THE MONSTROUS-FEMININE

In almost all critical writings on thehorror film, woman is conceptualizedonly as victim. In The Monstrous-Feminine Barbara Creed challengesthis patriarchal view by arguing thatthe prototype of all definitions of themonstrous is the female reproductivebody.

Woman as castrator constitutes themost significant face of the monstrous-feminine in film, and Creed challengesthe mythical patriarchal view that

woman terrifies because she iscastrated by arguing that womanprimarily terrifies because of a fearthat she might castrate. With closereference to a number of classic horrorfilms including Alien, The Brood, TheHunger, The Exorcist, Sisters, I Spiton Your Grave and Psycho, shepresents the first sustained analysis ofthe seven ‘faces’ of the monstrous-feminine from a feminist andpsychoanalytic perspective, discussingwoman as monster in relation towoman as archaic mother, monstrouswomb, vampire, witch, possessedbody, monstrous mother and castrator.

Her argument disrupts Freudian andLacanian theories of sexual differenceas well as existing theories ofspectatorship and fetishism in relationto the male and female gaze in thecinema to provide a challenging andprovocative rereading of classical and

contemporary film and theoretical textsof interest to all teachers and studentsof film, feminist theory and culturalstudies.

Barbara Creed lectures in CinemaStudies at La Trobe University,Melbourne.

POPULAR FICTION SERIES

Serieseditors:

Tony Bennett GrahamMartin

ProfessorProfessor ofEnglishLiterature

School ofHumanities

OpenUniversity

GriffithUniversity

In the same seriesCover Stories:

Narrative and ideology in the Britishspy thriller

by Michael Denning

Lost Narratives:Popular fictions, politics and recent

historyby Roger Bromley

Popular Film and Television Comedyby Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik

Popular Fiction:Technology, ideology, production,

readingEdited by Tony Bennett

The Historic Romance 1890–1990by Helen Hughes

Reading the Vampireby Ken Gelder

Reading by Starlight:Postmodern science fiction

by Damien Broderick

THEMONSTROUS-

FEMININEFilm, feminism, psychoanalysis

Barbara Creed

First published 1993by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX144RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Reprinted 1994, 1997, 2001, 2006, 2007

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & FrancisGroup,

an informa business

© 1993 Barbara Creed

Typeset in 10 on 12 point Times byFlorencetype Ltd, Kewstoke

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by

any electronic, mechanical or other means, now

known or hereafter invented, including photocopyingand recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataCreed, Barbara

The Monstrous – Feminine: Film, Feminism,Psychoanalysis. – (Popular Fiction Series)

I. Title II. Series791.43

Library of Congress Cataloguing in PublicationData

is available

ISBN10: 0-415-05258-0 (hbk)ISBN10: 0-415-05259-9 (pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-05258-0 (hbk)ISBN13: 978-0-415-05259-7 (pbk)

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements

Part I Faces of the Monstrous-Feminine: Abjection and the

Maternal

INTRODUCTION

1 KRISTEVA, FEMININITY,ABJECTION

2 HORROR AND THE ARCHAICMOTHER: ALIEN

3 WOMAN AS POSSESSEDMONSTER: THE EXORCIST

4 WOMAN AS MONSTROUSWOMB: THE BROOD

5 WOMAN AS VAMPIRE: THEHUNGER

6 WOMAN AS WITCH: CARRIE

Part II Medusa’s Head:Psychoanalytic Theory and the

Femme Castratrice

Preface

7

‘LITTLE HANS’RECONSIDERED: OR THETALE OF MOTHER’STERRIFYING WIDDLER’

8MEDUSA’S HEAD: THE VAGINADENTATA AND FREUDIANTHEORY

THE FEMME CASTRATRICE: I

9 SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, SISTERS

10 THE CASTRATING MOTHER:PSYCHO

11 THE MEDUSA’S GAZE

Bibliography Filmography Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate Section I[between pp. 86–87

1 Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). Theegg chamber.

2 Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). Thespace travellers.

3Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926). Themonstrous perfection of the femalerobot.

4 I Walked with a Zombie (JacquesTourneur, 1943). Publicity poster.

5 Black Sunday (Mario Bava, 1960).The return of the witch.

6 Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1983).The abjection of woman’s blood.

7 The Wasp Woman (Roger Corman,1960). Publicity poster.

8The Brood (David Cronenberg,1979). Woman as monstrousmother.

9The Exorcist (William Friedkin,1973). The supernatural powers ofthose possessed.

10 Attack of the 50ft Woman (NathanHerz, 1958). Publicity poster.

11The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1983).A disgusting display of abjectbodily horror.

12 Next of Kin (Tony Willims, 1982).The psychotic sister.

Plate Section II[between pp. 150–15113 Istar – a Medusan nightmare.

14 Dali’s vagina dentata.

15 The Rape – woman’s hiddengenital mouth.

16 Process of Enlightenment cartoonby Leunig

17 Fright Night – vaginal nightmare.

18 Videodrome (David Cronenberg,1983). Electronic dentata.

19 Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975).Aquatic dentata.

20 Sisters (Brian De Palma, 1973).The psychotic twin.

21 Fanatic (Silvio Narizzano, 1965).The demented mother.

22Cat People (Jacques Tourneur,1942). The untamed woman is likea jungle cat.

23 The Reptile (John Gilling, 1966).The lascivious snake woman.

24 The Return of count Yorga. Thelesbian vampire.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am extremely grateful to a largenumber of people who have helpedmake this book possible. My thanks goto Annette Blonski, Freda Freiberg,Mandy Merck, Merrilee Moss, JaneSelby, Lesley Stern and Lis Stoney forreading sections of the manuscript andoffering important ideas as well aseditorial assistance. In particular Iwish to thank William D. Routt, mycolleague at La Trobe, for hisinvaluable comments, theoreticalinsights and inspirational guidance. Ialso thank all those who offered me

their friendship and support: inparticular Sophie Bibrowska, NanetteCreed, Joyce Edwards, JoanneFinkelstein, Andrea Goldsmith,Pauline Nestor, Iris O’Loughlin, NoelPurdon, John Slavin and IsharaWishart.

Thanks also to my colleagues in theCinema Studies Division of La TrobeUniversity who all contributed in someway to the intellectual and socialmilieu in which the book was written –in particular: Chris Berry, RolandoCaputo, Anna Dzenis, Dena Gleeson,Lorraine Mortimer, Beverly Purnelland Rick Thompson. I am particularlygrateful to Ted Gott for his assistancewith the illustrative material. Thanksalso to the editorial staff at Routledge– particularly Rebecca Barden, EmmaCotter and Tamsin Meddings – for theirexcellent services and support.

The members of the feminist filmgroup, ‘Savage Sisters’, who watched

countless horror films with me deservea special thanks: Jo Comerford,Allayne Davies, Rachelle DiDio andKrys Sykes. I also thank the manystudents at La Trobe University whocontributed valuable insights in thehorror film course I teach. SandraPascuzzi and Tania Rowe, from mylocal videostore, deserve a specialvote of thanks for cheerfully keepingme up with the latest in horror.

I am particularly grateful to theHumanities Research Centre at theAustralian National university for ascholarship which enabled me to havetime for research and writing – and insuch a congenial atmosphere. I alsothank those universities and institutionswhich invited me to present seminarson my research, particularly: FlindersUniversity in Adelaide; the SouthAustralian Media Resource Centre; theUniversity of Tasmania; the GeorgePaton Gallery; the Melbourne Writers’

Festival; and the Brisbane Centre forPsychoanalytic Studies. Finally, the LaTrobe University PublicationsCommittee deserves a specialacknowledgement for providing a granttowards publication of the illustrativematerial.

I wish to thank the followingindividuals for their assistance withthe illustrative material. Ken Berrymanof the National Film and SoundArchive of Australia; Tessa Forbes ofthe British Film Institute’, Ted Gott ofthe Australian National Gallery,Beverly Partridge of Films Around theWorld Inc; and James Sabine of theAustralian Film Institute.

Illustrative material has beenprovided by the Kobal Collection;Design and Artists Copyright Society;Robert Le Tet of EntertainmentMedia; Michael Leunig of The Age,the National Film and Sound Archiveof Australia; and Robert Tappert of

Renaissance Pictures.

Part I

FACES OF THEMONSTROUS-

FEMININE:ABJECTION ANDTHE MATERNAL

INTRODUCTION

The horror film is populated by femalemonsters, many of which seem to haveevolved from images that haunted thedreams, myths and artistic practices ofour forebears many centuries ago. Thefemale monster, or monstrous-feminine, wears many faces: theamoral primeval mother (Aliens,1986); vampire (The Hunger, 1983);witch (Carrie, 1976); woman asmonstrous womb (The Brood, 1979);woman as bleeding wound (Dressed toKill, 1980); woman as possessed body

(The Exorcist, 1973); the castratingmother (Psycho, 1960); woman asbeautiful but deadly killer (BasicInstinct, 1992); aged psychopath(Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,1962); the monstrous girl-boy (AReflection of Fear, 1973); woman asnon-human animal (Cat People, 1942);woman as life-in-death (Life-force,1985); woman as the deadly femmecastratrice (I Spit On Your Grave,1978). Although a great deal has beenwritten about the horror film, verylittle of that work has discussed therepresentation of woman-as-monster.Instead, emphasis has been on womanas victim of the (mainly male) monster.Why has woman-as-monster beenneglected in feminist theory and invirtually all significant theoreticalanalyses of the popular horror film?After all, this image is hardly new.

All human societies have aconception of the monstrous-feminine,

of what it is about woman that isshocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.Freud linked man’s fear of woman tohis infantile belief that the mother iscastrated. ‘Probably no male humanbeing is spared the fright of castrationat the sight of a female genital’, Freudwrote in his paper, ‘Fetishism’ in 1927(p. 154). Joseph Campbell, in TheMasks of God: Primitive Mythology,drew attention to woman as castratorand witch.

there is a motif occurring incertain primitive mythologies, aswell as in modern surrealistpainting and neurotic dream,which is known to folklore as ‘thetoothed vagina’ – the vagina thatcastrates. And a counterpart, theother way, is the so-called‘phallic mother,’ a motif perfectlyillustrated in the long fingers andnose of the witch.

(Campbell, 1976, 73)

As well as its expression in surrealistart (see illustrations), the myth of thevagina dentata is extremely prevalent.Despite local variations, the mythgenerally states that women areterrifying because they have teeth intheir vaginas and that the women mustbe tamed or the teeth somehowremoved or softened – usually by ahero figure – before intercourse cansafely take place. The witch, of course,is a familiar female monster; she isinvariably represented as an old, uglycrone who is capable of monstrousacts. During the European witch trialsof recent history she was accused ofthe most hideous crimes: cannibalism,murder, castration of male victims, andthe advent of natural disasters such asstorms, fires and the plague. Mostsocieties also have myths about thefemale vampire, a creature who sucks

the blood of helpless, often willing,victims and transforms them into herown kind.

Classical mythology, too, waspopulated with gendered monsters,many of which were female. TheSirens of classical mythology weredescribed as enormous birds with theheads of women. They used theirmagical songs to lure sailors close toshore in order to drive the sailors’ships into hidden reefs. The Sirens thenate their helpless victims. The Medusaand her two sisters also presented aterrifying sight. They had huge heads,their hair consisted of writhingserpents, their teeth were as long asboars’ tusks and they flew through theair on golden wings. Men unfortunateenough to look upon the Medusa withher evil eye were immediately turnedto stone. In classical times, pendantsand other jewellery depicting theMedusa’s frightening appearance were

frequently worn to ward off evilspirits, and warriors painted thefemale genitals on their shields inorder to terrify the enemy. Freud takesup this point in his short essay,‘Medusa’s head’:

If Medusa’s head takes the placeof a representation of the femalegenitals, or rather if it isolatestheir horrifying effects from theirpleasure-giving ones, it may berecalled that displaying thegenitals is familiar in otherconnections as an apotropaic act.What arouses horror in oneselfwill produce the same effect uponthe enemy against whom one isseeking to defend oneself. Weread in Rabelais of how the Deviltook flight when the womanshowed him her vulva.

(p. 274)

It is not by accident that Freud linkedthe sight of the Medusa to the equallyhorrifying sight of the mother’sgenitals, for the concept of themonstrous-feminine, as constructedwithin/by a patriarchal andphallocentric ideology, is relatedintimately to the problem of sexualdifference and castration. If we acceptFreud’s interpretation that the‘Medusa’s head takes the place of arepresentation of the female genitals’,we can see that the Medusan myth ismediated by a narrative about thedifference of female sexuality as adifference which is grounded inmonstrousness and which invokescastration anxiety in the male spectator.‘The sight of the Medusa’s head makesthe spectator stiff with terror, turns himto stone.’ The irony of this was not loston Freud, who pointed out thatbecoming stiff also means having anerection. ‘Thus in the original situation

it offers consolation to the spectator:he is still in possession of a penis, andthe stiffening reassures him of the fact’(ibid., 273). One wonders if theexperience of horror – of viewing thehorror film – causes similar alterationsin the body of the modern malespectator. And what of other phrasesthat are used by both male and femaleviewers – phrases such as: ‘It scaredthe shit out of me’; ‘It made me feelsick’; ‘It gave me the creeps’? What isthe relationship between physicalstates, bodily wastes (even ifmetaphoric ones) and the horrific – inparticular, the monstrous-feminine?

I have used the term ‘monstrous-feminine’ as the term ‘female monster’implies a simple reversal of ‘malemonster’. The reasons why themonstrous-feminine horrifies heraudience are quite different from thereasons why the male monster horrifieshis audience. A new term is needed to

specify these differences. As with allother stereotypes of the feminine, fromvirgin to whore, she is defined in termsof her sexuality. The phrase‘monstrous-feminine’ emphasizes theimportance of gender in theconstruction of her monstrosity.

Before discussing the questionsraised above, it is relevant to considerthe various ways in which theoristsand critics have approached thequestion of woman as monster inpopular film. In general, they haveadopted one of the followingapproaches: simply discussed femalemonstrosity as part of malemonstrosity; argued that woman onlyterrifies when represented as man’scastrated other; referred to her only inpassing; or argued that there are no‘great’ female monsters in the traditionof Frankenstein’s monster or Dracula.One theorist who has contributed agreat deal to a critical appreciation of

the horror film is Robin Wood; but,although he is interested in genderrelations in the horror film, he has notdiscussed the nature of femalemonstrosity in any detail. To myknowledge no one has presented asustained analysis of the different facesof the female monster or ‘themonstrous-feminine’.

Gérard Lenne in his article,‘Monster and victim: women in thehorror film’, is fairly typical of thosewho find the very idea of a femalemonster offensive to their rather quaint,but deeply sexist, notions of chivalry.Gérard Lenne argues that there ‘arevery few monstrous and disfiguredwomen in the fantastic, and so muchthe better’. He appears to believe thatwomen should be represented only interms of their ‘natural’ role in life. ‘Isit not reasonable that woman, who, inlife, is both mother and lover, shouldbe represented by characters that

convey the feeling of a shelteringpeace?’ (Lenne, 1979, 35). He allowsthat there are female monsters but thenfinds reasons why they are not realmonsters; for instance he states that thefemale vampire exists but her role isusually ‘secondary’; the schizophrenicfemale monsters of Repulsion andSisters are understandable because‘schizophrenia is readily assimilatedto female behaviour’ (ibid., 37). Lenneevades the identification of femalemonsters such as the half-human, half-animal female hybrids of Island ofLost Souls and the ‘revolting’ figure inThe Reptile by dismissing them as‘problematic’. ‘Woman is seldom to befound among the great psychopaths’and there is ‘not one single female madscientist’ (ibid., 38). The Exorcist issimply the result of a ‘prevailing trendfor making female versions of the greatmyths of the fantastic’ (ibid.). The only‘indisputably active role in the

fantastic that is exclusively female’ isthat of the witch (ibid., 39). However,Lenne is more interested in the‘attractiveness of the witch’ than in hermonstrousness. After producing alitany of sexist comments, he concludesthat the ‘great monsters are all male’.In his view, woman exists in the horrorfilm primarily as victim. ‘Perfect as atearful victim, what she does best is tofaint in the arms of a gorilla, or amummy, or a werewolf, or aFrankensteinian creature’ (ibid., 35).

While it is true that there are fewerclassic female monsters than male, itdoes not follow that these creatures arenot terrifying or truly monstrous. Lennedoes not even mention Paula the Ape-Woman of the 1940s played byAcquanetta in both Captive WildWoman and Jungle Woman and byVicky Lane in Jungle Captive – theclassic female monster with more thanone film to her credit. Lenne’s

definition of what constitutes themonstrous is questionable on a numberof counts, particularly his statementthat the horror of schizophrenia issomehow ameliorated not only becauseit is understandable but because it issupposedly a ‘female’ illness.

In his book, Dark Romance, DavidJ. Hogan examines the sexual aspect ofthe horror cinema. While he drawsattention to those films, within eachsub-genre, in which the monster isfemale, he does not examine the natureof female monstrosity in any depth.Where he does discuss this issue, hisresponse is ambivalent. On the onehand, he states that horror films withfemale monsters as central charactersare ‘a relatively new phenomenon, andseem to have developed parallel withthe growth of the women’s movementin the United States and Europe’.However, he dismisses most of thesefilms as ‘obvious and childish’

(Hogan, 1986, 19). On the other hand,Hogan does draw attention to a‘fascinating subgenre’ that appeared inthe early 1950s, which he calls the‘cinema of lost women’. Thissubgenre, in which women choose tolive apart from men, includes titlessuch as: Queen of Outer Space, TheShe-Creature and Voodoo Women. Acentral feature of these films is ‘theirinsistence upon the adversary aspect ofman-woman relationships’, whichHogan finds ‘disquieting’ (ibid., 61–3).Hogan is generally dismissive of filmswith female monsters. He does,however, acknowledge the contributionof Barbara Steele, known as the ‘HighPriestess of Horror’, to the genre. Heargues that her appeal resides in herability ‘to express a tantalizing sort ofevil, and a sexual ambivalence that isat once enticing and ghastly’. In hisview, Steele represents, more than anyother genre star, the connection

between sex and death as well as theculture’s ambiguous attitude to femalesexuality (ibid., 164).

In Dreadful Pleasures James B.Twitchell argues that horror films aresimilar to ‘formulaic rituals’ whichprovide the adolescent with socialinformation. ‘Modern horror mythsprepare the teenager for the anxietiesof reproduction . . . they are fables ofsexual identity’ (Twitchell, 1985, 7).He is primarily interested in themonster as a figure of transformation –the vampire, werewolf, zombie,psychopath. On the one hand, Twitchelldraws attention to female monsterswho belong to these categories, but onthe other hand he does not seriouslyexamine films, such as Carrie and TheExorcist, that are made from theperspective of a female rite of passage.He dismisses the female psychopath as‘mannish’ (ibid., 257) which suggestshe believes that ‘femininity’, by

definition, excludes all forms ofaggressive, monstrous behaviour.

Only those writers whose analysisof horror draws on recent debatesabout the nature of sexual differenceattempt to come to terms with thenature of monstrosity in relation togender. In general, these theorists workfrom the Freudian position that womanhorrifies because she is castrated. Oneof the most substantial analyses of themonster is presented by Stephen Nealein his book, Genre. Drawing on LauraMulvey’s theory of the male gaze andmale castration anxiety, Neale arguesthat the classic male horror monsterrepresents castration but only in orderto fill the lack, to disavow castrationand thereby entertain the malespectator by soothing his castrationanxieties. According to Neale, ‘mostmonsters tend, in fact, to be defined as“male,” especially in so far as theobjects of their desire are almost

exclusively women’ (Neale, 1980, 61).

In this respect, it could well bemaintained that it is woman’ssexuality, that which renders themdesirable – but also threatening –to men, which constitutes the realproblem that the horror cinemaexists to explore, and whichconstitutes also and ultimately thatwhich is really monstrous.

(ibid., 61)

In Neale’s view, there are two ways ofinterpreting the monster. The first isthat the monster signifies the boundarybetween the human and the non-human.The second is that it is the male fear ofcastration which ultimately producesand delineates the monstrous. Nealeargues that man’s fascination with andfear of female sexuality is endlesslyreworked within the signifyingpractices of the horror film. Thus, the

horror film offers an abundant displayof fetishistic effects whose function isto attest to the perversity of thepatriarchal order founded, as it is, on amisconception – the erroneous beliefthat woman is castrated.

A sustained and importantdiscussion of the monstrous female ispresented by Susan Lurie in her article,‘The construction of the “castratedwoman” in psychoanalysis andcinema’. Adopting an approach inopposition to Neale’s, Lurie challengesthe traditional Freudian position byarguing that men fear women, notbecause women are castrated butbecause they are not castrated. Lurieasserts that the male fears womanbecause woman is not mutilated like aman might be if he were castrated;woman is physically whole, intact andin possession of all her sexual powers.The notion of the castrated woman is aphantasy intended to ameliorate man’s

real fear of what woman might do tohim. (I have used the term ‘phantasy’rather than ‘fantasy’ throughout becauseI wish to emphasize phantasy in theFreudian sense in which the subject isrepresented as a protagonist engaged inthe activity of wish fulfilment.‘Fantasy’ sometimes has theconnotations of whimsy – a notion Iwish to avoid.) Specifically, he fearsthat woman could castrate him bothpsychically and in a sense physically.He imagines the latter might take placeduring intercourse when the penis‘disappears’ inside woman’s‘devouring mouth’ (Lurie, 1981–2, 55).Lurie’s analysis is important,particularly her discussion of man’sfear of woman as castrating other. It isthis aspect of Lurie’s argument that Iwill develop in detail in Part II of myanalysis. But, like Neale, Lurie isultimately concerned only with therepresentation of woman as victim.

She argues that man deals with hisanxiety that woman is not castrated byconstructing her as castrated within thesignifying practices of the film text.She analyses this process in relation toAlfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Sheclaims that the ‘proliferation of efforts’to represent woman as symbolicallycastrated, particularly in the romancegenre of the fiction film, ‘arguesvigorously against the hypothesis thatmen regard women as a prioricastrated’ (ibid., 56).

Drawing on Lurie’s work, LindaWilliams argues, in her article ‘Whenthe woman looks’, that it is woman’s‘power-in-difference’ (1984, 89) thatis central to the representation of themonster in horror. She states thatclassic horror films such as Nosferatuand The Phantom of the Operafrequently represent ‘a surprising (andat times subversive) affinity betweenmonster and woman’ in that woman’s

look acknowledges their ‘similar statuswithin patriarchal structures of seeing’.Both are constructed as ‘biologicalfreaks’ whose bodies represent afearful and threatening form ofsexuality. This has importantimplications for the female spectator.‘So there is a sense in which thewoman’s look at the monster . . . isalso a recognition of their similarstatus as potent threats to vulnerablemale power’ (ibid., 90). Williams’sargument challenges the assumptionthat the monster is identified withmasculinity and opens the way for adiscussion of woman’s ‘power-in-difference’. Although Williams’s thesisis important, because it challengesconventional approaches to the horrorfilm, it still leaves unansweredquestions about the nature of femalemonstrosity. What exactly is it aboutwoman herself, as a being quiteseparate from the male monster, that

produces definitions of femalemonstrosity?

Apart from Williams, nearly all ofthe articles discussed above deal withwoman as victim in the horror film.The main reason for this is that mostwriters adopt Freud’s argument thatwoman terrifies because she iscastrated, that is, already constituted asvictim. Such a position only serves toreinforce patriarchal definitions ofwoman which represent and reinforcethe essentialist view that woman, bynature, is a victim. My intention is toexplore the representation of woman inthe horror film and to argue thatwoman is represented as monstrous ina significant number of horror films.However, I am not arguing that simplybecause the monstrous-feminine isconstructed as an active rather thanpassive figure that this image is‘feminist’ or ‘liberated’. The presenceof the monstrous-feminine in the

popular horror film speaks to us moreabout male fears than about femaledesire or feminine subjectivity.However, this presence does challengethe view that the male spectator isalmost always situated in an active,sadistic position and the femalespectator in a passive, masochisticone. An analysis of this figure alsonecessitates a rereading of key aspectsof Freudian theory, particularly histheory of the Oedipus complex andcastration crisis.

Part I presents a detailed discussionof at least five faces of the monstrous-feminine in relation to Julia Kristeva’stheory of the abject and the maternal.(Chapters 1 and 2, with somemodifications, were originallypublished as a journal article: ‘Horrorand the monstrous-feminine: animaginary abjection’, Screen 21A(1986): 45–70.) I will argue that whenwoman is represented as monstrous it

is almost always in relation to hermothering and reproductive functions.These faces are: the archaic mother;the monstrous womb; the witch; thevampire; and the possessed woman. InPart III will discuss the representationof woman as monstrous in relation toFreud’s theory of castration. WhereasFreud argued that woman terrifiesbecause she appears to be castrated,man’s fear of castration has, in myview, led him to construct anothermonstrous phantasy – that of woman ascastrator. Here woman’smonstrousness is linked more directlyto questions of sexual desire than to thearea of reproduction. The image ofwoman as castrator takes at least threeforms: woman as the deadly femmecastratrice, the castrating mother andthe vagina dentata. Freud did notanalyse man’s fears of woman ascastrator; in fact he seems to haverepressed this image of woman in his

writings about sexual difference and inhis case histories. Of necessity, then,this investigation will, through itsanalysis of popular fictions, entail acritique of some of the main tenets ofFreudian theory and contemporary filmtheory.

1

KRISTEVA, FEMININITY,ABJECTION

We may call it a border; abjectionis above all ambiguity. Because,while releasing a hold, it does notradically cut off the subject fromwhat threatens it – on the contrary,abjection acknowledges it to be inperpetual danger.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horrorprovides us with a preliminaryhypothesis for an analysis of the

representation of woman as monstrousin the horror film. Although her studyis concerned with psychoanalysis andliterature, it nevertheless suggests away of situating the monstrous-feminine in the horror film in relationto the maternal figure and whatKristeva terms ‘abjection’, that whichdoes not ‘respect borders, positions,rules’, that which ‘disturbs identity,system, order’ (Kristeva, 1982, 4). Ingeneral terms, Kristeva is attempting toexplore the different ways in whichabjection works within humansocieties, as a means of separating outthe human from the non-human and thefully constituted subject from thepartially formed subject. Ritualbecomes a means by which societiesboth renew their initial contact with theabject element and then exclude thatelement. Through ritual, thedemarcation lines between the humanand non-human are drawn up anew and

presumably made all the stronger forthat process. (One of Kristeva’s aimsin Powers of Horror is to present arewriting of many of the ideas andbeliefs put forward by the College ofSociology, specifically thoseassociated with the nature offemininity, abjection and the sacred.For an introduction to the philosophyand writings of the college see TheCollege of Sociology (1937–39)edited by Denis Hollier.)

A full examination of this theory isoutside the scope of this project; Ipropose to draw mainly on Kristeva’sdiscussion of the construction ofabjection in the human subject inrelation to her notion of (a) the‘border’ (b) the mother–childrelationship and (c) the feminine body.At crucial points, I shall also refer toher writings on the abject in relation toreligious discourses. This area cannotbe ignored, for what becomes apparent

in reading her work is that definitionsof the monstrous as constructed in themodern horror text are grounded inancient religious and historical notionsof abjection – particularly in relationto the following religious‘abominations’: sexual immorality andperversion; corporeal alteration, decayand death; human sacrifice; murder; thecorpse; bodily wastes; the femininebody and incest. These forms ofabjection are also central to theconstruction of the monstrous in themodern horror film.

The place of the abject is ‘the placewhere meaning collapses’, the placewhere ‘T’ am not. The abject threatenslife; it must be ‘radically excluded’(Kristeva, 1982, 2) from the place ofthe living subject, propelled awayfrom the body and deposited on theother side of an imaginary borderwhich separates the self from thatwhich threatens the self. Although the

subject must exclude the abject, theabject must, nevertheless, be toleratedfor that which threatens to destroy lifealso helps to define life. Further, theactivity of exclusion is necessary toguarantee that the subject take uphis/her proper place in relation to thesymbolic.

The abject can be experienced invarious ways – one of which relates tobiological bodily functions, the otherof which has been inscribed in asymbolic (religious) economy. Forinstance, Kristeva claims that foodloathing is ‘perhaps the mostelementary and archaic form ofabjection’ (ibid.). Food, however, onlybecomes abject if it signifies a border‘between two distinct entities orterritories’ (ibid., 75). Kristevadescribes how, for her, the skin on thetop of milk, which is offered to her byher father and mother, is a ‘sign of theirdesire’, a sign separating her world

from their world, a sign which shedoes not want. ‘But since the food isnot an “other” for “me,” who am onlyin their desire, I expel myself, I spitmyself out, I abject myself within thesame motion through which “I” claimto establish myself (ibid., 3). Inrelation to the horror film, it is relevantto note that food loathing is frequentlyrepresented as a major source ofabjection, particularly the eating ofhuman flesh (Blood Feast, Motel Hell,Blood Diner, The Hills Have Eyes,The Corpse Grinders).

The ultimate in abjection is thecorpse. The body protects itself frombodily wastes such as shit, blood,urine and pus by ejecting these thingsfrom the body just as it expels foodthat, for whatever reason, the subjectfinds loathsome. The body ejects thesesubstances, at the same time extricatingitself from them and from the placewhere they fall, so that it might

continue to live:

Such wastes drop so that I mightlive, until, from loss to loss,nothing remains in me and myentire body falls beyond the limit– cadere, cadaver. If dungsignifies the other side of theborder, the place where I am notand which permits me to be, thecorpse, the most sickening ofwastes, is a border that hasencroached upon everything. It isno longer I who expel. ‘T’ isexpelled.

(ibid., 3–4)

Within a biblical context, the corpse isalso utterly abject. It signifies one ofthe most basic forms of pollution – thebody without a soul. As a form ofwaste it represents the opposite of thespiritual, the religious symbolic. Inrelation to the horror film, it is relevant

to note that several of the most popularhorrific figures are ‘bodies withoutsouls’ (the vampire), the ‘livingcorpse’ (the zombie), corpse-eater (theghoul) and the robot or android. Whatis also interesting is that such ancientfigures of abjection as the vampire, theghoul, the zombie and the witch (one ofher many crimes was that she usedcorpses for her rites of magic) continueto provide some of the mostcompelling images of horror in themodern cinema. Were-creatures,whose bodies signify a collapse of theboundaries between human and animal,also belong to this category.

Abjection also occurs where theindividual is a hypocrite, a liar. Abjectthings are those that highlight the‘fragility of the law’ and that exist onthe other side of the border whichseparates out the living subject fromthat which threatens its extinction. Butabjection is not something of which the

subject can ever feel free – it is alwaysthere, beckoning the self to take up theplace of abjection, the place wheremeaning collapses. The subject,constructed in/through language,through a desire for meaning, is alsospoken by the abject, the place ofmeaninglessness – thus, the subject isconstantly beset by abjection whichfascinates desire but which must berepelled for fear of self-annihilation. Acrucial point is that abjection is alwaysambiguous. Like Bataille, Kristevaemphasizes the attraction, as well asthe horror, of the undifferentiated.

ABJECTION AND THE HORRORFILM

The horror film would appear to be, inat least three ways, an illustration ofthe work of abjection. First, the horrorfilm abounds in images of abjection,foremost of which is the corpse, whole

and mutilated, followed by an array ofbodily wastes such as blood, vomit,saliva, sweat, tears and putrefyingflesh. In terms of Kristeva’s notion ofthe border, when we say such-and-sucha horror film ‘made me sick’ or‘scared the shit out of me’, we areactually foregrounding that specifichorror film as a ‘work of abjection’ or‘abjection at work’ – almost in a literalsense. Viewing the horror filmsignifies a desire not only for perversepleasure (confronting sickening,horrific images/being filled withterror/desire for the undifferentiated)but also a desire, once having beenfilled with perversity, taken pleasure inperversity, to throw up, throw out,eject the abject (from the safety of thespectator’s seat). In Kristeva’s view,woman is specifically related topolluting objects which fall into twocategories: excremental and menstrual.This in turn gives woman a special

relationship to the abject – a crucialpoint which I will discuss shortly.

Second, the concept of a border iscentral to the construction of themonstrous in the horror film; thatwhich crosses or threatens to cross the‘border’ is abject. Although thespecific nature of the border changesfrom film to film, the function of themonstrous remains the same – to bringabout an encounter between thesymbolic order and that whichthreatens its stability. In some horrorfilms the monstrous is produced at theborder between human and inhuman,man and beast (Dr Jekyll and MrHyde, Creature from the BlackLagoon, King Kong); in others theborder is between the normal and thesupernatural, good and evil (Carrie,The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary’sBaby); or the monstrous is produced atthe border which separates those whotake up their proper gender roles from

those who do not (Psycho, Dressed toKill, A Reflection of Fear); or theborder is between normal andabnormal sexual desire (The Hunger,Cat People). Most horror films alsoconstruct a border between whatKristeva refers to as ‘the clean andproper body’ and the abject body, orthe body which has lost its form andintegrity. The fully symbolic body mustbear no indication of its debt to nature.In Kristeva’s view the image ofwoman’s body, because of its maternalfunctions, acknowledges its ‘debt tonature’ and consequently is more likelyto signify the abject (ibid., 102). Thenotion of the material female body iscentral to the construction of the borderin the horror film. I will explore thiscrucial area fully in the followingchapters.

Interestingly, various sub-genres ofthe horror film seem to correspond toreligious categories of abjection. For

instance, cannibalism, a religiousabomination, is central to the ‘meat’movie (Night of the Living Dead, TheHills Have Eyes); the corpse asabomination becomes the abject ofghoul and zombie movies (The EvilDead; Zombie Flesheaters); blood iscentral to the vampire film (TheHunger) as well as the horror film ingeneral (Bloodsucking Freaks); thecorpse is constructed as the abject ofvirtually all horror films; and bodilydisfigurement as a religiousabomination is also central to theslasher movie, particularly those inwhich woman is slashed, the mark asign of her ‘difference’, her impurity(Dressed to Kill, Psycho).

The third way in which the horrorfilm illustrates the work of abjection isin the construction of the maternalfigure as abject. Kristeva argues thatall individuals experience abjection atthe time of their earliest attempts to

break away from the mother. She seesthe mother–child relation as onemarked by conflict: the child strugglesto break free but the mother is reluctantto release it. Because of the ‘instabilityof the symbolic function’ in relation tothis most crucial area – ‘theprohibition placed on the maternalbody (as a defense againstautoeroticism and incest taboo)’,Kristeva argues that the maternal bodybecomes a site of conflicting desires.‘Here, drives hold sway and constitutea strange space that I shall name, afterPlato (Timaeus, 48–53), a chora, areceptacle’ (ibid., 14). The position ofthe child is rendered even moreunstable because, while the motherretains a close hold over the child, itcan serve to authenticate her existence– an existence which needs validationbecause of her problematic relation tothe symbolic realm.

In the child’s attempts to break

away, the mother becomes an ‘abject’;thus, in this context, where the childstruggles to become a separate subject,abjection becomes ‘a precondition ofnarcissism’ (ibid.). Once again we cansee abjection at work in the horror textwhere the child struggles to breakaway from the mother, representativeof the archaic maternal figure, in acontext in which the father isinvariably absent (Psycho, Carrie, TheBirds). In these films the maternalfigure is constructed as the monstrous-feminine. By refusing to relinquish herhold on her child, she prevents it fromtaking up its proper place in relation tothe symbolic. Partly consumed by thedesire to remain locked in a blissfulrelationship with the mother and partlyterrified of separation, the child findsit easy to succumb to the comfortingpleasure of the dyadic relationship.Kristeva argues that a whole area ofreligion has assumed the function of

tackling this danger:

This is precisely where weencounter the rituals of defilementand their derivatives, which,based on the feeling of abjectionand all converging on thematernal, attempt to symbolize theother threat to the subject: that ofbeing swamped by the dualrelationship, thereby risking theloss not of a part (castration) butof the totality of his living being.The function of these religiousrituals is to ward off the subject’sfear of his very own identitysinking irretrievably into themother.

(ibid., 64)

How, then, are prohibitions againstcontact with the mother enacted andenforced? In answering this question,Kristeva links the universal practices

of rituals of defilement to the mother.She argues that within the practices ofall rituals of defilement, pollutingobjects fall into two categories:excremental, which threatens identityfrom the outside; and menstrual, whichthreatens from within. Both categoriesof polluting objects relate to themother. The relation of menstrualblood is self-evident: the associationof excremental objects with thematernal figure is brought aboutbecause of the mother’s role insphincteral training. Here, Kristevaargues that the subject’s first contactwith ‘authority’ is with the maternalauthority when the child learns, throughinteraction with the mother, about itsbody: the shape of the body, the cleanand the unclean, the proper andimproper areas of the body. It is theconcept of the ‘maternal authority’ that,in my analysis of the monstrous-feminine in horror, I will expand and

extend into the symbolic in relation tocastration. Kristeva refers to theprocesses of toilet training as a ‘primalmapping of the body’ which she calls‘semiotic’. She distinguishes betweenmaternal ‘authority’ and ‘paternallaws’: ‘Maternal authority is thetrustee of that mapping of the self’sclean and proper body; it isdistinguished from paternal lawswithin which, with the phallic phaseand acquisition of language, the destinyof man will take shape’ (ibid., 72). Inher discussion of rituals of defilementin relation to the Indian caste system,Kristeva draws a distinction betweenmaternal authority and paternal law.She argues that the period of the‘mapping of the self’s clean and properbody’ (ibid.) is characterized by theexercise of ‘authority without guilt’, atime when there is a ‘fusion betweenmother and nature’ (ibid., 74).However, the symbolic ushers in a

‘totally different universe of sociallysignifying performances whereembarrassment, shame, guilt, desireetc. come into play – the order of thephallus’. In the Indian context, thesetwo worlds exist harmoniously side byside because of the working ofdefilement rites. Here Kristeva isreferring to the practice of publicdefecation in India. Kristeva arguesthat this split between the world of themother (a universe without shame) andthe world of the father (a universe ofshame), would in other social contextsproduce psychosis; in India it finds a‘perfect socialization’: ‘This may bebecause the setting up of the rite ofdefilement takes on the function of thehyphen, the virgule, allowing the twouniverses of filth and prohibition tobrush lightly against each other withoutnecessarily being identified as such, asobject and as law’ (ibid.).

Virtually all horror texts represent

the monstrous-feminine in relation toKristeva’s notion of maternal authorityand the mapping of the self’s clean andproper body. Images of blood, vomit,pus, shit, etc., are central to ourculturally/socially constructed notionsof the horrific. They signify a splitbetween two orders: the maternalauthority and the law of the father. Onthe one hand, these images of bodilywastes threaten a subject that isalready constituted, in relation to thesymbolic, as ‘whole and proper’.Consequently, they fill the subject –both the protagonist in the text and thespectator in the cinema – with disgustand loathing. On the other hand theyalso point back to a time when a‘fusion between mother and nature’existed; when bodily wastes, while setapart from the body, were not seen asobjects of embarrassment and shame.Their presence in the horror film mayinvoke a response of disgust from the

audience situated as it is within thesocial symbolic but at a more archaiclevel the representation of bodilywastes may invoke pleasure inbreaking the taboo on filth – sometimesdescribed as a pleasure in perversity –and a pleasure in returning to that timewhen the mother–child relationshipwas marked by an untrammelledpleasure in ‘playing’ with the body andits wastes.

The modern horror film often ‘plays’with its audience, saturating it withscenes of blood and gore, deliberatelypointing to the fragility of the symbolicorder in the domain of the body wherethe body never ceases to signal therepressed world of the mother. In TheExorcist the world of the symbolic,represented by the priest-as-father, andthe world of the pre-symbolic,represented by a pubescent girl alignedwith the devil, clashed head on inscenes where the foulness of woman

was signified by her putrid, filthy bodycovered in blood, urine, excrement andbile. Significantly, the possessed girl isalso about to menstruate – in onescene, blood from her woundedgenitals mingles with menstrual bloodto provide one of the film’s key imagesof horror. (See Chapter 3 for a detaileddiscussion of The Exorcist.) In Carrie,the film’s most monstrous act occurswhen the couple are drenched in pig’sblood, which symbolizes menstrualblood in the terms set up by the film:women are referred to in the film as‘pigs’, women ‘bleed like pigs’, andthe pig’s blood runs down Carrie’sbody at a moment of intense pleasure,just as her own menstrual blood randown her legs during a similarpleasurable moment when she enjoyedher body in the shower. Here, women’sblood and pig’s blood flow together,signifying horror, shame andhumiliation. In this film, however, the

mother speaks for the symbolic,identifying with an order which hasdefined women’s sexuality as thesource of all evil and menstruation asthe sign of sin. (See Chapter 5 forfurther elaboration).

Kristeva’s semiotic posits a pre-verbal dimension of language whichrelates to sounds and tone of the voiceand to direct expression of the drivesand physical contact with the maternalfigure: ‘it is dependent upon meaning,but in a way that is not that oflinguistic signs nor of the symbolicorder they found’ (ibid., 72). With thesubject’s entry into the symbolic,which separates the child from themother, the maternal figure and theauthority she signifies are repressed.Kristeva then argues that it is thefunction of defilement rites,particularly those relating to menstrualand excremental objects/substances, topoint to the ‘boundary’ between the

maternal semiotic authority and thepaternal symbolic law.

Kristeva argues that, historically, ithas been the function of religion topurify the abject, but with thedisintegration of these ‘historicalforms’ of religion, the work ofpurification now rests solely with ‘thatcatharsis par excellence called art’(ibid., 17). This, I would argue, is alsothe central ideological project of thepopular horror film – purification ofthe abject through a ‘descent into thefoundations of the symbolic construct’.The horror film attempts to bring abouta confrontation with the abject (thecorpse, bodily wastes, the monstrous-feminine) in order finally to eject theabject and redraw the boundariesbetween the human and non-human. Asa form of modern defilement rite, thehorror film attempts to separate out thesymbolic order from all that threatensits stability, particularly the mother and

all that her universe signifies. In thissense, signifying horror involves arepresentation of, and a reconciliationwith, the maternal body. Kristeva’stheory of abjection provides us with animportant theoretical framework foranalysing, in the horror film, therepresentation of the monstrous-feminine, in relation to woman’sreproductive and mothering functions.However, abjection by its very natureis ambiguous; it both repels andattracts. Separating out the mother andher universe from the symbolic orderis not an easy task – perhaps it is,finally, not even possible. Furthermore,when we begin to examine closely thenature of the monstrous mother wediscover she also has a crucial role toplay in relation to castration and thechild’s passage into the symbolic order– issues discussed in Part II in relationto the images of the vagina dentataand the castrating mother.

2

HORROR AND THEARCHAIC MOTHER:

ALIEN

Fear of the archaic mother turnsout to be essentially fear of hergenerative power.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

The science-fiction horror film, Alien,presents a complex representation ofthe monstrous-feminine as archaicmother. Alien begins with a long shotof a spaceship, the Nostromo, hovering

in outer space, poised above a set ofsubtitles which tells us that the ship hasa crew of seven and is returning toearth with a cargo of 20 million tons ofmineral ore. Inside the ship an eerieatmosphere seems to engulf everything:the dark labyrinthine passages,storerooms, pipes, machinery. Thesilence is suddenly pierced by the star-ship’s computer flickering to life as itawakens the crew members, each oneheld in a state of suspended animation,lying peacefully in a white sleep pod.

Director Ridley Scott introduces usto the ship and its crew in a matter-of-fact way, emphasizing the small,practical details of life in outer space.Awakened by the computer,affectionately called ‘Mother’, thecrew members complain about thecold, their low salaries, and the factthat the only good thing on board is thecoffee. After communicating with‘Mother’ Dallas, the Captain,

discovers she has interrupted thevoyage because she has intercepted atransmission from a nearby planet.After some technical problems three ofthe crew leave the Nostromo for theplanet’s dark, inhospitable surface.They enter a derelict space craft whereKane, one of the crew members, isattacked by an alien life form whichattaches itself with a deadly grip to hisface. Kane and the ‘thing’ are takenback on board the ship despite strongobjections from Ripley (SigourneyWeaver), who reminds the others thatthey have broken quarantine orders.But it is too late; the alien is on board.The remainder of the narrative isconcerned with the creature’s deadlyattacks on the crew and their attemptsto kill it. The alien is a mysterious,terrifying creature that changes shapeas it metamorphoses into a mature lifeform. Highly intelligent, secretive,sadistic, it is impossible to find or kill.

Eventually Ripley, the only one leftalive, prepares to do battle with thealien.

One of the major concerns of thesci-fi horror film (Alien, The Thing,Invasion of the Body Snatchers,Altered States) is the reworking of theprimal scene, the scene of birth, inrelation to the representation of otherforms of copulation and procreation.Invasion of the Body Snatchersexplores the themes of bodily invasionand paranoia. The invading creaturefirst exists as a giant egg/pod, whichhas come to Earth from another galaxy.As the pod silently hatches the creaturesimultaneously creates a replica of thehuman it wishes to become. In TheThing the primal scene is alsopresented as a series of grotesquebodily invasions; here the creature isable to take over both the human andanimal body and clone itself into anexact replica of the invaded being. In

both these films conception and birthare presented as a form of cloning; thesexual act becomes an act ofvampirism. In Altered States a malescientist is able to take himself back tomore primitive stages of existencethrough the agency of hallucinogenicdrugs. He takes these while enfolded ina womb-like bath of special fluids.Eventually he gives birth to himself asan ape-creature. Procreation and birthtake place without the agency of theopposite sex; and the creature born isprimitive rather than civilizedsuggesting that a thin line separates thehuman animal from its ancestors.Central to all of these films are sceneswhich explore different forms of birth.

The primal scene is also crucial toAlien as is the figure of the mother, inthe guise of the archaic mother. Thearchaic mother is the parthenogeneticmother, the mother as primordialabyss, the point of origin and of end.

Although the archaic mother, thecreature who laid the eggs, is neverseen in Alien, her presence is signalledin a number of ways. She is there in thetext’s various representations of theprimal scene, and in its depiction ofbirth and death. She is there in thefilm’s images of blood, darkness anddeath. She is also there in thechameleon figure of the alien, themonster as fetish-object of and for thearchaic mother. Signs of the archaicmother are particularly evident in thefilm’s first section, with its emphasison at least four differentrepresentations of the primal scene.Before discussing the archaic motherin detail, it is important to considerFreud’s theory of the primal phantasiesand the various representations of thisscene in the text.

According to Freud, every childeither watches its parents in the act ofsexual intercourse or has phantasies

about that act. These phantasies areabout origins: the primal scenerepresents to the child its own originsin its parents’ lovemaking; theseduction phantasy is about the originof sexual desire; and the phantasy ofcastration pictures the origins of sexualdifference. In ‘From the history of aninfantile neurosis’ Freud left open thequestion of the cause of the phantasybut suggested that it may initially bearoused by ‘an observation of thesexual intercourse of animals’ (p. 59).In situations where the child actuallywitnesses sexual intercourse betweenits parents, Freud argued that allchildren arrive at the same conclusion.In ‘The sexual theories of children’ hestated that children may ‘adopt whatmay be called a sadistic view ofcoition’ (p. 220). If the childperceives, whether in reality orphantasy, the primal scene as amonstrous act it may phantasize

animals or mythical creatures as takingpart in the scenario. Possibly the manymythological stories in which peoplecopulate with animals and othercreatures (Europa and Zeus, Leda andthe Swan) are re workings of theprimal scene narrative. The Sphinx,with her lion’s body and woman’sface, is an interesting figure in thiscontext. Freud suggested that theRiddle of the Sphinx was probably adistorted version of the great riddlethat faces all children – Where dobabies come from? In IntroductoryLectures on Psychoanalysis, Freudstated that an extreme form of theprimal phantasy is that of ‘observingparental intercourse while one is stillan unborn baby in the womb’ (p. 370).

Alien presents variousrepresentations of the primal scene.Behind each of these lurks the figure ofthe archaic mother, that is, the image ofthe mother as sole origin of all life.

The first primal scenario, which takesthe form of a birthing scene, occurs inAlien at the beginning, when thecamera/spectator explores the innerspace of the mother-ship. Thisexploratory sequence of the inner bodyof the ‘Mother’ culminates in a longtracking shot down one of the corridorswhich leads to a womb-like chamberwhere the crew of seven are woken upfrom their protracted sleep byMother’s voice. The seven astronautsemerge slowly from their sleep pods inwhat amounts to a rebirthing scenewhich is marked by a fresh, antisepticatmosphere. In outer space, birth is awell controlled, clean, painless affair.There is no blood, trauma or terror.This scene could be interpreted as aprimal phantasy in which the humansubject is born fully developed – evencopulation is redundant. The first birthscene could be viewed as arepresentation of incestuous desire par

excellence, for the father is completelyabsent; here the mother is sole parentand sole life-support.

The second representation of theprimal scene takes place when three ofthe crew approach the body of theunknown spaceship. They enter througha ‘vaginal’ opening which is shapedlike a horseshoe, its curved sides liketwo long legs spread apart at theentrance. They travel along a corridorwhich seems to be made of acombination of inorganic and organicmaterial – as if the inner space of thisship were alive. Compared to theatmosphere of the Nostromo, however,this ship is dark, dank and mysterious.A ghostly light glimmers and thesounds of their movements echothroughout the caverns. In the firstchamber, the three explorers find ahuge alien life form which appears tohave been dead for a long time. Itsbones are bent outward as if it

exploded from the inside. One of thetrio, Kane (John Hurt) is lowereddown a shaft into the gigantic womb-like chamber in which rows of eggsare hatching. Kane approaches one ofthe eggs; as he touches it with hisgloved hand it opens out, revealing amass of pulsating flesh. Suddenly, themonstrous thing inside leaps up andattaches itself to Kane’s helmet, its tailpenetrating Kane’s mouth in order tofertilize itself inside his stomach.

This representation of the primalscene recalls Freud’s reference to anextreme primal scene phantasy wherethe subject imagines travelling backinside the womb to watch her/hisparents having sexual intercourse,perhaps to watch themselves beingconceived. Here, three astronautsexplore the gigantic, cavernous,malevolent womb of the mother. Twomembers of the group watch anenactment of the primal scene in which

Kane is violated in an act of phallicpenetration. Kane himself is guilty ofthe strongest transgression; he actuallypeers into the egg/womb in order toinvestigate its mysteries. In so doing,he becomes a ‘part’ of the primalscene, taking up the place of themother, the one who is penetrated, theone who bears the offspring of theunion. When male bodies becomegrotesque, they tend to take oncharacteristics associated with femalebodies; in this instance man’s bodybecomes grotesque because it iscapable of being penetrated. From thisunion, the monstrous creature is born.But man, not woman, is the ‘mother’and Kane dies in agony as the aliengnaws its way through his stomach.The birth of the alien from Kane’sstomach recalls Freud’s description ofa common misunderstanding that manychildren have about birth, that is, thatthe mother is somehow ‘impregnated’

through the mouth – she may eat aspecial food – and the baby grows inher stomach, from which it is alsoborn. Here, we have a version of theprimal scene in which the infant isconceived orally.

Another version of the primal scene– Daniel Dervin argues it is aconvention of the science fiction film(Dervin, 1980, 102) – occurs whensmaller crafts or bodies are ejectedfrom the mother-ship into outer space;although sometimes the ejected bodyremains attached to the mother-ship bya long lifeline or umbilical chord. Thisscene is presented in two separateways: (1) when Kane’s body, wrappedin a white shroud, is ejected from themother-ship; and (2) when the smallspace capsule, in which Ripley istrying to escape from the alien, isexpelled from the underbelly of themother-ship. In the former, themother’s body has become hostile; it

contains the alien whose one purposeis to kill and devour all of Mother’schildren who, in terms of normal burialprocedures, would be ejected from theship to float away into a more friendlyenvironment – outer space rather thaninner space. In the second birth scenethe living infant is ejected from themalevolent body of the mother beforethe infant is destroyed; in this scenario,the ‘mother’s’ body explodes at themoment of giving birth.

Although the archaic mother as avisible figure does not appear in Alien,her presence forms a vast backdrop forthe enactment of all the events. She isthere in the images of birth, therepresentations of the primal scene, thewomb-like imagery, the long windingtunnels leading to inner chambers, therows of hatching eggs, the body of themother-ship, the voice of the life-support system, and the birth of thealien. She is the generative mother, the

pre-phallic mother, the being whoexists prior to knowledge of thephallus. This archaic figure issomewhat different from the mother ofthe semiotic chora, posed by Kristeva,in that the latter is the pre-Oedipalmother who exists in relation to thefamily and the symbolic order. Theconcept of the parthenogenetic, archaicmother adds another dimension to thematernal figure and presents us with anew way of understanding howpatriarchal ideology works to deny the‘difference’ of woman in her cinematicrepresentation.

In ‘Fetishism in the horror film’Roger Dadoun also refers to thisarchaic maternal figure. Dadoun’sdiscussion of fetishism and the motheris worth considering here as it helps usto understand the workings of fetishismin relation to the creature in Alien. Hedescribes the archaic mother as:

a mother-thing situated beyondgood and evil, beyond allorganized forms and all events.This is a totalizing and oceanicmother, a ‘shadowy and deepunity’, evoking in the subject theanxiety of fusion and ofdissolution; a mother who comesbefore the discovery of theessential beance, that of thephallus. This mother is nothingbut a fantasy inasmuch as she isonly ever established as anomnipresent and all-powerfultotality, an absolute being, by thevery intuition – she has no phallus– that deposes her . . .

