and Superstition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Religious Infanticide and Filicide Chima Agazue and Helen Gavin Abstract A distinct category of women has been identified in parts of sub-Saharan Africa: those who commit acts of extreme violence and even murder against their own children in order to fulfil religious obligations or to protect themselves from perceived magico-spiritual attacks by their children. The whole of Africa is currently witnessing a heightened level of witch-hunting. Historically, many African witch-hunting incidents have been triggered by witch-doctors keen to protect their clients from the diabolical effects of witches, while others have been triggered by mere gossip or rumour among neighbours. However, in recent years, dramatised preaching on the subject of witchcraft by revivalist Christian prophets, whose major occupations are the sale of exorcisms to the ‘bewitched’, has become the latest trend in the region. These prophets and prophetesses deliver sermons and prophecies, purportedly from God, in which they identify particular children in the community as witches and prescribe the measures or punishment necessary for protection. By means of case study analysis, this chapter presents the new pattern of evil that is being perpetrated in the form of the abandonment, torture, mutilation and murder of these children by their own mothers. Further, this chapter presents the cases of the prophetesses whose sermons and prophecies, claiming to come from God, emphasise biblical passages such as, ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22:18) to encourage violence against children in the name of religious obligation. Key Words: Superstition, religion, witchcraft, female aggression, child abuse, violence. ***** 1. Female Patterns of Aggression and Homicide across Cultures Issues surrounding female aggression and homicide have generated heated debate. While some scholars report that females are less violent than males,1 others report that females are slightly more physically aggressive than males.2 Harned found that ‘rates of physical violence were similar across genders’ among the 874 graduate and undergraduate students studied.3 However, Archer has suggested that the conflicting results obtained by different researchers may be due to differing methodologies used to study the phenomenon.4 The female serial killer has largely been disputed as a fact but evidence now abounds to suggest its existence.5 Aileen Wuornos, the first female serial killer identified by the FBI, was convicted of killing seven men.6 Myra Hindley

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__________________________________________________________________ accompanied her partner Ian Brady in the murders of five children in Saddleworth Moor, England.7 Rosemary West, another female serial killer, became infamous as an accomplice to her husband, Fred West, in the rapes and murders of ten females in Gloucester, England.8 Black widow serial killers also abound. Female nurses who are multiple murderers can also be found. Beverly Allitt, an enrolled nurse, was convicted of murdering four children and also suspected of nine others in Grantham and Kesteven District General Hospital, England.9 Repper reports the case of a nurse, simply identified as Nurse ‘7’ who was convicted of second-degree murder and attempted murder following the deaths of 12 patients in a nursing home in Florida, USA.10 In Texas, Nurse ‘32’ was convicted of murdering six babies in a private clinic and was also investigated in connection with ten other murders.11 Suicide bombing has continued to attract women, both adults and teenagers. Females engage in armed robbery, kidnapping, hostage taking and assassination. There are also women who engage in what can be termed ‘legitimate violence’ due to their status as law enforcement officials. The torture and other inhumane treatment of criminal suspects and detainees carried out by such women closely resemble those of their male counterparts. One case study on this is provided by Mersh12 regarding the activities of female American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Females have also been linked to mass murder on a genocidal scale. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko of Rwanda and Irith Leng of Cambodia are two women who are known to have engaged in such acts.13 The linking of women to such mass murders seems to support Steans’ argument that, given the opportunity, women are just as capable of committing serious crimes as men.14 Understanding female patterns of aggression and/or homicide is difficult. Historically and cross-culturally, ‘women commit fewer crimes of all types and proportionately fewer serious and violent crimes than men.’15 Women, according to Birch, ‘do not often kill.’16 Only about 14 per cent of all murder suspects in England and Wales between 1983 and 1990 were women.17 Of the 14,054 homicides committed in the United States in 2002, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report Statistics, 76.8 per cent were committed by men; while women committed only a ‘fraction’ of them.18 Kellermann and Mercy found that, although at the time of the study, the female population in the United States was double that of males, only 14.7 per cent of the 215,273 homicides committed in the country between 1976 and 1987 were committed by women.19 The murder rate for males in the United States in 2011 was 7.4 homicides per 100,000 males; while that of females was only 2.0 homicides per 100,000 females.20 Women were responsible for only 7.5 per cent of 133 homicide-suicide cases committed in Dade County, United States.21 Among serial killers, only 17 per cent are females.22 In situations where females were found culpable of murder, they were often responding to domestic abuse23 or threats by men.24 Additionally, they are often

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__________________________________________________________________ viewed as mentally ill,25 under the influence of alcohol26 or assisting a male perpetrator.27 A study of 74 female murderers in India found that most of these women were keen to end ‘cycles of domestic abuse.’28 Similarly, the vast majority of the 14 per cent of murders suspected to have been perpetrated by women in England and Wales between 1983 and 1990 were committed within a domestic setting.29 Adler found that 77 per cent of homicides were perpetrated by women in Chicago, United States, compared to only 27.6 per cent of those committed by men, took place within a domestic setting.30 Women are ‘3.5 times more likely to kill a spouse, 3.8 times more likely to kill a (non-spouse) relative, and 1.8 times more likely to kill a lover.’31 Women also kill for a variety of other reasons, such as ‘greed, love or the sheer pleasure derived from killing’.32 An act such as infanticide is more likely to be perpetrated by a female, rather than a male.33 However, D’Orban found that mothers who kill their children are more likely to be suffering from diminished responsibility.34 This is consistent with other findings that mental disorder is one of the reasons why females kill. 2. Female Perpetrators of Infanticide and Homicide in Sub-Saharan Africa Cases of women abusing or murdering their family members, including mothers torturing or murdering their own children, are reported widely in parts of Africa. This development has been traced to indigenous African belief in witchcraft and the proliferation of profiteering revivalist/Pentecostal churches in Africa.35 A heightened level of witch-hunting has been identified in many parts of Africa.36 In early modern Europe, it was predominantly women who were persecuted as witches,37 as in Africa,38 Asia,39 and other parts of the globe. There are many explanations regarding this victimisation of females as witches. Based on an analysis of cases in India, Chaudhuri40 argues that women’s lower positions in political, cultural and social matters contribute to their vulnerability to witchcraft accusations. This marginalisation may have a way of leading to frustration, which may in turn precipitate aggression. Bever has argued that female aggression made them targets in early modern communities and that other women were persecuted as witches in early modern Europe because they were more likely to resort to defending themselves through ‘witch-like behaviours ranging from premeditated poisoning and surreptitious assault through ritual malefic magic to spontaneous displays of intense anger.’41 Honegger blamed women’s persecution in Europe on men who were keen to destroy gynocracy.42 This is somewhat consistent with Levack’s report that women who were deemed wise, such as folk healers, were often the targets of witchcraft persecution in medieval Europe.43 Levack also argued that senility caused by old age made some women particularly vulnerable to witch persecution in Europe.44 In some early modern societies, while witchcraft practices were more conventionally attributed to females than males, more males than females were executed in particular areas.45

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__________________________________________________________________ Unlike in early modern Europe, where women were mainly the victims of witchcraft beliefs, in contemporary Africa they are frequently the active perpetrators, although they are equally victims in some areas. Female aggression is displayed in the form of women assaulting or murdering people around them, particularly their children, who they believe to be witches. A related group is the female pastors or prophetesses. The number of female pastors and evangelists in Africa has grown rapidly in recent years – a development which can be attributed to the emancipation of women. It can be argued that the restriction of women to private spheres contributed to their victimisation as witches in early modern societies. Conversely, their contemporary presence in the public sphere has contributed to them being more active in witch persecution, particularly in contemporary Africa. The African Pentecostal and Spiritualist female revivalist pastors are powerful and highly respected by their ardent followers as possessing the divine power to detect witches and to offer what the people believe to be a lasting solution to the very real menace of witchcraft – a solution which in many cases transforms into violence or the murder of the accused. The mother of a 10-year-old Nigerian child, Mary Sudnad, threw boiling water and caustic soda over the girl’s head following a pastor’s denunciation of the child as a witch.46 Another child, an 8-year-old girl named Gerry, was cursed by her mother as her father sprayed her with fuel in an attempt to set her alight following her denunciation as a witch by a female pastor during a night vigil.47 The mother of a 7-year-old Nigerian girl, Magrose, attempted to bury her alive because she believed the child to be a witch.48 A 12-year-old boy, Udo, was beaten and later abandoned by his mother, who was acting on a prophecy that the boy was a witch.49 Two children (aged 8 and 6) were rescued by the Nigerian police in Eket, Nigeria, after their parents abandoned them to mobs following a prophecy by revivalist prophets that the children were witches.50 Within the same period and in the same area, a middle-aged woman also reportedly abandoned her three children in the street following a prophecy that the children were all witches.51 The children were covered in wounds sustained during violent exorcisms. A 6-year-old boy was reportedly abandoned by his mother in Kinshasa, Congo, following his denunciation as a witch.52 The Child Rights And Rehabilitation Network’s (CRARN) Coordinator Sam Itauma updated the CRARN Facebook Timeline on January 7, 2014, with the story of two abandoned children whom he had rescued in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. The children had been assaulted and one of them was still bleeding from a head wound. They had been found in a street close to a market where two other traumatised children had been found just two days earlier. In March, 2012, the Nigerian Police arrested a man following the abuse and abandonment of his child.53 Although this offence was committed by a man, his actions were influenced by a prophecy from a woman – a prophetess who had declared that the little boy was a witch and should be dealt with accordingly.

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__________________________________________________________________ Similarly, 13-year-old Edikan endured severe physical abuse from her mother in the company of her stepfather in Rivers State, Nigeria.54 Hannatu Kwassa, a 12year-old Nigerian girl, was severely maltreated and starved for a week by a couple whom she lived with, following a series of prophecies from several revivalist pastors who declared her to be a witch.55 A pastor and his female accomplice were charged in Abuja, Nigeria in 2013 with tying two teenagers with a rope and starving them for several days (which led to the death of one of them) as they exorcised them of evil spirit possessions. Agazue also observed how a little maid was severely abused by a woman she lived with in Onitsha, Nigeria, following a prophecy from her pastor that the girl was a witch.56 In May 2014, a Nigerian prophetess set her 9-year-old daughter on fire after dousing her in kerosene, in the Epe area of Lagos, Nigeria, as she tried to deliver her child from a witchcraft spirit. The denunciation of children as witches has become a significant problem in most parts of Africa. In Nigeria, for instance, more than 15,000 children were denounced in two states alone and many of them were tortured and/or killed.57 The Founder and Coordinator of CRARN in Nigeria, Sam Itauma, is of the view that, for every five abandoned children who are discovered, at least another one must have been murdered.58 Many bodies have reportedly been found in forests and rivers in the Nigerian regions where children are denounced as witches.59 In Ghana, the Act!onaid charity reports on its website that it is currently offering accommodation to about 500 children accused of a variety of witchcraft-related offences.60 In 2006, UNICEF estimated that 70 per cent of approximately 65,000 children who had been abandoned throughout Congo had been denounced as witches.61 Denunciation of children as witches is common in other African countries, namely Zambia, Zimbabwe, Togo, Benin, Cameroon and Central African Republic.62 The mothers of these children respond to their denunciation with torture, mutilation, abandonment and murder.63 The child witch is not a new phenomenon. Twenty-five per cent of the 160 witches executed in Wurzburg between 1627 and 1629 were children.64 However, whereas in early modern Europe, children were executed alongside their parents or guardians because the witch-hunters believed they must have inherited the skills of witchcraft from the adults,65 in contemporary Africa, the persecutors of today’s children seem to view them as autonomous monsters who chose to learn the skills of witchcraft of their own volition and to use them to cause mayhem for their families and their society at large. This narrative underlies a belief that they should not be allowed to live. The violence and murder perpetrated by African women as a result of witchcraft belief is, however, not restricted to children. Women have killed their mothers and other close family members. Recently, a young Nigerian woman, Omolayo Ojeifo, murdered her mother with the help of her younger brother. Ojeifo had always accused her mother of being the witch responsible for the difficulties Ojeifo had experienced throughout her life. Similarly, another young Nigerian

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__________________________________________________________________ woman, Olubukola Adefisayo, murdered her mother, whom she accused of being a witch. However, Adefisayo was said to be mentally ill. African women in diaspora are not left out: Magalie Bamu, with a male accomplice in London, severely tortured her brother, Kristy Bamu, with a series of dangerous weapons and eventually killed him on Christmas day 2010. Similarly, in London in the year 2000, Therese Kouao alongside a male accomplice inflicted several injuries and scars on the body of her 8-year-old niece, Victoria Climbie after suspecting her of being possessed. Other similar cases have equally been reported in more recent times. The denunciation and consequent ostracism, abandonment, torture or murder of the accused can follow either a dramatic event in the family, such as illness, death, a house fire, failure in business, or ongoing misfortune such as simple poverty. This is also the case with children accused of being witches. This observation supports the ‘scapegoating’ theory previously proposed by numerous scholars on witchcraft persecution.66 Although other factors, such as envy and the need to eliminate social non-conformists, have been reported in Africa,67 these cases are among older women, more than children. Ally has also observed that women, out of envy for their fellow women, join hands with men to persecute women, arguing that such women ‘can be said to function from within a patriarchal ideology.’68 Female involvement in the persecution has been observed to be more common in particular locations.69 In Nigeria, as an example, the torture and murder of children by their mothers, including female pastors, are more common in states such as Akwa Ibom and Cross River and their environs – a development which has been largely blamed on the ubiquity of revivalist Pentecostal pastors who specialise in ‘detecting’ child witches and selling exorcisms as the ultimate solution. Parents are charged huge sums of money for their children to be exorcised. A biblical passage – ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22:18) has been found to be recurrently used by such exorcists to convince their clients that their work, that is, the denunciation, torture and/or murder, is God’s work.70 A female evangelist, Helen Ukpabio, who is based in the aforementioned areas of Nigeria, is known for both her relentless preaching on child witches and for her movie, End of the Wicked, in which children are clearly depicted as witches and responsible for wreaking havoc in their society. When the BBC’s Kevani Kanda travelled to Congo from London to investigate the increasing cases of child witch branding and abuse in the region, she clearly showed the role played by prophets in linking children to the deaths of loved ones and so on.71 One Nigerian prophet simply known as The Bishop confessed to having killed 110 people in the area where denunciation of children as witches is rampant.72 Although this kind of preaching, as well as the movies reinforcing witchcraft beliefs, may be factors, it remains debatable whether they are alone sufficient to create a sense of hatred in women towards their loved ones, particularly their children, to the extent that they could harm or even kill them.

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__________________________________________________________________ Whichever factors are responsible, the assaults and murders committed by these women again support Steans’ argument that, given the opportunity, women are just as capable of committing serious crimes as men.73 3. Summary Indigenous African belief in witchcraft and the proliferation of profiteering prophets in Africa have been a driving force behind the heightened level of witchhunting which is currently evident in the continent. Women have been influenced by prophecies on witchcraft in such a way that they have physically abused and/or killed people around them, once such individuals had been denounced as witches. The proliferation of revivalist female pastors and the power they exercise also contributes to this newly emerging female pattern of aggression in the African continent. Aggression, infanticide and homicide are thus justified as the necessary work of God. As this trend is relatively new and under-researched, little is known regarding the extent to which evangelisation can motivate such women, suggesting a need for future research on this phenomenon.

Notes 1

David M. Buss and Todd K. Shackelford, ‘Human Aggression in Evolutionary Psychological Perspective’, Clinical Psychology Review 17 (1997): 605-619. 2 John Archer, ‘Sex Differences in Aggression between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review’, Psychological Bulletin 126 (2000): 651-680. 3 M. S. Harned, ‘Abused Women or Abused Men? An Examination of the Context and Outcomes of Dating Violence’, Violence and Victims 16 (2001): 269-285. 4 Archer, ‘Sex Differences in Aggression’. 5 Elizabeth A. Gurian, ‘Female Serial Murders: Directions for Future Research on a Hidden Population’, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 55 (2011): 27-42; Helen Gavin and Theresa Porter, Female Aggression (London: Wiley-Blackwell, in press). 6 Miriam Basilio, ‘Corporal Evidence: Representations of Aileen Wuornos’, Art Journal 55 (1996): 56-61. 7 Helen Gavin, ‘“Mummy Wouldn’t Do That”: The Perception and Construction of the Female Child Sex Abuser’, in Grotesque Feminities: Evil Women and the Feminine, University of Huddersfield Depository, 2009, Originally published by Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, UK, Viewed on 1 March 2014, http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/9222/7/HG_EWF2.pdf. 8 Ibid. 9 A. MacDonald, “Responding to the Results of the Beverly Allitt Inquiry,” Nursing Times 92 (1996): 23-25. 10 J. Repper, ‘Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in Healthcare Workers’, Journal of Advanced Nursing 21 (1995): 299-304.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Ibid. Seymour M. Mersh, ‘Torture at Abu Ghraib’, New Yorker, 10 May 2004, Viewed on 8 May 2014, http://www.veronaschools.org/cms/lib02/NJ01001379/Centricity/Domain/588/Tort ure%20at%20Abu%20Ghraib.pdf. 13 Gavin and Porter, Female Aggression. 14 Jill Steans, Gender and International Relations: An Introduction (NJ, USA: Cambridge Rutgers University Press, 1999). Cited in Gavin and Porter, Female Aggression. 15 Tim Newburn and Elizabeth A. Stanko, eds., Just Boys Doing Business? Men, Masculinity and Crime (New York: Routledge, 1994), 1. 16 Helen Birch, ed., Moving Targets: Murder and Representation (California: University of California Press, 1993), 1. 17 Ibid. 18 FBI, Uniform Crime Reporting Program Releases Crime Statistics for 2002 (FBI National Press Office: Washington, DC, 2003). 19 A. L. Kellermann and J. A. Mercy, ‘Men, Women, and Murder: Gender-Specific Differences in Rates of Fatal Violence and Victimization’, The Journal of Trauma 33 (1992): 1-5. 20 Erick L. Smith and Alexia Cooper, Homicide in the US Known to Law Enforcement, 2011 (United States: US Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013). 21 D. A. Fishbain et al., ‘Female Homicide-Suicide Perpetrators: A Controlled Study’, Journal of Forensic Sciences 30 (1985): 1148-1156. 22 Erick W. Hickey, Serial Murderers and Their Victims, 6th ed. (California: Wadsworth, 2013). 23 Sesha Kethineni, ‘Female Homicide Offenders in India’, Comparative & Applied Criminal Justice 25 (2001): 1-24. 24 N. C. Jurik and R. Winn, ‘Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women who Kill’, Violence and Victims 5 (1990): 227-242. 25 Fishbain, et al., ‘Female Homicide-Suicide Perpetrators’. 26 B. Spunt, et al., ‘Alcohol-Related Homicides Committed by Women’, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30 (1998): 33-43. 27 Kethineni, ‘Female Homicide Offenders’. 28 Ibid., 1. 29 Birch, ‘Moving Targets’. 30 Jeffrey S. Adler, ‘I Loved Joe, but I Had to Shoot Him: Homicide by Women in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 92 (2002): 866-898. 31 Ibid., 870. 32 Gavin and Porter, ‘Female Aggression’. 12

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P. T. D’Orban, ‘Female Homicide’, Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 7 (1990): 64-70; Theresa Porter and Helen Gavin, ‘Infanticide and Neonaticide: A Review of 40 Years of Research Literature on Incidence and Causes’, Trauma, Violence & Abuse 11 (2010): 99-112. 34 D’Orban, ‘Female Homicide’. 35 Chima Agazue, The Role of a Culture of Superstition in the Proliferation of Religio-Commercial Pastors in Nigeria (Indiana, USA: AuthorHouse, 2013). 36 Silvia Federici, ‘Witch-Hunting, Globalization, and Feminist Solidarity in Africa Today’, Journal of International Women’s Studies 10 (2008): 21-35; Silvia Federici, ‘Women, Witch-Hunting and Enclosures in Africa Today’, Sozial. Geschichte 3 (2010): 10-27; Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 37 Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1987). 38 Richard Wilson, ‘Witch-Hunt Saboteurs’ Rationalist, 18 April 2011, Viewed 18 November 2013, http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/2548/witch-hunt-saboteurs. 39 Soma Chaudhuri, ‘Women as Easy Scapegoats: Witchcraft Accusations and Women as Targets in Tea Plantations of India’, Violence against Women 18 (2012): 1213-1234. 40 Ibid. 41 Edward Watts Morton Bever, ‘Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early Modern Community’, Journal of Social History 35 (2002): 955-988. 42 Claudia Honegger, ‘Comment on Garretts’ “Women and Witches”’, Chicago Journals 4 (1979): 792-798. 43 Levack, Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 44 Ibid. 45 Lara Apps and Andrew Gow, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). 46 ‘Children are Targets of Nigerian Witch Hunt’, The Guardian, 9 December 2007, Viewed 10 November 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 ‘Ibeno: Police Rescue Two Children from “Witch” Killers’, Daily Post, 17 October 2013, Viewed 13 November 2013, http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/10/17/ibeno-police-rescues-two-children-from-witchkillers/. 51 ‘Woman Abandons Three “Witch” Children in Rehab Centre’, Daily Post, October 17 2013, Viewed 13 November 2013, http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/10/17/woman-abandons-three-witch-children-inrehab-centre/.

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‘DRC: Children’s Lives Torn by Accusations of Witchcraft’, CRIN, 21 November 2006, Viewed 14 December 2013, http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11459&flag=news. 53 ‘Humanist against Witch Killing and Stigmatization’, 2 April 2 2012, Viewed 13 December 2013, http://hawkafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/yhncrarn-arrests-another-parent-for.html. 54 Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 55 ‘Child Witchcraft: Myth or Reality?’ Leadership, 22 September 2013, Viewed 13 December 2013, http://leadership.ng/news/220913/child-witchcraft-myth-or-reality. 56 Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 57 Katharine Houreld, ‘African Children Denounced as “Witches” by Christian Pastors, The Huffington Post, 18 October 2009, Viewed 3 August 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-childrendenounce_n_324943.html. 58 ‘Children Are Targets of Nigerian Witch Hunt’. 59 Ibid. 60 ‘Condemned without Trial: Women and Witchcraft in Ghana’, Act!onaid, Viewed 25 March 2014, http://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/ghana_report_single_pages. pdf. 61 ‘Children’s Lives Torn by Accusations of Witchcraft’. 62 ‘Trafficking: Call for Urgent Action to Address Link with Witchcraft’, CRIN, 27 July 2007, Viewed 15 December 2013, http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=14208&flag=news. 63 Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 64 H. C. Erick Midelfort, ‘Witch-Hunting and the Domino Theory’, in Religion and the People, ed. J. Obelkevich, cited in Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1987). 65 Levack, Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 66 Hugh Trevor-Roper, The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London: Penguin Books, 1969); B. J. ter Her, Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History (The Netherlands: Brill, 2006); Ll Jie, ‘On the Release of Social Tension from the Phenomenon of “Scapegoat”’, Journal of Jishou University: Social Sciences Edition, 2009, Viewed 10 March 2009, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-JSDX200903007.htm. 67 Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 68 Yaseen Ally, ‘Witch Hunts in Modern South Africa: An Under-Represented Facet of Gender-Based Violence’, MRC-UNISA Crime, Violence and Injury Lead Programme, 2009, Viewed 15 December 2013,

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__________________________________________________________________ http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/witchhunts.pdf. 69 Agazue, Role of a Culture of Superstition. 70 Ibid. 71 ‘Branded a Witch’, BBC, 29 May 2013, Viewed 9 December 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01swd7g. 72 ‘Channel 4’s Dispatches to Investigate Nigerian “Witch Children”’, The Guardian, 22 October 2008, Viewed 20 February 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/22/channel4-television. 73 Steans, Gender and International Relations.

Bibliography Adler, Jeffrey S. ‘I Loved Joe, but I Had to Shoot Him: Homicide by Women in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago’. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 92 (2002): 866-898. Agazue, Chima. The Role of a Culture of Superstition in the Proliferation of Religio-commercial Pastors in Nigeria. Indiana, USA: AuthorHouse, 2013. Ally, Yaseen. ‘Witch Hunts in Modern South Africa: An Under-Represented Facet of Gender-Based Violence’. MRC-UNISA Crime, Violence and Injury Lead Programme. 2009. Viewed 15 December 2013. http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/witchhunts.pdf. Apps, Lara and Andrew Gow. Male Witches in Early Modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Archer, John. ‘Sex Differences in Aggression between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review’. Psychological Bulletin 126 (2000): 651-680. Basilio, Miriam. ‘Corporal Evidence: Representations of Aileen Wuornos’. Art Journal 55 (1996): 56-61. Birch, Helen, ed. Moving Targets: Murder and Representation. California: University of California Press, 1993. Buss, David M. and Todd K. Shackelford. ‘Human Aggression in Evolutionary Psychological Perspective’. Clinical Psychology Review 17 (1997): 605-619.

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__________________________________________________________________ Chaudhuri, Soma. ‘Women as Easy Scapegoats: Witchcraft Accusations and Women as Targets in Tea Plantations of India’. Violence against Women 18 (2012): 1213-1234. Federici, Silvia. ‘Witch-Hunting, Globalization, and Feminist Solidarity in Africa Today’. Journal of International Women’s Studies 10 (2008): 21-35. ———. ‘Women, Witch-Hunting and Enclosures in Africa Today’. Sozial. Geschichte 3 (2010): 10-27. Fishbain, D. A., V. J. Rao and T. E. Aldrich, ‘Female Homicide-Suicide Perpetrators: A Controlled Study’. Journal of Forensic Sciences 30 (1985): 11481156. Gavin, Helen. ‘“Mummy Wouldn’t Do That”: The Perception and Construction of the Female Child Sex Abuser’. Grotesque Feminities: Evil Women and the Feminine, University of Huddersfield Depository, 2009. Originally published by Inter-Disciplinary Press. Viewed on 1 March 2014. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/9222/7/HG_EWF2.pdf. Gavin, Helen and Theresa Porter. Female Aggression. London: Wiley-Blackwell, in press. Gurian, Elizabeth A. ‘Female Serial Murders: Directions for Future Research on a Hidden Population’. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 55 (2011): 27-42. Harned, M. S. ‘Abused Women or Abused Men? An Examination of the Context and Outcomes of Dating Violence’. Violence and Victims 16 (2001): 269-285. Hickey, Erick W. Serial Murderers and Their Victims, 6th ed. California: Wadsworth, 2013. Honegger, Claudia. ‘Comment on Garretts’ “Women and Witches”’. Chicago Journals 4 (1979): 792-798. Houreld, Katharine. ‘African Children Denounced as “Witches” by Christian Pastors.’ The Huffington Post, 18 October 2009. Viewed 3 August 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-childrendenounce_n_324943.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ Jie, Ll. ‘On the Release of Social Tension from the Phenomenon of “Scapegoat”’. Journal of Jishou University: Social Sciences Edition. 2009, Viewed 10 March 2009. http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-JSDX200903007.htm. Jurik, N. C. and R. Winn. ‘Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women who Kill’. Violence and Victims 5 (1990): 227-242. Kellermann, A. L. and J. A. Mercy. ‘Men, Women, and Murder: Gender-Specific Differences in Rates of Fatal Violence and Victimization’. The Journal of Trauma 33 (1992): 1-5. Kethineni, Sesha. ‘Female Homicide Offenders in India’. Comparative & Applied Criminal Justice 25 (2001): 1-24. Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1987. MacDonald, A. ‘Responding to the Results of the Beverly Allitt Inquiry’. Nursing Times 92 (1996): 23-25. Mersh, Seymour M. ‘Torture at Abu Ghraib’. New Yorker, 10 May 2004. Viewed on 8 May 2014. http://www.veronaschools.org/cms/lib02/NJ01001379/Centricity/Domain/588/Tort ure%20at%20Abu%20Ghraib.pdf. Midelfort, H. C. Erick. ‘Witch-Hunting and the Domino Theory’. Religion and the People, edited by J. Obelkevich, cited in Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1987. Newburn, Tim and Elizabeth A. Stanko, eds. Just Boys Doing Business? Men, Masculinity and Crime. New York: Routledge, 1994. Porter, Theresa and Helen Gavin. ‘Infanticide and Neonaticide: A Review of 40 Years of Research Literature on Incidence and Causes’. Trauma, Violence & Abuse 11 (2010): 99-112. Repper, J. ‘Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in Healthcare Workers’. Journal of Advanced Nursing 21 (1995): 299-304.

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__________________________________________________________________ Smith, Erick L. and Alexia Cooper. Homicide in the US Known to Law Enforcement, 2011. United States: US Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013. Spunt, B., H. H. Brownstein, S. M. Crimmins, S. Langley and K. Spanjol. ‘Alcohol-Related Homicides Committed by Women’. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30 (1998): 33-43. ter Her, B. J. Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History. The Netherlands: Brill, 2006. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London: Penguin Books, 1969. Watts Morton Bever, Edward. ‘Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early Modern Community’. Journal of Social History 35 (2002): 955-988. Wilson, Richard. ‘Witch-Hunt Saboteurs’. Rationalist, 18 April 2011. Viewed 18 November 2013. http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/2548/witch-hunt-saboteurs. Chima Agazue is a PhD student in Criminological and Forensic Psychology at the University of Huddersfield. He has written a few books regarding the state of religion in Nigeria, particularly on the links between religion/superstition and crime and learned helplessness. Helen Gavin is Director of Graduate Education at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She is a criminal psychologist by training and the author of numerous papers and books in this area. In addition to murder, mayhem and madness, she also carries out research in fairy tales and music, but has somehow managed to discover the dark side of these topics too.

Fearing the Witch, Hating the Bitch: The Double Structure of Misogyny in Stephen King’s Carrie Paris Shun-Hsiang Shih Abstract Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie, becomes an interesting cultural phenomenon when it is both criticized by some people as a misogynistic work and celebrated by others as a novel symbolizing girl power. This chapter intends to go beyond this simple dichotomy and reveals that what underlies this novel is a ‘double structure of misogyny’—fearing the ‘witch’ and hating the ‘bitch.’ While critics in the past only focus on the protagonist, Carrie, they forget that Stephen King’s portrayal of high-school girls is highly problematic and worth discussing, too. This chapter goes back to the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth century European witchhunts and analyses the portrayals of witches in pamphlets in the period. Then, it connects the history to King’s novel and argues that similar stereotypes still exist in contemporary patriarchal society. Interestingly, the typical witch figure portrayed in the early modern period—the sexually deviant and powerful woman— is split into two archetypes in this novel, namely the powerful witch (embodied by Carrie) and the evil ‘bitches’ (embodied by the high-school girls). Both types are understood as unruly and ‘evil’ women in patriarchal society, and are therefore punished at the end of the novel. But the difference is that the ‘witch’ is feared by men due to her destructive feminine power, whereas the ‘bitches’ are hated by men due to their female sexuality and moral degeneration. Then, this chapter analyses the troubling mother figure in Carrie. The representation of the maternal body has long been problematic in patriarchal society since the maternal is often understood as a threatening force that will disrupt the patriarchal order. Either a mother is, according to the Freudian myth, represented as a ‘phallic mother’ who stands in the father’s role and bears the masculine quality, or she stands for an old spinster witch who threatens to devour children. This chapter argues that the mother figure in Carrie interestingly embodies these two seemingly-contradictory images. The result is a grotesque, fearsome and disturbing portrayal of a ‘mother.’ Key Words: Evil, witch, misogyny, Stephen King, Carrie. ***** 1. Introduction: Witch-hunt, Misogyny and Carrie Have you ever thought about where the cultural stereotypes of the ‘witch’ come from? How about the ‘bitch’? Are they the same things? While people celebrate the revenge of a girl witch in Stephen King’s first and one of his most successful novels, Carrie, they tend to ignore that a modern witch-hunt is happening on the screen, although this time, the witch-hunt is, paradoxically, also carried out by a

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘witch.’ This chapter aims to connect Stephen King’s debut novel to the history of early modern European witch-hunts. Through this connection, the chapter intends to point out that the stereotypes of the ‘witch’ still persist in today’s patriarchal society, though the early modern misogyny is turned into, what will be called, the ‘double structure of misogyny.’ The transformation turns the sexualised and powerful witch figure in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into a powerful and fearsome ‘witch’ on the one hand, and a sexually deviant and loathsome ‘bitch’ on the other hand. 2. The Sexualised Powerful Witches in European Witch-Hunt Pamphlets The typical witch figure in early modern Europe was an old woman or a widow. This was more than just a stereotype. During the early modern European witch-hunts, old women and widows became the prototype of the witch because they were powerless in terms of both social class and gender. In other words, they were prone to scapegoating because they were ‘double minorities.’ Reginald Scot, in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), which is one of the most influential treatises against witch-hunts, points out the victims of witch-hunts were often ‘women which be commonly old, lame, blear-eyed, pale, foul, and full of wrinkles.’ 1 Anne Barstow also reveals that witches were normally women who were more than fifty years old – some of them were even seventy. 2 Probably beyond our imagination due to the change of historical and cultural perceptions of women, old women and widows were believed to be sexually active due to the lack of patriarchal confinement. They were, thus, considered to be prone to satanic seduction and ‘unorthodox’ sexual behaviours with the Devil. As Barstow forcefully argues in her book, what the conviction of witches actually revealed was a general fear of and revulsion against women. Misogyny was the major force behind the witch-hunts. Marianne Hester notes that women were generally considered more sexual than men in the period: ‘women were considered sexually insatiable and prone therefore to sinful and deviant behaviour.’3 Moreover, women’s sexuality and lust were considered signs of their moral inferiority. Barstow observes that during the period, women were believed to be sexually active, morally weak, and even melancholic. 4 These qualities made women prone to satanic seduction and sexual deviant behaviours. This popular myth was reinforced by witch-hunt pamphlets in the sixteenth century. In Malleus Maleficarum, one of the most influential witch-hunt pamphlets, German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer claimed that women were sexually insatiable, and their ‘carnal lust’ would lead them into sexual intercourse with the Devil, which made them dangerous to men.5 The influence of the book should not be ignored. After its publication in 1487 in German, it was soon translated into French, Italian, and English and was frequently reprinted in the following two centuries. It even became the sourcebook which other witch-hunt pamphlets – including Francesco-Maris Guazzo’s Compendium Maleficarum –

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__________________________________________________________________ frequently quoted. It was these pamphlets that shaped the popular perception of the witch and women in general, because witch-hunt pamphlets, compared to poetry and drama, were much more affordable for the general public. As Marion Gibson points out, ‘the term “popular” was indicative of the pamphlets’ cheapness and therefore their accessibility to the lower orders.’6 What underlay the popular myth, however, was a twofold nature of women’s sexuality. While women were considered sexually active and, thus, morally inferior to men, they also became dangerous to men. Barstow points out that in Malleus Maleficarum, the witches were dangerous because they would make men impotent and eventually destroy their souls.7 Hester also notes that the notion of an insatiable female lust was the main reason for male loathing and fear of the female body because ‘Women’s supposedly insatiable and immoral sexuality was likely to lead them into allegiance with the devil who could fulfil their sexual desires even better, so it was feared, than mere moral men.’8 Seen from this perspective, the witch was both a powerful and a loathsome figure to the early modern European patriarchal society. The sexualised witch body embodied both moral degeneracy and uncontrollable power. Although the witch figure, in male fantasy, embodied carnal lust and mysterious power during the early modern European witch-hunts, nowadays the witch figure in popular myth is generally not sexualised. We only need to think about the ‘spinster’ or the ‘frigid dragon lady’ stereotypes prevailing in our society. Instead, we have a new cultural image of the ‘bitch,’ which stands for a woman with insatiable erotic desire and ‘easy’ sexual attitude. This change might have resulted from the ‘de-sexualisation’ of female bodies aided by the witch-hunts. Barstow observes that after the European witch-hunt period, representations of women, in either literature or other cultural texts, turned from the lustful, aggressive women of the Middle Ages – for example, the Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s tale – into the domestic and submissive women of the nineteenth century. 9 That is to say, the witch-hunts aided both the domestication and desexualisation of female bodies. Through witch-hunts, the unruly female body that embodied threats, sexuality, and evil was gradually moulded into the domestic body that was best represented by the ‘angel in the house’ in nineteenth-century Victorian literature. The process of de-sexualisation results in split images of the so-called ‘evil women’ – that is, the ‘witch’ and the ‘bitch’. While a witch still stands for a woman with mysterious and usually uncontrollable power, she is not as sexualised or eroticised as her counterpart in early modern European witch-hunts. Instead, a ‘bitch’ is born, symbolising female lust and moral inferiority. The split images make men fear the witch and hate the bitch, which is here termed the ‘double structure of misogyny.’ It is both a continuance and a transformation of the early modern misogynistic discourses. It is from this perspective that Carrie enters the discussion. Stephen King’s Carrie is one of the best contemporary examples for the split images, in which we find not only a powerful girl witch who is