(Dadoun, 1989, 53–4)

In his discussion of the Dracula variantof the vampire film, Dadoun arguesthat the archaic mother exists as a‘non-presence’ which should be‘understood as a very archaic mode of

presence’. Signs of the archaic motherin the Dracula film are: the small,enclosed village; the pathway throughthe forest that leads like an umbilicalcord to the castle; the central place ofenclosure with its winding stairways,spider webs, dark vaults, worm-eatenstaircases, dust and damp earth –‘elements which all relate back to theimago of the bad archaic mother’. Atthe centre of this, Dracula himselfmaterializes. With his black cape,pointed teeth, rigid body – carried‘like an erect phallus’ – piercing eyesand ‘penetrating look’, he is the fetishform, a ‘substitute for the mother’spenis’ (ibid., 52–5):

It is clear, however, since thethreat comes from the mother’sabsent phallus, that the principaldefense is sex. The vampire,marked and fascinated by themother’s missing penis and

identifying with the archaicmother, doesn’t have a phallus butbecomes one instead. He movesfrom what he does not have towhat he can be, if only in illusion.

(ibid., 57)

Roger Dadoun argues veryconvincingly that the Dracula figuresymbolizes an attempt to deny thetotalizing power of the archaic mother,to build a fortress against her imaginedomnipotence:

against primitive identificationwith the mother, a phallus; againstthe anxiety of psychotic collapse,sexuality; against spatio-temporaldisorganization, a ritual – and thatcompletes the construction, on thepositive side of fetishism, as itwere, of a sexualized phallicobject, all the more rigid andimpressive for being fragile and

threatened. In this object, one mayperhaps have the pleasure ofrecognizing a familiar figure ofthe horror film, Count Dracula.

(ibid., 41)

As he emerges in Dadoun’s argument,the Dracula figure is very much actingon behalf of the mother – he desires tobe the phallus for the mother, notunderstanding, or forgetting in his fear,that she is the mother who exists priorto the uncovering of ‘the essentialbeance\ the mother who is ‘nothing buta fantasy inasmuch as she is only everestablished as an omnipresent and all-powerful totality’ (ibid., 54).Identifying with the archaic mother,Dracula attributes to her the phallusshe never had and does not needbecause she exists prior to knowledgeof the phallus. She is all-powerful andabsolute unto herself. Dracula,however, becomes her fantasized

phallus, attributes to her a shape, aclearly defined, erect form in order tocombat the threat of her formlessness,her totalizing, oceanic presence. Whenhe is finally penetrated by the stake, hisheart is revealed ‘to be hollow, agaping wound. This is castration madeflesh and blood and absence’ (ibid.,57). In this way, according to Dadoun,the large ‘omnipresent mother’ isdisplaced on to the small ‘occultedmother’ (ibid., 43). In other words, thefigure of the archaic mother iscollapsed into that of the pre-symbolicor dyadic mother, the mother who isthought to possess a phallus. In theprocess, the monster comes torepresent the mother’s ‘missing’phallus. This act of displacementwould appear to be particularlyrelevant to Alien because of the phallicnature of the alien itself as well as itsorigin in the womb/cave of the archaicmother. But before relating Dadoun’s

theory to Alien, it is important to bringin Freud’s views on the possibility of afemale fetishist.

In general, the fetishist is usuallyassumed to be male, although in ‘Anoutline of psycho-analysis’ Freud didallow that female fetishism was apossibility. ‘This abnormality, whichmay be counted as one of theperversions, is, as is well known,based on the patient (who is almostalways male) not recognizing the factthat females have no penis’ (p. 202;emphasis added). The notion of femalefetishism is much neglected although itis present in various patriarchaldiscourses.

In her article, ‘Woman–desire–image’, Mary Kelly argues that ‘itwould be a mistake to confine womento the realm of repression, excludingthe possibility, for example, of femalefetishism’:

When Freud describes castrationfears for the woman, thisimaginary scenario takes the formof losing her loved objects,especially her children; the childis going to grow up, leave her,reject her, perhaps die. In order todelay, disavow, that separationshe has already in a wayacknowledged, the woman tendsto fetishise the child: by dressinghim up, by continuing to feed himno matter how old he gets, orsimply by having another ‘littleone’.

(Kelly, 1984, 31)

In The Interpretation of Dreams,Freud discusses the way in which thedoubling of a penis symbol indicatesan attempt to stave off castrationanxieties. Juliet Mitchell refers todoubling as a sign of a femalecastration complex. ‘We can see the

significance of this for women, asdreams of repeated number of children– “little ones” – are given the sameimport’ (Mitchell, 1985, 84). In thiscontext, one aspect of female fetishismcan be interpreted as an attempt by thefemale subject to continue to ‘have’ thephallus, to take up a ‘positive’ place inrelation to the symbolic.

Both aspects of female fetishism are,of course, constructions of apatriarchal ideology unable to dealwith the threat of sexual difference asit is embodied in the images of thefeminine as archaic mother and ascastrated other. Both of these notionsof female fetishism are present inAlien: the monster as fetishized phallusof the archaic mother is representedthrough the chameleon figure of thealien and the phallus as a fetishizedchild or ‘little one’ is present in thedynamic between the heroine and hercat. However, the Freudian theory of

the fetish is inadequate because it doesnot take into account the possibilitythat woman also terrifies because shethreatens to castrate.

Like Count Dracula, the monstrouscreature of Alien is constructed as theagent of the archaic mother but in myview the mother’s phallus-fetishcovers over, not her lack – as Freudargued – but rather, her castratingvagina dentata. (See Part II for a fullexplication of this view.) Mother Alienis primarily a terrifying figure notbecause she is castrated but becauseshe castrates. Her all-consuming,incorporating powers are concretizedin the figure of her alien offspring; thecreature whose deadly mission isrepresented as the same as that of thearchaic mother – to tear apart andreincorporate all life. I would alsoargue that the archaic mother of theDracula films terrifies primarilybecause she threatens to castrate.

Dadoun argues that Dracula representsher fetishized phallus; in my view healso represents, through his fangedmouth, her castrating dentata. Kristevapoints to this aspect of the mother inher analysis of abjection: ‘Fear of theuncontrollable generative motherrepels me from the body; I give upcannibalism because abjection (of themother) leads me toward respect forthe body of the other, my fellow man,my brother’ (Kristeva, 1982, 78–9).Discussions of the archaic mother inher all-devouring cannibalistic aspect,as distinct from her originating aspect,tend to blur her image with that of theoral-sadistic mother of the pre-Oedipal. It is in relation toincorporation that the archaic and pre-symbolic forms of the mother are mostlikely to coalesce. In her role as thecannibalistic parent, the mother isrepresented as completely abject. InAlien, each of the crew members

comes face to face with the alien in ascene where the mise-en-scene iscoded to suggest a monstrous,cannibalistic maternal figure whichalso represents the threat of the vaginadentata. Dallas, the captain,encounters the alien after he hascrawled along the ship’s enclosed,womblike air ducts; and the other threemembers are cannibalized in a frenzyof blood in scenes which placeemphasis on the alien’s huge razor-sharp teeth, signifying the all-incorporating mother. Other scenessuggest her malevolent presence indifferent ways. Apart from the scene ofKane’s death, when the creature gnawsits way through his stomach, all of theother death sequences occur in dimlylit, enclosed, threatening spaces whichare reminiscent of the giant hatcherywhere Kane first encounters thepulsating egg. In these death sequencesthe terror of being abandoned is

matched only by the fear ofreincorporation and death. Ironically,these scenarios of death are stagedwithin the body of the mother-ship, thevessel which the space travellersinitially trust until ‘Mother’ herself isrevealed as a treacherous figure whohas been programmed to sacrifice thelives of the crew in the interests of theCompany.

Alien supports the general principleof fetishization but it suggests that theorigin of the process of denial is fearnot of the castrated mother but of thecastrating mother. If we consider Alienin the light of a theory of fetishism,then the nature of the alien begins tomake sense. Its changing appearancerepresents a form of doubling ormultiplication of the ‘phallus’ pointingto the workings of the fetish project.The alien’s ever-changing shape, itschameleon nature also points to thematernal fetish object as an ‘alien’ or

foreign shape. This is why the body ofthe heroine becomes so important atthe end of the film.

Various critics (Greenberg, 1986;Kavanaugh, 1980) have debated thepotential voyeurism of the final scene,where Ripley undresses before thecamera. There has also beenconsiderable discussion of the cat.Why does she rescue the cat andthereby risk her life, and the lives ofParker and Lambert, when she haspreviously been so careful aboutquarantine regulations? Again,satisfactory answers to these questionsare provided by a phallocentricconcept of female fetishism. Comparedto the horrific sight of the alien asfetish object of the monstrous archaicmother, Ripley’s body is pleasurableand reassuring to look at. She signifiesthe ‘acceptable’ form and shape ofwoman. The unacceptable, monstrousaspect of woman is represented in two

ways: Mother as an omnipresentarchaic force linked to death andMother as the cannibalistic creaturerepresented through the alien as fetish-object. The visually horrifying aspectsof the Mother are offset through thedisplay of woman as reassuring andpleasurable sign. The image of the catfunctions in the same way; it signifiesan acceptable, and in this context, areassuring, fetish-object for the‘normal’ woman. The double birdimage in Hitchcock’s The Birdsfunctions in a similar way: the lovebirds signify an acceptable fetish, thedeath birds a fetish of the monstrouswoman. Thus, Ripley holds the cat toher, stroking it as if it were her ‘baby’,her ‘little one’. Finally, Ripley entersher sleep pod, assuming a virgin-likerepose. The nightmare is over and weare returned to the opening sequence ofthe film where birth was a clean,pristine affair. The final sequence

works, not only to dispose of the alien,but also to repress the nightmare imageof the archaic mother, constructed as asign of abjection, within the text’spatriarchal discourses. Alien presentsa fascinating study of the archaicmother and of the fear her imagegenerates.

THE ARCHAIC MOTHERFreudian psychoanalytic theory isprimarily concerned with the pre-Oedipal mother, the mother of infancy,weaning and toilet training who isresponsible for the early socializationof the child. I think it is possible toopen up the mother question stillfurther and posit an even more archaicmaternal figure, by going back tomythological narratives of thegenerative, parthenogenetic mother –that ancient archaic figure who givesbirth to all living things. She exists in

the mythology of all human cultures asthe Mother-Goddess who alonecreated the heavens and earth. In Chinashe was known as Nu Kwa, in Mexicoas Coatlicue, in Greece as Gaia(literally meaning ‘earth’) and inSumer as Nammu. In ‘Moses andmonotheism’ Freud attempts to explainthe origin of the archaic mother; heargues that the great mother-goddessesare not mythical but belong to thematriarchal period of human history:

It is likely that the mother-goddesses originated at the timeof the curtailment of thematriarchy, as a compensation forthe slight upon the mothers. Themale deities appear first as sonsbeside the great mothers and onlylater clearly assume the featuresof father-figures. These male godsof polytheism reflect theconditions during the patriarchal

age.(p. 83)

Freud proposed that human societydeveloped through stages frompatriarchy to matriarchy and finallyback to patriarchy. During the first,primitive people lived in small groups,each dominated by a jealous, powerfulfather who possessed all the females ofthe group. One day the sons, who hadbeen banished to the outskirts of thegroup, overthrew the father – whosebody they devoured – in order tosecure his power and to take hiswomen for themselves. Overcome byguilt, they later set up a totem as asubstitute for the father and alsorenounced the women whom they hadliberated from the father. The sonsvoluntarily gave up the women, whomthey all wanted to possess, in order topreserve the group which otherwisewould have been destroyed as the sons

fought amongst themselves. In ‘Totemand taboo’ Freud suggests that here ‘thegerm of the institution of matriarchy’(p. 144) may have originated.Eventually, however, this new form ofsocial organization, constructed uponthe taboo against murder and incest,was replaced by the re-establishmentof a patriarchal order. He pointed outthat the sons had ‘thus created out oftheir filial sense of guilt the twofundamental taboos of totemism, whichfor that very reason inevitablycorresponded to the two repressedwishes of the Oedipus complex’ (ibid.,143). Freud’s account of the origins ofpatriarchal civilization is generallyregarded as pure speculation. In TheElementary Structures of Kinship,Lévi-Strauss points out that it is a fairexplanation ‘not for the beginning ofcivilisation, but for its present state’ inthat it expresses in symbolic form an‘ancient and lasting dream’ – the desire

to murder the father and possess themother (Lévi-Strauss, 1969, 491). Inmy view, Freud’s theory also attemptsto demystify myths concerning thearchaic mother and her terrifyingpowers of creation.

From the above, it is clear that thefigure of the mother in both the historyof human imagination and in the historyof the individual subject posesimmense problems. Both Freud andLacan conflate the archaic mother withthe mother of the dyadic and triadicrelationship. Freud refers to thearchaic mother as a ‘shadowy’ figure(‘Female sexuality’, p. 226); andLacan refers to her as the ‘abyss of thefemale organ from which all life comesforth’ (quoted in Heath, 1978, 54).They make no clear attempt todistinguish this aspect of the maternalfigure from what they see as theprotective/suffocating mother of thepre-Oedipal, or the mother as object of

sexual jealousy and desire as she isrepresented in the Oedipalconfiguration.

Kristeva extends the notion of theFreudian Oedipal mother to includetwo other faces of the mother: thefecund mother and the phantasmaticmother who constitutes the abysswhich is so crucial in the formation ofsubjectivity. It is the notion of thefecund mother-as-abyss that is centralto Alien; it is the abyss, thecannibalizing black hole from whichall life comes and to which all lifereturns that is represented in the film asa source of deepest terror. Kristevadiscusses the way in which the fertilefemale body is constructed as an‘abject’ in order to keep the subjectseparate from the phantasmatic powerof the mother, a power which threatensto obliterate the subject. An oppositionis drawn between the impure fertile(female) body and pure speech

associated with the symbolic (male)body.

Kristeva argues that a boundary isdrawn between feminine andmasculine as a means of establishingan order that is ‘clean and proper’. Inher discussion of the archaic mother,Kristeva stresses her double signifyingfunction as both source of life andabyss. In both aspects she isconstructed as abject to ensure theconstitution of subjectivity and the law.Kristeva draws attention to thephantasmatic power of the archaicmother and to the power of the motherin general whether ‘historical orphantasmatic, natural or reproductive’(Kristeva, 1982, 91). She isspecifically interested in how theprocesses of abjection are used tosubordinate maternal power tosymbolic law. Her central interest,however, lies with the mother of thepre-symbolic. Nevertheless, we can

draw on her theory of abjection toanalyse the way in which thephantasized figure of the archaicmother – particularly in relation tobirth and death – is constructed as anabject within the signifying practicesof the horror film.

The maternal figure constructedwithin/by the writings of Freud andLacan is inevitably the mother of thedyadic or triadic relationship. Evenwhen she is represented as the motherof the imaginary, of the dyadicrelationship, she is still constructed asthe pre-Oedipal mother, that is, as afigure about to ‘take up a place’ in thesymbolic – as a figure always inrelation to the father, the representativeof the phallus. Without her ‘lack’, hecannot signify its opposite – lack of a‘lack’ or presence. But if we posit amore archaic dimension to the mother– the mother as originating womb – wecan at least begin to talk about the

maternal figure as outside thepatriarchal family constellation. In thiscontext, the mother-goddess narrativescan be read as primal scene narrativesin which the mother is the sole parent.She is also the subject, not the object,of narrativity.

For instance, in the Spider Womanmyth of the North American Indians,there was only the Spider Woman, whospun the universe into existence andthen created two daughters from whomall life flowed. She is also the ThoughtWoman or Wise Woman who knowsthe secrets of the universe. Within theOedipus narrative, however, shebecomes the Sphinx, who also knowsthe answers to the secret of life but, nolonger the subject of the narrative, hasbecome the object of the narrative ofthe male hero. After he has solved herriddle, she will destroy herself. TheSphinx is an ambiguous figure; hername, derived from ‘sphincter’,

suggests she is the mother ofsphincteral training, the pre-Oedipalmother who must be repudiated by theson so that he can take up his properplace in the symbolic. Oedipus hasalways been seen to have committedtwo horrific crimes: patricide andincest. But his encounter with theSphinx, which leads to her death,suggests another horrific crime – thatof matricide. For the Sphinx, like theMedusa, is a mother-goddess figure;they are both variants of the samemythological mother who gave birth toall life. In Structural Anthropology,Lévi-Strauss has argued that the majorissue at stake in the Oedipus myth isthe problem of whether or not man isborn from woman. This myth is alsocentral to Alien: ‘Although the problemobviously cannot be solved, theOedipus myth provides a kind oflogical tool which relates the originalproblem – born from one or born from

two? – to the derivative problem: bornfrom different or born from same?’(Lévi-Strauss, 1963, 216). What ismost interesting about the mythologicalfigure of woman as the source of alllife is that, within patriarchalsignifying practices, particularly thehorror film, she is reconstructed andre-presented as a negative figure, oneassociated with the dread of thegenerative mother seen only as theabyss, the all-incorporating black holewhich threatens to reabsorb what itonce birthed.

The central characteristic of thearchaic mother is her total dedicationto the generative, procreativeprinciple. She is the mother whoconceives all by herself, the originalparent, the godhead of all fertility andthe origin of procreation. She isoutside morality and the law. Ash, theScience Officer who is also a cyborg,delivers a eulogy to the eponymous

alien of the film which could be adescription of this mother: ‘T’ admireits purity; a survivor unclouded byconscience, remorse or delusions ofmorality.’ Clearly, it is difficult toseparate out completely the figure ofthe archaic mother, as defined above,from other aspects of the maternalfigure – the maternal authority ofKristeva’s semiotic, the mother ofLacan’s imaginary, the phallic woman,the castrated and castrating woman.While the different figures signifyseparate aspects of the monstrous-feminine, as constructed in the horrorfilm, each one is also only part of thewhole. At times the horrific nature ofthe monstrous-feminine results from themerging of all aspects of the maternalfigure into one – the horrifying imageof woman as archaic mother, phallicwoman, castrated body and castratingparent represented as a single figurewithin the horror film. However, the

archaic mother is clearly present intwo distinct ways in the horror film.

Constructed as a negative force, sheis represented in her phantasmagoricaspect in many horror texts,particularly the sci-fi horror film. Wesee her as the gaping, cannibalisticbird’s mouth in The Giant Claw, theterrifying spider of The IncredibleShrinking Man; the toothedvagina/womb of Jaws; and the fleshy,pulsating, womb of The Thing andPoltergeist. What is common to all ofthese images of horror is the voraciousmaw, the mysterious black hole thatsignifies female genitalia whichthreatens to give birth to equallyhorrific offspring as well asthreatening to incorporate everything inits path. This is the generative archaicmother, constructed within patriarchalideology, as the primeval ‘black hole’,the originating womb which gives birthto all life.

In the horror films mentioned above,it is the suggested presence of thegestating, all-devouring womb of thearchaic mother which generates thehorror. Nor are these images of thewomb constructed in relation to thepenis of the father. Unlike the femalegenitalia, the womb cannot beconstructed as a ‘lack’ in relation to thepenis. The womb is not the site ofcastration anxiety. Rather, the wombsignifies ‘fullness’ or ‘emptiness’ butalways it is its own point of reference.This is why we need to posit a morearchaic dimension to the mother. Forthe concept of the archaic motherallows for a notion of the femininewhich does not depend for itsdefinition on a concept of themasculine. In contrast, the maternalfigure of the pre-Oedipal is almostalways represented in relation to thepenis – the phallic mother who laterbecomes the castrated mother.

Significantly, there is an attempt inAlien to appropriate the procreativefunction of the archaic mother, torepresent a man giving birth, to denythe mother as signifier of sexualdifference – but here birth can existonly as the other face of death. Whenone of the alien creatures orally rapesKane, one of the male astronauts, itimplants its embryo in Kane’s stomach.But the primeval mother does not needthe male as a ‘father’, only as a hostbody, and the alien creaturemurderously gnaws its way throughKane’s belly. Its birth leads to the malemother’s death.

The archaic mother is present in allhorror films as the blackness ofextinction – death. The desires andfears invoked by the image of thearchaic mother, as a force thatthreatens to reincorporate what it oncegave birth to, are always there in thehorror text – all pervasive, all

encompassing – because of theconstant presence of death. The desireto return to the original oneness ofthings, to return to the mother/womb, isprimarily a desire for non-differentiation. If, as George Batailleargues in Death and Sensuality, lifesignifies discontinuity andseparateness, and death signifiescontinuity and non-differentiation, thenthe desire for and attraction of deathsuggests also a desire to return to thestate of original oneness with themother. As this desire to merge occursafter differentiation, that is after thesubject has developed as separate,autonomous self, it is experienced as aform of psychic death. In this sense, theconfrontation with death as representedin the horror film gives rise to a terrorof self-disintegration, of losing one’sself or ego – often representedcinematically by a screen whichbecomes black, signifying the

obliteration of self, the self of theprotagonist in the film and thespectator in the cinema. This hasimportant consequences for thepositioning of the spectator in thecinema.

One of the most interestingstructures operating in the screen–spectator relationship relates to thesight/site of the monstrous within thehorror text. In contrast with theconventional viewing structuresworking within other variants of theclassic text, the horror film does notwork to encourage the spectator toidentify continually with the narrativeaction. Instead, an unusual situationarises whereby the filmic processesdesigned to encourage spectatorialidentification are momentarilyundermined as horrific images on thescreen challenge the viewer to run therisk of continuing to look. Here I referto those moments in the horror film

when the spectator, unable to stand theimages of horror unfolding beforehis/her eyes, is forced to look away, tonot-look, to look anywhere but at thescreen – particularly when the monsteris engaged in the act of killing.Strategies of identification aretemporarily broken and pleasure inlooking is transformed into pain as thespectator is punished for his/hervoyeuristic desires. For instance, thescene in Alien where the alien creaturegnaws its way out of the stomach ofone of the astronauts is designed tocommand our attention whilesimultaneously punishing us forlooking. We watch in horrifiedfascination as we see blood spatter upfrom underneath his shirt as somethingtries to push its way up from under.When we realize that the movement isactually coming from inside hisstomach it is too late to disavow whatwe know. Even if we do look away –

as do many spectators we still have afair idea of what is about to happen.Such scenes satisfy a morbid desire tosee as much as possible of theunimaginable, such as graphichorrifying images of a man giving birthto a monster, of the human body tornapart before our disbelieving eyes,before we are forced to look away.Graphic displays of gore and bodilydismemberment are repeated each timethe alien strikes.

The three main ‘looks’ which havebeen theorized in relation to thescreen–spectator relationship are: thecamera’s look at the pro-filmic event;the look of the character(s) in thediegesis; and the look of the spectatorat the events on the screen. In hisdiscussion of pornography PaulWillemen (1980) has specified a fourthlook, the possibility of the viewerbeing overlooked while engaged in theact of looking at something he or she is

not supposed to look at. The act of‘looking away’ when viewing horrorfilms is such a common occurrence thatit should be seen as a fifth look thatdistinguishes the screen–spectatorrelationship.

Confronted by the sight of themonstrous, the viewing subject is putinto crisis – boundaries, designed tokeep the abject at bay, threaten todisintegrate, collapse. According toLacan, the self is constituted in aprocess which he called the ‘mirror-phase’ in which the child perceives itsown body as a unified whole in animage it receives from outside itself.Identity is an imaginary construct,formed in a state of alienation,grounded in misrecog-nition. In ‘Somereflections on the ego’ Lacan arguesthat the self, because it is constructedon an illusion, is always in danger ofregressing. The horror film puts theviewing subject’s sense of a unified

self into crisis, specifically in thosemoments when the image on the screenbecomes too threatening or too horrificto watch, when the abject threatens todraw the viewing subject to the place‘where meaning collapses’, the placeof death. By not-looking, the spectatoris able momentarily to withdrawidentification from the image on thescreen in order to reconstruct theboundary between self and screen andreconstitute the ‘self which isthreatened with disintegration. Thisprocess of reconstitution of the self,via the fifth look, is also reaffirmed bythe conventional ending of some horrornarratives in which the monster is‘named’ and destroyed.

Fear of losing oneself and one’sboundaries is made more acute in asociety which values boundaries overcontinuity, and separateness oversameness. Given that death isrepresented in the horror film as a

threat to the self’s boundaries,symbolized by the threat of themonster, death images are most likelyto cause the spectator to look away, tonot-look. Because the archaic motheris closely associated with death in itsnegative aspects – death seen as adesire for continuity and the loss ofboundaries – her presence is markednegatively within the project of thehorror film. Both the mother and deathsignify a monstrous obliteration of theself and both are linked to the demonic,as Alien so terrifyingly demonstrates.

3

WOMAN ASPOSSESSED MONSTER:

THE EXORCIST

Why does corporeal waste,menstrual blood and excrement,or everything that is assimilatedto them, from nail-parings todecay, represent – like a metaphorthat would have become incarnate– the objective frailty of symbolicorder?Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

Regan, the young female protagonist ofThe Exorcist, is a truly monstrousfigure. She spews green bile, uttersfoul obscenities, tries to fuck hermother, causes inanimate objects to fly,rotates her head full circle on her neck,knocks men to the floor with onepunch, tries to castrate a priest,murders two men, and in her sparetime masturbates with a crucifix.Connections drawn in the film betweenfeminine desire, sexuality andabjection suggest that more is at stakethan a simple case of demonicpossession. Possession becomes theexcuse for legitimizing a display ofaberrant feminine behaviour which isdepicted as depraved, monstrous,abject – and perversely appealing. Theenormous popularity of The Exorcist,one of the horror genre’s biggest box-office successes, led to a series ofsecond-rate imitations including: TheDevil Within Her, Abby, Cathy’s

Curse, Lisa and the Devil, To TheDevil – A Daughter, Audrey Rose andThe Sexorcist. All of these portray agirl/woman possessed by the devil.Central to these imitations was a strongsense of the vulnerability of the bodyand its susceptibility to possession.They also focused attention on thegraphic detailed representation ofbodily destruction. In general,however, these imitations lacked thepower and horror of the original.

The Devil Within Her (1975), tellsthe story of Lucy, a young woman whogives birth to a baby that is possessed.The mother had previously beeninvolved in a sexual relationship withthe owner of a nightclub where shewas employed as a stripper. She fearshe may be the father. Lucy alsoencouraged and then rejected theinvitations of a dwarf who murders herhusband and then herself; thus Lucy ispunished for her sexual transgressions.

The film depicts a number of gruesomescenes including the dwarf’s death andexorcism of the baby but it lackssuspense and drive. Audrey Rose(1977), which does not rely on specialeffects for its strong sense of suspense,presents the story of Ivy, a young girlwho appears to be a reincarnation ofanother girl, Audrey Rose, who wasburnt to death in a car accident. Thedead girl’s father, a rather sinisterfigure, befriends the family. When Ivyis traumatized by screaming fits andwhen her hands catch fire only AudreyRose’s father is able to soothe her.During these scenes he addresses heras his dead daughter. After a courtcase, in which an Indian religiousfigure explains the nature ofreincarnation, an exorcism isconducted and the dead girl’s soul isput to rest. The film is marred by theinclusion of some unconvincingmaterial about reincarnation. Cathy’s

Curse (1976) is a completelyimpoverished reworking of TheExorcist. Young Laura is killed withher father in a car accident. Thirtyyears later, when her brother and hiswife and daughter, Cathy, return to thefamily home Laura begins to possessCathy. All of the special effects thatmade The Exorcist so terrifying towatch – telekinesis, scenes of familialdestruction, speaking in weird voices –are exploited in this film but to noavail; the acting is poor, directionuninspired and special effects cliched.No attempt is made to explore thefilm’s theme of possession. EventuallyLaura’s doll, which survived theaccident and which has weird eyes, islocated as the source of the horror.When its eyes are torn out the horrorceases.

None of the above films explores thenature of possession in any depth orsuccessfully generates the horror of

The Exorcist. As a possessed figure,Regan belongs to that lineage of dualpersonality horror figures such as thesplit personality (Sisters), werewolf(The Wolf Man) and invaded subject(Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Thepossessed or invaded being is a figureof abjection in that the boundarybetween self and other has beentransgressed. When the subject isinvaded by a personality of another sexthe transgression is even more abjectbecause gender boundaries areviolated. In this case, the invasionusually takes the form of a femaletaking over the personality of a male(Psycho, Dressed to Kill, A Reflectionof Fear). Not many horror films dealwith the opposite situation (DeadlyBlessing is one example). In filmsdepicting invasion by the devil, thevictim is almost always a young girl,the invader the male devil. One of themajor boundaries traversed is that

between innocence and corruption,purity and impurity. The Exorcist isusually seen as involving a case ofpossession by the male devil.However, I will argue that the devil, inthis case, may well be female.

The central conflict in The Exorcistis ostensibly between Christ and thedevil. The opening scenes take place atan archaeological site in northern Iraqwhere a famous exorcist, FatherMerrin (Max von Sydow) issupervising an excavation. Theopening image is of an enormous redsun glowing in the sky over a barrendesert. The workers uncover amedallion, the sight of which fillsFather Merrin with fear. The eventsthat take place in the Iraqi desert arefilmed in such a way as to create aforeboding atmosphere fraught witheerie tension. The soundtrack is filledwith sounds of hammering, voicesbabbling, the chanting of prayers. A

sense of foreboding also fills thenearby village.

Tension is heightened by the suddenappearance of a woman wearing blackand hurrying through the streets; at themoment of her appearance the noisysounds fade away. A second black-garbed female figure peers menacinglyat Father Merrin from her position on arooftop. Two more female figures, alsoin black, cross his path. Another oldwoman, her face creased in a toothlessgrin, stares at him from a carriagewhich nearly runs him down. Thesense of foreboding seems to beparticularly linked to the sinister,robed figures of these women who, inthis context, take on the stereotypicalfeatures associated with the witch ashag or post-menopausal woman(Greer, 1991, 411) – black dress,hump, wrinkled face, toothless grin.

Father Merrin, aware of someimpending disaster, returns to the site

and climbs a rocky hill, from where helooks at a large, menacing statue of theBabylonian deity, Pazuzu, a relativelyminor Mesopotamian deity whopossessed a snake-like penis and wasconsort of the serpent-mother, Lamia.Pazuzu’s gaping mouth and sinisterappearance recall the toothed grin ofthe old woman in the carriage. FatherMerrin’s adversary is linkedmythologically and visually to womanas witch. The setting changes abruptly.Another sun fills the screen,superimposed over a wide-angle shotof Washington, DC. The camera zoomsslowly in on a particular house. Awoman is writing; a bed lamp glowsbeside her. Suddenly she hears strange,snarling noises coming from the attic.She thinks the sounds are made by rats.Iraq and Georgetown are linked bycommon images and sounds: the sun, aglowing lamp, disturbing sounds. Themotif of the old women is later

developed in relation to the elderlymother of the priest, Father Damien.

The opening sequence of TheExorcist sets the scene for the story ofdemonic possession which follows.The house is the home of ReganMacNeil (Linda Blair) an apparentlynormal happy twelve-year-old wholives with her mother Chris MacNeil(Ellen Burstyn), a well-known filmstar. Together with various householdemployees, mother and daughter existin what appears to be a happy familysituation. Whatever tension exists inthe family emanates from the figure ofthe mother, who has clearly notresolved her relationship with herestranged husband; she quarrelsconstantly with him during long-distance telephone calls. The mostdisquieting thing about Regan is hernamesake, Regan, who was one ofKing Lear’s monstrous daughters,‘sharper than a serpent’s tooth’.

Through her name, Regan is associatedwith the snake, Christian symbol ofwoman’s disobedience, unbridledsexual appetite and treachery. It is thebody of this serpentine child that ispossessed by Pazuzu, the devil andconsort of the snake goddess.

At one level, The Exorcist appearsto be arguing that the modern world,like Sodom and Gomorrah, has solditself to the devil (Derry, 1987, 169;Kinder and Houston, 1987, 52); hence,the moral climate is so corrupt that thedevil is able to take possession of theyoung with the greatest of ease. Life inthe modern city is marked by a sense ofdecay associated with poverty,overcrowding, alienation, loneliness,neglect of the old, divorce, alcoholismand violence. Central to this modernwasteland is the growing decline ofreligious belief. This theme of moraland spiritual decline is played out inrelation to the figure of Father Damien

(Jason Miller). An intense, despairingyoung man, he is torn betweendevotion to two mothers: his spiritualmother, the Church, and his earthlymother who is alone and dying in pain.When he is unable to prevent the latterfrom being forcibly taken from herhome and moved into a ward in anasylum (he can’t afford a hospital), sheturns her back on him in disgust anddespair. The betrayal of mother bychild is highlighted in a pathetic scenein which Father Damien walks throughthe psychiatric ward to reach hismother’s bed. His passage is like ajourney through hell: women in variousstages of dementia reach out to him,wanting comfort or help from a manthey see as a priest. These womenrecall the Iraqi women dressed inblack who set an ominous tone in thefilm’s opening scenes. When hismother dies, she returns to haunt hisnightmares.

The theme of urban and spiritualdecay is linked to a decline in properfamilial values through the MacNeilfamily. What better ground for theforces of evil to take root than thehousehold of a family in which thefather is absent and where the mothercontinually utters profanities,particularly in relation to her husband?‘He doesn’t give a shit. I’ve been onthis fucking line for twenty minutes!Jesus Christ!’ Chris MacNeil iscurrently acting in a film about studentrebellion – a phenomenon which manywould see as a sign of impendingsocial collapse. But while the theme ofspiritual decline is central to TheExorcist, it is secondary to the film’sexploration of female monstrousnessand the inability of the male order tocontrol the woman whose perversity isexpressed through her rebellious body.

The film’s middle section focuses onvarious signs of Regan’s gradual

possession, the final section on herexorcism. Initially, signs of Regan’stransformation are not openly sexual.First, she begins to draw figures ofwinged lions and sculptures whichsuggest the figure of Pazuzu. Throughher ouija board she communicates witha spirit friend, Captain Howdy. Atnight she complains that she cannotsleep because her bed is shaking. Onenight when her mother is entertainingguests, Regan comes downstairs and infront of the dismayed group urinates onthe carpet. She tells one of the guests,an astronaut, that he is going ‘to die upthere’. Regan’s mother rushes into herdaughter’s room to see the bed jumpingviolently up and down. Chris takes herto a doctor, who recommends variousmedical tests – all of which are moreterrifying than the symptoms. Regandeteriorates further. The doctors areunable to help.

A new development terrifies Chris

even more. Regan’s body is pulled upand slapped violently down on the bedas if by an outside force. Chris bringsin a number of doctors. In the middleof these gymnastics, Regan suddenlystops, rolls the whites of her eyes andutters a savage snarl. A doctorapproaches. Regan knocks him to thefloor with one punch as she commandsin a deep mannish voice, ‘Keep away!The sow is mine! Fuck me! Fuck me!Fuck me!’ Chaos grips the room as thedoctors forcibly inject her.‘Pathological states can induceabnormal strength,’ says one doctor.Regan is subjected to another round ofhorrifying examinations. They can findnothing wrong with her andrecommend a psychiatrist. When Chrisreturns home she finds that Burke, whowas minding Regan, is dead. Theexplanation is that he fell from theupstairs window and broke his neck.Later we learn that his head was turned

completely around and facingbackwards.

A psychiatrist is brought in; hehypnotizes Regan and ‘the personinside her’ in order to find out theidentity of Regan’s other ‘self.Suddenly Regan, who has acquiredsupernatural strength, grabs hisgenitals. He falls to the floor,screaming in agony. Regan leaps on topof him as if to bite his genitals but isdragged off by two other doctors andforcibly sedated. The doctors at thepsychiatric clinic tell Regan’s motherthat her daughter appears to besuffering from a form of possessionwhich is usually only seen in primitivecultures. One of the doctors suggests anexorcism – a stylized ritual in which apriest or rabbi drives out the ‘spirit’which the patient believes has takenover her or his body.

Regan’s possession now takes a newform as she tries to force a sexual

encounter with her mother. Chris hearsnoises coming from her daughter’sroom; she rushes inside to see objectsand bedroom furniture whizzingthrough the air. Regan, her facecovered in blood, is stabbing hergenitals with a cross, screaming in adeep voice, ‘Let Jesus fuck you!’ Christries to hold her. Regan grabs hermother and pushes her face into herbloody genitals. It is not clear if theblood is menstrual or caused by self-mutilation although we do know thatRegan has just entered puberty. ‘Lickme! Lick me!’ she orders. She thenpunches her mother in the face. Christries to scramble from the room butRegan uses telekinetic powers to movepieces of furniture to bar her mother’sway. Next, Regan’s head starts to turnround in a circle as she asks with agrin, ‘Do you know what she did? Yourcunting daughter?’ This is one of themost confronting scenes in the film.

Regan’s transformation from angel intodevil is clearly a sexual one; itsuggests that the family home, bastionof all the right virtues and laudablemoral values, is built on a foundationof repressed sexual desires includingthose which flow between mother anddaughter – a theme explored in Carrie.

In The Exorcist the sexualdimension of the mother-daughterrelationship is made more explicit.Desire, disguised as possession, is notexpressed through a symbolic exchangeof objects (the knife/rape in Carrie)but is spoken out loud in the daughter’sbedroom. After the scene of sexualconfrontation between mother anddaughter, the film moves in a differentdirection. Until now Regan’s displayof powers has been limited totelekinesis, voice distortion and featsrequiring enormous strength. After herverbal violation of the incest taboo,Regan’s actions become even more

monstrous and she commits aphysically impossible act – with herhead. The film seeks to exonerateRegan of this terrible deed by makingit clear she is possessed – the devil isto blame for the utterance of incestuousdesire. It seems clear that explanationsdrawn from physics or psychoanalysisare now out of the question. Thesuggestion that the devil is really atlarge is reinforced in the scene of theVirgin’s phallus. In a nearby church apriest discovers to his horror that astatue of the Virgin Mother hassprouted two large phallic breasts andan extremely large penis. The Virgin islinked visually to Pazuzu, who alsosported a giant phallus.

Convinced that Regan must bepossessed, Chris seeks help fromFather Damien. Although rejecting herplea for an exorcism, he agrees to seeRegan, who is now strapped to thebed. Regan’s face is white, puffy and

covered in sores; she looks almosthalf-human, half-animal, like a dirtysow. ‘Where’s Regan?’ he asks. Thewitch replies: ‘In here. With us! Yourmother is in here with us, FatherDamien. Would you like to leave amessage? I’ll see that she gets it.’Father Damien bends forward asRegan vomits green bile over him.That night Chris calls Father Damienback to the house. Regan’s room isfreezing. Chris unbuttons Regan’snightgown to reveal a message thatseems to be written on the inside of herstomach. The words ‘Help Me’ appearthrough the skin, indicating that the‘real’ Regan is trapped inside her ownbody. At this point, shortly after thesuggestion of incestuous desire onRegan’s part, the narrative makesanother attempt to distinguish betweenRegan and the devil. Regan did notviolate the incest taboo, it was thedevil. The film seeks to cover over the

explosive issue it has laid bare. Thequestion of mother-daughter incest hasrarely been explored in the cinema,even in the horror film.

Father Merrin, a well-knownexorcist, is brought in at FatherDamien’s request. Regan greets themwith: ‘Stick your cock up her ass. Youmother-fucking worthless cock-sucker.’Her taunts are now directed at thetaboo sexual desires of men,particularly homosexual desire. Regansits up, indicating another devilishperformance is about to take place.Again her head slowly turns a fullcircle on her neck. She accuses FatherDamien: ‘You killed your mother. Youleft her alone to die!’ In the finalconfrontation Father Merrin dies of aheart attack. Father Damien takes over;he drags Regan to the floor andpunches her repeatedly. ‘Take me,’ hescreams to the devil. As the devilenters his body he throws himself out

of the window, falls down the longflight of steps and dies. In the lastscene, we see Regan and her mother –both dressed in black – about to leavefor good. Mother and daughter arereunited. The image of the two womendressed in black echoes the openingimages of the sinister old hags alsorobed in black.

Various patterns and conflicts in TheExorcist suggest that the centralstruggle is between men and women,the ‘fathers’ and the ‘mothers’. Thisstruggle is played out in relation to theblack-garbed crones/witches andFather Merrin; Chris MacNeil and herhusband; Father Damien and hismother; Father Damien and theabandoned women in the hospital;Regan and the fathers of the Church aswell as the men of the medicalprofession. The wider struggle isplayed out or concentrated in therelationship between Regan and Father

Damien. Both are linked in a pattern ofsimilarities and oppositions. WhereasRegan-as-devil is powerful, FatherDamien as a representative of God isweak and impotent. Not only has helost his faith, he is thinking of leavingthe Church.

WOMAN’S ABJECT BODYOne of the most interesting aspects ofThe Exorcist is the way in which ituses woman’s body to represent thisconflict. The rebellion is presented asmonstrous yet immensely appealing; inthis way the film presents theambiguous aspect of abjection.Abjection ‘fascinates desire’ but mustin the interests of self-preservation berepelled. Regan’s behaviour isoutrageous yet compelling. Themonster is an alluring but confrontingfigure: the ‘very act of constitutinganother is ultimately a refusal to

recognize something about the self(Polan, 1984, 203). It takes us to thelimits of what is permissible,thinkable, and then draws back. TheExorcist is not unlike a ‘ritual’ ofpurification in that it permits thespectator to wallow vicariously innormally taboo forms of behaviourbefore restoring order. This, of course,is a central appeal of the horror film;what is different about The Exorcist isits graphic association of themonstrous with the feminine body.Before exploring this aspect of thefilm, I would first like to consider ingreater detail the relationship betweenabjection and ritual as this provides uswith a particularly helpful way ofunderstanding the representation ofRegan as monstrous.

As discussed in Chapter 1, theabject is placed on the side of thefeminine: it exists in opposition to thepaternal symbolic, which is governed

by rules and laws. The abjectrepresents that which ‘disturbs identity,system, order’ (Kristeva, 1982, 4).Analysis of the abject centres on waysin which the ‘clean and proper self isconstructed. The abject is that whichmust be expelled or excluded in theconstruction of that self. In order toenter the symbolic order, the subjectmust reject or repress all forms ofbehaviour, speech and modes of beingregarded as unacceptable, improper orunclean. A crucial area of the subject’spersonal history which must berejected relates to infantile bodilyexperiences and toilet training. Allsigns of bodily excretions – bile, urine,shit, mucus, spittle, blood – must betreated as abject, cleaned up andremoved from sight. It is this aspect ofabjection which is central to TheExorcist, its graphic display of bodilyexcretions – bile, blood, spit, urine,vomit.

The ‘maternal authority is the trusteeof that mapping of the self’s clean andproper body’. This mapping of thebody is ‘semiotic’ because the way inwhich the mother teaches the infantabout its body is similar to theexperience of learning language.‘Through frustrations and prohibitions,this authority shapes the body into aterritory having areas, orifices, pointsand lines, surfaces and hollows’ (ibid.,71–2).

The semiotic is ‘the precondition oflanguage’ (ibid., 72). The repressedsemiotic chora of language which findsexpression in non-rational discoursessuch as poetry and art – here I wouldinclude the horror film – challenges therational discourse of the symbolicorder and the seeming stability of therational subject. Kristeva placessemiotic language on the side offemininity and symbolic language onthe side of masculinity although both

aspects of language, thesemiotic/feminine and thesymbolic/masculine are open to allindividuals regardless of theirbiological sex.

The semiotic chora is brought intobeing with the entry of the subject intothe symbolic order and the variousforms of repression that this entails.Specifically, this entry involves therepression of the maternal authorityand the period of her training when themother controls the body of the infant.‘If language, like culture, sets up aseparation and, starting with discreteelements, concatenates an order, itdoes so precisely by repressingmaternal authority and the corporealmapping that abuts them’ (ibid., 72).The mother is gradually rejectedbecause she comes to represent, tosignify, the period of the semioticwhich the paternal symbolic constructsas ‘abject’. Because the mother is seen

as effacing the boundary betweenherself and her child, the function ofritual becomes that of reinforcingseparation. The ideological project ofhorror films such as Psycho, Carrie,The Brood and The Hunger, all ofwhich feature the monster as female,appears to be precisely this –constructing monstrosity’s source asthe failure of paternal order to ensurethe break, the separation of mother andchild. This failure, which can also beviewed as a refusal of the mother andchild to recognize the paternal order, iswhat produces the monstrous. Thepossessed female subject is one whorefuses to take up her proper place inthe symbolic order. Her protest isrepresented as a return to the pre-Oedipal, to the period of the semioticchora. The normal state of affairs,however, is reversed; the dyadicrelationship is distinguished not by themarking out of the child’s ‘clean and

proper body’ but by a return of theunclean, untrained, unsymbolized body.Abjection is constructed as a rebellionof filthy, lustful, carnal, female flesh.

Most critical articles either neverquestion the identity of the devil thatpossesses Regan or assume that it ismale, that is, the traditional devil ofChristianity. Such critics tend tointerpret the film as a struggle betweenthe forces of good and evil, God andthe devil, rather than a strugglebetween man and woman. Thefollowing comment is fairly typical:‘The Exorcist, which deals with thebalance between good and evil,perfectly reflected the concerns of itsaudience: if we could not find Godreflected in the modern world, perhapswe could at least find the devil’(Derry, 1987, 169). According toAndrew Tudor in his study of majorchanges in the horror genre, TheExorcist marked an important

transition in the modern horror film inthat it introduced possession of a younginnocent as its central theme (Tudor,1989, 176). In my view the devil ofThe Exorcist, the monster whopossesses Regan, is female and farfrom ‘innocent’. The film supports thisview in its construction of the ‘devil’svoice’.

Most critics have drawn attention tothe voice that speaks through Regan. Ithas been described variously as ‘thedeep and aged voice of the demon’(Carroll, 1990, 23); as a‘masculine/bass voice’ (Britton, 1979,27), ‘a hoarsely mocking voice’(Hardy, 1986, 28); and a ‘guttural . . .terrifying’ voice (Kinder and Houston,1987, 46). The voice actually belongsto Mercedes McCambridge. In herstudy of the horror film, S. S. Prawereven states that ‘the real “star” of thiscrude and unpleasant movie was theunseen Mercedes McCambridge, who

lent the demon her voice’ (1980, 172).Most writers, although aware that thevoice belonged to a female actor,nevertheless assume that the voice isintended as the voice of the male devilas spoken by a young girl – hence thevoice is ‘masculinized’. Yet the voicemakes more sense if we interpret it asthat of a ‘female’ devil. Furthermore,when Father Damien plays backwardsa tape of the devil’s voice speakingthrough Regan, he discovers the voicedoes, in fact, belong to Regan.

A major cause of Regan’spossession is related to the mother-daughter relationship. Regan’srelationship with her mother isrepresented, in the opening scenes, ashappy, caring and intimate. After herpossession Regan’s feelings for hermother become perverse and crudelysexual. Like Father Damien’srelationship with his mother, Regan’srelationship with hers is also

problematic – although for vastlydifferent reasons. Where FatherDamien’s emotional and spiritualjourney takes him further and furtheraway from his mother, Regan’s journeyultimately cements her bond with hermother. The deep bond between motherand daughter is reinforced in the text ata number of different levels: Mother’sswearing becomes Regan’sobscenities; Mother’s sexualfrustrations become Regan’s lewdsuggestions; Mother’s anger becomesRegan’s power.

One reason for Regan’spossession/rebellion appears to be herdesire to remain locked in a closedyadic relationship with the mother.Regan’s parents are divorced. Reganexpresses jealous feelings towardsBurke, whom she thinks her motherwants to marry; later, when possessedby the devil, Regan murders Burke.She hurls him through the upstairs

window and down the long flight ofsteps. He is found at the bottom withhis head turned backwards on his neck– he has been literally forced to ‘lookthe other way’. Without a father or afather-figure present, Regan and hermother live together, almost likelovers. They share an unusual physicalintimacy, holding and caressing eachother as they plan the daily details oftheir lives. It is clearly significant thatRegan is possessed when she is aboutto reach her thirteenth year, whichmarks the commencement of puberty,the threshold between girlhood andwomanhood, the time when adolescentsexual desires find shape andexpression.

Given this context, it is notsurprising that Regan’s possession isaggressively sexual. She is possessedby or linked to a serpent-devil who isthe consort of Lamia, the snakegoddess. Her voice changes – as is

customary for pubescent boys –becoming deep and guttural, giving hergender an ambiguous character.Eschewing all forms of ladylikebehaviour, she utters obsceneblasphemies; makes lewd sexualsuggestions to her mother; and attacks adoctor by grabbing his testicles. Shebecomes the castrating girl/woman, afigure designed to strike terror into thehearts of men. She also becomes afigure of extreme abjection as her bodyis transformed into a playground forbodily wastes. Her skin erupts inoozing sores, her hair hangs in atangled filthy mat, she urinates on thecarpet, spews green bile, and bleedsfrom her genitals. She masturbates witha crucifix and refers to herself as hermother’s ‘cunting daughter’. Regan’sbody is represented as a body inrevolt. The film’s rhythms and use ofsounds and language, particularlyRegan’s snarling, grunting voice, exert

a disturbing and powerful effect almostas if the film’s semiotic voice hadoverpowered its symbolic one.

What Regan does is take us back tothe period of the infant’s earlyrelationship with the mother and allowus, vicariously, to wallow in the formsof abjection, or bodily wastes, mostclosely associated with the mother andthe period of toilet training. Regan ismonstrous because she breaks themajor taboos, set down by the laws ofthe symbolic order, which help toestablish and maintain the self’s ‘cleanand proper body’. More importantly,she demonstrates the fragility of thoselaws and taboos. Regan’s possessiondemonstrates that those abjectsubstances can never be successfullyobliterated but lie in wait at thethreshold of the subject’s identity,threatening it with possiblebreakdown. What is most interestingabout Regan’s journey is the way in

which it is represented as a strugglebetween the subject and the abject. It isRegan’s body which becomes the siteof this struggle – a struggle whichliterally takes place within the interiorof and across the body. Slime, bile,pus, vomit, urine, blood – all of theseabject forms of excrement are part ofRegan’s weaponry. Regan is possessednot by the devil but by her ownunsocialized body.

One of the most bizarre scenesoccurs when the words ‘Help Me’appear on Regan’s stomach. The scenemakes it clear that Regan is trappedinside her own body, a prisoner of herown carnality. The daughter’s desire toremain always close to her mother,perhaps to become her mother’s lover,is central to our understanding of herpossession. Regan is ‘possessed’ withan incestuous longing. Regan’s descentinto the realm of abjection enables herto speak her desires but her mother

remains physically out of reach as longas Regan is marked by abjection.Unlike the mother of some horrorfilms, Regan’s mother is physicallyupright, clean, proper – one of hermost popular films was appropriatelycalled Angel – although, like herdaughter, her language is coarse. InPsycho, Norman Bates’s desire for hismother is also represented as abreakdown of bodily relations butthere the mother’s body does becomeaccessible – the price, however, isdeath. There, the mother’s body, tabooobject of the son’s desire, isrepresented as a disgusting vile thingyet the son still clings to hermummified corpse, continues to desireonly a maternal embrace. In Carrie,mother and daughter spill each other’sblood in a mutual knife/rape attack; thedaughter then drags her mother’s bodyinto a womb-like closet where they dielocked together like the fated lovers of

Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel.The Exorcist clearly demonstrates

the argument that a reconciliation withthe maternal body, the body of ourorigins, is only possible through anencounter with horror, the abject of ourculture. Woman is constructed aspossessed when she attacks thesymbolic order, highlights itsweaknesses, plays on itsvulnerabilities; specifically, shedemonstrates that the symbolic order isa sham built on sexual repression andthe sacrifice of the mother. In the endRegan and her mother are reunited; thetwo ‘fathers’ are dead. The symbolicorder is restored, but in name only.

There is another aspect of abjectionwhich is relevant to our discussion.Kristeva argues that after the advent ofChrist the nature of abjection changes.In her discussion of abjection inrelation to the Old Testament, Kristevaexamines the nature of biblical

abomination and defilement. As wehave seen, the feminine, particularlythe maternal, is constructed as uncleanspecifically in relation to menstruationand childbirth. Judaic laws, based on aseries of corporeal prohibitions, workto separate out those things whichsignify the maternal and to constructthem as abject. Biblical abominationsestablished a symbolic order thatexcluded women, through a structurethat defined a polluting object as thatwhich threatens identity from ‘outside’.Christ’s radically different messageinvolved the abolition of these taboos– for instance Christ ate with pagans,associated with the prostitute andestablished contact with lepers. Afterthe advent of Christ, pollution isredefined as ‘sin’ which comes fromwithin and is spoken by the subject.Christ’s role is to drive out sin fromwithin the individual. Abjection is nolonger exterior. Emphasis ‘is

henceforth placed on the inside/outsideboundary, and . . . the threat comes nolonger from outside but from within’(Kristeva, 1982, 114). In the NewTestament, sin is associated with thespoken word. To confess one’s sins isto create ‘a wholly different speakingsubject’. Abjection becomesinternalized but, because it can bespoken, the subject can come to termswith it. But rather than encourage thepossibility of speaking the abject, oftranscending sin by articulating it, theChurch adopted a brutal policy of ‘thefiercest censorship, and punishment’towards those who advocated such apath. It has been left to the artist andwriter to give voice to the abject. Thisalso appears to be the project of filmssuch as The Exorcist, in which Regan’sblasphemies could be interpreted asspeaking the abject.