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__________________________________________________________________ unaware of her female nature and destructive power, but also a group of highschool ‘mean bitches’ who are sexually deviant and morally degenerate, but do not possess any power that could truly threaten men. 3. The Girl Witch vs. the Maternal Witch: Two Witch Figures in Carrie In Carrie, there are two representatives of the ‘witch’ – Carrie White, the girly witch, and Margaret White, the maternal witch. As previously mentioned, the witch figure in this novel is de-sexualised. Thus, Carrie stands for a vulnerable, oppressed, and chaste girl at first. Compared to her classmates, she is unaware of her femininity. She does not know of girl’s menstrual cycles, does not look at her growing breasts, and does not have any sexual desire for boys. By shaping Carrie into a chaste, naïve, and de-sexualised girl-next-door, King invites his readers to sympathise with such a girl, who contrasts sharply with the high-school ‘mean bitches’ who are highly aware of their femininity and are sexually defiant. Though the patriarchal ideology during early modern witch-hunts has been turned into the ‘double structure of misogyny,’ the connection between female sexuality and moral degeneracy persists. Carrie, however, is still a fearsome figure in this novel due to her repressed yet powerful female nature. The result of a repressed female nature turns out to be more destructive than anyone else could have imagined. Here, blood plays a key role to unleash Carrie’s repressed female nature during both the shower scene and the prom night. At the beginning of the novel, it is her menstrual blood that triggers her understanding of female nature and the release of her preliminary power. In the fabricated scientific discourses in the novel, both scientists and doctors agree that ‘Carrie White’s exceptionally late and traumatic commencement of the menstrual cycle might well have provided the trigger for her latent talent.’10 Carrie’s mother also states that ‘Blood was always at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it.’ 11 After Chris Hargensen showers Carrie with pig’s blood, Carrie’s power is finally re-awaken by the smell of blood. 12 Then, Carrie starts to kill with her destructive power. The blood unleashes and even magnifies her once repressed female nature. It is Carrie’s repressed yet uncontrollable female nature that turns her into a fearsome witch figure. Although de-sexualised, Carrie’s female nature turns out to be destructive and out of masculine control. The female nature has long been the source of male fear and loathing in patriarchal society due to its mystery and the unknown power that it embodies. Stephen King, in several magazine interviews, revealed that he tried to abandon the original manuscript because he did not understand the girl’s world at all: ‘Appalled by the realistic quality of the scene and adrift in a world of girls – a world I barely understood – I threw the pages away.’13 He continued, however, with his wife’s encouragement and help. King’s return to the topic which he feared at first could be seen as a male attempt to understand, de-mystify, and eventually manage the unknown female

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__________________________________________________________________ nature. King, in an earlier interview, did express that he wanted to write the novel because a woman challenged him, Some woman said, ‘You write all those macho things, but you can’t write about women.’ I said, ‘I’m not scared of women. I could write about them if I wanted to.’…I did the shower scene, but I hated it and threw it away.14 A male writer’s psychological struggle was clearly shown in this statement. On the one hand, King desired to confront the challenge and ‘manage’ a ‘feminised’ topic which he knew nothing about. On the other hand, he feared the mysterious female nature, which would be released by a girl’s menstrual blood, and he ‘hated it’, ‘threw it away’, and wanted to completely give it up. This struggle is also shown by the various kinds of fabricated documents in the novel. While comparing the novel to its 1976 film adaptation, Leigh A. Enlers argues that ‘King’s novel is indebted to gothic and science fiction literary traditions, which question or warn against the limitations of technology and rationality.’15 While this account is not invalid, it is, however, ‘un-gendered.’ What underlies the novel is more than a gothic challenge against an over-rationalised culture – it is also a highly ‘gendered’ ideology. These documents, embodying scientific, medical, psychological, legal, and journalistic discourses, can be seen as King’s masculine attempt to manage and de-mystify Carrie’s unknown female nature. The horror of the story, however, comes from King’s – and other people’s – failure to regulate and control the destructive female power. Thus, Carrie needs to die at the end of the novel, or she will forever pose a threat to patriarchal society. While Carrie stands for the fearsome girl witch, Margaret White, her mother, represents a psychotic ‘spinster witch.’ Margaret White is a complicated figure because she embodies both a ‘phallic’ or a ‘castrating’ mother in the Freudian myth, and an old witch figure at the same time. Margaret White is first portrayed by King as a ‘phallic mother’ who takes away the patriarchal power after her husband dies. She becomes the father in the house when she keeps her husband’s gun secretly, cuts the umbilical cord with his butcher knife, and ‘[holds] Daddy Ralph’s Bible in her hand’16 all the time. Margaret White internalises patriarchal ideology and denounces a woman’s desire and ‘feminine nature,’ comparing her daughter with Eve after her first menstrual cycle and seeing it as a sign of sin and moral degeneracy, an attitude that is not unlike the one in the early modern witchhunt pamphlets. She, however, carries it ‘too far’ and intends to completely suppress Carrie’s femininity. Margaret White becomes the major disciplining force in the novel. Such a ‘phallic mother’ has a grotesque body that could not be desired by men. King emphasises Margaret White’s overly-masculine body when she punishes her daughter, ‘Momma brought her hand down on the back of Carrie’s neck, and behind it was all the heavy muscle developed by eleven years of slinging

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__________________________________________________________________ heavy laundry bags and trucking piles of wet sheets.’17 Margaret White, therefore, stands for a ‘phallic mother’ on the one hand. On the other hand, however, Margaret White becomes an old witch figure as well. Although her religious view of women results from a patriarchal ideology and a misogynistic thinking, her religious beliefs are ‘near-fanatical.’18 She also stands for a distorted maternal femininity, which is represented by a mother’s dark womb. Images of confinement and a mother’s womb can easily be found throughout the novel. Margaret White punishes Carrie by locking her up in a small closet. In her house, Carrie is confined to a ‘red-plague circle that had been drawn around her from the first day she had left the controlled environment of the small house on Carlin Street.’19 The house is also surrounded by ivy that ‘looked like a grotesque giant hand ridged with great veins which had sprung up out of the ground to grip the building.’20 The whole house symbolises Margaret White’s dark womb, which threatens to devour children kept inside. Eventually, Margaret becomes the witch that she keeps disassociating herself from due to her fearsome maternal femininity. Compared to the old witch figure portrayed in early modern witch-hunt pamphlets, Margaret White’s grotesque body is de-sexualised due to her lack of reproductive ability and physical attractiveness. However, she ultimately becomes a ‘widowed spinster witch’ who is fearsome not because of her insatiable carnal lust, but because of her fanatical beliefs, her appropriation of a patriarchal position, her grotesque body, and her fearsome maternal femininity. Not unlike the girl witch, the maternal witch must die. 4. The Mean Bitch vs. the Repented Bitch: Two Bitch Figures in Carrie If both the girl witch’s and the maternal witch’s bodies are de-sexualised, whose bodies are sexualised? The ‘bitches.’ King’s portrayal of ‘typical’ highschool girls is often ignored by film critics and scholars. King connects the highschool girls’ sexual desires to moral degeneracy. They become the main bullying force in the story. Chris Hargensen is the ‘archetypal bitch.’ Her sexual relationship with the equally sexually active stud Billy Nolan turns her into a ‘bitch’ immediately. She wears no bra and does not restrain the sex appeal of her feminine body. What comes with her sexual attractiveness is her ‘easy’ moral attitude. King emphasises that if men spend enough money on her, Chris ‘usually let[s] them go to bed with her.’21 Chris is also the main force behind the highschool bullying. She initiates the bullying in the shower room at the beginning of the novel, and she also pushes Billy Nolan to help her shower Carrie with pig’s blood. She stands for the source of sin and moral degeneracy, a Pandora or an Eve figure. Through this series of distorted portrayals, King connects female sexuality with moral inferiority. During a conversation between Sue Snell and Tommy Ross, Tommy says that ‘Girls can be cat-mean.’22 We cannot help but doubt whether this is simply Tommy’s view or if it stands for King’s general view of womanhood.

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__________________________________________________________________ Chris Hargensen is the ‘archetypal bitch,’ but what she really represents is a high-school girl in general. She is not an individual, but a character ‘type’, just as how Carrie stands for a girl witch and Margaret White symbolises an ‘old spinster witch.’ We can closely examine King’s portrayal of high-school girls in order to support this argument. During the first shower scene, King uses ‘all girls in the shower room’23 to imply that meanness is in girls’ nature and needs to be wellregulated by a patriarchal force. During the prom night, after Carrie is showered in pig’s blood, the crowd which laughs at her is also represented as ‘feminine.’ Carrie hears several girls’ giggling at first. One of the survivors, Norma Watson, also reveals in her autobiography that she laughs along with other girls, too. On the other hand, the only one who tries to help is a boy, Josie Vreck. Later, when the readers are able to re-visit the night through Carrie’s perspective, the crowd is again represented as a female one, ‘…shined shoes, the clear faces, the careful beauty-parlor hairdos, the glittery gowns. They stepped back from her as if she was plague, but they kept laughing.’24 It is obvious that King links moral degeneracy with femininity. Seen from this perspective, the final prom massacre can be read as a punishment of the ‘bitches.’ While the high-school girls’ bodies are highly sexualised and eroticised, they, unlike witches in the early modern witch-hunt pamphlets, do not possess any power. Their moral weakness contributes to their general weakness. We can easily recall our cultural stereotype of a ‘bitch’ or a ‘slut’, who is sexually ‘easy’ but does not possess any serious power. This is why Chris will be physically punished by Billy Nolan after the crime that they commit together. Billy’s punishment of Chris can be seen as a male desire to discipline the sexually defiant ‘bitch.’ Compared to Chris Hargensen, Sue Snell stands for a ‘repentant bitch’ in this novel. While she participates in the bullying at the beginning of the story, she soon feels guilty about her act and desires to make up for it. She gives up her chance to go to the prom and, instead, asks Tommy Ross to take the bullied girl to the prom. It seems that Sue is one of the few positive female characters in the novel, besides the androgynous-looking gym teacher Miss Desjardin, who stands for a masculine disciplining force. However, Sue is first represented as a typical high-school ‘bitch’ and then she repents. Her femininity is still connected to moral degeneracy. The way she ‘regains’ her moral sense is to disassociate herself from the group of high school ‘bitches’ and denounce them along with men, which actually reinforces, instead of challenging, the patriarchal myth of a ‘mean bitch.’ Moreover, Tommy Ross is the key figure who helps Sue rebuild her moral sense. Tommy is the one who takes Carrie to the prom and encourages her to have more faith in herself. Eventually, Tommy becomes the ultimate moral centre in the story. During a conversation between Sue and Tommy, Tommy denounces Sue and other girls for their mean act. What follows Tommy’s lesson is Sue’s shame and repentance, ‘She thought herself suddenly loathsome.’ 25 Sue becomes one of the few survivors

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__________________________________________________________________ because of her repentance, but she does not challenge the patriarchal myth of a ‘bitch.’ Instead, she merely reinforces it with her ready acceptance of Tommy’s lesson and her self-punishment. What this ‘double structure of misogyny’ reveals is a new disciplining instrument to regulate women. A modern patriarchal society attempts to control feminine power on the one hand, and punish female sexuality on the other. While during the early modern witch-hunts, a witch was portrayed as a sexualised, fanatic, and thus powerful figure, nowadays a witch figure is de-sexualised though still very powerful, and a bitch figure is sexualised without real power. While a witch is feared by men due to her unknown female nature or maternal femininity, a bitch figure is loathed by men due to her sexuality and moral degeneracy. Thus, the ‘double structure of misogyny’ can be summed up by one sentence: fearing the witch, hating the bitch. Modern witch-hunts embody both an attempt to manage destructive female power and a desire to punish women for their sexuality.

Notes 1

Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Brinsley Nicholson (London: Elliot Stock, 1886), IV, iv (62). 2 Anne L. Barstow, Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts, trans. Yan Yun (Taipei: Fembooks, 1999), 52. 3 Marianne Hester, ‘Patriarchal Reconstruction and Witch Hunting’, Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jonathan Narry, Marianne Hester and Gareth Roberts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 294. 4 Barstow, Witchcraze, 198. 5 Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Montague Summers (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), 47. 6 Marion Gibson, ‘Introductory Note,’ Women and Witchcraft in Popular Literature, c.1560-1715, ed. Betty S. Travitsky and Anne L. Prescott (Hants: Ashgate, 2007), xii. 7 Barstow, Witchcraze, 246. 8 Hester, ‘Patriarchal Reconstruction,’ 295. 9 Barstow, Witchcraze, 228. 10 Ibid., 11. 11 Ibid., 176. 12 Ibid., 216-17. 13 Stephen King, ‘Ghoulies, Ghosties and Girls,’ Newsweek 133.26 (1994): 64. 14 Stephen King, ‘I Like to Go for the Jugular,’ Interviewed by Charles L. Grant, Twilight Zone Magazine 1.1 (1981). 15 Leigh A. Ehlers, ‘Carrie: Book and Film,’ Literature Film Quarterly 9.1 (1981): 32.

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__________________________________________________________________ 16

King, Carrie, 109. Ibid., 64. 18 Ibid., 15. 19 Ibid., 26. 20 Ibid., 30. 21 Ibid., 153. 22 Ibid., 97. 23 Ibid., 3. 24 Ibid., 218-19. 25 Ibid., 56. 17

Bibliography Barstow, Anne L. Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts. Translated by Yan Yun. Taipei: Fembooks, 1999. Ehlers, Leigh A. ‘Carrie. Book and Film.’ Literature Film Quarterly 9.1 (1981): 32-39. Gibson, Marion. ‘Introductory Note.’ Women and Witchcraft in Popular Literature, c.1560-1715, edited by Betty S. Travitsky and Anne L. Prescott. Hants: Ashgate, 2007. Hester, Marianne. ‘Patriarchal Reconstruction and Witch Hunting.’ Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, edited by Jonathan Narry, Marianne Hester and Gareth Roberts, 288-306. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. King, Stephen. Carrie. New York: Anchor Books, 2011. ———. ‘Ghoulies, Ghosties and Girls.’ Newsweek 133.26 (1999): 64. ———. ‘I Like to Go for the Jugular,’ Interviewed by Charles L. Grant. Twilight Zone Magazine 1.1 (1981). Kramer, Heinrich and James Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. Translated by Montague Summers. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft, edited by Brinsley Nicholson. London: Elliot Stock, 1886.

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__________________________________________________________________ Paris Shun-Hsiang Shih is a postgraduate in English and American literature at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. He is interested in Shakespearean adaptations, Jane Austen adaptations, gender studies, postfeminism, and popular culture studies. He has published papers on gender, sexuality, and popular culture in both Cultural Studies Bimonthly and Journal of Women’s and Gender Studies.

Witchcraft and ‘Bitchcraft’: A Portrayal of the Witch Character in American Horror Story: Coven Elisabete Lopes Abstract American Horror Story: Coven (2013-2014) is an original TV series created by Ryan Murphy and Brian Falchuk that revolves around a group of witches who dwell in a private school owned and run by Cordelia. This teacher is the prototype of the good witch. She is also the daughter of Fiona Goode, the so-called ‘supreme’ among the witches’ community, meaning she is the most talented and powerful witch alive. This character, played on screen by Jessica Lange, is the most vivid embodiment of the evil mother that haunts traditional fairy tales: she is egocentric and her ultimate goal is to keep her physical appearance intact. Undoubtedly the universe within the series appears markedly feminine and overtly addresses gender issues which range from the traditional relation that femininity has with patriarchy to the way female characters are depicted in fairy tales. Within this framework, the purpose of this chapter is to examine how gender issues are dealt with in the series, namely the relation between peers, the bond between mothers and daughters, and the ways femininity develops taking into account the obstacles brought by the counter-power of patriarchy. In this context, it will be challenging to explore how the witch characters are grounded on female stereotypes and clichés, and how they express female anxieties and fears that have roots in the past and continue to afflict them in the present. This analysis also aims at exploring how the traditional fairy tale conventions are manipulated, parodied and subsequently integrated into the filmic narrative. In an original fashion, we can say that American Horror Story: Coven engenders an eerie atmosphere, offering the spectator a universe where the horrors of the past meet the terrors of the present in a harmonious and dark account. Key Words: American Horror Story: Coven, witches, evil, fairy tale, gender issues, mothers, daughters, patriarchy, feminism. ***** 1. The Season of the Witch In an interview given by Ryan Murphy to Entertainment Weekly, his words let slip that the next subject of American Horror Story’s new season would be related to the feminine universe, as he affirmed, ‘I…feel like for the third version I want to do something that’s a little bit more ‘evil glamour’.’1 Undeniably the series revolves around feminine issues, focusing upon the struggle of women against the repressive structures of patriarchy and revisiting the plots and characters that dwell upon fairy tales. Given this context, this chapter sets out to explore how the series

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__________________________________________________________________ tackles gender-related issues, highlighting the relation between peers, the bond between mothers and daughters, and the ways in which the concept of femininity develops throughout the narrative, considering all the adversities that the witches must confront in order to assert their power. This reflection will also be extended so as to examine how the series parodies and deconstructs the traditional fairy tale conventions, deliberately conveying a certain feminist subtext. American Horror Story: Coven2 takes us to New Orleans, where a boarding school for young witches, Miss Robichaux’s Academy, is located. According to the storyline, the witches left Salem and took refuge in that city. The action of the series basically revolves around the school and its witches, who work to develop their inherited talents. Interestingly, there is a peculiarity to each one of them. Zoe suffers from a genetic malady, but is endowed with many powers; Nan has Down syndrome and is clairvoyant; Madison is a superficial and vain teen film star who is very good at telekinesis; Queenie is a black girl capable of inflicting pain upon others by hurting herself, like a living voodoo doll. Cordelia is the school’s headmistress, and she devotes herself to her herbs and potions. Not far away, Marie Laveau, an immortal voodoo priestess, runs a hairdresser’s salon. Outside the city, in the swamps, lives Misty Day, a hippie witch said to have the power of resurgence, which means that she can bring to life anyone who has died. All appears calm, until the day Fiona Goode, Cordelia’s mother, arrives in town. She is the so-called Supreme, the most powerful witch alive. She is narcissistic, self-centered, sassy and charming. With her health increasingly deteriorating, she suspects that a younger Supreme is about to emerge, so she is poised to do everything to avoid that. The fact that she seeks eternal youth and beauty makes her the living embodiment of the Evil Queen of Snow White’s tale. 2. Tales of Evil Mothers AHS-Coven depicts the mother as an authoritarian figure who wishes to exert unlimited power upon her offspring. In this vein, maternal figures appear as physically and emotionally abusive. Joan Ramsey, the religious fanatic lady that lives with her son in the mansion next to the witches’ academy, is a paradigmatic example. In one of the scenes, she forces her son to take an enema so as to purge his body of evil. At one point she asserts her authority over Luke, yelling, ‘I made you and I can unmake you.’3 Eventually, she asphyxiates her son while he is at the hospital. Fiona, whose last name is ironically ‘Goode,’ plays the role of the evil mother, often downplaying her daughter’s qualities, insinuating that she is weak and naïve. Actually, at one point, she admits to having been a bad mother all of her life, showing some remorse, ‘I was a horrible mother. And I regret it.’4 Kyle’s mother is also shown to be a sexual molester. In ‘The Replacements,’ the boy that Zoe and Madison have ‘built’ is left at his house, where he encounters his mother. Shockingly, the viewer is confronted with the fact that the boy’s

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__________________________________________________________________ mother used to engage in sexual activity with her son. Once at the house, the boy recalls this abusive behavior and kills her, in a violent manner. However, and despite being freed from his biological mother, Kyle is later on abused by Madison, who is always asserting her power over him, claiming the supremacy of a maternal role as she was one of the boy’s creators. Emulating his biological mother, she similarly uses him for sexual pleasure. In a metaphorical dimension, Spalding, Fiona’s loyal butler, can also be seen as a male ‘mother’ to his dolls. Interestingly, this character is reminiscent of the silent serial killer in Hitchcock’s paradigmatic film Psycho. In one of the scenes, he appears dressed as a woman (or a doll) in a rocking chair, holding one of the dolls that belongs to his vast collection. There are also other traits liable to link him to a feminine nature: he, like the classical figure of the Victorian madwoman, dwells in an attic. Apart from that, he has also been deprived of speech, becoming incapable of uttering a word due to a self mutilation inflicted in order to prevent him from telling the truth about Fiona’s deeds in the past.5 On the other hand, the character of the traditional evil stepmother is given a twist here for Myrtle Snow loves Cordelia and has been a real mother to her, since the girl was left in her care by a too rebellious and narcissistic Fiona, who had always been interested in living her life with no burdens attached. This explains why the headmistress sweetly refers to her as ‘Auntie Myrtle.’ Amidst this dystopian world of mothers, Cordelia appears as the one female character that would have the potential to be a good mother. Although having been informed by the doctor that she cannot bear children, the wish to have a baby haunts her in ‘Boy Parts.’ Despite the overwhelming pain she feels, she adamantly refuses to resort to magic to fulfill her wishes. In the episode, she notes, ‘If I start using magic to fulfill my every whim, then I’m just Fiona…This kind of magic-it’s dark. It’s about life and death, and I don’t want to play God.’6 Thus, she is well aware of the fact that if she summons the dark powers to fulfill her whims, she will be copying her mother, and that is something that she abhors. Mothers are given a serious dark portrayal, one that is reminiscent of Gothic fiction. In fact, all the potential mothers appear to be harmful or incapable: Marie Laveau ends up sacrificing her own daughter to pay for the immortality bestowed upon her by Papa Legba, a demonic spirit summoned from hell; Delphine Lalaurie is presented as a hideous woman (racist and serial killer) and a monstrous mother as she does not hesitate when it comes to inflicting torture upon her own daughters. In ‘Boy Parts,’ Madison likewise rants about her mother whom she accuses of having robbed her of her childhood, by turning her into a child-actor, ‘My mother put me to work ever since I could talk. I hated it. It’s hard to stop when you’re the only one in your family making money, you know.’ When she is asked about her relationship with her mother, she replies, ‘The last time I saw her, she snorted half my coke, and then let the cops bust me for it. She’s a selfish bitch.’7

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__________________________________________________________________ Noteworthy is the fact that the feminine powers of giving birth are engaged in a constant dialogue with death. This feature is enhanced through the character of Misty Day, a witch who has the power of bringing back the dead. The viewer, however, is not allowed any clues as to the fact that she can or cannot bear children, which eventually turns her into a kind of morbid mother. 3. Happy Endings and Damaged Prince Charmings Male characters are relegated to a secondary plan in the series whose action is primarily concerned with female issues. For instance, the witch hunters, who hide behind the brand of a wealthy company, Delphi, seem to pose no effective threat to the coven. Actually, Fiona and Marie Laveau lure them into a meeting, and convince the Axeman (a serial killer who is in love with Fiona) to kill the main administrator, who happens to be the father of Cordelia’s husband, Hank. Although they are not assigned the main role, male characters carry a subversive power within the narrative. Despite the fact that Spalding cannot speak a word, he indulges in his own private universe where he is the puppeteer of his dolls. From a metaphorical perspective, the dolls operate as a surrogate for the women/witches he cannot control. Hence, he has built his own sacred haven in the attic where he can fully engage in fantasies of domination and nurturing, a universe where the females are forever in a submissive position, being mere objects at his disposal. On the other hand, Kyle seems to be the effigy of male passivity, being forever imprisoned in a vicious circle of female abuse. Eventually, by integrating the coven, he becomes somehow vulnerable and dependent on a set of ‘mothers’ who are ready to give him orders and treat him as if he were an object, an authentic ‘Ken doll.’ Surprisingly, in the end, it is Cordelia that makes a deal with the Axeman, convincing him to kill her mother. Interestingly, the sequence of events seem to play out as a reversed version of the story of ‘Snow White’: here it is the ‘apparently helpless’ female young heroine who hires the ‘huntsman’ to kill the evil mother. Ultimately, Fiona succumbs, victim of axe strokes, and lands in her personal hell. Ironically, her ‘happily ever after’ unfolds as a kind of pastoral nightmare: a cabin in the woods, where she is doomed to live in domestic bliss with the Axeman. In a symbolic plan, this means that she is trapped inside a male character’s fantasy. By a sudden twist of faith, the woman who has always repudiated any idea of domesticity, and has always run away from steady romance and commitment, becomes locked up in a sort of forced marriage. As for Cordelia, she learns that she must put her coven first. She realises that the prince charming that came along her way, Hank Foxx, was a mere witch hunter and she has to deal with all this deception and betrayal in front of the assembly of witches. So, by filing for the divorce, she reinstates her independence from Hank and keeps the school protected from any harmful male presence.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is relevant to note that the prince charming appears depicted in a manner that calls to our mind an artificial construct. In ‘Boy Parts,’ Madison playing the part of a pragmatic female Viktor Frankenstein, explains to Zoe the easiest way of bringing back the mangled body of her deceased beloved Kyle: ‘We take the best boy parts, we attach them to Kyle’s head and we build the perfect boyfriend… All we have to do is follow this recipe.’8 This implies that only by choosing the best parts will the girls ever manage to build the perfect male partner, thus turning this task, in real life, virtually impossible. 4. ‘Goode’ Cordelia According to feminist theories that have dwelled upon fairy tales, female characters that don’t conform to the rules are usually punished within the narrative. In this sense, AHS-Coven carries out the same lessons that strongly contribute to a kind of hegemonic nature intrinsic to the fairy tale. Thus, Madison’s promiscuity is punished when she is gang raped at a party she attends with Zoe. In turn, Zoe’s curse dictates that all the boys she becomes intimate with are poised to die. The young witch is actually the victim of a genetically transmitted curse that turns her into a sort of black widow. We are left to guess if her relationship with Kyle really works out because he is already dead, and hence cannot die again as a result of that affliction. As previously seen, Fiona is also disciplined by virtue of her erratic sexual behavior. In conclusion, we can say that a kind of punishment awaits those female characters who do not behave like proper girls, a fact which showcases an attempt to regulate and to curb female behavior. In this sense, Maria Tatar alerts us to the consequences of non-conformity to the strict models entrenched in a patriarchal society. The author asserts that fairy tales seek, to provide (in however misguided and coercive a fashion) models of successful acculturation while supplying women with what conventional wisdom perceived as the correct program for making and preserving a good marriage. Women who did not accommodate themselves to these patterns would indeed be playing with fire.9 Indeed, from the beginning, the series shows that happy endings aren’t allowed for these witches: Marie Laveau’s lover, Bastien, is turned into the mythic Minotaur and imprisoned by Delphine LaLaurie to be subjected to her tortures. Bastien eventually assimilates his monstrous nature and later on rapes Queenie, proving him to be no role model for a charming prince; Luke, the boy next door, is murdered by his mother, thwarting his chances of being happy with Nan; as for

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__________________________________________________________________ Zoe, she dies in the last episode of the series, putting an end to her romance with the fragmentary ‘Franken-Kyle.’ Indeed, fairy tales are alluded to and parodied throughout AHS-Coven. After being murdered by Fiona, Madison is buried in a kind of wood box resembling a coffin only to be later revived, emulating Snow White’s resurrection. In ‘Boy Parts,’ in a scene that evokes ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ she is drunk and half asleep lying on a bed while the boys at the fraternity party rape her. Adopting a critical and deconstructive perspective, the series thus transforms Snow White into a living zombie and turns the awakening of Sleeping Beauty into a misogynistic fantasy of rape. Moreover, Madison appears depicted as the living embodiment of the shallow fairy tale princess, as she sees her female power depending on her physical beauty. Mimicking a kind of modernized version of a princess, she complains about the emptiness she feels inside and talks about using drugs and suffering from bulimia so as to avoid the world’s pressure. In ‘Protect the Coven,’ she is called the worst kind of Hollywood cliché. The feminine rivalry that the fairy tale always hints at is also a focus of attention in the series. In fact, there is animosity between young witches, between white witches and black witches and between mothers and daughters. As Patricia Duncker highlights, ‘One of the aspects of relationships between women which the fairy-tales allow us to examine and re-create is cruelty, brutality, and hatred of woman against woman. (…) Relationships between women in the tales are always based on rivalry and competition.’10 However, those are moments where identification between them is likewise suggested. For instance, when Fiona realises that her daughter tried to orchestrate her death, compelling her to commit suicide, she remarks, ‘What you and your girls demonstrated last night was real grit. I finally have hope for the future of this coven. And you, my dear, I’m so proud of. You really are my daughter.’11 A clear manifestation of female togetherness takes place when Fiona and Marie Laveau realise that only together can they defeat the threat posed by the witch hunters. In ‘The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks,’ Fiona reclaims the power of a feminine sisterhood so as to eradicate the male threat posed by their historical enemies, the witch hunters. Therefore, and despite all the feminine dissidence, it is in their union that force resides and, as historic survivors, they need to come to terms with that. Another cliché explored in the series concerns the nature of the protagonist of the story. Cordelia, the one who displays the right behavior and who has always been maternity-inclined, is poised to be the next Supreme, which means, that, in the end, she is acknowledged as the heroine of the story. As Karen Rowe remarks, fairy tales ‘…glorify passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a heroine’s cardinal virtues.’12 Indeed, she is shy, discrete and willing to sacrifice herself for the well-being of the coven. At one point, Myrtle tells her, ‘You’ve got a lovely

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__________________________________________________________________ personality, and you are always well groomed.’13 In this sense, Cordelia proves to fit the profile of the female heroine proclaimed by Rowe. It appears that the young woman’s conformity with the conventional role of femininity proclaimed by the fairy tale has been rewarded. As a matter of fact, with no prince charming emerging in the horizon, she remains in her position as headmistress of the boarding school, recalling the spinster of the Victorian epoch. 5. The Awakening It is relevant to point out that AHS-Coven has indeed a feminist subtext. The emblematic re-gendering of the biblical Last Supper scene in the last episode, when the witches are together at the table talking about the procedures of the ultimate test to elect the next Supreme, the so-called ‘Seven Wonders’ challenge, enlightens it. In the last episode, and after all male characters have been eradicated from the scene, we are left with a cleaner, almost sanitized version of the school. The space appears to be whiter, cleansed, strongly resembling the atmosphere of a hospital. The sensation we get is that the academy and all its feminine space has been the object of a purge. It is also implied that the influence of the fairy tale upon the construction of passive feminine role models is not a fait accompli. Cordelia’s words seem to convey this idea, as she states, ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child. But when I became a woman, I put aside childish things.’14 Her discourse underscores a breach between the world of a child’s fairy tales and the world of a grown-up female. Clearly, fairy tales are here dismissed as a child’s fantasy. In the real world, women cannot waste time waiting for a prince charming; they have to be independent and responsible. The power and the discernment lie within oneself and one has to be able to awaken it. When, in an act of revenge, the witch hunters turn Cordelia blind in the sequence of an attack with sulfuric acid, she discovers that she has gained a second-vision. In this light, the awakening of her dormant eyes is also a wake-up call for her personal ‘I’. She realises that she was given a role to play. She has to step forward and impose her will so as to save the school and ensure the survival of the young witches. That is when she acknowledges that her mother constitutes a real threat, and therefore, must be killed. Otherwise, it will be the witches, the candidates to become the next Supreme, who will vanish, one by one. Thus, when Cordelia decides to ‘see’ and assume the control of the academy, she really takes a stand as an independent woman, thereby cutting the umbilical cord of fear and insecurity that linked her to her mother. By adopting a bittersweet approach with regard to the feminine universe, AHSCoven engages in the construction of a post-feminist space, which, according to Rachel Moseley, constitutes a paradoxical lieu15 liable of accommodating feminist

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__________________________________________________________________ ideals of empowerment and emancipation together with some conservative conventions that characterize the traditional fairy tale.

Notes 1

‘American Horror Story Season 3 to Feature Evil Glamour Ryan Murphy Teases,’ last modified 3 January 2013, Viewed 10 March 2013, http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/01/american-horror-story-season-3-to-feature-evilglamour-ryan-murp/. 2 Further references to American Horror Story: Coven will appear as AHS-Coven in the text. 3 American Horror Story: Coven. Season 3, Episode no. 8, ‘The Sacred Taking,’ first broadcast 4 Dec. 2013 by FX, Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. 4 American Horror Story: Coven, Season 3, Episode no. 2, ‘Boy Parts,’ first broadcast 16 Oct. 2013 by FX, Directed by Michael Rymer. 5 In fact, Fiona has killed the previous Supreme, in order to take her place. 6 American Horror Story: Coven, Season 3, Episode no. 2, ‘Boy Parts,’ first broadcast 16 Oct. 2013 by FX, Directed by Michael Rymer. 7 ‘Boy Parts’ (3.02). 8 Ibid. 9 Maria Tatar, Off with Their Heads: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 96. 10 Patricia Duncker, Sisters and Strangers: An Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Fiction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 152. 11 ‘The Sacred Taking’ (3.08). 12 Karen E. Rowe, ‘Feminism and Fairy Tales’, Women’s Studies 6 (1979): 239. 13 American Horror Story: Coven. Season 3, Episode no. 10, ‘The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks,’ first broadcast 8 Jan. 2013 by FX, Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. 14 American Horror Story: Coven. Season 3, Episode no. 13, ‘The Seven Wonders,’ first broadcast 29 Jan. 2013 by FX, Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. 15 Rachel Moseley, ‘Glamorous Witchcraft: Gender and Magic in Teen Film and Television’ Screen 43.4 (2002): 418.

Bibliography ‘American Horror Story Season 3 to Feature Evil Glamour Ryan Murphy Teases’. Last modified 3 January, 2013. Accessed 10 March 2013. http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/01/american-horror-story-season-3-to-feature-evilglamour-ryan-murp/.

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__________________________________________________________________ American Horror Story: Coven. Season 3, Episode no. 1, ‘Bitchcraft,’ first broadcast 9 Oct. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 2, ‘Boy Parts,’ first broadcast 16 Oct. 2013 by FX. Directed by Michael Rymer. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 3, ‘The Replacements,’ first broadcast 23 Oct. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 4, ‘Fearful Pranks Ensue,’ first broadcast 30 Oct. 2013 by FX. Directed by Michael Uppendahl. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 5, ‘Burn Witch.Burn!,’ first broadcast 6 Nov. 2013 by FX. Directed by Jeremy Podeswa. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 6, ‘The Axeman Cometh,’ first broadcast 13 Nov. 2013 by FX. Directed by Michael Uppendahl. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 7, ‘The Dead,’ first broadcast 20 Nov. 2013 by FX. Directed by Bradley Buecker. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 8, ‘The Sacred Taking,’ first broadcast 4 Dec. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 9, ‘Head,’ first broadcast 11 Dec. 2013 by FX. Directed by Howard Deutch. ———.Season 3, Episode no. 10, ‘The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks,’ first broadcast 8 Jan. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 11, ‘Protect the Coven,’ first broadcast 15 Jan. 2013 by FX. Directed by Bradley Buecker. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 12, ‘Go to Hell,’ first broadcast 22 Jan. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. ———. Season 3, Episode no. 13, ‘The Seven Wonders,’ first broadcast 29 Jan. 2013 by FX. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.

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__________________________________________________________________ Duncker, Patricia. Sisters and Strangers: An Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Fiction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Moseley, Rachel. ‘Glamorous Witchcraft: Gender and Magic in Teen Film and Television’. Screen 43.4 (2002): 403-422. Rowe, Karen E. ‘Feminism and Fairy Tales’. Women’s Studies 6 (1979): 237-257. Tatar, Maria. Off With Their Heads: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. Elisabete Lopes is an English Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal. Both her Master’s degree and her PhD thesis were in the field of Gothic studies. Her current areas of research are related to the Gothic genre, namely women’s studies and visual culture.

Xayide, Enchantress or Femme Fatale? Magic and Empathy at the Service of Manipulation in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story Saul Andreetti Abstract If it is true that women have often been portrayed through the ages as mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious, unruly, carping, vengeful and manipulative, this is certainly true of an important character of Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story: the sorceress and enchantress Xayide. A manipulative and seductive woman, Xayide embodies the archetype of the witch, the sorceress and the femme fatale. The aim of this chapter is to show that, albeit Ende owes his inspiration to an existing type, he has appropriated it in an original way through his usage of fantastic elements and powerful imagery. Amongst these, symbols for power and surveillance, a will for domination symbolised by the ability to control anything that is empty through one’s will alone and a talent for manipulation which borders on magic and witchcraft. Key Words: Xayide, Horok Castle, manipulation, power, Bastian, Atreyu, Ghemmal, Childlike Emperor, the Seeing Hand, the Battle for the Ivory Tower. ***** Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story1 presents us with Xayide, a character who embodies the characteristics of the sorceress and the manipulative and beguiling woman. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that Ende has appropriated an existing model, that is, the archetype of the seductive and evil witch, to construct a discourse on manipulation and power. Methodologically, the ensuing analysis is a close reading of Bastian’s journey into the imaginative and the presentation of a woman whose ability is not merely to seduce with the aid of her empathic understanding of her victims but also through her manipulation of wishes that have a deep connection with the creation of reality and the very conquest of the world. A short synopsis of the novel and of what Ende calls the Way of Wishes is necessary to understand how and why Xayide is successful in moulding Bastian’s will to fulfil her ambition and her lust for power. In the very first page of the novel we are informed that its main character, Bastian, is a young and insecure boy who enters a bookshop, is mysteriously attracted to a book called ‘The Neverending Story’, steals it, goes to the attic of his schoolhouse, starts reading the book and realises that he is part of the very story he is reading, as the boundaries between the metadiegetic and the diegetic dimensions – to borrow Genette’s terminology2 – gradually get thinner and thinner. Bastian reads about Atreyu’s Great Quest to find

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__________________________________________________________________ the reason why the Nothing, a terrifying annihilating force, gradually effaces the world of Fantastica out of existence and how the latter is connected to the mysterious illness of the Childlike Empress. Bastian sees the world through Atreyu’s eyes, and he soon realises that this story is about him as well, as he is not just a reader but a character of the very story he is reading. And he does indeed enter the metadiegetic world of the book within the book ‘The Neverending Story’, thereby saving the world of Fantastica from ruin by giving a new name to the Childlike Empress. At this point, Bastian is given the magic and protective amulet AURYN whose inscription reads ‘Do what you wish’ which means that one’s True Will is to find out one’s own deepest wish, which is one and the same with what one really and truly wants. Hence, Bastian embarks on a personal quest of initiation and redemption, a journey into the world of myth and imagination, following his inner desires, springing from the remote recesses of his being. But his wishes are not always good because the Childlike Empress of the world of Fantastica, the guarantor of the balance of the world of the imaginative, does not judge or distinguish between good or evil wishes in the very same way as she accepts all her subjects the way they are, beautiful or ugly, stupid or wise, good or evil. Moreover, if on the one hand, Bastian’s wishes contribute to the enrichment of Fantastica, as new creatures and situations come into being as a result of his participation in its creation, on the other such wishes are a terrible burden as with every single wish coming true, Bastian loses a memory of his earthly existence, thus not only changing but utterly forgetting who he was. Indeed, Bastian changes and becomes handsome, strong and brave, but also arrogant and self-conceited to the point that he considers himself the undisputed Saviour of the world of Fantastica, demands to be called ‘Lord and Master’ and struggles between his love for his friend Atreyu and his growing pride. Bastian feels that Atreyu does not truly respect him, that he almost patronises him. It is in fact Bastian’s pride that fuels one of his ‘evil’ wishes: the wish to be feared by all, especially by Atreyu and his mount and friend the luckdragon Falkor. Almost everything that happens to Bastian in Fantastica is a result of his wishes, and the meeting with Xayide is no exception. In truth, Bastian encounters Xayide as a result of his wish to be ‘dangerous and feared’.3 In chapter XX of The Neverending Story, Bastian and his friends see before their eyes a forest of carnivorous orchids belonging to Xayide, ‘the wickedest and most powerful sorceress in all Fantastica’.4 Xayide lives in Horok Castle, also known as the Seeing Hand, ‘a building that looks like a big hand jutting out of the ground’.5 Horok Castle was situated on a rise from which the orchid trees had been cleared. True enough, it was shaped like an enormous hand. Each finger was a tower, and the thumb was an oriel

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__________________________________________________________________ surmounted by yet another tower. The whole building was many stories high, and the windows were like glittering eyes looking out over the countryside. It was known with good reason as the Seeing Hand.6 This imagery is related to surveillance, the overt act of spying and controlling those who wander in Xayide’s territory. And surveillance is power. At this point, Xayide sends her soldiers, seemingly unstoppable armoured giants, to abduct Bastian’s friends Hykrion, Hysbald and Hydorn and imprison them in Horok Castle, and use them as bait to lure Bastian into her trap. When Bastian fights the armoured giants, he discovers that they are empty suits of armour. This is another image for power and control as according to the narrative, Xayide’s witchcraft consists in the ability to control anything that is empty, epitomising manipulation and a will to dominate. After Bastian is successful in defeating the armoured giants, he declares that ‘the danger seems to be over’, at which his friend Hydorn remarks ‘At least the part that calls for a sword’.7 The real danger is, in fact, within Bastian; it is connected to his secret wishes and desires, the most fragile and defenceless part of himself. And this is what Xayide will target: Bastian’s wishes and their ability to create and mould reality itself. After Bastian’s apparent victory, we finally encounter Xayide, When Bastian, followed by his companions, entered the magic throne room, Xayide rose from her red-coral throne. She was wearing a long gown of violet silk, and her flaming long hair was coiled and braided into a fantastic edifice. Her face and her long, thin hands were as pale as marble. There was something strangely disturbing about her eyes. It took Bastian a few moments to figure out what it was – they were of different colors, one green, one red. She was trembling, evidently in fear of Bastian. He looked her straight in the face and she lowered her long lashes.8 What can be deduced from this description is that she has a very seductive appearance: she is very feminine and delicate and yet her beauty is disturbing and fraught with evil. She clearly resembles a femme fatale in Oriental fashion. Indeed, later on in the narrative, we are informed that she travels in a coral litter, filled with cushions, carpets and perfumes and that: most of the time she smoked her Oriental water pipe. The stem looked like an emerald-green viper, and the mouthpiece, which she held between her marble-white fingers, suggested a snake’s head. She seemed to be kissing it as she smoked. The clouds of

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__________________________________________________________________ smoke which poured indolently from her mouth and nose changed color with every puff, from blue to yellow, to pink, to green and so on.9 Apart from the evident phallic imagery, her description matches an idealised view of the East, where beauty is often described as romanticised and somewhat dangerous. Moreover, she has a servile attitude towards Bastian, feigns fear with her trembling and declares that she wants to be his slave, ‘My Lord and Master!’ She said in a deep voice that sounded somehow mysterious. ‘No one in Fantastica can withstand you. You are mightier than the mighty and more dangerous than all the demons together. If you wish to take revenge on me for being too stupid to recognize your greatness, trample me underfoot. I have earned your anger. But if you wish once again to demonstrate your far-famed magnanimity, suffer me to become your obedient slave, who swears to obey your body and soul. Teach me to do what you deem desirable and I will be your humble pupil, obedient to your every hint. I repent of the harm I tried to do to you and beg your mercy!10 At this moment, Bastian accepts her proposal and says to her that he will take her into his service and ‘for a fraction of a second Xayide’s eyes glowed red and green, but then, veiling them with her long lashes, she said: ‘I am yours to command, my lord and master’.11 In this short passage, one can clearly see that she has a mischievous attitude and knows well which words to choose to flatter Bastian’s ego. Bastian is so taken by feelings of self-righteousness and grandeur that he cannot even see objective reality, that is, that Xayide had sent her armoured giants with the coral litter beforehand, as she knew she was going to give in to Bastian to win him over. When Atreyu tries to help Bastian see that he is being deceived, Bastian reprimands him before everybody, and this is the first sign of the effects of Xayide’s manipulation. Having seen the first effects of her deceits, ‘Xayide smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile’.12 And this coincides with the moment Bastian loses a memory of his earthly existence directly connected, in Contrappasso fashion, to the desire of being dangerous: the memory of having been a child. Xayide understands that manipulating Bastian’s vanity and sense of grandeur is not enough to carry out her plans. She must part him from those who love him and can protect him from her influence. Accordingly, she induces Bastian to part with his mule Yikka by manipulating his pride and his vanity. Subsequently, she convinces Bastian to break his friendship with Atreyu, using magic (the belt

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__________________________________________________________________ Ghemmal)13 and by manipulating his rivalry with Atreyu. In fact, Bastian’s wish to be dangerous, respected, and never taken for granted originates from his fear of being patronised by Atreyu and is a sign of deep insecurity. Finally, she persuades Bastian to crown himself Childlike Emperor, which would be his downfall as all the humans who crown themselves Childlike Emperors, and thus try to take the Childlike Empress’ power from her, are destined to lose all their memories in one stroke. Without memories to spare, the humans who wander in the universe of myth cannot wish themselves further, lose direction and end up in a place called the City of Old Emperors, a hell where life has no real purpose and where they cannot grow old any longer as ‘without a past, [one cannot] have a future’.14 This means that without memories one cannot carry on wishing and therefore participate in the creation of reality. Wishes regulate purpose and direction in the world of imagination, and this is the main reason why Bastian’s wishes are so dear to Xayide. The second wish that arises in Bastian shows, again, her effort to manipulate Bastian’s feelings for Atreyu. Xayide tells Bastian that he gives too much importance to friendship and to what other people think, A wise person stands above all things, he neither loves nor hates. But you, my lord, set store for friendship. Your heart should be as cold as a snow covered mountain peak, and it isn’t. That’s why someone can harm you.15 She is alluding to Atreyu, seeking to instil doubt in Bastian. These words are very powerful for Bastian as they give birth to his desire to be detached from all feelings and utterly unaffected by the opinion of others which is, again, a generator of reality. Hence, Bastian’s wish causes him to be called by the Monks of Knowledge of the Star Cloister to provide an explanation for the origins and existence of the world of Fantastica, which he does by illuminating the entire vault of the sky with the magic stone Al Tsahir.16 The sky shows, for the fraction of a moment, the attic where Bastian was reading, revealing the diegetic dimension to the metadiegetic inhabitants of Fantastica. In other words, Bastian is the Great Knower because he shows to the Monks of the Star Cloister a fragment of the truth behind their existence, but the Monks are, at the same time, the result of his participation in their creation. This wish is also fulfilled to the letter (‘His only feeling was one of cold emptiness. Everything was indifferent to him now, just as Xayide had said’17) and Xayide, pleased with the results, tells him, ‘At last you have achieved true greatness. Now you’ve stopped caring for anything, now nothing can move you’.18 But his new ‘wisdom’ costs him the memory of having gone to school, of the attic and of the book bound in copper-coloured silk (‘The Neverending Story’), to the point he stops asking himself why he came to Fantastica.

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__________________________________________________________________ In light of what has been said hitherto, a few considerations deserve to be made. To begin with, Xayide’s description is not merely interesting for the allusions to an Oriental femme fatale, but also for the disturbing detail of the eyes of different colours. This is not an allusion to ambiguity; its meaning reaches far beyond. Her eyes, green and red, are of the same colours of the pages of the extradiegetic Neverending Story, as Ende wanted it to be printed in different colours to distinguish the parts in Fantastica from the ones relating to the real world. She gazes through the ontological dimensions of the narrative, as it were. The chromatic reference is, in fact, an allusion to Xayide’s overreaching ambition: the conquest of the world through the control of Bastian’s reality-forging wishes. She is the mistress of the Seeing Hand and endowed with the empathic ability to see through Bastian’s secret wishes, in an ever-growing lust for power. In other words, she wants to implement total surveillance and absolute control on the world of Fantastica by becoming the new Childlike Empress and convince Bastian to take the Ivory Tower, the symbol of the Childlike Empress, to suit her purposes. But the difference between them is that the Childlike Empress wields no dominion, as she respects all the pairs of opposites, while Xayide wishes for power and domination on all beings. Furthermore, what Xayide says when they first meet reflects literally Bastian’s wish to be dangerous and feared. She is the outcome of his wish to be dangerous and, simultaneously, she uses his very wishes to manipulate him. In the world of Fantastica, wishes give Bastian a direction, and they are the source of both his strength and weakness. It is therefore not surprising that Xayide is successful in manipulating Bastian, not only because she understands him and empathises with him and sees through his vanity, his insecurities and his feelings of friendship with Atreyu, but most of all out of her ability to manipulate Bastian’s secret wishes. The following passage is peculiarly explanatory of such skill and shows how, in Iago fashion, Xayide has a medicine capable of utterly bending Bastian’s will to her schemes. In such mood he was capable of slipping away from her. She must confront him and cheer him up, in her own way. For she was determined to hold him for the course she had planned for him and for herself. And she knew that in the present juncture no magical belts or tricks would suffice. It would take stronger medicine, the strongest medicine available for her, namely Bastian’s secret wishes.19 The outcome of such words is Bastian’s undertaking to become the Childlike Emperor of Fantastica and to mould the world of imagination to the shape he sees fit. Indeed, Xayide tells him that Fantastica is rightfully his and he dreams of a world where

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__________________________________________________________________ he would create and destroy as he pleased, where every creature, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, wise or foolish, would be the product of his will alone, and he would reign supreme and inscrutable, playing an everlasting game with the destinies of his subjects.20 This craving for dominion is nothing but the outcome of Xayide’s manipulation of his vanity and fears. Bastian succumbs to her flattery, being led to believe that his True Will is to dominate and control, and this is ultimately what it means to be free. And this comes to the point that, in chapter XXII of The Neverending Story, he wounds his friend Atreyu. The effects of manipulation are a kind of blindness as one cannot see reality any longer as one’s sight has been impaired by lies, deceit and flattery. To conclude, one can say that the way Xayide perishes sheds an ironic light on her lust for power, She commanded her armored giants to halt. Strangely, they did not obey but marched on. She flew into a rage, jumped out of her litter, and ran after them with outstretched arms. The armored giants, foot soldiers and riders alike, ignored her commands, turned about, and trampled her with their feet and hooves. At length, when Xayide had breathed her last, the whole column stopped like rundown clockwork..21 The armoured giants do not obey her will any longer and trample her underfoot. This is, ultimately, a symbol for the demise of her power to dominate. Her will fails her and just like the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail, it bends over itself with tragic consequences.

Notes 1

Michael Ende, The Neverending Story, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Penguin, 1983). Henceforth NES. 2 Gérard Genette, Figures III (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1999). 3 Ibid., 267. 4 Ibid., 268. 5 Ibid., 28. 6 Ibid., 273. 7 Ibid., 277. 8 Ibid., 278. 9 Ibid., 286. 10 Ibid., 278. Italics are mine.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Ibid., 279. Ibid., 281. 13 Cf. Ibid., 289-290 and 303-304. 14 Ibid., 323. 15 Ibid., 290. 16 Cf. Ibid., 296. 17 Ibid., 304. 18 Ibid., 307. 19 Ibid., 278. This is clearly a reference to Othello. Cf. ‘Work on, my medicine, work’ (Act 4, Scene 1) in William Shakespeare, Othello, in Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth (New York/London: Bantam Books, 1988). 20 Ibid., 308. 21 Ibid., 337. 12

Bibliography Ende, Michael. The Neverending Story. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: Penguin, 1983. Genette, Gérard. Figures III. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1999. Shakespeare, William. Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. New York: Bantam Books, 1988. Saul Andreetti is currently an independent researcher in Comparative Literature, Myth and Fantasy. The main focus of his research is on Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story. He has published a book of poetry entitled La mente e la curva.

Part III The Evil in Play: Female Evil Characters in Theatre and Film

What Is Evil Femininity in British Theatre? A Comparative Analysis of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Edward Bond’s Lear Susana Nicolás Román Abstract Lear, Bond’s modern revision of Shakespeare’s King Lear, recreates the medieval atmosphere of the mythical English king and his fall from power by his own daughters, Bodice and Fontanelle (Goneril and Regan in King Lear). Inevitably influenced by the collective memory created by the bard, the characterization of these figures as evil women goes beyond the representation of cruelty because physical and psychological tortures are used as a tool to achieve power. However, in a play where female violence is savagely depicted, the author’s clear objective claims the subversion of female evil nature proposed in King Lear. Bond rejects a biological origin as the cause of wickedness in Lear’s daughters. Through these female evils, Bond proposes a socially moralized individual in a situation of repression. Following Wilhelm Reich’s ideas, Bond defends that ‘the socially moralized individual is dangerous, not only because he extends the repression that formed him, but, because, he, too, can explode into orgiastic violence if the stress of the situation penetrates his social armor’. 1 This social theory supports the development of violence in figures like Bodice and Fontanelle for they assimilate the concept of morality that society has imposed on them. This chapter proposes a comparative analysis between the female portrayals in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Bond’s Lear to explore the complexity of evil female nature in British theatre. Revising the Shakespearean myths, Bond creates characters capable of the greatest cruelties but declines a special relationship of women to violence. Bond demands a reinterpretation of the moral and political challenges equalizing male and female voices in an increasingly violent world. Key Words: Female evil, British theatre, Shakespeare, Edward Bond, late Marxism. ***** 1. Edward Bond, Transcending Brecht for a New Socialist Theatre Edward Bond, the radical playwright exiled by the incomprehension of British theatre, is probably the latest exponent of socialist drama. Since the sixties with irreverent plays like Saved and Early Morning, prosecuted by censorship, Bond has developed a personal definition of neosocialism, firmly based on social justice and criticism of class hierarchy, which allows the survival of past utopias with an absolute rational basis. The interrelationship demanded by Bond between rationalism (logic) and imagination (emotion) determines one of the most innovative reinterpretations of

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__________________________________________________________________ contemporary socialism and its adaptation to drama. These principles can be seen clearly applied in his dramatic theory. Politics, philosophy and theatre become inextricably intertwined and difficult to separate as an interdisciplinary practice. As the maxim of his plays, the spectator is given the authority to judge and the opportunity to rationalise through the development of the Theatre Events (TEs). The creation of a rational theatre in which violence is criticised by the presentation of some of the most violent scenes in the British stage has not always been understood by critics and audience. Cannibalism, rapes, executions or scientific experiments are constructed as visual metaphors to claim for justice and valuable instruments to alienate meaning and action. Brechtian sentimentality and propagandistic idealism proved to be totally ineffective for contemporary theatre, for his naivety only provoked a kind of catharsis with a tearful spectator but was useless for solutions. According to the Bondian theory, the interpretation of history and the analysis of truth are pointed out to experience our present and understand our past. For Bond, gender is only important in relation to his emotional theory: ‘I put women on an equal status with men: they have to accept responsibility for changing their society, not merely be its victims, acquiescing or otherwise’.2 In the plays of the sixties and seventies, Bond constructs evil women mainly characterized by irrationality and extremist violence. The absence of political objectives and the crudity of their actions provide a new dimension to the depiction of violence on Bond stage. In these decades, cannibals or torturers were not expected to be associated with female characters and the shocking effect was obviously the intention of the author. However, Bond transcends gender questions to denounce social problems: ‘And there you see that women cannot retreat into a specific sanctuary (or ghetto) of sexual characteristics – they are as much at danger from their class roles as men. The problem isn’t that we’re different, but that we’re the same’.3 2. Bodice/Fontanelle and Goneril/Regan: The Evil Feminine? Edward Bond deliberately proposes this revision of King Lear as a subversion of the evil feminine present in Shakespeare’s play. Bond rejects a biological origin as the cause of wickedness in Lear’s daughters. He blames an unloving education and the immorality of the system for the daughters’ behaviour. From the beginning of the play, Bond specifies his distance from the Shakespearean play and his change of perspective towards evil. This can be seen in the names of his characters: Fontanelle is the name for the gap in the skulls of little babies which isn’t quite closed when they’re born […] Bodice is the item of girl’s clothing that covers the breast– again an image of care and nurture […] I wanted to take Shakespeare’s ‘evil’ names and expose a double-sidedness in our moral language and

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__________________________________________________________________ to point a human origin for evil: not that we’re born evil but that our culture forces evil on us.4 One of the clearest examples of Bodice and Fontanelle’s violence is developed in scene four of Lear, a great scandal in the seventies but in fact, a recreation of Gloucester’s blindness in King Lear. Despite the brutality of the action, Warrington’s mutilation does not respond to gratuitous violence with the intention of shocking but the logical consequence of the cruel system that Bodice and Fontanelle have created. Actually, Bond does not only criticize the brutality of the female figures but also the participation of a soldier in the torture as part of his duty: ‘Don’t blame me, I’ve got a job t’ do’. 5 The passivity of Bodice in Warrington’s torture is clearly reflected in her image concentrated on knitting as part of her daily routine. In front of human suffering, Bodice is coldly concerned just with her pattern while Fontanelle actively participates in the torture showing her excitement about others’ pain and an urgent need to liberate all her hate and anger. Fontanelle’s visceral emotion, which fantasizes with a similar martyrdom of her father, is opposed to her sister’s self-control which has always in mind the aim of the punishment in a more rational way. Though their behaviour is different, cruelty is shared by both attitudes. We can perceive that in the following passage: FONTANELLE. Kill his hands! Kill his feet! Jump on it– all of it! He can’t hit us now. Look at his hands like boiling crabs! Kill it! Kill all of it! Kill him inside! Make him dead! Father! Father! I want to sit on his lungs! BODICE. (knits). Plain, pearl, plain. She was just the same at school.6 Bond tries to force a complex evaluation of this situation because Bodice’s comments look for the spectators’ laughter. Along the scene, Fontanelle finds pleasure and entertainment in Warrington’s mutilation, openly depicting her mental illness. Nevertheless, Bodice’s unique intervention shows greater cruelty when she pokes the needles into Warrington’s ears: ‘We must shut him up inside himself. […] I’ll just jog these in and out a little. Doodee, doodee, doodee, doo’.7 In this scene, we observe a clear dichotomy between the behaviour of the two sisters. Fontanelle’s compulsive and hysterical attitude reveals childish hate towards her father while Bodice wishes absolute control and power as her greatest maxim. Through Fontanelle’s behaviour, Bond proposes a socially moralized individual in a situation of repression. Following Wilhelm Reich’s ideas, Bond defends the claim that ‘the socially moralized individual is dangerous, not only because he extends the repression that formed him, but, because, he, too, can explode into orgiastic violence if the stress of the situation penetrates his social armor’.8 This social theory supports the development of violence in figures like

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__________________________________________________________________ Bodice and Fontanelle for they assimilate the concept of morality that society has imposed on them. In fact, Bond reaffirms this thesis in the second scene of the second act when he presents their childhood as the beginning of their evil nature. During his period in prison, Lear receives the visit of his daughters as ghosts. The audience can perceive his severe treatment of his little girls with the burden of a dead mother. In the following example, an Oedipal image of Bodice is shown when she appears with her mother’s dress looking for her father’s love: LEAR. Take it off. Your mother’s dress! BODICE. She’s dead! She gave it to me! LEAR (pointing). Take it off! BODICE. No! LEAR. Yes, or you will always wear it! (He pulls her to him.) Bodice! My poor child, you might as well have worn her shroud.9 This childish vision of Bodice allows the audience to see her crying against Lear and discover signs of humanity completely absent in the adult figure. Conditioned by an atmosphere of violence and repression, the education of Bodice and Fontanelle is exclusively focused on an authoritative and terrifying father without love. In his egoism, Lear does not want his children to go but, ‘they cannot stay for, his earlier attempts to make them stay behind walls and innocent of reality have already murdered them, and replaced them with an older and crueller Bodice and Fontanelle’. 10 In this imaginary situation, Lear can return to the past and become a real father. Through this process of learning, Lear recognizes his mistakes in the education of his daughters and can discover the cause of their evil nature. Lear must assume his responsibility in his daughter’s conversion to tyrannical and cruel monsters that make use of arbitrary violence. Now he can understand their reasons for developing a visceral hate against him. In Bond’s version, Bodice and Fontanelle transcend the secondary roles of Shakespearean Goneril and Regan, becoming fundamental elements in Lear’s learning. In the following quotation, Bond explains the didactic intention of giving a predominant role to Lear’s daughters: I thought that the other daughters, though I’m not excusing them, were very unfairly treated and misunderstood. What I wanted Lear to do was to recognize that they were his daughters– they had been formed by his activity, they were children of his state, and he was totally responsible for them.11

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__________________________________________________________________ Despite the similarity between the two sisters, their personalities differ and individualize their behaviours. The childish inefficacy of Fontanelle is opposed to Bodice’s rationality and intelligence. As regards their husbands, the dukes appear as simple puppets in the hands of terrible wives. However, the pressure of power might humanize Bodice and with this speech she recognizes her entrapment. Alone, Bodice appears as a victim and oppressor at the same time: BODICE. War. Power […] They say decide this and that, but I don’t decide anything. My decisions are forced on me […] I hated being a girl, but at least I was happy sometimes. And it was better when I grew up, I could be myself– they didn’t humiliate me then. I was almost free! I made so many plans, one day I’d be my own master! Now I have all the power…and I’m a slave. Worse!12 Fontanelle’s dissection on stage is one of the most brutal images in the play but it evokes the figurative language of Shakespeare’s King Lear. With the inspiration of Rembrandt’s autopsy, Bond goes beyond the bard in his conviction of the evil nature of Lear’s daughters. Bond graphically shows that there is no biological source innate in the human being as reason for evil. In Shakespeare’s play, Lear speaks about the different anatomy of Goneril and Regan as the cause of their wickedness while Bond directly represents the autopsy on stage with a didactic function for Lear, and extensively, for the spectator. In the Bondian scientific atmosphere, the female body loses its symbolism of evil to become an authentic revelation to Lear. Seeing Fontanelle’s body and viscera, the father discovers his implication in the personal tragedy of his daughter: LEAR. She sleeps inside like a lion and a lamb and a child. The things are so beautiful. I am astonished. I have never seen anything so beautiful. If I had known she was so beautiful […] Her body was made by the hand of a child, so sure and nothing unclean […] If I had known this beauty and patience and care, how I would have loved her. Did I make this– and destroy it?13 While Fontanelle pleaded for mercy, Bodice remains cold to the approach of death. She does not show any feeling in front of her sister’s corpse. Lear is overwhelmed by guilt but Bodice is incapable of admitting her part of responsibility: ‘LEAR. I destroyed her. / BODICE. Destroyed? No, no! We admit nothing. We acted for the best. Did what we had to do’.14 Cave has pointed out this moment as a possible conciliation between Bodice and her father in filial union, but both leave this opportunity for different reasons: ‘Lear is preoccupied with his guilt over Fontanelle, and Bodice is too concerned to preserve her dignity to see his fondling

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__________________________________________________________________ of her sister’s viscera with any feeling but revulsion’.15 In contrast to her sister, Bodice dies opposing resistance until the end. She also shows her strength of character in her final image in the play. 3. Cordelia, Loving Daughter or Stalinist Leader? The loving Shakespearean heroine is savagely subverted in Bond’s Lear. Cordelia is no more one of Lear’s daughters but the wife of a gravedigger who lives in the countryside. In state of pregnancy, she feels a continuous menace of losing the utopic state of happiness in which they live. From the beginning, we can perceive that Cordelia is not so simple and humane as the boy. WIFE. …Why can’t I make you happy? BOY. I am happy. WIFE. You’re not. I know you’re not. You make me happy– my father said I’d be unhappy here, but I’m not, you’ve made me so happy– why can’t I make you happy? Look at the way you brought that man here! The first one you find! Why? I’m so afraid something will happen.16 With these words, Bond foreshadows the feeling of sorrow and fear that she will systematically develop along the play: ‘What Cordelia really wants is to learn how to live like the Boy, but it’s impossible’.17 Scharine pointed out that ‘Cordelia believes that men are essentially evil and a threat to her peaceful existence’ and metaphorically categorises her as a ‘wall builder’.18 Nevertheless, Cordelia cannot prevent the introduction of the crude reality in her life. Through the symbol of the bloody water, the spectator can see in advance the violence of the following scene. She is savagely raped by a group of soldiers in a powerful animal metaphor which equates her cries with the squealing of the pigs. Her husband, wrapped in a bloody white sheet, also dies in an attempt to save her. Cordelia and her husband were both wrong in their philosophy of life. Nor is it possible to live apart from society but neither is it to believe innocently in the kindness of people. The last words of the soldier crowing his feat become an extensive critique of the military atrocities in the world: ‘An’ I’ll ‘ave ‘er reekin’ a pig blood. Somethin’ t’ write ‘ome t’ tell mother’. 19 The spiral of violence concludes the act because the character called CARPENTER kills the soldiers in a silent final vengeance. In the following acts, the spectator could predict that Cordelia will symbolize goodness as in King Lear. However, the name of the character is deliberately used to deconstruct the spectator’s expectancies. Bond cannot permit a simple solution through a noble loving daughter who rescues Lear from his mistakes. Defying Shakespeare’s image of female goodness, Bond confronts Lear with his own failures and places Cordelia in the middle of his journey.

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__________________________________________________________________ The metamorphosis of Cordelia into a revolutionary leader is developed by the suffering and violence of the soldiers’ episode. Her revolution does not imply a real change in the system because its roots are just irrational hate and vengeance. In the play, Cordelia should embody the possibility of hope and an alternative to the tyrannical system of Bodice and Fontanelle. Nevertheless, both regimes defend the same false dialectics and both approve the construction of the defending wall. Representing the idea of the corruption of power, Bond weaves the conducting line between the governments. Violence is also used as an instrument of oppression in Cordelia’s system. In this sense, Bond states that Cordelia represents Stalin and his violent interpretation of socialism: The simple fact is that if you behave violently, you create an atmosphere of violence, which generates more violence. If you create a violent revolution, you always create a reaction…Lenin thinks for example that he can use violence for specific ends. He does not understand that he will produce Stalin, and indeed must produce a Stalin…20 Bond has insisted in the ‘stalinization’ of Cordelia as a fundamental way to understand the behaviour of this character. In one of his letters to David Hirst, he explains: ‘I made Cordelia the daughter of a priest because Stalin was trained as a seminarist’. 21 The figure of Cordelia becomes a criticism of the socialist degeneration to tyranny. Ironically, Bond presents the same idea defended by Lear at the beginning of the play and Cordelia at the end. This circular structure reinforces the same level of corruption and irrationality in both systems. Defying the Shakesperean alternative of Poor Tom Bond does not believe in a higher concept of justice on the side of the poor and criticizes in the same way the violence of the oppressed through the figure of Cordelia. In fact, the play states that Cordelia’s regime is even worse than Bodice and Fontanelle’s system because of the legitimization of crime: ‘Your law always does more harm than crime, and your morality is a form of violence’.22 Moreover, Cordelia’s revolution is revealed as the destruction of hope. In fact, her incapacity to counteract Lear’s truths leads to violence as the only alternative to impose her dogma. The arbitrary death sentence Cordelia levies against Lear constitutes the only possibility to silence his uncomfortable criticism. This repressive act against freedom confirms the categorization of Cordelia as a tyrannical figure. She could have led a just renovation but the use of indiscriminate violence just follows the example of her ‘sisters’ Bodice and Fontanelle.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusions Following the dramatic structure of the play, we can conclude that Bond succeeds in deconstructing the figure of the good Cordelia represented by Shakespeare. The image of female evil, powerfully developed by Bodice and Fontanelle, is widely reinforced by the character of Cordelia who maintains the name to emphasize the comparison with the bard’s heroine. The new challenge proposed by Bond is the rereading of King Lear through a social interpretation of violence and injustice. According to Bond, power (male or female) always means corruption. The evil condition of the female characters in Lear is clearly dependent upon the violence experienced by these figures in their lives. Bodice and Fontanelle were not essentially evil but conditioned by Lear’s education and violent surrounding. Similarly, Cordelia is heavily traumatized by her rape and the deaths of her baby and husband. Their future behaviours and future regimes were marked by the trace of violence. Bond was very much criticized for the device of a ‘live’ autopsy at the time of the play. However, this is his graphic way of rejecting the natural inclination of human beings to become evil. Actually, he offers a more positive and contemporary vision of gender questions than in Shakespeare’s King Lear. On the other hand, the animal imagery, so present in both plays, is used to reinforce the idea of the body as a localisation of kindness and innocence and not as a synonym of perversion. The female body is no more related to wickedness than the male. In Lear, the spectator clearly perceives an attack of the aggressiveness of our system behind the violent identity of the female figure. Revising the Shakespearean myths, Bond creates characters capable of the greatest cruelties but declines a special relationship of women to violence. Social environment, education or traumatic experiences appear as the important elements in the development of personal values.

Notes 1

R. Scharine, The Plays of Edward Bond (Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Press, 1976), 196. 2 Ian Stuart, ed., Edward Bond Letters II (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995), 201. 3 Ian Stuart, ed., Edward Bond Letters II (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995), 70). 4 Ian Stuart, ed., Edward Bond Letters 4 (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 178-179. 5 Edward Bond, Plays: 2. Lear. The Sea. Narrow Road to the Deep North. Black Mass. Passion (London: Methuen, 1998), 30. 6 Edward Bond, Plays: 2, 28.

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Ibid., 29. R. Scharine, The Plays of Edward Bond, 196. 9 Ibid., 53. 10 P. Nodelman, ‘Beyond Politics in Bond’s Lear’, Modern Drama 3 (1980): 273. 11 Roger Hudson et al., ‘Drama and the Dialectics of Violence’, Theatre Quarterly 2.5 (1972): 8. 12 Bond, Plays: 2, 63. 13 Ibid., 73. 14 Ibid., 74. 15 R. Cave, ‘The History Play: Edward Bond’, New British Drama in Performance on The London Stage 1970-1985 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1987), 273. 16 Ibid., 35. 17 Malcolm Hay and Philip Roberts, Bond: A Study of His Plays (London: Methuen, 1980), 123. 18 R. Scharine, The Plays of Edward Bond, 202. 19 Bond, Plays: 2, 45. 20 Malcolm Hay and Philip Roberts, Bond: A Study of His Plays (London: Methuen, 1980), 129. 21 D. Hirst, Edward Bond (London: Macmillan, 1985), 140. 22 Bond, Plays: 2, 99. 8

Bibliography Bond, Edward. Saved: Students’ Edition. London: C Black, 2009. ———. Plays: 2. Lear. The Sea. Narrow Road to the Deep North. Black Mass. Passion. London: Methuen, 1998 (1978). Cartelli, Thomas. ‘Shakespeare in Pain: Edward Bond’s Lear and the Ghosts of History’. Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production 55 (2002): 159-69. Coult, Tony. The Plays of Edward Bond. London: Methuen, 1979 (1977). Davis, David, ed. Edward Bond and The Dramatic Child: Edward Bond’s Plays for Young People. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2005. Gilleman, Luc. ‘Juss Round an’ Round: Edward Bond’s Saved and the Family Machine’. New England Theatre Journal 18 (2008): 49-76.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hay, Malcom and Philip Roberts. Edward Bond: A Companion to the Plays. London: TQ Publications, 1978. Hirst, David. Edward Bond. London: Macmillan, 1985. Thompson, Allan. ‘Postmodern Ethics and the Textual Representation of Violence’. English Studies in Africa: A Journal of the Humanities 53 (2010): 3447. Miryang, Kim. ‘The Protagonist’s Double Images in Early Morning, Lear and Narrow Road to the Deep North’. Journal of Modern British and American Drama 15.3 (2002): 41-73. Wheeler, David. ‘Curing Cultural Madness: Edward Bond’s Lear and The Woman’: Theatre Annual XLVI (1993): 13-29. Susana Nicolás Román is a Professor and Tutor for Postgradute Programmes in the English Department at the University of Almeria (Spain). She holds a PhD in English literature and in her current role she teaches undergraduate and Master courses in British theatre and pedagogy. She is an active member of innovative teaching groups, focusing her research on female voices in theatre and motivation in the classroom.