What position does woman come tohold in relation to the definition of

abjection as an inside/outside conflict?There are two ways of interpreting sin.One is in relation to God’s will: theother in relation to the desire of theflesh: ‘the brimming flesh of sinbelongs, of course, to both sexes; butits root and basic representation isnothing other than feminine temptation’(ibid., 126). The story of the Garden ofEden and man’s fall from grace sets up‘a diabolical otherness in relation tothe divine’ (ibid., 127). Man desireswoman but he ‘must protect himselffrom that sinful food that consumes himand that he craves’ (ibid.). In my view,the definition of sin/abjection assomething which comes from withinopens up the way to position woman asdeceptively treacherous. She mayappear pure and beautiful on theoutside but evil may, nevertheless,reside within. It is this stereotype offeminine evil – beautiful on theoutside/corrupt within – that is so

popular within patriarchal discoursesabout woman’s evil nature. Thisdichotomous view of woman is centralto the representation of the femalekillers in the vampire film and otherhorror texts such as Cat People,Repulsion, Sisters and FatalAttraction. This is one reason whyRegan’s possession is so horrifying.When we first see Regan she appearsto be so chaste and innocent; nowonder her gradual possession, withits emphasis on filthy utterances anddepraved acts, seems so shocking.Regan’s mockery of all establishedforms of propriety, of the clean andproper body and of the law itselfdefine her as abject. Yet, despite hermonstrous appearance and shockingutterances, she remains a stronglyambiguous figure. Regan’scarnivalesque display of her bodyreminds us quite clearly of theimmense appeal of the abject. Horror

emerges from the fact that woman hasbroken with her proper feminine role –she has ‘made a spectacle of herself –put her unsocialized body on display.And to make matters worse, she hasdone all of this before the shockedeyes of two male clerics.

4

WOMAN ASMONSTROUS WOMB:

THE BROOD

But devotees of the abject, she aswell as he, do not cease looking,within what flows from theother’s ‘innermost being,’ for thedesirable and terrifying,nourishing and murderous,fascinating and abject inside ofthe maternal body.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

From classical to Renaissance timesthe uterus was frequently drawn withhorns to demonstrate its supposedassociation with the devil. ‘Fear of thearchaic mother turns out to beessentially fear of her generativepower. It is this power, a dreaded one,that patrilineal filiation has the burdenof subduing’ (Kristeva, 1982, 77).Margaret Miles argues in her study ofthe grotesque that ‘the mostconcentrated sense of the grotesque’comes from the image of womanbecause of her associations withnatural events such as sex and birthwhich were seen as ‘quintessentiallygrotesque’. She points out that inChristian art, hell was oftenrepresented as a womb, ‘a lurid androtting uterus’ where sinners wereperpetually tortured for their crimes(Miles, 1989, 147). In the horror filmthe ancient connection drawn betweenwoman, womb and the monstrous is

frequently invoked. As virtuallynothing, to my knowledge, has beenwritten about this subject, I will brieflydiscuss the narratives of several ofthese films before analysing The Broodin some detail.

In Demon Seed, Susan (JulieChristie) is raped by the householdcomputer, Proteus IV, a new super-computer designed by her husband,Alex. Proteus IV wants to create asuperior human being who will replaceordinary human beings in order to savethe world from certain destruction.Proteus takes over the house via acomputer terminal in the basement.Through the agency of a robotic‘henchman’, he extracts an egg fromSusan, later fertilizes it, removes itfrom her womb and implants it in anincubator where it grows to full term intwenty-eight days.

The film’s horrific impact centres onthe scenes of rape and birth. As much

as Proteus, woman is positioned as‘other’ – a human capable of matingwith a machine. Our sense of hermonstrousness is reinforced by theending when we confront her offspring– a daughter who is both female and‘other’. The representation of woman,however, is not entirely monstrous.Demon Seed presents an interestingcritique of male intelligence as adestructive force. Proteus says toSusan: ‘Our child will learn from youwhat it is to be human.’ Woman isrepresented as the one who has thepotential to save the planet fromdestruction, to pass on the humanqualities that are worth preserving.

In Xtro a young boy sees his fatherabducted by a spaceship; the father islater returned to earth as an aliendisguised as a human. The mosthorrifying sequence takes place whenthe missing man’s wife is raped by thealien. Her stomach swells to huge

proportions in a remarkably shortperiod. As her womb pushes outward,pregnant with the alien creature, herouter skin stretches taut across herstomach. A fully-grown man, coveredin blood, emerges from between herlegs. He bites the umbilical cord,cleans off the foetal blood and leaves.The birth is a bizarre primal phantasyin which man is born fully grown andtherefore completely independent ofthe mother.

In The Incubus a woman spacetraveller is raped by an alien creature.Again her period of gestation is brief.During this period she develops ahunger for raw meat and begins tomurder and cannibalize the crew.Eventually, she gives birth to twinboys. The film ends as she heads forearth with her alien sons. In the 1986remake of The Fly the question of theheroine’s pregnancy haunts the latterpart of the film once we know that her

scientist/lover is metamorphosing intoa fly. These fears are expressed in ahideous nightmare in which the heroinesees herself giving birth to a giantmaggot; it slithers from between herlegs, emphasizing that woman, becauseof her reproductive capabilities, is notfar removed from the world of nature.Her generative functions position heron the side of the abject. In TheManitou the heroine grows amysterious tumour on her neck.Eventually, it is discovered that thegrowth is actually the foetus of awitchdoctor, the manitou, who is ableto control his own reincarnations. Themost horrifying sequences of the filmare centred on her mysteriouswomb/tumour and the birth of themanitou.

Cronenberg has described TheBrood as his own version of Kramerversus Kramer – both films deal withthe dark side of family life and with the

break-up of a marriage (Handling,1983, 93). Nola Carveth (SamanthaEggar), is attending the controversialSomafree Institute of Psychoplasmics,a therapy clinic, which is run by DrHal Raglan (Oliver Reed) who teacheshis patients to purge themselves oftheir anxieties and neuroses. Theirpent-up emotions are manifested asphysical changes to their bodies suchas sores and welts. Raglan keeps Nolain isolation from her husband, Frank(Art Hindle) but insists she haveweekend visits from Candy (CindyHinds), her young daughter. Frankgradually comes to realize that anyonewho threatens Nola is murdered bystrange midget-like creatures. Whenone dies an autopsy reveals that it is achild without teeth, speech, retinas, sexor a navel. According to the doctor, the‘creature has never really been born’.

Frank discovers that the creaturesare part of a ‘brood’; its members are

‘children’ born of Nola’s rage. Theyare physical manifestations of herenraged psyche who have been borndirectly from her body. They areconnected to her mentally and carry outher unconscious desires, but becauseher rage is short-lived, so too are thecreatures. Frank searches the Instituteand finds Nola sitting on a raisedplatform, looking very much like a‘Queen Bee’ – the name she has beengiven by a patient jealous of Raglan’sdevotion to her. She asks Frank if he issure he really loves her and everythingabout her. He says he does. With aregal sweep of her arms, Nola lifts upher white nightgown. At this point thefilm’s mood changes abruptly: mysteryand suspense give way to pure horror.

A hideous sac is hanging from theside of Nola’s stomach. Smiling, shebends over, bites open the sac andtakes out a misshapen foetus completewith bloody placenta which drips on to

her legs. She then bends over to lickaway the blood and afterbirth.Realising Frank is filled with disgust,Nola accuses him of lying to her abouthis feelings of love. ‘I disgust you!’ shesays in amazement. Nola is like acreature in the wild, completely athome with her bodily instincts andreproductive functions. Frank’sresponse is first to gag and then to leapat his wife and strangle her. Nola andher brood die. Frank and Candy driveaway into the night. Candy, however,has not really been ‘saved’; we noticea lump beginning to form on her arm.The disease has been passed frommother to daughter, from onegeneration of women to the next.

The final scenes help us tounderstand the possible origins ofNola’s rage – her husband’s disgust ather maternal, mothering functions.Nola as archetypal Queen Bee, aswoman in her reproductive role,

repulses man. The difference here ofcourse is that Nola, compared to otherwomen, conceives and gives birth toher brood alone. Her parthenogeneticoffspring are like zombies; without amind of their own they are completelyat their mother’s bidding. They are, infact, the mother. The father, it appears,has retreated from the family scenealtogether. The implication is thatwithout man, woman can only givebirth to a race of mutant, murderousoffspring. While it is true that the filmpresents Nola as a victim of herupbringing, she is also mainly a victimof her mother and the latter is a victimof her own mother, and so on. Woman’sdestructive emotions, it seems, areinherited.

From the time of Hippocrates toAmbrose Pare, it was generallybelieved that monstrous offspring werecreated by the maternal imagination.According to Marie-Hélène Huet the

belief that mothers create monstrositiesthrough the power of their imaginationhas a long tradition:

Heliodorus of Emusa tells of aqueen of Ethiopia who reputedlybore a white child after seeing, onthe wall of her bedchamber, apicture of the pale Andromeda.Ambrose Pare reports the birth ofa fur-covered girl whose motherhad spied from her bed a pictureof John the Baptist in animalskins. There is a long tradition ofsuch stories; they explainmonstrous births as the effectproduced on pregnant women bylengthy contemplation of adesired object.

(Huet, 1983, 73)

In other words, the child istransformed into a visible image of itsmother’s desire. The ‘monster publicly

signals all aberrant desire, reprovesall excessive passion and allillegitimate phantasy’ (ibid., 74).Monsters were also thought to besterile. Huet suggests this was toremove the possibility of grantinglegitimacy to the mother’s illegitimatedesire (ibid., 84). Not until thenineteenth century, when monstrositieswere classified, was the cause ofmonstrosity attributed elsewhere –although, of course, some would havecontinued to believe that birthdeformities were the result of a curseor copulation with the devil. By thenineteenth century, however, categoriesof normal and abnormal replaced thatof the monstrous, and the monster ingeneral was seen as a variation fromthe norm. The Brood ignores themodern explanation of the birth ofmonsters and returns to a more ancientnotion in which the maternal desirewas held as the origin of monstrosity.

In The Brood woman’s desire isrepresented as a form of internal rage –a rage against the mother which isshown to stretch back in time, passingfrom one generation to the next.

What kind of maternal desire, then,does The Brood posit as illegitimate?First, the desire – conscious orotherwise – for woman to give birthwithout the agency of the male; andsecond, woman’s desire to express herdesires, specifically her anger.Parthenogenetic birth is represented asbestial and the offspring have onlyshort lives. Whereas Dr Raglan’spatients usually erupt in boils and skinlesions when they express their rage,Nola’s body gives birth to a differenttype of growth – a brood of deformedinfants. The idea that woman shouldgive physical expression to her angeris represented as an inherentlydestructive process. The film suggeststwo possible reasons for the origin of

woman’s rage: child abuse, which isenacted not by the fathers but by themothers; and the failure of the fathersto protect their daughters. Nola’smother attacked her: now Nola attacksCandy. But the film makes no attemptto explore the origins of woman’sdesire to harm her daughter physically;rather it suggests that this rage ispassed down through the femalegenerations as if it were some kind ofinherited disease. Similarly, the fathersappear weak – as if by nature.

Kristeva’s theory of the abjectprovides us with at least three ways ofunderstanding the nature of Nola’smonstrousness. First, Nola has thepower to deny her offspring anautonomous identity. She controls herchildren even before their birth; theyare literally ‘her creatures’. Thebrood’s offspring are without gender,incapable of articulate speech, unableto reason, seeing the world only in

black and white. They are born with ahump, filled with nutrients which keepthem alive but only for a short time.The brood is also completely under thesway of the mother’s emotions. Thebrood members do not have anyidentity of their own and are directedto act by the unconscious feelings ofthe mother. When she is calm, they arecalm; when she is angry, they becomeenraged, murdering anyone whoattracts her hostility. It is not that theiridentity has sunk irretrievably into themother’s; their identity is the mother’s.It is interesting to note that when Candyis captured, Raglan says she is, ‘in away, one of them’. The disease whichis passed from mother to daughter isthe disease of being female – an abjectcreature not far removed from theanimal world and one dominatedtotally by her feelings and reproductivefunctions. The mother’s offspring inThe Brood represent symbolically the

horrifying results of permitting themother too much power. An extreme,impossible situation – parthenogeneticbirth – is used to demonstrate thehorrors of unbridled maternal power.Parthenogenesis is impossible, but if itcould happen, the film seems to bearguing, woman could give birth onlyto deformed manifestations of herself.

The second reason why woman’smaternal function is constructed asabject is equally horrifying. Her abilityto give birth links her directly to theanimal world and to the great cycle ofbirth, decay and death. Awareness ofhis links to nature reminds man of hismortality and of the fragility of thesymbolic order. The idea that womanin her mothering role is transformedinto a human/animal figure isrepresented very strongly in TheBrood, and in other horror films, suchas Aliens where the generative motheris literally a creature and the ‘human’

mother is a surrogate who does notactually give birth. The scene whereNola tears open the sac with her teethand pulls out the bloody infant suggestsquite clearly that woman is like ananimal. The torn and bleeding birth sacwhich functions as an external wombclearly points to woman’s specialrelationship to the animal world.

Kristeva traces the representation ofthe birthing woman as unclean back tothe representation of impurity in theBible. Leviticus draws a parallelbetween the unclean maternal body andthe decaying body. The two areassociated through childbirth.‘Evocation of the maternal body andchildbirth induces the image of birth asa violent act of expulsion throughwhich the nascent body tears itselfaway from the matter of maternalinsides’ (Kristeva, 1982, 101). Inorder for the body to represent thesymbolic order it must be unmarked.

‘The body must bear no trace of itsdebt to nature: it must be clean andproper in order to be fully symbolic’(ibid., 102). Woman’s reproductivefunctions place her on the side ofnature rather than the symbolic order.In this way woman is again linked tothe abject through her body.

In The Brood, the symbolic functionof the sores that grow on the skin of DrRaglan’s patients takes on newsignificance in the light of a discussionof birth and abjection. Dr Raglanactually teaches his patients to manifesttheir inner hostilities as open sores andlesions on the skin. When Frank visitsJan Hartog, a former patient, the sickman reveals a hideous growth on hisneck. He tells Frank that Raglan hastaught his body ‘to revolt against’ him.Expression of anger becomessynonymous with the opening of awound – literally. A wound issomething which violates the integrity

of the skin. As mentioned above, theact of birth tears at the mother’s skinand transforms her body into an openwound. A wound or leprous sore onthe skin reminds the subject of itsorigins, of having been born of woman.In a sense, then, the subject’s rage –manifested as sores on the skin – is arage at having been born of woman, ofhaving a ‘debt to nature’. This is whyleprosy, which ruptures the surface ofthe skin, is represented as an impurityin Leviticus. Interestingly, Kristevaeven relates this rage to a form ofparthenogenesis. The subject whophantasizes about giving birth tohimself does so in order to cut his tieto the mother. ‘The obsession of theleprous and decaying body would thusbe the phantasy of a self-rebirth on thepart of a subject who has notintrojected his mother but hasincorporated a devouring mother’(ibid.).

The third way in which the wombsuggests the monstrous relates to thedefinition of abjection in terms ofinside/outside. In her analysis of theway in which woman is constructed asabject in religious discourses, Kristevaexamines the crucial change thatoccurred in the theorization ofabjection with the advent ofChristianity. Central to Christ’steachings are a set of actions whichchallenge earlier prohibitions andcategories of the unclean. Theseinclude partaking of meals withpagans, mixing with lepers, and theabolition of dietary taboos. How doesthis affect the theorization ofabjection? Whereas abjection wasformulated in Judaism as a series ofabominations external to the humansubject, in Christianity abjection isinteriorized. ‘An essential trait of thoseevangelical attitudes or narratives isthat abjection is no longer exterior. It is

permanent and comes from within’(ibid., 113). An individual whoappears clean on the outside may becorrupt on the inside. The dichotomy ofpure/impure is transformed into one ofinside/outside. Both forms of abjectionexist within the horror film. In theirrespective articles on horror and thebody, Philip Brophy and Pete Bossgenerally agree that one of the majorchanges in the representation of themonstrous is that it has increasinglybeen represented as coming fromwithin. The latter view appears torepresent a more sophisticatedperspective in that categories ofpure/impure are no longer seen as asimple opposition exterior to theindividual.

THE ABJECT WOMBHorror films that depict monstrousbirths play on the inside/outside

distinction in order to point to theinherently monstrous nature of thewomb as well as the impossibility ofever completely banishing the abjectfrom the human domain. The concept ofinside/outside suggests two surfacesthat fold in on each other; the task ofseparating inside from outside seemsimpossible as each surface constitutesthe ‘other’ side of its opposite. Theimplication is that the abject can neverbe completely banished; if ‘inside’, theabject substance forms a lining for theoutside; if ‘outside’, it forms a skin forthe inside. The womb represents theutmost in abjection for it contains anew life form which will pass frominside to outside bringing with it tracesof its contamination – blood, afterbirth,faeces. The abject nature of the womband the birth process caused theChurch fathers to recoil in horror at thevery idea that man should be born ofwoman. The horror film exploits the

abject nature of the womb by depictingthe human, female and male, givingbirth to the monstrous.

In The Brood the womb, whichlooks like a cancerous growth, isplaced on the outside of woman’sbody; the viewer is thereby confronteddirectly with the scene of horror.Critical response to Nola’s externalwomb is interesting. In Robin Wood’sview, ‘the unborn child, a hugeexcrescence on Nola’s body, has theappearance of an enormous penis’(Wood, 1983, 131). Paul Sammon seesher womb as a malignant growth: Nola‘majestically spreads out her arm tolift up her gown and reveal the broodfetuses growing in cancerous sacs onher body’ (Sammon, 1981, 30). In myview, woman’s womb is viewed ashorrifying, not because it is made tolook like a penis or a cancerousgrowth, but because of its essentialfunctions – it houses an alien life form,

it causes alterations in the body, itleads to the act of birth. The womb ishorrifying per se and withinpatriarchal discourses it has been usedto represent woman’s body as marked,impure and a part of the natural/animalworld. Not only is Nola impurebecause she gives birth, she alsoimmerses her lips in foetal blood – afurther sign of her debased state. Nolais monstrous not simply because shehas created a brood of mutant,murderous children; the other source ofher monstrousness is her alliance withmother nature symbolized by hergrotesque external uterus.

Representations of the birth scenarioin these films point to the split betweenthe natural world of the mother and thepaternal symbolic which is regulatedby a completely different set of rules,rules that reinforce proper civilizedcodes of behaviour and the clean andproper body. Miles points to the

centrality of woman’s body,particularly the pregnant body, inRabelais’s categorization of thegrotesque. The conclusion which Milesdraws supports Kristeva’s theory ofthe female body as a central source ofabjection. While the male bodysignifies form and integrity, and isclearly differentiated from the world,woman’s body possesses none of thesecharacteristics. The mutable nature ofwomen’s bodies is made most clearduring pregnancy.

There is certainly a strong elementof the grotesque in the horror filmwhich deals with the pregnant wombparticularly where horror is related toalterations in the womb. In Xtro theimpregnated womb swells tomonstrous proportions; The Broodpresents woman’s womb sac as adisgusting growth; in Aliens thecreature’s birth chamber, completewith rows of newly-laid pulsating egg

sacs, is like a gaping black maw; whileThe Manitou depicts the womb as adisplaced tumour growing on woman’sneck – presumably the ‘neck’ stands infor the cervix or neck of the womb. Inthese texts, emphasis is on becoming,change, expansion, growth, alteration.Menstruation and childbirth are seen asthe two events in woman’s life whichhave placed her on the side of theabject. It is woman’s fertilizable bodywhich aligns her with nature andthreatens the integrity of the patriarchalsymbolic order.

Woman’s birth-giving function hasprovided the horror film with animportant source of many of its mosthorrific images – its intra-uterineiconography, the parthenogeneticmother, evocations of the uncanny andimages of alien births. A recent filmwhich plays throughout on all of theseassociations is Aliens. After thephenomenal success of Alien a sequel

was made. In the sequel, Aliens, theheroine of the first part, Ripley(Sigourney Weaver), is found asleep inher capsule which has been travellingin outer space for over fifty years. TheCompany sends her to a planet toinvestigate the apparent disappearanceof the people stationed there. Ripleydiscovers that this is the home ofMother Alien whose offspring haveseized the settlers to use as host bodiesfor the hatchery. Only one small girlremains alive.

Like Nola in The Brood, MotherAlien is the primal mother who givesbirth, without the agency of a male, to abrood of deadly creatures. These infantaliens metamorphose into a number ofdifferent life forms before reachingmaturity; one of these forms, whichresembles a crab complete with a longphallic tail, rapes its victims orally –as we first saw in Alien when thecreature attached itself to Kane’s face.

A phallic organ emerges from a slit inthe creature’s vagina-like underbelly;the organ then enters through the mouthand implants its embryo inside thehuman body. Aliens presents a graphicrepresentation of the sexual organs ofthe female monster capable of self-generation. David Cronenberg depictsa similar vagina/penis in Rabid; herewe see a penis-like organ protrudefrom the heroine’s armpit, poised andready to penetrate its victim. JohnCarpenter’s The Thing also portraysan alien monster, which is capable ofcloning itself in the exact image ofother life forms, as a gigantic organwith a large vaginal opening whoselips are peeled back to reveal aphallic-shaped bony structure hiddeninside. These films provide a graphicrepresentation of the infantile phantasyof the phallic mother who takes at leasttwo forms (Laplanche and Pontalis,1985, 311). She is thought either to

possess an external penis or to have apenis hidden inside her body.

These films appear to explore thelatter phantasy. To my knowledge thehorror film rarely presents a graphicdisplay of the opposite phantasy – themale thought to possess a vagina –although the theme of couvade, that is,of man giving birth, is explored inmany texts.

A scene of most abject horror occursin Aliens when the heroine, Ripley(Sigourney Weaver), enters MotherAlien’s birth chamber in order torescue Newt, the little girl heldprisoner in the monster’s externalhatchery/womb. Everything about themise-en-scène suggests a nightmarevision of what Kristeva describes as‘the fascinating and abject inside of thematernal body’ (1982, 54). The interioris dark and slimy and the floor alivewith rows of follicles and eggs. A longtube extends from Mother Alien’s

belly; like a conveyor belt it dropseggs on to the ground already coveredwith rows of eggs waiting to hatch. Anenormous figure, Mother Alien hissesin the dark, her teeth glistening as herdouble set of jaws drip with venom,erect and ready to rip apart anyonewho threatens her brood. Ripley hasonly fifteen minutes to save Newtbefore a nuclear reactor explodes. Thisexplosion is paralleled with the idea ofbirth as an explosion, a bursting forthfrom the inside to the outside. Early inthe film we experienced one ofRipley’s recurring nightmares, inwhich she imagined her stomachexploding from within as she gavebirth to one of the aliens. Throughout,Aliens opposes two forms ofmothering: Ripley’s surrogatemothering in which there is noconception or birth and where thefemale body is unmarked; and MotherAlien’s biological, animalistic,

instinctual mothering where thematernal body is open and gaping. AsBundtzen rightly points out: TheMarines feel at home with plasticmetal, glass, but are utterly bewilderedwhen they arrive at this womb-tomb,an organic and female interior’ (1987,14). However, it is not so much thatRipley is an ‘antifertility mother’ andthat she and Mother Alien representdiametrically opposed principles ofreproduction – instinctual and cultural– as Bundtzen suggests (ibid., 17) butrather that Mother Alien representsRipley’s other self, that is, woman’s,alien, inner, mysterious powers ofreproduction. It is the latter, the femalereproductive/mothering capacity perse, which is deemed monstrous,horrifying, abject. Like Mother Alien,Ripley also transforms into anindestructible killing machine whenher child – even though a surrogateoffspring – is threatened.

Alien3 develops parallels betweenRipley (Sigourney Weaver) and thealien in even more depth. WhenRipley’s space craft crashes on Fury161, a maximum security prison forrapists and murderers, she becomes thehuman ‘alien’, a lone woman forced tocohabit with a group of hostile,desperate men. When Ripley questionsDillon, the priest, about the responseof the men to her presence, he replies:‘Well, we’ve never had any before butwe tolerate anybody – even theintolerable’. Other parallels are drawnbetween Ripley and the alien: they arethe only survivors of the crash; theircombined presence brings disaster tothe planet; they are the only forms onFury 161 capable of reproduction; andboth are fighting to save their ownspecies.

Alien3 is completely different instyle and tone from its predecessors –and this difference is also used to align

woman and alien – both ‘bitches’ intheir respective ways. (Advertisingmaterial for the film used the logo –The Bitch is Back’.) The men of Fury161 have voluntarily given up womenand adopted a form of apocalyptic,millenarian, Christian fundamentalism.Wearing brown sack-cloth robes andsporting shaved heads, they look like aband of monks. The mise-en-scènesuggests a medieval fortress, a placeleft behind by the industrial,technological and communicationsrevolutions of later centuries; there isno hi-tech weaponry or technology ofany kind. The heart of Fury 161 is agigantic fiery furnace, a visiblereminder of the Christian vision ofhell. It casts a red glow over theplanet, suffusing the dark landscapewith shadowy light. Alien3 is set in thepast which is also the future; this is theend of the world, the death ofcivilization, the Apocalypse heralded

by the arrival of the alien/woman.It is not surprising that in this ‘rat’s

ass end of space’ the only life formwoman is able to carry representsdeath for the morally decrepitmale/human race. In an openingsequence of Aliens, Ripley wakes froma nightmare in which she watches inhorror as an infant alien births itselffrom her stomach by tearing its waythrough flesh and bone to the surface.In the final sequence of Alien3, thedream becomes reality. While inhyper-sleep on the space craft, Ripleyhas been raped and impregnated by thealien. She is now a vessel of MotherAlien’s seed, her body/wombcontaminated by what the neuroscannerdescribes as ‘foreign tissue’. While itrips apart the men, the alien will nottouch Ripley; it is protecting its unbornoffspring which Ripley discovers is a‘queen’ and therefore capable of givingbirth to thousands of other aliens. In

one terrifying scene, the alien pressesits bared jaws and dripping mouthagainst Ripley’s trembling cheeks; theimage suggests both death and desire.

Aware that she is carrying themonstrous infant, Ripley decides tosacrifice herself. In possibly the moststunning sequence in the Alien trilogy,Ripley throws herself backwards intothe fiery furnace. A close-up shotreveals an expression of ecstasy on herface as she plummets backwards intothe void. At the same time, the alienbursts forth. Ripley brings her armsforward, enclosing the infant queen inan embrace both maternal andmurderous – an embrace that ensuresthe alien will die alongside itssurrogate mother. Ripley’s death isrepresented as if it were a holysacrifice. The close-up shot ofRipley’s face, with shaven head andexpression of blissful resignation,bears a striking resemblance to the

face of Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s ThePassion of Joan of Arc, as she, too, isconsumed by the flames. The medievalsurroundings of Alien3 thereby assumea new significance; Ripley’s death isrepresented as a supreme sacrificeakin to that of an ancient androgynousgod or religious saint. As Ripleyplummets into the flames, the screen isfilled with an image of the rising sunand we recall Dillon’s words aboutrebirth when he earlier presided overthe consignment to the furnace ofRipley’s crew and surrogate daughter,Newt. Despite her integrity andcourage, Ripley/woman is betrayed byher body, unable finally to preserve herown flesh from contamination by theabject, alien other – the monstrousfecund mother.

THE WOMB IN HORROR FILMSFrom the above discussion we can see

that the womb is represented in thehorror film in at least two main ways:symbolically in terms of intra-uterinesettings and literally in relation to thefemale body. In many films the monstercommits her or his dreadful acts in alocation which resembles the womb.These intra-uterine settings consist ofdark, narrow, winding passagesleading to a central room, cellar orother symbolic place of birth. In otherhorror films the monstrous wombbelongs to woman or a female creaturewho is usually about to give birth to analien being or brood of terrifyingcreatures. Her womb is depicted asgrotesque thus giving concreteexpression to its monstrous nature. Thewomen who give birth to aliens orpossess mutated wombs are not allactive monsters like the witch orvampire. Some are active (The Brood)in that they control their evil offspring;some are raped by an alien

(Inseminoid) or even by a computer(Demon Seed) and give birth to non-human offspring; in a recent film (DeadRingers) the heroine was representedas a freak because she possessed atriple uterus – a medical impossibility.

Freud’s discussion of the uncanny(unheimlich) is relevant to thedepiction of uterine imagery in thehorror film. He defines the uncanny asthat which ‘is undoubtedly related towhat is frightening – to what arousesdread and horror’ (‘The uncanny’,219). Throughout his discussion, Freudrefers to those things which arefrequently called uncanny: they fallinto three main categories.

(i)

– those things which relate to thenotion of a double: a cyborg;twin; doppelganger; a multipliedobject; a ghost or spirit; aninvoluntary repetition of an act.– castration anxieties expressed

(ii)as a fear of the female genitals orof dismembered limbs, a severedhead or hand, loss of the eyes,fear of going blind.

(iii)

– a feeling associated with afamiliar/unfamiliar place, losingone’s way, womb phantasies, ahaunted house.

All of these fears are explored in thehorror film. The horror presentedwithin each category can be defined inrelation to a loss of clear boundaries.The double disturbs the boundarywhich establishes each human being asa discrete entity; castration fear playson a collapse of gender boundaries andthe uncanny feeling associated with afamiliar/unfamiliar place disturbs theboundary which marks out the knownand the knowable. It would appear thatthe uncanny and the abject sharecommon features for the uncanny alsodisturbs identity and order. Freud

states that the ‘uncanny is that class ofthe frightening which leads back towhat is known of old and longfamiliar’ (ibid., 220). This suggeststhat the notion common to all aspectsof the uncanny is that of origins. ‘Thisuncanny is in reality nothing new oralien, but something which is familiarand old-established in the mind andwhich has become alienated from it ifonly through the process of repression’(ibid., 241).

The womb, of course, relates notonly to the literal origin of the subjectbut also to the subject’s firstexperience of separation. What is thisthing which is ‘known of old and longfamiliar?’

It often happens that neurotic mendeclare that they feel there issomething uncanny about thefemale genital organs. Thisunheimlich place, however, is the

entrance to the former Heim[home] of all human beings, to theplace where each one of us livedonce upon a time and in thebeginning. There is a jokingsaying that ‘Love is home-sickness’; and whenever a mandreams of a place or a countryand says to himself, while he isstill dreaming: ‘this place isfamiliar to me, I’ve been herebefore,’ we may interpret theplace as being his mother’sgenitals or her body. In this casetoo, then, the unheimlich is whatwas once heimisch, familiar; theprefix ‘un’ [‘un-’] is the token ofrepression.

(ibid., 245)

Generally, critical writings emphasisethe fear aroused by castration anxietyin Freud’s theory of the uncanny. ButFreud did not refer simply to the

external genitals of woman; heallocates a central place to thesubject’s ‘former home’, the womb.The uncanny is that place which is‘known of old, and long familiar’, theplace from which the individual hasbecome alienated through repression. Itis in fact this feeling of something‘known of old’ that is central to theuncanny. Freud points out that in somelanguages the German term ‘anunheimlich house’ is only translatableas ‘a haunted house’ (ibid., 241). Thehouse is haunted by the ghost or traceof a memory which takes the individualback to the early, perhaps foetal,relation with the mother. This theme iscentral to the Gothic horror film inwhich the heroine is haunted by thememory of another woman, usually thehusband’s former wife, the symbolicmother. We see this dynamic at play inRebecca, Gaslight, Secret Beyond theDoor and Dragonwyck. Apart from

Gothic horror, exploration of theuncanny in other horror films is moreviolent, the monsters more monstrous.If the pull is particularly strong theindividual may find her/himselfliterally haunted by the ghost, evenpulled into another dimension as inPoltergeist, where the ghost isrepresented as a huge sucking uterus.

The symbolization of the womb ashouse/room/cellar or any otherenclosed space is central to theiconography of the horror film.Representation of the womb as a placethat is familiar and unfamiliar is actedout in the horror film through thepresentation of monstrous acts whichare only half glimpsed or initiallyhidden from sight until revealed intheir full horror. In her discussion ofthe woman’s film, Mary Ann Doaneargues that there is also a relationbetween the uncanny and the housewhich ‘becomes the analogue of the

human body, its parts fetishized bytextual operations, its erotogenouszones metamorphosed by a morbidanxiety attached to sexuality’ (Doane,1987, 72–3). The haunted house ishorrifying precisely because it containscruel secrets and has witnessedterrible deeds, usually committed byfamily members against each other.Almost always the origin of thesedeeds takes us back to the individual’squest for her or his own origins whichare linked to the three primal scenes –conception, sexual difference, desire.The house becomes the symbolic space– the place of beginnings, the womb –where these three dramas are playedout. Norman Bates’s murdered motherdies in her bed and Norman hides hermummified corpse in the cellar; Carriewashes away her menstrual blood inher mother’s bath before the entirehouse sinks into the ground; thealienated father of The Amityville

Horror baptizes himself in blood,which fills the cellar before he canrejoin his family. Behind the quest foridentity in these films lies the body ofthe mother represented through intra-uterine symbols and devices. Here thebody/house is literally the body ofhorror, the place of the uncanny wheredesire is always marked by theshadowy presence of the mother.

When the house is the centrallocation, the narrative usually leads usback to some terrible crime committedby or against a family that once livedthere. These include matricide(Psycho)’, cannibalism (The TexasChainsaw Massacre); incest (DrJekyll and Sister Hyde, Shivers);necrophilia (The Black Cat); familyslaughter (The Stepfather, TheShining), dismemberment (The HouseThat Screamed), witchcraft and torture(The House That Dripped Blood),suicide (House). In these films, the

house is horrifying not simply becauseof its appearance (dark, dank, empty,slimy, mysterious, foreboding) but alsobecause of the crimes committedwithin a familial context. Blood is oneof the most common images of horrorassociated with the house. Blood dripsfrom walls, fills cellars (TheAmityville Horror) and gushes inwaves along corridors (The Shining).The significance of the house to thehorror genre can be seen in the numberof films which link house and horror intheir titles: House of Dark Shadows,House of Evil, House of Exorcism,House of Freaks, House of theDamned, House of Usher, House onSorority Row, House of Fear.

In many films, the house is initiallydepicted as a place of refuge. Themonster either shelters or the victimseeks safety in a house. Inevitably, thesituation is reversed and the house thatoffered a solace ultimately becomes a

trap, the place where the monster isdestroyed and/or the victim murdered.Almost a cliché of the contemporaryhorror film is the scene where thehunted locks her/himself inside theroom, trunk or cupboard and waits,hardly daring to breathe, as the killertries to force an entry. The victimhuddles in a foetal position as if tryingto disappear into the walls. Then he orshe will burst forth unexpectedly inorder to catch the assailant off guard.These scenes tend to utilize similaractions or movements, all of whichsuggest a reworking of the birthscenario which is represented asfearful experience: enclosure in a safeplace followed by a bursting forth intothe unknown.

The second way in which the horrorfilm represents the womb as monstrousoccurs in films in which women givebirth to inhuman offspring as we sawin The Brood. These films have much

in common with those that depict themad, male scientist (Dr Jekyll and MrHyde, Frankenstein, The NuttyProfessor, The Fly) attempting tocreate new life forms but succeedingonly in constructing monsters.According to Sharon Russell:‘Females seldom create monsters orcontrol them (except perhaps as avariant of the mother/son relationship,as in Trog, or through the act of givingbirth to a monster)’ (Russell, 1984,117). Gérard Lenne even argues thatthere are no female mad scientists inthe horror film (1979, 38). This is notcorrect – The Wasp Woman and TheKindred both have female scientistswho tamper with nature. However, it istrue that female scientists rarely createmonsters in an artificial environment.Why should they? Woman possessesher own womb. Interestingly, the themeof woman giving birth to (physical)monsters from her own body has been

explored by a number of recent horrorfilms – possibly in response to recentdebates about scientific experiments incloning and reproductive technology.Horror films that represent woman aswomb monster include: The Brood,Xtro, Demon Seed, Alien Seed, TheFly, The Manitou and Dead Ringers.Some horror films present themonstrous female womb or nest as apart of nature as in Alien, Aliens,Arachnophobia and The Giant Claw.What all of these films have incommon is that they define woman asmonstrous in relation to her womb, thatis, her reproductive capacity.

Theories about the womb have alsolinked it to another discourse related tothe monstrous – the occurrence ofhysteria in woman. The earliest knownmedical reference to hysteria comesfrom Egypt and dates from about 1900BC. It was believed that the wombcould wander around the woman’s

body, thus leading to certain illnesses.The Greeks believed that the wombbegan to travel around the body if thewoman was sexually frustrated;deprivation caused her bodily fluids todry up and this caused the womb tomove around seeking moisture.According to Vern Bullough medievaldoctors believed that changes in thewomb’s position caused certainillnesses. This view persisted forcenturies:

If the organ came to rest in thisposition [near thehypochondrium] it would causeconvulsions similar to those ofepilepsy. If it mounted higher andattached itself to the heart, thepatient would feel anxiety andoppression and begin to vomit. Ifit fastened to her liver, the womanwould lose her voice and grit herteeth and her complexion would

turn ashen. If it lodged in theloins, she would feel a hard ballor lump in her side. If it mountedas high as her head, it wouldbring pain around her eyes andnose, make the head to feel heavy,and cause drowsiness andlethargy to set in.

(Bullough, 1973, 493–4)

The fact that the womb is stillrepresented in cultural discourses asan object of horror tends to contradictthe argument that the reason for this isignorance. A more probableexplanation is that woman’s womb – aswith her other reproductive organs –signifies sexual difference and as suchhas the power to horrify woman’ssexual other. It is interesting thatpsychoanalytic theory tends toconcentrate on woman’s outergenitalia, her so-called castratedorgan, as the most horrifying sign of

her sexual difference. Yet woman’sability to give birth clearly doesconstitute a major area of differencegiving rise to a number ofcontradictory responses on the part ofmen, such as awe, jealousy and horror.The practice of couvade in ‘primitive’societies in which men simulate the actof giving birth (they experience pains,go through labour, squat in a birthingposition) indicates the extent to whichmen may see woman’s birth-givingpowers as significant. The practice ofcouvade also poses problems forconventional approaches to debates onthe issue of sexual difference whichrefer only to woman’s castrated stateas the main signifier of difference, asSneja Gunew makes clear in herdiscussion of the issue (Gunew, 1983,156–7). But, according to Freud, it isspecifically woman’s castratedappearance that fills man with terror.Yet even a cursory glance at these

films suggests that woman’s pregnantwomb, whose outer sign appears to bea grotesquely swelling stomach, alsoawakens man’s attraction to and fear ofwoman as sexual ‘other’. Man’s desireto create life – to give birth – suggestsa more profound desire at work – tobecome woman. Insofar as these horrorfilms explore this yearning it ispossible to argue that this represents inthe male an hysterical rejection of hisordained gender role. The hystericalsymptom surfaces in the male body inthe form of a female reproductiveorgan or act such as a vaginal opening(Videodrome), a pregnancy (Alien), abirth (Total Recall).

In his work on Rabelais, MikhailBakhtin isolated threeinstances/examples of the grotesquebody; they are ‘sexual intercourse,death throes (in their comicpresentation – hanging tongue,expressionless popping eyes,

suffocation, death rattle), and the act ofbirth’ (Bakhtin, 1984, 353). Accordingto Bakhtin the ‘artistic logic of thegrotesque image ignores the closed,smooth, and impenetrable surface ofthe body and retains only itsexcrescences (sprouts, buds) andorifices, only that which leads beyondthe body’s limited space or into thebody’s depths’ (ibid., 318). The act ofbirth is represented as grotesquethrough its ‘gaping mouth, theprotruding eyes, sweat, trembling,suffocation, the swollen face . . .’(ibid., 308). In other words, the act ofbirth is grotesque because the body’ssurface is no longer closed, smoothand intact – rather the body looks as ifit may tear apart, open out, reveal itsinnermost depths. It is this aspect of thepregnant body – loss of boundaries –that the horror film emphasizes in itsrepresentation of the monstrous.

5

WOMAN AS VAMPIRE:THE HUNGER

But blood, as a vital element, alsorefers to women, fertility, and theassurance of fecundation. It thusbecomes a fascinating semanticcrossroads, the propitious placefor abjection.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

The female vampire is a figure whocame to prominence in vampire filmsof the 1970s. During this period, thevampire film began to explore openly

the explicit relationship between sex,violence and death. According toAndrew Tudor, the 1970s vampirefilms conflated the female vampirewith voracious sexual desire andplaced the two ‘at the heart of thevampire narrative’ in films such as Sexand the Vampire and Shadow of theWerewolf (Tudor, 1989, 64–5). Tudorsuggests there might be a connectionbetween this and the rise of thewomen’s liberation movement, whichalso led to public fears about a moreaggressive expression of femalesexuality. In her pioneering article onthe lesbian vampire, BonnieZimmerman (1984) draws a similarconnection. The representation ofwomen in the vampire film opens up anumber of areas for study: woman aslesbian vampire; woman as victim;woman as creature; gender andmetamorphosis; abjection and thematernal.

Although Count Dracula representsthe archetypal cinema vampire, one ofthe most interesting and compelling ofmonsters is the female vampire,frequently represented as a lesbian. Inone sense, her lesbianism arises fromthe nature of the vampiric act itself.Sucking blood from a victim’s neckplaces the vampire and victim in anintimate relationship. Unlike otherhorror-film monsters, the vampireenfolds the victim in an apparent orreal erotic embrace. This is as true forthe female vampire as the male. Sheembraces her female victims, using allthe power of her seductive wiles tosoothe and placate anxieties beforestriking. Of necessity, then, the femalevampire’s seduction exploits images oflesbian desire. In some films this isincidental, in others the female Draculais clearly a lesbian. The combinationof ‘lesbian’ and ‘vampire’ is a happyone since both figures are represented

in popular culture as sexuallyaggressive women. For these reasons Iwill discuss the female vampire in herpopular guise as a lesbian. In the pre-1970s vampire film, lesbianencounters were suggested rather thanexplicit. The vampire of Carl Dreyer’sVampyr was an old woman, hinting atlesbian desire, and Dracula’sDaughter contains a relatively low-key encounter which also suggestslesbian desire. Since the 1970s,however, vampire films have dealtopenly with the lesbianism of thevampire.

According to James Ursini andAlain Silver in their book The VampireFilm, most lesbian vampire films drawon one of two sources. One source isSheridan Le Fanu’s novella ‘Carmilla’,which tells the story of the CountessMillarca Karnstein, who has lived forcenturies by vampirizing youngwomen. The other is an historical

figure, the sixteenth-century Hungariannoblewoman, the Countess ElizabethBathory, who was accused of torturingto death over 600 young virgins andbathing in their blood in order tomaintain her youth and beauty. Horrorfilms which deal exclusively with thelesbian vampire include: The VampireLovers, Lust for a Vampire, Twins ofEvil, Blood and Roses, Vampyres,Vampyros Lesbos, The Velvet Vampire,The Hunger, Daughters of Darkness,and Walerian Borowczyk’s ImmoralTales, which employs the CountessElizabeth Bathory as the subject of onesequence. The first three above-mentioned films, sometimes referred toas the Karnstein trilogy, adoptSheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ as theirsource. Of these, The Vampire Loverstakes extra care to emphasize thedeadly nature of the female vampire byassociating her with the Medusa.

In The Vampire Lovers, Ingrid Pitt

plays Mircalla, the beautiful daughterof the Karnstein family who escapeddeath at the hands of Baron Hartog, thefamous vampire hunter. Mircalla, whoearns a living as a female companionto the daughters of the wealthy, firstseduces and vampirizes Laura,daughter of General Spielsdorf. Shethen vampirizes another young girl,Emma, her male doctor, governess andbutler. Mircalla is finally hunted downand killed by Laura’s father. He insiststhat she must be decapitated and wesee him hold her head up high, just asPerseus is often depicted holding theMedusa’s decapitated head. Spielsdorfleads the fathers of the neighbouringfamilies on the vampire hunt. He isdepicted as a cold, cruel andpuritanical figure in opposition to thevalues represented by the sensual,erotic, female vampire.

The reason why Carmilla as thelesbian vampire is doubly terrifying is

made fairly clear during Emma’sseduction. Emma’s delirious responsesuggests that anyone else, particularlyher fiancé who is similar to thepuritanical fathers, would have adifficult time equalling Carmilla’serotic, sensual embrace. The filmclearly contrasts the passionatesexuality of the women with the cold,withdrawn repressed sexuality of themen, particularly the father. Because ofCarmilla’s death, the film does nothave to explore this contrast anyfurther. The implication, however, isthat – given a choice – women mightprefer the embrace of their own sex.Zimmerman argues that by depictingthe lesbian as ‘a vampire-rapist whoviolates and destroys her victim, menalleviate their fears that lesbian lovecould create an alternate model’ (1984,156). In my view, the female vampireis monstrous – and also attractive –precisely because she does threaten to

undermine the formal and highlysymbolic relations of men and womenessential to the continuation ofpatriarchal society. In The VampireLovers this threat is visibly reinforcedthrough the comparison of the stiff,unbending postures of the fathers andthe sensual, eroticized bodies of thewomen. Because female, and – likeCount Dracula – a seducer parexcellence, the lesbian vampire isdoubly dangerous. As well astransforming her victims into blood-sucking creatures of the night (she doesnot necessarily destroy her victims),she also threatens to seduce thedaughters of patriarchy away fromtheir proper gender roles.

The horror film consistently placesthe monster in conflict with the family,the couple and the institutions ofpatriarchal capitalism, as Robin Woodhas so clearly demonstrated in hisessay, ‘The American nightmare:

horror in the 70s’ (in Wood, 1986, 70–94). It does not, however, usuallychallenge the gender basis of theheterosexual couple. The couple,threatened by the monster, is almostalways heterosexual; the monster whodesires the woman is usually male.While there have been some attemptsto create gay male vampires (TheFearless Vampire Killers), these havebeen infrequent and are usually madeas comedy-vampire films – sometimeswith homophobic undertones (Russo,1981, 53–1). The most persistent threatto the institution of heterosexualityrepresented in the horror film comesfrom the female vampire who preys onother women. Once bitten, the victim isnever shy. She happily joins her femaleseducer, lost to the real world for ever.

The female vampire is abjectbecause she disrupts identity andorder; driven by her lust for blood, shedoes not respect the dictates of the law

which set down the rules of propersexual conduct. Like the male, thefemale vampire also representsabjection because she crosses theboundary between the living and dead,the human and animal.

The vampire’s animalism is madeexplicit in her bloodlust and the growthof her two pointed fangs. Because sheis not completely animal or human,because she hovers on the boundarybetween these two states, sherepresents abjection.

The lesbian vampire is monstrousfor another reason, one which isdirectly related to her sexuality andwhich offers a threat of a more abjectnature. Like the male, the lesbianvampire also causes woman’s blood toflow. Given the abject status ofwoman’s blood within religious andcultural discourses, bloodletting aloneconstitutes a prime case of abjection.Lesbian vampirism, however, is

doubly abject because woman, alreadymore abject than man, releases theblood of another woman. In thisreworking of the primal scene,abjection is everywhere.

Secretions mark the body, present itas imperfect, not fully symbolic, partof the natural world. Blood, as abodily emission, is itself an abjectsubstance. ‘Any secretion or discharge,anything that leaks out of the feminineor masculine body defiles’ (Kristeva,1982, 102). There is no doubt that thehorror film, in its confrontation withthe abject, is fascinated with blood.Film titles alone point to thisobsession: Blood Bath, Blood Brides,Blood Drinkers, Blood Feast, Bloodfor Dracula, Blood Orgy, Bloodbathat the House of Death, BloodyBirthday, A Bucket of Blood, TheHouse That Dripped Blood and so on.According to Kristeva, woman’s bloodhas been represented within

patriarchal discourses as more abjectthan man’s for at least three reasons.First, woman’s menstrual bloodthreatens ‘the identity of each sex in theface of sexual difference’ (ibid.).Second, woman’s blood points to thefertile nature of the female body andbears witness to woman’s alliancewith the natural world. Third, woman’sblood, which symbolizes birth and life,reminds man of his capacity, evenwillingness, to shed blood, to murder.

Blood, indicating the impure,takes on the ‘animal’ seme of theprevious opposition and inheritsthe propensity for murder ofwhich man must cleanse himself.But blood, as a vital element, alsorefers to women, fertility, and theassurance of fecundation. It thusbecomes a fascinating semanticcrossroads, the propitious placefor abjection, where death and

femininity, murder andprocreation, cessation of life andvitality all come together.

(Kristeva, 1982, 96)

As mentioned before, the lesbian isassociated with a number of forms ofabjection. She signifies sexualdifference and the threat of castration,she causes woman’s blood to flow andshe crosses gender boundaries. Thereis, however, another reason why thelesbian vampire is a truly monstrousfigure. In my view, this relates to themythical meaning of the vampirelegend as a symbolic story aboutwoman’s menstrual flow.

THE VAMPIRE AS MENSTRUALMONSTER

The vampire story contains manysymbolic elements which havepersisted over the centuries. Thevampire is one of the undead, a figure

who rises from the grave on the fullmoon in search of young virgins,almost always female. The vampire’sresting place is usually a coffinsecreted in a dark, cobweb-filledcellar or crypt, which is reached by along flight of stairs. The vampire sinkshis/her two sharp fangs into thevictim’s neck in order to suck blood.Visual emphasis is usually placed onthe two marks, like a snake bite, left bythe vampire’s fangs. After the attackthe victim is transformed into amember of the undead. It is interestingto note that frequently the femalevictims shed their state of languidtorpor and emerge from their ordealfilled with an active, predatory desire.Common symbolic elements in thisnarrative are: womb-like coffins, thefull moon, snake-like fangs, two bitemarks, dripping blood, transformation.

In their study of menstruation, TheWise Wound, Penelope Shuttle and

Peter Redgrove point out that in filmicversions of the vampire narrative theDracula figure is a sexually ambiguouscharacter (1978, 267). The maleDracula is feminized: he is a sensual,elegant, aristocratic figure who wearsa black satin cloak, speaks with aseductive accent, is clearly evil andyet immensely attractive to women. Inhis death he is ‘feminized’ in that hisbody is usually penetrated by a phallicstake. The female Dracula ismasculinized; she is an active,predatory seducer.

In Dracula was a Woman, RaymondT. McNally argues, quite convincingly,that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was, to asignificant extent, based not on a malebut a female figure – the TransylvanianCountess, Elisabeth Bathory. Not onlydo Stoker’s unpublished paperscontain copious notes about theElisabeth Bathory case; he alsoincorporated aspects of her story into

the published novel. For instance, theidea that after drinking blood CountDracula begins to look younger comesfrom the legend of Countess Bathory. InIdols of Perversity, a fascinatinganalysis of the representation ofwoman in European art, Bram Dijkstrapoints out that a popular belief of thetime was that woman became avampire in order to replace the bloodshe lost during menstruation.

What is the relationship between thevampire and blood? Shuttle andRedgrove interpret the vampire mythas a rite of passage which is used toexplain the phenomenon of menarche,or the first menstruation, in young girls.They argue that the neck, which isalmost always the place that is bitten,represents the neck of the uterus. Theyplace great emphasis on the alteredstate of the vampire’s victims – afterbeing bitten, that is, after menstruationbegins, the women are filled with new

energy:

After their blood has been shedfor the vampire, though (and it isalways from the neck; as we sayneck or cervix of the womb), andthey had suffered their first deathinto their new lives as vampires –why, what creatures theybecame! . . . Their eyes shone,their gait was swift and vigorous,they spoke energy with everyglance, and their smiles, full ofbright teeth with handsomecanines, like neat panthers, wereflashing and free, like Keats’ ‘LaBelle Dame Sans Merci.’ At lastthere seemed some point inbecoming a vampire!

(Shuttle and Redgrove, 1978, 267–8)

Given this interpretation, whatmeanings can we give to the various

symbolic elements of the vampirenarrative, particularly the moon, fangs,bite marks and blood? According toBarbara Walker (1983, 635), the beliefthat blood could bring back the deadinfluenced the thinking of Westernnations from the time of Homer. Whywas blood associated with the moon?Walker argues that it was believed thatthe moon was responsible for rebirth.The moon’s rays not only caused blood– one of the body’s four humours orfluids – to rise in the veins of the livingbut the rays also called forth the bloodof the dead. This belief, of course, hassome factual basis; the full moon doesexert an influence on the earth’s tidesand, according to some people, on thefluids within many living bodiesincluding both animal and plant life(Brown, 1972, 756–66; Shuttle andRedgrove, 1978, 163). The perfecttime for one of the undead to suckblood from the living was on the night

of a full moon. The undead, such as thevampire, could live temporarily bydrinking blood, the source of life. TheGreek word for vampire wassarcomens, ‘flesh made by the moon’(Walker, 1983, 1040).