Salome and Lulu Reincarnated: Evil Women as Metapoetic Figures on the Croatian Modernist Stage Lada Čale Feldman Abstract: The chapter will explore the destiny of two exemplary myths of the evil woman, Salome and Lulu, in four plays by the three most prominent Croatian modernist playwrights, Ivo Vojnović’s Dame with Sunflower (1911), Milan Begović’s Adventurer at the Gate (1925), as well as Miroslav Krleža’s Salome (1918) and Honourable Glembays (1929). My aim is to demonstrate that the fin-de-siècle heritage of criminal and duplicitous femme fatale re-appears on the Croatian modernist stage only to be endowed with renewed anxieties induced by the turbulent political and poetical atmosphere preceding and following World War I (WWI). While combining narrations of memories, visions and/or dreams, descriptions of paintings, and cinematographic techniques or topoi, the three Croatian playwrights show the evil woman to be an enigma that insistently demands yet eludes representation, defying the hold of the interplay of narrative voices, dramatic utterances, inter-textual doublings, imagistic projections and spectator positions. The selected plays thus question the role and limits of different genres, procedures and media in shaping or channelling what was then promoted as one of the privileged interests of psychoanalysis, the ‘disturbances’ of female desire. However, whereas Vojnović and Krleža conceived of female sexuality as of an indomitable, destructive force epitomizing a looming catastrophic social and cultural dissolution, Begović exalted desire as the very site of female access to (tragic) subjectivity. Being undoubtedly a reaction to the threat of female emancipation, evil women on the Croatian modernist stage figured as the crux of poetic debates, which were stirred by various concurrent challenges: decline of high culture, the advent of ‘trivial’ media such as cinema, and the need for theatre practice to search for new forms which would adequately respond to the semiotic malaise brought by sudden changes in social and political constellations. Key Words: Salome, Lulu, Croatian modernist drama. ***** Common dilemmas run through feminist criticism addressing the epitome of female wickedness, the romantic, decadent and symbolist femme fatale, let alone her younger cinematic sisters: is she a demonic projection of male anxiety and fear of castration, or an authentic tragic figure,1 or even a narcissistic promise of female emancipation?2 Is she an archetype,3 or did she rather arise at a specific culturalhistorical juncture, announcing the threat of WWI, with its later American echoes in the work of exiled Weimar directors? 4 The questions that she prompts

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__________________________________________________________________ undoubtedly belong to her most challenging features, but, as Helen Hanson and Catherine O’Rawe recently pointed out, the ambition to pinpoint or explain this ‘perennial site of uncertainty’ should not obscure the discussion of different cultural traditions, media and genres in which this figure thrived, as well as the specific functions she fulfilled.5 What kind of theatrical life did this imaginary Gestalt live in a specific cultural context of a small country on the periphery of Europe, Croatia, which was then a colony of Austro-Hungarian Empire? Why did this Gestalt flourish in the period immediately preceding and following WWI, when the political and juridical status of Croatia underwent serious turbulences? Croatian playwrights heavily drew from the complex genealogy of femme fatale in numerous texts and varied media of painting, opera, drama and film, using this figure to position themselves with respect to manifold currents of European modernism in the intense poetical debate of the time. Croatian Salome and Lulu therefore hardly fit into unequivocal ideological or poetic robes, regardless of their debt to the common European referential framework, in which the psychoanalytic treatment of female sexuality as ‘the dark continent’ of the male epistemological endeavour exerted considerable influence. Following the feminist critical interest in the role that femme fatale played for European modernist playwrights,6 I will focus on those Croatian dramatists who wanted to recreate their theatrical landscape. Although dissatisfied with ideological and aesthetic limitations of the so-called théâtre à l’italienne, they nevertheless sensed that there is no easy escape from its determinations, even despite the arrival of new cultural forms such as cinema, and the need for theatre to consequently emphasise the specificity of its expressive means as well as its power and place within the cultural field. Relying on cinematic resources in their invention of new theatrical procedures, they constructed femme fatale as an enigma that insistently demands yet eludes representation, defying the hold of the interplay of narrative voices, dramatic utterances, intertextual doublings, imagistic projections and spectator positions. My first example is Ivo Vojnović’s Dame with the Sunflower (1911), a transmedial mixture of salon dramaturgy, pictorial triptych and thriller. A great admirer of Wilde’s high aestheticism and D’Annunzio’s futurist projects, Vojnović imagined his triptych as an hommage to their double heritage. His two protagonists are the wildean mysterious Dame with the Sunflower, alternately named also Ellen Throw and countess Ekaterinska, and the d’annunzian young pilot Vitale Malipiero, descendant of a Venetian doge, aspiring to conquer the world with his newly invented machine. It is only in the second act, when we are invited to enter his sudden ‘vision’, that we learn who the woman he saw in the hotel is: a certain criminal, Miss Mag, who once upon a time, while he was a young naive boy visiting London, drew him into her flat, where he in horror discovered another man’s dead body hidden behind the couch, but fortunately managed to escape the

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__________________________________________________________________ eventual arrest. In the third act, he confronts her, making her throw herself from the balcony of the hotel into the canal in order to avoid the scandal. The entire drama – the contrasting colours of its scenery, lightening, and costumes – is permeated with symbolist chiaro-scuro, suggested already by the symbol of the sunflower. This principle follows the iconographic rules of the triptych in the temporal organisation of the acts: the first and the last act, in which we encounter different characters in the hotel, encircle – as the bright crown of the present, mechanical, measurable linear time – the dark middle of the internal, mythical, eternal time of the cinematic ‘flash-back’ of Vitale Malipiero’s personal memory, in the presentation of which Vojnović intensifies his references to plastic arts as well. It is through this ‘vision’ that the figure of the criminal woman appears, as a construct of Freudian ‘screen-memory’, namely covered over by multiple associations surging to Malipiero’s mind. He first recognizes in her ‘a spider-woman’ from the early silent movies (wearing a glamorous grey costume, using movements that are brusque and exaggerated), but then describes her as the picture of ‘the unknown XVIII century Italian painter from the school of Naples’ that he once saw in a museum: Salome in silver armour, that is, her pictorial blend with the medieval representations of Judith severing the head of Holofernes. This cohabitation of distant, incongruous references that brings together high and low culture, as well as layers of past, present and future configuring the archetypal threat of castration – as do the dark eternal hole of the triptych and the black middle of the sunflower – testifies to Vojnović’s anxiety not over the upcoming war, but over the confused state of contemporary culture and arts. The arrival of the corrupt consumer culture and trivial genres are associated here with the archetypes of Judith and Salome. Introduced into the play under the guise of allusions to highly valued paintings, the two blended femme fatale figures are treated as ‘obsolete objects’ of European civilisation, whose revenge is felt by humanity through the Freudian mechanism of the return of the repressed, plaguing the steady march of civilisation and progress.7 Making Salome appear to the eyes of the public framed by the ambitious male protagonist’s projection, desire and fear, Vojnović expressed his crepuscular nostalgia towards the old, romantic, decadent and symbolist fetish of aesthetic representation 8 that has to die for humanity to fly to an uncertain technological and multi-media future. It is on a quite opposite pole that Salome will be placed by Miroslav Krleža (1918), who was strongly opposed to various dissatisfying poetical offerings of decadent aestheticism, abstract expressionism and neo-romanticist spiritualism in an era of ‘bloody historical feasts’, in which humanity and his native Croatia suffered the most horrifying prospect of political conundrum, poverty and war. His counter-facture of Wilde’s Salome was aimed therefore to transform this ‘excessive, dangerous woman’ who has proclaimed the necessity of a ‘revolution in the symbolic’ 9 into an ambivalent character, both a symptom of cultural decadence and a representative of utopian possibilities, both a seductive actress and

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__________________________________________________________________ a rebellious rhetorician, denouncing male political ambitions, military stupidity and religious hypocrisy. Her antagonist Johanaan is not the unblemished heroic saint of the Old Testament, withstanding all her temptations and trials, but a petty egoist who, while preaching the brotherhood of men, is all too ready to sell his ideals to spend a night with this ‘Babylonian whore’, with whom he is even, after the politically scandalous ‘fait accompli’, willing to be married and have children. Salome’s most radical conversion happens in language: unlike Wilde’s poetic incantations, we listen to her intellectually superior, incisive, insatiable eloquence, full of salon formulations as well as both ancient and modern cultural references, such as Plato’s philosophy or items of contemporary bourgeois life. She demolishes all the arguments of her antagonists as a devious rationalist critically analysing the state of affairs in Judea, and yet idealistically despises any alternative solutions, claiming the realm of the stars as her only (immoral) measure. Figuring as the allegorical embodiment of a ‘transgressive utopia’, 10 she is the one who feminizes her male surrounding: she is bored and ‘longs to die’, disgusted by ‘thought systems’ cheaply bought in ‘stores of fashionable goods’, as well as by ‘beliefs’ changed as if they were ‘evening outfits’, ‘so to speak, as seasons go by’. Instead of wearing the seven veils of deception, Salome in Krleža appears rather as the Nietzschean ‘naked truth’ for which she explicitly yearns, wearing a transparent silver veil with which she enchants, seduces and finally kills men. She orders Johanaan’s decapitation not so much because she lusts for the sanctified ‘severed head of her desire’, 11 but in order to fulfil the prophecy (‘When the prophet’s head will have been covered by fig’s leaves, the niece will marry her uncle’). Hence she becomes a willingly destructive accomplice in Tetrarch’s scheming to kill his wife and marry his daughter, proving thus the incapacity both of the prophet to lead the people into mutiny, and of the Roman military machine to keep order (Roman general Caius is executed instead of her for obeying her cruel wish). Neither a symbolist fetish nor a feminist icon, Salome emerges as an indomitable, androgynous monster of a Croatian political and historical mess out of whose clutch it is impossible for anyone to disengage. I shall now address the other prototype of modernist femme fatale, Wedekind’s angelic prostitute Lulu, the ‘earthly spirit’ of survival instinct, whose sexual dealings seem to be more entrenched in the logic of commodity fetishism. 12 Miroslav Krleža’s three act play Honorable Glembays (1929) gave birth to his major female invention and the most desired of all Croatian female drama roles, the baroness Charlotte Castelli-Glembay, wife of a declining magnate. Unscrupulously hunting for money and status, Charlotte is, like Lulu, endowed with a disconcerting beauty and a complete lack of moral sensitivity. Her exact background is unknown as her past is compromising, since she was on the street already at the age of twelve, when, poverty stricken and hungry, she became a prostitute, who rose to baronetcy due to her ‘erotic intelligence’. We learn that one of the members of the Glembay salon ‘used to deliver her as merchandise’ to the

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__________________________________________________________________ whole network of his connections, among them the old naive Glembay, whose wife committed suicide upon learning about the liaison. As if that were not enough, on the day of his mother’s funeral, Charlotte seduced the young Glembay, internationally renowned painter Leone, who, at the beginning of the play, had just arrived from Paris for the jubilee of his father’s firm. Charlotte is much older at the time, still successfully manipulating the whole of the Glembay entourage. Leone, however, seems to be willing to crack her hypocritical mask and bring his father to sense. All his efforts are in vain until he confesses his own affair with the baroness, making his father die of a heart attack. In the third act, when Charlotte learns about Glembay’s bankruptcy and his longstanding stealing of her money, her mask of composure falls off, and she turns repugnant and vulgar, desecrating the dead man. It is then that, like Jack the Ripper in Wedekind’s play, Leone grabs the scissors and stabs his stepmother. The dramaturgic position of Baroness Castelli is thus in many aspects comparable to Lulu’s, whose duplicitous nature and inner void Jack the Ripper tries to explore in the name of all the men she drove crazy. Both baroness Castelli and her angelical counterpart, sister Angelica, appear to other characters first and foremost as figures on their portraits, thoroughly discussed in the play. However, unlike all those who admire superficial realist accuracy, the painter searches for a more subjectively founded expressive adequacies, the ones that could penetrate into the hidden female ambivalence . That is why the two women appear to him as, on one hand, the courtly dame, and on the other, dame sans merci, unexpectedly nevertheless exchanging their iconographic features, insofar as they both have, for instance, ‘transparent’, ‘disembodied, sublime hands’. Inclined to find his peace in Angelica’s lap, Leone turns into a true noir hero who obsessively collects proof of Charlotte’s diabolical moves, murders and infidelities. Being at once a demonic symptom and the victim of capitalist corruption, Baroness Castelli exudes such magnetic force in this universe since she represents, paradoxically, its supreme ethical agency in the Lacanian sense of the word. In her final break-down outcry against the crude humiliations she had to suffer in order to survive in the men’s world, Charlotte, to quote Slavoj Žižek’s anamnesis of the femme fatale topos in film noir, ‘unreservedly accepts the death drive’, thus ‘entailing the effacement of the very symbolic texture of generation and corruption’.13 Her demonism may have arisen out of the deranged male psyche of the protagonist, but she nevertheless plays a crucial role in Krleža’s ambition to denounce the correlation between the capitalist hypocrisy and the commoditydriven artistic choices of his contemporaries. The next and final play I will present is Milan Begović’s The Adventurer at the Gate (1925). Begović translated Wedekind’s Erdgeist, thus ensuring its performance on the Croatian stage, and was drawn by its experimental dramaturgy, as he was by Ibsen’s sexual problem plays, which so influenced Freud’s preoccupations with hysteria. Wanting to use hysteria, its symptoms, dreams and

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__________________________________________________________________ delusions, in order to confront theatre as a medium to its recent major competitor, cinema, Begović relied both on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and on Wedekind’s lapidary dialogue, its Stationsdramaturgie and its enchanting protagonist Lulu. Her murderous quest for lovers in Begović’s play turns out to be nothing but a morbid delirium of an inexperienced girl dying of hysteria in a sanatorium, that is, the product of her unconscious wish. In the outer Play of this play-within-the play we are informed that she felt sick while dancing an obscene dance – the foxtrot – and became paralysed, thus sentenced to recall her past and daydream about her unliveable future. In The Interplay, the Girl is visited by The Unknown Man, one of the nine incarnations of Death that she will also encounter in the episodic inner play of her dream. He offers to her the fulfilment of her last wish. The wish the girl chooses is twofold: to love and be loved by a husband, ‘wise and warm like her father was’, but also to be loved by someone else whose love will remain unrequited, who would never show himself nor demand anything in return. The Vision begins: in her dream, she is a happily married woman named Agnes, daily tormented by the letters arriving from a man who wishes nothing but to watch her from afar, always remaining invisible to her. Restless and, as she says to her friend Kristina, ‘hypnotized’ by the desire for this absent lover, she engages in a series of frantic love affairs, led by the false admissions of each among those she consumes that they are the Absent one. Various incarnations of Death follow her on her path, sometimes even playing the role of some of the substitute lovers, who all appear in the guise of characters from cheap movies. Exhausted and desperate, she finally arrives on a bridge and is drowned by an Apache, who proclaims his impatience with this ‘hysterical fool’. We are now brought back to The Interplay, where the Girl meets the Unknown Man again, confessing to this director or the camera eye of her cinematic dream, her final wish to die, blessing nevertheless her entire life, spent in ‘rushes and clashes’, in ‘unconscious turmoil’. The final scenes are from the outer Play: in the sanatorium the doctor diagnoses the girl’s death, and we realise that only several hours of sleeping managed to embrace years of a dreamed life, just like Freud suggests in his study what dreams are capable of doing. Begović interspersed his play with manifold references to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams both to underpin his dramatization of a split consciousness and to re-define the aesthetic, epistemological and ontological assumptions ruling the bourgeois stage of absolute visibility and knowledge: according to Elin Diamond, the topic of female hysteria, characteristic of Ibsen’s heritage, threatened this kind of theatre with the manifestation of symptoms that are undecipherable to the male eye.14 By creating a play-within-a-play and placing the hysterical girl striving for the role of femme fatale in the position of the spectator, Begović deconstructed both ‘realism’s hysteria’ and the femme fatale stereotype as products of a certain representational ‘apparatus’. In so doing, he however also emphasized ideological implications of her insistent re-appearance:

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__________________________________________________________________ he explicitly presented the inner play and its deluded femme fatale as a cultural Freudian ‘Gschnass’ of trivial literature, theatre and film, piled up by both patriarchal and capitalist cultural ideology that structured the girl’s unconscious desires, provoked hysterical paralysis, and led to her death. Although we are led to believe that the Girl, by finding her wish fulfilled, simply identifies with Agnes, the femme fatale, as her narcissistic mirror-image, letters coming from the Absent man reveal the true stakes of her unconscious desire to be the object of unrequited love. It is due to these letters that she both invests herself in and breaks free from the frozen stereotypes haunting the typical melodramatic scission between a married woman and an adulterer , a fallen woman or a femme fatale changing and destroying her lovers under way. It is in her dream that she namely turns into someone relentlessly questing for the sense of the ciphered letters, the sense of the dream, and, by inference, the sense of the play as a whole. Insofar as any actual spectator of the Adventurer at the Gate is induced into the same quest, she becomes a subject constrained to watch her own splitting and is thus shown to partake of the same, mise-en-abyme structure of tragic subjectivity.15 Through his creation of complicated loops of actual and fictional theatrical time and space, implying different, visible and invisible spectator positions, as well as engaging both the actual body of the actress and its wishful fatal image, Begović gave imaginative shape to Freud’s complex idea of a ‘psychical locality’. For Freud, the psyche is an apparatus that wavers in between literature, cinema and theatre, three institutions which are conversely conceived to be extrapolating the features of the psyche onto the modernist cultural landscape. Above all, however, Begović deconstructed the figure of the pernicious, narcissistic femme fatale, pointing to her double, psychic and cultural, provenance. Allowed to be at once a liberating figure of unappeased female scopic desire for sexual and narrative activation, and an alluring product of the patriarchal cultural framing, Begović’s meta-theatrical, critical version of femme fatale takes therefore a pride of place in the series of her Croatian modernist appearances.

Notes 1

Elisabeth Bronfen, ‘Femme Fatale: Negotiations of Tragic Desire,’ New Literary History 35 (2004b): 103-116. 2 Jans B. Wager, Dangerous Dames, Women and Representation in the Weimar Street Film and Film Noir (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1999). 3 Leo Treitler, ‘History and Archetypes,’ Perspectives of New Music 35/1 (1997): 115-127. 4 Barbara Hales, ‘Projecting Trauma: The Femme Fatale in Weimar and Hollywood Film Noir,’ Women in German Yearbook 23 (2007): 224-243.

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Helen Hanson and Catherine Raw, ‘Introduction: ‘Cherchez la femme’,’ The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts (London and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 1. 6 Gail Finney, Women in Modern Drama, Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at the Turn of the Century (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1989). 7 Francesco Orlando, Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination, Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places and Hidden Treasures, trans. G. Pihas, D. Seidel and A. Grego (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006). 8 Charles Bernheimer, ‘Fetishism and Decadence: Salome’s Severed Head,’ Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, ed. Emily Apter and William Pietz (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), 62-83. 9 Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity, trans. from French by Patrick Camiller (London: Sage Publications, 1994), 147. 10 Christine Buci-Glucksmann, ‘Catastrophic Utopia: Feminine as Allegory of the Modern,’ Representations 14, Special Edition, The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (1986): 147. 11 Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Baroque Reason. 12 Laurie Teal, ‘The Hollow Women: Modernism, the Prostitute, and Commodity Aesthetics,’ Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7.3 (1995): 80-108. 13 Slavoj Žižek, ‘Two Ways to Avoid the Real of the Desire,’ Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, ed. M. Ellman (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 105107, 122. 14 Elin Diamond, Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater (LondonNew York: Routledge, 1997), 5. 15 William Eggington, How the Word Became a Stage: Presence, Theatricality and the Question of Modernity (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), 9-31.

Bibliography Bernheimer, Charles. ‘Fetishism and Decadence: Salome’s Severed Head.’ Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, edited by Emily Apter and William Pietz, 62-83. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993. Bronfen, Elisabeth. Liebestod und Femme Fatale, Der Austausch sozialer energien zwischen Oper, Literatur und Film. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004a. ———. ‘Femme Fatale: Negotiations of Tragic Desire.’ New Literary History 35 (2004b): 103-116.

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__________________________________________________________________ Buci-Glucksmann, Christine. ‘Catastrophic Utopia: Feminine as Allegory of the Modern.’ Representations 14, Special Edition, The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (1986): 220-229. ———. Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity. Translated from French by Patrick Camiller. London: Sage Publications, 1994. Diamond, Elin. Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater. LondonNew York: Routledge, 1997. Eggington, William. How the Word Became a Stage: Presence, Theatricality and the Question of Modernity. New York: State University of New York Press, 2003. Felski, Rita. The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge, Massachussets, London, England: Harvard University Press, 1995. Finney, Gail. Women in Modern Drama, Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at the Turn of the Century. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1989. Freud, Sigmund. ‘Screen Memories.’ In The Uncanny, translated by J. Strachey, 122, London: Penguin, 1899/2003. Hales, Barbara. ‘Projecting Trauma: The Femme Fatale in Weimar and Hollywood Film Noir.’ Women in German Yearbook 23 (2007): 224-243. Hanson, Helen, and Catherine O’Rawe. ‘Introduction: ‘Cherchez la femme’.’ The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts, edited by Hanson Helen and Catherine 0’Rawe, 1-8. London and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. Littau, Karin. ‘Refractions of the Feminine: The Monstrous Transformations of Lulu.’ Modern Language Notes 110.4 Special Edition, Comparative Literature Issue (1995): 888-912. Orlando, Francesco. Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination, Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places and Hidden Treasures. Translated by G. Pihas, D. Seidel and A. Grego. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006. Teal, Laurie. ‘The Hollow Women: Modernism, the Prostitute, and Commodity Aesthetics.’ Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7.3 (1995): 80-108.

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__________________________________________________________________ Treitler, Leo. ‘History and Archetypes.’ Perspectives of New Music 35.1 (1997): 115-127. Wager, Jans B. Dangerous Dames, Women and Representation in the Weimar Street Film and Film Noir. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1999. Žižek, Slavoj. ‘Two Ways to Avoid the Real of the Desire.’ In Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, edited by M. Ellman, 105-107. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Lada Čale Feldman is Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. While her areas of interest include theatre and performance studies, literary theory and feminist criticism, her current research and writing is devoted to gender issues related to genre and media criss-crossing.

Women as the Devil: Demonic Possessions in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Irene Baena Cuder Abstract Spanish society started a process of deep change and modernisation after Franco’s death that had a significant impact on women. Thus, Spanish women’s role in society has evolved considerably in the last thirty years, causing anxieties among some men, who see their privileged position in the patriarchal order threatened by these empowered women. These anxieties can be observed in contemporary horror film, where strong, independent women are frequently depicted as monstrous. By analysing recent horror Spanish films within their social and historical context and following Barbara Creed’s Monstrous-Feminine theory, this chapter will explore how the demonic/evil spirit possession functions in the films and how they relate the abjection of the female body with the demonization of the female lead as a way to express shared tensions about the emergent role of women. Thus, films like Session 1:16, Exorcismus (Carballo, 2010), the REC saga, The Nun (de la Madrid, 2005) or Paranormal Experience (Vizcaino, 2011) show how female possession is associated also with modes of behaviour that should be viewed as acceptable in contemporary, democratic societies but are nevertheless perceived as abnormal because they, in some measure, challenge patriarchal authority. Finally, this chapter will draw attention to the prominent role of the Roman Catholic Church both in Spain’s recent past and in its representation in film as a repressive institution, particularly in relation with women. .

Key Words: Demonic possession, gender, Spanish horror film, abjection, Roman Catholic Church, monstrous-feminine. ***** 1. Demonic Possession and Gendered Vessels According to Moshe Sluhovsky, paranormal or satanic possession could be defined as ‘an involuntary interaction between a human being and a possessing entity, and its termination is dependent upon a successful ritual of exorcism’.1 Although a possession is, a priori, an ungendered phenomenon, most victims are female and, as a result, in cinema, demonic possession ‘is gendered feminine,’ as Carol J Clover has pointed out in Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.2 The author dedicates a chapter of her influential book to the analysis of the, mainly American, ‘occult film’. She defines the sub-genre as ‘those films that have as their central concern human responses to ghostly or satanic doings’3 and states that these films are ‘the most female of horror genres’4 as the narrative is based on a female protagonist who has to face a supernatural event in a deeply gendered universe. Clover draws from Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the

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__________________________________________________________________ Rainbow5 in order to identify the two main antagonistic, gendered forces in every occult narrative: White Science versus Black Magic. On the one hand, what Clover calls White Science refers to the first response or possible explanation that looks at the rationality of Science for an answer: ‘Western rational tradition’ in Clover’s words.6 This element is usually adopted in the films by white, rational, heterosexual, middle class, male characters—in other words, by the normative identities that reject the existence of the paranormal. This first response is provided, for example, by the doctor running tests on a possessed girl at a hospital, as seen in Exorcismus; by policemen trying to follow a rational investigation in order to solve a crime, as in Km.31; or by any male character in general who is always looking for a rational explanation simply because they do not believe in paranormal phenomena, as in The Nun. On the other hand, Black Magic refers to the supernatural explanation usually defended by non-white, working-class people, children or elderly people, homosexuals, and mainly women—in other words, the othered identities. In Clover’s words, Black Magic is the place for ‘Satanism, voodoo, spiritualism, and folk variants of Roman Catholicism...a world of crosses, holy water, séances, candles, prayer, exorcism, strings of garlic, beheaded chickens’.7 This definition includes ghosts, as seen in Km.31 or The Nun; demonic possessions, as is the case of films like the REC saga or Exorcismus; or séances, like in The Valdemar Legacy or Session 1.16 .The gendered antagonism of these two elements that Clover identifies in American horror film, are also present in the Spanish corpus. Clover also states that the gendered connection between Black Magic and the feminine operates by featuring women as the link to the other world: ‘certainly, the portals of occult horror are, almost invariably, female’.8 Like the American films that the author selected for her analysis, in Spanish cinema the female character also acts as a portal between both worlds. So, for example, in The Valdemar Legacy9 the main character, Lázaro Valdemar, is obsessed with the idea of making contact with the beyond. He runs séances and tries to capture the spirits in photographs. He believes he has a gift, and so do others. However, at the end of the film, we find out that the real portal was his wife, who is also possessed by the spirit they invoke. Although as stressed by Clover, both men and women’s bodies could physically act as a vessel, a container for a spirit or a demon, it is no surprise that, when dealing with the supernatural (Black Magic) female characters are more likely to be possessed than male ones, who did not even believe in the possession or spirits in the first place. 2. Possession and the Monstrous-Feminine If possession is then gendered feminine, this means that, at some point in the storyline, a female character is going to become something monstrous which the rest of the characters will fear. As Barbara Creed argues, the demonic possession is the process through which an innocent girl becomes a castrating woman, ‘a figure

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__________________________________________________________________ designed to strike terror into the hearts of men’.10 Although this is not a homogeneous representation, the films could be divided into two different groups of films. While the REC saga or Exorcismus focus more on the physical transformation of the female body, the dirtiness, the body fluids and the concept of the body in flux, making the change visible and even tangible; others, like Km. 31, The Nun, and Paranormal Xperience, feature demonic possession as the justification for the abnormal behaviour (those skills or manners that do not conform to the proper feminine stereotype) in female characters who seemed normal until a surprising turn at the end of the film shatters that image. Thus, those female characters who looked like innocent women become demons, despite their angelic look. However, female characters in both groups of films illustrate Kristeva’s concept of abjection, who defines abject as ‘what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’.11 As a result, possessed women bring horror to the narrative in which they are developed. In the REC saga,12 the physical transformation is the result of a strange viral infection that is later discovered to be the agent of demonic possession developed by a Roman Catholic priest The contagion starts with an old lady and it spreads quickly through body fluids among the residents of the building. Blood becomes the mark of the infected, who also become very violent and do not recognise the patriarchal authority, represented by the policemen and an external authority identified as the R.C. Church at the end of the film. Whereas all subjects inside the building are susceptible to be infected/possessed, there is a clear difference between the normative identities (male, heterosexual, white, middle class) who hold the power and try to be saved, and the othered identities (female, homosexual, working class, colonial subjects) who will be infected/possessed and left behind. Only one character, the strong female lead, Ángela Vidal, fights against the oppression from the authorities and investigates the situation in order to find out the truth. In REC 213 the possession is clearly gendered feminine as the zombies/possessed bodies that the group encounters while in the building are all female bodies. They are covered in blood and other body fluids and their bodies are in a more advanced level of decomposition. Thus, female characters are represented as monsters, not only because they have been possessed but also because of their rejection of patriarchal authority as, according to Creed, ‘horror emerges from the fact that woman has broken with her proper feminine role’.14 Exorcismus15 also explores the material transformation of the female body when it is possessed, through the persona of Emma, a 15-year-old girl who starts suffering symptoms of possession. After failed attempts to find a scientific explanation, running tests on her and trying a psychologist as well, Emma suspects that she was possessed after playing with a ouija board on her 15th birthday. Then, she asks her uncle Chris, a R.C. priest, to exorcise her. Emma’s physical decadence gets worse as the film comes closer to the end, when we find out that Chris induced

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__________________________________________________________________ his niece to summon a demon, hoping that the girl would become possessed so he could have a proof of demonic possessions. Although the film has a narrative similar to that of The Exorcist, the representation of the R.C. Church is, however, very different to the one in Friedkin’s work as, instead of a helping figure, the priest is the cause of the possession. He uses his niece’s body for his own benefit as he had it all planned since the beginning. Thus, the girl is a mere vessel used to contain a demon; a needed tool in a male plan to regain his place of power. In these films, the transformation of the body is the materialisation of a rebellious subject who refuses to adopt the imposed feminine role in society. As a result, the R.C. Church tries to discipline these women back into their proper role, which causes an open confrontation between R.C. Church and women, which in the Spanish context has a deep meaning, as the R.C. Church has played an oppressive and disciplinary role over women since Franco’s regime. A second set of films shows a different approach to possession. In them, the situation is not evident until the end and, thus, there is not such an explicit physical transformation but a behavioural one. As a result, the female character moves from the feminine stereotype to a more empowered one, displaying characteristics usually gendered masculine such as strength, leadership, bravery or determination, to mention but a few. These female characters usually look innocent, young, pretty, almost angelical but eventually they become demons, possessed monsters. As Barbara Creed points out, ‘the possessed female subject is one who refuses to take up her proper place in the symbolic order’.16 Nevertheless, this particular case of abjection is related to the Christian tradition as according to Kristeva, abjection is no longer exterior within Christianity but it comes from inside, setting a border between inside/outside that when blurred or broken brings abjection. As a result, ‘the threat comes no longer from the outside but from within’.17 Kristeva relates this to the concept of feminine temptation, and Creed, in her revision of Kristeva’s theory, expresses how the idea of abjection as something that comes from within ‘opens up the way to position woman as deceptively treacherous’.18 Furthermore, Creed explains how this female figure is very ‘popular within patriarchal discourses about woman’s evil nature’.19 Thus, Paranormal Xperience depicts a group of students who travel to a small abandoned village in order to investigate a series of paranormal events. The two main characters, Ángela and Diana, are very different from each other. While the older sister, Ángela, embodies rationality, the younger one embodies the patriarchal stereotype of femininity to perfection. She is delicate, sensitive, her physical appearance is also sweet and innocent, almost childish; she believes in the beyond and she volunteers to be the portal between the two worlds when the group tries to make contact, because she has already sensed a presence. Furthermore, Ángela mentions several times during the film that her sister is ‘too soft’. However, while the older sister remains rooted in the logic of rationalism, the most delicate, innocent and soft person in the group turns out to be a psychotic killer.

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__________________________________________________________________ Finally, although demonic possessions might be a recurrent topic in horror film, this narrative has a special meaning within the Spanish context, because of the relevance and power that the R.C. Church had in Spain’s recent past and still holds today, particularly in relation to women. Thus, after the Civil War, Franco established a National-Catholic regime that supposed ‘the fusion of Phalangist principles with Catholic doctrine’,20 in which women’s mission was the ‘reconstruction of the fatherland’21 and help to create a new Spain based on R. Catholic morality. For this purpose, the regime promoted an ‘ultraconservative construction of “ideal” womanhood, perceived as the fundamental guarantor of social stability’.22 According to the new regime, ‘women were destined by their reproductive capacity to a life centred on the home and the care of children’.23 In order to indoctrinate women in this new, extremely traditional role, the regime used the Sección Femenina (Women’s Section), founded in 1934 by the Falange and integrated in the new Fascist regime in 1937 and which was strongly influenced by the R.C. Church.24 Moreover, demonic possessions exist beyond cinematic fiction in Spain, where the Archbishopric of Madrid has sent a communication to the media informing that they have started to train new exorcists and the Catholic website www.religionenlibertad.com published that Cardinal Rouco Varela has selected eight priests to attend intensive training in order to help them face the increasing number of demonic possessions taking place in the Spanish capital.25 3. Conclusion In conclusion, although both male and female characters are equally exposed to spiritual or demonic presences and paranormal events, possessions are gendered feminine in contemporary Spanish horror, as only female characters are linked to the supernatural and/or even act as portals between the two worlds. Moreover, these possessions seem to respond to a process of rebellion and rejection of the proper feminine behaviour promoted by patriarchal society, in which the Roman Catholic Church plays a relevant role, inherited from Spain’s recent past. This process of rejection of the identity imposed by the normative identities and consequent rebellion seems to be portrayed in the films as abjection, bringing horror to the narrative until the patriarchal order is restored. This abjection is embodied exclusively by female characters that become possessed monsters, out of control. Thus, the films present a rise and fall of the female protagonists in which they are depicted as modern, strong female leaders only to be demonised later in the film, when we discover that they are, in fact, possessed monsters. In addition, the possession subgenre within the Spanish context introduces a new representation of the R. C. priests by showing what happens when they do not offer any help or even use women for personal purposes, as can be observed in films like Exorcismus, the REC saga or Session 1:16.

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Notes 1

Moshe Sluhovsky, ‘A Divine Apparition or Demonic Possession? Female Agency and Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France’, The Sixteenth Century Journal 27.4 (1996): 1043. 2 Carol J.Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws. Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), 72. 3 Ibid., 65. 4 Ibid. 5 Wes Craven, dir., The Serpent and the Rainbow, Hollywood: Universal Studios Pictures, 1988. 6 Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws, 66 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 70-71. 9 La Herencia Valdemar, dir. José Luis Alemán. Madrid: La Cruzada Entertainment and Origen Producciones Cinematográficas S.A. 2010. DVD 10 Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (New York: Roudletge, 1993), 40. 11 Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 4. 12 The REC Saga, dir. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza Barcelona: Castelao Producciones and Filmax 2007-2014. 13 REC 2, dir. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza Barcelona: Castelao Producciones, Filmax, 2009. DVD. 14 Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine, 42. 15 Exorcisumus, dir. Manuel Carballo. Barcelona: Filmax, 2010 DVD. 16 Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine, 38. 17 Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 114. 18 Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine, 42. 19 Ibid. 20 Aurora G. Morcillo, ‘Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro: Modern Women Docile Bodies,’ Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 11.6 (2008): 5. 21 Ibid., 3. 22 Helen Graham, ‘Women and Social Change’, Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction, eds. Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 182. 23 Aurora G. Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 1. 24 See Nino Kebadze, ‘The Right to Be Selfless and Other Prerogatives of the Weak in the Rhetoric of Sección Femenina’, Romance Quarterly 55.2 (2008): 109127; and Inbal Ofer, ‘Historical Models-Contemporary Identities: The Sección

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__________________________________________________________________ Femenina of the Spanish Falange and Its Redefinition of the Term Femininity,’ Journal of Social History 39.4 (2006). 25 Full text available at, Alex Rosal, ‘Una decisión sin precedentes en España: Rouco nombra a 8 exorcistas para Madrid ante la avalancha de casos de influencia demoníaca’, Religionlibertad.com, 23 May 2013, viewed on 30 June 2014, http://www.religionenlibertad.com/articulo.asp?idarticulo=29326.