The association between blood andthe moon is, however, more complexthan this. In The Roots of Civilization,Alexander Marshack argues that thelunar calendar, which consists ofthirteen months of twenty-eight dayseach, was originally based onwoman’s menstrual cycle. RobertGraves makes a related point in TheWhite Goddess when he argues that‘twenty-eight is a true lunar month notonly in the astronomical sense . . . butin the mystic sense that the Moon,being a woman, has a woman’s normalmenstrual period (“menstruation” isconnected with the word “moon”) oftwenty-eight days’ (Graves, 1966,166). Some ancient cultures also

associated the full moon and woman’smonthly bleeding with the snake. Allthree – the moon, snake and woman’scycle – move through stages in whichthe old is shed and the new reborn: themoon moves through its cycle from theold to the new moon; the snake shedsand renews its skin; woman sheds andrenews her blood. Many early mythsstate that the young girl begins to bleedwhen the snake-goddess, or god whichlives in the moon, bites her. In hisbook, The Beginnings, H. R. Haysstates that Cretan religious vesselswere represented as a vagina with asnake crawling inside. They thought ofthe garden of paradise as theGoddess’s womb in which a serpentdwelt (Hays, 1963, 101). Not allpeople believed that a snake bitebrought on menstruation. Bats werealso cited as bringing on the bloodflow. Vampires were thought to be ableto transform into bats. In From Honey

to Ashes, Lévi-Strauss discusses thelinks drawn by the Aztecs andColumbians between the onset ofmenstruation and vampire bats (Lévi-Strauss, 1973, 382). They believed thatonce a girl was bitten she would beginto menstruate.

Given the above myths and symbolicassociations, Shuttle and Redgrove’sinterpretation of the vampire storyseems plausible. The vampire’s bitingteeth are like the fangs of a snake;significantly these fangs always leavebehind two round puncture markswhich resemble those of a snake bite.In some vampire films the puncturemarks on the victim’s body are placedmuch closer together than the fangs inthe vampire’s mouth would indicatewas logical. In some films (TheVampire Lovers, The Brides ofDracula, Son of Dracula) the holesare also round and neat – not the kindof bloody tear one would expect long

fangs to make. This would suggest thatthe convention of making the puncturemarks resemble a snake bite is moreimportant, in terms of the vampiremyth, than cinematic verisimilitude.The link between the vampire andsnake is made clear in The Reptile, inwhich the monstrous mouth of thesnake-woman could also be that of avampire (see illustration). The factorsdiscussed above suggest that thevampire is symbolically the snake ofmyth and legend who first draws themenstrual blood from the uterusthrough the neck of the cervix and intothe vagina. He/she strikes at night butparticularly when the moon is full, thatis, in accordance with a twenty-eight-day cycle, which is also the averagelength of the woman’s menstrual cycle.There are close mythologicalassociations between the vampire andthe werewolf. In Horrors DrakeDouglas points to the ancient belief

that the vampire could transform into awerewolf and the latter, on its death,could become a vampire. Thewerewolf’s blood lust is more closelytied to the twenty-eight-day cycle as itonly strikes on the night of the fullmoon. Walter Evans states that ‘thewerewolf’s bloody attacks – whichoccur regularly every month – arecertainly related to the menstrual cyclewhich suddenly and mysteriouslycommands the body of everyadolescent girl’ (Evans, 1973, 357) –but he does not develop this notion.

The vampire is the sexual initiatorpar excellence. Critical articles on thevampire film almost always point tothe unusual state of the female victim.Tudor writes that the female victims ofTod Browning’s Dracula lie in bed,‘throats bare, arms lying languidly onthe bedclothes, unable and unwilling toresist’ (Tudor, 1989, 164). After thevictim has been bitten she rises and,

filled with sexual energy, she seeks outher own victims/partners. According toShuttle and Redgrove, with the onset ofmenarche sexual desire is aroused andthe clitoris is particularly energized(1978, 59). This would help to explainthe sudden transformation that takesplace in the vampire’s female victims.They also point out that it is quitecommon in life for a girl to commencemasturbating with her firstmenstruation (ibid., 244). This occursin Carrie, where the femaleprotagonist is shown masturbating withthe onset of bleeding. Tudor also notesthat the vampire’s victims ‘are always,in some sense, willing victims’ (1989,165) and that the scene is marked withan expectant and sensual air. Theunusual change in the victim – from astate of passivity to one of activity –makes sense if explained in terms of arite of passage for the pubescent girl.Western societies, of course, no longer

have puberty rituals for menarche butperhaps popular culture in the form ofthe vampire film provides teenagerswith a seductive but terrifying view ofthis important threshold event.

A vampire can be killed only inspecific ways. A stake through theheart and decapitation are two of thebetter known methods. The femalevampire is sometimes decapitated(e.g., The Vampire Lovers). In thiscontext, it is worth noting that there aresome mythical connections between theMedusa and the female vampire.According to Philip Slater, the glanceof a menstruating woman, like theglance of the Medusa or Gorgon, wasonce thought to turn men to stone. Theorigin of the word ‘Gorgon’ is from thephrase ‘the moon as it is terrible tobehold’ (Shuttle and Redgrove, 1978,262). The moon was associated withsnakes and vampires for the reasonsdiscussed above. Freud argued that the

Medusa’s head represented theterrifying genitals of the mother. Howmuch more terrifying would theMedusa’s head appear when her twolong boar’s tusks were covered withblood! Her face would take on theappearance of the bleeding femalegenitals; in its horrifying aspect thiswould resemble not the castratedfemale genitals but the castratinggenitals, the terrifying vagina dentata.

While the vampire narrative appearsto be closely tied to myths associatedwith menarche, it can also be related toanother important threshold event in awoman’s life, an event which alsoinvolves a sudden blood flow –defloration. In his essay, ‘The taboo ofvirginity’, Freud discusses the tabooplaced by ‘primitive’ cultures onsexual intercourse with a virgin.Although I discuss this essay in detailin Chapter 8, it is relevant to mention itbriefly in this context. Defloration was

regarded as terrifying because itresulted in a mysterious flow of bloodfrom the woman’s vagina. Accordingto Freud, these people believed theblood flow was caused by the bite of a‘spirit animal’ which lived in thevagina (‘Taboo’, p. 197).Consequently, sexual intercourse isfirst enacted with the girl by someoneexperienced and able to withstand thethreat. The young bridegroom isalways protected from woman’sterrifying blood. It is possible tointerpret the vampire myth as a storyabout defloration. The vampire bitesthe woman, the teeth penetrate herneck, blood flows. She is transformedfrom an innocent into a creature of thenight who, because she has beensexually awakened, is now athreatening female figure. She is thedeadly vampire who desires to suckmen’s blood, which in this contextcould be seen as a metaphor for semen.

Ernst Jones proposes thisinterpretation in his essay, ‘On thenightmare of bloodsucking’. Thefemale vampire was certainly viewedin this way in fin-de-siecle culture(Dijkstra, 1986, 334) where she isrepresented as a sexual predator parexcellence. It is possible that these twoexplanations of the vampire myth – itsymbolizes the menstrual and hymenalflow – were once an explanation of asingle phenomenon, that is, woman’sblood flow. In ancient societies,people would have had no way ofdistinguishing between the twooccurrences – both were seen asrelated to the deadly nature ofwoman’s womb. Woman’s womb is asite of terror because it bleeds; it is theblood which flows from the inside tothe outside of woman’s body that isviewed as abject. The vampire is acreature of evil because she/he liveson blood drawn from a wound that

marks the surface of the skin. Like allabject figures, the vampire is bothterrifying and seductive.

THE LESBIAN VAMPIREIn The Hunger, directed by Tony Scott,the vampire is represented as aparticularly abject figure because it isfemale and therefore associated moreclosely with woman’s blood. The filmhas been criticized for its ‘glossy topdressing’ and ‘modish trappings’(Hardy, 1986, 387) but its smooth,opulent surface is used to great effectin scenes of contrast, particularly thosedealing with physical decay and blood.The Hunger draws on the stories ofboth Carmilla and the CountessBathory. Catherine Deneuve playsMiriam Blaylock, a woman who, likeCarmilla, is an expert in the art ofseduction and who, like Bathory, seeksimmortality through blood. She

appears to have achieved immortalityand is represented as an eternallybeautiful rather enigmatic figure, abisexual vampire who has apparentlylived for at least 2000 years. A blood-sucking, meat-eating, ageless beauty,she seduces her partners, male andfemale, with the promise ofimmortality. The addition ofcannibalism associates her vampirismwith the meat-lust of the werewolfwhich, as I explained earlier, onlyhunts on the full moon and is thereforelinked more closely to the menstrualcycle. Ironically, Miriam’s mysteriousbeauty also suggests the glamour ofdeath – something her loverseventually yearn for but can neverattain.

When the film opens, Miriam(Catherine Deneuve) is living with hercurrent partner John (David Bowie),who has been with her for twocenturies. Two beautiful, chic figures,

they have no trouble luring their youngvictims, whom they pick up atnightclubs and discotheques, back totheir lavish apartment. Unlikeconventional vampires, they do notpossess fangs. Instead each wears asmall, sharp blade in a sheath whichhangs around their necks. With this theycut the throats of their victims and laterdispose of the carcasses in thebasement furnace. Miriam and Johnhave been together for centuries; theyappear to be deeply in love. Onemorning John wakes up to discoverthat Miriam’s promise of immortalityis false; he has begun to grow old.Although Miriam promisesimmortality, she knows that none of herlovers will live for ever. John seeksthe help of Sarah Roberts (SusanSarandon), a scientist who isresearching the ageing process. All hisattempts fail and he begins to agerapidly. When he turns into an old,

decrepit man, Miriam carries hiscrumbling body upstairs to the atticwhere she keeps the coffins of herundead lovers.

Meanwhile Miriam has alreadydecided to make Sarah her next lover.She seduces and vampirizes thewilling Sarah, who develops amysterious but ravenous hunger formeat. When Miriam finally explains,Sarah embraces her and then attemptssuicide by cutting her own throat.Miriam carries Sarah’s dying bodyupstairs to the attic/bell tower. In thetower, however, Miriam is attacked byher aged lovers. She falls backwardsover the balcony to the floor below. AsMiriam dies, her face and bodycrumbling into a grotesque mask, thepower of life and death that she holdsover her lovers is broken. The finalscene shows Sarah in Miriam’s place.She is now the reigning vampire queen.We see her with a male partner and a

young girl whose appearance remindsus of Miriam. They seem to duplicatethe trio of Miriam/John and a younggirl who came to them for musiclessons. The final shot is of Miriam’scoffin, locked and stored in Sarah’sspecial graveyard.

The Hunger deliberately sets out toupdate the vampire movie. The word‘vampire’ is never used and most of theimagery and conventions associatedwith the vampire film are absent.There are no fangs, bats, wan virgins,or gliding predatory vampires in blacksilk capes. The opening scenes suggesta blend of video-clip conventions andfashion photography. The mise-en-scène for each shot appears to havebeen meticulously arranged. Interiorscenes are bathed in soft shadows,creating a sense of timelessness.Dominating all of this is the superblyelegant and implacable beauty ofCatherine Deneuve. The film’s

discourse on the transitory nature ofglamour is ironically offset by its otherdiscourse on the permanence of ageingand death. It is against this surfaceimpression of smooth, coherentperfection that the film explores theforces of abjection associated withblood, wounds and the decaying,crumbling body.

In terms of abjection, Miriam ismonstrous because she promiseseverlasting life, which means herlovers never age, their bodies remainstrong, healthy and flawless. This isthe bodily perfection sanctioned by thesymbolic order. However, she alsoknows that in the end there is onlydecay and death. Miriam is fully awareof the fate of her lovers. She is thecruel mother, the parent who nurturesher lovers/children in life and thenkeeps them in a state of living death.She represents the suffocating mother –the mother who refuses to let go. When

John finally becomes a grotesque oldman, he begs her to let him die. Miriamtells him that there is no release, norest. Carrying him upstairs to the attic,she places him in a coffin with herother past lovers, now members of theundead. The attic is the antithesis of theconventional vampire’s crypt in thecellar. Whereas the cellar is dank andcold, the attic of The Hunger is dryand dusty. Miriam represents the deadface of the archaic mother, the maternalfigure whose fertility has dried up. Shehas no nourishment to offer. Miriam’svampire lovers exist in a limbo ofdecay. Blood can no longer keep themalive. The horror of such a state, whichhas no boundaries, no end, is forcefullyrepresented in the scene where theundead begin to crumble. In oneinstance, a male and female vampirefall over, the male’s head then dropsoff on to his chest and crumbles intohis legs, finally becoming dust. The

most horrific sequence focuses onMiriam’s collapse. As she falls on tothe floor below, her body and faceseem to crumble backwards in timeuntil her face is a grinning, crumblingfemale death’s head not unlike thegrinning skull of Mrs Bates in Psycho.

Woman’s association with blood asan abject substance is graphicallyrepresented in the scene of Sarah’sattempted suicide. Because the twowomen are kissing at the time, Sarah’sblood spurts up and out from her mouthinto Miriam’s open mouth. The suddenexplosion of blood in this scene relatesspecifically to the representation of thevampire as female. The two women,both vampires, appear to be drinkingeach other’s blood. It is impossible totell if the blood signals life or death.The film deliberately plays on thisambiguity, reinforcing the notion thatlesbian desire is deadly. Throughoutthe narrative, short flashback scenes

suddenly interrupt the flow of events.These show Miriam in various posesas she crouches over the bodies of hervictims. Blood covers her lips andtrickles down her face. In these scenesshe is represented as the devouringmother whose cannibalistic,incorporating desires are the other sideof her possessive, smothering urges.When she is placed in a sexualembrace with another female vampire,the predatory/lesbian energies releasedlead to a fountain of blood. It isdifficult to imagine two male vampiresembracing in such a context, theirabject nature defined in terms of anoral exchange of blood.

In her discussion of biblicalabomination, Kristeva lists three majorcategories of the taboo: food taboos;bodily change and its end in death; thefemale body and incest. These taboos,she argues, are ultimately designed toperform ‘the tremendous forcing that

consists in subordinating maternalpower (whether historical orphantasmatic, natural or reproductive)to symbolic order’ (Kristeva, 1982,91). In other words, by constructing thematernal figure as an abject being, thesymbolic order forces a separation ofmother and infant that is necessary toguarantee its power and legitimacy.When Miriam and Sarah becomelovers, a series of boundaries arecrossed, violating taboos that appear tobe specific to the lesbian vampire film:a symbolic mixing of blood and milk; acollapse of boundaries between selfand other; a possible retreat intonarcissism; and the representation oflesbian desire. All of these are inaddition to the usual boundariescrossed in the male Dracula film (lifeand death, human and creature, paganand Christian) as well as a breaking ofthe taboos on murder and cannibalism.The female Dracula is a particularly

abject figure.One of the strongest of food taboos

relates to the ancient imperative thatblood and milk should be keptseparate. According to Exodus: ‘Thoushalt not seethe a kid in his mother’smilk.’ In The Hunger there is a sensein which blood is equivalent to themother’s milk. In the classic vampirefilm (Dracula, Vampire Lovers), thevampire sleeps in her/his coffin like anunborn baby nestled in the darkcomfort of the mother’s womb. Afterfeeding, the vampire must return to the‘womb’ or die. Blood of course is thefirst food of the foetus/vampire. Theconnection between the vampire and afoetus is drawn even more strongly inthose texts where Dracula is female.According to Ernst Jones, the femalevampire’s blood-sucking is equivalentto oral sex. She sucks the innocentmale’s blood as if she were sucking thesemen from his penis. Semen is

sometimes referred to as milk, as inMoby Dick where Herman Melvillehas Ishmael refer to the whale’sspermaceti as ‘the very milk and spermof kindness’. Insofar as the act ofvampirism mixes the idea ofblood/semen/milk, it becomes aparticularly abject act in relation to thebiblical taboos on mixing blood andmilk. The penis also takes the place ofthe breast in that it is suckled and itgives forth a milky substance. In asense, the male victim is placed in theposition of the suckling mother; thevampire becomes his child. But thevampire also threatens to bite, to drawblood and sever the penis. Vampirismcombines a number of abject activities:the mixing of blood and milk; the threatof castration; the feminization of themale victim.

In texts where the vampire is female,we are made more aware of thedependent relationship between the

vampire as mother and her lover aschild. In The Hunger, Miriam liveswith her current lover in her darkly lit,opulent home which is like a vastwomb-like mausoleum. When herlovers ‘die’ she places them inindividual coffins in the attic,symbolically returning them to thewomb. She is the vampire/mother whogives birth to her vampire/lover withthe promise of eternal life and it is shewho teaches the vampire/child how tofeed. Only she knows how to appease‘the hunger’ for blood. This parallelbetween blood and milk is made clearin the seduction scene. Here Miriamtransforms Sarah into her lover/childby sucking and biting open a wound inSarah’s skin. She then injects her ownblood/milk into Sarah’s veins. Whenthe metamorphosis is complete Miriamthen teaches her offspring how to feed.Blood is the vampire’s milk.

When Miriam and Sarah become

lovers, the violation of the taboosassociated with incest and decaybecomes more marked. In thebloodletting spectacle we are at firstunable to tell which of the women hasbeen cut. This scene draws attention tothe taboo of incest in that the femalevampire is the mother; her lover, towhom she gives eternal life, is alsosymbolically her child. Furthermore,because the two vampires are female,and both are capable of mothering, andfeeding their offspring, we are mademore aware of the vampire’s blood aswoman’s blood, a special blood whichgives life/birth to the lover/child. Butthis is also a death scene in which theblood spurt is in excess. Thus therelationship between Miriam andSarah is abject in a number of ways: itviolates not only the incest taboo butalso the interdiction againsthomosexual love or love of the same.In some lesbian vampire films (Twins

of Evil, Vampyres) the femalevampires even look alike, furtherreinforcing the suggestion ofnarcissistic desire.

Abjection is also present becausethe vampire’s union is brought about bythe opening up of a wound, a form ofabjection discussed earlier in relationto The Brood. Wounds, particularlyleprous sores, point to the imperfectionof the bodily surface and the openingof the maternal body during childbirth.The mark of Sarah’s transformation isthe wound on her wrist that Miriammakes with her teeth. With its repeatedemphasis on marking the skin, openingup a wound, the vampire narrativepoints continually to the imperfectionof the body and the particularly abjectnature of the maternal body. In thelesbian vampire film, Vampyres, thevampire keeps her male victim alivefor a longer period of time by suckinghis wound slowly and spasmodically.

Gradually the wound grows larger andlarger until it constitutes one of themost grotesque sights in the film.

The lesbian vampire relationship asrepresented in The Hunger emphasizesthose three areas – orality, death,incest – which work to cement themother/child relationship rather thanbring about the separation which isnecessary for the institution of socialityand the law:

In other words, the place and lawof the One do not exist without aseries of separations that areoral, corporeal, or even moregenerally material, and in the lastanalysis relating to fusion with themother.

(Kristeva, 1982, 94)

The figure of the mother vampirerefuses the separation necessary for theintroduction of the father or the third

term as it is described in Freud andLacan. As the oral sadistic mother, shekeeps her lover/child by her side in arelationship which symbolicallycollapses the boundaries between milkand blood as well as violating thetaboo on incest. Vampires are membersof the undead who feed off the flesh ofthe living. In The Hunger, the abjectnature of this relationship is even morepronounced because the boundarybetween heterosexual and homosexuallove is also transgressed. Significantly,the final scene re-establishes thevampire as a heterosexual, although theembrace between Sarah and the youngblonde girl who looks remarkably likeMiriam suggests that the desire toviolate that taboo is always at hand.

Significantly, a number of vampirefilms oppose the world of the vampireto that of the human through a series ofoppositions which take on maternaland paternal characteristics. The

female vampire’s world signifiesdarkness, the undead, moon, thetomb/womb, blood, oral sadism,bodily wounds and violation of thelaw. The world of the living,frequently represented by a patriarchalfigure (Van Helsing in Dracula films)versed in vampire lore, signifies light,life, the sun, destruction of the tomb,blood taboos, the stake/phallus, theunviolated body, and enforcement ofthe law. Through an interplay of theseoppositions, the vampire mythbecomes a narrative about theconstruction of the maternal world aspagan and abject. In many vampirefilms (Dracula, The Vampire Lovers)the figure of Dracula is represented aspagan and the avenging fathers asChristian. Given that the paganreligions celebrated fertility and thepower of the maternal body (Frazer,1922; Stone, 1976) it would appearthat this conflict is between these two

opposing domains – the worlds of themother and the father.

In most vampire films, particularlythose featuring Dracula, the archaicmother is there only as a shadowypresence. Roger Dadoun argues thatthose ‘elements’ which relate to thepresence of the mother include thedark, enveloping uterine space of thecrypt, creaking sounds, hidden doors,cobwebs and dust (Dadoun, 1989, 52–3). In the conventional scenario,Dracula, with his erect body andpenetrating look, becomes ‘the phallus-fetish’ of the omnipresent mother(ibid., 55). In The Hunger where thechief vampire is female we are broughtface to face with the archaic mother;there is no need to infer her shadowypresence through the intermediary andfetishized figure of the male vampire.The vampire is the archaic mother.Furthermore, if the male vampire is afetish figure of the mother, it seems

clear that he does not represent theimaginary phallus of the mother, asDadoun argues, but rather herterrifying, imaginary vagina dentata.This image is presented very clearlywhen the vampire is female; in thesetexts one of the most frequent images isthat of woman’s open mouth, sharppointed teeth and blood-covered lips.As we have seen, The Hungerrepresents the figure of the archaicmother in two forms – as a beautiful,ageless woman and as an ancient,crumbling figure whose ubiquitouspresence is attested to by the final shotof her coffin where she lies for ever asone of the undead. A newvampire/mother has taken her place;the line cannot be broken. In the finalsequence we see her mothering hernew family, its members bound to herby ties of blood/milk, cannibalism,death and desire. But it is the sexualdesires of the lesbian vampire that

render her the most abject of allvampire monsters.

6

WOMAN AS WITCH:CARRIE

One of them, the masculine,apparently victorious, confessesthrough its very relentlessnessagainst the other, the feminine,that it is threatened by anasymmetrical, irrational, wily,uncontrollable power.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

There is one incontestably monstrousrole in the horror film that belongs towoman – that of the witch. The witch

was not always a figure of monstrosity,as Sharon Russell points out in herexcellent discussion of the changingimage of the witch in film. Early silentfilms, such as those of Georges Méliès(The Witch’s Revenge, The Witch)were primarily interested in using thistopic in order to exploit the trickproperties of the cinema. Several films(such as Witchcraft through the Ages)presented a serious exploration of thesubject by adopting a documentaryform. This approach also influencedDreyer’s Day of Wrath. Universal didnot deal at all with the witch in itshorror films of the 1930s. One of thefirst films to present a terrifyingpicture of the witch was a children’sfilm, The Wizard of Oz (1939). In the1940s the subject of ‘woman as witch’was made the topic of humour in someHollywood comedies, such as IMarried a Witch. Not until 1943, withthe appearance of The Seventh Victim,

did the witch clearly become a figureof terror. By the 1960s the witch hadjoined the ranks of popular horror filmmonsters with Black Sunday andWitchcraft. Emphasis, however,tended to be more on the witch-hunt orthe male leader of the coven rather thanon the witch as a monster in her ownright. This was certainly true of thefew Hammer horror films which dealtwith this subject. Burn Witch Burn!,released in 1962, is probably the firsthorror film with a witch as the centralmonster. Barbara Steele, who becameknown as the ‘High Priestess ofHorror’, played a witch in both TheShe-Beast and Black Sunday. Todaythe witch, as a figure of horror in herown right, has become central to filmssuch as Seizure, Suspiria, Inferno,Carrie, A Stranger in Our House andWitches. In postmodern horror filmssuch as The Evil Dead and Evil DeadII the abject nature of the witch’s

appearance (see illustration) has evenbecome a source of grim humour.

Historically and mythologically, thewitch has inspired both awe and dread.In ancient societies all magicalpowers, whether used for good or evilpurposes, inspired the deepest dreadamongst the members of thecommunity. One of the most interestingaspects of the witch in earlier centurieswas her role as healer. Barbara Walkerpoints out (1983, 1076–7) that in manycultures witches had metaphoric namessuch as ‘herberia’ (one who gathersherbs), ‘pixidria’ (keeper of anointment box), and ‘femina saga’(wise-woman). In her role as mother,woman no doubt was the oneresponsible for developing early formsof herbal medicine. Joseph Campbell(1976) argues that women were thefirst witches and associated with thepowers of magic long before menbecause of their mysterious ability to

create new life. During her periods ofpregnancy, woman was seen as thesource of a particularly powerful formof magic (Walker, 1983, 315). Theearliest known witches were fearednot as agents of the devil – as theChristian Church later argued – butbecause they were thought to possessmagical, terrifying powers.

In some cultures, a young girl whohad prophetic dreams at the time of hermenarche was frequently singled out asa future shaman or witch. Again we seethe association between woman’sblood and the supernatural.Menstruation was also linked to thewitch’s curse – a theme explored inCarrie. Witches were feared becauseit was thought they could cast terriblespells and bring death to those theycursed. Historically, the curse of awoman, particularly if she werepregnant or menstruating, wasconsidered far more potent than a

man’s curse. A ‘mother’s curse’, as itwas known, meant certain death. Thecurse of a woman who also practisedas a witch was even more deadly thanthat of an ordinary woman.

When witchcraft was deemed heresyby the Catholic Church in thefourteenth century, the services witcheshad previously performed werelabelled as crimes – particularlymidwifery. The crime that ensured thatwitches would be burnt at the stakewas, as Walker points out, a crime ofwhich they were actually innocentbecause it was impossible to commit –this was the crime of collaboratingliterally with the devil (Walker, 1983,1084). The most common form ofcollaboration of which they wereaccused was that of having intercoursewith the devil. Detailed informationcontained in The MalleusMaleficarum (1484), an inquisitor’smanual for witch prosecution which

was commissioned by the CatholicChurch and written by twoDominicans, Heinrich Kramer andJames Sprenger, makes it clear that acentral reason for the persecution ofwitches was morbid interest in thewitch as ‘other’ and a fear of thewitch/woman as an agent of castration.

The Malleus Maleficarum, in usefor nearly three centuries, lists inexacting detail the various ways anofficial could identify a witch. Atelling sign was the presence of anextra nipple somewhere on the body,ostensibly used by witches to suckletheir familiars or even the devilhimself. Consequently, when womenwere arrested they were stripped,shaved and searched (often publicly)for this tell-tale nipple. (Some peopleactually do have a small raised nipple– known medically as a supernumerarynipple – on their bodies. Frequently, itis located near the aureole.) Many of

the witches’ alleged crimes were of asexual nature; it is this aspect ofwitchcraft which is central to TheExorcist. Witches were accused,among other things, of copulating withthe devil, causing male impotence,causing the penis to disappear and ofstealing men’s penises – the lattercrimes no doubt exemplify male fearsof castration.

And what, then, is to be thought ofthose witches who in this waysometimes collect male organs ingreat numbers, as many as twentyor thirty members together, andput them in a bird’s nest, or shutthem up in a box, where theymove themselves like livingmembers, and eat oats and corn,as has been seen by many and is amatter of common report?

(Malleus Maleficarum, 121)

The Malleus Maleficarum alsosupplies a series of supposedly logicalreasons why women are more inclinedto witchcraft than men. The reasons allrelate to the classic and phallocentricdefinition of woman as the ‘other’, theweaker but dangerous complement ofman. ‘What else is woman but a foe tofriendship, an unescapable punishment,a necessary evil, a natural temptation,a desirable calamity, a domesticdanger, a delectable detriment, an evilof nature, painted with fair colours!’(ibid., 43). The major reason given forwoman’s ‘otherness’ is her carnalnature. Women are less intelligent, lessspiritual, more like children. ‘But thenatural reason is that she is morecarnal than a man, as is clear from hermany carnal abominations’ (ibid., 44).The Malleus Maleficarum ispermeated by an extreme hatred ofwomen and fear of their imaginarypowers of castration. It is alarming to

note that the Introduction to an editionprinted in 1948 by the ReverendMontague Summers praises the twoDominican authors as men of‘extraordinary genius’ and the bookitself as ‘supreme’ from the point ofview of jurisprudence, history andpsychology (Summers, 1948, viii-ix).

No doubt women and men accusedof witchcraft eventually confessed toall kinds of absurd and impossible‘crimes’ in order to bring an end totheir torture. In general, the accusedwere tortured until they confessed thenames of other witches in thecommunity. Burning on a funeral pyrewas most likely a blessed relief fromthe horrors of the medieval torturechamber. The confessions of witches toabsurd crimes, such as stealing men’spenises and having intercourse with thedevil, would have added further topopular mythology about the depravedand monstrous nature of woman’s

sexual appetites. Witches were alsoforced to ‘confess’ the minute detailsof their sexual acts with the devil,including information about the size ofhis member, its texture and shape.

THE WITCH IN FILMI have discussed the history of thewitch in some detail because the imageof the witch is one which continues toplay an important role in thediscourses of popular culture –particularly in children’s fairy storiesand in the horror film. Anotherdiscourse which seeks to explore thesignificance of the witch is that ofpsychoanalytic theory; here woman aswitch is positioned as the oral sadisticmother and the phallic woman(Campbell, 1976, 73). In the horrorfilm, the representation of the witchcontinues to foreground her essentiallysexual nature. She is usually depicted

as a monstrous figure with supernaturalpowers and a desire for evil. Her othersocial functions as healer and seerhave largely been omitted fromcontemporary portrayals.

The witch is defined as an abjectfigure in that she is represented withinpatriarchal discourses as animplacable enemy of the symbolicorder. She is thought to be dangerousand wily, capable of drawing on herevil powers to wreak destruction onthe community. The witch sets out tounsettle boundaries between therational and irrational, symbolic andimaginary. Her evil powers are seen aspart of her ‘feminine’ nature; she iscloser to nature than man and cancontrol forces in nature such astempests, hurricanes and storms. Inthose societies which lack centralizedinstitutions of power, a rigidseparation of the sexes is enforcedthrough ritual. In such societies the two

sexes are in constant conflict. Womenare regarded as ‘baleful schemers’, thefeminine is seen as ‘synonymous with aradical evil that is to be suppressed’(Kristeva, 1982, 70). Irrational,scheming, evil – these are the wordsused to define the witch. The witch isalso associated with a range of abjectthings: filth, decay, spiders, bats,cobwebs, brews, potions and evencannibalism.

In Black Sunday, Barbara Steeleplays Asa, a witch who swearsvengeance on the descendants of themen who executed her hundreds ofyears ago. She was a Moldavianprincess accused by the Inquisition ofpractising witchcraft and worshippingSatan. The Grand Inquisitor is her ownbrother who watches while the mask ofSatan, lined with sharp spikes, isplaced upon her face. She will diewhen the spikes penetrate her brain.Two centuries later her coffin is

discovered and the mask isaccidentally removed, revealing herface, which is still miraculouslypreserved. The dead woman awakensand, although unable to move, is ableto orchestrate her bloody revenge fromthe crypt. Gradually Asa begins to takeover the body of her great-granddaughter Katia, who is alsoplayed by Barbara Steele. Eventuallythe witch is caught and consigned tothe flames.

Suspiria is set in the Tarn Academyof Dance in Germany. Suzie Banyon(Jessica Harper), an American student,investigates the brutal murder of afriend, unaware that the school is runby a coven of witches and that thebasement is the home of an ancientsorceress whose evil powers havecontaminated the whole city. In thefinal sequence Suzie confronts theQueen Witch, Mater Suspiriorum, agrotesque, monstrous, completely

hideous figure. She destroys the Queenthereby bringing about the destructionof the school and the coven. Noexplanation is given for the presence ofthe witches at the school; they simplyexist and their sole purpose appears tobe to wreak havoc and destruction inthe world. Suspiria was the first of atrilogy of horror films planned byDario Argento called The ThreeMothers. The second is Inferno; thethird has not yet been made. In theopening credits to Inferno we learnthat the world is ruled by ThreeMothers: Mater Suspiriorum, MaterLacrimarum and Mater Tenebrarumwho represent sorrow, tears anddarkness respectively. They arewitches, ‘wicked step-mothers,incapable of creating life’ – the voice-over at the beginning of Inferno tellsus. The witch is an abject figure whodwells with abject things: in Suspiria,the mother/witches are associated with

maggots, in Inferno with rats. Each onelives in a house where she hides her‘filthy secrets’ in dark secret placeswhich suggest the ‘evil womb’ of theabject mother (Tansley, 1988, 26).Suspiria and Inferno, as well as BlackSunday, reinforce the stereotypicalimage of the witch as a malevolent,destructive, monstrous figure whoseconstant aim is destruction of thesymbolic order. Similarly both TheEvil Dead and Evil Dead II reinforcethis image of the witch – although withsome humour.

In some horror films the witch’ssupernatural powers are linked to thefemale reproductive system –particularly menstruation. It isinteresting to note that, despite therange of subjects covered in thematernal melodrama and the woman’sfilm, menstruation is not one. It is tothe horror film that we must turn forany direct reference to woman’s

monthly cycle. In Carrie, The Exorcistand Omen IV: The Awakening, theyoung girls who develop supernaturalpowers are at the threshold of puberty.In Carrie and The Omen, the girls’transformation into witch or femaledevil follows on from the onset ofmenarche. Carrie provides aparticularly interesting representationof woman as witch and menstrualmonster. Most critical articles onCarrie explore the way in which thefilm presents a critique of the familyand of middle American values. In hisdiscussion of the relationship betweenthe horror film and its ‘true milieu’, thefamily, Robin Wood places Carrie in‘The Terrible Child’ category (alongwith It’s Alive and Cathy’s Curse)which has connections with thecategory of ‘Satanism, diabolicpossession, the Antichrist’ (Wood,1986, 83). Wood discusses the ways inwhich the monster’s attack is almost

always related to sexual and emotionalrepressions within the familial context:‘The child-monsters are all shown asproducts of the family, whether thefamily itself is regarded as guilty (the“psychotic” films) or innocent’ (ibid.,84). In his analysis of Carrie, DavidPirie sees the breakdown in the adult-child relationship as a reflection of awider collapse in social relationships.He sees the Prom apocalypse, whereCarrie (Sissy Spacek) destroys theentire gathering, as the core of the film:

The apocalypse which followsreunites the two basic strands ofAmerican horror which, as I havesuggested, seem to deal either inmassive, apocalyptic destructionor unnatural family relationshipswhich themselves imply the endof society. In Carrie, thebreakdown of relationships leadsdirectly and concretely to the

destruction of the community.(Pirie, 1977–8, 24)

The representation of Carrie as witchand menstrual monster has been largelyignored. The only critic who has, to myknowledge, drawn attention to thesignificance of menstrual blood inCarrie and The Exorcist is VivianSobchack. She points out in a footnotethat the bleeding of the two femaleprotagonists, Carrie and Regan,represents ‘an apocalyptic feminineexplosion of the frustrated desire tospeak’, a desire denied them within thepatriarchal symbolic (Sobchack, 1978,193). I agree with this comment, buttheir blood is also used in a widercontext, specifically to construct themas figures of abjection. The symbolicfunction of woman’s menstrual bloodis of crucial importance in Carrie.Blood takes various forms in the film:menstrual blood, pig’s blood, birth

blood, the blood of sin and the bloodof death. It is also blood which flowsbetween mother and daughter and joinsthem together in their life-and-deathstruggle. The basic conflict in the filmdevelops from Carrie’s attempts toresist her mother’s dominatinginfluence. Carrie’s mother, MargaretWhite (Piper Laurie), is a religiousbigot who believes that femalesexuality is inherently evil andresponsible for man’s fall from grace.She also believes her daughter is awitch. Not only has she declined to tellCarrie about sexuality andreproduction – in case Carrie iscorrupted – she refuses to allow her todevelop friendships or a relationshipwith a boy. Like the monstrous heroineof Brian De Palma’s Sisters, andNorman from Psycho, Carrie is also adivided personality. On the one handshe is a painfully shy, withdrawn,child-like girl who just wants to be

‘normal’ like every other teenager,while on the other hand she has thepower of telekinesis which enables herto transform into an avenging femalefury.

The mother-child relationship inCarrie, as in Psycho, is depicted asabnormal and perverse. Carrie desiresindependence and yearns to lead herown life, yet she is unable to breakaway from her mother’s dominatinginfluence. Although Carrie is notimbued with her mother’s religiousmania, she is obedient and follows hermother’s orders in matters of religiousobservance. Even when her motherorders her into a small cupboard underthe stairs to pray, Carrie obeys. Shevainly tries to reason with her motherover various matters, yet is clearlybound to her by strong emotional ties.Mrs White’s feelings for her daughterare more ambiguous; her desire tocontrol Carrie appears to stem more

from a religious than a maternal senseof duty. She wants to save her daughterfrom the sins of womankind,specifically from the sins of the body.Mrs White is represented as thepatriarchal stereotype of the sexuallyunfulfilled woman. As in Psycho, themonstrous child is ultimately depictedas a creation of the psychotic,dominating mother. This relationshipconstitutes one of the earliestexperiences of the abject. Three scenesin Carrie interconnect to link her to theworld of nature, blood, death and thesuffocating mother: the opening showerscene and its aftermath; Prom night;and the scene of Mrs White’s bloodycrucifixion and Carrie’s death. Ananalysis of each of these will enable usto see how woman’s monstrousness islinked to her reproductive function.

What is perhaps most significantabout Carrie’s telekinetic powers isthat she acquires them at the same time

as her blood flows, the time of hermenarche. Woman’s blood is thuslinked to the possession ofsupernatural powers, powers whichhistorically and mythologically havebeen associated with the representationof woman as witch. When Carrie firstbleeds, she is in the showerpleasurably massaging and stroking herbody. Like Marion in Psycho, Carrie isshown enjoying her own body; themood is sensual, even erotic. Softfocus, slow motion and dreamy musiccreate a mood of gentle romanticism.Like Marion, Carrie is also cruellypunished for enjoying solitary, sensualpleasures. The romantic mood issuddenly broken as Carrie looks inhorror as menstrual blood spills forthand runs freely down her legs. Inpanic, she runs screaming from theshower. The response of her class isswift and brutal. The girls bombard herwith tampons and sanitary napkins as

she cowers like a defenceless, terrifiedchild before the savage onslaught.Apart from menstrual blood, Carrie isalso associated with another form ofabject matter – excrement. Prior to theshower scene, when the girls wereplaying sport, Carrie made a mistakeand one of the girls, Chris, snarled ather, ‘You eat shit.’

Carrie is rescued by the sympatheticgym teacher, Miss Collins, and senthome from school where she has toface another ordeal – her mother.Carrie tries to explain to her motherthe harm she has caused by keeping herin ignorance but Mrs White refuses tolisten. Instead, she raves hystericallyabout the sins of woman and how sheand Carrie must pray for their ‘woman-weak, wicked, sinning souls’. She tellsCarrie that because Eve was weak andloosed the raven, or the sin ofintercourse, on the world, Godpunished Eve, first with the ‘Curse of

Blood’, second with the ‘Curse ofChildbearing’, and third with the‘Curse of Murder’. Mrs White seesCarrie as one of Eve’s daughters. ‘Andstill Eve did not repent, nor all thedaughters of Eve, and upon Eve did thecrafty serpent found a kingdom ofwhoredoms and pestilences.’ The sinsof woman are inherited – a positionalso argued in The Brood. Finally, MrsWhite forces her daughter into a smalldark cupboard where she is told shemust pray to God for forgiveness.Mouthing sexist religious principles,Mrs White blames all forms of humanevil on woman. She believes that thecurse of humanity is passed throughwoman’s blood, from mother todaughter. Woman is the universalscapegoat, the sacrificial victim. Trueto the practice of ritual atonement,Carrie is literally set up as asacrificial victim at the Prom.

Carrie is invited to the Prom by

Tommy Ross, who has promised hisgirlfriend, Sue Snell, he will partnerCarrie in order to make up for thecruelty of the girls. Sue does not knowthat another of the girls, ChrisHargenson, has planned a cruel trick.She has rigged the ballot for Queen ofthe Prom so that Carrie will win. Whenshe is crowned, a bucket of pig’sblood, perched in the rafters above,will fall on Carrie and her escort. Thepig’s blood is linked to woman’sblood. When Chris’s boyfriend, BillyNolan, and his mates break into thepiggery at night, they make jokes aboutwomen and pigs. One says: ‘I went outwith a girl once who was a real pig!’The scene of the pig’s blood cascadingover Carrie’s body at the Prom echoesthe earlier shower scene where herown blood runs down her body. Afurther parallel between Carrie andpigs is drawn when Chris tells Carriethat she eats ‘shit’; pigs are stigmatized

as ‘dirty’ creatures because of theirhabit of wallowing in their ownexcrement (if there is no mudavailable) to protect their extremelysensitive skins from sunburn.

Women and pigs are also linked inmyth and language. In Greek and Latinthe female genitals are referred to as‘pig’, and the cowrie shell whichclearly represents the female genitalswas called ‘pig’. Even today,‘sowishness’ is used in German as aslang term for menstruation (Shuttleand Redgrove, 1978, 37). The Exorcistalso associates woman with pigs. Thesow is mine!’ Regan screams as shetries to possess her mother sexually.Part of the problem with Carrie is thatit plays on the debased meaning ofwoman’s/pig’s blood in order tohorrify modern audiences; in so doingit also perpetuates negative viewsabout women and menstruation. Theanalogy drawn between women and

pigs is also central to the film’sdiscourse on the abject. Carrie/womanis monstrous because she bleeds like‘a stuck pig’, as the saying goes. Butthe meaning of the pig’s blood isambiguous. In their study of carnivalculture, Peter Stallybrass and AllonWhite (1986) draw attention to the factthat the pig symbolized ‘low’discourses that related to thegrotesque, disgusting body. Insofar ascarnival permitted a celebration of thegrotesque we can see that thedrenching of Carrie’s body in pig’sblood represents a kind of inversion ofa royal coronation. She is crownedQueen and anointed with pig’s bloodprior to using her demonic powers towreak devastation on the assembly,and we are encouraged to identify withher as she carries out her terriblerevenge.

By associating Carrie’s supernaturalpowers with blood, the film draws on

superstitious notions of the terrifyingpowers of menstrual blood. Accordingto Pliny, ‘a menstrous woman’s touchcould blast the fruits of the field, sourwine, cloud mirrors, rust iron, andblunt the edges of knives’ (Walker,1983, 643). In The MalleusMaleficarum witches were blamed fora range of similar offences, such asturning milk sour, ruining crops andcausing storms at sea. From the eighthto the eleventh centuries many churchesforbade menstruating women to enter.As late as 1684 women in their ‘fluxes’were ordered to remain outside(Morris, 1973, 110). In some religions,such as Judaism, menstruating womenare still regarded as unclean andsexual intercourse is forbidden.Witches were also accused ofvampirism and of using menstrualblood, particularly that from a girl’sfirst bleeding, to perform magic andconcoct poisonous potions. According

to Robert Graves, Thessalian witchesused a girl’s first menstrual blood tomake the world’s most feared poison –‘moon-dew’ (Graves, 1966, 166).

Significantly, Carrie only developsthe powers of telekinesis when shefirst bleeds; the suggestion is that herblood is both powerful and magical.Ultimately, woman’s blood isrepresented in the film as an abjectsubstance and helps to construct Carrieas monstrous. When Carrie unleashesthe full force of her powers, she takeson the appearance of an avengingLamia. Standing above the crowd, herbody covered in blood, her eyesbulging with fury, she wreaksdestruction, transforming the night‘Among the Stars’ into an orgy ofdeath. At one point Carrie uses herpowers to animate a fire hose; itwrithes amongst the crowd bringingdeath in its wake and taking on theappearance of a giant serpent, a fitting

companion for the Queen of Death.Like the witches of other horror films,Carrie has become a figure ofmonumental destruction sparing no onein her fury. But because she has beensadistically treated by her fellowclassmates and her insane mother,Carrie is also a very sympatheticfigure.

Carrie returns home to discover herhouse illuminated by a host of candles.Her mother is absent. Carrie takes offher bloody gown and huddles in afoetal position in the bath, where shewashes away the blood and make-up,both signs of her womanhood. The bathfilled with bloody water suggests arebirth and a desire to return to thecomforting dyadic relationship. As inmany horror films, the pre-Oedipalmother is represented as a primarysource of abjection. Unlike the younggirl we first saw enjoying her body inthe shower, Carrie is once again

reduced to a trembling child as shewas when the girls pelted her withtampons.

This movement – from child towoman and woman to child – iscrucial to the film’s representation ofwoman as abject. As Carrie attempts tobreak away from the maternal entity,she takes on the signs of womanhood,particularly in relation to her Promappearance. Like a fairytale heroine,she is transformed from ugly ducklingto beautiful swan. As Carrie movesback into a state of childlikedependency, she sheds these trappings(ball gown, make-up) of burgeoningindependence and turns once again toher mother for protection and solace.Carrie’s journey back, like hertemporary escape, is symbolized by aphysical change: the long nightdressand scrubbed face are those of the littlegirl wanting a mother. All traces ofblood have been removed. As Carrie

leaves the bathroom, her motherappears. She is dressed not in hercustomary black costume but in a whitenightgown suggesting purity andinnocence. Carrie falls into her arms,crying: ‘You were right, Mamma!’ Buther mother does not understand. In hereyes Carrie has sold herself to thedevil. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch tolive,’ she screams.

Carrie’s abortive attempt to enter theworld of male-female relationshipsseems to awaken Mrs White’smemories of her own sexual life. Sheembraces Carrie and begins to talkabout her relationship with Carrie’sfather and how his sexual advancesfilled her with disgust. Gradually,however, the tone of her confessionchanges; and she tells Carrie that sheliked her husband’s ‘filthy touching’.As the mother’s tone becomes moreand more impassioned, she rises upand stabs Carrie in the back. The satin

nightgown takes on a new meaning – itpoints to the mother’s role as ritualexecutioner – and the candles signifythat a sacrificial ceremony is underway. What is most interesting aboutthis sequence is the way in whichCarrie’s stabbing suggests a sexualassault by the mother. Carrie fallsdown the stairs and cowers in a corneras her mother dances grotesquelyaround her, preparing to thrust the knifeinto Carrie once again. Suddenly,Carrie calls on her powers oftelekinesis to send a barrage of knivessailing through the air, pinning hermother to the wall. Mrs White dies in apose which imitates that of Christ onthe cross in the statue she keeps in theprayer cupboard.

There is no doubt that Carrie’s knifeattack has sexual connotations. As MrsWhite dies she utters orgasmic moans,which suggest that her release has beenbrought about by a symbolic form of

phallic penetration by her daughter.This scene suggests that the doomedmother-child dyad is marked byrepressed sexual desire – a theme alsoexplored in Psycho. Carrie pulls hermother’s impaled body from the walland returns to the womb-like closet inwhich her mother once entombed her,forcing her to pray to God forforgiveness that she was born female.As in the vampire film, Carrie’sthematic movement suggestssymbolically a return to the womb; afinal statement of complete surrenderto the power of the maternal entity.Two scenes point to this return:Carrie’s seclusion in the womb-likeprayer cupboard and her blood bath inwhich she huddles in a foetal positionas she washes away the pig’s blood.The castrating mother takes back thelife she once created; Carrie is lockedfor ever in the maternal embrace asmother and daughter die in the burning

house.The body of each woman is marked

by bloody wounds; the wound is a signof abjection in that it violates the skinwhich forms a border between theinside and outside of the body. As Idiscussed in relation to The Brood, abodily wound also suggests themoment of birth in which the infant istorn away from the maternal insides.Wounds signify the abject because theypoint to woman’s reproductivefunctions and her alliance with theworld of nature. In Carrie, woman’sblood also signifies maternal blood;the blood that nourishes the embryoand emphasizes woman’s procreativefunction. In the horror genre, however,menstrual blood is constructed as asource of abjection: its powers are sogreat it can transform woman into anyone of a number of fearful creatures:possessed child, killer and vengefulwitch. Yet the film presents

contradictory messages: on the onehand it redeploys ancient blood taboosand misogynistic myths; on the other, itinvites sympathy for Carrie as a victimof these prejudices.

Once again we can see that woman’sreproductive functions mark her asmonstrous. In the horror filmsdiscussed above woman is representedas monstrous in relation to herreproductive and maternal functions.This occurs for a number of reasons:the archaic mother (Alien) horrifiesbecause she threatens to cannibalize, totake back, the life forms to which sheonce gave birth; the possessed girl(The Exorcist) evokes a pleasurabledisgust because she confronts us withthose abject substances (blood, pus,vomit, urine) that signify a return to astate of infantile pre-socialization; thepregnant woman (The Brood) horrifiesbecause her body houses an alien being– the infant/other; the female vampire

(The Hunger) is monstrous becauseshe draws attention to the female bloodcycle and she reduces her captives to astate of embryonic dependency inwhich they must suckle blood in orderto live; the young female witch(Carrie) evokes both sympathy andhorror because her evil deeds areassociated with puberty and menarche.The monstrous-feminine is constructedas an abject figure because shethreatens the symbolic order. Themonstrous-feminine draws attention tothe ‘frailty of the symbolic order’through her evocation of the natural,animal order and its terrifyingassociations with the passage allhuman beings must inevitably take frombirth through life to death. Inconclusion, I wish to re-emphasize thatI regard the association of woman’smaternal and reproductive functionswith the abject as a construct ofpatriarchal ideology. (Similarly, it is

man’s phallic properties that arefrequently constructed as a source ofmonstrosity in films dealing with themale monster.) Woman is not, by hervery nature, an abject being. Herrepresentation in popular discourses asmonstrous is a function of theideological project of the horror film –a project designed to perpetuate thebelief that woman’s monstrous natureis inextricably bound up with herdifference as man’s sexual other.

Part II

MEDUSA’S HEAD:PSYCHOANALYTICTHEORY AND THE

FEMMECASTRATRICE

Plate 1 The egg chamber. Intra-uterine imagery,sign of the abject archaic mother, haunts the mise-en-scène of Alien.

Plate 2 The space travellers about to enter the alienship through its monstrous vaginal portals (Alien).

Plate 3 Metropolis: the monstrous perfection of thefemale robot.

Plate 4 I Walked with a Zombie: female zombies

stalk the half-light of man’s nightmares (publicityposter).

Plate 5 Black Sunday: executed by a spiked demonmask, the witch (Barbara Steele) returns tovampirize the living.

Plate 6 Woman’s blood is represented as a sourceof utmost abjection in the horror film (Sissie Spacekin Carrie).

Plate 7 The Wasp Woman: the monstrous waspwoman threatens a male victim with her deadlystinger! (publicity poster)

Plate 8 The horror of woman’s animalisticprocreative functions. Having licked away theafterbirth, woman holds her newborn infant(Samantha Eggar in The Brood).

Plate 9 Plate 9 A carnivalesque display of thesupernatural bodily powers of the pubescent girl(Linda Blair in The Exorcist).

Plate 10 Woman as destructive colossus in Attackof the 50ft Woman (publicity poster).

Plate 11 A witch from The Evil Dead sets out toterrorize her victims with a disgusting display ofabject bodily horror. Reproduced courtesy ofRenaissance Pictures Ltd.

Plate 12 The psychotic sister (Bernadette Gibson)of Next of Kin wields her deadly knife. Reproducedcourtesy of Film House Pty Ltd.

PREFACE

In Part II of this book I will explore adimension of the monstrous-femininethat is not specifically related towoman’s maternal and reproductivefunctions. Freud argued that womanterrifies because she is castrated. Iwill argue that woman also terrifiesbecause man endows her withimaginary powers of castration.Because the Freudian theory ofwoman’s castration has provided thedominant theoretical justification foranalyses of woman as monster in thehorror film, it is necessary to return to

Freud in order to evaluate critically theorigins of his theory. In the next twochapters I will present, first, arereading of his Little Hans casehistory (‘Analysis of a phobia in afive-year-old boy’) and, second, I willexamine the repression of the figure ofthe castrating woman in Freud’s otherwritings and in his dream analyses. Anextensive rereading of the Hans case isnecessary because it is probably themost often quoted of all Freud’s casestudies in relation to his theory of theOedipus complex and castration crisis.A critical rereading of Freud is alsonecessary because the view thatwoman terrifies only because she iscastrated has led to a seriousmisunderstanding of the nature of themonstrous-feminine in critical writingson the horror film. The followingcritique of Freud will also provide thetheoretical groundwork for the lateranalyses of specific faces of the

monstrous-feminine: the femmecastratrice in Sisters and I Spit onYour Grave and the castrating motherin Psycho and other horror films thatdeal with the psychotic mother. (Unlessotherwise stated, all quotations ofFreud’s works in Chapter 7 are from‘Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy’.)

7

‘LITTLE HANS’RECONSIDERED: OR

‘THE TALE OFMOTHER’S TERRIFYING

WIDDLER’

‘I tore its legs apart. Do you knowwhy? Because there was a knifeinside it belonging to Mummy. Iput it [the knife] in at the placewhere the button squeaks, andthen I tore apart its legs and itcame out there.’

Freud, ‘Analysis of a phobia’

In these words, Hans explains to hisfather the game he has been playing allmorning with his indiarubber doll,Grete. The nursemaid tells his fatherthat as Hans let the knife – a penknifebelonging to his mother – drop outfrom between the doll’s legs he wouldpoint and say: ‘Look, there’s itswiddler!’ (84). Hans seems quitedefinite about what the knife represents– his mother’s ‘missing’ genitals, thewiddler he has repeatedly wanted tosee for himself. Although Hans is quiteclear about the knife’s symbolicmeaning, Freud interprets it as a‘baby’. In Freud’s view, Hans used thisact to demonstrate ‘how he imagined abirth took place’. Furthermore, ‘if welook into it more closely we can seethat he showed something else, that hewas hinting at something which wasnot alluded to again in the

analysis . . . that children do in factgrow inside their mother’s body andare pushed out of it like a lumf’ (130–1). ‘Lumf’ is Hans’s special word forfaeces.

It seems extraordinary that Freudfailed to consider the meaning thatHans attached to the knife – even moreextraordinary given the connectionFreud himself drew between awoman’s baby and her phallus.Certainly Freud placed a differentinterpretation on the baby/penisanalogy, but the connection is there.Why not explore this area? Further –why did Hans select a knife torepresent her genitals? On readingthrough the Little Hans case historyagain, I am struck by the way in whichboth the father and Freud manipulateHans’s childhood experiences toconfirm Freud’s theories of childhoodsexuality. In his discussion of the LittleHans case, Erich Fromm draws

attention to the way in which Hans’sfather suggests interpretations to him,and wonders to what extent Hans’sassociations are ‘spontaneous’(Fromm, 1970, 96).

In my view, there is sufficientmaterial in the Little Hans case studyto open up an entirely new dimensionto existing theories of childhoodsexuality. It is my contention that thismaterial suggests quite clearly that theorigin of Hans’s phobia was fear of themother’s genitals – her widdler – notas castrated, but as castrating organs.The material also suggests that whileHans feared his father might punishhim for his desire to have his motherfor himself, he also feared the mothermight castrate him as a punishment formasturbation and/or for his eroticlongings for her. Freud’s theory that thefather is the castrator is only a part ofthe story.

Little Hans, a five-year-old boy,

suffered from a phobia whichexpressed itself as a fear that a whitehorse might bite him. This phobia laterexpanded to include a fear of horsesfalling down and of heavily ladenvehicles such as carts, buses orfurniture vans. Determined that Hanswould not be derided or punished forhis fears, the father made detailednotes of his discussions with Hansover a period of two years. Thesenotes suggest a direct connectionbetween the boy’s phobia and hissexual desires. Hans suffered initiallyfrom anxiety hysteria; these are ‘parexcellence the neuroses of childhood’(116). By subjecting himself tonumerous restrictions and precautions,the child might – according to Freud –learn to overcome its anxiety but thebarriers or protective structureserected in this cause will eventuallymanifest themselves as phobias.

The first reports date from when

Hans was three years of age. At thistime he developed an interest in his‘widdler’. He asked his mother if shehad a widdler but his parents neverexplained to Hans the nature of hergenitals and their difference from thoseof the male. At this time he alsomistook a cow’s teat for its widdler.‘Oh, look!’ he said, ‘there’s milkcoming out of its widdler!’ When hewas three and a half, Hans’s motherdiscovered he was touching his penis.She threatened him with castration. Tfyou do that, I shall send for Dr A. tocut off your widdler. And then what’llyou widdle with?’ Ever resourcefulHans replied, ‘With my bottom’ (8).Freud argues it was this event whichled to Hans acquiring a fear ofcastration. His phobia does notdevelop until later. Freud does notdiscuss the significance of the fact thatthe threat is uttered by the mother.Some of Freud’s associates, however,

did challenge the role Freud allocatedto the father in his theory of castration.In her essay ‘The dread of women’Karen Horney writes that the‘prominence given to the anxietyrelating to the castrating fatheris . . . tendentious’. She refers toGroddeck’s analysis of the thumb-sucker in Struwwelpeter. It is ‘a manwho cuts off the thumb, but it is themother who utters the threat, and theinstrument with which it is carried out– the scissors – is a female symbol’(Horney, 1967, 138). Fromm alsostates that Freud misinterprets the caseand that ‘the dread of castrationoriginates with Hans’s mother’ as sheis the parent who utters the threat(Fromm, 1970, 92).

At the age of three and three-quarters, Hans expressed a desire tosee his parents’ widdlers. On oneoccasion he asked his father if he had awiddler because he had never seen it:

Hans (aged three and three-quarters): ‘Daddy, have you got awiddler too?’Father. ‘Yes, of course.’Hans: ‘But I’ve never seen itwhen you were undressing.’ (9)

On another night, his mother asked himwhy he was staring at her as sheundressed.

Hans: ‘I was only looking to seeif you’d got a widdler too.’Mother. ‘Of course. Didn’t youknow that?’Hans: ‘No. I thought you were sobig you’d have a widdler like ahorse.’ (9–10)

Given Hans’s later phobia abouthorses, surely it is significant that heassociated his mother’s genitals withthose of a horse? Yet Freud does notseriously consider this, merely

interprets Hans’s comment to mean thathe is comforting himself with thethought that his own widdler will growbigger one day. It is a ‘comfortingreflection’ (107). Why? Hans doesn’tsound as if he needs assurance. Rather,he needs to know the truth.Disappointment at not catching aglimpse of his mother’s widdlerappears to be his dominant mood.Freud is the one who finds the idea thatthe infant penis will grow a‘comforting’ notion. In my view,Hans’s phantasy that his mother has ahuge widdler indicates the dominantrole she plays in his life.

The next important event in Hans’slife is the birth of his baby sister. Hansis told the stork will bring the baby.The father’s notes indicate that Hanstreated this idea with suspicion. Againthe subject of his mother’s widdleremerges. Hans pointed to the ‘basinsand other vessels, filled with blood

and water’ and commented in asurprised voice: ‘But blood doesn’tcome out of my widdler’ (10). Whydoes he imagine blood comes from hismother’s widdler? Hans was jealousof his baby sister and when anyonepraised her, he would comment: ‘Butshe’s not got any teeth yet’ (11). Thisremark is important, given Hans’s laterphobia about being bitten by a horse.Seven days after her birth Hanscommented that her widdler was ‘stillquite small’. He then added: ‘Whenshe grows up it’ll get bigger all right’(ibid.). At this stage the two thingswhich Hans describes about his sisteras yet to grow are her widdler andteeth. Freud assumes Hans iscomparing his sister’s widdler to hisown; it is also possible he iscomparing it to his mother’s imaginarywiddler. Given he believes hismother’s widdler is like a horse’s, heknows his sister’s will grow a great

deal. Perhaps her teeth will also grow?When his sister was three months old,Hans again commented on her ‘tinylittle widdler’ (14). He also examinedhis doll and stated that her widdlerwas also very tiny. Later, he plays agame with the indiarubber doll inwhich he imagines her widdler,represented by his mother’s penknife,is held inside her body. Symbolically,he gives her body a cutting blade orteeth. Perhaps he thinks his baby sisterlost her widdler during birth. Is thiswhy his mother’s widdler wasbleeding? In Hans’s phantasy life anumber of things appear to havebecome interrelated: blood, teeth, aknife, being bitten, castration, hismother’s widdler and horses’widdlers. None of these enables us tojustify the conclusion that what Hansfeared most was his mother as acastrated rather than castrating parent.

This brings me to a very important

factor in Hans’s story. Just prior to thetime when Hans commented that hissister only had a ‘tiny little widdler’ hehad occasion to see the widdler of ahorse when it was urinating. His fatherwrites: ‘Hans and I walked past ahorse that was micturating [sic] and hesaid: “the horse has got its widdlerunderneath like me”’ (ibid.). At aroundthe same time, Hans had drawn asketch of a giraffe with a long widdlerextended from its underbelly. It isimportant to note that when a geldingor stallion urinates, its widdlerappears to uncoil and drop down quitea way. It would seem, then, that whencomparing his mother’s widdler to ahorse’s Hans would have beencomparing her to a stallion or geldingwith its widdler extended to fulllength. Given that a stallion or agelding can tuck its widdler away, it ismost likely that Hans imagined hismother could do the same. In other

words, in his phantasy he may wellhave imagined that his mother, like ahorse, had a widdler which was foldedup inside her body; this view of femalesexuality is similar to Galen’sconception of the female organ as aninverted and internal version of themale organ (Bullough, 1973, 492).This is the reason why Hans refused toaccept that women did not havewiddlers. He knew it was there, it waslarge, and it was normally hidden fromsight – like a horse’s. This is animportant point which I will take uplater.

At this stage it is impossible toknow exactly what Hans now thinks ofhis mother’s genitals, as Hans’s fatherdoes not ask any questions of thisnature. At the age of four and a quarterHans asked his mother to touch hispenis. She had just finished bathinghim and was powdering around hispenis but taking care not to touch it.

She told him she would not touch hispenis because it would not be proper.Hans replied that it would, however,be ‘great fun’ (19).

At the age of four and three-quartersHans began to develop a nervousdisorder. He became anxious that hismother would leave him and he wouldhave no one to ‘coax’ with. ‘Coax’ isHans’s expression for ‘caress’. Hewas used to getting into bed with hismother in order to ‘coax’. He alsomade a remark along these lines. Thefather cannot remember the exactwords: ‘Suppose I was to have noMummy’, or ‘Suppose you were to goaway.’ The father expresses the viewthat he thinks her display of affectiontowards the boy is ‘excessive’ and thatshe too readily takes him to bed withher (ibid., 28). It is clear that Hans isdeeply attached to his mother andwants her to himself.

The father reported two other

incidents at this time. One morningHans came into his mother’s bed andrecounted an event of a month earlierwhen his aunt watched him beingbathed and said: ‘He has got a dearlittle thingummy’ (23). Two days laterhe was walking with the nursemaidwhen he refused to venture any further,began to cry and demanded to be takenhome to ‘coax’ with his mother. Thenext day she took Hans for his walk.Again he became frightened, did notwant to leave and began to cry. On theway home he reluctantly confessed tohis mother that he was afraid a horsewould bite him. That evening hebecame fearful again, and expressed adesire to be ‘coaxed’ with. ‘I know Ishall have to go for a walk againtomorrow.’ And later, ‘the horse’llcome into the room’ (24). The next dayhis mother warned him again aboutputting his hand on his widdler but hesaid he had continued to do so. No

doubt her warning invoked for Hans areminder of her earlier threat tocastrate him.

According to Freud the above eventsrepresent the beginning of his anxietyand his phobia. The ‘fundamentalphenomenon’ in his condition is hisdeep affection for his mother. Hisfeelings for her assume a sexual noteon two occasions: when he asks hismother to touch his penis when shebathes him and when he climbs intobed with her and repeats his aunt’swords that he had a ‘dear little’ penis.According to Freud: ‘It was thisincreased affection for his motherwhich turned suddenly into anxiety –which, as we should say, succumbed torepression’ (25). Freud interpretsHans’s anxiety as a ‘repressed eroticlonging’ for his mother. In my viewHans’s anxiety would most likely havebeen related to his fear that his motherwould carry out her earlier threat to

have Hans castrated by the doctor oreven by herself because of his eroticlongings. According to Freud, Hansdislikes streets because they representa separation from his mother. When heis walking, he is away from her. Whythen does Hans still suffer from anxiety– unsatisfied longing – when he is withhis mother in the streets? Freudexplains:

His anxiety, then, corresponded torepressed longing. But it was notthe same thing as the longing: therepression must be taken intoaccount too. Longing can becompletely transformed intosatisfaction if it is presented withthe object longed for. Therapy ofthat kind is no longer effective indealing with anxiety. The anxietyremains even when the longingcan be satisfied. It can no longerbe completely retransformed into

libido; there is something thatkeeps the libido back underrepression. (26)

In a footnote, Freud adds that when theanxiety continues, despite attainment ofthe desired object, it becomes a‘pathological anxiety’. He alsoexplains that Hans’s anxiety, whichrepresented his repressed longing forhis mother, was characteristic of allinfantile anxiety in that it is ‘without anobject to begin with’ (25). Initially, thechild does not know of what it isafraid. The anxiety is transformed intofear only when it finds an object.

The phobic object Hans eventuallyfinds is the ‘white horse’ which willbite him. Why a horse? Freud offersseveral reasons: Hans has always beeninterested in horses’ large widdlers; hethought his mother’s widdler would belike a horse’s. Freud howeverdismisses the idea that the horse might

be ‘merely a substitute for the mother’because this would not make sense inrelation to his fear that a horse mightcome into his room at night. Freuddoes not consider that Hans might bothdesire and fear his mother – desire tohave her for himself yet fear she mightcome into his room at night, when hedesires her most, and cut off hiswiddler. Earlier she threatened to tellthe doctor to castrate Hans but it ispossible that Hans now believes shemight cut it off with her own widdler.Perhaps he imagines his father is atrisk every time he goes to bed with themother? Perhaps he imagines this mighthappen to him when he is ‘coaxing’ inbed with his mother?

Freud makes a great deal of the factthat Hans never believed the story ofthe stork. We know that Hansunderstood that babies grow inside themother (91) and was told that babiesare pressed out of the mother like a

‘lumf (87). No doubt Hans wonderedhow the baby got inside his mother. Heprobably also knows his father hassomething to do with the baby’sexistence. He is the father; it is ‘his’baby too. Freud discusses the problemof knowledge of the vagina in ‘Thesexual theories of children’. He arguesthat when the child is just about readyto ‘postulate the existence of thevagina’ and the role of the father’spenis ‘his inquiry is broken off inhelpless perplexity’ because hebelieves the mother also has a peniswhich is like the father’s (p. 218).Perhaps, like a horse, she keeps ittucked up inside her body? As I havebeen arguing, we have no realjustification for concluding thatinitially all infants believe the motherpossesses a penis exactly like thefather’s and that they later believe sheis castrated. If we remove this block,there is no reason why we cannot posit

that some/many children do come to anearlier knowledge of the vagina, orbaby ‘box’ than Freud allows.

Hans’s belief that his mother kepther babies in her ‘box’ (78) suggeststhat he had some idea of the vagina. Ifa baby comes from an unknown placebehind the mother’s widdler it ispossible that his whole – or part of hisown – body could be taken back insidethe mother, particularly if her widdlerhas teeth. Freud speaks of the anusbeing identified with a mouth(Laplanche and Pontalis, 1985, 212). IfHans has seen the labia of his littlesister, which are initially very large innew babies, it is also possible that hemay have imagined that these are lips.Freud dismisses the idea that the horseand its biting mouth ‘is merely asubstitute for his mother’ (myemphasis) as if this explanation weretoo simple or obvious to takeseriously; yet he presses on to

demonstrate that the horse is asubstitute for the father!

Another reason why Hans mightassociate his mother’s genitals with amouth relates to an earlier associationhe made between a cow’s teat and awiddler. As mentioned previously, helooked at the cow and said: ‘Oh, look!there’s milk coming out of its widdler.’This occurred at the time he first beganto ask about his mother’s widdler,when he was three years of age. Aparallel can be drawn between puttinga teat in one’s mouth and sucking milkand the act of putting the penis into avagina where it is pulled by thevaginal walls and semen, a milkysubstance, is ejected. While Hans didnot yet understand the nature of sexualintercourse it may well be that later,when he did consciously orunconsciously learn about coition, thisearly memory surfaced andmomentarily filled him with terror. He

may have imagined that the vaginawhich receives the penis also has teeth– just like his mouth when he suckledat the breast. It is also possible thatHans understood about the nature ofcoition between animals – perhapshorses – before he consciously knewabout human behaviour. He apparentlyspent a great deal of time at the stablesand playing horse games with otherchildren on the farm where the familyspent their holidays. Freud argued thatchildren do not know of the existenceof the vagina until much later which, heclaimed, helps explain why childrenbelieve the mother has a penis. Not allpsychoanalysts agree (Laplanche andPontalis, 1985, 311). It is also possiblethat, when Hans did learn aboutcoition, this earlier memory ofmistaking a cow’s teat for a breast,creating the possibility that the vaginais like a mouth with teeth, might havehad a deferred effect.

Freud is determined to interpretHans’s anxiety and phobia in relationto his theory of the Oedipus complexand castration complex in which themother is thought to be castrated. Whenthe father suggests that the mother is thecause of Hans’s neurosis because ofher ‘excessive display of affection’towards him, Freud invokes destiny –‘She had a predestined part to play,and her position was a hard one’ (28).It appears that her part was‘predestined’ – by Freud. Freudexplains to the father that Hans’s libidois attached to a ‘wish to see hismother’s widdler’ and that the fathershould take away this desire ‘byinforming him that his mother and allother female beings (as he could seefrom Hanna) had no widdler at all’(ibid.). Again Freud not only advised acourse of action based on a lie (womendo have ‘widdlers’) but he alsoactively encouraged the view that

women are castrated. Difference is notthe same as absence. It is as if Freudhimself wanted to will thedisappearance of woman’s genitals.Before this information is conveyed,Hans has his tonsils out and his phobiaworsens. Taking tonsils from the throatthrough the mouth is also like a form ofbirth and of castration.

Hans’s father recalls an importantconversation in which Hans tries toconvince him that horses do bite. Herelates an incident which occurredwhen he was watching the little girlfrom next door about to depart in acarriage drawn by a white horse. Herfather warned her not to put her fingerto the white horse or it would bite.Hans tells his father that if you holdyour finger to a white horse it willbite. His father then says: ‘I say, itstrikes me that it isn’t a horse youmean, but a widdler, that one musn’tput one’s hand to.’ Hans replies that a

widdler does not bite. (Normally,Freud would interpret Hans’s denial asrepression.) The father persists.‘Perhaps it does, though’ (30). It ispossible that the father’s insistence thata widdler can bite gave voice – andcredibility – to a fear which Hans, asyet, had not consciously articulated –that woman’s widdler does bite.

It is interesting to note that severaldays later a new maid arrived. Hansliked her very much. She would let himride on her back when she cleaned thefloor. He called her ‘my horse’ andwould cry out – ‘Gee-up’ (ibid.).Freud does not comment at all on thisgame, despite the fact that it indicatesthat Hans continues to associate horseswith women. He also says to thenurse/horse that if she does a certainthing she will be punished by having toundress; this will be shameful becausepeople will see her widdler. Clearly,Hans still associates women’s genitals

with those of horses. By ‘riding’ themaid/woman/horse Hans may havebeen pleasurably stimulated; he isprobably using a non-threateningsituation to conquer his unconsciousfear of woman. He is the master;woman the animal. This game takesplace shortly after his father’sinsistence that widdlers can bite. It isalso clear that the riding game issexual.

Two weeks later Hans’s father tookFreud’s advice and explained to Hansthat women do not have widdlers.Father and son were walking together;there was very little traffic. Hansremarked: ‘How sensible! God’s doneaway with horses now.’ Hans’s fatherexplained that neither little girls normummys had widdlers. ‘Little girls andwomen, I said, have no widdlers:Mummy has none, Anna has none, andso on.’ It is interesting that Freud didnot advise the father to explain that

women do have widdlers but they aredifferent. Hans, however, is no fool.He asks: ‘But how do little girlswiddle, if they have no widdlers?’(31). Contradicting his earlierstatement, the father replied that theirwiddlers are different, but he doesn’texplain how. Hans is less anxious overthe next few days but he continues tobe anxious at night and when walkingin the streets.

Several weeks later Hans’s fathertook him to the zoo at Schonbrunn. Hereports that Hans was terrified of alllarge animals such as the giraffe andelephant. He is also fearful of thepelican. Hans’s father engages the boyin a discussion about large animals andtheir widdlers. Hans says he has seenthe widdlers of horses often. Hans’sfather explains that big animals havebig widdlers and vice versa. Hansreplies: ‘And every one has a widdler.And my widdler will get bigger as I

get bigger; it’s fixed in, of course’ (34).Why is Hans so obsessed with large

horses and their widdlers? Horses, ofcourse, were the common mode oftransport so Hans would haveencountered them daily. We also knowthat he went out of his way to observehorses. ‘Yes, I went into the stableevery day at Gmunden when the horseshad come home’ (ibid.). No doubtHans observed horses of all sexes –mares, geldings and stallions. Yet henever asks a question about the sex ofthe horses. Given his interest in thewiddlers of his sister and mother is itnot surprising that he did not ask if thewiddlers of stallions and mares weredifferent? But perhaps it is notsurprising. It is possible that Hansassumed that mares, geldings andstallions were the same and that allthree possessed exceptionally longwiddlers. As I mentioned earlier, Hanshas seen a stallion/gelding urinating

and no doubt is aware that a horse canunfold its widdler when it needs tourinate. Afterwards the gelding/stallionfolds its widdler back inside itself.When he states that his widdler is‘fixed in’ it may well be that he is notexpressing a castration fear but astatement of fact. His widdler is fixed;he cannot extend and retract it, makingit disappear, like a horse does – or, ashe suspects, his mother might do. It isreasonable to assume that he believesthe mother/horse folds the widdler intoa space/hole between her legs. Welearn that Hans later began to hold onto his faeces. The act of holding onto/letting go of faeces – which Freudargued were equivalent to the penis –also provides the child with anotherexplanation of the nature of themother’s widdler: perhaps she canalso retract and let go her widdler as ifit were faeces.

The clearest evidence that Hans

believes his mother’s widdler istucked away inside her body comesfrom his game with the indiarubberdoll, Grete. As we saw earlier, Hansinserted his mother’s small penknifeinto the doll and then tore its legs apartso that the knife dropped through. Hewould exclaim: ‘Look, there’s itswiddler.’ Freud claimed that the kniferepresented a ‘baby’ and that the gamewas about birth. I would argue that thecentral meaning of the game relates toa puzzle that has haunted Hansthroughout his young life. What is hismother’s widdler like? This enigmahas led Hans to construct an elaboratephantasy about his mother’s genitals inwhich she is terrifying not because sheis castrated but because she castrates.The game therefore represents Hans’sattempt to solve the riddle of Mummy’swiddler. The answer he comes up withis that her widdler is phallic in shapeand has a sharp, cutting blade, like

teeth. Not only did she threaten himwith castration when younger, he nowknows she has the power to castratehim herself. Since his sister’s birth, hehas learnt that his mother’s widdlerbleeds; this terrifying fact onlyconfirms his worst fear. Perhaps shecut his sister’s widdler with herinternal knife, her vagina dentata,during birth. He refuses to believewhat his father tells him, that women,particularly mothers, do not havewiddlers. Hans knows – quite rightly –that women do have widdlers but thatthey are different. They are retractable,mysterious and deadly.

THE MOTHER’S MUZZLEThere is another incident which alsosupports the above interpretation. Oneof the most puzzling pieces ofinformation in the Hans jigsaw is hisconstant reference to the fact that he is

most afraid of ‘horses with a thing ontheir mouths’. His father asked if hemeant the bit. Hans replied, ‘No. Theyhave something black on their mouths’and covered his mouth with his hand(49). His father eventually concludesthat the black thing covering theirmouths must have been the harnessworn by dray-horses. To support hisargument that Hans’s fear of horsesrepresents his fear of the castratingfather, Freud interprets the black thingas representing the father’s moustache.Freud tells us how he explained this toHans. ‘Finally I asked him whether by“the black round the mouth” he meant amoustache; and I then disclosed to himthat he was afraid of his father,precisely because he was so fond ofhis mother’ (42). Hans does not agreeor disagree. On another occasion,when his father also suggests (tries toconvince him) that the black mightremind him of a moustache, Hans

replies that the only similarity is thecolour. On another occasion Hansplays with the idea that his father’smoustache is a black ‘muzzle’ (53).Note that Hans does not suggest that theblack thing on the horse is a moustachebut a muzzle, an object which coversand encases the mouth and prevents itfrom opening, biting or feeding.Generally, attempts to link the blackthing to Hans’s father are notconvincing. The mysterious ‘blackthing’ is more easily linked with themother. His mother’s hair was black.The father at one point suggests toHans that it was the ‘black hair nearher widdler’ that frightened him. Hansdoes not deny this but says – not thatshe doesn’t have one (a fact of whichhis father had previously tried toconvince him) but that he has not seenher widdler. Hans still refuses toaccept that his mother does not have awiddler.

In my view, the black thing on thehorse’s mouth which frightens Hansmakes most sense if linked to themother’s black underwear, which nodoubt included garters/suspender belt.Hans himself associates his mother’sblack underclothing with a feeling ofrevulsion. He says that his mother’sblack drawers disgust him and makehim want to spit (63). There is also aparallel we can draw between awoman’s garters and a horse’s muzzle.Hans knows that horses bite. Given hisinterest in horses and their biting, Hanswould probably know that a horse’sharness/muzzle is designed to preventit from biting. When he describes amuzzle to his father he covers hismouth with his hand. We know Hansassociates his mother’s widdler withthe size of a horse’s widdler. (Tthought you were so big you’d have awiddler like a horse.’) It is notridiculous to suggest that he might

imagine the function of her suspenderbelt and/or corset could be to restrainher mysterious widdler and prevent itfrom biting. It is relevant to note thatwhen horses are harnessed they alsowear leather straps around their backlegs and near their genitals. Thiswould reinforce in Hans’s mind theassociation he has already madebetween a horse’s widdler, bitingteeth, black muzzle and the blood-smeared genitals of the mother.

We know that Hans was verypreoccupied with his mother’s ‘box’where he believed she kept her babies.He refers to it as ‘the stork-box’ whichhe says is painted red. Vans or buseswhich are loaded with goods are‘stork-box carts’ (81). Hans is alsoafraid of vehicles that are loaded upwith goods; they appear to representpregnancy. ‘Mummy’ll be loaded fullup again when she has another one,when another one begins to grow,

when another one’s inside her’ (91).He is particularly afraid of horsespulling a loaded cart and of horsesfalling down and making a row withtheir legs.

At one point Hans states that when ahorse falls down it is like having ababy. It is possible that he associatesthe birth of his sister with thesefrightening images. The mother is likean overloaded horse; when she fallsdown and begins to kick with her legsshe gives birth. We also know thatHans was jealous of his sister and didnot want his mother to have anotherbaby. Hans’s phobia about streets,loaded carts and falling horses isrelated to – but different from – hisphobia about being bitten by a horse.Clearly, the former relates to his fearsabout pregnancy and birth. On the basisof the knife game, it seems very likelythat Hans believes his mother has asharp instrument (teeth/knife) inside

her body. He also thinks her ‘stork-box’ is painted red – the colour ofblood – and that blood flows from hismother’s widdler when she gives birth.Perhaps he believes his mother mighthurt him if he places his widdler nearher body when they are ‘coaxing’ inbed? If so, it is highly likely that onceHans realizes that the man’s widdler isplaced inside the mother’s body hethinks that the man is in danger of beingcastrated. In my view, it is at thismoment – the point at which the boyfirst learns about the vagina and therole of the penis in penetration – thathe develops an acute anxiety aboutcastration. At this point earliermemories, fears and events might havethe delayed effect of reinforcing hiscastration anxieties as attached to themother’s body. These memories mightinclude knowledge that the mother’sgenitals are bloody; memory that thegirl’s genitals are like lips; and oral

sadistic fears associated with breast-feeding. It may well be at this point,when the boy, for the first time, comesto conscious realization that the femalegenitals might castrate, that heretrospectively endows the motherwith a penis.

Finally, there are three dreams orphantasies which Hans has and whichare relevant to my argument that hismain fear is of the castrating body ofthe mother. The first is the dream of thetwo giraffes. In this he imagined therewere two giraffes in his room: a bigone and a crumpled one. Hans takes thecrumpled one away; the big one callsout for the little one. Hans holds it inhis hands and when the big one stopscalling out he sits on top of it. He alsostates that his mother took off herchemise. Later Hans explains that hismother is the big giraffe and his sisterthe little one. His father disagrees withHans’s interpretation. He tells him that

he, the father, is the big giraffe and itslong neck reminded Hans of thefather’s widdler. Hans does not agree.He replies immediately that: ‘Mummyhas a neck like a giraffe, too. I saw,when she was washing her white neck.’In a footnote Freud states that Hans’scomment ‘confirmed the interpretationof the two giraffes as his father andmother, and not the sexual symbolism,according to which the giraffe itselfrepresented the penis’ (40). Onceagain, Freud – and the father – are sointent on interpreting Hans’s situationin relation to Freud’s theory of theOedipus complex and castration crisisthat they overlook crucial informationoffered by Hans himself.

Hans states that the big giraffe is hismother and the smaller one his sister,yet Freud insists the big one is thefather and the smaller one the mother.Everything Hans says points to the factthat the giraffe with the long neck

represents his mother. He evenmentions that his mother’s neck is‘white’ – an important fact whichrecalls his fear of the biting whitehorse. Again the mother is associatedsymbolically with a large phallicanimal. The smaller one, whom she iscalling, is her child. Hans states it ishis sister. Perhaps it is Hans himself –or his penis? Or his sister and Hans/hispenis at the same time? The largegiraffe – also associated with themother taking off her chemise (andrevealing her widdler) – calls outbecause Hans has taken the ‘little one’away. Earlier Hans recalled the timewhen his aunt referred to his penis as a‘dear little thingummy’. Perhaps in hisphantasy Hans imagines his mother’slarge widdler (long neck) nowrevealed (she removes her chemise);he desires her but she is too big forhim. As a result his widdler iscrumpled; he holds it in his hand and

then hides it from view. She stopscalling for his ‘little one’. Thisphantasy may well represent Hans’sfear of castration by the mother – heimagines she desires him (as he doesher) but she is so big she crushes hiswiddler. Ashamed or perhaps fearful,he first holds it in his hand and thenhides it from sight.

His second dream/phantasyconcerns the plumber and the bath. Inthe first version of this phantasy, theplumber comes when Hans is in thebath: ‘I was in the bath, and then theplumber came and unscrewed it. Thenhe took a big borer and stuck it into mystomach’ (65). In a later dream Hansimagines that ‘the plumber came; andfirst he took away my behind with apair of pincers, and then gave meanother, and then the same with mywiddler’. Freud writes: ‘Hans’s fathergrasped the nature of this wishfulphantasy, and did not hesitate a moment

as to the only interpretation it couldbear.’ The father says: ‘He gave you abigger widdler and a bigger behind’(98). ‘Yes,’ says Hans.

With Hans’s last phantasy theanxiety which arose from hiscastration complex was alsoovercome, and his painfulexpectations were given a happierturn. Yes, the Doctor (theplumber) did come, he did takeaway his penis – but only to givehim a bigger one in exchange forit. (100)

Freud argues that the two phantasiesare ‘identical’ and that both are aboutcastration. But the two phantasies arenot identical. In the first the plumberunscrews the ‘bath’ (bottom/womb)and gives him a big borer (widdler). Inthe second the plumber is moreaggressive; he prises Hans’s bottom

and widdler from his body and giveshim new ones. The first – I will argue– involves an act of displacement (the‘bath’ is inserted into his stomach); thesecond phantasy an act of exchange (anew bottom and a new widdler).Further, there is no mention of the ‘bigborer’ in the second phantasy and nomention of his ‘widdler’ in the first.

Freud’s theory of castrationproposes that it is the father who, asthe agent of castration, is responsiblefor the institution of civilization. Theboy gives up his desire for the motherin the belief that he will one day havehis own family and take up the role ofthe father. This belief is centred on thefact that he will one day possess a‘bigger’ penis. Yet the notion that Hanswill receive a bigger penis one day isnot even part of Hans’s phantasy. It isthe father who suggests that theplumber gives him a bigger widdlerand a bigger behind. Hans does not

mention the size of his widdler in thesecond phantasy. Yet, in Freud’s view,the theory of the bigger widdler was‘the only interpretation’ possible. I canthink of another (which Freud alludedto but dismissed) but this involvesinterpreting the two phantasiesseparately. In my view, the first is abirth phantasy.

At this time Hans also became veryinterested in birth. He wants to givebirth to a little girl but he doesn’t wanthis mother to have one (86). Freudinterprets this as jealousy but it is alsopossible that Hans wants to take up afeminine or passive position in relationto his mother. She will give him achild. He knows it is possible for himto be a mother, to have a baby, becausehis father has told him babies arepressed out from the bottom like iumfs’– an activity he has already mastered.

When travelling to Gmunden, Hans’sparents had packed a small bath inside

a large box. Hans said the bath wasfull of babies which he had put there.He also said his sister was travellingin his mother’s box. Freud states in afootnote – and I agree – that to Hans abath and a box ‘represent the spacewhich contains the babies’ (69).Presumably, Hans also associated abath and box with his bottom as hebelieved babies lived there too. ThusHans thinks that babies live inbaths/boxes/bottoms and they are bornlike a piece of ‘lumf’. In his phantasy,the plumber comes along and‘unscrews it’, that is, he unscrews thebath/bottom or the place where babieslive and then sticks a big borer inHans’s stomach. What is the ‘borer’?Perhaps it represents the plumber’swiddler or a baby – or both. In hisgame with the penknife, whichoccurred at this time, Hans stated thatthe knife was the doll’s widdler. Hisfather, however, insisted it was a baby.

If the borer is a phallus, the phantasy isabout Hans’s impregnation; if the boreris a baby the phantasy is still about hisimpregnation. The borer = the phallus= the baby. The plumber unscrewsHans’s baby box and places the big‘borer’ in his stomach. The plumbergives Hans a baby. In an interestingfootnote, Freud explains that the word‘borer’ Bohref is connected with‘born’ (‘geboreri’) and ‘birth’(‘Geburf’). He accepts the suggestion,made by a colleague, that Hans mighthave chosen this word because of theseconnections. ‘If so, the child couldhave made no distinctions between“bored” [gebohrt] and “born”[geboren]’ (98). It seems to me thatHans may well be using the word‘gebohrt or ‘bored’ to mean ‘born’.

The third phantasy is not so muchabout birth as about gender identity.This time Hans is not impregnated;rather he exchanges his bottom and his

widdler (not mentioned in the firstplumber phantasy) for new ones, butthere is no suggestion from Hans thathis bottom or widdler are any bigger.His father introduces this idea. Hansagrees that his new widdler and bottomwere bigger but this does not mean thefather is accurate in his interpretation.Hans often agrees with his father’stheories but then later utters statementswhich contradict them.

The crucial thing about the twophantasies is not their similarity buttheir difference. The first appears to beabout birth while the second is not; itseems to be about an exchange. It isimpossible, however, to ascertain theexact nature of the exchange becauseHans’s father interrupted the story andimposed his own interpretation. Weknow that Hans was reluctant to relatethis phantasy and resisted telling thedetails to his father. Perhaps this iswhy the father took over. If Hans’s

father is correct in assuming that Hanswas given a ‘bigger’ bottom andwiddler in his phantasy we still needto ask about the nature of these.Perhaps the second phantasy signalledthat Hans had finally relinquished hisdesire to have a baby; instead he hasaccepted his gender identity as male.The ‘bigger’ or new bottom andwiddler indicate his desire to changeand accept his masculinity. But the factthat Hans exchanged his genitals,including his bottom where he believesbabies live, for a new set is verysignificant. In his interpretation, Freudseems to place more emphasis onHans’s new ‘larger’ widdler than onhis new bottom. Perhaps Freud is notas concerned with Hans’s new bottombecause it is not as relevant to hiscastration theory?

Given Hans’s belief that the bottomis the place where babies live, weshould not underestimate its role in the

phantasy. There are at least twopossible interpretations. Either the newset is a ‘male’ set, suggesting Hans hadfinally accepted that he couldn’t havebabies, or the new set might be‘female’, pointing to his continuingdesire to have babies. Possibly Hans isstill confused; he appears to believethat men can have babies. It is relevantto note that only six days prior to thesecond plumber dream Hans utteredhis well-known statement about hisdesire to have children. ‘Because Ishould so like to have children; but Idon’t ever want it; I shouldn’t like tohave them’ (93). Hans both wants anddoesn’t want children; his desireexpresses perfectly the unstable natureof gender identity which Freud arguedhaunts the human subject throughoutlife. Perhaps the second plumberphantasy is about this oscillation, thedesire to be one and then the other,male and female?

The other important aspect of thephantasy concerns the identity of theplumber. In Freud’s view it is thedoctor whom Hans’s mother had saidwould castrate Hans if he continued tomasturbate. In my view, the plumber isHans’s mother or at least her agent.She is central to the important elementsof both phantasies: water, bathing,sexual pleasure, pain, babies, birth. AsFreud mentions in a footnote, shealways gives him his bath. She alsogives Hans his enemas. She is incharge of the boy’s washing routines,cleanliness, daily ablutions. He ispartly frightened of her powers overhim and fears she may submerge him inthe water. For this reason he refuses tosit or lie in the big bath but must kneelor stand. ‘I’ m afraid of her letting goand my head going in’ (67). Hans alsocannot bear to hear his sister Hannascream when his mother hits her on thebare bottom. No doubt Hans also

received his share of smacks.The mother is in control of Hans’s

body and is also a focus for his eroticdesires. Hans wishes his mother wouldfondle his penis. He is very interestedin the riddle of where babies comefrom. He wants to have one himselfand has stated quite clearly that hewants to have a baby with her but hewants to have it. He will not acceptthat his sister belongs to his father andmother. ‘No, to me. Why not to me andMummy?’ (87) The father explains thatthe baby belongs to Mummy. Themother, the parent who gives birth,constructs the ‘clean and proper’ bodyand is in charge of the bathroom,becomes the plumber who places thebaby in Hans’s stomach. An importantaspect about this phantasy is Hans’spassive positioning. This is the sameposition he took up in his phantasyabout being bitten by an aggressivewhite horse which, in my view, also

represents the mother. Similarly, thebig borer belongs to the mother; she isthe parent who, in Hans’s phantasy,possesses the big widdler. If theplumber is the mother then shebecomes the one who is responsiblefor Hans’s phanta-sized impregnationas well as his genital castration andreconstruction. If the plumber is thedoctor, her agent, she still remains incontrol; the parent who ultimately laysdown the law. Freud never reallyexplores the part played by Hans’smother in the origin and developmentof his phobia.

THE CASTRATING MOTHERHans’s various phobias and fears allstem from his original anxietyconcerning his mother’s genitals. In hisphobia the mother ultimately representscastration, suffocation, death, the void– themes also common to the

representation of the monstrous-feminine in the horror film. Thisanxiety developed into a phobia, andtook the form it did, largely becauseHans remained ignorant of the truenature of the female genitals, coitionand the origin of babies. In his attemptto unravel this set of puzzling enigmasHans constructs a series of phantasiesabout the mother, pregnancy and birthin which he is almost always thepassive victim of his mother’sfrightening sexuality. She will castratehim for masturbation (her spokenthreat), castrate him with hermysterious widdler (biting horsephobia), abandon him (spoken fear),drown him (his spoken fear), crush him(the crumpled giraffe dream/fallinghorse/overloaded cart phobia),impregnate him (first plumberphantasy), and exchange his genitalsfor another set (second plumberphantasy). At the same time she is also

the centre of his erotic longings. Hewants to see her widdler, to have hercaress his widdler, to sleep with her,have her to himself, and to have a babyby her. But even the latter project isfraught with terror because he thinks ababy and blood are squeezed painfullyout from his bottom like a ‘lumf’falling into a chamber pot.Furthermore, Hans is not sure howbabies get inside the bottom in the firstplace. But he does know mothers areresponsible – his father told him.

Freud himself was aware that themother is frequently viewed bychildren as the parent who utters thecastration threat. In his study of theWolf Man, ‘From the history of aninfantile neurosis’, he also describedthe mother/nanny as the feared agent ofcastration:

He therefore began to play withhis penis in his Nanya’s presence,

and this, like so many otherinstances in which children do notconceal their masturbation, mustbe regarded as an attempt atseduction. His Nanyadisillusioned him; she made aserious face, and explained thatthat wasn’t good; children whodid that, she added, got a ‘wound’in the place.

(p. 24)

Freud had clinical evidence that themother is seen, by some children, asthe castrator yet he insisted that it wasthe father who enacted this role in thefamily. Unable to provide a fullyconvincing explanation for this, in theWolf Man case history, Freud appealedto phylogenetic reasons. ‘At this pointthe boy had to fit into a phylogeneticpattern, and he did so, although hispersonal experiences may not haveagreed with it.’ Freud appears to have

thought that the image of the father asthe parental castrator constituted a kindof primal phantasy originating in‘man’s prehistory’ and was somehowinherited in the unconscious (86). Asmentioned previously, Freud alsostated that Hans’s mother had ‘apredestined part to play’ in relation toher role as castrated. At no point ineither case study did Freud considerthat the child might also fear themother’s genitals as an agent ofcastration.

Hans’s mother is the unattainableobject of his deepest desires and thefrightening parent of his nightmares.She is the mother who is terrifying notbecause she is castrated but becauseshe castrates – in two ways. Shethreatens to send the doctor to castrateHans; and her body, with its mysteriousbleeding/biting widdler, also threatensto castrate. It is clear from a rereadingof the Little Hans case history that we

cannot use this material to justify theargument that man fears womanbecause she is castrated. The clinicalmaterial indicates that Hans did notrelate to his mother as phallic and thencastrated; rather, he believed shepossessed phallic attributes (‘awiddler like a horse’) which made herpowerful and terrifying. As I haveargued, it is more likely that the boyendows the mother with a penisretrospectively, after he becomesconsciously aware for the first timethat she might castrate. Furthermore,there is no real justification forarguing, on the basis of the materialavailable, that the biting horserepresents the castrating father or thatthe mother is acting on behalf of thefather. In an attempt to justify hisargument that the father represents theagent of castration, Freud ignoredclinical material in favour of an appealto man’s prehistory. Freud presupposes

a state of affairs (the father signifiesthe parental castrator) which hisclinical observations and theoreticalwritings should explain. If weacknowledge that there are seriousproblems with Freud’s theory that thefather is the agent of castration in thefamily, then we must re-evaluateFreud’s theory of the Oedipus complexas the mechanism by which thesymbolic order is instituted. At onepoint Freud states that children shouldbe told the truth about sexuality. This isthe one thing which becomes painfullyclear from a rereading of the LittleHans story. To argue, however, that thestory reinforces Freud’s theory ofwoman as ‘castrated’ other is to backthe wrong horse.

8

MEDUSA’S HEAD: THEVAGINA DENTATA AND

FREUDIAN THEORY

‘[My greatest sexualfear?] . . . The vagina dentata, thevagina with teeth. A story whereyou were making love to a womanand it just slammed shut and cutyour penis off. That’d do it.’

Stephen King, Bare Bones

Fear of the castrating female genitalspervades the myths and legends of

many cultures. It is also central to thehorror film but has largely beenignored in the majority of criticalwritings on horror. This has led tofaulty interpretations not only ofindividual films, such as The Exorcistwhere Regan is seen as a phallic ratherthan as a castrating figure, but also ofentire sub-genres such as the slasherfilm where the heroine is also seen asphallic rather than as castrating (seeChapter 9). If we are to understand thenature of horror generated by the figureof monstrous-feminine in populardiscourses such as film, it is crucial tore-evaluate other aspects of Freud’swritings on male fears of woman as hisviews have exerted such a profoundeffect on critical approaches to thehorror film.

Before turning to Freud, it isrelevant to look at the widespreadnature of myths concerning the womanas castrator. In these myths, the

threatening aspect of the female genitalis symbolized by the vagina dentata ortoothed vagina. According to BarbaraWalker, Yanomamo myths state that oneof the first women on earth possessed avagina that could transform into atoothed mouth which ate her lover’spenis (1983, 1034). In his book EroticArt of the East, Philip Rawson refersto the belief of Chinese patriarchs thata woman’s genitals, apart from offeringpleasure, were also ‘executioners ofmen’ (1968, 260). According toEdward Gifford, Muslim teachingsstated that if a man looked into avagina it would bite off his eye-beamand leave him blind (Gifford, 1974,143). In The Great Mother, ErichNeumann refers to the terrible goddessof Melanesia who was known as Le-hev-hev and was particularly feared bythe Malekulan men. Her name meant‘That which draws us to It so that Itmay devour us’ (Neumann, 1972, 174).

According to Neumann some mythsrepresent the toothed vagina as ananimal or an animal-companion of thefemale deity (ibid., 168). Scylla thedevouring whirlpool is, from the upperpart of her body, a beautiful woman;the lower parts consist of threesnapping hellhounds. WolfgangLederer states that myths of the vaginawith teeth are extremely prevalentparticularly in the East, India, NorthAmerica, South America, Africa andEurope (Lederer, 1968, 44–52).

In The Masks of God: PrimitiveMythology, Joseph Campbell relatesvarious myths of the toothed vagina.One of the myths from New Mexicotells the story of how the boy heroknown as Killer-of-Enemiesdomesticated the toothed vagina. Therewas once a house of vaginas where thefour ‘vagina girls’ lived. The ‘girls’were actually vaginas but had taken theform of women. Lured by stories of the

vagina girls, unsuspecting men wouldcome to the house for intercourse.Kicking Monster, father of the vaginagirls, would kick the men inside to beeaten up by the vaginas who possessedexceedingly strong teeth. OutsmartingKicking Monster, the boy hero enteredthe house where he convinced the fourvagina girls to eat a special medicinemade of sour berries. The medicinedestroyed their teeth and puckeredtheir lips so that they could no longerchew but only swallow. They foundthis approach far more pleasurablethan the old method. In this way thetoothed vagina was put to its properuse. The myths of North AmericanIndians tell a similar story: a meat-eating fish lives in the vagina of theTerrible Mother; the hero is the onewho overpowers her (Neumann, 1972,168).

The breaking of the vaginal teeth

by the hero, accomplished in thedark and hidden depths of thevagina, is the exact equivalent ofthe heroic journey into theunderworld and the taming of thetoothy hellhound Cerberus byHerakles. Darkness, depth, deathand woman – they belongtogether.

(Lederer, 1968, 49)

The myth about woman as castratorclearly points to male fears andphantasies about the female genitals asa trap, a black hole which threatens toswallow them up and cut them intopieces. The vagina dentata is themouth of hell – a terrifying symbol ofwoman as the ‘devil’s gateway’. In hisFebruary 11 Seminar, Jacques Lacanseems to imply that large women posea greater threat: ‘Queen Victoria,there’s a woman . . . when oneencounters a toothed vagina of such

exceptional size’ (cited in Heath, 1978,61). The vagina dentata also points tothe duplicitous nature of woman, whopromises paradise in order to ensnareher victims. The notion of thedevouring female genitals continues toexist in the modern world; it isapparent in popular derogatory termsfor women such as ‘man-eater’ and‘castrating bitch’. In his Dictionary ofObscenity, Taboo and Euphemism,James McDonald lists a number ofexpressions ‘which humorouslydisguise an element of maleapprehension about the nature of thevagina’. These are: ‘man trap’,‘bottomless pit’, ‘viper’, ‘snapper’,‘vicious circle’ and ‘dumb glutton’(McDonald, 1988, 44). It is also thesubject of humour (see the cartoon byLeunig).

The vagina dentata is particularlyrelevant to the iconography of thehorror film, which abounds with

images that play on the fear ofcastration and dismemberment. Fear ofcastration can be understood in twodifferent ways. Castration can refer tosymbolic castration (loss of themother’s body, breast, loss of identity)which is experienced by both femaleand male, or it can refer to genitalcastration. The horror film offers manyimages of a general nature whichsuggest dismemberment. Victims rarelydie cleanly or quickly. Rather, victimsdie agonizing messy deaths – flesh iscut, bodies violated, limbs tornasunder. In films like Jaws, Tremors,Alien and Aliens, where the monster isa devouring creature, victims areripped apart and eaten alive. Wherethe monster is a psychopath, victimsare cut, dismembered, decapitated.Instruments of death are usually knivesor other sharp implements. Close-upshots of gaping jaws, sharp teeth andbloodied lips play on the spectator’s

fears of bloody incorporation –occasionally with humour. Sometimesthe lips are only slightly parted andeither a trace of blood trickles over thebottom lip or both lips are smearedwith blood. Often the teeth arethreateningly visible. This image is acentral motif in the vampire film,particularly those which deal with thelesbian vampire. In these films (TheVampire Lovers, Vampyres, TheHunger) we are given close-up shotsof woman’s open mouth, pointed fangsand bloodied lips – a graphic image ofthe vagina dentata. The visualassociation between biting andbloodied lips, sexual intercourse anddeath provides a central motif of thevampire film.

While all images of menacing,toothed mouths – regardless of thegender of the character – suggest thevagina dentata, some films link thisimage specifically to woman. These

are not always horror films. Thepostmodern text, Blue Velvet, whichquotes from various film genres,including horror and noir, contains ascene which draws a playfulconnection between the heroine’ssensually parted lips and anornamental carving of a toothed vaginahanging on the hero’s bedroom wall.One of the characters in Bull Durhamjokes that men call women ‘theBermuda Triangle’ because they arefrightened of disappearing inside. InIngmar Bergman’s Cries andWhispers, a woman puts broken glassin her vagina while lying in bedawaiting her husband.

Another visual motif associated withthe vagina dentata is that of the barredand dangerous entrance. Ledereridentifies ‘Briar Rose’ or the ‘SleepingBeauty’ story, and its variants, asproviding a perfect illustration of thistheme. The suitors who wish to win

Briar Rose must first penetrate thehedge of thorns that bars their way.Only the prince who inspires true loveis able to pass through unharmed.

The theme of the barred anddangerous entrance has manyvariants: the door of the girl’shouse may kill all those whoenter; it may be a door thatquickly opens and closes of itsown accord, comparable to theterrifying rocks, the Symplegades,through which the Argonauts hadto pass, and which, whenever aship attempted to pass betweenthem, drove together and crushedit; it may be guarded by dangerousanimals; or again, the symbolismmay be that of gigantic bivalveswhich crush whoever may getcaught within them.

(Lederer, 1968, 47)

The theme of the dangerous entrance orpassageway is also common to thehorror film: the corridor may fill withwaves of blood that threaten to engulfeverything (The Shining); or thebedroom may transform into a hugesucking hole (Poltergeist); or theairducts of a spacecraft may becontrolled by an alien with gapingjaws and snapping teeth (Alien). Thekiller frequently hides with knifepoised in a darkened doorway or at thetop of a staircase. Tunnels and cavesare filled with spiders, snakes or batswhich attack the unwary. Giantcrushing wheels threaten to bear downon victims, pulverising their entirebodies (Batman, The Terminator).

In classical art the figure of abeautiful woman was oftenaccompanied by an animal companionwith open jaws and snapping teeth; thecreature represented her deadly genitaltrap and evil intent. In Idols of

Perversity, Bram Dijkstra analyses thepopularity of paintings that depictwomen and cats, tigers, lions, polarbears and grizzlies. Wild cats andother beasts, their teeth bared, arefrequently positioned near a woman’sgenital area. Growling ‘jaws suggestedthe vagina dentata which turn-of-the-century men feared they might findhidden beneath’ woman’s gown(Dijkstra, 1986, 294). An advertisingposter for the film Jaws, which dealsspecifically with castration anxieties,uses this convention by showing anunderwater view of a womanswimming with a great shark hoveringimmediately below her, its open mouthand teeth glistening in the dark waters.Stephen Heath has analysed Jaws interms of male castration fears. Hepoints out that, after the first femalevictim, ‘all the victims are male andthe focus is on losing legs’ (Heath,1976, 27). Heath suggests that the

danger associated with femalesexuality in the night-time beach sceneis displaced on to the shark. Thenarrative sets up an oppositionbetween the men and the shark – anopposition symbolized in the long shotof the boat seen through a pair ofshark’s jaws. Heath also mentions thatin the novel the report of the first attackis delayed while the watchman finishesreading a story about a woman whocastrates a male attacker with a knifehidden in her hair. The fairy story‘Little Red Riding Hood’ also suggestssymbolically the vagina dentata withits reference to the red ridinghood/clitoris and its emphasis on thedevouring jaws of thewolf/grandmother.

THE CASTRATING FEMALEGENITALS

Two explanations have been given for

the vagina dentata – both stress theincorporative rather than castratingaspect of this figure. One approachinterprets the vagina dentata as asymbolic expression of the oralsadistic mother. This is the motherfeared by both female and male infantswho imagine that, just as they derivepleasure from feeding/eating at themother’s breast, the mother might inturn desire to feed on them. The‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairy storyillustrates this infantile fear through thefigure of the cannibalistic witch. Theother explanation interprets the vaginadentata as an expression of the dyadicmother; the all-encompassing maternalfigure of the pre-Oedipal period whothreatens symbolically to engulf theinfant, thus posing a threat of psychicobliteration. In both explanations, theimage of the toothed vagina, symbolicof the all-devouring woman, is relatedto the subject’s infantile memories of

its early relation with the mother andthe subsequent fear of its identity beingswallowed up by the mother. In horrorfilms such as Psycho, Carrie andAlien, fear of being swallowed up, ofannihilation, is linked directly to themother.

These two explanations drawconnections between the notion oforality and incorporation discussedabove. The vagina dentata is a mouth;the cannibalistic mother eats her young;the dyadic mother symbolicallyincorporates the infant. Fear of thevagina dentata and of the oral sadisticmother could be interrelated,particularly in view of the complexmythological and linguisticassociations between the mouth and thefemale genitals (Walker, 1983, 1035).Furthermore, there may well be somecontexts, such as those in Aliens, inwhich images of the oral sadisticmother are used to symbolize fear of

the dyadic mother. Nevertheless, whilethese two female figures have much incommon, they are also quite distinctiveand should be separated in anydiscussion of the representation of themonstrous-feminine in the horror film.The toothed vagina represents analtogether different threat, thatassociated with the deadly genitals ofwoman.

To my knowledge the notion of thevagina dentata is not discussed byFreud. In Freudian theory, castration isposed as a threat coming from thefather. The boy, who is passionatelyattached to his mother, begins to seethe father as a rival and imagines thatthe father will castrate him, makinghim like the mother. In this way, thefather is constructed as the castrator,the one who mutilates the genitals.Fear of castration by the fatherovercomes the boy’s desire for themother and he eventually renounces her

in the knowledge that one day he willinherit the power of his father and havea woman of his own. His mother’sbody inspires castration fear but –according to Freud – her genitals donot threaten to castrate. It is crucial thatthe mother’s genitals terrify from apassive perspective – terror isassociated with their appearance,which indicates that something hasalready happened to them. As we haveseen from the Little Hans story, thecastration complex is seen, by Freud,as the mechanism which brings aboutthe transmission of culture.