Bibliography Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine. Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1993. Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. Gallego-Menendez, M. Teresa. Mujer, Falange y Franquismo. Madrid: Taurus, 1983. Graham, Helen. ‘Women and Social Change.’ Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kebadze, Nino. ‘The Right to be Selfless and Other Prerogatives of the Weak in the Rhetoric of Sección Femenina.’ Romance Quarterly 55.2 (2008): 109-127. Kristeva, Julia. The Powers of Horror 1983. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Lázaro-Reboll, Antonio. Spanish Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Morcillo, Aurora G. True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. ———. ‘Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro: Modern Women Docile Bodies.’ Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 11.6 (2008): 673-684. Ofer, Inbal. ‘Historical Models-Contemporary Identities: The Sección Femenina of the Spanish Falange and Its Redefinition of the Term Femininity.’ Journal of Social History 39.4 (2006).

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__________________________________________________________________ Sluhovsky, Moshe. ‘A Divine Apparition or Demonic Possession? Female Agency and Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France’. The Sixteenth Century Journal 27.4 (1996): 1039- 1055.

Films Cited Exorcismus. Directed by Manuel Carballo. Barcelona: Filmax, 2010. DVD. Km.31. Directed by Rigoberto Castañeda. Mexico and Spain: Filmax, Salamandra Films, Lemon Films and Santo Domingo Films, 2006. DVD Paranormal Xperience 3D aka XP3D. Directed by Sergi Vizcaíno. Barcelona: Antena 3 Films and Rodar y Rodar Cine y Televisión, with the participation of Televisió de Catalunya (TV3), 2011. DVD Quarantine. Directed by John Erick Dowdle. Los Ángeles: Andale Pictures, Screen Gems and Vertigo Entertainment, 2008. DVD REC. Directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. Barcelona: Filmax and Castelao Producciones, with the participation of Televisión Española (TVE) and Canal + España, 2007. DVD. REC 2. Directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. Barcelona: Castelao Producciones, Filmax, 2009. DVD. REC 3: Génesis. Directed by Paco Plaza. Barcelona: Filmax and Castelao Producciones. 2012. DVD. REC 4: Apocalypse. Directed by Jaume Balagueró. Barcelona: Filmax and Castelao Producciones, 2014. DVD. Session 1:16. Directed by Hernán Cabo. Talavera de la Reina, Toledo: Cats Film Entertainment, 2012. DVD. The Exorcist. Directed by William Friedkin. Los Angeles: Warner Bros in association with Hoya Productions, 1973. DVD. The Nun. Directed by Luis de la Madrid. Barcelona: Fantastic Factory, Filmax and Future Films, 2005. DVD.

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__________________________________________________________________ The Serpent and the Rainbow. Directed by Craven. Los Angeles: Universal Pictures, 1988. DVD. The Valdemar Legacy. Directed by José Luis Alemán. Madrid: La Cruzada Entertainment and Origen Producciones Cinematográficas S.A. 2010. DVD. Irene Baena-Cuder is a Ph.D. Student at University of East Anglia (UK) and her research interests involve Gender, Spanish Cinema and the Horror genre.

Monstrous Women and the Subversion of Patriarchy in Nikos Nikolaidis’s Films Singapore Sling and See You in Hell, My Darling Mikela Fotiou Abstract Greek postmodern filmmaker Nikos Nikolaidis’ pastiches Singapore Sling (1990) and See You in Hell, My Darling (1999) use elements from four classic films – the former from Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944), and Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), and the latter from Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich, 1964) – hence recreating the atmosphere of the original films and perpetuating the monstrous and/or schizophrenic nature of their female protagonists. In Singapore Sling, a mother and a daughter, after the death of the father, keep a detective who comes into their mansion looking for a woman named Laura as a captive in order to use him as a sexual tool and gratify their perverse needs. In See You in Hell, My Darling, two women are in love with each other but also with the one’s dead husband, who, however, returns from the dead as a zombie, and they try to get each other and the man out of the way. In both cases, the female protagonists are portrayed as empowering women with agency; they carry the films by themselves, but at the same time, they are presented as conventionally beautiful, fetishised, evil, schizophrenic, abject and monstrous. Reflecting on classic film noir and on femmes fatales, it can be said that these women articulate the repressed sexuality of the latter. The women in both films have agency and they refuse to depend on men, thus reversing the passive-female ≠ active-male binary dyad. Furthermore, they ridicule the males, subvert patriarchy and become themselves the bearers of the active gaze. Key Words: Cinema, Greek, pastiche, evil, monstrous, abject, film noir, femme fatales, patriarchy. ***** 1. Introduction Nikos Nikolaidis is a postmodern Greek filmmaker, whose oeuvre comprises extremely introverted and personal films. Women and the feminine are considered to be of paramount importance in his work, since they carry the majority of his films on their own. It could be even claimed that women are his work. Singapore Sling (1990), subtitled The Man Who Fell in Love with a Corpse, and Tha Se Do stin Kolasi, Agapi Mou/See You in Hell, My Darling (1999), subtitled A Necroromance, constitute the pastiche1 section Those Who Loved a Corpse. The diptych concerns two pairs of eccentric, schizophrenic, evil women who live in

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__________________________________________________________________ fictional environments reminiscent of Hell. Although these women attack the predominant status quo, their representation is at the same time problematic, since misogynistic elements can be traced. Nikolaidis for each of his two films uses elements from two classic films and from the genres these films belong to, especially from film noir by which he was highly influenced. Hence the filmmaker renders genres as ‘repositories of situations, styles and iconographies that can be used and combined, to set one another off, to highlight, pastiche-fashion, what is characteristic, interesting or suggestive about them.’ 2 Nikolaidis’ two new pieces of work stand independently and can be followed regardless of having seen the source films or not, but knowledge of the original films facilitates the comprehension of the dialogue that the filmmaker constructs with the original filmic texts. In the process of recreating the idea of the original films, apart of the atmosphere and the style, Nikolaidis imitates and perpetuates the monstrous and schizophrenic nature of the female protagonists, simultaneously liberating them from the oppressed sexuality of their time. Since both films were filmed in the 1990s, these women can be compared to the upgraded version of the classic femmes fatales: that is the femmes fatales of the 90s films, which are categorised under the ‘phenomenon of “noirness” and “retronoir”’.3 Therefore, Nikolaidis’ female protagonists can be characterised as ‘fatal femme’, a term coined by Julianne Pidduck to describe the incarnation of femmes fatales of the classic noirs in the 90s cycle.4 2. Film Synopses In Singapore Sling, a black and white film that pastiches Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944) and Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), a wounded detective resorts to the mansion of a mother and daughter in the quest to find a woman named Laura. After the death of the father, the mother has undertaken his position: she engages in all his activities, from killing servants to having sexual intercourse with their daughter. The women capture, sexually exploit and torture the detective with the pretext of finding out what he knows about Laura, as they were the ones to kill her. The man develops a relationship with the daughter and they plan to kill the mother. After they do so, the daughter assigns the detective the role of the mother, but he kills her in order to take revenge for Laura’s murder. However, the daughter shoots him before she dies and he crawls to the garden to bury himself alive. In See You in Hell, My Darling, which imitates Les Diaboliques (HenriGeorges Clouzot, 1955) and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich, 1964), Vera visits Elsa’s mansion, and the non-linear narrative tells their story: the women used to be in love with each other, but also with the same man, whom Elsa married but Vera had sex with on their wedding day, after the three of them robbed a van and took three suitcases with money. The two women now try to destroy each other and get a bigger share of the money, and Elsa reveals that she has killed her

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__________________________________________________________________ husband whose corpse is still floating in the swimming pool in the garden of her mansion. The women try to dispose of the body, but he returns from the dead as a zombie. Elsa kills him again and after she kills Vera, she realises that she cannot live without her, shoots herself, and they all float reunited in the swimming pool. 3. Female Representation and Objectification The representation of the four women shares many characteristics: they are all portrayed as conventionally beautiful, over-sexualised and fetishised, they are all dressed in appealing clothes, lingerie, wearing high heels, they all live in the Underworld – which is suggested both by the ‘necrophillic’ titles and the mise-enscène – and they manipulate the men that come in their way. It can be argued that women of the diptych follow the classic representation of femmes fatales but, since they are exposed to a contemporary era, they now express the latter women’s repressed sexuality. In Singapore Sling, the differentiation of mother and daughter from the classic femmes fatales is that the latters’ lust was overwhelmingly for money rather than sexual pleasure [...]. The classic femme fatale was known for her trigger-happy killings, not for her orgasms. Her sexuality per se was passive, limited to its allure.5 Unlike this characterisation, the women in Singapore Sling do not lust for money, since they already are affluent, as the extravagant baroque mise-en-scène of the film indicates, but they are constantly after sexual pleasure and orgasms. In contrast to Laura in Preminger’s eponymous film – not an actual femme fatale but a woman whose lethal attraction is constructed by men who build a myth around her imposing beauty, which radiates from the portrait of her in her house – mother and daughter in Singapore Sling free the classic femme fatale’s sexuality and turn it into perversion, signifying in this way the decaying modern society, recreating characteristics from Sunset Boulevard’s decaying femme fatale Norma Desmond. The two women take advantage of the weak detective, whose pain and passive behaviour arouses them and serves their sexual fetish, while at the same time they paradigmatically punish the male. Similarly, in See You in Hell, My Darling Nikolaidis imitates and adapts the binary innocent wife ≠ evil mistress and liberates Les Diaboliques’ female protagonists’ sexuality: the implicit lesbian relationship of the two women in the source text is translated into an explicit lesbian relationship in See You in Hell, My Darling. In fact, lesbianism is portrayed in both Nikolaidis’s films, and the audience is presented with erotic scenes between the women, as well as between the women and the men. This representation, although the women carry the films on their own, have agency and render the males passive, can be considered problematic since Nikolaidis seems to perpetuate misogynistic binaries and to

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__________________________________________________________________ fetishise them, both with the use of costumes and with his camerawork which seems to sculpt their shapely bodies. As far as lesbianism is concerned, its use in the two films can be said to avert visual pleasure. The bonding between mother and daughter has been considered by various scholars as the origins of lesbianism: for instance, Mandy Merck and Merl Storr talk about the daughter’s narcissistic identification with the phallic mother.6 In Singapore Sling Nikolaidis traces this mother-daughter narcissistic identification and projects it through the two women. However, the mother and daughter relationship in this case is not used as an indicator of the women’s sexual identity, but as an expression of perversion in a form of fetishism and overconsumption, as a permanent lust for sexual pleasure and a quest for instant gratification. Narcissistic identification in lesbianism is also projected in See You in Hell, My Darling, where the two women appear to be similar: apart from looking alike, they are first introduced through a mirror as a reflection of each other. Vera also says in a voice-over towards the end of the film: ‘sometimes we looked at ourselves in the mirror and got confused; and then we changed our voices to figure out who was whom.’ Although the spectators are presented with a sexual scene between the two women, it is not a sexual act per se, but a recreation of Vera’s and Elsa’s husband’s intercourse on the couple’s wedding day. This scene is accompanied by disorientating love and hate behaviour of the two women, and it is presented in a parallel montage of a flashback of the actual scene, thus losing focus of the sexual act and distracting visual pleasure. Elsa’s expression of love for Vera at the end of the film shows the preference of female companionship, and the simultaneous rejection of the male. It can be also claimed that the women’s objectification is further mitigated by their overall behaviour and role in the film. A first instance that hinders their objectification is that they address the camera directly, narrating their story and crazy thoughts to the audience, hence working against their objectification by breaking the fourth wall and distantiating themselves from the spectators. Furthermore, the four women’s social awkwardness that is often laughterinducing, and their paranoia can be said to work against their objectification as well. Additionally, the women are presented as abject: they urinate on themselves, vomit on the men and vice versa, and otherwise constantly produce bodily fluids, as well as resort to horrific deeds, like placing human organs on the family kitchen table in Singapore Sling. With the term abjection, Julia Kristeva defines ‘that which does not respect borders, positions, rules and which disturbs identity, system, order.’7 The aforementioned images ‘are central to our culturally/socially constructed notions of the horrific. They signify a split between two orders: the maternal authority and the law of the father.’8 Therefore, these images of abjection of the monstrous feminine, which are connected to the horror genre, hinder the

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__________________________________________________________________ connections with visual pleasure and constitute an attack on the predominant patriarchal status quo. As the audience is informed during the films, mother and daughter were living with the husband/father in Singapore Sling, and Elsa with her father in See You in Hell, My Darling, before the two men died. After experiencing the repressive norms of the patriarchal family, these women are finally emancipated from the men, replace patriarchy with matriarchy, and subject the males to what they went through in the past. Thus, although this treatment of women has misogynistic connotations, it can be claimed that social awkwardness, paranoia and abjection can be read as a response to trauma caused by patriarchy and the law of the father and that their evil behaviour can be seen as a form of revenge for what they underwent because of men. 4. Phallic Women with Active Gaze and Male Castration The connection of classic film noir with these two films and the recreation of the classic femmes fatales, build on the consideration of these women as phallic. In Singapore Sling the women imitate Sunset Boulevard’s femme fatale Norma Desmond in jewellery, excessive costumes and make-up. They further imitate her in the overuse of cigarettes, a representation that the women in See You In Hell, My Darling also follow. According to Janey Place, such sexual iconography of cigarettes with their wispy trails of smoke can become cues of dark and immoral sensuality, and the iconography of violence (primarily guns) is a specific symbol (as perhaps is the cigarette) of her ‘unnatural’ phallic power.9 These facts, in combination with other mise-en-scène elements of the two films, demonstrate these women’s dangerous sexual power over their victims, as well as emphasise the ‘perverse, decaying side of film noir sexuality.’10 Also, the fact that all the women carry guns further highlights their phallic power since the gun that ‘the classic femme fatale carried coded her phallic, ... [and] her masculinity was also demonstrated by a ball-busting dominance over her male lover’.11 The phallic representation of women has rendered the men redundant which leads to these men’s metaphorical or even literal castration. Nikolaidis undermines the male characters in these two films, denying them characteristics of a hero. In Singapore Sling, as part of their incestuous behaviour and a result of the passage from patriarchy to matriarchy, the mother and the daughter recreate a role-play which the father used to perform with their servants. In this role-play the daughter pretends to be Laura who has to perform fellatio on her father, performed by the mother, in order to get hired. When daughter-as-Laura gets closer to mother-asfather, the mother lifts her skirt up and reveals a phallus. It is clear that the mother has become the head of the family; she has become the fetish – going against the

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__________________________________________________________________ patriarchal norms that do not recognise female fetishes – she has turned down the passive-mother role and has become phallic. Consequently, both the phallic mother and the daughter who takes part in this constitute a threat towards men, and thus towards patriarchal society, as well as signify male castration and substitution of male power. Male castration is highlighted when the detective is assigned the role of the mother after he kills her. The daughter recreates the aforementioned master-servant role-play, however, the man instead of performing the role of the father, performs the role of the mother-performing-the-father, and he is presented in the mother’s excessive clothes, jewellery and make-up. The detective has lost his identity and is presented as masqueraded, carnivalised and feminised. When the daughter-asLaura gets closer to perform fellatio on the captive-as-mother-as-father, instead of a penis, he reveals a knife with which he is about to rape the daughter. The substitution of the penis with a knife confirms his castrated nature. In the final scene the detective attempts to reassert his male identity by wearing his clothes, but although he has killed both women, he dies bulldozed by mother and daughter, but also by Laura, as he suffered all this for her. The husband’s passivity in See You in Hell, My Darling signifies his castration: he has no agency; he is lurking in the garden; he has a distorted vision due to his broken glasses. He is a zombie. His passivity allows Elsa to throw him on the floor and simulate sexual intercourse as if she had a penis to penetrate him, without his reacting. Elsa might not have a penis but she does have a phallus, since she holds a gun, counteracting the man’s metaphorically castrated nature. Moreover, when the two women try to get rid of his body before he comes back to life, they consider burying him next to Elsa’s father in the latter’s grave in the garden, because this is where he belongs. Patriarchy is dead. The two women do not need a father nor a husband/lover. On the contrary, they ridicule the dead men when they ask the father if he does not mind moving over in order to let them add an extra person to his grave. Furthermore, a statue on father’s grave, which seems like a wooden handcrafted caricature, appears to have breasts, on which two golden earrings have been placed, a fact that feminises the male. The role of the gaze in this film is of paramount importance. The man might have a zombified gaze, but, on the contrary, women have an active one. This can be seen in the women’s direct address to the audience, offering a female look, as also happens in Singapore Sling. Their active gaze is reinforced by the fact that Elsa is presented wearing glasses while reading, since, according to Mary Ann Doane, glasses worn by women in the cinema do not generally signify a deficiency in seeing but an active looking, or even simply the fact of seeing as opposed to being seen.12

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__________________________________________________________________ Towards the end of the film, the parallel montage of the actual aforementioned erotic scene between Vera and Elsa’s husband is seen as a whole. The sexual intercourse is presented in a subjective point of view, which turns out to be Elsa’s, who witnesses Vera and her husband having sex. The most significant part of this scene, apart from the fact that the man is not visible and thus sidelined, is that Vera returns the gaze by turning and looking at Elsa, at Nikolaidis’ camera and at the spectators directly, demonstrating that she knows she is being watched and that it is solely the two women who are in charge of ‘looking’ in this film. It is apparent that it is a game between the two of them and the men in this story are obsolete. 5. Final Remarks Nikolaidis’ film noir influence has contributed to the consideration of the four females protagonists as ‘fatal femme’. The four women appear as a threat to men and to the patriarchal system, have agency, discharge the male gaze which renders their gaze stronger, they subvert patriarchy and their objectification can be claimed to be moderated. However, at the same time, they are represented in a provoking way. Although this representation is unconventional – especially for Greek cinema – and empowering and can be read as a response to trauma, it is still quite problematic. Questions rise, such as why are these women conventionally beautiful, why do they need to be sexualised and to be represented as abject in order to subvert patriarchy, and why should they be represented as evil and ‘other’ in order to achieve that? These questions connote elements of misogyny, which, in conjunction with the fact that the two films are very personal, and as the filmmaker claims, autobiographical, 13 signify that these monstrous and evil women portray the filmmaker’s fantasies, expectations and obsessions, as well as his fear of women as castrators.

Notes 1

I use Richard Dyer’s notion of pastiche rather than Fredric Jameson’s, because Jameson negates the authorial voice in post-modern pastiche, while Dyer does not, and I argue that Nikolaidis does have an authorial signature, which can be clearly detected both in his style and his topics. 2 Richard Dyer, Pastiche (London: Routledge, 2007), 127. 3 E. Ann Kaplan, ‘Introduction to New Edition’, in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 2000), 1. 4 Julianne Pidduck, ‘The 1990s Hollywood Fatal Femme; (Dis)Figuring Feminism, Family, Irony, Violence’, in CineAction 38 (1992), 65. 5 Chris Straayer, ‘Femme Fatale or Lesbian Femme: Bound in Sexual Différance’, in Women In Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 2000), 152-153.

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Mandy Merck qtd. in Chris Straayer, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Reorientations in Film and Video (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 135. Merl Storr qtd. in Clare Whatling, Screen Dreams: Fantasising Lesbians in Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 43. 7 Julia Kristeva qtd. in Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine (New York: Routledge, 1993), 8. 8 Ibid., 13. 9 Janey Place, ‘Women in Film Noir’, in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 2000), 54. 10 Ibid. 11 Chris Straayer, ‘Femme Fatale or Lesbian Femme’ in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 2000), 155. 12 Mary Ann Doane, Femme Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. (New York: Routledge, 1991), 27. 13 Nikolaidis claims that 90% of his work is autobiographical, including these two films. N. Nikolaidis, interview with Antonis Kokkinos, Viewed 20 April 2014, http://www.nikosnikolaidis.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic le&id=100&Itemid=7.

Bibliography Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine. New York: Routledge, 1993. Doane, Mary Ann. Femme Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1991. Dyer, Richard. Pastiche. London: Routledge, 2007. Kaplan, E. Ann. ‘Introduction to New Edition.’ Women in Film Noir, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, 1-14. London: BFI, 2000. Nikolaidis, Nikos. Interview with Antonis Kokkinos, Nikos Nikolaidis’s Official Website. [in Greek] Accessed April 20, 2014. http://www.nikosnikolaidis.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic le&id=100&Itemid=7. Pidduck, Julianne. ‘The 1990s Hollywood Fatal Femme; (Dis)Figuring Feminism, Family, Irony, Violence’. CineAction 38 (1992): 65–72.

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__________________________________________________________________ Place, Janey. ‘Women in Film Noir’. In Women in Film Noir, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, 47–68. London: BFI, 2000. Straayer, Chris. Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. ———. ‘Femme Fatal or Lesbian Femme: Bound in Sexual Différance’. In Women in Film Noir, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, 151–163. London: BFI, 2000. Whatling, Clare. Screen Dreams: Fantasising Lesbians in Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. Mikela Fotiou is a PhD Researcher in Film Studies at the University of Glasgow. She researches the work of Greek filmmaker Nikos Nikolaidis, with a specific focus on female representation in it. Mikela co-organised the Contemporary Greek Film Cultures 2013 Conference (London, 5-6 July 2013), and she is a guest coeditor of the special issue of Filmicon: Journal of Greek Film Studies stemming from the conference (September 2014).

Evil Women and the Feminine: The Eternal Vamp and The Construction of Pola Negri’s Star Persona in 1920’s America Agata Frymus Abstract This chapter looks at the construction of Pola Negri’s persona by discussing her films, as well as her off-screen antics. Negri’s figure was emblematic of a representation of an exotic and threatening foreign woman, the association which inevitably incapacitated her career in the American movie industry. Firstly, I position the iconography of the vamp in the cultural context of the era. The figure of a pagan, earthy female sexuality has been popularised at the end of the nineteenth century by symbolist painters and consequently re-invented in the America of the 1920’s to mobilise fears surrounding women’s growing independence and reflect concerns linked to the new wave of immigration. I will analyse the ways in which Negri’s movies re-enacted those anxieties through their gender portrayal. The femme fatale crosses the boundaries of patriarchal norms, class and ethnicity, and produces a threat. In films such as Spanish Dancer1 Negri not only personifieeda threat to status quo, questioning rigid limitations of sexuality but above all represented an ethnic hazard. Her exotic otherness threatens to undermine the existing cultural order, making Negri a unique symbol of the possibility of foreign invasion. From the outset of the star’s relationship with media, the journalists insisted on seeing her mainly through the prism of her European otherness. Some went as far as to deliberately misspell her quotes in interviews to convey the idea of Negri’s English being far from fluent. By the late twenties the representational scheme Negri was widely associated with fell out of fashion, marking a turning point in her career. The fact she could not escape the role of a vamp (nor dismiss the threatening characteristics of the figure) contributed to her demise as an artist. Key Words: Film history, star studies, Pola Negri, silent cinema, vamp, Hollywood, gender, femme fatale, ethnicity, American cinema. ***** Pola Negri came into prominence by playing roles of seductive, passionate women. That typecasting continued after she embarked on her career in the US. This chapter explores the construction of her star persona by discussing both her films and her off-screen antics. In situating Negri in the wider cultural context of 1920s America, I will draw a connection between her image and the issues of gender and ethnicity that underlie the concept of the vamp. I argue that Negri was a watershed figure in the representation of the exotic and threatening foreign woman, an association which inevitably contributed to her inability to grow as an actress.

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__________________________________________________________________ It was not unusual for Hollywood studios of the 1920s to invite a European movie star to America and deliberately re-package her or him as a product reinvented for the new market. Higson and Maltby point out that the policy of acquiring raw continental talent worked on many levels, not only appropriating the attractions of the old world within the American market but also selling them back to Europeans.2 European sensibility, with its connotations of high society and theatre, was of particular appeal to the American audience in the 1920s. Whilst cinema was still struggling to achieve the status of an art medium, this international exchange validated a more favourable view of American cinema as producing something of cultural value. In the long standing dichotomy between European ‘high’ culture and the ‘low’ output of American film, Hollywood producers were trying to correspond to the former simply by taking European actresses on board for their productions.3 As a flamboyant Polish import, Negri was emblematic of refined taste and bohemia, which made her quite a lure for American spectators. Deliberate strategies were employed to convey the sense of her foreignness; some of the journalists going as far as to purposely misspell quotes from the star, heavily hinting that Pola’s English still needed considerable improvement.4 The media used Pola’s exoticism to drive the public’s interest, frequently referencing her European or even gypsy heritage. A caption underneath a stylised picture of the actress published by Motion Picture Magazine in September 1921 described Negri as ‘bringing a Continental flavour to the shadow-screen’.5 Nearly all press releases promoted a fierce character whose obscure background added to the sense of allencompassing enigma. The reoccurring theme of inscrutability corresponded to the idea of essential Negri behind the film roles: the idea of a star that remained constant throughout her performances. To understand the implications of Negri’s persona her image has to be situated in the flux of newly emerging concepts relating to women and immigration. The femme fatale, as a motif, migrated to America in the early twentieth century and was ‘an amalgam of cultural fears and preoccupations, at once threatening and fascinating the artists and writers’.6 European actresses were imbued with decadence by the virtue of their origin, and as a consequence were naturally bound to represent the females radiating with deadly charm on-screen. It was Europe where the images of fatal women originated from, starting to circulate in the French arts at the end of 19th century. In their attempts to re-discover ancient mythologies, fin de siècle artists had set to explore the spiritual, pagan universe with the mystical dimension it gave to female sexuality.7 As the overexploitation of the figure of femme fatale continued, the sensual orientalism gradually became a cliché. This formed a turning point in the evolution of the theme. The vamp was a carrier of epistemological trauma, firstly as a woman who was sexually active and secondly as one who is ethnically different. The dynamic of gender portrayal in Pola’s films reflects and re-enacts those anxieties through the

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__________________________________________________________________ narrative. Carmen8 is based on Prosper Merimée’s novella of the same title. In this simple story of love and betrayal, Negri portrays a woman gone astray whose primary pursuit is to lead a decent man to damnation. Don José is a sergeant in the Spanish army who comes back home on leave to visit his fiancée and family. During his stay, a gypsy girl named Carmen is arrested for pulling a knife on one of her colleagues in a cigarette factory, forcing Don José to interfere with the disturbance. From their first meeting Carmen is determined to seduce the handsome cavalryman. Negri’s characterisation is bold in the descriptions of sexuality that runs beyond the bounds of bourgeois respectability, a signifier of lechery traditionally linked to lower classes. Despite Don José’s initial contempt, he soon falls under Carmen’s malevolent spell. The infatuation marks a downward spiral for Don José. Demoted to a soldier he kills his superior in an act of jealousy and becomes an outlaw. Soon enough, and to Don José’s despair, Carmen finds herself a new love object in a young bullfighter. The story ends tragically when the betrayed man cannot bear his disgrace, killing his unfaithful lover and himself. The figure of Carmen is particularly problematic because she crosses many boundaries – not only questioning patriarchal values in her usage of sex for personal gain, but also personifying an ethnic hazard. Her refusal to adjust to rigid limitations of sexuality stood in opposition to the American way of life, to purity and civilization. Driven by passion rather than staid, rational thinking, Carmen became a potent signifier of foreign values and a signal of lurking trouble. Released in 1923, Spanish Dancer9 was one of Negri’s first American moving pictures, largely constructed as a vehicle for her to enact a similar female type that prevailed throughout her career. As Maritana, a gypsy singer, she mobilized multiple fears about threatening the status quo and undermining the existing cultural order. Upon the first meeting with her soon-to-be lover, Don César, she entertains him by reading his fortune on tarot cards, only to learn that the nobleman will soon become penniless and cross swords with a youngster. The encounter is followed by a series of unfortunate events in which Don César is stripped of his possessions and sentenced to death for killing a man in a duel. There are a number of similarities between Negri’s portrayals in both films. Visually, she represents an earthy sexuality dressed up in traditional gypsy garb. Maritana’s occupation as a fortune teller is of great significance for her bold characterisation and stands as a potent symbol of irrationality and the potentially fiendish powers of the femme fatale. Similarly to Carmen, here Negri portrays a sly woman who aims at crossing the class distinction to become a countess. The feature that ultimately links most of Pola’s characters is the ease with which they enter higher social rankings. These women all employ private means to move up the social ladder. Enmeshed in a series of intrigues and driven by an insatiable appetite for power, the likes of Carmen use sex in exchange for status and evince no guilt. The same can be said about the protagonists in Madame DuBarry10 or Shadows of Paris11 who start of as diffident girls and end up as

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__________________________________________________________________ women of considerable wealth and esteem. The cinematic vamp of the 1920s personified a whole category of newly arrived immigrants who called up economic and social anxieties and was fashioned partially as a response to the fear of untamed social mobility.12 Ultimately, Pola’s heroines had to be punished for their audacious transgressions, more often than not, in death. Carmen is stabbed to death, the titular protagonist of Bella Donna13 wanders to the desert never to return and Claire of Shadows of Paris is defeated by her lover. Those tragic endings stand as an indictment of attempts to cross the boundaries of ethnicity and class. The cinematic vamp had to pay for the indecent, fatal effect she had on men. From the beginning of Negri’s American career her private life was used to enhance what she stood for on-screen. Numerous references to her European heritage implicated the existence of someone static behind the roles and created the actress whose unique sensitivity would shine through her roles. Negri was a savvy businesswoman who grasped the importance of sustaining media interest and quickly became proficient in catering to the public’s voracious appetite for what we would now call celebrity gossip. As a consequence, the star’s life off screen would affect her perception by the critics: While we are aware of the distinction between the performer’s private life and the role she plays in a movie, there is a notion that a star is somehow same or similar to the characters she personifies. Especially in relation to early stars who were grouped into visible categories, the performance in a film is taken as revealing the personality of the star.14 This dynamic, in turn, would make the exploits of Negri’s vamps seem to be an exposure of her real, personal motives. Pola’s private life intersected with many aspects associated with the femme fatale; the nonchalant disregard for social conventions and seductive interest in men were among these features adding inherent veracity to her heroines. The alleged eccentricities and glamorous lifestyle lead by Negri also received continued attention from the press. Indulging in all kinds of reverie, Negri posed for magazines with a pet tiger and was rumoured to be as fiery and temptatious as the characters of her movies. It was Negri’s torrid love life that dominated the newspaper’s headlines and played a crucial part in cultivating her vamp image. As her career undulated, she conducted a series of affairs with the most desirable actors of the era: Charlie Chaplin, Rod La Roque and, most notably, with Rudolph Valentino. The actor passed away tragically at the height of his career, with Negri maintaining they got engaged shortly before his demise. Negri’s flagrant display of grievance was widely scrutinized by the public in the United States, who saw it as a publicity stunt. In 1927 Negri married a Moldavian prince Serge Mdivani, but the couple divorced four years later. As a real-life personification of femme fatale Negri was

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__________________________________________________________________ also a carrier of tragedy: she could not be loved back or at least was not meant to enjoy her happy ending. When, in the midst of the 1920s the star’s life was turned into magazine fodder, she continued to authorize her extravagant image: ‘I do not believe in marriage. It is not for me. I am selfish. No, not selfish, for I have sacrificed everything for love. … Freedom comes before anything. I am a Gypsy, just like my father’.15 An article in another magazine, published in June 1923 says that Negri ‘walked into Hollywood with the hauteur of an empress’ and calls her ‘a wild cat… who doesn’t calculate’.16 The interviews alongside advertising materials have placed Pola beyond the spectrum of respectable femininity. She was not only actively looking for new men to pursue, but once she made her conquest she would not be able to settle. This deliberate dismissal of convention and patriarchal norms made Negri a transgressive figure of disruptive connotations. Liaisons with nonAmerican actors additionally positioned her on the margins of the Hollywood factory.17 Just like her characters, Negri was a useless contaminant for the consistent, national body, an immigrant who did not contribute to the American society.18 As a woman of foreign origin, the femme fatale had the capacity to serve a significant purpose in the narrative concerning American domination. With the advent of feminism and excessive immigration, the 1920s was a time of cultural change. The vamp provided a visual symbol for those social processes while simultaneously reassuring the general public that female sexuality needed to be regulated. The construction of Negri’s movie persona relied heavily on the assumption the star was a real-life personification of her characters. This lack of balance counted as one of the reasons for Negri’s inability to establish a lasting career within American context. Interestingly enough, Negri never attempted to regulate the tension undergirding her image, which seemed to have been a standard practice for other ‘vamp’ actresses. By 1916 Theda Bara was stressing a distinction between her on-screen roles and her ‘true self’, describing herself as God-fearing and deeply good-hearted creature. The message was clear: despite personifying tempestuous women in the movies, breaking the boundaries of female sexuality was of no interest to devout Bara. Pola Negri had come to symbolise the most dreaded and desired aspects of modernity in the person of the modern woman, which in the long run decreased her professional prospects. Negra argues that once Negri’s heroines were compatible with her off screen antics she became too much of a hazardous commodity, caught in between the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ world, an outsider that could infiltrate the nation.19 O glaring shortfall of the theory is that it does not acknowledge the temporary nature of the femme fatale as a category for female representation. While Negra’s argument holds true in a sense that Pola’s failure was ideological rather than aesthetic, she fails to take the importance of fashion into the equation. In other words, the fatal woman as a type fell out of favour by the end of the 1920s, replaced by the sweet and innocent lady- like look.20 Janet Gaynor was a symbol of the new, warmly

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__________________________________________________________________ loving, virginal-looking angel. Often called ‘the child-woman’ she combined the simplicity of the silent era with a more sophisticated sexuality of the 1930s. The economic crisis of 1929 marked a turning point in American history and, whilst many societal gains were lost, the archetype of all-American sweetheart started to occupy an important position in the collective imagination. America was experiencing a severe economic downturn and Negri’s excessive glamour did not fit in with the times of recession. She did not acquire a new identity and did not quite manage to shed the old one, which made her characters feel redundant. Another issue surrounding Pola’s career was the problem of typecasting. In the silent era, the film characters were commonly rooted in vaudeville, constructing something of exaggerated versions of popular female types. When Negri’s career was about to reach its apex the stars were divided into virgins and whores, those who scampered and those who simpered, womanly seductive and girlishly naïve.21 This idea of stars belonging to either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ girls category is captured perfectly by the Ideal Cast Contest run by the popular Motion Picture Magazine. The magazine provided a set of classifications for actors to fall into: the leading woman, the leading man, the villain and the vampire (the word from which the term ‘vamp’ originated from). The readers where urged to vote for their favourite stars in each category, with the changing results being published on monthly basis. In October 1921, Negri came third in the notorious vampire category, scoring 162 votes and positioning herself just after Louise Glaum and Theda Bara. The first place in the leading lady category was occupied, not surprisingly, by Mary Pickford.22 The movie industry would eventually move away from this black and white view of female characters to develop more complex and subtle portrayals. The nadir of Negri’s popularity in the United States coincided with the proliferation of the studio system, with manufactured star personas facilitating the organisation of the movie business. Upcoming changes in technology releases – such as the introduction of talking pictures – necessitated a new, more nuanced style of performance. With all the rigidity of Negri’s persona, her trademark hyperbolic descriptions started to seem old-fashioned and somehow inadequate. Some academics consider Pola’s strong Polish accent liable for the end of her promising career; a view that fails to see the bigger picture. Negri was by no means the only foreign actress in Hollywood and certainly not the only one who could fear the speaking roles. Despite her Swedish inflection Greta Gabo transferred successfully to the next decade by developing a less fixed, more delicate acting style. On the other hand, the fate of being confined to recognisable female types that inevitably became dated was shared by many other stars, such as Mary Pickford or Theda Bara among others. A complex reworking of the ancient legends and Salomé tropes, thevampwas utilized to express ideas concerning female sexuality and the threat of foreign values faced in the roaring twenties.23 She was a symbol of transgression, daring to cross not only the boundaries of female sexuality, but also those of social

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__________________________________________________________________ distinction and her own ethnicity. In Carmen, Spanish Dancer and Madame DuBarry Negri’s heroines are characterised by all these three types of transgressions. After a fleeting career as chief Hollywood vamp, the image that Negri cultivated so much turned from blessing into burden. The acquisition of the image of fatal siren, nurtured by the rumours concerning Pola’s private life, had catastrophic implications for Negri’s career. Constituting a blend of gypsy and Eastern European ‘otherness’ the Polish star was perceived exotic at first, but quickly proved to be too heavy for American xenophobia to digest. As the lines between the star’s private and professional life gradually blurred, Negri’s public persona became embedded with the same tension that underpinned her on-screen life. Turned into the cynosure of immigrant values infiltrating the dominant culture, Negri’s image was not only too threatening but started to feel dated. At the end of the 1920s Americans did not enjoy the same prosperity they took pleasure in at the beginning of the decade. The general public soured against the excessive displays of wealth that formed an essential part of Negri’s star allure. Just like one of her femmes fatales Negri proved to have no agency over her own fate and, in upstaging her acting career with personal shenanigans, she created an image too fixed to suit shifting cultural environment.