In his rewriting of Freud, Lacanplaces even greater emphasis on thenotion of woman’s castration. InLacanian theory it is woman’s ‘lack’which produces the penis as the markof human fullness and the phallus assymbolic presence. ‘Because the penisand the phallus are (albeit illusorily)identified, women are regarded as

castrated’ (Grosz, 1990, 116). It isbecause woman is ‘castrated’ that sheis seen to represent ‘lack’ in relation tothe symbolic order while man inheritsthe right to represent this order. ForLacan ‘the negativity of the feminine isa symbolic psychical necessity’(Brennan, 1989, 6). The belief thatwoman terrifies because her genitalsappear castrated is crucial to theFreudian theory of the castrationcomplex. The argument that woman’sgenitals terrify because they mightcastrate challenges the Freudian andLacanian view and its association ofthe symbolic order with the masculine.Here I wish to examine the repressionof the notion of the vagina dentata insome of Freud’s writings. Freud putforward a number of theories tosupport his view that woman’s genitalsappear castrated rather than castrating.Viewed from a different perspective,each of these theories supports – and

frequently with more validity – theargument that woman’s genitals appearcastrating.

MEDUSA AND THE MOTHER’SGENITALS

Freud chose the myth of Perseus andMedusa to illustrate his theory thatwoman is castrated. In his essay‘Medusa’s head’ he argued that thehead with its hair of writhing snakes isa symbol of the castrated femalegenitals:

We have not often attempted tointerpret individual mythologicalthemes, but an interpretationsuggests itself easily in the caseof the horrifying decapitated headof the Medusa . . . arepresentation of woman as abeing who frightens and repelsbecause she is castrated . . . [it]takes the place of a representation

of the female genitals, orrather . . . it isolates theirhorrifying effects from theirpleasure-giving ones.

(pp. 273–1)

The boy’s castration anxiety is firstinvoked when he sees the mother’sgenitals which, because of the pubichair, bear an uncanny resemblance tothe father’s genital area, also coveredin hair. The hair is very important toFreud’s interpretation:

To decapitate = to castrate. Theterror of Medusa is thus a terrorof castration that is linked to thesight of something. Numerousanalyses have made us familiarwith the occasion for this: itoccurs when a boy, who hashitherto been unwilling to believethe threat of castration, catchessight of the female genitals,

probably those of an adult,surrounded by hair, andessentially those of themother. . . . The hair uponMedusa’s head is frequentlyrepresented in works of art in theform of snakes, and these onceagain are derived from thecastration complex.

(ibid., 273)

Freud gives the phallic snakes/hair ofthe mother a double function: ‘howeverfrightening they may be in themselves,they nevertheless serve actually as amitigation of the horror, for theyreplace the penis, the absence of whichis the cause of the horror’ (ibid.). Thusthe Medusa’s head serves as a classicfetish object; it confirms both theabsence and presence of the mother’spenis. According to the rest of thelegend any man who looks upon theMedusa’s head is immediately turned

to stone. This is why Perseus looks atthe monster’s reflection in a shieldbefore he cuts off her head. Freudinterprets the ‘turning to stone’ as ametaphor for having an erection: ‘Forbecoming stiff means an erection. Thusin the original situation it offersconsolation to the spectator: he is stillin possession of a penis, and thestiffening reassures him of the fact’(ibid.).

In presenting his argument, however,Freud has ignored a crucial aspect ofthe Medusa myth. With her head ofwrithing snakes, huge mouth, lollingtongue and boar’s tusks, the Medusa isalso regarded by historians of myth asa particularly nasty version of thevagina dentata. Erich Neumann claimsthat the Gorgons symbolize the mothergoddess in her ‘devouring aspect’. Hergenitals or ‘womb-gullet’ are‘represented by the terrible face withits gnashing teeth’ (Neumann, 1972,

169). Freud also ignores the symbolicmeaning of the snake’s open mouth andpointed fangs. If we stretch ourimaginations, the multiplication ofsnake symbols on the Medusa’s headmay suggest a multiplication of thewoman’s imaginary phallus; they moreclearly represent that genital in itscastrating aspects. Representations ofthe snake coiled in a circle, itstail/phallus in its mouth/vagina is aubiquitous symbol of bisexuality foundin all cultures. Freud isolates thephallic and ignores the vaginalsignificance of the snake as a sexualsymbol. To argue that the Medusa’ssevered head symbolizes the terrifyingcastrated female genitals, and that thesnakes represent her fetishized andcomforting imaginary phallus, is an actof wish fulfilment par excellence.Freud’s interpretation masks the active,terrifying aspects of the female genitals– the fact that they might castrate. The

Medusa’s entire visage is alive withimages of toothed vaginas, poised andwaiting to strike. No wonder her malevictims were rooted to the spot withfear.

MATERNAL BLEEDINGFreud argued that the male child maymistake the mother’s menstrual bloodas that which issues from the woundcaused by her castration or from thedamage inflicted on her vagina duringintercourse. In ‘The sexual theories ofchildren’ Freud claims that the childinterprets this blood as a sign of thefather’s repeated sadism duringcoition. ‘It proves to him that his fatherhas made another similar assault on hismother during the night’ (p. 222). Wecan, however, interpret the mother’sblood differently. If the child is awarethat the mother’s genitals or thebedlinen are periodically bloody, he

could just as easily mistake this bloodfor his father’s. He might phantasizethat the man who inserts his fragilepenis into the mother’s vagina is takinga great risk.

In his analysis of the crucial role ofmenstruation in human development, C.D. Daly stresses that the menstruationtaboo is the most virulent of all taboos.He argues that the main reason for thisis that sight of woman’s bloodconfirmed man’s fear of being eatenand castrated by the female genitals.Unlike Freud, Daly attachesimportance to what he sees as theterrifying aspects of the olfactorystimulus in relation to menstruation:

In the menstruation trauma thevisual evidence of the mother’sbleeding occasions the deepesthorror and loathing. The bleedingconfirms the fear of castration andof being eaten, whilst the smell

(here negative and repulsive),partly because of its associationwith putrefaction, also conveysthe deeper idea of death to theunconscious. This negative odouris not to be confused with thepositive, attractive, pre-menstruation and mid-cycleodours, but belongs to therepulsive attributes of thecomplex and plays an importantpart in the formation of the incestbarrier.

(Daly, 1943, 160)

Daly concludes that the menstruationcomplex lies at the heart of castrationanxiety. ‘It is my contention that themenstruation aspect in particular is atthe root of the extreme horror of thefemale genital which Freud attributedto the castration fear, though he was notsatisfied that this fully explained it’(ibid., 165).

ORAL SADISMOne reason why the child mightmistakenly imagine that the femalegenital lips open up into a mouth is theimportance of the oral stage ofdevelopment in the child’s early years.In his ‘Three essays on the theory ofsexuality’ Freud emphasized theimportance of all activities associatedwith eating and sucking. Therelationship of the child as suckling tothe nursing mother provides the modelfor all other relationships during thisperiod; it is characterized by theconcepts of eating and being eaten.

The threat of incorporation issuingfrom the maternal body is most likelyto be concentrated on the two areasassociated with incorporation: themother’s facial mouth and her genitalmouth. Freud claimed that childrencommonly identify the anal cavity witha mouth. Myth, legend and the historyof taboos make it clear that the vagina

is similarly identified. Freud, in fact,argued that the young child is unawareof the existence of the vagina – a pointwhich according to Laplanche andPontalis (1985, 311) is contested bypsychoanalysts such as Karen Horney,Melanie Klein and Ernst Jones.

Sexual pleasure is also bound upwith excitation of the mouth and lipsand continues in this form into adultlife. It is the connection betweenorality and sexuality which is ofparticular relevance to a discussion ofthe child’s understanding of the natureof female genitals. According to Freud,the subject’s experience andunderstanding of desire andsatisfaction, including sexualsatisfaction, are based on its early oralexperiences, which represent the firststage in the infant’s sexual life. Thechild’s early experiences of the worldare all marked by oral influences. Ifthe child in any way sees the mother as

castrating figure, her presence willalways invoke a degree of anxiety.How much more terrifying herpresence, then, if the male child –either consciously or unconsciously –has projected an image of a mouth onto her labia and genital area. LittleHans’s association of the cow’s teatwith a penis (‘Oh look! There’s milkcoming out of its widdler’) suggests aparallel between the breast beingsucked/bitten when in the mouth andthe penis similarly being sucked/bittenin the vagina.

GLIMPSING THE FEMALEGENITALS

Freud’s account of the boy’s firstglimpse of the female genitals is worthnoting in that the boy’s response differsin terms of the kind of female he islooking at – young girl or adult woman.In ‘Medusa’s head’ Freud refers to the

‘terrible fright’ the boy experienceswhen he sees the mother’s genitals. In‘The infantile genital organisation’Freud describes the response of theboy when he first glimpses the genitalsof a young girl as indifferent. Freuddoes not explore the significance ofthese two different responses. There isan implication in the second instancethat the boy’s age is a factorinfluencing his response. It is strangethat Freud does not consider thedifference between the genitals of ayoung girl and a woman, because thedifferences between the two arestriking. The genitals of the latter arecovered in pubic hair making itimpossible to see the labia beneath,whereas the genitals of the small girlare smooth, symmetrical and clearly inthe shape of lips. In fact, the youngerthe girl the more pronounced the outerlips, which are extremely swollen inthe first months after birth.

Furthermore, there is no suggestion thatthe girl’s genitals have been‘mutilated’. The skin is smooth andunmarked, the lips clearly formed andusually pronounced. If the boy’s firstglimpse is of the genitals of a girl hewould be very much aware of thelabia. On later seeing the mother’sgenitals, he would naturally be awareof the lips hidden behind her pubichair.

If the boy’s first glimpse of thefemale genitals is of the mother’s, he ismore likely to imagine she is castrated.Her pubic hair would tend to make themother’s genital area look, on firstglance, more like the father’s – butwithout a penis. In this situation, theboy may well be justified in imaginingthat the mother is castrated. Thepossibility of making such a mistakeupon glancing at a small girl’s hairlessgenitals is less likely. Freud neveranalyses these different responses. If

the former experience (seeing themother’s genitals first) is most likely tolead to a fear of woman as castrated,then the latter (seeing a young girl’sgenital lips) seems most likely to leadto a fear of woman asincorporator/castrator. While bothexperiences may have the same effectof transforming woman’s body into asource of castration anxiety for themale, the forms of this anxiety aredifferent and that difference is crucialto our understanding of therepresentation of women withinpatriarchal culture.

THE MUTILATED CREATUREFreud claims, in ‘The sexual theoriesof children’, that little boys areextremely resistant to the idea that girlsdo not have a penis. When the boy firstsees his sister’s genitals, he eitherdoes not show any particular interest,

he sees nothing or disavows what hehas seen. ‘He does not comment on theabsence of a penis, but invariablysays, as though by way of consolationand to put things right: “Her______’sstill quite small. But when she getsbigger it’ll grow all right”’ (p. 216).Eventually, the boy comes tounderstand that the little girl does nothave a penis. Freud’s account of theboy’s earlier response to hisobservation of the girl’s genitals isworth noting:

It is not until later, when somethreat of castration has obtained ahold upon him, that theobservation becomes important tohim: if he then recollects orrepeats it, it arouses a terriblestorm of emotion in him andforces him to believe in thereality of the threat which he hashitherto laughed at.

(‘Some psychical consequences’,252)

Freud claims that the boy’s acceptanceof woman as castrated other and hisconsequent fear of castration forhimself leads him to adopt one of tworesponses:

This combination ofcircumstances leads to tworeactions, which may becomefixed and will in that case,whether separately or together orin conjunction with other factors,permanently determine the boy’srelations to women: horror of themutilated creature or triumphantcontempt for her.

(ibid.)

Why has Freud omitted to describe theboy’s immediate feelingsabout/towards his penis? Why has he

omitted what would appear to be themost important factor in this situation?Given that the boy has been forced toaccept, for the first time, the possibilityof his castration, destruction of part ofhis body, one would expect that hewould immediately fear for his penis,imagine what might happen to it,construct a phantasy surrounding it. InThe taboo of virginity’ Freud stressedthe wound to her narcissism which agirl experiences when her hymen isbroken. How much greater must thewound be to the boy’s narcissism whenhe realizes the constant vulnerability ofhis entire organ?

Perhaps there is a description of theboy’s feelings hidden in Freud’saccount. Doesn’t the statement alsomake sense if read ‘against the grain’as a description of how the boyimagines the woman might feel(‘triumphant contempt’) after she hascastrated him (‘the mutilated

creature’)? If we treat Freud’sstatement as an instance ofdisplacement – understandable giventhe threatening nature of the topic – wecan understand him to be talking aboutwoman, not as castrated , but as thecastrator with the male as her victim.Certainly, the phantasy of a mutilatedmale creature is central torepresentations of the male monster inmyth, legend, fairy story, the horrorfilm and Gothic literature. It liesbehind the figures of the Hunchback,the Phantom, the Beast, Dr Jekyll andMr Hyde, the werewolftransformations and all of the otherbestial metamorphoses.

Freud concludes ‘The infantilegenital organisation’ with a definitionof proper forms of femininity andmasculinity. ‘Maleness combines [thefactors of] subject, activity andpossession of the penis; femalenesstakes over [those of] object and

passivity. The vagina is now valued asa place of shelter for the penis; itenters into the heritage of the womb’(p. 145). Given Freud’s landmarkefforts in uncovering the secrets of theunconscious; the darker side of humandesire; the incredible phantasies thehuman subject constructs aroundsexuality and the ‘other’; given histheories about repression, transferenceand displacement – given all of thesefactors, how can Freud possibly expectus to accept that the ‘normal’construction of the vagina is ‘a placeof shelter’ – ‘home sweet home’?

FETISHISMFreud’s theory of fetishism isinteresting in the context of thisdiscussion because it holds equallytrue for either proposition – thatwoman is castrated or that woman iscastrating. On first realizing that the

mother is without a penis, the boy ishorrified. If woman has been castratedthen his own genitals are in danger. Heresponds in one of two ways. He eitheraccepts symbolically the possibility ofcastration or he refuses thisknowledge. In the latter situation, theshock of seeing the female genitals –proof that castration can occur – is toogreat and the child sets up a fetishobject which stands in for the missingpenis of the mother. In his essay‘Fetishism’ Freud writes: ‘Yes, in hismind the woman has got a penis, inspite of everything; but the penis is nolonger the same as it was before.Something else has taken its place, hasbeen appointed its substitute, as itwere, and now inherits the interestwhich was formerly directed to itspredecessor’ (p. 154). The fetishobject may be a penis-symbol, but notnecessarily. The object most likely tobe created as a fetish, or substitute for

the missing female phallus, is thatwhich the subject last glanced uponbefore seeing the woman’s genitals –underwear, for instance.

it is as though the last impressionbefore the uncanny and traumaticone is retained as a fetish. Thusthe foot or shoe owes itspreference as a fetish – or a partof it – to the circumstances thatthe inquisitive boy peered at thewoman’s genitals from below,from her legs up; fur and velvet –as has long been suspected – are afixation of the sight of the pubichair . . . pieces of underclothing,which are so often chosen as afetish, crystallize the moment ofundressing . . .

(ibid., 155)

Thus in soft-porn magazines we findthe image of woman fetishistically

draped in a fur coat, her long legs andhigh-heeled shoes on display.Sometimes she is adorned with phallicobjects and may be dressed in leather,carrying a whip or gun, and sittingastride a motorbike. The phallicwoman is created in response to thefetishist’s refusal to believe thatwoman does not possess a penis.Freud recommends a study of fetishismfor anyone who doubts ‘the existenceof the castration complex or who canstill believe that fright at the sight ofthe female genital has some otherground’ (ibid.).

The phantasy of woman as castratoris as terrifying as – if not moreterrifying than – that of the castratedwoman. It can also be used to explainwhy the male might desire to create afetish, to want to continue to believethat woman is like himself, that she hasa phallus rather than a vagina. In thiscontext, the fetish stands in for the

vagina dentata – the castrating femaleorgan that the male wishes to disavow.It is possible that he might hold theseopposing beliefs about womanalternately or even together. The imageof woman as castrator and castrated isrepresented repeatedly in themythology of all patriarchal cultures.She is either the tamed, domesticated,passive woman or else the savage,destructive, aggressive woman. Thephallic woman is the fetishized woman– an image designed to deny theexistence of both these figures (womanas castrated/castrating). By enlargingthe grounds for the male castrationanxiety, we in no way invalidateFreud’s theory of fetishism. In hisneglect of the actively terrifying faceof woman, evident also from hisanalysis of the Medusa myth, Freud leftuntouched a crucial area of malecastration anxieties.

TEETH DREAMSIn ‘The interpretation of dreams’,Freud describes dreams about teeth as‘typical’ because ‘they occur in largenumbers of people and with verysimilar content’. They appear to be ascommon as dreams of flying and falling(p. 37). Almost always the dreams areof teeth falling out or being extracted.The common factor in these dreams isthat the dreamer, usually male, is inpossession of a large tooth which iseventually pulled out. There is oftenreference to a set of teeth, the mouthand throat. In dreams where there is adentist, the dentist appears to be malebut as Freud writes elsewhere the trueidentity of the parental figure isfrequently displaced so that the maleactually represents the mother.

Freud argues that tooth dreamsusually have a sexual meaning. Tt may,however, puzzle us to discover how“dental stimuli” have come to have this

meaning. But I should like to drawattention to the frequency with whichsexual repression makes use oftranspositions from a lower to anupper part of the body’(‘Interpretation’, 387). He interpretsthese dreams in two ways, givingpreference to the latter. The ‘pulling’ ofthe tooth can refer to the act of‘pulling’ the penis in masturbation, or‘a tooth being pulled out by someoneelse in a dream is as a rule to beinterpreted as castration’ (ibid.).Freud, however, does not explore thesedreams in any depth.

The following dream, quoted byFreud, provides an interesting andfairly typical example of a tooth dreamwhich I would interpret as a dreamabout castration.

Schemer reports a dream of tworows of pretty, fair-haired boysstanding opposite each other on a

bridge, and of their attacking eachother and then going back to theiroriginal position, till at last thedreamer saw himself sitting downon a bridge and pulling a longtooth out of his jaw.

(ibid., 227)

The ‘two rows of pretty, fair-hairedboys’ which stand ‘opposite eachother’ and then attack before resumingtheir ‘original position’ provide anextremely apt description of a set ofteeth as they open and close. Theoutcome of this biting activity is thatthe dreamer loses his ‘long tooth’. Thisdream could represent the dreamer’sfears of castration during either oral orvaginal sex. The teeth are associatedwith feminine qualities (‘pretty’, ‘fair-haired’) although they are symbolicallymale (‘boys’) and of a phallic nature(‘attacking’). The teeth could be thoseof a man or woman. Significantly,

Freud interprets these as castrationdreams but he never mentions thedreamer’s partner. Who is thecastrator? How is it accomplished? Ifwe accept Freud’s argument that inthese dreams the lower part of thebody is frequently transposed to theupper, it is most likely that the mouthrefers to the vagina and the rows ofteeth which open and close to aphantasy about castrating vaginal teeth.

In his discussion of Schemer’s workon dreams, Freud repeats Schemer’sview that ‘an entrance-hall with a high,vaulted roof corresponds to the oralcavity and a staircase to the descentfrom the throat to the oesophagus’(ibid., 225). Elsewhere in ‘Theinterpretation of dreams’, Freud arguesthat a house almost always symbolizesthe human body and passageways thevagina. In the teeth dreams he quotesthere is often reference to rooms andpassageways; however, he does not

draw a connection between these andthe vagina. In my view, a dream aboutteeth with reference to a staircaseleading to a cavernous room is mostlikely to refer to the vagina as theentrance to the uterus. Using Freud’stransposition hypothesis, that in dreamsof a sexual nature the lower parts ofthe body are transposed on to theupper, we can interpret teeth dreams inthe following way. The mouth and lipsrepresent the vagina and labia, therows of teeth represent the vaginalteeth and the dreamer’s long toothwhich is pulled out is the penis.Possibly the dreamer imagines hispenis as a ‘more powerful tooth’ inorder to lessen the threat posed by themouth and its teeth. The ‘rows’ of teethare not always mentioned – althoughfrequently they are. In another dream,the teeth are symbolized by two ‘rowsof drawers’ which, like teeth, alsoopen and shut. All of these dreams,

however, almost always refer to the‘mouth’ and a ‘passageway’ of somekind. Reference to other teeth is notnecessary in order to construct thevagina as a place of castration. Theimage of a mouth – the gaping maw ofnightmares and horror scenarios – isprobably enough on its own to instildread into the dreamer. The comedy-horror film, The Little Shop ofHorrors, plays on all of these images;some of its most memorable momentsinvolve Audrey Jr, a man-eating plant,and a sadistic dentist.

In many of the dreams that Freuddescribes, the long tooth comes out (ofthe mouth/vagina) easily and withoutpain, much to the astonishment of thedreamer. For instance: ‘He then seizedit with a forceps and pulled it out withan effortless ease that excited myastonishment’ (‘Interpretation’, 388).These dreams all seem to begin withthe dreamer in a state of anxiety,

expecting pain, but in the end findingthe experience painless and usuallyaccompanied by ejaculation which,according to Freud, ‘in a dreamaccompanies the act of pulling out atooth’ (ibid., 391). Freud emphasizesthe connection between the act of‘pulling’ the penis in masturbation andof ‘pulling’ a tooth. ‘In our part of theworld the act of masturbation isvulgarly described as “sich einenausreissen” or “sich einenherunterreissen” [literally, “pulling oneout” or “pulling one down”]’ (ibid.,388). I would argue that the act of‘pulling’ the ‘tooth’ has a triplemeaning: it is the penis which thedreamer fears might be ‘pulled out’ orcastrated once inside the toothedvagina; it is the penis which ispleasurably ‘pulled’ by the walls of thevagina during coition – ormasturbation; and it is the penis whichis safely ‘pulled out’ from the vagina

after coition. The tooth/penis iscastrated and not castrated. Beforecoition the dreamer is in a state ofanxiety; afterwards he realizes hisfears have been groundless.

THE TABOO OF VIRGINITYIn ‘The taboo of virginity’ Freud setsout to explain the anomaly whereby so-called civilized societies valuevirginity while ‘primitive’ peopleshave made the defloration of virginsthe subject of a taboo. Freud uses thisdiscussion to launch his theory of penisenvy and frigidity in women. In someprimitive cultures the defloration ofgirls is performed outside marriageand before the first act of sexualintercourse takes place. Defloration isperformed by someone other than theprospective husband: the bride’sfather, the priest, an old woman, or aprofessional. Freud gives various

explanations for this ritual practice:fear of first events, fear of women’sblood, fear of women.

The first explanation is thatprimitive man associates all new orthreshold events, such as defloration,with the unknown and the uncanny. Heuses ritual to ward off any unexpecteddangers. The second explanation holdsthat some people believed that womanbleeds periodically because of thepresence in her vagina of a biting spiritanimal; hence the vagina is adangerous place: ‘Menstruation,especially its first appearance, isinterpreted as the bite of some spirit-animal’ (‘Taboo’, 197). Many culturesbelieve it is a snake that lives in thevagina. Woman’s blood is viewed ashighly dangerous, even fatal.Consequently, women are subject torigorous taboos when they menstruateand when they are deflowered. ‘It isquite clear that the intention underlying

this taboo is that of denying or sparingprecisely the future husbandsomething which cannot be dissociatedfrom the first sexual act’ (ibid., 199–200). Freud, however, does notconsider this view.

It is the third reason in which he ismost interested:

woman is different from man, forever incomprehensible andmysterious, strange and thereforeapparently hostile. The man isafraid of being weakened by thewoman, infected with herfemininity and of then showinghimself incapable. The effectwhich coitus has of dischargingtensions and causing flacciditymay be the prototype of what manfears.

(ibid., 198–9)

In the process of coition, man is

reminded of the possibility of his owncastration. To my knowledge this is theclosest Freud ever comes to broachingthe subject of man’s fear of the vaginaas an agent of castration. But Freuddoes not explore this area at all. Heacknowledges that man has erected aseries of taboos against woman, all ofwhich relate to her sexual functions:menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth,lying-in and, most importantly, sexualintercourse itself. But he lookselsewhere to explain the peculiar senseof dread associated with the first act ofsexual intercourse and the attempt tospare the husband from some unknownhorror.

Freud argues that primitive man usesthe taboo of virginity to defend himselfagainst ‘a correctly sensed, althoughpsychical, danger’ (ibid., 201) comingfrom woman. Why does woman resentman so deeply, he asks? There aremany factors: the first act of

intercourse is frequently adisappointment for her; deflorationcauses pain; destruction of the hymenrepresents a narcissistic injury; loss ofvirginity results in a lessening ofsexual value; and the husband is only asubstitute for the woman’s true loveobject – usually her father. All of thesereasons, Freud concludes, frequentlylead to frigidity in married women.(Given this list of woes, frigidityseems a small price to pay!) There is,however, another and more importantreason why the husband should fear thewoman’s hostility.

There is another motive, reachingdown into still deeper layers,which can be shown to bear thechief blame for the paradoxicalreaction towards the man. . . . Thefirst act of intercourse activates ina woman other impulses of longstanding as well as those already

described, and these are incomplete opposition to herwomanly role and function.

(ibid., 204)

Here, Freud turns to the comfortingimage of woman as castrated in orderto explain man’s fears. The crucialreasons for woman’s paradoxicalreaction are her feelings of penis envywhich give rise to: ‘woman’s hostilebitterness against the man, which nevercompletely disappears in the relationsbetween the sexes, and which isclearly indicated in the strivings and inthe literary productions of“emancipated” women’ (ibid., 205).Freud uses all of the above reasons toconclude that woman’s sexuality is‘immature’ and based on a deep-seatedhostility towards men, particularly theone who deflowers her. She may evenwish to castrate him. This isparticularly true of the virgin who,

according to Freud, may wish to take‘vengeance for her defloration’. Suchdesires exist even in ‘the mental life ofcivilised women’ (ibid., 206).

Freud illustrates his theory ofwoman as castration threat withreference to dreams and literaryworks. He refers in particular toFriedrich Hebbel’s tragedy, Judith andHolofernes. This concerns the biblicalheroine, Judith, whose story was verypopular with visual artists and writersin the nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, and was sometimespresented with feminist overtones. (Itis also the subject of D. W. Griffith’sJudith of Bethulia, 1913.) In Hebbel’sversion, Judith’s virginity is protectedby a taboo. Although married, her firsthusband has never dared to touch her;on their first night together he was‘paralysed . . . by a mysterious anxiety’(‘Taboo’, 207). Judith decides to useher beauty to destroy the Assyrian

leader who has captured the city. AfterHolofernes has deflowered her, shecuts off his head. According to Freud:‘Beheading is well known to us as asymbolic substitute for castrating;Judith is accordingly the woman whocastrates the man who has defloweredher’ (ibid.). Woman is dangerousbecause it is her ‘wish’ to castrateman; it is the virgin’s hostility, arisingfrom penis envy, which man shouldjustifiably fear. Freud does notconsider the other possibility that it isman who constructs woman as acastrator and that he has displaced hisanxiety on to woman – a crucial pointalso discussed by Mary Jacobus inReading Woman (1986).

Throughout this essay, Freud avoidsconfronting the possibility that man’sfear of sexual intercourse with womanis based on irrational fears about thedeadly powers of the vagina,especially the bleeding vagina. Rather

than consider man’s dread of theimaginary castrating woman, Freudtakes refuge in his theory of woman’scastration. While he acknowledges thatit is man’s ‘generalized dread ofwomen’ that leads to the setting up oftaboos, he concludes that this dreadhas nothing to do with woman’spossible powers – real or imagined.Instead he explains man’s fears interms of woman’s lack of power.Perhaps one should conclude thatacceptance of the notion of ‘woman thecastrator’ rather than ‘woman thecastrated’ is not only threatening toFreud as a man but also damaging tohis theories of penis envy in women,the castration crisis and the role heassigns to the father in the transmissionof culture.

9

THE FEMME CA S TRATRICE: I SPIT ON YOUR

GRAVE, SISTERS

Classical theory has it that theboy fears castration by the fatheras punishment for his sexualinterest in the mother. This is notverified by my clinicalexperience. . . . Throughout life,the man fears the woman ascastrator, not the man.

Joseph Rheingold, The Fear ofBeing a Woman

Male castration anxiety has given riseto two of the most powerfulrepresentations of the monstrous-feminine in the horror film: woman ascastrator and woman as castrated.Woman is represented as castratedeither literally or symbolically. Herliteral castration is depicted in films inwhich she is usually a victim, such asthe slasher film, where her body isrepeatedly knifed until it resembles ableeding wound. In other horror films,woman is transformed into a psychoticmonster because she has beensymbolically castrated, that is, shefeels she has been robbed unjustly ofher rightful destiny. In FatalAttraction, the heroine (an unmarriedcareer woman) is transformed into amonster because she is unable to fulfilher need for husband and family. In anumber of recent – and very popular –films about female psychotics, thekiller is an outsider, a lone woman

who murders to possess what has beendenied her: family, husband, lover,child. In The Hand That Rocks theCradle, she kills in order to possess ababy. The psychopath of Single WhiteFemale, who wants her room mate totake the place of her dead twin sisternot only cannibalizes her friend’spersonality, appearance andmannerisms but also tries to murderany man who stands in her way. PoisonIvy’s eponymous heroine sets out toeliminate a mother and daughter inorder to possess the husband. In thesefilms, woman’s violent destructiveurges arise from her failure to lead a‘normal’ life in possession of friendsand family. This version of the femalepsychopath represents a moreconventional view of femalemonstrosity in that woman transformsinto a monster when she is sexuallyand emotionally unfulfilled. She seeksrevenge on society, particularly the

heterosexual nuclear family, because ofher lack, her symbolic castration.

Whereas the castrated femalemonster is inevitably punished for hertransgressions, the castrating woman –usually a sympathetic figure – is rarelypunished. She assumes two forms: thecastrating female psychotic (Sisters,Play Misty for Me, Repulsion, BasicInstinct) and the woman who seeksrevenge on men who have raped orabused her in some way. The group ofhorror films which most clearlyrepresent woman in this light is thewoman’s revenge film. Films of thisgenre include: Rape Squad, Lipstick,Death Weekend, I Spit On Your Grave,Mother’s Day, Ms 45, Savage Streets,Naked Vengeance, Violated, FairGame. Usually the heroine takesrevenge because either she – or afriend – has been raped and/ormurdered by a single male or a groupof men. In some films, woman takes

revenge for causes other than rape: thereason, however, is almost alwayslinked to some form of maleexploitation. Newman sees thesuccessful Last House on the Left,based on Ingmar Bergman’s The VirginSpring, as the American forerunner ofthe rape-revenge films. Directed byWes Craven, The Last House on theLeft prompted a series of remakes andimitations – among the latter are anumber of films in which the femalevictims take their own revenge. Someinvolve a graphic castration scene,particularly I Spit on Your Grave,which I will shortly discuss in somedetail.

One of the best known of the rape-revenge films is Ms 45 (1981). Theheroine, Thana, is a seamstressworking in New York. On her wayhome one night she is raped, only tofind a robber in her fiat who alsoattempts to rape her. She manages to

kill him and then cuts up his body, laterdepositing his body parts around thetown. Seeking revenge against allpotential rapists, Thana walks thestreets at night, enticing men to her,then shooting them. The film carefullyavoids the sensational; the attacks onThana are not filmed in order toencourage the audience to identify withthe rapist; nor are her acts ofvengeance filmed so as to inviteaudience pleasure in scenes of bloodand gore. Violated (1985) presents amost unusual example of a rape-revenge film. Banding together, a groupof women who are victims of rapedecide to take action against rapistswho have been let out of prison andwho rape again. The group consists ofwomen from a range of professionsand includes a police officer and asurgeon. The former is able to gainaccess to the names and whereaboutsof men who are repeated rapists. The

women approach their victims in bars,slip sleeping pills into their drinks andsmuggle them back to the home of thesurgeon, who has set up an operatingtheatre in her basement. (The surgeon’syoung daughter was raped andmurdered by a man let out of prisonafter an earlier offence.) The surgeonsurgically castrates the men, who wakeup next morning in a bar or park unableto recall what has happened to them.The police have little sympathy withthe men’s requests for help and evenmake jokes about whether they shouldrecord the complaint as ‘assault’ or‘robbery’. As with most other films inthis sub-genre, the women are notpunished; rather, they are shown to bejustified in their actions.

Basic Instinct (1992), an enormoussuccess at the box office, opens with agruesome scene in which a womanstabs a man to death with an ice-pickafter reaching orgasm. He is tied to the

bed; she is on top. All of the fourleading women in the film are eitherbisexual or lesbian, suggesting thatwomen’s sexual interests are, bynature, ambivalent. The central femalecharacter is beautiful, alluring,intelligent. Basic Instinct suggests thatall women are potential killers and thathaving sex with women is an extremelydangerous business. The final sequencedepicts a couple making love; the lastshot reveals an ice pick under the bed,suggesting metaphorically her deadlyvagina dentata. Basic Instinct is not aconventional revenge film in that thenarrative does not explain or justifywoman’s desire to kill man. Nor doesit attribute the murderous game of thefemale psychotic to the embrace of asuffocating mother as do films dealingwith the male psychotic. It seems thatthe desire for revenge is alwayspresent in women. The message of thefilm appears to be that for the

unsuspecting man, caught in the throesof orgasm, death may come at any time.

THE SLASHER FILM AND THEFEMALE CASTRATOR

Although the slasher film appears toconcentrate more on woman as victim,this popular sub-genre is also relevantto a discussion of woman as castrator.The typical slasher/stalker filmemerged in 1978 with the release ofJohn Carpenter’s Halloween andcontinued to enjoy remarkablepopularity, particularly with youngaudiences, over the following decade.Examples of films from this periodinclude: Halloween, Prom Night, HellNight, My Bloody Valentine, HappyBirthday to Me, The Texas ChainsawMassacre, Sisters, Friday the 13thand Nightmare on Elm Street. The lasttwo films mentioned proved sopopular that each has given birth to an

entire series. However, the slasherfilm did not just suddenly appear; itsorigins can be located in earlier filmssuch as The Lodger, The LeopardMan, Night Must Fall, Peeping Tom,Fanatic, The Nanny and Psycho aswell as the ripper sub-genre whichdealt with the story of the infamousJack the Ripper. In general, the term‘slasher’ is used to define those filmsin which a psychotic killer murders alarge number of people, usually with aknife or other instrument of mutilation.In the contemporary slasher film thelife-and-death struggle is usuallybetween an unknown killer and a groupof young people who seem to spendmost of their time looking for a placeto have sex away from the searchingeyes of adults. The killer, who isusually – but not necessarily – male,stalks and kills relentlessly; hispowers seem almost superhuman. Hisweapons are sharp instruments such as

knives, pokers, axes, needles, razors.His bloodbath is finally brought to anend by one of the group – usually awoman. Intelligent, resourceful andusually not sexually active, she tends tostand apart from the others.

A high level of replication, in termsof narrative structure and mise-enscène is an important feature of theslasher film. It is also marked by therecurrent use of the point of view orsubjective shot taken from theperspective of the killer. This is notfollowed by a typical reverse shot; theidentity of the killer frequently remainsunknown until the very end. As RogerEbert points out, the influence of theslasher film has led to an increasinguse of the subjective camera toencourage the spectator to identify withthe viewpoint of the anonymous killerwhich Ebert describes as ‘anonspecific male killing force’ (1981,56).

In her excellent study of the slasherfilm, ‘Her body, himself: gender in theslasher film’, Carol J. Clover writesthat in most slasher films made since1978, the year of Halloween’s release,men and women who indulge in illicitsex die. The difference is that morewomen die and the scenes of theirdeath are more graphic.

But even in films in which malesand females are killed in roughlyeven numbers, the lingeringimages are inevitably female. Thedeath of a male is alwaysswift . . . [and is] more likely thanthe death of a female to beviewed from a distance, orviewed only dimly (because ofthe darkness or fog, for example),or indeed to happen offscreen andnot be viewed at all. The murdersof women, on the other hand, arefilmed at closer range, in more

graphic detail, and at greaterlength.

(Clover, 1989, 105)

In Clover’s view, women are chosenmore often as victims because they arepermitted a greater range of emotionalexpression. ‘Angry displays of forcemay belong to the male, but crying,cowering, screaming, fainting,trembling, begging for mercy belong tothe female. Abject terror, in short, isgendered feminine’ (ibid., 117).According to Royal Brown the slasherfilm ‘grows out of the severest, moststrongly anti-female aspects of a veryAmerican brand of the Judaeo-Christian mythology’ in which woman,because of her sexual appetites, is heldresponsible for man’s fall frominnocence (1980, 172). Woman isvictimized because she is blamed forthe human condition.

The slasher film deals specifically

with castration anxieties, particularlywith the male fear of castration. Theimage of woman’s cut and bleedingbody is a convention of the genre (seeDika, 1987). Freud drew attention tothe way in which some men enact onwoman’s body a symbolic form ofcastration. For instance, the fetishistmight cut off a woman’s hair ‘to carryout the castration which he disavows’(‘Fetishism’, 157). Symboliccastration appears to be part of theideological project of the slasher film.Due to the development of specialeffects, it is now possible to showwoman’s symbolic castration ingraphic detail. According to Freud,woman terrifies because she appearsto be castrated. The terror she invokesis linked to the sight of something.Laura Mulvey drew attention to thehorrifying aspects of the castratedfemale form in film in her article onvisual pleasure when she referred to

woman as ‘the bearer of the bleedingwound’ (Mulvey, 1989, 14). It is thissight – the spectacle of woman as‘bleeding wound’ – which is central tothe representation of the victim in theslasher film. The slashed and mutilatedfemale body terrifies mainly in relationto the spectacle of horror it presents.Scenes of male mutilation no doubtalso give rise to castration anxiety,particularly in those texts where thecastra-tor is female.

Very little critical attention has beengiven to the female castrator of theslasher film. Woman is represented ascastrator in two contexts: as slasherand as heroine. There are a number offilms which portray a female slasher –Play Misty for Me, Hands of theRipper, Friday the 13th, Don’t LookNow, Sisters. These films differ fromthe rape-revenge category in that thefemale slasher is always representedas psychotic. In some films the slasher

appears to be female but is actually amale masquerading as a woman(Psycho, A Reflection of Fear,Dressed to Kill). In Friday the 13th,the castrating mother slashes both maleand female victims; her victims aremutilated/murdered because theyengage in sexual activities. The motheris avenging the death of her son, Jason,who drowned because a group ofyoung people were having sex insteadof minding him properly. Like NormanBates in Psycho, she is also a sexuallyambiguous figure. She takes on theidentity of her son, speaking in a malevoice to herself as she wreaks hervengeance.

The heroine of the slasher film isalso represented as a castrating figure– a crucial point which is largelyignored in critical discussions of thegenre. Clover emphasizes the savagenature of her revenge. In dispatchingthe killer, the heroine frequently

engages in castration, symbolic orliteral. ‘His eyes may be put out, hishand severed, his body impaled orshot, his belly gashed, or his genitalssliced away or bitten off (Clover,1989, 115). This litany of horrificdeeds enacted on the male slasher’sbody reads like a passage from anancient myth or legend about the fate ofthe wandering hero who was foolishenough to arouse the anger of thefemale monster – the Bacchae, Furies,Sirens, Gorgons or Kali herself. Usinga Freudian psychoanalytic framework,Clover, however, does not allow theheroine – whom she calls ‘the FinalGirl’ – to be defined as castrating. Sheargues that the slasher film phallicizesthe heroine. For instance, the heroine’susually boyish name(Laurie/Halloween, Marti/Hell Night,Stretch/Texas Chainsaw II) suggestsshe is not a typically ‘feminine’ figure:

Figuratively seen, the Final Girlis a male surrogate in thingsoedipal, a homoerotic stand-in,the audience incorporate; to theextent that she ‘means’ girl at all,it is only for the purposes ofsignifying phallic lack. . . . Thediscourse is wholly masculine,and females figure in it onlyinsofar as they ‘read’ some aspectof male experience. To applaudthe Final Girl as a feministdevelopment . . . is, in the light ofher figurative meaning, aparticularly grotesque expressionof wishful thinking.

(Clover, 1989, 119)

But because the heroine is representedas resourceful, intelligent anddangerous it does not follow that sheshould be seen as a pseudo man.Furthermore, there are many heroinesof the slasher film who do not have

boyish names: Jennifer (I Spit on YourGrave), Alice (Friday the 13th),Valerie (Slumber Party Massacre). Inthe last of these, one of the few slasherfilms scripted and directed by women(Rita Mae Brown and Amy Jonesrespectively) the heroine attacks thekiller with a machete before she cutsoff his hand and impales him. Theparticularly resourceful heroines of theElm Street series are called Nancy,Kirsten, Alice and Maggie. As I haveshown, the phallic woman andcastrating woman are different figures.The avenging heroine of the slasherfilm is not the Freudian phallic womanwhose image is designed to allaycastration anxiety (we encounter hermainly in pornography and film noir)but the deadly femme castratrice, afemale figure who exists in thediscourses of myth, legend, religionand art but whose image has beenrepressed in Freudian psychoanalytic

theory largely because it challengesFreud’s view that man fears womanbecause she is castrated.

Clover argues that the slasher filmresolves man’s castration anxietyeither by ‘eliminating the woman(earlier victims) or reconstituting heras masculine’ that is by phallicizing theheroine so that she can defeat themonster (Clover, 1989, 117). But theslasher film does not, as Cloversuggests, simply ‘eliminate thewoman’. Specific female victims maydisappear but the place of one victimis quickly taken by another –sometimes male – who is also cut andbleeding. Nor do these films seek toresolve castration anxiety. Cloverherself demonstrates that scenes ofwoman’s mutilation and death areshown in great detail. Furthermore, thelarge number of mutilated victimshelps to keep this anxiety alive. This ishardly designed to allay castration

anxieties. The slasher film activelyseeks to arouse castration anxiety inrelation to the issue of whether or notwoman is castrated. It does thisprimarily by representing woman in thetwin roles of castrated and castrator,and it is the latter image whichdominates the ending in almost all ofthese films. Significantly, in his attackon the contemporary slasher film,Ebert began by deploring thevictimization of women but concludedon a very different, somewhatdefensive, note: ‘These movies maystill be exorcizing demons, but theidentity of the demons has changed.Now the “victim” is the poor, put-upon, traumatized male in the audience.And the demons are the women on thescreen’ (Ebert, 1981, 56). Ebert’slament suggests that horror films whichdeal with the female castrator areeither reinforcing a view that woman isdeadly and dangerous and/or they are

playing on the spectator’s fascinationwith the relationship between sex anddeath – particularly for the male.

THE FEMME CASTRATRICE INFILM

Two films which present interestingand different representations of thefemme castratrice are I Spit on YourGrave and Sisters. The former belongsto the rape-revenge category, the latterto the psychotic slasher cycle. In I Spiton Your Grave the heroine literallycastrates. In Sisters the femaleprotagonist does not seek revenge forrape; rather she is depicted aspsychotic, a madwoman who wishes toavenge herself against the whole malesex. In both films the scenes ofcastration and murder are presented assensual, erotic moments characterizedby a marked degree of malemasochism. Why is it that male

directors are interested in makingfilms, albeit horror films, about malecastration? Why is the femmecastratrice, one of the more deadlypersonae adopted by the monstrous-feminine, almost always represented asfulfilling a stereotypical image offemale beauty? For she clearly comesacross as a modern-day version of theancient Sirens, those mythologicalfigures who lured sailors to their doomthrough the beauty of their song. TheSirens, of course, were images offemale castrators par excellence. Themyth resounds with images ofcastration anxiety: jagged rocks,cannibalism, death anddismemberment.

I Spit on Your Grave belongs to thatcategory of rape-revenge films whichpresents a direct representation of thefemme castratrice. There is no attemptto represent woman as castrator byimplication or through filmic devices

such as substitution or symbolism – asin Misery. Woman castrates her malevictim literally. I Spit on Your Gravetells the story of Jennifer Hills(Camille Keaton), a teacher from NewYork, who rents a house in the countryfor the summer. She plans to write abook about a fictional character calledMary Selby. At the petrol station shetalks to the attendant who turns out tobe Johnny, the leader of a pack of localhoodlums. The other group membersare Stanley, Andy and Matthew – thelatter is a hanger-on who is mildlyretarded and works as a delivery boyat the supermarket. The four hoodlumsviciously brutalize and rape Jenniferbefore leaving her for dead. Sherecovers and enacts a deadly revengeon each of the men.

Critics have been sharply divided intheir response to the film. Some focuson the rape scenes and argue that thefilm encourages violence against

women; it is frequently singled out indebates on censorship as an exampleof a ‘video nasty’. Others argue that thefilm is more likely to militate againstviolence. Phil Hardy has presented oneof the more thoughtful responses. Heargues that the men are so repulsive,the rapes so harrowing and horrifying,it is difficult to imagine that malespectators would identify with therapists, particularly as the narrativeaction is presented from the woman’spoint of view. ‘Further, there is nosuggestion that “she asked for it” orenjoyed it, except, of course, in therapists’ own perceptions, from whichthe film is careful to distance itself.’Hardy, however, is critical of the wayin which the heroine changes into anavenging fury:

by allowing her to lapse into analmost catatonic, silent obsessive,the film distances the viewer from

her, making her seem like a merecipher and pushing herdangerously close to that negativefemale stereotype, the all-destructive femme castratrice(quite literally, as it happens, inthis case).

(Hardy, 1986, 329)

Jennifer’s revenge is terrible, exactand executed in perfect style. She istransformed from a friendly, likeablebut ordinary woman into a deadly andpowerful killer. There is no suggestionthat she will fail in the execution of herplans. From the moment she picks upher gun, dresses in black and asks Godfor forgiveness for what she is about todo, we know she – like the hero of thewestern – will hunt down each manand wipe him from the face of theearth. Filled with a terrible butperfectly justifiable wrath, Jenniferbecomes the all-powerful, all-

destructive, deadly femme castratrice.She appears to win, not lose, audiencesympathy. Although her revenge mightappear monstrous, woman is notimplicated in guilt for what she hasdone in the way that the protagonists ofthe male revenge film are. ClintEastwood in the Dirty Harry films is,as the title suggests, contaminatedalong with the criminals he pursues.

Nevertheless, I Spit on Your Graveis still misogynistic in itsrepresentation of woman. It isimportant to note that the scenes inwhich Jennifer carries out her revengeare deliberately eroticized. Woman ismonstrous because she castrates, orkills, the male during coition. The firstkilling, which sets the scene for thelater murders, is clearly in the mode ofa sacrificial rite. Jennifer is dressed inthe garb of a priestess or nymph. Shelures her victim into the woods withthe promise of sexual bliss. The victim

dies, strangled in her noose, just as heachieves orgasm. Woman signifies sexand death. Her second killing isimbued with an even more ritualisticquality. She lures her victim into a bathwhere she first cleanses his body andthen brings him to the point of orgasmbefore castrating him. As he dies, hisblood streams forth to the strains ofclassical music. Woman, pleasure anddeath are intimately related in thesescenes. The castrations are imbuedwith a sense of ritual: Jennifer takes areligious pledge prior to the deaths,she wears white robes and appears tohave acquired superhuman powers.The iconography of these scenes has aritualistic quality: white robes, water,classical music; the shedding of bloodas a form of atonement; the clearconnection between sexual pleasureand death. Although these are scenes ofrevenge, it seems clear that they serveother functions as well. They offer the

spectator the promise of an eroticpleasure associated with a desire fordeath and non-differentiation. In thiscontext, the femme castratricebecomes an ambiguous figure. Shearouses a fear of castration and deathwhile simultaneously playing on amasochistic desire for death, pleasureand oblivion.

In her discussion of male castrationanxiety, Karen Horney writes that the‘masculine dread of woman (themother) . . . weighs moreheavily . . . than the dread of the man(father), and the endeavour to find thepenis in women represents first andforemost a convulsive attempt to denythe existence of the sinister femalegenital’. She then poses the interestingquestion as to whether or not the maledread of women might be understoodfor men in terms of love and death:

Is any light shed upon it by the

state of lethargy – even the death– after mating, which occursfrequently in male animals? Arelove and death more closelybound up with one another for themale than the female, in whomsexual union potentially producesa new life? Does man feel, sideby side with his desire toconquer, a secret longing forextinction in the act of reunionwith the woman (mother)? Is itperhaps this longing that underliesthe ‘death-instinct’?

(Horney, 1967, 138–9)

It is significant that the three rapescenes in the first half of I Spit on YourGrave are filmed in a completelydifferent way from the revenge scenesof the second half. Whereas woman-as-victim is represented as an abjectthing, man-as-victim is not similarlydegraded and humiliated. If anything,

the death scenes of the male victimsoffer a form of masochistic pleasure tothe viewer because of the way theyassociate death with pleasure. (I amnot suggesting, for a moment, that thisinequality should be addressed byeroticizing the rape scenes.) The mainreason for this difference stems fromthe film’s ideological purpose – torepresent woman as monstrous becauseshe castrates.

The rape scenes are filmed in such away that woman becomes a completeand total victim. She is hunted down,degraded, humiliated and tortured. Themen subject her to vaginal, anal andoral rape and rape with a penis andbeer bottle. She is beaten, kicked andpunched. Her creative work is evenderided and desecrated. Furthermore,her humiliation and subjugation aredwelt on and drawn-out. On twooccasions the gang release her only tocapture her again later. On each

occasion their attacks grow moreviolent. Rarely are the rape fantasiesof even hard-core pornographyrepresented in such a brutal, horrificmanner. I Spit on Your Grave clearlyillustrates Lurie’s argument, discussedearlier, that woman is ‘constructed’ ascastrated in many films preciselybecause man fears that she is notcastrated.

It seems clear that woman is actuallybeing punished because, by her verynature, she represents the threat ofcastration. When one of the rapistsassaults her with a beer bottle, he callsher a ‘bitch’ and says what he likes in awoman is ‘total submission’. In thiscontext ‘total’ submission could meanonly one thing: he likes his womendead or nearly dead. If the scenes ofcastration and killing in I Spit on YourGrave had been filmed first and therape scenes presented last, the extremeviolence of the rapes might be more

understandable. As the film stands, therape scenes at the beginning can reallyonly be understood retrospectively asthe actions of a group of men who areterrified of women. They hunt herdown in a pack and they hold her downduring the rapes. She is so badlybeaten there is no possibility that shemight fight back. She has beensymbolically and literally transformedinto a battered, bleeding wound. Thesadistic nature of the attack can only beseen as an attempt to rob woman of herterrifying – but imaginary – powersbefore she can use them.

Sisters, an off-beat thriller in whichBrian De Palma pays tribute toPsycho, Rear Window and TheCabinet of Dr Caligari, has over theyears acquired a cult status. It tells thestory of a psychotic female slasher,Danielle Blanchion, who is invaded bythe murderous personality of her deadSiamese twin, Dominique. Both roles

are played by Margot Kidder.Whenever Danielle is attracted to aman, Dominique takes over, slashes hisgenitals, and then murders him.Danielle’s ex-husband, Emile (WilliamFinley) is the doctor who carried outthe operation to separate the twins. Hekeeps Danielle drugged in order toprevent the ‘return’ of Dominique.When Grace (Jennifer Salt), a reporter,witnesses the murder of Philip, a manDanielle met at a quiz show in whichboth were participants, she brings inthe police; the problem is that Philip’sbody has disappeared. Grace decidesto investigate the murder, and thehistory of the twins, for herself.

Sisters has been described as a‘witty portrait of schizophrenia andsexual madness’ (Hogan, 1986, 262);as yet another Brian De Palma film inwhich he links what is unassimilableand unknown in our culture to thefemale or the ‘feminine energy of the

inner self and then destroys thisthreatening element (Waller, 1987,141); and as an ‘analysis of the waywomen are oppressed withinpatriarchal society’ (Wood, 1986,151). None of the critics who havewritten on Sisters draws attention tothe horrific scenes of male castrationin relation to the figure of the femmecastratrice. Drawing on Freudiantheory, Robin Wood argues that thefilm is primarily a study of thecastrated woman. While the filmcertainly does examine this notion, itsfull subject is a study of thecastrated/castrating woman in whichthe latter is represented as the centralfigure of female monstrosity.

The motif of identical twin sisters,one good, the other evil, is a popularstructure of the woman’s film (DeadRingers, Dark Mirror, A Stolen Life).The representation of twins in thehorror genre follows a similar pattern.

The twins always look alike but areessentially different. In Dark Mirrorone twin has committed a murder; theother hides her crime. As Mary AnnDoane points out, because the twinsare identical, ‘a psychiatrist is neededto see through the surface exterior tothe interior truths of the two sisters’(Doane, 1987, 43). Sisters is noexception; Emile plays the double roleof husband/doctor. Although theideological issues are similar, theconventions of the horror genre allowthe differences between the two sistersto be expressed in a more extreme andviolent form than in the woman’s film:the Danielle figure is castrated, assuggested by the scar on her side; theDominique figure castrates – literally.

There are at least three majorcastration scenes in Sisters. These are:the mutilation/castration of Philip;Grace’s hallucination/flashback inwhich she is drugged by Emile and

forced to relive the separation ofDanielle and Dominique; and thecastration and death of Emile. Whileman’s castration is genital, woman’scastration is depicted as a separationfrom part of her own self and/orseparation from another woman, hersister. In this scenario a part, but notall, of woman dies. This partconstitutes woman’s active,aggressive, phallic self. The self thatsurvives is represented assymbolically castrated through theimage of the scar.