Notes 1

Spanish Dancer, dir. Herbert Brenon. USA: Famous Players-Lasky Cooperation, 1923. 2 Andrew Higson and Richard Maltby, ‘Film Europe’ and ‘Film America’: Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange 1920- 1939 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999), 13. 3 Catherine O’Rawe, ‘From Pirandello to MGM: When Classical Hollywood Reads European Literature,’ World Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with Hollywood, ed. Paul Cooke (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 71. 4 Diane Negra, ‘Immigrant Stardom in Imperial America: Pola Negri and the Problem of Typology,’ A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, ed. Jennifer Bean and Diane Negra (Durham: Duke Press, 2002), 384. 5 Anonymous, ‘Presenting..,’ Motion Picture Magazine, September 1921, 40. 6 Jane Sully, ‘Challenging the Stereotype: The Femme Fatale in Fin-De-Siècle Art and Early Cinema,’ The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts, ed. Helen Hanson and Catherine O’Rawe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 47. 7 Ewa Kuryluk, Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex, The Grotesque: Origins, Iconography, Techniques (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987), 189. 8 Carmen, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Germany: Projektions-AG Union and Universum Film, 1918. 9 Spanish Dancer, dir. Herbert Brenon. USA: Famous Players-Lasky Cooperation, 1923.

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Madame DuBarry, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Germany: Projektions-AG Union, 1919. Shadows of Paris, dir. Herbert Brenon. USA: Paramount Pictures, 1924. 12 Negra, ‘Immigrant Stardom in Imperial America,’ 379. 13 Bella Donna, dir. George Fitzmaurice. USA: Famous Players-Lasky Cooperation, 1923. 14 Richard Dyer, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 178. 15 Jeanine Basinger, ‘Women of the World: Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri,’ Silent Stars, ed. Jeanine Basinger (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 474. 16 Harry Carr, ‘Behind the Scenes with Pola Negri,’ Motion Picture Magazine, June, 1923, 39. 17 Anonymous, ‘A to Z of European Actors in Hollywood Cinema,’ Journeys of Desire: European Actors in Hollywood: A Critical Companion, ed. Alistair Philips and Ginette Vincendau (London: British Film Institute Publishing, 2006), 380. 18 Negra, ‘Immigrant Stardom in Imperial America,’ 380. 19 Negra, ‘Immigrant Stardom in Imperial America,’ 397. 20 Lois Banner, Women in Modern America: A Brief History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 197. 21 Basinger, ‘Women of The World: Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri,’ 239. 22 Anonymous, ‘Ideal Cast Contest Growing on Popularity,’ Motion Picture Magazine, October 1921, 65. 23 Sully, ‘Challenging the Stereotype,’ 56. 11

Bibliography Anonymous. ‘Pola Negri: A to Z of European Actors in Hollywood Cinema.’ Journeys of Desire, European Actors in Hollywood: A Critical Companion, edited by Alistair Philips and Ginette Vincendau. London: British Film Institute Publishing, 2006. Anonymous. ‘Ideal Cast Contest Growing on Popularity.’ Motion Picture Magazine, October 1921. Anonymous. ‘Presenting...’ Motion Picture Magazine, September 1921. Banner, Lois. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. Basinger, Jeanine. ‘Women of the World: Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri.’ Silent Stars, edited by Jeanine Basinger, 203- 260. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

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__________________________________________________________________ Bella Donna. Directed by George Fitzmaurice. USA: Famous Players-Lasky Cooperation, 1923. Bryson, Bill. One Summer 1927. London: Doubleday, 2013. Carmen. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Germany: Projektions-AG Union and Universum Film, 1918. Carr, Harry. ‘Behind the Scenes with Pola Negri.’ Motion Picture Magazine, June, 1923. Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: British Film Institute, 1998. Doane, Mary Ann. Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1991. Higson, Andrew and Richard Maltby. ‘Film Europe’ and ‘Film America’: Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange 1920- 1939. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999. Jacobs, Lea. Glamour and Gold Diggers in the Wages of Sin: Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film 1928- 1942. Berkeley: University of California Press Ltd, 1997. Kuryluk, Ewa. Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex, The Grotesque: Origins, Iconography, Techniques. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987. Madame DuBarry. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Germany: Projektions-AG Union, 1919. McDonald, Paul. The Star System. Hollywood’s Production of Popular Identities. London: Wallflower, 2000. Negra, Diane. ‘Immigrant Stardom in Imperial America: Pola Negri and the Problem of Typology.’ A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, edited by Jennifer Bean and Diane Negra, 374- 402. Durham: Duke Press, 2002. O’Rawe, Catherine. ‘From Pirandello to MGM: When Classical Hollywood Reads European Literature,’ World Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with Hollywood, edited by Paul Cooke, 69-85. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

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__________________________________________________________________ Plesnar, Lukasz. ‘Hollywood: Epoka Jazzu,’ Historia Kina. Tom I: Kino Nieme, edited by Tadeusz Lubelski, Iwona Sowinska and Rafal Syska, 617- 684. Kraków: Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2010. Shadows of Paris. Directed by Herbert Brenon. USA: Paramount Pictures, 1924. Spanish Dancer. Directed by Herbert Brenon. USA: Famous Players-Lasky Cooperation, 1923. Staiger, Janet. Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. Sully, Jane. ‘Challenging the Stereotype: The Femme Fatale in Fin-De-Siècle Art and Early Cinema.’ The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts, edited by Helen Hanson and Catherine O’Rawe, 46-58. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Viviani, Christian. ‘The Foreign Woman in Classical Hollywood Cinema.’ Journeys of Desire. European Actors in Hollywood: A Critical Companion, edited by Alistair Philips and Ginette Vincendau, 95- 102. London: British Film Institute Publishing, 2006. Agata Frymus holds an MA in Film and Television Studies from Bristol University. Her dissertation dealt with the public image of Vilma Bánky, a continental silent movie star who, after being discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, made films in United States. A current PhD student at University of York, UK, Agata continues to work on representations of European actresses in American culture of the 1920s. Her main research interests include star studies and the history of gender representations in visual culture.

Part IV I Spy a Woman: Women and the War Effortv

‘Keep Mum, She’s Definitely Not Dumb’: The Complex and Cunning Femme Fatale in Espionage Fiction and History Kirsten Smith Abstract The ‘Femme Fatale’ has long been a trope of espionage fiction, film noir and thrillers and can be seen throughout the 20th century as a dangerous figure sent to entrap men into revealing secrets through pillow talk. The femme fatale has her roots in history, Mata Hari becoming a blueprint and short hand in espionage studies for a dangerous and potentially evil woman. The femme is also an example of the classification of women as ‘whore’, classifying women by their sexuality and ambition. The femme fits into an established classification for women in popular fiction: Angel-Whore. However, is the femme fatale really the evil figure that she is often presented as? Is the moral criticism of female agents who use sexuality to their advantage primarily related to whether those agents are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs’? This chapter looks at the figure of the femme fatale through the lens of popular culture and espionage history to examine the fact/fiction relationship of the femme fatale and whether she is only evil if she works for the other side. The chapter examines some key real-life female figures that were portrayed as ‘femmes’ by the media and how these factual elements have been incorporated into fiction. It also discusses the importance of costume, changing morals and nationality when looking at the femme fatale and whether these play a part in determining whether she is evil or simply a patriot. It will also discuss the lesser known ‘homme fatal’ figures or ‘Romeos’, used during the Cold War by the Stasi and others to entrap women and discuss the differences between these two figures and the role gender plays in determining evil. Lastly it will discuss the eventual fate of the fictional femme: can she be redeemed or can she only end up dead? Key Words: Popular culture, fact/fiction, sexuality, femme fatale, espionage. ***** The femme fatale or ‘deadly woman’ has been used in numerous sources from the medieval period onwards to showcase female sexuality and its dangers. However the modern femme fatale emerged at the end of the 19th century as gender roles began to shift. The presence and popularity of the femmes fatales, particularly in popular culture, is more pronounced when there is a change in gender and societal roles, as seen in the 1920s, 1940s and 1960s when we see the femme most dominant. This work concentrates on British Intelligence as represented in fiction and in particular examines gender, moral complexity and the fact/fiction relationship through the prism of popular culture. This is for two reasons: 1. that espionage fiction is often the only way the general public can engage with what is

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__________________________________________________________________ still a very secretive world, and 2. because espionage fiction offers a genre little constrained by public knowledge of the world it depicts. The fictional worlds and situations created thus have the scope to be ground breaking in their treatment of gender roles and are popular with consumers of both sexes. The femme fatale has long been linked with the espionage world. She has become a trope of espionage fiction along with men with detachable beards and long trench coats. She is seen as a deviant-seductress luring men to betray their secrets through sex and pillow talk. The femme is represented in espionage fiction as a dangerous obstacle for the hero to confront and a way in which he can prove his masculinity. The femme is a complex figure as she is often seen as the counterpart of the good female spy, seen as the enemy, a figure of evil that must be avoided or defeated if the hero is to stand a chance of completing his mission. However is she really an evil figure? Why is she such a complex figure when on the surface it appears that she is only using her greatest asset, her sexuality, to accomplish her aims? This chapter will examine these ideas; the morality of the femme and whether this is still a relevant category for women in espionage. According to Mary Ann Doane, the femme fatale of the 20th century was associated with the new cultural movements of decadence, symbolism, art nouveau and orientalism but she also combined the modernity and new technologies of the period. 1 The figure that perfectly sums up this particular image is Margaretha Geetruida Zelle or, as she became known, Mata Hari. She was born in the Netherlands in 1876 and arrived in Paris in 1903 after a failed marriage.2 In order to support herself she became an exotic dancer and later a courtesan taking the name Mata Hari. She was arrested in Paris in 1917 by the French authorities as a double agent and was executed in October 1917 by firing squad at the age of 41.3 Mata Hari created a connection between the femme fatale figure and espionage, one that flourished over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. The links between prostitution or free sexual morals and espionage have been highlighted by Tammy Proctor as the two have similarities in the way they allow women to move between public and private spaces in a dangerous but ultimately effective way.4 This imagery of sex and espionage would go on to be developed throughout the 20th century, particularly through the media of photography, film and particularly film noir, which created the signature look of the femme fatale: an attractive woman clad in a figure-hugging dress, heels, gloves, heavy eye makeup, dark lipstick and usually smoking – sensual and dangerous. For some female spies the identity of a femme fatale is one that they readily adopt and it can be a way of maintaining independence or pursuing their own ambitions. The figure of Elise in the novel Assignment in Brittany (1942) represents the femme fatale figure that pressures men into betrayal and who is also aware of her own ambitions and quest for power. 5 Elise, the niece of Madame Perro who owns the local hotel where many of the Nazi meetings are held in the village, is considered a foreigner because her aunt was born outside of the village.6

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__________________________________________________________________ She is also considered untrustworthy because of the time she has spent in Paris and Strasbourg. Martin Hearne is the British agent sent into Brittany during the Nazi occupation to discover key information about Nazi movements. Hearne has been selected because of the similarity he bears to a Breton called Bertrand Corlay. However when Hearne arrives at Corlay’s village to pose as him he finds that Corlay has not been honest about his life; he finds out Corlay is actually a Nazi sympathiser. Elise has used herself as a sexual reward to encourage Corlay to betray his village’s nationalist feelings and work with the occupying Germans. Hearne recognises this dangerous element in her as soon as he meets her: ‘The girl was dangerous; and it wasn’t the belief that she was a Breton nationalist which made her seem dangerous either.’7 Elise uses her sexuality to keep both her Nazi contact sweet as well as Corlay, so that he continues to pass information to her about the village. Elise is not liked in the village because of her sexuality and the way she uses it overtly, showcased in her clothing and manner. She is also seen as an outsider in the village because of her foreign roots. Her quest for power from the Nazis and her scorn for the village and especially its men, who have fallen in love with her, leads to her downfall. Her death comes about at the hands of a villager because of her horizontal collaboration and betrayal of her people and country. Elise is considered to be an evil figure as she willingly betrays her people to the invading enemy, but her ‘evil’ status also comes about because of foreignness and her promiscuity. Evidence within various novels suggests that sexuality and being marked as ‘foreign’ either through a different nationality or because they are not part of a community are two key ways of identifying a femme and reasons for them to be punished. These women do not fit into the prescribed gender, moral and community role expected of them. A change in sexual attitudes by society doesn’t always mean that a femme will become more acceptable. The 1960s have frequently been seen as a decade of sexual freedom and expression, being also a peak period for the portrayal of femmes fatales as they were central to some of the spy sex scandals of the time. The main example of this trend was Christine Keeler due to her part in the Profumo Affair in 1963. Keeler’s legacy and the power of femmes fatales over men can be seen in a September 1963 cartoon which portrays a femme fatale seducing a British bachelor for secrets. Bachelors in light of recent scandals have become security risks according to the cartoon and are now watched more closely, causing problems for the female spy. 8 A cartoon from 1967 continues this theme of a glamorous woman being used to seduce men for secrets. 9 The cartoon shows a woman trying to seduce a park keeper after secret papers had been found on the common.10 She is wearing the cliché uniform of a femme fatale firmly established at this stage: heavily made up with long hair, wearing a tight dress emphasising cleavage and holding a cigarette in a holder.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the 1960s although the sexual attitude of the femme may have become more mainstream their ‘foreign’ element was emphasised with them often being of Soviet nationality or being employed by the USSR and therefore having a foreign ideology. This can be seen in the fictional femme, Iris in the novel The Liquidator (1964).11 Iris is a secretary; however she is also later revealed as a double agent. From the very beginning she is not portrayed as a passive woman; she is the one encouraging Boysie, the hero, to break the fraternisation rules and take her to France for a weekend. Her power as a femme fatale over Boysie can be seen as he has been pursuing her for at least six months and he views the weekend as a means to be rid of his obsession for her: ‘Perhaps, by then he would be free from his obsession with her – this illogical, immature thing that had hounded him for half a year.’12 This gives us an early indication that Iris is powerful and although at this stage in her interaction with Boysie it is a sexual power, there is a connection in espionage fiction between sexually powerful women and danger. This is confirmed later by Iris when she tells him that she was sent on ‘adult education classes’ as a Communist agent in order to make her more useful in her role as a double agent.13 Although her sexuality is clear in the novel it is Iris’s pursuit of communist ideology and her acceptance of killing to get the mission done which seals her as an evil femme fatale. Using her cover name ‘The Co-ordinator’ she decides to kill a member of the team who is threatening to derail their overall mission, ‘I shall have to arrange for a nasty accident. We must not have a buffoon like Sheriek making a mess of this one. It is much too big.’14 She also abandons the rest of her team to death or capture at the end of the novel in order to get away and is shown to be competent throughout the novel in her organisation of the mission. It is here that we see the idea of threatening the male protagonist with female ambition and independence as being another aspect of the femme identity. We can see a departure with Iris from the simple femme fatale idea often used in espionage fiction, her training by the Communists in sex but also other elements which mark her out as a much superior spy and in some ways superior enemy to others faced by Boysie because she has been overlooked based on her gender and her job. When it is revealed that Iris is a double agent she has nothing but contempt for him. Even at this point in the relationship where Iris is fully in control Boysie can only think about undermining or defeating her sexually: ‘No, I don’t think you’ll shoot me, Boysie,’ she said. She might have been in a bedroom daring him into rape. There was something remarkably sexy about the situation.15 This idea of undermining her sexually is because the defeat of Iris is about renewing his masculinity and also his place in the department which she has threatened. At the end of the novel when he defeats Iris he is rewarded with a month’s leave and it is also hinted that he has found a new sexual partner.

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__________________________________________________________________ Therefore in a similar way to James Bond, Boysie Oakes defeats the ideological foreign threat and also emerges with his male identity stronger than ever, having defeated the femme. During the Cold War the espionage tactic of ‘honey trap’ or ‘swallows’, whereby an attractive woman was used to entrap a male spy into giving secrets or working as a double agent, was used by both sides. However there were also men who were trained for similar roles and here is where we can see the differences between men and women when inhabiting this ‘fatale’ role. Markus Wolf, the head of the East German Intelligence Agency, the Stasi, from 1952 to 1986, specialised in recruiting young men in order to form his ‘Romeo’ network. 16 This network focused on seducing West German female secretaries in government positions to gain information and secrets. The secretaries marked out for seduction had access to large amounts of information because of their superior. In many cases the ‘Romeos’ as they were called by Wolf were also used to encourage women to try for promotion in their organisation in order to increase the amount of material they had access to. These men can be referred to as ‘hommes fatals’ because of the similar job they do to ‘femmes fatales’. However there are distinct differences between these two. In many ways Bond could be classed as a ‘homme fatale’ because of the way he frequently uses women for their access to information. However in many cases it is made clear that he is saving them from a bad situation and of course we are aware that Bond is using seduction for a good cause. These ‘homme fatales’ show therefore that the use of sex to elicit secrets is not just something kept to women; however in espionage fiction the ‘homme fatal’ is not used as a plot device. This seems remarkable as the secretaries depicted in these fictional organisations have access to state secrets and yet it is deemed in fiction that they are not important enough to be tempted into betrayal. It is also an interesting difference that these men were called ‘Romeos’ thus creating an idea that the job they were doing was more about love, wanting to make the women they were seducing feel special, listened to and supported. They are seen as fulfilling some romantic fantasy much in a similar way that Bond tells the majority of women that he sleeps with that he loves them. Whereas for the femme, carrying out exactly the same duties is seen as more dangerous and sinister because she is coming from a purely physical, sexual position. Throughout the 1970s the threat of the femme disappeared from the majority of espionage fiction and instead there was a focus on the figure of the homosexual male spy and the male traitor inside the organisation. However from the 1980s the femme began to emerge in other areas of popular culture and in espionage fiction there was a return to female characters who used their sexuality for their own advancement. These new femmes did not have to be foreign or even subscribe to a foreign ideology; however they did use sex or their sexuality in exchange for information. This can be seen in the MI5 spy Agnes Algar in The Crocus List

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__________________________________________________________________ (1985) who sleeps with an American contact and records the encounter in order to find out information important to her mission.17 Agnes reflects that this is not the first time she has used sex for information but she sees it as being part of her job. This acceptance of using sex for information suggests that the femme fatale identity that was previously so easy to identify has become more ambiguous and more a facet of the overall female spy identity. The end for a femme depends on her previous transgressions and whether or not she can be redeemed and accepted back into a normal gender role or has transgressed so much that she has no other option but death. What is clear is that she must be punished. This punishment can come in two forms: either she is finally beaten by the male protagonist and returns to a traditional gender role with him or she is killed. However there must be a return to the normal gender roles which have been subverted while the femme has been operating as a spy. According to Mary Ann Doane, ‘her textual eradication involves a desperate reassertion of control on the part of the threatened male subject.’18 What is surprising about one of the possible ways the femme can be redeemed is through some form of sexual activity. The precise thing that marks her out as unique becomes the thing that can break her femme fatale identity. The idea of falling in love or renouncing previous decisions because of a sexual relationship is used many times in the Bond films, again another way of showing Bond’s hypermasculinity, allowing him to redeem the femme fatale with her unusual sexual appetite and ambitions and bring her back to the right side. Even when Bond fails in this task, as seen with Fiona Volpe in Thunderball and Elektra King in The World is Not Enough, it is implied that this is not Bond’s fault but simply that their own lust for power was too great to be tempered by Bond.19 Although it could be argued that the femme fatale has persisted over time as a trope of espionage, there have been changes to the construction of this particular female identity. As more women rose to senior positions within the Service, ambition and a certain level of professionalism came to be seen as part of being a female intelligence officer in the 20th century, and ambition no longer came to be associated with the femme. The connection between heightened sexuality and violence is one still seen in many portrayals of femmes fatales. A study of Bond films in 2009 revealed that the level of violence and sexual activity had risen in Bond films over the series and that the way in which women responded to both these areas often determined whether or not they would survive.20 According to the study, ‘The ultimate penalty for a woman in a Bond film – death – seems to accrue from promiscuity (often with Bond) and daring to threaten the ultimate iconic masculine hero, James Bond’.21 Arguably women in espionage are no longer constrained as they once were to the simple categories of Angel-Patriot-femme. Instead over time and as attitudes towards women and sex have changed it has meant that a combination of all three

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__________________________________________________________________ roles is used in order to be an effective female spy. However in espionage fiction the figure of the femme fatale persists as a way of clearly earmarking a certain ‘evil’ woman and allows the audience to see a male protagonist triumph with the right kind of woman.

Notes 1

Mary Ann Doane, Femme Fatales, Feminism: Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1991), 1. 2 Rosie White, Violent Femmes: Women as Spies in Popular Culture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 35-39. 3 Ibid., 35-39. 4 Tammy Proctor, Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (London/New York: New York University Press, 2003),124. 5 Helen MacInnes, Assignment in Brittany (first published Glasgow: George C. Harrap and Co. Ltd, 1942). 6 Helen MacInnes, Assignment in Brittany (London: Collins, 1984), 29. 7 Ibid., 89. 8 John Musgrave Wood, (Emmwood), ‘No title,’ Daily Mail, 05/09/1963. British Cartoon Archive, catalogue number 04325. 9 David Myers, ‘Ello darlink, has anyone ever told you you haf ze most devine moustache?’ Evening Standard, 20/01/1967. British Cartoon Archive, catalogue number 10526. 10 Ibid. 11 John Gardner, The Liquidator (London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1964). 12 Ibid., 59. 13 Ibid., 192. 14 Ibid., 81. 15 Ibid., 190. 16 Gordon Corera, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Services (London: Phoenix, 2012). 17 Gavin Lyall, The Crocus List (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985). 18 Doane, Femme Fatales, 2. 19 Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, Thunderball, dir. Terence Young (United Kingdom: Eon Productions, 1965); Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein, The World Is Not Enough, dir. Michael Apted (United Kingdom: Eon Productions, 1999). 20 Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Thomas D. Gore, Amy Dalessandro, Patricie Janstova, Sharon Snyder-Suhy, ‘Shaken and Stirred: A Content Analysis of Women’s Portrayals in James Bond Films,’ Sex Roles 62 (2010): 758. 21 Ibid., 758.

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Bibliography Corera, Gordon. MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Services. London: Phoenix, 2012. Doane, Mary Ann. Femme Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1991. Gardner, John. The Liquidator. London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1964. MacInnes, Helen. Assignment in Brittany. London: Collins, 1984. Maibaum, Richard and John Hopkins. Thunderball. Directed by Terence Young. United Kingdom: Eon Productions, 1965. Musgrave Wood, John (Emmwood). ‘No title’. Daily Mail, 05/09/1963, British Cartoon Archive ref. 04325. Myers David. ‘Ello darlink, has anyone ever told you, you haf ze most devine moustache?’ Evening Standard, 20/01/1967, British Cartoon Archive ref. 10526 Neuendorf, Kimberley A., Thomas D. Gore, Amy Dalessandro, Patricie Janstova and Sharon Snyder-Suhy. ‘Shaken and Stirred: A Content Analysis of Women’s Portrayals in James Bond Films.’ Sex Roles 62 (2010). Proctor, Tammy. Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War. London/New York: New York University Press, 2003. Purvis, Neal, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein. The World is Not Enough. Directed by Michael Apted. United Kingdom: Eon Productions, 1999. White, Rosie. Violent Femmes: Women as Spies in Popular Culture. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007. Kirsten Smith is an Associate Lecturer based at Lancaster University, UK. Her interests lie in cultural representations, espionage history, gender and the Cold War.

Maud Allan, the Cult of the Clitoris and the Future of Britain Anthony Patterson Abstract Scholars have recently begun to show interest in the figure of the Canadian dancer Maud Allan. Both a fictionalised account of her life and a more scholarly biography have been produced in the last few years. These build on Philip Hoare’s Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand (1997), which focuses on the famous libel trial in which Maud Allan sued the owner of the Imperialist, Noel Pemberton Billing. He had insinuated that she was a lesbian, inferred by the term ‘cult of the clitoris,’ and elided such sexual practices with treason at a time, 1918, when the First World War had reached a critical stage. Often compared unfavourably with Isadora Duncan as a performer, Maud Allan is a fascinating figure who became, both at the height of her fame as a dancer on the Edwardian stage and at the later libel trial, a representative of female evil. Indeed, this chapter will explore how Allan, like the author of Salome, Oscar Wilde, became a floating signifier of national otherness representing everything that the conservative British right hated, including sexual deviance, continental decadence, literary obscenity, national betrayal and liberal sympathy, the latter especially connected in Maud Allan’s case with her close, and many suspected, lesbian relationship with Margot Asquith, the wife of the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. In many respects, Allan was viewed as representative of a nationally debilitating decadence that many hoped the war would destroy. The chapter focuses on representations of her life and work and the very public construction of Allan as a symbol of foreign evil that many felt threatened the very future of the nation. Key Words: Maud Allan, Oscar Wilde, Salome, Cult of the Clitoris, lesbianism, Pemberton Billing. ***** 1. Introduction: The Trial Writing from France in his war diary in the spring of 1918, Siegfried Sassoon commented: The papers are full of this foul Billing’s case. Makes one glad to be away from ‘normal conditions’. And the Germans are on the Marne and claim 4,500 more prisoners. The world is stark staring mad…1 At the time, as Sassoon’s exasperated comments note, the Germans were advancing in what became known as the Ludendorff Offensive. The allies were in

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__________________________________________________________________ retreat and losing thousands of prisoners to the advancing Germans. Thus at this stage of the war, the British had little reason to be optimistic about its outcome. However, what makes Sassoon reach the point of exasperation is not the war per se but that when Britain appears to be in such jeopardy, the newspapers are full of what Sassoon refers to as ‘this foul Billing’s case.’ It is this case that makes Sassoon prefer the abnormality of war to the normal conditions of civilian society. And it is this case as much as the unprecedented slaughter of war that makes the world seem ‘stark staring mad.’ The Billing’s case, as Sassoon refers to it, concerned a Canadian dancer, Maud Allan, who sued an independent MP, Noel Pemberton-Billing, for libel. Ten years before the Billing’s case, Maud Allan had achieved considerable celebrity for her performance of ‘A Vision of Salome.’ The poet Herbert Read even referred to her as the Marilyn Monroe of her age.2 Although many saw Maud Allan as an inferior performer to her rival Isadora Duncan, she was perhaps, in Britain at least, the most famous Salome to perform on the Edwardian stage. Having been encouraged to come to England by Edward VII himself, Allan became a sensation giving over 250 performances in 18 months. Her fame inspired the sale of numerous picture postcards, as well as one novelistic and one pornographic account of her life. It also inspired the fad of holding Salome parties among the aristocracy of London. In 1918, a good ten years after Maud mania or perhaps Maud’s exploitation of Salomania, and when her fame was dwindling, she was invited to perform Oscar Wilde’s play Salome (1891) by Jack Grein, a businessman, drama critic for The Times and a director who had previously brought to the attention of the British public plays by Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. Responding to an advertisement for the play placed in The Times, the right wing newspaper The Imperialist included the following statement written by Noel Pemberton Billing. It was entitled THE CULT OF THE CLITORIS: To be a member of Maud Allan’s private performances in Oscar Wilde’s Salome one has to apply to a Miss Valetta, of 9, Duke Street, Adelphi, WC. If Scotland Yard were to seize the list of these members I have no doubt they would secure the names of several of the first 47,000.3 The significance of the notice needs some explanation. Pemberton-Billing was insinuating that the names on the subscription list for the play might also be found in the infamous and now largely believed to be non-existent Black Book, which reputedly contained the names of 47,000 sexual perverts living in Britain. The Black Book was, in Billing’s own words, […] a book compiled by the Secret Service from reports of German agents who have infested this country for the past 20

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_______________________________________________________ years, agents so vile and spreading such debauchery and such lasciviousness as only German minds can conceive and only German bodies execute.4 If the tendency to commit sedition was not already there, such debauchery and perversity could lead to English debauchees being blackmailed into becoming agents of the German war machine. On hearing of Pemberton Billing’s accusation, Grein and Allan prosecuted for libel. Media attention was enormous. The trial was called the trial of the century. Some court scenes were often dramatic, even melodramatic, at times representing a witch hunt in which even the judge, Justice Darling, was accused of being listed in the Black Book. In less fraught times, Pemberton-Billing’s accusations might have inspired bemusement, and his rantings taken less seriously but given the critical stage of the war, many supported his claims and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The Cult of the Clitoris trial has recently warranted much attention, a modern novelized version of Maud Allan’s life has appeared as well as several academic works. From a scholarly point of view the case has been viewed not only as an example of war hysteria but as a seminal moment in the development of the British fascist movement.5 It has also been viewed as a significant event in the emergence of a distinct lesbian identity ten years before Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928) was banned, an event which Laura Doan has argued has been ‘recognized as the crystallizing moment in the construction of a visible modern English lesbian subculture.’6 The case has also been seen as a significant if posthumous chapter in the history of Oscar Wilde and male homosexuality, as the ascribed perversion of Wilde was revisited in the trial, a major defence witness being Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde’s ex-lover and the first English translator of Salome which Wilde originally wrote in French. Douglas testified in some detail to both the corrupting nature of Wilde and the play he had translated. The trial also significantly marks a transition from or perhaps more accurately a confusing elision between a traditional moral and an emerging medical view of sexuality perhaps best summed up in the accusation that Maud Allan was a ‘moral pervert’, the word moral being conjoined here with a word from the sexological discourses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However scientific discourse was utilised, Maud Allan was most definitely viewed as an evil woman. Philip Hoare writes: To the morally righteous, Maud represented an insidious evil: she was characterised as almost satanic, and her influence was such that five years after the first questions had been raised about her moral degeneracy, Canon Newbolt of St Paul’s preached that

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘the current evil is the indecent dance, suggestive of evil and destructive of modesty’.7 Following on from and clearly related to the Wilde trials of 1895, this gendering of evil touches on national prejudices, colonial insecurities, artistic philistinism, and sexual ignorance. The trial not only revisits many of those issues raised about same-sex love in the Wilde trial if now focused on lesbianism, but also elides the historical figure of Maud Allan with both the mythological figure as well as the Wildean character of Salome. Elsewhere I have described Wilde’s name as ‘a floating signifier for national otherness, solidifying links wherever applicable between aestheticism, frivolity, effeminacy, decadence and degeneration.’8 In this chapter, I wish to show the extent that Maud Allan’s name can also be viewed as a floating signifier, similar to Wilde’s, emblematic of everything considered detestable by what Philip Hoare labels the morally righteous. 2. British Morality during the War First, however, some contextualization needs to be given. The idea that Germany was morally corrupt precedes the war. In fact Germany had supplanted France as the example par excellence of continental corruption. If Berlin was seen by many as a hotbed of vice, there were also qualms about British morality or at the very least fear of its contamination by foreign sexual practices and ideas. This can be seen in the prevalence of the idea that war was a kind of moral purgation for Britain. There was a sense of the war as a moral crusade where all the things that Oscar Wilde represented would be swept way. W R Colton, for example, could write of the notion of war as an agent of purification which would return society to some imagined original no I meant to use the word originary state where art and indeed life would again be wholesome. He writes: It was high time that war should come with its purifying fire … A wave of diseased degeneracy had submerged Philosophy, Music, Literature, and Art to such a depth that, looking forward, I venture to prophesy that future centuries will gaze back with pity upon this period of mistaken morbidness.9 Such a cleansing was clearly associated with the aestheticism and decadence most clearly symbolized by Oscar Wilde. The whole scale slaughter of millions of men did not seem to diminish the idea of war as moral purgation of all aspects of society including its art and literature. The reformed ex-lover of Oscar Wilde, Alfred Douglas, could write in 1915 that ‘it is just as important to civilization that Literary England should be cleansed of sex-mongers and peddlers of the perverse, as that Flanders should be cleared of Germans.’10 By 1918, the emphasis was more

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_______________________________________________________ on the fear of foreign contamination, the weakening of the moral backbone of England, leading to defeat in the war. It is important to remember how a specifically British sexual moral code was aligned with a sense of national superiority. While moral and specifically sexual perversity was deemed somehow a foreign disease to which the British mind and body were exempt, the British were contradictorily also seen as susceptible to corruption. At the end of the trial after Pemberton Billing had been acquitted, proto-fascist fellow traveller, Arnold White declaimed: The old English instinct is right in these matters; the play is not merely immoral; it is morbid and leads to the black and hopeless portals of criminal insanity … These perversions of sexual passion have no home in the healthy mind of England. They have like scum on water, a floating root in the international population which drifts between capital and capital. It is like a pestilence of which sporadic cases and even epidemics are sometimes brought to our shores; but it is abhorrent to the nature of this nation – so abhorrent is it, indeed, that the mere suspicion of it is enough to destroy a career and blast a reputation.11 If White’s words are relevant to Oscar Wilde and his play, they also apply to Maud Allan, who could have been said to have helped bring the Salome epidemic to the British shore, who had drifted from capital to capital and whose reputation after the trial was truly ‘blasted’. The language of White, here, of mental health is explicit: the play is described as leading to the ‘hopeless portals of the criminally insane’; the pestilence comes from abroad, like epidemics brought to the native shore. Paradoxically, White privileges English sense over the mental instabilities of passion-ruled foreigners at the same time as expressing the clear fear of the contagion of foreign vice, thus articulating a sense of national superiority to, but also an ingrained anxiety of the ‘Other’. 3. Maud Allan as National Other The ‘Other’ in this case is Oscar Wilde, but it is also Maud Allan. She is a member of the ‘international population’, as White describes it. Maud Allan was a Canadian. Thus like Wilde, a colonial of sorts. Perhaps even more significantly she had spent much time in Europe including Berlin, the name of which had become synonymous with sexual perversity. Berlin, of course, was also the heart of Germany the enemy, thus making Maud Allan even more susceptible to accusations of her being a spy as well as a sexual pervert, or even a spy because she was a sexual pervert. Indeed Pemberton-Billing in the trial – he represented himself – claimed that the kind of modern dancing that Allan did was ‘a German art’12 which was previously unknown in England, the implication being in White’s

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__________________________________________________________________ words that such a German art was a way of infecting clean nations with Hunnish erotomania. It should also be recalled that the Billing’s trial took place only a year after Mata Hari was executed as a German spy. Mata Hari was also a courtesan, an exotic indeed erotic dancer who had achieved considerable fame pre-war for her brand of oriental dancing. She also performed as Salome. What Jodie Medd claims of Mata Hari at the beginning of the war could equally be applied to the position of Maud Allan during the trial: When war was declared, all that Mata Hari represented came under suspicion: her eroticism, exoticism, refusal of domestic femininity, and sexual promiscuity violated the wartime mood of sacrifice, restraint, and conservatism.13 Moreover, if Mata Hari had claimed Indian origins, falsely as she was Dutch, Maud Allan as the performer of Salome was also seen as a dangerous and exotic oriental other, a dancer both draped in oriental costume and familiar with the practices and allure of the orient, itself seen as sexually lax. Of course, cumulatively, this was a lot of foreignness for those like Pemberton Billing and other right-wing imperialists who championed the racial purity of the Anglo Saxon. There were even rumours of Allan being Jewish. This might seem strange given later Nazi attitudes but in the minds of many British imperialists anti-Semitism and anti-German sentiments often went hand in hand.14 Suffice to say that Maud Allan represented much that in White’s words had ‘no home in the healthy mind of England.’ If at the heart of the Wilde trials, the first of which like Maud Allan’s was a libel case, was the accusation of male same-sex love, at the heart of the Billing’s case was the accusation of lesbianism although what lesbianism entailed let alone what a clitoris was were barely defined by either prosecution or defence. They were, however, synonymous terms representing in Deborah Cohler’s words, ‘an unnatural obscenity that could be known only by ‘the initiated’ – a nebulous group that can mean anyone from medical students to practicing perverts.’ 15 The implication from the trial was that only scientists and sexual perverts would be familiar with the term. The fact that Allan knew what a clitoris was caused suspicion to fall upon her. It is actually plausible that she learnt the term through illustrating a sex manual when she was in Berlin. If, however, as Laura Doan has argued that the trial registers ‘the beginning of an important shift in the visibility of lesbianism in English legal discourse and in the public arena,’16 what lesbianism entailed was largely left unsaid. In the rhetoric of Arnold White and Billing, lesbianism was viewed as being beyond the pale of normal sexual practices. It was inherently evil in and of itself and it also left a lesbian prone to blackmail and thus to treason. Indeed in the words of the

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_______________________________________________________ prosecution ‘a more horrible libel of any woman . . . is impossible to find.’17 Of course, in regard to men and same-sex love, the same could be said of Oscar Wilde over twenty years before. The actual evasive imprecision of the term lesbian made it seem even more evil than it being a non-normative sexual practice, although in the mind of Billing that was bad enough. This was because lesbian practice seemed linked generally to a potentially dangerous female sexuality and specifically to other acts of what were deemed sexual aberration. Harold Spencer, an associate of Pemberton-Billing, and an inveterate liar and fantasist who perjured himself in the witness box claimed that the clitoris ‘when unduly excited or overdeveloped, possessed the most dreadful influence on any woman . . . [and] might even drive a woman to an elephant.’18 Thus in living memory of one strand of Victorian thinking, particularly exercised by professional Victorian men, women had little sexual feeling. Contrary to such a view, the clitoris in the Pemberton-Billing trial signalled that women through anatomical possession could become dangerously out of control. For men such as Pemberton Billing and Arnold White, such sexual anarchy could only be dangerous to the nation leading, to appropriate White’s words, the ‘hopeless portals of criminal insanity.’ Maud Allan’s assumed association with the Cult of the Clitoris was also aligned with the figure of Salome herself, in very similar ways to the manner in which Wilde had been in 1895. Thus lesbianism was related to the presumed sadism of Salome, the wicked creature who called for the head of John the Baptist, and who bestows a necrophiliac kiss on the Baptist’s head. In the trial, Billing referred to ‘the head of a man … used as a means of generating sexual excitement in a young girl.’ He concluded, ‘I have suggested that you are playing the principal part in ministering to social perversion.’19 Thus in Billing’s mind and in the minds of those who thought like him, to be a lesbian was to be susceptible to committing any act of sexual perversion, and to dance like Salome was to dramatically incite sexually perverse and dangerously actionable feelings in others. Moreover, the character of Maud Allan was impugned not only for her supposed Sapphic tendencies, not least the insinuation that she had a sexual relationship with Margot Asquith, the wife of the ex-prime minister Herbert Asquith, but also for her guilt by association in the murders of two women committed by her brother Theodore Durrant. In Billing’s examination of her, virtually the first question he asked was whether she was the sister of the murderer, a fact she had sought to hide all her life. Such crimes, be they murder, necrophilia, and sadism were linked both to Allan’s sexuality, to her performance as a dancer and to a dangerous foreignness, all of which constituted a national threat. 4. Conclusion In conclusion then, Maud Allan in what became known as the Cult of the Clitoris trial was utilised as a projection of just about everything that right-wing

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__________________________________________________________________ imperialists, and much of the general public, thought the war was about eradicating. Such views reached their zenith with the trial in the spring of 1918. A few months later the war was won by the allies and the likes of Pemberton Billing, his cronies, Maud Allan and the trial itself were largely forgotten. From such a perspective the trial seemed an example of war hysteria, but the underlying values that were voiced persisted and, as many chapters in this volume testify, still persist, not least the prevalent fear of an unbounded and uncontrollable female sexuality and the elision of such sexuality with an innate sense of female evil.

Notes 1

Qtd in Deborah Cohler, ‘Sapphism and Sedition: Producing Female Homosexuality in Great War Britain,’ Journal of the History of Sexuality 16.1 (2007): 68-94 at 92. 2 Qtd in Toni Bentley, Sisters of Salome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 66. 3 Qtd in Jodie Medd, Lesbian Scandal and the Culture of Modernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012), 28. 4 Qtd in Medd, Lesbian Scandal, 29. 5 See Hoare chapter three. 6 Laura Doan, Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), xiii. 7 Phillip Hoare, Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1997). 8 Anthony Patterson, Mrs Grundy’s Enemies: Censorship, Realist Fiction and the Politics of Sexual Representation (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013) 29. 9 Qtd in Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (New York: Athenaeum, 1991) 182. 10 Qtd in Cohler, ‘Sapphism’, 70. 11 Qtd in Hoare, Oscar, 182. 12 Qtd in Hoare, Oscar, 183 13 Jodie Medd, ‘The Cult of the Clitoris: Anatomy of a National Scandal,’ Modernism/Modernity 9.1 (2002): 21-49 at 30. 14 Hoare, Oscar, chapter 9. 15 Cohler, ‘Sappism,’ 87. 16 Doan, ‘Fashioning’, 78. 17 Qtd in Doan, ‘Fashioning,’ 31. 18 Qtd in Bentley, Sisters, 79. 19 Qtd in Hoare, Oscar.

Bibliography Bentley, Toni. Sisters of Salome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002

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_______________________________________________________ Cohler, Deborah. ‘Sapphism and Sedition: Producing Female Homosexuality in Great War Britain.’ Journal of the History of Sexuality 16.1 (2007). Doan, Laura. Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Hoare, Phillip. Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1997. Hynes, Samuel. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture. New York: Athenaeum, 1991. Medd, Jodie. Lesbian Scandal and the Culture of Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Patterson, Anthony. Mrs Grundy’s Enemies: Censorship, Realist Fiction and the Politics of Sexual Representation. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013. Anthony Patterson is currently Assistant Professor at the American University of Ras al Khaimah. He has published on several writers of the late Victorian and Edwardian period and he is the author of Mrs Grundy’s Enemies: Censorship, Realist Fiction and the Politics of Sexual Representation.

Translation of Evil: Ken Kesey’s Miss Ratched in the Original and in the Russian Translation Natalia Kaloh Vid Abstract A ball-breaker and a psychotic bitch, Ken Kesey’s sadistic, vindictive nurse Miss Ratched has become an epitome of female sadism, evoking a masochistic fascination and a fear of a dominant evil woman. In Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Miss Ratched’s power is executed by a psychological torture and a repression of any desires including sexual in her patients by extreme medical means such as electroshock and lobotomy referred to as a ‘frontal-lobe castration’ which removes a man’s individuality, freedom, and ability for sexual expression. This chapter illuminates differences in a textual portrayal of Miss Ratched which occur in the Russian translation of Kesey’s novel made in 1987 by Victor Golyshev. In the 1980 the influence of the official ideology and censorship on literary production, including translations, was still severe. The translators were well aware of the necessity to follow official ideological guidelines. From the beginning of the Cold War the United States of America were represented as a horrible place of poverty, greed and misery in the official Soviet propagandistic discourse. The topic of Kesey’s book could not have been more appropriate for ideological purposes. As it is emphasized in the preface to Golyshev’s translation, America is a country of cruelty, ignorance and oppression where normal people are put in the asylums on regular basis and Miss Ratched epitomizes American evil. This analysis explores transformations and distortions which make Miss Ratched even more sadistic and cruel in the Russian translation. This analysis will address the question as to whether the Russian translator’s choice to over-emphasize Miss Ratched’s evil nature was ideologically influenced and how her character is textually constructed in the Russian translation Key Words: Kesey, Ratched, translation, ideology, influence. ***** This analysis illuminates differences in a textual portrayal of the sadistic, cruel and vindictive Nurse Ratched in the Russian translation of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest completed in 1987 by Victor Golyshev. In Golyshev’s translation Miss Ratched is presented as even more sadistic and cruel than in the original. Even a quick glance at the translation reveals that the Russian translator over-emphasised Miss Ratched’s sadistic nature by implying words and expressions with stronger negative connotation. One can say that changes are inevitable in a translation process and dependant on a translator’s individual

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__________________________________________________________________ perception but the reasons are more complex and should be analyzed in the historical context. The translation was completed in the Soviet Union where literary translation was celebrated as an important vehicle in the service of people and used as a propagandistic tool to create a different version of reality. As the Soviet Union was almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, literary translations often served as the only source of information about foreign countries. The essence of the Soviet state’s ideological strategy consisted of forcing the public to read what was officially allowed, while isolating people from any other sources of information outside state control. Ideological ‘correctness’ of literary production, including translations, was insured by soviet censorship which remains the longest lasting and most comprehensive censorship in the 20th century.1 In the case of foreign literature, translations of foreign materials had to pass a special censorship control at the Foreign Literature Committee (Committee for the purchase and distribution of foreign literature in the Soviet Union). It has to be noted that it was difficult, in most cases even impossible, to get access to foreign literature in the language of the original as book stores, small local libraries and private collections could not purchase literature published in Western countries. Editors’ demands of any kind (additions, comments, erasure) had to be strictly followed. Henceforth, an institution of censorship and centralization inevitably influenced a translation process in the Soviet Union. Translators were well aware of the necessity to follow official ideological guidelines. In the time of the Cold War, America was represented as a horrible place of poverty, greed and misery in the official Soviet propagandistic discourse. The topic of Kesey’s book could not have been more appropriate for ideological purposes as in the Soviet discourse America was presented as a country of cruelty, ignorance and oppression. In the preface to Golyshev’s translation we read that identity loss and repression of freedom were characteristic of an American capitalist society which turned people into obedient machines and Miss Ratched, society’s instrument, perfectly epitomized American evil.2 Hence, Miss Ratched’s portrayal underwent a series of transformations and distortions in the Russian translation which depicted her as even more vindictive and sadistic than in the original. In what follows I will illustrate how the translator achieved a different interpretation of Miss Ratched’s character by introducing minor ideologically influenced adaptations. The most significant change occurs in the translation of Miss Ratched’s name. Theo Hermans suggested four ways of transferring proper names from one language into another. They can be copied, i.e. reproduced in the target text exactly as they were in the source text. They can be transcribed, i.e. transliterated or adapted on the level of spelling, phonology, etc. A formally unrelated name can be substituted in the TT for any given name in the ST and insofar as a proper name in

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__________________________________________________________________ the ST is enmeshed in the lexicon of that language and acquires ‘meaning’, it can be translated. Combinations of these four modes of transfer are possible, as a proper name may, for example, be copied or transcribed and in addition translated in a (translator’s) footnote.3 The first observation we can make when analyzing Golyshev’s translation is that Miss Ratched’s name is translated literally. A variety of translation strategies when dealing with personal names have been proposed by different translation theorists. Thus, Davies states, if ‘a name contains clearly recognizable descriptive elements, translators often opt to preserve the descriptive meaning of a name rather than its form, and use a literal translation’.4 On the other hand Anthony Pym suggests that proper names not be translated at all.5 The main problem is that the in English the word ‘ratched’ has several meanings. Thus, Miss Ratched’s name can be ‘deciphered’ in several ways. According to the Urban Dictionary of Slang ‘ratched’ means ‘an ugly and funky person.’6 This is the meaning the translator used7 and in the Russian translation Miss Ratched became ‘Миссис Гнусен.’ For some reason the translator ignored the Russian slang which offers a variety of terms with similar meaning and decided to use an old-fashioned noun ‘гнус’ which means ‘loathing’, while the adjective ‘гнусный’ means ‘repulsive’. Both meanings have a much stronger negative connotation than the original word. As the Russian translation implies only one aspect is enciphered in the name of the main female protagonist, we cannot talk about a successful cultural transplantation when ‘the SL name is replaced by the TL name that has the same cultural connotation as the original one.’8 Ratched is also a pun of ‘ratchet,’ which refers to ratcheting socket wrenches, a device that uses a twisting motion to tighten bolts into place. This pun serves a great metaphorical purpose in Kesey’s narrative, as Miss Ratched is also portrayed as a device used by a society to suppress and destroy an individual. If a patient ‘breaks’ Miss Ratched ‘fixes’ or ‘tightens’ him by using mental torture, electroshock or lobotomy. In this way she holds all aspects of the ward together. In the perception of the narrator of the story, a half-Indian named Bromden, Miss Ratched is also a mechanical instrument in the hands of a huge conglomeration that controls society and forces people into conformity. Bromden calls it the Combine and applies this machinery metaphor first to the ward and then to the whole society. The ratchet-style tightener is also an instrument used when castrating animals. Miss Ratched’s castrating power as ‘a ball cutter’ is executed by psychological torture and the repression of sexual and other desires in her patients by extreme medical means such as electroshock and lobotomy referred to as a ‘frontal-lobe castration,’9 which removes a man’s individuality, freedom, and ability for sexual expression. However, as can be seen through the example of Rawler, a patient in the Disturbed Ward who commits suicide by cutting off his own testicles, Miss Ratched’s castrating power is not merely metaphysical but is asserted physically.

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__________________________________________________________________ The narrator Bromden remarks that ‘all the guy had to do was wait,’10 implying that the institution would castrate them all sooner or later. Finally, when McMurphy decides to confront Miss Ratched he starts provocatively mispronouncing her name as ‘Rat-shed’11 (rat shit). This is an important textual reference, as it signifies the moment when McMurphy’s ‘revolt’ starts after he decides to ‘get the best from this woman.’12 This aspect is completely lost in the translation. It is evident from the context that McMurphy wants to beat Miss Ratched with her own weapon but he realizes what she is capable of. The fact that McMurphy displays bold courage is not evident in the translation in which McMurphy pronounces Miss Ratched’s name as if he were stammering ‘Гнус-с-сен.’ As it is evident from the above analysis, the Soviet translator chose the most ‘negative’ meaning of the word ‘ratched’, ignoring the others. Even though it was impossible to transfer all of the meanings in the Russian translation, the translator could have used extra-textual explanatory techniques, such as footnotes or comments (a common technique in other Soviet translations) which he did in other cases, e.g. explaining that Randle, McMurphy’s first name, had a meaning in English. Bachman specifically points out that the knowledge of cultural references and of the figurative use of language should be considered as a focal element in the translation process. He holds that the readers and listeners need this type of knowledge to make sense of culture-specific names whenever such names occur.13 In Golyshev’s translation the readers are not given any information on the additional meaning of the word ‘ratched.’ It should be noted that in other Russian translations Miss Ratched’s name is transferred directly into Russian without any changes. Another name attached to Miss Ratched in the original is ‘Big Nurse’ which was translated ‘Старшая сестра’ (Senior nurse). In the original the name implies Miss Ratched’s importance. The narrator of the story Brumden also imagines that when Miss Ratched gets angry she ‘blows up bigger and bigger.’14 In my opinion Big Nurse is also an intercultural reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) in which Big Brother refers to an oppressive and allknowing authority which controls people mainly by telescreens.15 Miss Ratched also holds a complete control over all aspects of her patients’ life. To insure the smooth functioning of the ward, Miss Ratched’s control room has a glass door, so that she can observe the patients all the time. This reference is completely lost in the Russian translation for ideological reasons, as Orwell’s works were forbidden in the Soviet Union after the publication of the Animal Farm (1945), an allegory of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. There are many other examples in the translation which illustrate how the character of Miss Ratched underwent significant changes. Speaking about the meaning of such ideologically-aimed textual analysis, it is important from two different perspectives. First of all, analysis of ideologically adapted elements

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__________________________________________________________________ incorporated in translations of Kesey’s novel opens for examination and discussion what I have come to call regime literary translations. By this term I mean translations which contain ideologically unquestionable elements, serve strongly defined ideological purposes and should be considered as a part of ‘sotsial’nyi zakaz’ (social command). The second contribution I hope this study makes is the interpretation itself, as the findings gathered from the analysis of Kesey translation show that literary texts can offer as much information about the relationship between ideology, power relations and discourse as non-literary texts. As such, the study may well suggest a way in which the role of ideological influence on literary translations might be seen differently and, perhaps, more clearly.

Notes 1

Russia’s long history of censorship has been well documented in numerous publications both by Russian and Western experts. However, the actual records of the vast number of books and newspapers that were subjected to strict censorship in Imperial Russia and the USSR are still only accessible in special collections, Russian language manual catalogue card archive and printed lists deposited in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (pre-revolution period) and the Russian State Library in Moscow (the USSR period). 2 Aleksander Zverev, Preface to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, trans. Victor Golyshev (Moskva: Raduga, 1989), 15. 3 Theo Hermans, ‘On Translating Proper Names, with Reference to De Witte and Max Havelaar,’ Modern Dutch Studies: A Volume of Essays in Honour of Professor Peter King, ed. Michael Wintle (London: Athlone, 1988), 11-24. 4 Eirlyus E. Davies, ‘A Goblin or a Dirty Nose?’ The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication 9.1 (2003): 75. 5 Anthony Pym, The Moving Text: Localization, Translation, and Distribution (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004), 92. 6 Urban Dictionary of Slang, viewed on 27 May 2014, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slang. 7 However, slang is a very instable linguistic variety and we cannot be sure if the word ‘ratched’ had already been in use at the time when the novel was published, as the word ‘ratched’ means something else and is also a part of Standard English. 8 Sandor Hervey and Ian Higgins, Thinking Translation (London & New York: Routledge, 1992), 29. 9 Ken Kesey, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 162. 10 Ibid., 57. 11 Ibid., 86. 12 Ibid., 35.

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L. F. Bachman, Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 105. 14 Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 10. 15 George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: Secker & Warburg, 1949).

Bibliography Bachman, Lyle. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford. Oxford University Press: 1990. Davies, Eirlyus. ‘A Goblin or a Dirty Nose?’ The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication 9.1 (2003): 75. Golyshev, Victor, trans. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Moskva: Raduga, 1989. Hermans, Theo. ‘On Translating Proper Names, With Reference to De Witte and Max Havelaar’. Modern Dutch Studies: A Volume of Essays in Honour of Professor Peter King, edited by Michael Wintle, 13-14. London: Athlone, 1988. Hervey, Sandor and Higgins, Ian. Thinking Translation. London & New York: Routledge, 1992. Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. London: Penguin Books, 2007. Pym, Anthony. The Moving Text: Localization, Translation, and Distribution. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949. Zverev, Aleksander. Preface to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, translated by Victor Golyshev. Moskva: Raduga, 1989: 5-18. Natalia Kaloh Vid is an assistant professor at the Department of Translation Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor (Slovenia). She holds a Ph.D. degree in translation studies from the University of Maribor (Slovenia) and also another Ph.D. degree in contemporary Russian literature from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). She is the author of the books Ideological translations of Robert Burns’s poetry in Russia and in the Soviet Union published in 2011 and The Role of Apocalyptic Revelation in Mikhail Bulgakov’s Prose, published in 2012.

Part V The Evil among Us: Evil Women in Contemporary Society

Jealous Men but Evil Women: The Double Standard in Cases of Domestic Homicide Helen Gavin Abstract In 1989, Sara Thornton killed her abusive husband with a knife, after years of abuse and threats to her daughter. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Also in 1989, Kiranjit Ahluwalia soaked her husband’s bedclothes with petrol and set them alight. He died from burns 10 days later, and she was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1991, Joseph McGrail kicked his alcoholic common-law wife to death whilst she lay unconscious. He walked free from court, the judge telling him that ‘this lady would have tried the patience of a saint’. In 1992, Les Humes told a court that he ‘saw a red mist’ after his wife admitted loving someone else. He fatally stabbed her whilst their teenage children struggled with him. He was convicted of manslaughter due to provocation and was imprisoned for 7 years. Double standards in judicial processes are notorious. Chivalric justice is the case in which women are given lighter sentences for similar offences to men. This does not apply in the case of domestic homicide, where women are seen as evil and calculating when killing a spouse, men are seen as provoked beyond reason. Women who kill husbands do so with weapons that they need to acquire, men do it with their hands or weapons that are immediately available. So it is seems the defence of crime passionnel is reserved for men; women, it is implied, premeditate the murder of abusive husbands and are justifiably punished. This chapter explores the double standard in uxoricide vs. mariticide, and why it appears that killing a wife is justified and killing a husband is evil. Key Words: Domestic homicide, double standard, provocation, domestic abuse. ***** 1. Introduction Domestic homicide is the crime of killing a spouse or intimate partner, even if the partners are not living together. For the purposes of this chapter, the term will be used to cover all circumstances in which one partner kills the other, be that the murder of a wife or female intimate partner (uxoricide), husband or male intimate partner (mariticide) or in which the partners are homosexual or transgender. According to Stöckl et al,1 between 14% and 30 % of all homicides globally are perpetrated by an intimate partner. Overwhelmingly, the majority of cases of domestic homicide include a male perpetrator and a female victim. The latest figures from police statistics show that most countries report 80% of domestic homicide is with this dynamic, although some countries, notably the USA (with

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__________________________________________________________________ 50%), deviate from this. Gerbeth2 suggests that domestic violence happens due to a sociocultural and historical acceptance of violence by men in the home, and that domestic homicide is an escalation of this violence with fatal results. It is also true, nevertheless, that women can and do kill in the home, and female fatal violence can be likewise directed towards children, male or female partners, or any third party who gets in the way. What is also clear is that the investigation and punishment of that violence can often be tainted by societal attitudes about what women should and should not do in domestic settings. To understand this, we need to examine male domestic violence and homicide to see why female domestic homicide is regarded so differently. 2. Uxoricide, Men Killing Wives Why do men kill their wives (or other female partner)? Wives and girlfriends can become inconvenient for lots of reasons. They become pregnant at the wrong time, or to the wrong man. They get in the way of a new life with a new partner. They demand money after divorce settlements. They commit infidelity, and decide to leave. Whatever the reason, there is a fair likelihood that a woman will be killed by her husband rather than anyone else. According to Bourget & Gagné3 there is a range of statistically significant risk factors surrounding domestic homicide committed by the male partner, which can lead to behavioural profiles of such offenders. Their profile presentation is a dazzling array of numbers but they reveal a hazy picture of the domestic murderer. Such risk factors include age; the younger the partners are, the more likely one is to be murdered by the other. Secondly, marital status appears to matter, as, ironically, uxoricide is more likely to happen between co-habiting partners than between married couples. Thirdly, a history of domestic violence is a clear risk factor for the murder of a wife or equivalent woman, with somewhere between 60-75% of all male perpetrators of domestic homicide having had at least one instance of physical abuse recorded against them. A further consideration is mental illness. In older offenders, there are high incidences of depression and anxiety disorders, but younger offenders present with other forms of mental illness, including schizophrenia. Less dominant risk factors include nationality status, with a significant proportion of offenders (and their victims) being immigrants to the country in which the murder took place. However, the proportion of offenders of ethnic minority is no larger than would be expected given the percentage of those ethnicities within the population. Is it possible to begin to build a very basic profile of our domestic homicide perpetrator? Well, he is likely to be Caucasian, but only because the majority of nations for which statistics are drawn are predominantly white. He will be relatively young and have a history of domestic violence, either against the homicide victim or other members of the family. He may present with some form of psychopathology, but the likelihood of that being attempted as a defence is high

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__________________________________________________________________ too. Above all, he will be male, as these statistics refer to men killing their wives or equivalent female partner. Such a man kills in a rage, with his hands or a handy weapon, and as a result of the possessiveness and proprietary nature of his view of her as his wife. The question now is whether this is the same for women who kill their husbands, and if so, why they are viewed so very differently in court. 3. Female Crimes, Excluding Murder The cases of Sara Thornton and Kiranjit Ahluwalia, discussed in the abstract, contrast starkly with those of Joseph McGrail and Les Humes. They are also contrary to the double standard usually seen in court when we compare the experiences of male and female defendants. There appears to be an aversion to holding women accountable for their crimes, often termed chivalric justice.4 Men and women receive different sentences for the same conviction, with lower sentences for females, as long as the crime did not offend against societal perceptions of gender stereotypes. Hence, women who shoplift can receive lower sentences than men, as according to Gavin 5 shoplifting is seen as a female preserve, and is pathologised as such. Moreover, it is a female preserve that is also perceived as being linked to various forms of psychopathology, a handy label and defence for our female criminal. However, there is a complementary position in which female offenders who offend outside of normative gender roles are perceived as doubly deviant, 6 the so-called ‘evil woman hypothesis’. This idea posits that women who offend in the same way as men do will receive harsher sentences because they offend not only in terms of their crimes but also in terms of their perceived contravention of expected gendered behaviour.7 Embry and Lyons8 found little support for such a hypothesis, even when crimes such as sexual offences against children were considered, but this label of ‘evil woman’ is given to women who kill without the handy label of mental illness, and harsh sentences are given to women who kill those society views as their protectors. 4. Mariticide, Women Killing Husbands Women who kill their husbands or male intimate partners are seen as conversely weak and evil. To understand this, we need to know why women commit this crime, deemed monstrous and wicked. In their forthcoming book, Gavin and Porter9 outline the reasons why women kill. They are not so far from those cited for men: money, jealousy and love. Women do kill their significant others for money, be it the insurance policy he didn’t know he had signed, or other gains to be had from his death. There are two basic patterns amongst women who kill for money, the so-called black widow and the manipulator. The black widow is a spider, the females of which sometimes eat the male after mating. The term is also applied to a woman who kills her husband for the inheritance she can receive. The second type of female greed killer is the

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__________________________________________________________________ manipulator who gets another person to kill the inconvenient husband. Historically, such women have not been the immediate suspect in a murder, but investigators are moving more to a position of including the wife, daughter, sister in the pool of suspects. In October, 2004, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, human remains were found in a storage tub. In the bottom of the tub were some black bags and a single bullet casing. Forensic and DNA analysis showed the remains to be the partial torso of Jay Orbin, a 45-year-old art dealer reported missing by his wife a month previously. Jay was Marjorie’s third husband, all of whom were rich. When he went missing, Marjorie seemed unconcerned about his welfare. Jay’s clothes appeared to be missing from the home, along with several paintings, but there was a brand new piano in the living room. Marjorie admitted to liquidating Jay’s accounts containing $100,000. Six weeks later, Marjorie was arrested and charged with her husband’s murder. In 2009, she was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to life in prison. Black widows are more common than might be thought. In 1994, Julian Webb was killed by his wife Dena with poisoned curry. He was buried in a family plot in Hayling Island, Hampshire, UK, but his body was exhumed after Dena was cleared of trying to kill her third husband, Richard Thompson in 2000. She attacked Thompson with a baseball bat and knife because she feared for her life during a bondage sex session. However, she was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for conning Thompson and two former lovers out of £12,000. Webb’s exhumation & examination showed a fatal level of anti-depressant medication in his body. Dena was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for the murder of Julian Webb. The problem with women who kill for gain is that the money never seems to be enough, and they become serial killers if not detected early.10 A second reason for killing a husband or partner is love, but not the type of love we might recognise in relationships that are not pathological in nature. Jean Harris was a respected teacher, headmistress of a girls’ school, when she shot Dr. Herman Tarnower, a well-known cardiologist and author of the best-selling book The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. Harris met Tarnower in 1965 and they had a 14year relationship. However, he was not content with one woman, and paraded his other lovers in front of her, whilst also prescribing medications that disturbed her delicate emotions. On March 10 1980, Harris was upset by events at the school, had had several arguments with Tarnower including the topic of a new woman in his life, and he had changed her medication. She drove to his house with a gun, later saying she had intended to commit suicide in front of him. When she got there, they had an argument in which Tarnower allegedly told her to leave him alone. She shot him four times at close range. She later claimed that he was trying to get the gun off her and it went off accidentally.

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__________________________________________________________________ The case and trial attracted a great deal of attention, as Tarnower was famous and both of them inhabited what many saw as a privileged and elite world. Harris appeared unemotional throughout, and this is thought to have contributed to the lack of sympathy from the jury; she was convicted of second degree murder. She had refused to offer a defence of extreme emotional disturbance, which might have led to a conviction for manslaughter. Harris was consumed by her jealousy and feelings of abandonment. There is evidence to suggest that Tarnower behaved badly, but he was undoubtedly killed because his behaviour led to a fatal set of emotions in Jean Harris. Women who kill because they develop a fatal jealousy either perceive their partners as desirable by others and/or they have feelings of inadequacy in their own value as a mate. Hence the motive for murder is the infidelity, real or imagined, of a partner. This pathological jealousy is one which leads a person to seek conflict in contrast to normal jealousy. 11 Some jealousy is normal, and there are concrete reasons for it, but pathological jealousy results from imagination of infidelity. A desire to hurt the partner follows from a need to express intense feelings of anger and humiliation in a person predisposed to behave aggressively. This seems to describe Jean Harris but in fact her jealousy was triggered by real events, as Tarnower did not hide the fact that he was seeing other women. Jean Harris killed her lover because she was either jealous of his new sexual interest and she was afraid of losing him to a much younger woman, or because she was suicidal, unhappy and killed him by accident as she tried to end her own life. Whatever she was, she was not afraid of Tarnower. There is a set of women across the world sitting in prison, because they feared their partners so much that they killed them. There is no greater example of the disparity in the perpetration and consequences of male and female violence than in the killing of an abusive partner. Battered person syndrome refers to any person presenting with identified physical descriptors of adult physical abuse, classified under ‘Injury and Poisoning’.12 The DSM-V 13 does not list diagnostic categories for reactions to physical abuse but may place them under separate diagnoses of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or depression. The syndrome has a legal status beyond the condemnation of the person who batters the victim. It has been used as the basis of the so-called ‘battered woman defence’, 14 used to explain how a woman has killed a partner through self-defence when the killing appears to be premeditated. In other words, anyone who has received constant and severe domestic violence including physical and/or emotional abuse, and become unable to take independent action allowing escape from the abuse. Hence the abused person is unable to seek assistance, fight the abuser or leave. There is an accepted body of research supporting this issue. Legally, courts have recognised that there are circumstances in which domestic violence may lead to a situation in which the abused will kill. The disparity between cases such as that of Sara Thornton and Joseph McGrail are dramatic, but do serve to highlight the position that women who kill their

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__________________________________________________________________ husbands are seen as much more culpable than men who kill wives. The disparity between the two cases has led to the examination of the concept of provocation. Mrs McGrail never attacked her partner Joseph physically, yet he was determined to have been provoked into murder. In Sara Thornton’s case, there was a large body of evidence that her husband had beaten her, and that she felt that she and her daughter were in danger, yet she was convicted of murder. These cases led to the formation of the UK campaign group Justice for Women who point out that men who kill their female partners often justify their actions by claiming that they lost control. In court, judges expressed sympathy for this defence, suggesting men who were nagged or cheated on by female partners were justified in killing them. However, there is little sympathy for women who kill after experiencing domestic violence. The dominant emotions in women who are battered are fear and despair, not a sudden, explosive loss of self-control. Hence the distinction between the acts appears to be an acceptance of male reactive aggression, and a condemnation of acts that seem to be instrumental. A woman is unlikely to be in the position of killing her often physically larger and stronger husband in a physical altercation, and she must therefore leave the situation to get a weapon; thus making the act appear premeditated. Historically, women who killed husbands in this way were seen as mentally unbalanced, and committed to an asylum, if indeed they escaped the death sentence. Sara Thornton lives in the UK, but in the US it is estimated that there are over 2000 women in prison because they have murdered an intimate partner in self-defence.15 Battered person syndrome as a defence for killing is highly controversial. It evokes many emotions, some different dependent on the sex of the observer. For those who do not live in fear every day it is difficult to comprehend how such feelings can lead to killing another human being. We therefore assume the killing was instrumental and premeditated. And that equates to evil. So, men who kill wives in explosive anger and unplanned actions are seen as almost justified, the crime passionnel or, more mundanely, temporary insanity defence that abounds in history, fiction and contemporary reality. The lack of weapons beyond hands, or feet perhaps, adds to the perception that the murder was committed due to extreme provocation. Women who experience such dangerous emotions are unlikely to be able to kill their husbands with the same weapons, and must wait until a weapon is at hand, or the husband is asleep. This makes the crime appear premeditated, and not due to the emotional state of the woman and the relationship. This offends against much of society’s acceptance of man as protector and woman as protected. In some cases, it is true, the crimes are clearly planned, and the killer gains much from the death of the spouse. But it is the people who kill their spouses because of provocation that demonstrate the most puzzling of double standards, and we are at a loss to understand why it appears that killing a wife is justified and killing a husband is evil.

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__________________________________________________________________ The message that underlies much of this research, however, is that, if you were to be murdered, the most likely suspect is the person with whom you share a bed.

Notes 1

Heidi Stöckl, Karen Devries, Alexandra Rotstein, Naeemah Abrahams, Jacquelyn Campbell, Charlotte Watts and Claudia Garcia Moreno, ‘The Global Prevalence of Intimate Partner Homicide: A Systematic Review,’ The Lancet 382.9895 (2013): 859-865, is a review of research and statistical patterns revealing the extent of intimate partner homicide across the world. 2 Vernon J. Geberth, ‘Domestic Violence Homicides,’ Law and Order 46 (1998): 51-54, suggests that we accept domestic violence by men because of an acceptance of the man as the head of the household who is entitled to keep the rest of the household members under control and to punish them as necessary. 3 Dominique Bourget and Pierre Gagné, ‘Women Who Kill Their Mates,’ Behavioral Sciences and the Law 30.5 (2012): 598-614, presents the ways in which intimate partner homicide can occur, and the risk factors that may determine its appearance. 4 Theresa Porter and Helen Gavin, ‘Infanticide and Neonaticide: A Review of 40 Years of Research Literature on Incidence and Causes,’ Trauma, Violence, and Abuse 11.3 (2010): 99-112. In this chapter on the killing of children, the authors include the idea of chivalry for women offenders affecting the sentencing for various crimes. 5 Helen Gavin, Criminological and Forensic Psychology (London: Sage publications, 2014). In the chapter on stealing, the view of shoplifting as a gendered crime is examined. 6 David Mellor and Rebecca Deering, ‘Professional Response and Attitudes toward Female-Perpetrated Child Sexual Abuse: A Study of Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Probationary Psychologists and Child Protection Workers,’ Psychology, Crime and Law 16.5 (2010): 415-438. In this chapter, the authors suggest that female perpetrated sexual abuse is still being ignored due to a level of disbelief. 7 Fernando S. Rodriguez, Theodore R. Curry and Gang Lee, ‘Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?’ Social Science Quarterly 87.2 (2006): 318-339. Rodriguez et al., studied the way in which men and women were sentenced for the same offence, across a range of offences. 8 Randa Embry and Phillip M. Lyons, ‘Sex-Based Sentencing Discrepancies Between Male and Female Sex Offenders,’ Feminist Criminology 7.2 (2012): 146162, suggested that the perceived discrepancies in sentencing were not borne out in reality

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__________________________________________________________________ 9

Helen Gavin and Theresa Porter, Female Aggression (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) examines the ways in which female aggression is carried out, perceived and dealt with across a range of behaviours. 10 Trina Robbins, Tender Murderers: Women Who Kill (San Francisco: Conari Press (2003) points out that women, aside from the battered self-defence cases, kill for the same reasons as men, mostly, but remain undetected as we do not suspect them. The victims are just as dead though. 11 Gregory, L. White and Paul E. Mullen, Jealousy: Theory, Research, and Clinical Strategies (New York: Guilford Press, 1989), is a review of research on romantic jealousy and offers a framework by which it can be examined. 12 World Health Organization, The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines, Vol. 1 (Geneva: WHO Press, 2010), is a global resource for the recognition, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. The latest revision, ICD-11, is due to be published in 2017. 13 American Psychiatric Association (APA), The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (Arlington, VA: APA, 2013). The latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the standard reference manual for the assessment of psychiatric conditions. 14 Law Commission, Partial Defences to Murder: Report on a Reference Under Section 3 (1)(e) of the Law Commissions Act 1965, Vol. 6301 (London: Law Commission of Great Britain, 2004). The Law Commission of Great Britain reported on the use of the battered person syndrome as a partial defence against the charge of murder 15 Jill Messing and John Heeren, ‘Gendered Justice: Domestic Homicide and the Death Penalty,’ Feminist Criminology 4 (2009,): 170-188. In this chapter, Messing and Heeren present evidence that women committing domestic homicide are disproportionately given life or capital sentences compared to men.

Bibliography American Psychiatric Association (APA). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V APA Arlington VA (2013) Bourget, Dominique and Pierre Gagné. ‘Women Who Kill Their Mates.’ Behavioral Sciences and the Law 30.5 (2012): 598-614. Embry, Randa, and Phillip M. Lyons. ‘Sex-Based Sentencing Sentencing Discrepancies between Male and Female Sex Offenders.’ Feminist Criminology 7.2 (2012): 146-162.