The film presents its notion of thecastrated/castrating woman in relationto social and sexual definitions of whatconstitutes the proper feminine role forwoman. For instance, Grace’s motherrefuses to take her daughter’s careerseriously; she calls it her ‘little job’,something to do before she settlesdown to the serious business ofmarriage and family. Emile falls in

love with Danielle rather thanDominique presumably because she is,as we learn in the film from thedirector of the hospital: ‘So sweet, soresponsive, so normal as opposed toher sister.’ The film’s representation ofGrace emphasizes the sexist treatmentof women in society. Her editor givesher ridiculous assignments; the policerefuse to listen to her; her mothertrivializes her work; the privatedetective she hires dismisses hersuggestions; Emile drugs her in orderto destroy her knowledge of the truth;and finally she ends up at home withher elderly parents where she issurrounded by toys and patronized likea child.

The hallucination sequence iscrucial to our understanding of therepresentation of thecastrated/castrating woman. The entirehallucination/flashback is presentedfrom Grace’s viewpoint. At the time,

she is lying on a hospital bed next toDanielle. She has been caught by thehospital staff, drugged and hypnotizedby Emile who tells her that, if shewants to know all their ‘secrets’, hewill share them with her. He then pullsback Danielle’s clothes and showsGrace the scar that covers her side, avisible reminder of her separationfrom her twin. When Danielle askswho Grace is he replies: ‘Don’t youremember? She was always here.’Emile then takes Grace back to thetime when the twins were young. Emileverbally directs Grace’s hallucinationbut it is impossible to tell which eventsactually happened. Not only doesGrace weave her own memories intothe hallucination, it is clear that Emileis somewhat demented. Extreme close-up shots of Grace’s eye repeatedly fillthe screen as Emile moves Grace’shallucination in new directions. Graceis now ‘Dominique’. We hear

Danielle’s voice recalling events. Thehallucination/flashback is in threeparts: the picnic of freaks; the primalscene; the operation/castration of thetwins. It is interrupted at least twice,when we return to the present.

The first part of Grace’shallucination/flashback follows theform of the documentary film on theBlanchion twins which Grace viewedwhen she began to investigate themurder. It commences with the scenefrom the film in which the Director ofthe Institute explains that Danielle isthe sweet, responsive twin andDominique is her opposite. In Grace’shallucination, however, he is nowwalking away from the camera as hetalks. He repeats the same informationbut his speech now echoes through thelong corridors; this creates an eerieeffect as well as re-emphasizing hisexplanation about the diametricallyopposed personalities of the twins. It

is significant that Grace, who has takenDominique’s place, has chosen torecall the episode from the film inwhich ‘her’ negative qualities arestressed. Grace/Dominique‘remembers’ a special party for theinmates of the Institute. She‘remembers’ that she and her sisterwere called ‘freaks’; at this point shesees her own mother, who regards heras a ‘freak of womanhood’, taking herphotograph. When we return to thepresent, Emile makes Danielle recallthat she cannot have a husband or ahome.

Part two involves a lovemakingepisode between Emile and Danielle.Grace watches herself/Dominiquebeing put to sleep as Emile makes loveto Danielle. The memory is like abizarre primal scene in which womanis depicted as a ‘double’ figure, onlycapable of sex if her twin selves aresplit from each other. The man is the

aggressor who deliberately silenceswoman’s critical self in order toappeal to her ‘desire’ to be a wife andmother. At this point the film cuts to awide-angle shot and we see a figure inthe foreground writing on a pad as thefilm of the seduction scene continues.In her hallucination, Grace imaginesherself taking notes as she did whenfirst viewing the film about theSiamese twins. The difference is thatGrace is now playing a double role:she is both the reporter carrying out herinvestigations and one of the subjectsunder investigation. Grace is womaninvestigating herself – a privilegedposition in patriarchal culture. In theend, however, Grace is punished forher temerity; she is denied allopportunity to reveal the truth becauseEmile makes her ‘forget’ what she hasdiscovered.

When Emile brings Grace back tothe present he makes Danielle recall an

episode in which she and Dominiquewere walking together in the gardenand Dominique tried to kill her unbornbaby with a pair of garden shears.Reference to the garden shears recallsan earlier scene, when Grace brokeinto the Institute and encountered oneof the patients in the garden menacinglypruning plants with a large pair ofshears. As she left, he snapped theshears at her as if warding off an evildemon. The shears have now beenincorporated into Grace’shallucination. Danielle then cries outthat she is going to lose her ‘baby’. Itis impossible to establish the status ofthis scene. Did it actually occur – asRobin Wood suggests in his analysis ofthe film? (Wood, 1986, 153). Or is itonly part of Grace’s hallucination?Regardless of its status in relation toactuality, the ‘baby’ appears torepresent Danielle’s desire fornormality and proper womanhood. It is

this desire which Dominique hasdestroyed and which, by extension,Grace wishes to destroy.

Part three represents the operation toseparate the twins. Grace/Dominiqueand Danielle are lying on an operatingtable with an audience in attendance.Members of the audience include theman who made the documentary film,the detective, a pair of identical maletwins, and two nursing nuns who alsolook like twins in their identicaluniforms. The figure of the doublehaunts the mise-en-scène, invoking anuncanny atmosphere. Emile prepares tooperate. He tells Danielle that she haslost the baby and is now bleedingbadly. If she is to live, she must beseparated from Dominique. It is Grace,however, who is lying beside her. Thecamera reveals a large meat cleaverlying next to the table; the cleaver ispicked up by the detective whomGrace hired. He passes it to a member

of the audience and finally to Emile.He raises the cleaver and brings itdown swiftly in order to cut throughthe flesh of the hip where the twins arejoined. Grace wakes up screaminghysterically. Danielle falls to the floorwhere she cries out for Dominique.Emile tells her that Dominique is dead.

Grace is Dominique, that is, Gracerepresents the female castrator, thewoman who refuses to adopt theproper feminine role. This pairing isreinforced by the fact that Gracebecomes Dominique in thehallucination sequence. When Emilewants to make love to Danielle, hemust put her ‘other self, the one whichis dangerous to man, to sleep. This isthe price that Danielle must pay if sheis to conform to the proper femininerole. She must not listen to her ‘sister’;she must permit herself to be cut off,symbolically and literally, from otherwomen. Dominique/Grace refuses

castration; Danielle has acceptedcastration in order to become a properwoman living within a patriarchalculture. Nevertheless, Danielle is stillpotentially dangerous and Emile keepsher drugged in order to prevent thereturn of Dominique. When Dominiquetakes over, Danielle becomes thefemme castratrice.

Emile appears to be fully aware ofthe price Danielle must pay, yet seemsto believe the sacrifice necessary andworthwhile. When Grace wakes upscreaming from her hallucination,Danielle calls out for Dominique.Danielle says her sister will comeback and kill Emile. In a scene ofperverse desire, Emile fondlesDanielle’s breasts as he talks. He isclearly aroused by the danger of hissituation. ‘Dominique never died foryou. You kept her alive in your mind.Sometimes you became her. . . . Everytime I made love to you, Dominique

came back and took control of you. Itwas all I could do to keep you sedateduntil Dominique went away.Dominique is dangerous to both of us.To Dominique any man who makeslove to you is me, Emile. Danielle Ilove you.’ Danielle escapes from hisembrace. He corners her andcommands her to look at the knife withwhich she killed Philip. It is stillcovered with blood. ‘Look at thisknife! You killed a man with thisknife!’

When Emile holds the bloody knifeup to Danielle, he appears deliberatelyto awaken her castration desires, thosedesires which he has previously keptunder control with drugs. As Emilestruggles to control Danielle, whoreaches for a razor, we know that hewill be her next victim. Why has Emilekept the bloody knife? Why has heprecipitated a situation that could leadto his own death? Not only did he

arrange for Grace to play the role ofDominique by placing her on the bedbeside Danielle, he guided Graceduring her hallucination/flashback insuch as way that she was made torelive Dominique’sseparation/castration from Danielle.This brutal act alone is enough toawaken Danielle’s murderous desirefor revenge. Emile then parades thepast before Danielle, deliberatelyprovoking her. Did he hope finally topurge Danielle of the past or was hismotive related more to his ownperverse sexual desires for woman asdeadly ‘other’? His relationship withDanielle, a woman so dangerous shehad to be kept permanently drugged,was obviously fraught with danger. Hesays that every time he made love toDanielle, Dominique came back. ForEmile, lovemaking is literally a matterof life and death.

As Danielle/Dominique grasps for

the razor, she pretends to be in a stuporand recalls details from the previouscastration and murder scene; she alsorefers to the birthday cake that Philipbrought her (see illustration) andmentions making a ‘wish’. Was this awish for revenge – revenge for the lossof her sister, her other self? At thismoment she finally grasps the razor,and slashes Emile across the genitalsseveral times in the same way that sheslashed Philip. Emile staggers acrossthe room after her, clinging to her backas if trying to penetrate her frombehind in a frenzy of blood. Just as hemade Grace touch Danielle’s wound,he now makes Danielle touch hisslashed and bleeding genitals. Emiledies, clasping Danielle’s hand in hisown. The image of their two handslocked together, both covered withEmile’s blood, points to man’s fatalattraction to woman and hismasochistic desire to surrender to

death.Sisters explores the representation

of woman as castrated/castrator whilesimultaneously playing on man’sinability to tell the difference. Iswoman castrated or does she castrate?Does she use one persona to disguiseher hidden and deadly face? What liesbehind the veil? Robin Wood hasdescribed Sisters as ‘the definitivefeminist horror film . . . among themost complete and rigorous analysesof the oppression of women underpatriarchal culture in the whole ofpatriarchal cinema’ (Wood, 1986, 76).While I am in sympathy with Wood’sgeneral ideological approach, I cannotagree with his conclusion – that themonster is women’s liberation and ‘thesubject of Sisters is the oppression(castration) of women underpatriarchy’ (ibid., 157). There are atleast two monsters in Sisters – Emileand Dominique – and the film, while

presenting an analysis of ‘theoppression of women’, is also aboutman’s fear of woman as deadlycastrator.

Wood claims that:

Danielle/Dominique function bothliterally and symbolically;literally, as freaks whomnormality has no place for, mustcure, hence destroy; symbolically,as a composite image of all thatmust be repressed underpatriarchy (Dominique) in orderto create the nice, wholesome,submissive female (Danielle).

(ibid., 153)

I would argue that the composite imageof Danielle (castrated/proper woman)and Dominique (castrator/deviantwoman) is not something that needs tobe repressed in order to ensure theworkings of patriarchal ideology. On

the contrary, such a composite image,in which woman’s nature isrepresented as deceptive andunknowable, is essential to the properfunctioning of such an ideology. It isrepresented continually withindifferent signifying practices such asfilm, art, religion, pornography,literature, jokes and colloquial speech.It is interesting, however, to note thatthe majority of critical and theoreticalwritings on sexual difference in thecinema have kept alive the image of thecastrated woman while ignoring heralter ego, the castrating woman.

Sisters presents a contradictorymessage about the role of women inpatriarchy. On the one hand, the filmsets out to terrify the spectator with animage of woman as psychotic castrator.On the other hand, it presents aninteresting explanation of woman’soppression within patriarchy. InSisters woman’s desire to castrate man

is related directly to her own earliermutilation, separation and the death ofher active self. The self whichsurvives, represented by Danielle, isthe one that is passive, compliant,pliable. However, man’s attempt tocastrate woman symbolically andrepress her active self is representedas a failure. This self, represented byDominique, is easily aroused and manmust remain forever vigilant if he is tosurvive. However, in Sisters, man’sattempt to overcome his deep-seatedfear of woman’s castrating desires alsofails. At the end, Emile appearsdeliberately to call forth Danielle’srepressed self as he surrenders to herdeadly embrace. In each sex it is therepressed aspect which emergesvictorious – man’s masochistic andwoman’s sadistic self. The film’sunderlying critique of subjectivity andrepression – specifically in relation togender – is perhaps its most interesting

feature. Sisters depicts both castra-tors– Emile and Dominique – asmonstrous. Emile becomes monstrousin the hallucination scene when we seehim separate the twins with a meatcleaver. It is, however, the image ofwoman as castrator that constitutes thedominant figure of monstrosity in thetext, partly because of the more‘realistic’ status assigned to the scenesof male castration.

Emile is clearly presented as amonster in the hallucination scene.However, the entire scene is part ofGrace’s hallucination/flashback, whichis composed partly of Grace’s ownmemories and partly of the imagesEmile conjures up by his narration,while she is under hypnosis. It isrelevant to consider the function of theflashback in the classic Hollywoodtext. Doane presents an interestingdiscussion of the flashback in thewoman’s film. Drawing on Marc

Vernet’s observation that Freud’s‘talking cure’ is represented as onebrought about by the power of sight(Doane, 1987, 46–7), she argues thatthe flashback in film is similarly usedas the means whereby the patient isable to see the past more clearly andunderstand the nature of her problems.This process, whereby seeing bringsabout a cure, is represented in filmssuch as Lady in the Dark and TheSnake Pit. But, as Doane points out,‘Psychoanalysis and the cinema alikepresent the woman with a verycarefully constructed relation toenunciation’ (ibid., 54). She argues thatwoman’s narration is almost alwaysinterpreted and is ‘therapeutic onlywhen constrained and regulated by thepurposeful ear of the listening doctor’so her narration ‘is granted a limitedvalidity’ only (ibid.). The doctorelicits her enunciation with a drug orinterrupts to interpret the events as she

recalls them.In Sisters, Emile not only injects

Grace with a drug; he also hypnotizesher and then narrates the events sheexperiences. Grace experiences theflashback but its status as a ‘truthful’account of events is completelyundermined. As it stands, the sequenceexhibits instabilities usually associatedwith a dream, or in this case anightmare. What Grace ‘sees’represents, to some extent, her ownexperience of living in a world hostileto the independent woman. Herhallucination is peopled with figuresshe knows, such as her mother, whocontinually attempt to deny her a voice.She experiences this as a brutal attackin which she is cut off from her‘sister’, forced to live out thecaricature of aggressive womanhoodthat is Dominique.

In contrast with woman’s‘castration’, the two scenes of male

genital castration take place in the‘real’ and by comparison are bloodyand gruesome. They are not narratedthrough a flashback and hence do notexhibit the instabilities associated withthat structure. The scenes of malecastration are filmed in the present andtake on the reality effect of thedominant discourse. Compared withEmile, a rather pathetic figure,Danielle/Dominique is terrifyingprecisely because she is a borderlinepersonality, her normal exterior hidinga demented female fury. Nevertheless,Sisters is interesting in the way inwhich it locates the forces ofrepression in the dictates of patriarchalideology. Furthermore, through thefigure of Grace, it presents woman’sinferior status as a result of sociallyinduced forms of control andrepression rather than as a result ofpenis envy – the reason Freud gave forwoman’s supposed desire to castrate

man (see pp. 119–21). Sisters alsoopenly explores male castration – afactor which has been totally ignoredin its critical reception.

In the final sequence, Grace istransformed into a state of infantiledependency on her parents andDanielle/Dominique is arrested forEmile’s murder. As she is taken away,she says, as all good monsters do: ‘ButI wouldn’t hurt anyone.’ The final shotreveals the private detective strapped,in an erect pose, to a phallic telegraphpole as he spies through his binocularson the couch containing Philip’smutilated body, now abandoned at acountry station. In its attempt to fortifythe power of the phallus, the imageconveys – intentionally – a slightlyabsurd, even surreal, impression. Thethreatening power of woman lingers inthe final shot, pointing to the insecurityof the male imagination. Man must beever on the alert, poised in phallic

anticipation whenever signs of thedeadly femme castratrice are present.

10

THE CASTRATINGMOTHER: PSYCHO

‘Go on, go tell her she’ll not beappeasing her ugly appetite withmy food or my son. Or do I haveto tell her because you don’t havethe guts? Huh, boy? Do you havethe guts, boy?’

Mrs Bates, in Psycho

In recent years, feminist film theory hasincreasingly focused on therepresentation of the mother-childrelationship, particularly in the

woman’s film and maternalmelodrama. Issues explored includerepression (The Old Maid), sacrifice(Stella Dallas), incestuous desire(Mildred Pierce) and maternalincorporation (Now Voyager).Relationships in the maternalmelodrama are almost always betweenmother and daughter; it is to the horrorfilm we must turn for an exploration ofmother-son relationships. The latterare usually represented in terms ofrepressed Oedipal desire, fear of thecastrating mother and psychosis. Giventhe nature of the horror genre – itspreoccupation with monstrosity,abjection and horrific familialscenarios – the issues surrounding themother-child dyad are generallypresented in a more extreme andterrifying manner. However, E. AnnKaplan’s analysis of Now Voyager andMamie, which draws on Kristeva’stheory of the abject mother, makes it

clear that in some instances thewoman’s film can also represent themother as a terrifying figure, a ‘phobicobject’ who inspires ‘awesome fear’(Kaplan, 1990, 133).

The monstrous mother is central to anumber of horror texts. Her perversityis almost always grounded inpossessive, dominant behaviourtowards her offspring, particularly themale child. Psycho, Fanatic andFriday the 13th represent the over-possessive mother as a dangerouspsychotic. In all three, the child is ason. Psycho, The Psychopath, TwistedNerve, The Fiend, The House ThatScreamed and Mother’s Day all tosome extent represent the psychotickiller son as the product of an over-possessive mother. The mother as adominating religious fanatic and bigotwho destroys her daughter is exploredin Carrie. The female psychotic of theextremely successful Fatal Attraction

is ultimately shown as mad because ofher voracious need to possess a childand husband. The castrating mother iscentral to Dario Argento’s Deep Red.She is introduced in the creditssequence where we hear a child’snursery rhyme set against a Christmastree. Shadows thrown on to the wallbehind the tree reveal two peopleengaged in a life-and-death struggle.One of the figures appears to be fatallystabbed with a large knife. The bloodyweapon is isolated to the left of theframe as a child’s feet walk into view,indicating that the child has watchedthe horrifying murder. The originalscene – the murder of the father – isevoked throughout the narrative whenthe strains of the child’s song are heardjust prior to each new murder. In thefinal sequence, the murderer, whom wehave been encouraged to think is male,is identified as the mother. Throughoutthe narrative the son, Carlo, who is

homosexual, has covered up for hisderanged mother. There is a suggestionthat his fear of women is linked to hischildhood memory of the knife-wielding, castrating mother.

Psycho, one of the most influentialhorror films ever made, provides uswith an exemplary study of the horrorthat ensues when the son feelsthreatened, physically and psychically,by the maternal figure. Norman Bates’sdesire to become the mother ismotivated not by love but by fear: hewants to become the mother in order toprevent his own castration – to castraterather than be castrated. TaniaModleski refers to Psycho as the‘quintessential’ horror film (1988,102). This is largely because itexplores the figure of the mother as thepunishing castrating parent. It is thisnotion of the maternal figure that seemsto have inspired Little Hans’s phobiasand fears (see Chapter 7). Once we

become aware of the prevalence of theimage of woman as castrator in thehorror film, we can more easilyrecognize the signs of her presence –cruel appraising eyes, knives, water,blood, the ‘haunted’ house. It isilluminating to reread Psycho from thisperspective. Through its representationof Marion, the younger woman, Psychoalso explores the notion that woman iscastrated but this latter image is not asterrifying as that presented by thematernal castrator. Horror is furtherintensified through the representationof the female figure as abject inrelation to images of woman’s blood,the mother’s entrails, the femalecorpse.

In ‘Psychosis, neurosis, perversion’Raymond Bellour argues for theimportance of Marion’s and Norman’sstories; he claims that the film‘contains two narratives, slipping oneunder the other, one into the other’

(1979, 107). One is the story ofMarion, the other Norman’s story. Inmy view, there is another narrative justas important as the two mentioned byBellour. This is the story of the mother.We can trace her story – fill in the gaps– in relation to both Norman andMarion’s stories. Freud said that thestory of the child’s early history withthe mother was ‘difficult tograsp . . . grey with age and shadowy’(‘Female sexuality’, 373). Althoughsimilarly difficult to detect, themother’s story in Psycho is crucial toour understanding of the representationof monstrosity in the text. The mother’sstory, which is really about her ‘fate’as a mother within a phallocentricculture, is interwoven with that ofMarion, the younger woman. Bothstories are related intimately with theson’s story and his problem with thebody of woman – is she castrated ordoes she castrate? In this sense the

mother’s story is not really ‘hers’; it isultimately the son’s story. Perhaps thisis why Freud found the mother’s storyso difficult to detect – hers is alwayspart of another story, the son’s story.

The opening sequence of Psycho, inwhich Marion (Janet Leigh) meets herlover Sam (John Gavin) in a hotelroom during her lunch hour,emphasizes the power of the mother asthe moral guardian of family values.Marion says she would like them tomeet at her place with her mother’spicture on the mantel. Sam counters herstated desire with the question: ‘Andafter the steak do we send Sister to themovies, turn Mamma’s picture to thewall?’ The mother stands for socialand familial respectability. It isinteresting to note the way in whichattention is indirectly drawn to themother’s look. It is as if she is able towatch everything from her position inthe picture frame. Throughout Psycho

woman is associated with eyes thatstare and appraise. It is the maternalgaze that Norman most fears, the lookthat will lay bare his innermost secretdesires, particularly his sexual ones; itis this aspect of the mother, her probinggaze, that he tries to ‘kill’ in otherwomen.

The role of the mother as moralwatchdog is again emphasized whenMarion arrives at the Bates motel,where she plans to spend the nightbefore driving on to Fairvale andgiving Sam the money she has stolenfrom her place of work. Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) offers to prepare alate supper for Marion. Whileunpacking, Marion hears Norman’smother reprimanding him for wantingto share a meal with an unknown girl.

Mrs Bates: ‘No! I tell you, No! Iwon’t have you bringing strangeyoung girls in for supper. By

candlelight, I suppose. In thecheap erotic fashion of young menwith cheap erotic minds.’Norman: ‘Mother, please!’Mrs Bates: ‘And then what? Aftersupper – music, whispers?’Norman: ‘Mother, she’s just astranger. She’s hungry and it’sraining out.’Mrs Bates: (mimics him)‘Mother, she’s just a stranger. Asif men don’t desire strangers. Oh!I refuse to speak of disgustingthings because they disgust me.Do you understand, boy? Go on,go tell her she’ll not be appeasingher ugly appetite with my food ormy son. Or do I have to tell herbecause you don’t have the guts?Huh, boy? Do you have the guts,boy?’Norman: ‘Shut up! Shut up!’

Mrs Bates spells out what was left

unsaid in the earlier conversationbetween Sam and Marion at the hotel.Mrs Bates knows what Marion’smother would have seen if she hadlooked out from her photograph – a‘cheap, erotic’ scene. She knows that‘after supper’ (Sam used a similarphrase) when mother is not looking, thecouple will feed their ‘ugly appetite’.Mrs Bates knows that men enjoyimpersonal sex, even sex with a‘stranger’. Like Marion’s mother, MrsBates is the enculturating mother, theparent who actively discourages anyform of illicit sexual desire. MrsBates, however, is represented astyrannical in the extreme; she still callsNorman ‘boy’, indicating that in hermind he will never grow up, never beresponsible for his own moral conduct.Mrs Bates is, in a sense, still toilettraining her son, that is, teaching himabout the clean and unclean areas ofthe body and mind. Visually, the

contrast between respectable andunres-pectable sex is reinforced by thejuxtaposition of motel and house – twokey symbols in the film. The house,domain of the mother, looms up behindthe motel as if trying to oversee theactivities that take place below, in themotel, a place associated withimpersonal casual sex.

Marion agrees to have supper withhim in the parlour behind the office.Significantly, Norman makes her ameal of sandwiches and milk – thekind of snack associated with a youngboy – the ‘mother’s boy’. Hitchcockdraws a number of parallels betweenNorman and Marion: both desire theirmothers’ approval; both are caught intraps of their own making. Norman’sparlour is filled with stuffed birdsperched menacingly on their stands. Heexplains his hobby to Marion: ‘Myhobby is stuffing things. You know,taxidermy . . . I think only birds look

well stuffed because, well becausethey are kind of passive to beginwith. . . . It’s not as expensive as youthink. It’s cheap really. You know,needles, threads, sawdust. Thechemicals are the only thing that, thatcost anything.’ The horrific import ofthis discussion only later becomesclear when we learn that Normankilled, cleaned out and stitched up hismother in the same manner. Normandraws the analogy between bird andmother himself when he says, ‘Butshe’s as harmless as one of thosestuffed birds.’

The psychiatrist later explains thatNorman preserved his mother, aftermurdering her, because he couldn’taccept the horror of his crime; hewanted to bring her back to life. It isalso possible that Norman murderedand mummified his mother because hewanted her dead and that hismurderous desires were not motivated

by Oedipal jealousy alone. Mrs Batesis a harsh moralist, a castratingmaternal figure. Norman explains toMarion that he doesn’t like stuffingdogs or cats because they are ‘notpassive to begin with’. What doesNorman mean by ‘passive’? The birdsin his parlour are birds of prey; theyhover menacingly overhead as if aboutto pounce on their victims. Norman hasfrozen them in time at the very momentwhen they are most dangerous, mostthreatening – the moment when they arepoised, motionless, just prior to thekill. This form of passivity is notassociated with a lack of will as onemight expect, but with the opposite,with the power and aggressivity of akiller ready to strike. Normanassociates his mother with the deadlypassivity of a monstrous bird of preyprobably because she was the parentwho hovered over him, watching hisevery move, threatening to pounce

when he committed a mistake. Sheridicules him for his lack of guts – asshe probably did when alive. Inretaliation, he has removed her guts,the entrails of his mother. (Hitchcockdid describe Psycho as a ‘blackcomedy’.) By mummifying her, Normancan freeze her aggressive, castratingdemeanour, and still her prying eye.

In deciding about the true nature ofNorman’s mother, however, we mustremember that all we have to go on isNorman’s representation of her. Wehave no way of learning what she waslike in reality; this is the son’s story. Interms of Norman’s portrayal of hismother, we learn that she controlled allaspects of his life. He presents her as acastrating figure, a mother who did nottrust her son, particularly in relation tohis sexual desires. To Norman, Motheris both the beloved and hated parent.The extent of her domination is madeclear when he says to Marion, ‘A boy’s

best friend is his mother.’ As ifintuitively grasping Marion’s situation,and by way of describing his own, hesuddenly says, ‘You know what I think.I think we are all in our private traps.Clamped in them and none of us canever get out. We scratch and claw, butonly at the air, only at each other, andfor all of it we never budge an inch.’Norman’s private trap is hisrelationship with his mother.

Marion’s suggestion that he go awayis met with strong resistance. ‘Icouldn’t do that. Who’d look after her?She’d be alone up there. The firewould go out. It would be cold anddamp like a grave. If you love someoneyou don’t do that to them, even if youhate them. You understand, I don’t hateher. I hate what she’s become. I hatethe illness.’ Marion suggests he ‘puther some place’. Norman is nowframed in a close-up. The music takeson a menacing note. Here Norman

delivers a speech about the‘madhouse’. ‘You mean an institution?A madhouse. People always call amadhouse some place, don’t they. Puther in some place. . . . Have you everseen the inside of those places?’Norman asks, ‘The laughing and thetears and the cruel eyes studying you.My mother there!’ Then in the nextbreath he adds, ‘But she’s harmless –she’s as harmless as one of thosestuffed birds.’ The parallel Normandraws between the birds and hismother, and her tyrannical control ofhim, suggests that the ‘madhouse’ is hisown internal state, his own ‘privatetrap’ and that the ‘cruel eyes’ thatscrutinize his every action areultimately those of the mother. Eventhough Norman has attempted to stillher prying eye, Mrs Bates, like thestuffed birds hovering motionlessoverhead, continues to ‘watch’ overhim from somewhere inside his own

head.The association of the mother with

birds of prey who attack children is notunique to Psycho. In classicalmythology, the striges were womenwith the bodies of birds and theclawed feet of vultures; they flew outat night to suck the blood of childrenand eat their flesh. Another fearfulimage of the monstrous-feminine inclassical mythology is that of the harpy,a bird of prey with a woman’s headand breasts, a large beak, hooked nails,a vile odour and an insatiable appetite.Harpies abducted children and carriedthem into the underworld. The term isstill in current usage. Hitchcock drawsconnections between women and birdsin a later film, The Birds, in which thebirds may also be understood as fetish-objects, not of the castrated/phallic,but of the castrating mother.

Norman stutters when he tries toexplain to Marion how much birds eat.

‘You – you eat like a bird. . . . Anyway,I hear the expression “eats like a bird”-it-it’s really a fals-fals-fals-falsity.Because birds really eat a tremendouslot.’ Although Norman intends toconvey the idea that Marion pecksdaintily at her food, he then correctshis comment and tells Marion thatbirds actually eat a ‘tremendous lot’.Like birds, women appear to peckdaintily but in reality they arevoracious consumers. It is the oralmother, the incorporating, devouringmother who threatens the son. Like thatof a bird, woman’s appetite isdeceptive; it is this ‘appetite’ whichNorman obliterates when he kills hismother. By poisoning her, Normansaves himself; similarly, he gives all ofthe meal to Marion, whom he latermurders – he saves none of it forhimself. Woman as monstrous isassociated with bodily appetites, crueleyes, a pecking beak.

The stuffed birds are represented asmore and more menacing. A shadowcast by the beak of the black crow isprojected on to the wall to look like aweapon. As pointed out by RaymondBellour: ‘Next to the painting, in thesame shot, the menacing shadow of thecrow is projected onto the wall,penetrating the picture like aknifeblade or a penis’ (Bellour, 1979,115). But a beak is somewhat differentfrom a blade or a penis. A beak canpenetrate the flesh like a blade, but it isalso a mouth which, as Norman pointsout, devours much more than oneimagines. Insofar as Normanassociates his mother/other womenwith his stuffed birds and theirdevouring beaks, the beak should alsobe seen as a sign of the castratingmother – the mother who threatens toincorporate the child both psychicallyand physically. In this context, thebeaks and the knife ‘Mrs Bates’ wields

become a sign of her function as thecastrating parent, the mother whomNorman becomes and whose power heassumes.

Marion’s surname – Crane – alsoassociates women and birds andfurther emphasizes the theme of thewatchful mother; the crane is a birdwith an extremely long neck whichenables it to command a clear view ofits habitat. Bellour points out thatMarion’s name also associates herwith the cinema (ibid., 125). A crane ispart of the cinematic apparatus; amechanism which enables the camerato adopt an omniscient view of the set,peering down from its lofty perch. Theassociation between woman and thecamera, the mother and moral sight, isfurther developed through language.Marion comes from Phoenix – thename of a bird associated in mythologywith rebirth. The two women representdeath, watchfulness and forms of

rebirth; Mrs Bates is dead but lives onin Norman’s mind as his alter ego:Marion is associated with amythological return which is madeconcrete through the intervention of thesister who bears a strikingresemblance to Marion and whoultimately learns the truth, ‘sees’everything.

What is it that the mother sees? Ofwhat terrible crime does she accuseher child? In Norman’s case, it wouldappear that she sees into his heart anduncovers his guilty secret, his sexualdesires. The scene in which Marionoverhears Norman/Mrs Batesdenounce the individual’s need forsexuality as ‘filthy appetite’ makes itclear that Mrs Bates represents themother of sexual repression. Unable toaccept his mother’s harsh attacks andher rejection of him for another male,Norman murders his mother and herlover. Significantly, he gives them rat

poison. To the extent that Norman hasinternalized his mother’s attitude tosex, rat poison would seem anappropriate punishment for a motherwho is privately indulging in the verybehaviour which she publiclycondemns in her son. He feeds her‘ugly appetite’ with poison. EarlierNorman stumbled over the word‘falsity’ when describing birds’appetites to Marion. But it is not justthe appetite of birds he is talkingabout; the other ‘fals-fals-fals-falsity’relates to the nature of sexual desire –the desire of his mother. While sheappears to be a harsh moralist, sheobviously does not veto sexual passionfor herself – only for her son. After all,she has taken a lover. By killing andstuffing birds – and his mother –Norman puts a stop to her need forfood/sex, the need she denies in him.

But what does Norman do to satisfyhis own sexual needs? He tells Marion

that he doesn’t have any friends of hisown. His mother is his ‘best friend’even though a ‘son is a poor substitutefor a lover’. As soon as Marion returnsto her room we learn that Norman is apeeping Tom, a voyeur. He has drilleda hole into one of the motel rooms sothat he can spy on its occupants. Thehole is covered with a painting whichdepicts a scene from classicalmythology of a woman’s sexualvictimization. In the air surrounding thesecret hole, several stuffed birds hang,poised, as if ready to strike. After herconversation with Norman, Marionreturns to her room, where sheresolves to return the money. Normanwatches her through his secret hole.Norman’s eye is filmed in extremeclose-up, drawing attention to theactivity of voyeurism. A reverse shotshows us that he is watching Marionundressing. As Norman watchesMarion, we are reminded of his

phrase, ‘the cruel eyes studying you’, aphrase he used to refer to theexperience of being trapped in amadhouse – one’s own private trap –and appeared to refer to the watchfuleyes of his mother. Now Normancontrols the look.

Most critical analyses of this scenerefer to the way in which Hitchcockdraws attention to the voyeurism, notjust of Norman, but also of thespectator in the cinema. WilliamRothman links Norman’s voyeurism tothat of the director as well as theaudience: ‘But if this is Norman’s eye,it equally stands in for our eye andHitchcock’s eye intently engaged in theact of viewing’ (1982, 289). David J.Hogan considers our voyeurism in amoral context: ‘Hitchcock has alreadymade voyeurs of us, so how can we bepresumptuous enough to condemnNorman for similar behaviour?’ (1986,186). In his analysis, Raymond Bellour

links Norman’s ‘bulging eye’ with thelook of the camera and the deadlyknife: ‘This is the point of maximalidentification between the characterand the instance of the mise-en-scene;it can only be surpassed by its ownexcess, when the camera-eye becomesa body-knife, entering the field of itsobject and attempting in vain tocoincide with it’ (Bellour, 1979, 118).While critical writings associateNorman’s voyeurism with that of theaudience, virtually no attention hasbeen given to the relationship betweenNorman’s voyeurism and his sexualdesires. Voyeurism is specificallyassociated with masturbation,particularly in relation to malespectatorship and pornographic imagesof women. The details of the mise-en-scène appear to have been arranged toemphasize this connection.

The painting which Norman hasplaced over his spy hole is that of

Susanna and the Elders, a fictionalstory set during the Jewish Exile inBabylon; it is particularly interesting inrelation to voyeurism. Two eldersconceive a passion for Susanna whomthey spy on when she bathes in thegarden. When she refuses to haveintercourse with them they denounceher, claiming they watched her as shelay with a young man. Eventually, theyare caught out because theirtestimonies do not match. The paintingdepicts the moment where theyapprehend her, trying to hold her semi-naked struggling body. Susanna andthe Elders points to man’s voyeurismand desire to punish woman for hersupposed sexual sins. Before removingit from the wall, Norman stares for amoment at this painting, as if the sceneit portrayed matched his own privatephantasy. He spies through a holedrilled in the wall. Directly in his lineof vision we see Marion undressing;

behind her is the bathroom. Like theelders, Norman secretly spies on awoman when she imagines she isalone, bathing herself in a moment ofsolitary pleasure. In the shadows onthe wall are paintings of birds – sign ofthe punishing mother. Norman replacesthe painting and returns to the house,where he halts at the foot of the stairsthat lead to the bedrooms. He thenturns and we see him in long shot as hesits at the kitchen table as if waiting forsomething to happen.

Back in her room Marion sits at adesk making calculations. She flushesthe torn paper, on which she has beenwriting, down the toilet bowl and turnson the shower taps. The camera asks usto identify with Marion through aseries of subjective shots taken fromher viewpoint as she looks up at theshower head. Marion is clearlyenjoying the cleansing hot water as itstreams down her body. Suddenly, we

see a shadowy figure enter thebathroom. As the shower curtain ispulled back, the music erupts intoshrill bird-like sounds signalling thepresence of the beaked mother. ‘MrsBates’ stands there, a large knife in herupraised hand. She stabs brutally atMarion’s defenceless body, cuttingopen her flesh. Norman, masqueradingas Mother, punishes Marion, mutilatesher flesh, transforming her body into ableeding wound.

The shower scene murder hastraditionally been interpreted in one oftwo ways: as representative of thedesire of the ‘Mother’ to eliminateMarion as a dangerous rival for herson’s affections; and as a symbolicform of rape enacted by Norman.Neither explanation is entirelysatisfactory. The first – the explanationgiven by the psychiatrist at the end –argues that Norman is acting out therole he has attributed to his mother; he

imagines she is jealous and wants toeliminate her rivals. The psychiatristexplains: ‘Because he was sopathologically jealous of her, heassumed that she was as jealous ofhim. Therefore, if he felt a strongattraction to any other woman, themother-side of him would go wild.’The psychiatrist interprets the showerscene murder as one of jealousrevenge. Norman-as-mother murderswomen who arouse his desires andthreaten to take him away from ‘her’.In his discussion of Psycho, RobinWood criticizes the psychiatrist’saccount as ‘glib’, an explanation that‘ignores as much as it explains’. Oneof the things it ignores is the murder as‘symbolic rape’ (Wood, 1970, 132).Bellour also interprets the knife attackas a form of symbolic rape enacted bythe phallic mother – the mother-as-a-fetish-figure of and for the son. In hisanalysis of doubling in the text, Bellour

links Sam with Norman. He alsoparallels the hotel lovemaking scenewith that of the shower murder. In theformer, man’s aggression towardswoman is disguised: in the latter iterupts in a murderous attack. Through arelay of symbols, the knife isassociated with the phallus – ‘phallus-bird-fetish-mother-eye-knife-camera’(Bellour, 1979, 119). Adopting the‘classical dialectic – as described byFreud and Lacan – of the phallus andcastration’, Bellour interprets themother as fetishized figure. ‘Themother’s body fetishized to death, so tospeak, becomes the body that murders’(ibid.). According to Bellour:

Through the incredibleincorporation of a metaphor-become-reality, Norman’sfascinated look carries within itthat phallus immemoriallyattributed to the mother. But he

can acknowledge it in himselfonly on condition that heceaselessly encounter it in hismirror-image, namely in thebody/look of woman (whichengenders the mirage), and as anabsolute threat to which he mustrespond.

(ibid., 119–20)

Bellour’s interpretation depends uponan acceptance of the Freudian argumentthat the infant believes the mother isphallic until that moment when heunderstands she is different andinterprets that difference as castration;in other words, he imagines she haslost her phallus/penis. But, as I haveargued, man also fears the motherbecause she castrates.

The notion that man fears the motherbecause she is the punishing, castratingparent provides us with another way ofinterpreting the shower-scene murder.

The ‘Mother’ who attacks Marion inthe shower is the castrating parent. Theknife does not just represent aphantasm, the phallus ‘immemoriallyattributed to the mother’; it alsorepresents an actual threat posed by themother – the threat of castration whichshe poses directly through her actions.Norman ‘becomes’ mother largely toturn the tables on mother, to ensure hisown survival – to castrate rather thanbe castrated. ‘Mrs Bates’punishes/mutilates Marion for takingpleasure in her body in the shower – apunishment Mrs Bates no doubtthreatened Norman with for his ownillicit practices. As suggested earlier,Norman’s predilection for voyeurismsuggests that his own sexual pleasures,like those of the elders who spied onSusanna, were masturbatory in nature.

Although they do not link this to the‘mother’s’ punishing attack, variouscritics have suggested that Marion is

masturbating in the shower. Bellourargues that the shower scene shows uswhat was only intimated in the earlierscene which represented Norman as apeeping Tom. He argues that Marion’spleasure ‘goes well beyond alldiegetic motivation’. He refersparticularly to the way ‘close-up shotsof her naked body alternate with shotsof gushing water’ and the way ‘sheleans into the stream, opens her mouth,smiles, and closes her eyes in arapture’. Bellour sees this scene asanswering the earlier lovemakingscene with Sam in the hotel but herewe see the pleasure that Marion didnot show earlier. Her pleasure is‘made all the more intense because itcontrasts with the horror that is tocome’ (Bellour, 1979, 121). WilliamRothman also interprets this scene asone in which Marion is clearlyexperiencing sexual pleasure.‘Marion’s shower is a love scene, with

the shower head her imaginary partner’(Rothman, 1982, 292). In his tribute tothis scene in the films Carrie andDressed to Kill, Brian De Palma doesshow the female protagonists engagedin the act of masturbation. The showermurder is horrific because it presentsus with a graphic, explicit, disturbingimage of the mother carrying out thelaw, enforcing retribution. This sceneawakens in the spectator an infantilefear of the castrating, punishing parent.

Most critics single out the showerscene as the most horrifying in the film– even in the history of the cinema.Ivan Butler states that: ‘Nothing in theremainder of the film approaches thissequence in horror, though there isplenty of nightmare to come’ (120).Fredric Jameson refers to it as ‘themost horrific and immediate scene inmotion picture history’ (1982, 35).Robin Wood states that ‘the shower-bath murder [is] probably the most

horrific incident in any fiction film’(Wood, 1970, 128). In their analyses ofthis scene, most critics concentrate onits horror in relation to the victim, thebrutal stabbing of Marion, and the wayin which it was filmed and edited.According to Donald Spoto, it has‘evoked more study, elicited morecomment, and generated more shot-for-shot analysis from a technicalviewpoint than any other in the historyof cinema’ (Spoto, 1983, 419). But, asI have argued, one of the main reasonsfor this excess of critical attention isprobably that the shower-scene murderawakens our unconscious fears of themother as parental castrator. ‘MrsBates’ appears without warning, just atthe moment when Marion is mostenjoying the sensual pleasures of herbody. In the Little Hans case study,Hans felt most vulnerable in relation tohis mother at bath time and developedan anxiety that she might drown him in

the bath. Children no doubt feelparticularly vulnerable at this time notonly because they are naked but alsobecause this is the moment when theyare likely to explore their body and/orengage in masturbation. Psycho clearlyplays on this anxiety. With her severebun, austere dress and suddenappearance, ‘Mrs Bates’ is a grim,frightening figure.

It is significant that in at least two ofhis case histories, Little Hans and theWolf Man, Freud discovered it was themother who threatened to castrate as apunishment for sexual activity. Asdiscussed in Chapter 7, Freud hadclinical evidence that the mother isseen, by some children, as the castratoryet he insisted that it was the fatherwho enacted this role in the family.Unable to provide a fully convincingexplanation for this, Freud appealed to‘a phylogenetic pattern’ into which theboy had to fit. Psycho appears to me to

provide an exemplary text in which themother is represented as the fearedcastrator. ‘Mrs Bates’ castrates her boyin a number of ways: she lashes himwith her tongue; watches him with hercruel eye; forbids him to have sexualrelations with anyone; refuses to lethim grow up. Symbolically, hercastrating role is represented by abeaked bird of prey and a knife.Finally, whenever we see Norman asMother, he is not only wearing herclothes but also carrying her knife, thesign of her castrating function.

In relation to the shower murder, itis important to note, however, that it iswoman who is punished mostgraphically by the mother and it isprobably the gaze of the femalespectator that is more directly repelledas she watches her cinematiccounterpart brutally assaulted. TaniaModleski notes that the sexism inherentin Hitchcock’s celebrated scene is

almost never discussed. ‘Criticsfrequently point to Psycho as a filmwhich punishes audiences for theirillicit voyeuristic desires, but theyignore the fact that within the film notonly are women objects of the malegaze, they [Marion and the girls in theswamp] are also recipients of most ofthe punishment’ (Modleski, 1988, 14).The private detective, Arbogast, isalso stabbed to death by ‘Mrs Bates’but, as discussed in relation to theslasher film (Chapter 9), his death – asthat of the male in general – is notdepicted in as much detail as thedeaths of women.

The cellar scene, perhaps even morethan the shower scene, emphasizes theall-pervasive presence andindestructible power of the mother asthe controlling, castrating parent. WhenLila enters the cellar to escape fromNorman, she spies the figure of MrsBates sitting on a rocking chair, her

back turned to the doorway. As sheapproaches the chair, Lila calls out hername. She reaches out and gentlytouches Mrs Bates’s shoulder. Thechair slowly swings round. Suddenly,Lila is confronted with a grotesque,grinning skull. It fills the screen, hugeblack eye sockets stare out from thehead as if still able to controleverything in their line of vision.Norman must have encountered thislook daily as he ‘lived’ with hismother. We know he ‘played out’scenes in which he, as ‘mother’,pronounced judgment on himself as theterrible son. Roger Dadoun isolatesthis moment as the most terrible in thefilm, primarily because it reinforcesthe all-pervasive presence of themother, a presence which continues tohaunt the subject even after themother’s death. ‘The most horrificmoment of the film, the scene that is thefantasmatic and emotional pivot of the

whole story, is the one where themother is everywhere, occupying thewhole screen from one edge of theframe to the other’ (Dadoun, 1989, 50–1).

In the penultimate scene of the filmthe seemingly indestructible nature ofthe power of the mother is made clearonce and for all. The mother’s hideousskull-face, with its open jaws andjagged teeth, is superimposed on herson’s grinning face. Once again MrsBates’s eye sockets appear animated asshe stares directly at the audience, abizarre grin forming on her lips.Mother continues to see everything,even beyond the grave. Poison, burial,mummification – all efforts to destroyher power have failed. She stares outthrough Norman’s eyes, her grininfusing his face with wicked delight.The grotesque image pointssymbolically to the kind of power themother exerts over her son. In

Norman’s case she is so powerful thathe gives up his own identity. She is notan external, separate entity; she is partof the child’s inner self, the interiorvoice of the maternal authority. It isthis dimension of the mother – herenculturating, moral function – that hasgenerally been neglected in criticalapproaches to Psycho, despite the factthat a major part of the film’sideological and sexist project seems tobe to demonstrate that, when leftwithout a husband, the ‘true’representative of the law, the mother isincapable of exercising authoritywisely. In Psycho, all boundaries thatmark out the speaking subject asseparate from the other have collapsed,giving rise to the terror of the abjectself. In order to confront this terror,Norman becomes the parent he bothloves and fears – the castrating motherof infancy. When Norman says toMarion: ‘Mother . . . isn’t quite herself

today’, he was dead right. She was not.She was someone else. Her mad son –Norman.

Plate 13 Istar: a Medusan nightmare. A vividportrayal of the deadly vagina dentata in fin-de-siecle art.

Plate 14 Once bitten, twice shy. Salvadore Dalikeeps a wary eye on his version of the dentata.

Plate 15 Woman’s hidden genital mouth. A surrealdisplacement in Magritte’s The Rape, © ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 1993.

Plate 16 Process of Enlightenment: the intellectualwoman is truly a maneater. Cartoonist Leunig’shumorous comment on man’s fear of woman.Reproduced by kind permission of Michael Leunig.

Plate 17 A vaginal nightmare. The cannibalisticnightmare mouth of the crazed female vampire(Amanda Bearse in Fright Night).

Plate 18 Electronic dentata. Man (James Woods)

recoils from woman’s parted lips – the entrance to aterrifying world of sado-masochistic sex inVideodrome.

Plate 19 Aquatic dentata. In Jaws woman andshark are closely linked through image and narrative(publicity poster).

Plate 20 The psychotic twin (Margot Kidder) ofSisters makes a birthday wish and lunges at hermale victim before castrating him.

Plate 21 Mad Mrs Trefoile (Talullah Bankhead), thedemented mother of Fanatic, contemplates herdeadly blade – sign of the castrating mother.

Plate 22 Cat People: like a jungle cat, the untamedwoman is always ready to strike, to tear man apartwith claw and fang (publicity poster).

Plate 23 The lascivious snake woman (JacquelinePearce) of The Reptile, her deadly claw and fangshidden from view.

Plate 24 The lesbian vampire’s deadly bite. Ametaphor for the insatiable sexual desires of womanin The Return of Count Yorga.

11

THE MEDUSA’S GAZE

from a feminine locus nothing canbe articulated without aquestioning of the symbolic itself.

Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which IsNot One

Wife, mother, daughter, virgin, whore,career woman, femme fatale – theseare the most popular stereotypes ofwoman that have been addressed byfeminist theorists in their writings onpopular cinema. Very little has been

written on woman as monster. As withthe more critically popular images ofwoman, those which represent womanas monstrous also define her primarilyin relation to her sexuality, specificallythe abject nature of her maternal andreproductive functions. As I haveshown, the monstrous-feminineconstitutes an important and complexstereotype which can be broken downinto a number of different figures offemale horror: woman as archaicmother, monstrous womb, vampire,possessed monster, femme castratrice,witch, castrating mother. Therepresentation of the monstrous-feminine in patriarchal signifyingpractices has a number ofconsequences for psychoanalyticallybased theories of sexual difference. Onthe one hand, those images whichdefine woman as monstrous in relationto her reproductive functions work toreinforce the phallocentric notion that

female sexuality is abject. On the otherhand, the notion of the monstrous-feminine challenges the view thatfemininity, by definition, constitutespassivity. Furthermore, the phantasy ofthe castrating mother underminesFreud’s theories that woman terrifiesbecause she is castrated and that it isthe father who alone represents theagent of castration within the family.

The image of the castrating womanis complex and multi-faceted.Representations of woman as an agentof castration take various forms in thehorror film: oral sadistic mother (thevampire film); femme castratrice (thewoman’s revenge film); castratingmother (family horror). Recurringimages and motifs associated withwoman as castrator include knives,axes, ice picks, spiked instruments,teeth, yawning chasms, jagged rocks,the deadly vagina dentata. Incomparison with other genres, the

horror genre does not attempt to soothecastration anxiety. The spectator isconfronted with images of woman assymbolically castrated (for example,the mutilated female victims of theslasher film) and as an agent ofcastration (the woman’s revenge film).Significantly, the horror film does notattempt to construct male and female ina totally different relation to castration– both are represented (manliterally/woman symbolically) ascastrated and as agents of castration.However, this factor is not usuallyrecognized in critical writings onhorror; it is the male who is almostalways described as the monster andthe agent of castration, woman as hisvictim. The existence of the monstrous-feminine in the horror film also hasimportant consequences for the way inwhich we situate popular cinema. Itmay be that the horror genre is moredirectly responsive to questions of

sexual difference, more willing toexplore male and female anxietiesabout the ‘other’, than film texts whichbelong to mainstream genres such asthe detective, suspense thriller, comedyand romance films.

THE MONSTROUS-FEMININEAND SPECTATORSHIP

Why has the concept of woman asmonster been neglected in feministtheory? A major reason is that themajority of feminist articles on thecinema have addressed genres such asthe melodrama, film noir and thewoman’s film which, at first glance,appear to be more directly concernedwith questions of female desire andphallocentric representations of femalesexuality. A study of horror reveals thatthis genre also is intimately bound upwith questions of sexuality and the wayin which woman’s abjection helps to

found the patriarchal symbolic order.Why has the image of woman ascastrator, a major archetype of femalemonstrosity, been ignored? A centralreason for this relates to the Freudianbasis of much feminist psychoanalyticcriticism. Because the notion of thecastrating woman is repressed inFreud’s writings, it has similarly beenneglected in feminist film theory. As Ihave shown, Freud not only repressedthe concept of the castrating woman inhis theories of infantile sexuality, hisanalysis of dreams, myths and legends,but also in his case history of LittleHans – specifically the secondplumber phantasy – which is frequentlyinvoked to justify the theory of thecastration complex.

Drawing on the Lacanian rereadingof Freud, feminist theory hasconcentrated on the representation ofwoman as lack and absence. LauraMulvey’s pioneering article, ‘Visual

pleasure and narrative cinema’,published in 1975, best expresses theway in which the representation ofwoman has generally been viewed:‘The paradox of phallocentrism in allits manifestations is that it depends onthe image of the castrated woman togive order and meaning to its world’(1989, 14). While this image does give‘order and meaning’ to the patriarchalsymbolic and to the representation ofwoman in many film genres, it does notexplain the representation of malefears in the horror film which are notalleviated or repudiated either by thetextual processes of fetishization or thenarrative processes that reinforce thecontrolling power of the maleprotagonist. Nor does it explain thosetexts in which the castrated male body,not the female body, represents lackand absence. In these texts it is themutilated male form that evokescastration anxiety while the heroine is

represented as the avenging castrator,the central protagonist with whom thespectator is encouraged to identify. Thefemme castratrice controls the sadisticgaze: the male victim is her object.

In her use of the masochisticaesthetic, Gaylyn Studlar has presentedan important critique of the dominantFreudian-Lacanian model of spectator-ship. She argues that the ‘female in themasochistic aesthetic is more than thepassive object of the male’s desire forpossession. She is also a figure ofidentification, the mother of plenitudewhose gaze meets the infant’s as itasserts her presence and her power’(Studlar, 1984, 273). AlthoughStudlar’s model opens up a space inwhich to re-evaluate theories ofspectatorship, it does not account forthe figure of the monstrous-femininewho is very different from the ‘motherof plenitude’. Clearly existing theoriesof spectatorship are inadequate: they

do not help us to theorize the presenceof woman as active monster in thehorror text, her relationship to thecharacters in the diegesis, or therelationship of the spectators – maleand female – in the cinema.