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__________________________________________________________________ Gavin, Helen and Theresa Porter. Female Aggression. Wiley-Blackwell: London , 2014 Gavin, Helen. Criminological and Forensic Psychology. London: Sage publications, 2014 Geberth, Vernon J. ‘Domestic Violence Homicides’. Law and Order 46 (1998): 51-54. Law Commission. Partial Defences to Murder: Report on a Reference Under Section 3 (1)(e) of the Law Commissions Act 1965, Vol. 6301. Great Britain: The Stationery Office, 2004. Mellor, David and Rebecca Deering. ‘Professional Response and Attitudes toward Female-Perpetrated Child Sexual Abuse: A Study of Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Probationary Psychologists and Child Protection Workers.’ Psychology, Crime and Law 16.5 (2010): 415-438. Messing, Jill and John Heeren. ‘Gendered Justice: Domestic Homicide and the Death Penalty’. Feminist Criminology 4 (2008): 170-188. Robbins, Trina. Tender Murderers: Women Who Kill. Newburyport, MA: Conari Press, 2003. Rodriguez, Fernando S., Theodore R. Curry and Gang Lee. ‘Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?’ Social Science Quarterly 87.2 (2006): 318-339. Stöckl, Heidi, Karen Devries, Alexandra Rotstein, Naeemah Abrahams, Jacquelyn Campbell, Charlotte Watts and Claudia Garcia Moreno. ‘The Global Prevalence of Intimate Partner Homicide: A Systematic Review’. The Lancet 382.9895 (2013): 859-865. White, Gregory L., and Paul E. Mullen. Jealousy: Theory, Research, and Clinical Strategies. New York: Guilford Press, 1989. World Health Organization. The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines, Vol. 1. World Health Organization, 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ Helen Gavin is Director of Graduate Education at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She is a criminal psychologist by training and the author of numerous papers and books in this area. In addition to murder, mayhem and madness, she also carries out research in fairy tales and music, but has somehow managed to discover the dark side of these topics too.

Evil Women and Hyperfemininity: Hyper-Gender and Sexual Offending by Women Theresa Porter and Jacquelyn Bent Abstract Western culture has seen a growth in post-genderism since the 1960’s, with both sexes refusing to be reduced to socially constructed gender roles. Many people choose to be defined by their humanity, rather than their masculinity or femininity. This is not a universal decision, however and both sexes may adhere to gender roles to varying degrees. While psychological research has investigated the extreme end of masculinity (Hypermasculinity) for many years, research into women on the extreme end of femininity is relatively new. A subset of women assimilates gender roles as primary to their identities. Research on this population of women, defined as Hyperfeminine, indicates that they base their concept of personal success on their ability to obtain and maintain a heterosexual relationship, utilizing their sexuality and manipulation as the key tools to achieve this goal. While Hyperfemininity is not generally considered problematic, recent research has found a striking association between Hyperfemininity and sexually coercive behaviour. Hyperfeminine women were more likely to use coercive sexual tactics with their adult male partners than women who did not subscribe to exaggerated gender roles. This chapter will examine this recent research on Hyperfemininity, its relationship to adversarial relational styles, rape myth acceptance and sexual compulsivity. Finally, it will explore the difficulty a gendered society has in seeing gendered behaviour, even when looking at it. Key Words: Gender, femininity, sexual coercion, love-styles. ***** 1. Male Sexual Aggression For several years, researchers have investigated the beliefs and motivations of males in a search for the factors that increase their likelihood of sexual aggression. Males who engage in coercive sexual behaviours are more likely to endorse adversarial relationship beliefs compared to other males.1 Other studies have found sexual aggression by males to be related to a hypermasculine disposition. Further research has found that heterosexual males who hold adversarial relational styles are more likely to accept rape myths.2 In turn, separate research has found that hypermasculine men are more likely to hold adversarial heterosexual beliefs and to agree with rape myths.3 In other words, hypermasculinity is correlated with rape myth acceptance, with adversarial beliefs about relationships and with sexual coercion, providing a clearer picture of what unconscious beliefs and dispositions put males at risk for engaging in coercive sexual behaviour.

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__________________________________________________________________ The picture regarding female sexual aggression remains far less clear. To some degree, research on female sexual aggression remains 20 years behind that of males. What are the unconscious beliefs and worldview of women who engage in sexual aggression and do the factors that predict sexual aggression in men also help us predict it in heterosexual women? 2. Sexual Coercion While the public discourse on sexual aggression tends to focus on violent forms such as rape, less violent forms of sexual aggression such as sexual coercion are far more common. The term sexual coercion includes behaviours that are used to pressure a potential partner into having sex despite that person’s disinclination or outright refusal. It usually takes the form of verbal pressure and common coercive practices include nagging and making insistent arguments, insulting the other’s appearance or sexual prowess, threatening to end the relationship, lying and making false promises or threatening to spread lies or rumors. In these cases, sexual coercion can be conceptualized as a form of bullying behaviour. However, sexual coercion can also take the form of exploitation of one’s power or authority, such as having sex with a student, a minor, a prison inmate or other person who cannot freely consent to sex due to inherent power imbalances.4 Another form of sexual coercion involves inducing or encouraging intoxication for the purpose of sexual access. While the intoxicated partner is not physically forced into sexual activity, neither is he or she able to give informed consent due to incapacitation. 3. Rape Myth Acceptance and Sexual Coercion Rape myths are attitudes or beliefs about rape, victims and perpetrators stemming from stereotyped views of gendered behaviour and often used to minimise and justify sexual aggression. As noted above, while the connection between male rape myth acceptance and male sexual aggression is well documented, females can also accept and act on rape myths regarding male sexual availability. Women can hold mistaken beliefs regarding the behaviour and responsibility of other women. Cowen (2000) noted that women who are generally hostile to other women are more likely to blame female victims of rape and have more tolerant views of interpersonal violence.5 Rape myth acceptance also applies to male victims and female perpetrators of sexual aggression.6 Females may hold stereotyped views of males, seeing them as only interested in sex and being constantly sexually available. For example, Margolin (1990) assessed reactions to a vignette with heterosexual couples in which one partner withheld consent for a kiss and the other partner violated that consent by ‘stealing’ a kiss. There was much more support for the woman violating the man’s consent but also far less support for the man withholding his consent.7 Follow up research on this study found that this transgression against a man who withheld consent was

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__________________________________________________________________ perceived as ‘complimentary’ and the man was expected to experience it as ‘flattering’ or ‘harmless’.8 Clements-Schreiber et al. (1998) reported that there is a widespread cultural belief that men ought to eagerly accept any offer for sex with women and should do so with gratitude. If men are sexually accessible at all times, then they cannot really be raped or sexually victimized. They found a population of women who use high pressure tactics against men such as ‘push him onto the bed and begin to undress him’. They found that women who endorsed using these tactics were more likely to also endorse a belief in the ease of male sexual accessibility.9 From this perspective, a woman cannot sexually assault a man because he ‘wants it’ and will do nearly anything to get sex.10 In a related study investigating beliefs about the cause of sexual desire, 30% of the women attributed a man’s sexual desire simply to his ‘maleness’. In other words, for these women, being sexually aroused and available is a precondition of being male.11 4. Adversarial Relationship Beliefs and Sexual Coercion Studies of relationship interaction patterns among adults have found that both men and women hold specific expectations about intimate relationships, often termed love styles.12 In the original research there were six relational styles: • • • • • •

Eros (relationships that are romantic) Agape (relationships that are altruistic) Mania (relationships that are obsessive) Pragma (relationships that are pragmatic) Storge (relationships that are affectionate) Ludic (relationship that are adversarial or conflicttual)

People who hold adversarial attitudes towards relationships unconsciously expect their relationships to be exploitative and for their partners to be manipulative and untrustworthy. They also engage in duplicitous behaviours themselves. Test measures that discern unconscious adversarial beliefs about relationships often use descriptions of amorous relationships that involve lying and cheating to one’s partner. Adversarial relationship beliefs are conceptually related to rape myth acceptance as sexual aggression exists on the extreme end of an adversarial, exploitative attitude towards the opposite sex.13 Several researchers have found that women who hold adversarial beliefs about relationships were more likely to engage in sexually coercive behaviours, including physical tactics and that women who engage in sexual coercion were more likely to believe that relationships are exploitative and adversarial.14 For example, Menard et al. (2003) could predict whether women had a history of engaging in sexual harassment depending on whether or not the women held adversarial beliefs about relationships.15 Women who viewed relationships as inherently adversarial were

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__________________________________________________________________ more likely to have engaged in sexually coercive behaviours. Christopher et al. (1993) found that women who used tactics such as threats, ridicule and guilt to obtain sexual contact with male partners tended to view male/female relationships as adversarial by nature and to have highly conflicted relationships.16 Hines (2007) went further, suggesting that sexual coercion is a product of the belief that sexual relationships are inherently adversarial. In her multinational study of over 7,000 university students, she found that as women’s gender hostility towards men increased, male experience of both sexual coercion and forced sex increased.17 Not only are Adversarial relationship beliefs related to rape myth acceptance and to sexual coercion, they are also related to Hyperfemininity and hypergender. For example, Murnen et al. (1989) found that women who followed more traditional gender behaviour are also more likely to remain in adversarial and conflicttual relationships.18 McKelvie and Gold (1994) studied the mental health and character of hyperfeminine women and found a significant correlation between Hyperfemininity, antisocial personality traits and general hostility.19 And Russell and Oswald (2002) found that the sexually coercive women in their study were the hyperfeminine ones while masculine attitudes were seen in the non-coercive women.20 5. Hypergender and Sexual Coercion Hyperfemininity is a sociological term describing an exaggerated adherence to a feminine gender role as part of one’s identity development.21 For the purpose of this chapter, we will be referring only to Hyperfemininity within a heterosexual context. Hyperfeminine women believe that their success in life is determined by creating and maintaining relationships with men; hyperfeminine women define themselves in context with men. Women who are part of this sub-group perceive their primary value in a relationship as sexual and they view sexual behaviour as a tool for the attainment of their goal.22 These women also expect their male partners to be sexually and physically aggressive. Hypermasculinity is the corollary to Hyperfemininity and includes beliefs around danger and violence as well as a sexualised view of women. Hypergender can be measured with scales such as the Hypergender Ideology Scale,23 the Hyperfemininity Scale24 and the Hypermasculinity Inventory.25 Research on masculinity have found it to be correlated with agency and independence while research on Hypermasculinity has found it to be associated with social problems including increased risk of physical aggression towards both women and men and decreased communication skills.26 Hyperfemininity has been found to be associated with an attraction to males who engage in bullying behaviour,27 with higher use of alcohol and lower use of contraception during sexual activity,28 and with higher rates of consensual sexual activity compared to non-hyperfeminine women.29

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__________________________________________________________________ New research indicates that Hyperfemininity is significantly correlated with sexual coercion. Schatzel-Murphy et al. (2009) found no significant difference between males and females in the use of sexual pressure tactics. Her later research examined the relationship between sexual coercion by women and several factors including HF, Rape Myth Acceptance, sexual compulsivity and attitudes towards casual sex. She found that women’s sexually coercive behaviour was tied to all of these factors.30 This research corresponds with research by that of Logan et al. (2001) and by D’Andrea (2013) who noted that hyperfemininity is not simply about gender roles but is also associated with a sexual motivation or sexual goal; to maintain a sexual relationship with a male which is of priority importance.31 Hyperfemininity is associated with adversarial relationship beliefs. McKelvie and Gold (1994) found that hyperfeminine women were simultaneously committed to relationship maintenance yet willing to engage in manipulation, tolerant of coercion and avoidant of open communication. They also noted that Hyperfemininity was a stable characteristic found in two different age samples; one with an average age of 18 years and one with an average age of 33 years.32 Because a hyperfeminine woman sees mate attainment as a primary goal and views her sexuality as a tool for that goal, problems can arise if a man declines to have sex with her. Refusal by a male partner can threaten her perception of both males and herself. Maybach and Gold (1994) found that the hyperfeminine women in their study reported greater anger at the idea of being sexually rejected by a man, compared to other women.33 Rather than questioning their underlying genderrelated beliefs (i.e. men only want sex from women, a woman must have a man in her life), they experience such a refusal as a threat to their self-conception.34 This puts them at risk of engaging in sexual aggression.35 6. Female Sexual Coercion The topic of sexual coercion has been studied since the early 1980’s and is a relatively common tactic used by women. A quick review of the available research shows just how wide-spread sexual coercion by women is. Studies at U.S. universities show that between 10-25% of the women report engaging in sexual coercion including inducing intoxication in potential sex partners.36 The issue of sexual coercion by women isn’t just a U.S. problem. There have been several multinational studies which show similar levels of sexual coercion by women in cultures as diverse as Brazil and Poland.37 Victim reports of sexual coercion by women show an even higher prevalence, with 38% to 58% of university males reporting these experiences,38 and intentional intoxication as one of the most common tactics used.39 When we add in sexual coercion by women who abuse their positions of power over minors, we find that the prevalence is even higher.

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__________________________________________________________________ 7. Hyperfemininity, Sexual Compulsion and Intimacy-Seeking An initial study on femininity and sexual aggression noted that those women who felt rejected by a potential sex partner were 2.39 times more likely to engage in sexually coercive behaviours.40 Rejection increased the women’s sexual aggression towards men. A second study found that the women who engaged in sexually coercive behaviour also reported experiences of sexual compulsivity. Sexual compulsivity involves the experience of sexual urges that feel out of control and overpowering and is related to sensation-seeking behaviours, boredom sensitivity and sexual urges.41 The connection between sexual coercion and sexual compulsivity is somewhat intuitive and there have been several studies of male sex offenders which indicated that they have high levels of compulsive sexual behaviour. However, when the researchers published their findings that sexual coercion in women was associated with sexual compulsivity, rather than discussing sexual compulsivity as a sensation or drive issue, they theorized that the sexually coercive HF women were engaging in the sexual aggression for the purpose of interpersonal connection and intimacy-seeking.42 In other words, when confronted with data that showed that women having compulsive sexual urges that correlated to sexual aggression, the researchers reframed this as really a drive towards intimacy. This reframing occurred despite the existence of other studies on sexual compulsivity which have found that women and men have similar levels of sexual compulsivity.43 Why would the researchers view the hyperfeminine women’s sexual compulsivity and coercion as a form of intimacy-seeking? One possible explanation is the gendered sexual scripts for women that are pervasive in our culture, even among psychological researchers. Denov, an early theorist on sexual offending by women, wrote that when confronted by evidence of sexual aggression by women, people automatically convert the behaviour into something that fits cultural norms.44 This can be done by denying any malice to the women’s actions and by claiming that their motivations were harmless.45 By claiming that sexual coercion by HF women is actually a form of intimacy-seeking behaviours, the sexual aggression is transformed. Another possibility is that the researchers were correct. Does a desire for intimacy increase women’s risk of sexually coercive behaviour? Zurbriggen (2000) used a projective assessment to measure women’s intimacy or affiliation motives and found that the women who had higher intimacy-affiliation motives reported engaging in more sexually coercive behaviours in their past if they also held a belief that sex and power were connected. In other words, holding an adversarial belief about relationships and desiring intimacy actually increased the women’s sexual coercion.46 In the 1980’s, Mason and Blankenship found that women with high affiliation-intimacy motivation and low inhibition were more likely to engage in intimate partner violence.47 While it seems counterintuitive, it is as if these women have the goal of being with a partner and are willing to engage in antisocial means of achieving that goal.

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__________________________________________________________________ 8. Hyperfemininity Disorder? As HF is a relatively new area of exploration, the acknowledgement must be made that the psychological sciences all too often pathologizes women’s sexual behaviour as a way of exerting control over this part of the population. We recognize that a line must be maintained between identifying predatory sexual behaviour and the less egregious behaviours noted above. For example, while male psychopaths are noted for their instrumental physical aggression, female psychopaths are known to engage in goal-directed sexual behaviour to achieve particular aims. This is often suggested as a consequence of the physical differences manifest in males and females but does not suggest that females are incapable of instrumental aggression. Similarly, both male and female psychopaths are generally described as prone to casual sexual contact, as well as to conning and manipulative relationships that are parasitic in nature. Examining the possible relationship between pathological HF and personality disorders such as psychopathy may prove particularly fruitful in terms of understanding the gender differences in personality disorders as well as better understanding HF. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSM V), the tome used to describe and catalogue psychiatric disorders, describes personality disorders as ‘an impairment of personality functioning and pathological personality traits’ and the generic criteria for identifying a personality disorder includes the idea that the individual’s functioning is fixed and pervasive across a variety of contexts and situations, stable over time and the impairment applies to one’s self as well as interactions with others. 9. Summary Despite the significant rates just mentioned, there is a systematic bias in the academic and human rights discourse against focusing on female perpetrators of sexual aggression. Colleges and universities routinely discuss rape prevention in terms of male perpetrators and female victims but a discussion of the reverse is extremely rare. Despite numerous studies showing a significant prevalence of sexual aggression by women, the common view is that women don’t do such things and if they do, the victims weren’t harmed. To some degree, this may be due to the fact that, by being hyperfeminine, these women are fulfilling (or over-fulfilling) cultural demands of gendered behaviour and therefore don’t stand out. These women aren’t defying community standards by engaging in physical force or by using a weapon. Instead, their use of the supposedly ‘seductive’ or ‘manipulative’ tactics allows them and their actions to be framed as less important, less harmful. In a society where the ultimate rape myth is that all sexual aggressors are hypermasculine, the hyperfeminine sexual aggressor has the perfect disguise.

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Notes 1

David B. Sarver, et al., ‘Sexual Aggression and Love Styles: An Exploratory Study’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 22 (1993): 265-275; Seth Kalichman, et al., ‘Sexually Coercive Behavior and Love Styles: A Replication and Extension’, Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 6 (1994): 93-106; Brenda L. Russell and Debra L. Oswald, ‘Sexual Coercion and Victimization of College Men: The Role of Love Styles.’ Journal of Interpersonal Violence 17 (2002): 273-285. 2 Martha R. Burt, ‘Cultural Myths and Supports for Rape’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (1980): 217-230. 3 William O’Donohue, et al., ‘Rape: The Roles of Outcome Expectancies and Hypermasculinity’, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 8 (1996): 133-141. 4 Michal Buchhandler-Raphael, ‘Sexual Abuse of Power’, University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 21 (2010): 77-107. 5 Gloria Cowan, ‘Women’s Hostility toward Women and Rape and Sexual Harassment Myths.’ Violence Against Women 6 (2000): 238-246. 6 Cecilia Kjellgren, et al., Female Youth Who Sexually Coerce: Prevalence, Risk, and Protective Factors in Two National High School Surveys, The Journal of Sexual Medicine 8 (2011): 3354-3362. 7 Leslie Margolin, ‘Gender and the Stolen Kiss: The Social Support of Male and Female to Violate a Partner’s Sexual Consent in a Non-Coercive Situation’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 19 (1990): 281-291. 8 Michael R. Semonsky and Lawrence B. Rosenfeld, ‘Perceptions of Sexual Violations: Denying a Kiss, Stealing a Kiss,’ Sex Roles 30 (1994): 503-520. 9 Michele Clements‐Schreiber, John K. Rempel and Serge Desmarais, ‘Women’s Sexual Pressure Tactics and Adherence to Related Attitudes: A Step toward Prediction,’ Journal of Sex Research 35 (1998): 197-205. 10 Michele E. Clements-Schreiber and John K. Rempel, ‘Women’s Acceptance of Stereotypes about Male Sexuality: Correlations with Strategies to Influence Reluctant Partners’, Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 4 (1995). 11 Pamela C. Regan and Ellen Berscheid, ‘Gender Differences in Beliefs about the Causes of Male and Female Sexual Desire’, Personal Relationships 2 (1995): 345358. 12 John A. Lee, Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving (Toronto: New Press, 1973). 13 Martha Burt, ‘Cultural Myths and Supports for Rape’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (1980): 217-230. 14 Peter B. Anderson, ‘Correlates of College Women’s Self-Reports of Heterosexual Aggression’, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 8 (1996): 121-131; F. Scott Christopher, Mary Madura and Lori Weaver, ‘Premarital

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__________________________________________________________________ Sexual Aggressors: A Multivariate Analysis of Social, Relational, and Individual Variables’, Journal of Marriage and the Family (1998): 56-69. 15 Kim Ménard et al., ‘Gender Differences in Sexual Harassment and Coercion in College Students Developmental, Individual, and Situational Determinants’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 18 (2003): 1222-1239. 16 F. Scott Christopher, Laura Owens and Heidi Stecker, ‘An Examination of Single Men’s and Women’s Sexual Aggressiveness in Dating Relationships’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 10 (1993): 511-527. 17 Denise A. Hines, ‘Predictors of Sexual Coercion against Women and Men: A Multilevel, Multinational Study of University Students’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 36 (2007): 403-422. 18 Sarah K. Murnen, Annette Perot, and Donn Byrne, ‘Coping with Unwanted Sexual Activity: Normative Responses, Situational Determinants, and Individual Differences.’ Journal of Sex Research 26 (1989): 85-106. 19 Melissa McKelvie and Steven R. Gold, ‘Hyperfemininity: Further Definition of the Construct,’ Journal of Sex Research 31(1994): 219-228. 20 Brenda L. Russell and Debra L. Oswald, ‘Sexual Coercion and Victimization of College Men the Role of Love Styles,’ Journal of Interpersonal Violence 17 (2002): 273-285. 21 Melannie Matschiner and Sarah K. Murnen, ‘Hyperfemininity and Influence’, Psychology of Women Quarterly 23 (1999): 631-642. 22 Sarah K. Murnen and Donn Byrne, ‘Hyperfemininity: Measurement and Initial Validation of the Construct’, Journal of Sex Research 28 (1991): 479-489. 23 Merle E. Hamburger et al., ‘Assessing Hypergender Ideologies: Development and Initial Validation of a Gender-Neutral Measure of Adherence to Extreme Gender-Role Beliefs’, Journal of Research in Personality 30 (1996): 157-178. 24 Sarah K. Murnen, ‘The Hyperfemininity Scale’, in Handbook of SexualityRelated Measures, eds. Clive Davis et al. (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998), 258-261. 25 Donald L. Mosher, ‘Hypermasculinity Inventory,’ Handbook of SexualityRelated Measures, eds. Clive Davis et al. (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998): 472-474. 26 Tyson Kreiger and Larry E. Dumka, ‘The Relationships between Hypergender, Gender, and Psychological Adjustment’, Sex Roles 54 (2006): 777-785. 27 Julaine E. Field, Laura M. Crothers and Jered B. Kolbert, ‘Adolescent Female Gender Identity and Attraction to Male Bullies and Victims’, Journal of Emotional Abuse 7 (2007): 1-15. 28 T. K. Logan, Michele Staton and Carl Leukefeld, ‘Hyperfemininity, HIV Risk Behavior, and Victimization among College Aged Females’, Salud y drogas 1 (2001): 161-181 29 Melissa McKelvie and Steven R. Gold, ‘Hyperfemininity: Further Definition of the Construct’, Journal of Sex Research 31 (1994): 219-228.

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Elizabeth A. Schatzel-Murphy, ‘Expanding a Model of Female Heterosexual Coercion: Are Sexually Coercive Women Hyperfeminine? (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Boston, 2012). 31 T. K. Logan, Michele Staton and Carl Leukefeld. ‘Hyperfemininity, HIV Risk Behavior, and Victimization among College Aged Females’, Salud y drogas 1 (2001): 161-181; Jaclyn M. D’Andrea, ‘Hyper-Gender Roles in Relation to Sexual Aggression (MA thesis, Eastern Illinois University, 2013). 32 Melissa McKelvie and Steven R. Gold, ‘Hyperfemininity: Further Definition of the Construct.’ Journal of Sex Research 31 (1994): 219-228. 33 Kristine L. Maybach and Steven R. Gold, ‘Hyperfemininity and Attraction to Macho and Non‐Macho Men,’ Journal of Sex Research 31 (1994): 91-98. 34 Margaret O’Dougherty Wright, Dana L. Norton and Jill Anne Matusek, ‘Predicting Verbal Coercion Following Sexual Refusal during a Hookup: Diverging Gender Patterns’, Sex Roles 62 (2010): 647-660. 35 Kim S. Menard et al., ‘Gender Differences in Sexual Harassment and Coercion in College Students Developmental, Individual, and Situational Determinants’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 18 (2003): 1222-1239. 36 Peter Anderson, ‘Correlates of College Women’s Self-Reports of Heterosexual Aggression’, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 8 (1996): 121131; Peter Anderson, ‘Variations in College Women’s Self-Reported Heterosexual Aggression’ Sex Abuse 10 (1998): 283-292; Janine M. Zweig, Bonnie L. Barber, and Jacquelynne S. Eccles, ‘Sexual Coercion and Well-Being in Young Adulthood Comparisons by Gender and College Status’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 12 (1997): 291-308. 37 Manuel Gamez-Guadix and Murray Straus, ‘Childhood and Adolescent Victimization and Sexual Coercion and Assault by Male and Female University Students’, Journal of Marriage and Family (in press); Krystyna Doroszewicz and Gordon B. Forbes, ‘Experiences with Dating Aggression and Sexual Coercion Among Polish College Students’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 23 (2008): 5873. 38 Cailey Hartwick, Serge Desmarais, and Karl Hennig, ‘Characteristics of Male and Female Victims of Sexual Coercion’, Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 16 (2007): 31-41; Martin Fiebert and Lisa Tucci, ‘Sexual Coercion: Men Victimized by Women’, Journal of Men’s Studies 6 (1998): 127-133. 39 Peter Anderson and William Sorenson, ‘Male and Female Differences in Report of Women’s Heterosexual Initiation and Aggression’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 28 (1999): 285-295; Barbara Krahe, Renate Scheiberger-Olwig and Steffen Bieneck, ‘Men’s Reports of Nonconsensual Sexual Interactions with Women: Prevalence and Impact’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 32 (2003): 165-175.

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__________________________________________________________________ 40

Margaret O’Dougherty Wright, Dana L. Norton and Jill Anne Matusek, ‘Predicting Verbal Coercion Following Sexual Refusal during a Hookup: Diverging Gender Patterns’, Sex Roles 62 (2010): 647-660. 41 Nathan W. Stupiansky et al., ‘The Role of Sexual Compulsivity in Casual Sexual Partnerships among College Women’, Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 16 (2009): 241-252. 42 Elizabeth A. Schatzel-Murphy et al., ‘Sexual Coercion in Men and Women: Similar Behaviors, Different Predictors’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 38 (2009): 974-986. 43 Brian Dodge et al., ‘Sexual Compulsivity among Heterosexual College Students’, Journal of Sex Research 41 (2004): 343-350. 44 Myriam S. Denov, ‘Culture of Denial: Exploring Professional Perspectives on Female Sex Offending’, Canadian Journal of Criminology 43 (2001): 303-329. 45 Hilary Allen, ‘Rendering them Harmless: The Professional Portrayal of Women Charged with Serious Violent Crimes’, Gender, Crime and Justice (1987): 81-94. 46 Eileen L. Zurbriggen, ‘Social Motives and Cognitive Power–Sex Associations: Predictors of Aggressive Sexual Behavior,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (2000): 559-581. 47 Avonne Mason and Virginia Blankenship, ‘Power and Affiliation Motivation, Stress, and Abuse in Intimate Relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987): 203.

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__________________________________________________________________ Burt, Martha R. ‘Cultural Myths and Supports for Rape’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (1980): 217-230. Clements-Schreiber, Michele E. and John K. Rempel. ‘Women’s Acceptance of Stereotypes about Male Sexuality: Correlations with Strategies to Influence Reluctant Partners’. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 4 (1995). Clements‐Schreiber, Michele, John K. Rempel and Serge Desmarais, ‘Women’s Sexual Pressure Tactics and Adherence to Related Attitudes: A Step toward Prediction’. Journal of Sex Research 35 (1998): 197-205. Christopher, F. Scott, Mary Madura and Lori Weaver. ‘Premarital Sexual Aggressors: A Multivariate Analysis of Social, Relational, and Individual Variables’. Journal of Marriage and the Family (1998): 56-69. Christopher, F. Scott, Laura Owens and Heidi Stecker. ‘An Examination of Single Men’s and Women’s Sexual Aggressiveness in Dating Relationships’. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 10 (1993): 511-527. Cowan, Gloria. ‘Women’s Hostility toward Women and Rape and Sexual Harassment Myths’. Violence against Women 6 (2000): 238-246. D’Andrea, Jaclyn M. ‘Hyper-Gender Roles in Relation to Sexual Aggression’. Master’s Thesis Eastern Illinois University, 2013. Denov, Myriam S. ‘Culture of Denial: Exploring Professional Perspectives on Female Sex Offending’. Canadian Journal of Criminology 43 (2001): 303-329. Dodge, Brian, Michael Reece, Sara L. Cole and Theo Sandfort. ‘Sexual Compulsivity among Heterosexual College Students’. Journal of Sex Research 41 (2004): 343-350. Doroszewicz, Krystyna and Gordon B. Forbes. ‘Experiences with Dating Aggression and Sexual Coercion among Polish College Students’. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 23 (2008): 58-73. Fiebert, Martin and Lisa Tucci. ‘Sexual Coercion: Men Victimized by Women’. Journal of Men’s Studies 6 (1998): 127-133.

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__________________________________________________________________ Field, Julaine E., Laura M. Crothers and Jered B. Kolbert. ‘Adolescent Female Gender Identity and Attraction to Male Bullies and Victims’. Journal of Emotional Abuse 7 (2007): 1-15. Gamez-Guadix, Manuel and Murray Straus. ‘Childhood and Adolescent Victimization and Sexual Coercion and Assault by Male and Female University Students’. Journal of Marriage and Family (in press). Hamburger, Merle E., Matthew Hogben, Stephanie McGowan, and Lori J. Dawson. ‘Assessing Hypergender Ideologies: Development and Initial Validation of a Gender-Neutral Measure of Adherence to Extreme Gender-Role Beliefs’. Journal of Research in Personality 30 (1996): 157-178. Hartwick, Cailey, Serge Desmarais, and Karl Hennig. ‘Characteristics of Male and Female Victims of Sexual Coercion’. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 16 (2007): 31-41. Hines, Denise A. ‘Predictors of Sexual Coercion against Women and Men: A Multilevel, Multinational Study of University Students’. Archives of Sexual Behavior 36 (2007): 403-422. Kalichman, Seth, David B. Sarwer, Jennifer R. Johnson, Syed Akram Ali, Jamie Early and J. Terrell Tuten. ‘Sexually Coercive Behavior and Love Styles: A Replication and Extension’. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality 6 (1994): 93-106. Kjellgren, Cecilia, Gisela Priebe, Carl Goran Svedin, Svein Mossige and Niklaus Langstrom. ‘Female Youth Who Sexually Coerce: Prevalence, Risk, and Protective Factors in Two National High School Surveys’. The Journal of Sexual Medicine 8 (2011): 3354-3362. Krahe, Barbara, Renate Scheiberger-Olwig and Steffen Bieneck. ‘Men’s Reports of Nonconsensual Sexual Interactions with Women: Prevalence and Impact’. Archives of Sexual Behavior 32 (2003): 165-175. Kreiger, Tyson and Larry E. Dumka. ‘The Relationships between Hypergender, Gender, and Psychological Adjustment’. Sex Roles 54 (2006): 777-785. Lee, John A. Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving. Toronto: New Press, 1973.

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__________________________________________________________________ Logan, T. K., Michele Staton and Carl Leukefeld. ‘Hyperfemininity, HIV Risk Behavior, and Victimization among College Aged Females’. Salud y drogas 1 (2001): 161-181. Margolin, Leslie. ‘Gender and the Stolen Kiss: The Social Support of Male and Female to Violate a Partner’s Sexual Consent in a Non-Coercive Situation’. Archives of Sexual Behavior 19 (1990): 281-291. Mason, Avonne and Virginia Blankenship. ‘Power and Affiliation Motivation, Stress, and Abuse in Intimate Relationships’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987): 203. Matschiner, Melannie and Sarah K. Murnen. ‘Hyperfemininity and Influence’. Psychology of Women Quarterly 23 (1999): 631-642. Maybach, Kristine L. and Steven R. Gold. ‘Hyperfemininity and attraction to macho and non‐macho men’. Journal of Sex Research 31(1994): 91-98. McKelvie, Melissa and Steven R. Gold. ‘Hyperfemininity: Further Definition of the Construct’. Journal of Sex Research 31 (1994): 219-228. Menard, Kim S., Gordon C. Nagayama Hall, Amber H. Phung, Marian F. Erian Ghebrial and Lynette Martin, ‘Gender Differences in Sexual Harassment and Coercion in College Students Developmental, Individual, and Situational Determinants’. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 18 (2003): 1222-1239. Mosher, Donald L. ‘Hypermasculinity inventory’. In Handbook of SexualityRelated Measures, edited by. Clive Davis, William Yarber, Robert Bauserman, George Schreer, and Sandra Davis, 472-474. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998. Murnen, Sarah K. ‘The Hyperfemininity Scale’. Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures, edited by Clive Davis, William Yarber, Robert Bauserman, George Schreer and Sandra Davis, 258-261. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998. Murnen Sarah K. and Donn Byrne. ‘Hyperfemininity: Measurement and Initial Validation of the Construct’. Journal of Sex Research 28 (1991): 479-489. Murnen, Sarah K., Annette Perot, and Donn Byrne. ‘Coping with Unwanted Sexual Activity: Normative Responses, Situational Determinants, and Individual Differences’. Journal of Sex Research 26 (1989): 85-106.

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__________________________________________________________________ O’Donohue, William, J. Sean McKay and Paul A. Schewe. ‘Rape: The Roles of Outcome Expectancies and Hypermasculinity’. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 8 (1996): 133-141. O’Dougherty-Wright, Margaret, Dana L. Norton and Jill Anne Matusek. ‘Predicting Verbal Coercion following Sexual Refusal during a Hookup: Diverging Gender Patterns’. Sex Roles 62 (2010): 647-660. Regan, Pamela C., and Ellen Berscheid. ‘Gender Differences in Beliefs about the Causes of Male and Female Sexual Desire’. Personal Relationships 2 (1995): 345358. Russell, Brenda L. and Debra L. Oswald. ‘Sexual Coercion and Victimization of College Men the Role of Love Styles’. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 17 (2002): 273-285. Sarver, David B., Seth C. Kalichman, Jennifer R. Johnson, Jamie Early and Syed Akram Ali. ‘Sexual Aggression and Love Styles: An Exploratory Study’. Archives of Sexual Behavior 22 (1993): 265-275. Semonsky, Michael R. and Lawrence B. Rosenfeld. ‘Perceptions of Sexual Violations: Denying a Kiss, Stealing a Kiss’. Sex Roles 30 (1994): 503-520. Schatzel-Murphy, Elizabeth A. ‘Expanding a Model of Female Heterosexual Coercion: Are Sexually Coercive Women Hyperfeminine?’. PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Boston, 2012. Schatzel-Murphy, Elizabeth A., Danielle A. Harris, Raymond A. Knight and Michael A. Milburn. ‘Sexual Coercion in Men and Women: Similar Behaviors, Different Predictors’. Archives of Sexual Behavior 38 (2009): 974-986. Stupiansky, Nathan W., Michael Reece, Susan E. Middlestadt, Peter Finn and Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin. ‘The Role of Sexual Compulsivity in Casual Sexual Partnerships among College Women’. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 16 (2009): 241-252. Zurbriggen, Eileen L. ‘Social Motives and Cognitive Power–Sex Associations: Predictors of Aggressive Sexual Behavior’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (2000): 559-581.

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__________________________________________________________________ Zweig, Janine M., Bonnie L. Barber and Jacquelynne S. Eccles. ‘Sexual Coercion and Well-Being in Young Adulthood Comparisons by Gender and College Status’. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 12 (1997): 291-308. Theresa Porter is a forensically trained psychologist currently working at a state psychiatric hospital in the U.S. Her research focuses on violence perpetrated by women including sexual violence, different types of homicide and domestic violence. Jacquelyn Bent has recently been awarded her Ph.D. in Psychology examining the relationship between traits associated with personality disorder, disgust and sexual fantasies and behaviours. She likes to ensure she reads horrible books in public spaces to teach people it’s ‘bad manners’ to read over the shoulder of others.