Elizabeth Cowie’s article,‘Fantasia’, in which she draws onFreud’s theory of the primalphantasies, proposes a model forviewing which is particularly relevantto the experience of watching horrorfilms. Cowie argues that forms ofidentification in the cinema areextremely fluid and are not restrictedby considerations of gender thatposition woman as object and man ascontroller of the gaze. To support herargument, Cowie draws uponLaplanche and Pontalis’s definition ofphantasy as the setting or mise-en-scène of desire. In ‘Fantasy and theorigins of sexuality’ they write thatphantasy is not ‘the object of desire,

but its setting. In fantasy the subjectdoes not pursue the object or its sign:he appears caught up himself in thesequence of images’ (Laplanche andPontalis, 1985, 26). Cowie argues thatphantasy, as the setting of desire, isfound not only in daydreams but also inpublic forms of phantasy such asnovels and films. She applies hertheory to various texts drawn from thewoman’s film.

The horror film also provides a richsource for constructing the settingsupon which phantasy is attendant. Itcontinually draws upon the threeprimal phantasies (see Chapter 2) –birth, seduction, castration – in orderto construct its scenarios of horror.Like the primal phantasies, horrornarratives are particularly concernedwith origins: origin of the subject;origin of desire; origin of sexualdifference. Compared with othergenres, however, the horror film

represents these phantasies in a mise-en-scène which is marked by horrorand the abject. The subject isfrequently born from a strange union(human/alien/animal) and in a darkterrifying place (the monstrouswomb/pit/cellar); desire is for theunknowable terrifying other;knowledge of sexual differenceinvokes fear of castration and death.Constructions of the primal phantasiesin horror narratives involve imagesassociated with weapons, bodilydisintegration in one form or another,blood, an array of abject bodilywastes, pain and terror. The horrorfilm is, by definition, obsessivelyconcerned with death; death is socrucial that it constitutes a fourthprimal phantasy which should rank inimportance with the three otherphantasies stipulated by Freud. Theend can also be seen as a beginning,the origin of a new journey. What

happens after death? Does theindividual subject live on in a differentform? These questions are central tothe horror film – specifically thevampire, zombie, ghoul, ghost andpossession films. Where did I comefrom? Where am I going? To a terribleplace, the horror film knowingly, andsometimes mockingly, replies. In thesetexts, the setting or sequence of imagesin which the subject is caught up,denotes a desire to encounter theunthinkable, the abject, the other. It is amise-en-scène of desire – in whichdesire is for the abject. It is in relationto this abject scene that the subject, andby extension the viewer, is caught up.

According to Laplanche andPontalis the subject does not take up a‘fixed place’ in relation to phantasy butis free to adopt a number of subjectpositions – regardless of gender. ‘As aresult, the subject, although alwayspresent in the fantasy, may be so in a

desubjectivised form, that is to say, inthe very syntax of the sequence inquestion’ (1985, 15). The subjectpositions with which the horror filmmost frequently encourages thespectator to identify oscillate betweenthose of victim and monster but withgreater emphasis on the former. In thisrespect, the horror film sets out toexplore the perverse, masochisticaspects of the gaze.

When the spectator is encouraged toidentify with the victim, an extremeform of masochistic looking isinvoked; here the look is confronted byhorrific images signifying extremeterror, pain, death. Whereas the classichorror film tends to affirm thecontrolling gaze at the moment ofnarrative closure (the monster isdefeated/life is affirmed) thecontemporary horror film frequentlyasserts the primacy of the masochisticlook in its moment of closure (the

monster lives/death reigns). Bothforms, classic and modern, draw on themasochistic look throughout theunfolding of the narrative. Asdiscussed in Chapter 2, the extrememoment of masochistic viewing seemsto occur when the viewing subject,male and female, is forced to lookaway. The scene of horror is soterrifying, abject and confronting thatthe spectator cannot bear to look at all.Not even the look of the camera, whichmay have attempted to freeze thehorrific image through fetishization orcontrol it by maintaining a voyeuristicdistance, is enough to entice theterrified viewer into snatching anotherterrified glance.

In those films where the male is thevictim of the monstrous-feminine inone of her many guises – witch,vampire, creature, abject mother,castra tor, psychotic – the malespectator, who identifies with his

screen surrogate, is clearly placed in apowerless situation. Through the figureof the monstrous-feminine, the horrorfilm plays on his possible fears ofmenstrual blood, incorporation,domination, castration and death. Oneof the most salient features of thehorror film is that it does allow for anexplicit representation of man’scastration anxieties in relation to hisown body. In the slasher sub-genrethese fears are displaced on to womanbut in other films man must face thisthreat alone. In films like Sisters, ISpit on Your Grave and Basic Instinctmale castration fear is aligned with amasochistic desire for death. Mulvey’stheory of the sadistic male gaze, whichseems to describe so well the structureof spectatorial relations in othergenres, does not explain the verydifferent structure of looks that isconstructed in the horror film.

What is the appeal of the horror film

to the female spectator? Does sherecognize herself in the figure of themonstrous-feminine? To what extentmight the female spectator feelempowered when identifying with thefemale castrator? Does she derive aform of sadistic pleasure in seeing hersexual other humiliated and punished?The answers to these questions arecomplex and vary from text to text. Forinstance, the female spectator mightfeel empowerment from identifyingwith the castrating heroine of theslasher film when the latter finallydestroys the male killer. She may alsofeel empowerment from identifyingwith the castrating heroine of the rape-revenge film when the latter takesrevenge on the male rapist. But thepsychotic castrating heroine of filmslike Sisters does not activelyencourage spectator identification inthat she is depicted as insane. Nordoes the castrating mother figure of

Psycho or Friday the 13th encouragesympathetic identification –particularly when her victims arefemale. This does not, however, meanthat the female spectator does notidentify with these figures of femininehorror. Given that the horror filmspeaks to our deepest fears and mostterrifying fantasies it is – as I haveargued – most likely that identificatoryprocesses are extremely fluid andallow the spectator to switchidentification between victim andmonster depending on the degree towhich the spectator wishes to beterrified and/or to terrify anddepending on the power of the variousfilmic codes (subjective camera,close-up images, music) designed toencourage certain modes ofidentification above others.

One response to the castratingheroine of the horror film is to arguethat she is actually a phallicized

heroine, that is, she has beenreconstituted as masculine. If femalespectators derive pleasure fromidentifying with an aggressive orviolent heroine it is because they havebeen contaminated by patriarchy. It isonly the phallic male spectator who isempowered by identifying with anaggressive hero figure in the diegesis.This view appears to be based on theargument that only phallic masculinityis violent and that femininity is neverviolent – not even in the imagination.This argument is essentialist, that is, itassumes that if women lived outsidepatriarchy they would never, asspectators, derive pleasure fromidentifying with acts of aggression onthe screen. The feminine imagination isseen as essentially non-violent,peaceful, unaggressive. This is thevery argument that patriarchal ideologyhas used for the past 2,000 years tocontrol women – it is precisely

because women by definition are‘pure’ creatures that they need men to‘guide’ them through life’s stormypassage. This is one of the argumentsused by the Reverend Don Wildman,Jerry Faldwell and other members ofthe moral majority who want to tightencurrent censorship laws in the UnitedStates.

It may be objected that most horrorfilms are made by men and that theonly pleasures/terrors on offer aremale-defined. (This argument, ofcourse, applies to the majority ofmainstream cinematic genres.) But I donot believe the unconscious is subjectto the strictures of gender socializationand it is to the unconscious that thehorror film speaks, revealing –perhaps more than any other genre –the unconscious fears and desires ofboth the human subject (pain, bodilyattack, disintegration, death) and thegendered subject (male fears of

woman’s reproductive role and ofcastration and woman’s fears ofphallic aggressivity and rape). Nodoubt if women made horror films, thelatter area would be explored morefully. The reason women do not makehorror films is not that the ‘female’unconscious is fearless, without itsmonsters, but because women still lackaccess to the means of production in asystem which continues to be male-dominated in all key areas.

The presence of monstrous-femininealso undermines the view that the malespectator invariably takes up a sadisticposition because the monster is alwaysmale. The male spectator is frequentlyasked to identify with a male monsterthat is feminized. He is feminized viathe body; he bleeds, gives birth, ispenetrated, and generally undergoesabject bodily changes associated withthe feminine. Furthermore, malevictims are frequently placed in a

masochistic position via the femalemonster. Further work needs to beundertaken in the area of spectatorshipand questions of audienceidentification in relation to theconstruction of the monstrous in thehorror film and other popular fictions.

THE PHALLIC ANDCASTRATING WOMAN

The presence of the female castrator inthe horror film also raises problemsfor the Freudian theory of fetishizationand the phallic woman. The notion ofthe castrating woman has sometimesbeen confused with that of the phallicwoman. According to Laplanche andPontalis, the image of the phallicwoman has two forms: the womaneither has a phallus or phallic attributeor she has retained the male’s phallusinside herself (1985, 311). In theirdiscussion of problems of definition,

they state that the term ‘phallic woman’is often used ‘in a loose way as adescription of a woman with allegedlymasculine character-traits – e.g.authoritarianism – even when it is notknown what the underlying phantasiesare’ (ibid., 312). This confusion isparticularly marked in relation to theso-called phallic/castrating woman.Freud argued that children of bothsexes, influenced by their own phallicstage of development, believe in thephallic mother. She is the mother whoexists prior to the child’s knowledge ofcastration and sexual difference. Theboy imagines the mother is likehimself; the girl believes that her peniswill eventually grow to be like themother’s. The deadly femme fatale offilm noir, the woman who carries agun in her purse, is regarded as aclassic example of the phallic woman.In the horror film and pornography sheis sometimes given a penis/dildo. Like

the castrated woman she, too, isanother manifestation of therepresentation of female sexuality inrelation to the phallus. Her image isalso informed by the workings ofpatriarchal ideology. Janey Placeargues that the ‘ideological operationof the myth (the absolute necessity ofcontrolling the strong, sexual woman)is thus achieved by first demonstratingher dangerous power and itsfrightening results, then destroying it’(Place, 1980, 45).

When film critics draw attention tothe notion of woman as powerful anddangerous they usually invoke theconcept of the phallic woman,frequently referring to her as if shewere the same figure as the castratingwoman. The following description ofthe mother in Psycho is a fairly typicalexample of the way in which the twoconcepts are collapsed together: ‘Anessential aspect, as specified in

Freud’s analysis of fetishism, is theway she appears as a phallic woman,as woman with a penis, a murderous,all-devouring or castrating mother’(Dadoun, 1989, 50). This descriptionof Regan from The Exorcist also linksthese two notions: ‘Regan-as-Devilbecomes the phallic, castrating woman(she seizes the psychiatrist, whoinvokes her, by the testicles), and isendowed with a parodying perversionof “masculine” characteristics – bassvoice, violence, sexual aggressiveness,unladylike language’ (Britton, 1979,51). In her description of the heroine ofthe slasher film, Clover also describesher castrating aspects in terms ofphallicization (Clover, 1989, 116). Butas I have shown, man’s fear thatwoman might castrate him eithersymbolically or literally is notnecessarily related to his infantilebelief that she is phallic. The penis, assuch, is not an instrument of

incorporation or castration but ofpenetration. In representations of thepenis as an instrument of violence, itdoesn’t threaten to castrate but ratherto penetrate and split open, explode,tear apart. It is the mythical vaginadentata which threatens to devour, tocastrate via incorporation. Criticalneglect of the monstrous-feminine inher role as castrator has led to aserious misunderstanding of the natureof the monstrous woman in the horrorfilm and other popular genres such asfilm noir and science fiction.

The archetypes of the phallic andcastrating woman are quite differentand should not be confused; the formerultimately represents a comfortingphantasy of sexual sameness, and thelatter a terrifying phantasy of sexualdifference. The notion of the phallicwoman is crucial to Freud’s theory ofcastration; if the child did not initiallybelieve the mother was phallic, it

could not later construct her ascastrated. In Lacanian terms, womancould not be seen as representing‘lack’ and ‘absence’. According toFreud, the importance of the penis forboth sexes is a corollary of the fact thatthe child is unaware of the existence ofthe vagina and its proper function untilthe tenth or eleventh year – a theory Iquestioned in relation to the LittleHans case study. Even before he turnedfive, Little Hans was aware of hismother’s ‘baby box’, and the fact thatshe had a place somewhere behind hernavel that she kept her ‘knife’. At thisstage, according to Freud, the child isaware of only two possibilities – thedifference between having the phallusand being castrated. Yet Hans’sextreme fear of the biting white horseindicates that he knew, consciously orotherwise, that his mother’s widdlerwas very different from his own.

Is she or isn’t she castrated? This

was the question that so troubledFreud. It is this question that enabledhim to erect his theory of fetishismaround the disturbing sight/site of thefemale genitalia. As I have argued,however, the question could have beenposed differently. Is woman castratedor does she castrate? This questionseemed to lie behind the game LittleHans played with his doll when he lethis mother’s knife drop from betweenher legs. The concept of the castratingmother also enables one to construct atheory of fetishism in relation to thesight of the female genitalia. In thisversion, the fetishist disavows thehorrifying thought that the vagina mightbe a site of castration by erecting afetish in its place. Arguing that manfears woman’s vagina as a site ofcastration, rather than a castratedgenital, in no way alters the principlebehind the theory of fetishism. Thefetish object denies the horrifying

aspects of the female genitals – theway in which the genitals might horrifyis open to interpretation. The importantpoint is that the process is marked bythe structure of disavowal. In Freud’stheory, the protest is stated in theseterms: ‘I know woman isn’t castrated,but. . . ’. The proposition could alsobe: ‘I know woman doesn’t castrate,but. . . ’.

THE MATERNAL CASTRATORWhy did Freud dismiss the possibilitythat man might fear woman ascastrator? We know he considered theidea. Along with a number of hiscontemporaries, Freud had clinicalevidence that the mother, or hersubstitutes, is frequently feared by themale child as the parental castrator. Inthe Wolf Man case history, Freudaddressed the problem directly:

Although the threats or hints of

castration which had come hisway had emanated from women,this could not hold up the finalresult for long. In spite ofeverything it was his father fromwhom in the end he came to fearcastration. In this respect hereditytriumphed over accidentalexperience; in man’s prehistory itwas unquestionably the fatherwho practised castration as apunishment and who latersoftened it down intocircumcision.

(‘From the history of an infantileneurosis’, 86)

Freud invoked the notion of ‘heredity’and ‘prehistory’ to explain castration,which he saw as a harsher form ofcircumcision for at least two mainreasons. First, this enabled him toposition the workings of castration as a‘law’, a mechanism that operates

regardless of the individual history ofthe subject. The law of castrationenabled Freud to explain the Oedipuscomplex in more ‘scientific’ terms.According to Juliet Mitchell (1975),Freud fine-tuned his theory ofcastration during the second phase ofhis writings, commencing after 1920.By defining the castration complex as alaw, Freud was also able to deal witha problem that affected his earlierversion of the Oedipus complex – thatthe complex was presented as a‘passing developmental stage’ whichsomehow ‘dissolved naturally’. As alaw, the castration complex providesan explanation for the origins of thehuman order which does not leavethings up to chance or human nature.Mitchell emphasizes the crucialimportance of this:

Together with the organising roleof the Oedipus complex in

relation to desire, the castrationcomplex governs the position ofeach person in the triangle offather, mother and child; in theway it does this, it embodies thelaw that founds the human orderitself. Thus the question ofcastration, of sexual difference asthe product of a division, and theconcept of an historical andsymbolic order, all began,tentatively, to come together.

(Mitchell and Rose, 1982, 14)

Second, the notion of castration as alaw enabled Freud to propose a theoryof sexual difference which was notbased on any pre-given or biologistnotion of male and female. The fatherrepresents a principle – ‘the thirdterm’. Freud’s theory of castration alsoexplains the patriarchal nature of thehuman order. According to Mitchell:

To Freud, if psychoanalysis isphallocentric, it is because thehuman social order that itperceives refracted through theindividual human subject ispatrocentric. To date, the fatherstands in the position of the thirdterm that must break the asocialdyadic unit of mother and child.

(ibid., 23)

There is, however, a problem withFreud’s position. He is arguing thatbecause we live in a patriarchalworld, the phallus must be the primarysignifier. If woman exercises power,for instance if she threatens to castrate,her authority is ‘borrowed’. Yet, as Ihave shown, Freud’s justification forstating that the phallus is the primarysignifier is not his clinical material; itis a sociological observation. It is onlyby ignoring clinical evidence andestablishing the father, not the mother,

as the one who represents the threat ofcastration and as a consequence thelaw that Freud is able to provide anexplanation for the patriarchal natureof the symbolic – although, of course,he is still unable to explain howpatriarchy came into existence in thefirst place.

The question of what constitutes thedifference between the sexes is centralto Jacques Lacan’s rereading ofFreud’s theory of the castrationcomplex. Although Lacan makes itclear that both women and men aresubject to castration, he also ultimatelypositions the father as representative ofthe symbolic order and attempts to lockthe father into this role in a moredecisive way than Freud achieved.Like Freud, Lacan also sees thefather’s role as fixed, unchanging. ‘It isin the name of the father that we mustrecognize the support of the Symbolicfunction which, from the dawn of

history, has identified his person withthe figure of the law’ (Lacan, 1968,41). Like Freud, Lacan also appeals toa quasi-sociological concept – ‘thedawn of history’ – to justify a psychicoperation.

By analysing Freudian theory interms of modern structural linguistics,Jacques Lacan tried to circumvent thecharge frequently laid against Freudthat his theory of castration ultimatelydoes confuse the psychic and thebiological. He makes Freud’s theoriesof castration and the phallus central tothe formation of subjectivity and sexualdifference. Whereas Freud used theterm ‘phallus’ to refer to the ‘symbolicfunction’ of the penis, Lacanreorientated psychoanalytic theory‘around the idea of the phallus as the“signifier of desire” ’ (Laplanche andPontalis, 1985, 312–14). According toLacan, desire is to be understood in adouble sense – the child both desires

the mother and desires to be the objectof the mother’s desire, the phallus.According to Jacqueline Rose:‘Castration means first of all this – thatthe child’s desire for the mother doesnot refer to her but beyond her, to anobject, the phallus, whose status is firstimaginary (the object presumed tosatisfy her desire) and then symbolic(recognition that desire cannot besatisfied)’ (Rose, 1982, 38). As asignifier no one has a privilegedrelation to the phallus. ‘The basicstructure of desire would follow fromthe law of the signifier, in that itsignifies something only in relation toanother signifier, so desire is alwaysdesire for another thing’ (Benvenutoand Kennedy, 1986, 13).

In Lacan’s rewriting of Freudiantheory, castration is meant to representthe child’s acknowledgement of thelaw and its willingness to renounce itsdesire to be the object (the phallus) of

the mother’s desire. The threat ofcastration is not something enacted inthe real; it is always symbolic.

Castration may derive supportfrom privation, that is to say,from the apprehension in the Realof the absence of the penis inwomen – but even this supposes asymbolization of an object, sincethe Real is full and lacks nothing.In so far as one finds castration inthe genesis of neurosis, it is neverreal but symbolic and is aimed atan imaginary object.

(cited in Grosz, 1990, 71)

Lacan claims that the child, male orfemale, can only enter the symbolicorder through its acknowledgement ofcastration and privation.

The problem with the Lacaniantheory of castration is that it continuesto construct the symbolic order as a

patriarchal one. ‘Assuming that it istrue that psychosis is the alternative tothe symbolic, this need not of itself bean unsurpassable obstacle, providingone can conceive of a symbolic that isnot patriarchal. The real problem isthat Lacan’s symbolic makes patriarchyseem inevitable’ (Brennan, 1989, 3). Amajor reason for this relates to theatture and status of the phallus inLacanian theory. The phallus is asupposedly neutral term that signifiesthe ‘lack’ which leads to theconstitution of subjectivity and speech.Elizabeth Grosz argues it is ‘thussimultaneously and indissolubly themark of sexual difference (andidentity), the signifier of the speakingposition in language, and the ordergoverning exchange relations’ (Grosz,1990, 126). The phallus is tied to thepenis – for a number of reasons. First,a parallel between the symbolic fatherand the phallus exists in that the former

breaks up the mother-child dyad whilethe latter represents that separation. Inthe second place, insofar as the peniscan represent lack – it fills woman’s‘lack’ – it can stand in for thesupposedly neutral phallus. ‘If thepenis assumes the function of thephallus this is because female sexualityis considered a mutilation orcastration’ (Grosz, 117). In theory thephallus is a neutral term that no one,male or female, can possess; inpractice the phallus is frequentlyaligned with the penis. Brennanemphasizes this point: ‘Feministsinfluenced by Lacan have stressed thatboth sexes can take up the masculineand feminine places; these shift andslide – no one has the phallus. Yet thetie between phallus and penis exists,and persists’ (Brennan, 1989, 4). Forthis reason alone, it is clear that theFreudian/Lacanian theory of theOedipus complex is problematic. If we

add to this the fact that Freudignores/represses the phantasy of thecastrating mother, and the possibilitythat the mother can be identified withthe law, it becomes clear that thetheory is completely inadequate as ameans of explaining the origins ofhuman subjectivity and sexualdifference.

While the phantasy of the castratingmother is repressed in Freud’swritings, Lacan does discuss the notionbut only in relation to the concept ofhomosexuality and variousperversions. The castrating mother, theparent who ‘lays down the law’, hasbeen given too much power by thefather. On discovering that the motherhas the power, the future homosexualchild learns to overvalue the phallus,‘cannot tolerate its lack, and is usuallyhorrified by female genitals’.Consequently, he seeks it in his partner(Benvenuto and Kennedy, 1986, 135).

However, the phantasy of the castratingmother is too persistent andwidespread to be marginalized asrelevant primarily in relation to thequestion of so-called perversions. Thisphantasy not only finds expression in awide range of cultural and artisticpractices but is central to one ofFreud’s most important case historiesas well as being repressed in many ofhis own writings. Furthermore, the factthat the patriarchal symbolic functionsto soothe man’s anxieties regardingwoman’s threatening nature suggeststhat this phantasy is dominant inhelping to influence the social andpolitical treatment of women.Patriarchal ideology works to curb thepower of the mother, and by extensionall women, by controlling woman’sdesire through a series of repressivepractices which deny her autonomyover her body. The most violent ofthese measures include domestic

assault, rape and female genitalmutilation. In her documentary film,Rites, Penny Dedman estimates thatfemale genital mutilation is on theincrease and currently affects 75–85million women worldwide. Fear of theclitoris as a ‘barb’ or tooth, dangerousin sexual intercourse, has beenproposed as the reason behind thebarbaric practice of female genitalmutilation in African countries(Lederer, 1968, 46) – incorrectlydescribed by Freud in ‘The taboo ofvirginity’ as ‘female circumcision’.(Circumcision is the removal of skin,not an entire organ.) This practice, inwhich the clitoris and labia areexcised, suggests a deep-seatedattitude of horror towards the femalegenitals – an attitude which iswidespread, and which consequentlycannot be dismissed as belonging tothe realm of ‘perversions’. It alsoclearly indicates that those peoples

who practise female genital mutilationdo not regard woman’s genitals ashaving already been castrated; theiraim is, in fact, to carry out a form ofcastration.

But the question of woman’s‘castrating’ desires can never beclosed down completely because of thenature of sexual intercourse. In ‘Thetaboo of virginity’ Freud drewattention to the fact that coitus remindsman of his possible castration. Freud’saccount of sexual intercourse providesan explanation for man’s fear of thevagina as a place of pleasure anddanger. ‘The man is afraid of beingweakened by the woman, infected withher femininity and of then showinghimself incapable. The effect whichcoitus has of discharging tensions andcausing flaccidity may be the prototypeof what the man fears’ (p. 198). Asdiscussed above, Lacan’s theory of thephallus – because of its association

with the penis – does not resolve theproblem of man’s castration anxieties.

[Man] desires his ‘possession’ ofthe phallus be affirmed throughthe woman’s desire for his penis,which is (symbolically)detachable from him and capableof being ‘given’ to her. Shedesires access to the phallus he‘owns’. Ironically, sexualrelations problematize the verylink between penis and phallusthat she strives to affirm. Sexualintercourse is both the affirmationof his possession of the phallusand a reminder of the possibilityof castration. For a moment atleast, he fills the woman’s ‘lack’and at that moment becomes thesite of lack himself.

(Grosz, 1990, 134–5)

It is the representation of man as ‘site

of lack’ which is central to therepresentation of masculinity in thehorror film – an area of study which isoutside the scope of this book butwhich also challenges existing theoriesof sexual difference and spectatorshipin the cinema (see Creed, 1993). Groszstates that it is the ‘residue’ of thecastration threat, given a more concreteexpression during intercourse, that liesbehind man’s ‘paranoid fantasy of thevagina dentata’ (1990, 135). To thisfear, I would also add the child’s fearof the castrating mother – the mother ofLittle Hans’s nightmares and phobias.

From the above discussion, we cansee that the representation of woman asthe monstrous-feminine in horror –particularly the image of the castratingwoman – challenges a number ofpsychoanalytically based theorieswhich are central to current debateswithin feminism about therepresentation of sexual difference and

spectatorship in a range of populardiscourses including film, photographyand pornography. These include thefollowing: the Freudian argument thatwoman terrifies because she iscastrated; the Freudian theories of thecastration complex, thephallic/castrating woman andfetishism; the model of spectatorshipwhich posits woman as object of thecontrolling male gaze; and thepropositions that the father alonerepresents the law and that thesymbolic is necessarily patriarchal.

WOMAN AND THE SYMBOLICAs we saw in Part I, Kristeva’s theoryof the abject provides us with a way ofopening up the debate about themother’s relation to the symbolic stillfurther. Kristeva’s theory of the abject– and the related notion of the thetic –challenges the view that the child’s

separation from the mother commenceswith the intervention of the father asthe third term who brings about aseparation of mother and child. Thesituation is far more complex.

Kristeva’s answer is that beforethe full intervention of thesymbolic begins, a prior state isnecessary, one which will be therepressed desire and thesymbolic. . . . The point is that thesymbolic is not, of its ownaccord, strong enough to ensureseparation; it depends on themother becoming abjected.

(Lechte, 1990, 159)

Kristeva uses the term, ‘the thetic’, todescribe the bridging space betweenthe semiotic and the symbolic. On theone hand, the semiotic refers to theunorganized and dispersed driveswhich are inscribed across the child’s

body. On the other hand, there aremoments within the semiotic whenthere is order and structure, when thedrives are given form and shape. The‘threshhold between the semiotic andthe symbolic – the thetic – is ananticipation of the symbolic fromwithin the semiotic, as well as theresidues of the semiotic in thesymbolic’ (Grosz, 1990, 45).Kristeva’s theories of the abject andthe thetic reveal that the child’sseparation from the mother should beseen as a gradual process, one thatstretches from the semiotic to thesymbolic. In ‘Revolution in poeticlanguage’, Kristeva sees castration asonly the final part of a long process:‘Castration puts the finishing toucheson the process of separation that positsthe subject as signifiable, which is tosay, separate, always confronted byanother’ (1986, 47).

While attempting to make a place for

the maternal figure in the pre-symbolicon par with the paternal figure of thesymbolic, she does not question thepatriarchal base of the symbolic. In myview, we can question the so-called‘inevitable’ link between patriarchyand the symbolic still further by takinginto account the crucial role played bythe phantasy of the maternal castratorin the development of the child’scastration complex. It is possible thatthe child’s anxiety concerning his ownpossible castration by the mother playsa significant role in helping to rupturethe mother-child dyad. Fear of thecastrating mother may also help toexplain the ambivalent attitude inwhich women are held in patriarchalsocieties – an attitude which is alsorepresented in the various stereotypesof feminine evil that exist within arange of popular discourses. Themother is the child’s first love objectbut insofar as she threatens castration

she also becomes an object of fear anddread. Clearly, the widespreadphantasy of woman as castrator raisescrucial problems for psychoanalytictheories of sexual difference. Myintention, however, is not to try andabsorb the figure of the maternalcastrator into Freud’s theory of theOedipus and castration complexes butrather to point out the inadequacy ofthese theories in helping us tounderstand the origins of patriarchy.

Entry into a symbolic order is a longand gradual process in which themother, or a number of complexreasons, plays an active central rolebut one that has been renderedinvisible in relation to the Freudiantheory of castration. The problem isthat the processes whereby the infantseparates itself from the mother, andthe role she plays in this, are notclearly delineated. With its emphasison law, logic and rationality, the

language of the symbolic order doesnot easily tolerate borders, boundariesand processes that interweave incomplex and various ways. In relationto entry into the symbolic, the mother isrepresented as an essentiallyambiguous figure. She teaches the childthrough its toilet training to separateitself from all signs of its animalorigins, yet she is also associated withthe world of nature – and consequentlydenigrated – because of herreproductive and mothering functions.She teaches the infant to abhor whatshe herself comes to represent withinthe signifying practices of thesymbolic. An ideology whichdenigrates woman is also endorsed bywoman: patriarchal ideology works inand through woman, as we saw inCarrie.

Psychoanalytic writings which arguethat the symbolic is an orderrepresented by the father alone can

only do so by repressing and distortingthe crucial role played by the mother inrelation to the constitution of societyand culture – albeit at this stage apatriarchal culture. The problem is notthat this order is inevitable but thatpatriarchy, of necessity, values menand male activities above women andthe traditionally female activitiesassociated with pregnancy, childbirthand motherhood. Despite clearevidence that man fears woman ascastrating, it constructs woman as acastrated creature, man’s lacking other.It would appear that the symbolicorder is supported by the imaginarybeliefs of the male subject, specificallythe view that the mother who was oncephallic has been castrated. Insofar asthe patriarchal symbolic is structuredby a male imaginary, the crucial taskbecomes one of understandingdifferently the phantasies that informthe male imaginary – even reconstruct

the male imaginary. But for ‘men tomake a break with their imaginary,another term would be needed –woman as symbolic’ (Whitford, 1989,119). By pointing out the inadequaciesin psychoanalytic theories of sexualdifference, we can begin to reevaluateand recreate.

Fifty years ago Karen Horney alsoargued that man fears woman becauseshe might castrate. She listed a seriesof myths and legends – including thatof the Sphinx – which portrayedwoman as evil.

The riddle of the Sphinx can besolved by few, and most of thosewho attempt it forfeit theirlives. . . . The series of suchinstances is infinite; always,everywhere, the man strives to ridhimself of his dread of women byobjectifying it. ‘It is not,’ he says,‘that I dread her; it is that she

herself is malignant, capable ofany crime, a beast of prey, avampire, a witch, insatiable in herdesires. She is the verypersonification of what issinister.’

(Horney, 1967, 134–5)

These images of woman as monstrous-feminine are alive and well in thecontemporary horror film andrepresented in a variety of ways:witch, archaic mother, monstrouswomb, vampire, femme castratrice,castrating mother. They shock andrepel, but they also enlighten. Theyprovide us with a means ofunderstanding the dark side of thepatriarchal unconscious, particularlythe deep-seated attitude of extremeambivalence to the mother whonurtures but who, through a series ofphysical and psychic castrationsassociated with her body and the

processes of infant socialization, alsohelps to bring about the most painful ofall separations, necessary for thechild’s entry into the symbolic order.Perhaps man’s ambivalence towardsthe maternal figure stems from hisassociation of the mother – not thefather – with his reluctant entry into thesymbolic. In the horror film thisambivalence has given rise to therepresentation of woman as monstrousbecause she gives birth and ‘mothers’.In this sense, every encounter withhorror, in the cinema, is an encounterwith the maternal body constructed (Iam not arguing that woman isessentially abject) as non-symbolic bythe signifying practices of patriarchalideology. Woman’s abjectification iscrucial to the functioning of thepatriarchal order. ‘For without theexploitation of the body-matter ofwomen, what would become of thesymbolic process that governs

society?’ (Irigaray, 1985, 85). Anencounter with the monstrous-feminineof the horror film takes us on anaesthetic and ideological journey, ‘adescent into the foundations of thesymbolic construct’ (Kristeva, 1982,18). This journey no doubt began in therealm of myth and legend and continuestoday in its various representations ofthe monstrous-feminine in film,literature, art, poetry and pornographyand other popular fictions. Byquestioning a number of psychoanalytictheories which inform current debateswithin feminism on the representationof sexual difference in a range ofpopular fictions we can gain a moreaccurate picture of the fears andfantasies that dominate our culturalimaginary.

When Perseus slew the Medusa hedid not – as commonly thought – put anend to her reign or destroy herterrifying powers. Afterwards, Athena

embossed her shield with the Medusa’shead. The writhing snakes, with theirfanged gaping mouths, and theMedusa’s own enormous teeth andlolling tongue were on full view.Athena’s aim was simply to striketerror into the hearts of men as well asreminding them of their symbolic debtto the imaginary castrating mother. Andno doubt she knew what she wasdoing. After all, Athena was the greatMother-Goddess of the ancient worldand according to ancient legend – thedaughter of Metis, the goddess ofwisdom, also known as the Medusa.

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FILMOGRAPHY

Abby (William Girdler, 1974) 31Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) 16–30, 50–7, 83, 107, 109Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) 50–1, 56, 107, 109Alien3 (David Fincher, 1992) 51–3Alien Seed (Bob James, 1989) 56Altered States (Ken Russell, 1980) 17The Amityville Horror (Stuart Rosenberg, 1979) 55Arachnophobia (Frank Marshall, 1990) 56Audrey Rose (Robert Wise, 1977) 31–2Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992) 1, 123–4, 155Batman (Leslie Martinson, 1966) 108The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) 6, 12, 24The Black Cat (Albert S. Rogell, 1941) 55Black Sunday (Mario Bava, 1961) 73, 76–7Blood and Roses (Roger Vadim, 1961) 60Blood Bath (Stephanie Rothman, 1966) 62Bloodbath at the House of Death (Pete Walker,

1984) 62Blood Brides (Mario Bava, 1969) 62

Blood Diner (Jackie Kong, 1987) 9The Blood Drinkers (Gerardo de Leon, 1966) 62Blood Feast (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1963) 9, 62Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974) 62Blood Orgy (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1971) 62Bloodsucking Freaks (Joel M. Reed, 1976) 11Bloody Birthday (Ed Hunt, 1986) 62Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) 107The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1960) 64The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979) 1, 38, 43–58,

79, 82–3A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959) 62Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988) 107Burn Witch Burn! (Sidney Hayers, 1962) 73The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919)

131Captive Wild Woman (Edward Dmytryk, 1943) 4Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976) 1, 5, 11–12, 14, 35,

38, 41, 65, 73–85, 109, 139, 148, 165Cathy’s Curse (Eddy Matalon, 1976) 31–2, 77Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942) 1, 42Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982) 11The Corpse Grinders (Ted V. Mikels, 1971) 9Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold,

1954) 11Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972) 107Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak, 1946) 131Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kumel, 1970) 60Day of Wrath (Carl Dreyer, 1943) 73Dead Ringer (Paul Henreid, 1964) 131Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988) 53, 56

Deadly Blessing (Wes Craven, 1981) 32Death Weekend (William Fruet, 1977) 123Deep Red aka Profondo Rosso (Dario Argento,

1975) 140Demon Seed (Donald Cammell, 1977) 43, 53, 56The Devil Within Her (Peter Sady, 1975) 31Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) 129DrJekyll and Mr Hyde (John S. Robertson, 1920)

11, 56Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Roy Ward Baker, 1941)

55Don’t Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973) 126Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) 65, 71Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936) 60Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946) 54Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980) 11, 32, 126,

148The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1983) 11, 73, 77Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, 1987) 73, 77The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) 1, 4, 5, 13,

31–2, 75, 77–8, 80, 83, 105, 157The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bñnuel, 1962) 41Fair Game (Mario Andreacchio, 1987) 123Fanatic (Silvio Narizzano, 1965) 124, 139Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) 42, 122, 139The Fearless Vampire Killers (Roman Polanski,

1967) 61The Fiend (Robert Hartford-Davis, 1971) 139The Fly (Kurt Neumann, 1958) 56The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986) 44Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) 56

Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) 124,126–7, 139, 155

Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944) 54The Giant Claw (Fred F. Sears, 1957) 27, 56Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) 124, 126The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (Curtis Hanson,

1992) 122Hands of the Ripper (Peter Sasdy, 1971) 126Happy Birthday to Me (J. Lee Thompson, 1980)

124Hell Night (Tom De Simone, 1981) 124, 126The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) 9, 11House (William Katt, 1986) 55House of the Damned (Maury Dexter, 1963) 55The House of Dark Shadows (Dan Curtis, 1970)

55House of Evil (Juan Ibanez, Jack Hill, 1968) 55House of Exorcism (Mario Bava, 1975) 55House of Fear (Joe May, 1939) 55House of Freaks (Robert H. Oliver, 1973) 55House of Usher (Roger Corman, 1960) 55House on Sorority Row (Mark Rosman, 1982) 55The House That Dripped Blood (Peter Duffell,

1971) 55, 62The House That Screamed (Narciso Ibanez

Serrador, 1970) 55, 139The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983) 1, 11, 38, 60, 67, 83,

107I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942) 73Immoral Tales (Walerian Borowczyk, 1974) 60The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1957)

27The Incubus (John Hough, 1982) 44Inferno (Dario Argento, 1988) 73, 77Inseminoid (Norman J. Warren, 1982) 53Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)

17, 32Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1933) 4I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978) 1, 87, 123,

127–31, 155It’s Alive (Larry Cohen, 1974) 77Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) 27, 107Judith of Bethulia (D. W. Griffith, 1913) 121Jungle Captive (Harold Young, 1945) 4Jungle Woman (Reginald Le Borg, 1944) 4The Kindred (Stephen Carpenter, 1987) 56King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, 1933) 11Kramer versus Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) 44Lady in the Dark (Mitchell Leisen, 1944) 137Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972) 123The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, 1943) 124Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985) 1Lipstick (Lamont Johnson, 1976) 123Lisa and the Devil (Mario Bava, 1975) 31Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman, 1960) 118The Lodger (John Brahm, 1944) 124Lust for a Vampire (Jimmy Sangster, 1970) 60The Manitou (William Girdler, 1978) 44, 50, 56Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1964) 139Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) 139Misery (Rob Reiner, 1991) 128Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980) 9

Mother’s Day (Charles Kaufman, 1980) 123, 139Ms 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981) 123My Bloody Valentine (George Mihalka, 1981) 124Naked Vengeance (Cirio Santiago, 1984) 123The Nanny (Seth Holt, 1965) 124Next of Kin (Tony Williams, 1982)Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) 124Night Must Fall (Karel Reisz, 1964) 124Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero,

1972) 11Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) 6Now Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942) 139The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis, 1963) 56The Old Maid (Edmund Goulding, 1939) 139The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) 11Omen IV: The Awakening (Jorge Montesi and

Dominique Othenin-Gerard, 1991) 77The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928) 52Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) 124The Phantom of the Opera (Terence Fisher, 1962)

6Play Misty for Me (Clint Eastwood, 1971) 123, 126Poison Ivy (Katt Shea Ruben, 1991) 122Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982) 27, 55, 108Prom Night (Paul Lynch, 1980) 124Psychic Killer (Raymond Danton, 1975) 1Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) 1, 11–12, 32, 38,

41, 55, 68, 78–9, 87, 109, 124, 126, 131, 139–50,155, 157

The Psychopath (Freddie Francis, 1966) 139Queen of Outer Space (Edward Bernds, 1958) 4

Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977) 50Rape Squad (Bob Kelljan, 1974) 123Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) 131Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) 54A Reflection of Fear (William A. Fraker, 1973) 1,

11, 32, 126The Reptile (John Gilling, 1966) 4, 65Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) 3, 42, 123Rites (Penny Dedman, 1991) 162Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) 11Savage Streets (Danny Steinmann, 1984) 123Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948) 54Seizure (Oliver Stone, 1974) 73The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943) 73Sex and the Vampire (Jean Rollin, 1970) 59The Sexorcist (Mario Gariazzo, 1974) 31Shadow of the Werewolf (Leon Klimovsky, 1970)

59The She-Beast (Michael Reeves, 1966) 73The She-Creature (Edward L. Cahn, 1956) 4The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) 55, 108Shivers (David Cronenberg, 1975) 55Single White Female (Barbet Schroeder, 1992) 122Sisters (Brian De Palma, 1973) 3, 32, 42, 78, 87,

123–4, 126, 131–8, 155Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Jones, 1982) 127The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948) 137Son of Dracula (Freddie Francis, 1974) 64Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) 139The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben, 1987) 55A Stolen Life (Curtis Bernhardt, 1946) 131

A Stranger in Our House (Wes Craven, 1978) 73Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977) 73, 76, 77The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984) 108The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper,

1974) 55, 124Texas Chainsaw II (Tobe Hooper, 1980) 126The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) 17, 27, 50To the Devil – A Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976) 31Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990) 57Tremors (Ron Underwood, 1990) 107Trog (Freddie Francis, 1970) 56Twins of Evil (John Hough, 1971) 60, 70Twisted Nerve (Roy Boulting, 1968) 139The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker, 1971) 60,

61, 64, 65, 71, 107Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932) 60Vampyres (Joseph Larraz, 1974) 60, 70, 71, 107Vampyros Lesbos (Franco Manera, 1970) 60The Velvet Vampire (Stephanie Rothman, 1971) 60Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) 57Violated (A. K. Allen, 1985) 123The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1959) 123Voodoo Women (Edward L. Cahn, 1957) 4The Wasp Woman (Roger Corman, 1960) 56Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert

Aldrich, 1962) 1The Witch (Georges Méliès, 1902) 73Witchcraft (Don Sharp, 1964) 73Witchcraft through the Ages (Benjamin

Christensen, 1922) 73Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1991) 73

The Witch’s Revenge (Georges Méliès, 1903) 73The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) 73The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941) 32Xtro (Harry Bromley Davenport, 1982) 44, 50, 56Zombie Flesheaters (Lucio Fulci, 1979) 11

INDEX

abject: attraction of 13–14, 31, 37, 42, 60–1, 66, 81;and birth 41, 43–53, 58; as bodily waste 9, 11,13–14, 31, 38, 49, 77, 154; as border 8–11, 14, 25,29–30, 32, 37–8, 42, 48–9, 53–4, 58, 61–2, 69, 71;as corpse 9–10, 140; definition 9–10; asexcrement 10–12, 14, 31, 79; and female sexuality14, 31, 40; and fertile female body 7, 25, 40, 47–8,62; and horror film 10–14; as invaded self 32; andmaternal figure/body 11, 14, 22, 164–6, 38; andmenstrual blood 10, 12, 14, 31, 41, 59, 62, 73–8;and mother–child dyad 82, 139–40; and narcissism12; in religion 9, 11, 14, 42, 48; and self 37, 150;and spectatorship 28–30; as unsocialized body 38,40; and vampirism 70; and woman’s blood 68–9;and womb 49–53, 77; and women 10, 47; aswound 48, 70, 82 see also the monstrous-feminine

Andromeda 46apocalypse 52, 78archaic mother see monstrous-feminineAthena 166

Bacchae 126Bakhtin, Mikhail 57–8Bataille, Georges 10, 28Bathory, Countess Elizabeth 60, 63, 67Bellour, Raymond 140, 144, 146–8Benvenuto, Bice 160, 162bible 41–2, 47birds: as female fetish 24; as women 142–3, 144–6birth: as grotesque 56–8 see also abjectblood: in film titles 62; hymenal 66; and lesbian

vampire 59–61, 70; menstrual 63–4; and oral sex69–70; pig’s blood 80; and vampirism 59–62passim, 69–70 see also abject; menstruation;vampire

body: as abject female 37–42; bleeding wound 147;clean and proper body 11–13, 40, 42, 47;feminized male body 19; as grotesque 58; ashouse/womb 55; menstrual body 62–72; andmirror phase 29–30; physical transpositions 117; inrevolt 34, 40; symbolic (male) body 11, 25, 47, 49,58, 68 see also abject

Boss, Pete 48Brennan, Teresa 110Britton, Andrew 39, 157Brophy, Philip 48Brown, Frank A. 64Brown, Royal 125Bullough, Vera L. 56–7, 91Bundtzen, Lynda K. 51Butler, Ivan 148

calendar: and menstrual cycle 64Campbell, Joseph 1, 74, 106cannibalism 2, 11, 22, 55, 67Carmilla (Sheridan le Fanu) 60carnivalesque 42, 80Carroll, Noel 39caste system 13castrating mother see monstrous-femininecastration: anxiety 5, 12, 53–5, 74–5, 105–21, 154,

155, 162; castration of male 2, 105–21, 122–38,148–9, 153; female castration complex 22;Freudian theory of 1–9 passim, 87, 88–104,159–64 see also female genital mutilation;monstrous-feminine

censorship 128chora 11, 20, 38Christ, Jesus 2, 41, 82Christianity 48, 52, 79, 81, 125circumcision 159clitoris 162Clover, Carol J. 125–6, 157College of Sociology 8corpse see abjectcouvade 57Cowie, Elizabeth 153Creed, Barbara 7, 163

Dadoun, Roger 20, 22, 72, 150, 157Daly, C. D. 112death 23, 28, 29, 129, 135defloration 66, 119–21

Derry, Charles 34, 39Dervin, Daniel 19devil 13, 32, 39, 43Dijkstra, Bram 63, 66, 108Dika, Vera 125Doane, Mary Ann 55, 132, 137double 32, 53, 133–4, 147Dracula 3, 20–2, 59, 63, 69, 71–2Drake, Douglas 65dream 1, 117–19dyadic mother-child relationship 8, 11, 12. 21, 26, 38,

39, 71, 81, 109, 139, 159, 161, 164

Ebert, Roger 125, 127essentialism 83, 156Europa 18Evans, Walter 65Eve 79exodus 69exorcism 3, 31–2, 34

fairy stories 76, 81family: and absent father 40; critique of 77; decline

of 34, 44, 55; patriarchal family 61; and repression35

fantastic 3–4female genital mutilation 162femininity: as evil 76–9 passim; as opposite of

masculinity 115; as socially acceptable 132; asthreatening to the male 76, 119; as voracioussexual desire 145

feminist film theory 1, 6, 139, 161–6femme castratrice see monstrous-femininefemme fatale 157fetishism: and the castrating mother 115–17; in

Dracula films 20–2, 72; female fetishism 21–4;Freud’s theory of 5, 110–11, 115–17, 147; andhaunted house 55; as textual practice 153, 156,158

film noir 127, 152, 157flashback 137Frankenstein 3–4Frazer, Sir James George 71Freud, Sigmund 2, 7, 17–19, 21–2, 24–6, 53–4, 57,

66, 71, 87–104 passim, 105–21, 125, 138, 140,149, 151–2, 156–9, 160, 162, 164–5

frigidity 120Fromm, Erich 88furies 126

gaze: male gaze 149; maternal gaze 141, 143,145–50 passim

genitals (female): bleeding 90, 112; difference ofgirl’s and woman’s 113–14; male fear of 2–3; asmouth 113; in The Exorcist 35; as uncanny 54 seealso abject; castration; vagina dentata; woman’swound

genitals (male): of animals 91, 96; and birth fantasy100–2; in films about male castration 122–38; andflaccidity 162 see also castration; Little Hans;vagina dentata

ghost 54–5

ghoul 10–11, 154Gifford, Edward S. Jr 105gorgon 66, 126gothic 54, 115Graves, Robert 64, 81Green berg, Harvey R. 23Greer, Germaine 33Grosz, Elizabeth 110, 161, 163grotesque 43, 49–50, 53, 57, 80, 150Gunew, Sneja 57

Hammer horror 63Handling, Piers 44Hans see Little HansHardy, Phil 39, 128–9harpy 144haunted house 54–6, 140Hays, H. R. 64Heath, Stephen 106, 108Hebbel, F. 120–1hell 43, 52heterosexual couple 61, 71Hippocrates 45Hogan, David J. 4, 131, 146Hollier, Denis 8homophobia 61homosexuality 36, 140, 161–2Horney, Karen 89, 113, 130, 165horror film: and abject maternal figure 37, 83, 150–1;

as confrontation with abject 37, 42; andconventions 132; critique of middle-class values

77–8; and iconography 55; and mise-en-scène153–4; as reconciliation with the maternal body41; as rite of passage 5, 40, 63, 65

Houston, Beverly 34, 39Huet, Marie-Hélène 45hysteria 56–7

immortality 67incest: as abject 9; incest taboo 11, 69; and mother

18, 25, 41; mother-daughter incest 35–6, 41, 70–1,82; in vampire film 70; in women’s film 139 seealso Little Hans; monstrous-feminine; Oedipuscomplex

Irigaray, Luce 151, 166

Jacobus, Mary 121Jameson, Fredric 148John the Baptist 46Jones, Ernst 66, 69, 113Judaism 41, 48, 81, 125, 146Judith and Holofernes (Friedrich Hebhel) 120–1

Kali 126Kaplan, E. Ann 139Karnstein trilogy 60Kavanaugh, James H. 23Keats 63Kelly, Mary 21Kennedy, Roger 160, 162Kinder, Marsha 34, 39King, Stephen 105

King Lear 33Klein, Melanie 113Kramer, Heinrich 74–5, 81Kristeva, Julia 7, 8–16, 20, 22, 25, 31, 37–8, 41–3, 46,

48, 51, 59, 62, 69, 73, 76, 163, 164, 166

Lacan, Jacques 25–6, 29, 71, 106, 110, 152, 158,160–1

Lamia 33, 40, 81language 38, 40Laplanche, J. 93–4, 113, 153–4, 156, 160Lechte, John 164Leda and the swan 18Lederer, Wolfgang 106Le Fanu, J. S. 60Lenne, Gérard 3–4, 56leprosy 48lesbian vampire 67–72Lévi-Strauss 25–7, 64Little Hans: case study 88–104; birth phantasy

100–2; castration anxiety 91–4, 98–101 ; desirefor mother 91–3, 102–3; father as castrator 89,103; father’s manipulation of Hans’s story 88, 95,97, 99, 100–1, 103; giraffe dream 98–9; horse’sbiting mouth 95; horse’s genitals 91, 93, 96;horse/housemaid 95; mother as castrated 89, 91,93, 96, 104; mother as castrating 89, 91–3, 96–9,102–3; mother’s genitals 88–9, 90–1, 93, 94–6,98–9, 104; Oedipus complex 94, 97, 99, 104;phobias 89–90, 92–3, 98, 102; sister 90, 93, 98;vagina 93–4, 96–7; womb 93, 98, 100

Lurie, Susan 5–6, 130

McDonald, James 106McNally, Raymond T. 63mad scientist 56Malleus Maleficarum 74–5Marshack, Alexander 64masochism 128–38, 153, 155masturbation 31, 65, 79, 117–19, 146, 148–9maternal authority 12, 13, 14, 38, 142, 150, 163–6

passimmaternal melodrama see women’s filmmatriarchy 24–5matricide 55Medusa 2–3, 26, 60, 65–6, 110–11, 117, 166Melville, Herman 70menstruation 63, 64, 65, 67, 74, 79, 80, 81, 112,

119–21metamorphosis 44, 50, 59, 70, 115Miles, Margaret 43, 49mirror phase 29Mitchell, Juliet 22, 159Modleski, Tania 140, 149monster: historical origins 45, 46; male 1, 3, 5, 6, 115;

male as feminized figure 63, 156; monstrosity 9, 11monstrous-feminine: as animal 1, 4, 45, 47, 83; as

archaic mother 1, 7, 12, 16–30, 43, 54, 68, 72; ascastrated wound 1–11 passim, 22, 23, 27, 57, 66,87, 109–17, 122, 125–7, 131–8, 140, 151–2; ascastrating mother 82, 87, 88–104 passim, 139–50,151, 156–63; as devouring 23, 25, 48, 69, 76, 109,

112, 113, 139, 144; faces of 1, 3, 27, 83, 151, 165,166; as femme castratrice 1, 7, 15, 22, 23, 27, 35,40, 87, 114–17, 122–38; as menstrual monster 10,35, 59–72; as possessed monster 1, 7, 31–42; aspsychopath 1, 79, 82, 87, 122, 128, 139; asschizophrenic 3–4; as vagina dentata 1, 2, 6, 7,15, 22, 23, 66, 72, 105–21, 124, 151, 157; asvampire 1–3, 7, 53, 59–72; as witch 1–2, 4, 7, 53,73–86; as womb monster 1, 7, 27, 43–58

Morris, Joan 81mother: as goddess figure 24, 26; as lack 26; as the

law 141, 142, 149, 163–6; and nature 13, 15, 49,62, 83; as phantasmatic 25, 26; and reproductivepowers 25, 26, 71 see also monstrous-feminine;pre-Oedipal

Mulvey, Laura 5, 125–6, 152, 155mummification 143mummy 4myth 1, 2

narcissism 12, 70, 115narration, female 137, 140; male 141Neale, Stephen 5–6necrophilia 55Neumann, Erich 105, 111

Oedipus 26Oedipus complex 7, 25, 87, 109, 139–50, 159–60 see

also Little Hansoral sadism 112–13

Pazuzu 33–4, 36Perseus 111, 166phallic woman 156–8phoenix 144–5Pirie, David 77Place, Janey 157Polan, Dana 37Pontalis, J. B. 93–4, 113, 153–4, 156, 160possessed monster see monstrous-femininePrawer, S. S. 39pre-Oedipal 20, 22, 28, 38, 109; pre-Oedipal mother

21, 24–5, 26, 28, 81

Rabelais 2, 49, 57rape 128–9 see also revengeRawson, Philip 105rebirth 53, 81Redgrove, Peter 63–6, 80reproductive technology 56revenge: rape-revenge films 123, 126, 128–31, 135;

male revenge film 129Rheingold, Joseph 122ritual 8, 12–14, 37–8, 129robot 10, 43Rose, Jacqueline 159Rothman, William 145, 148Russell, Sharon 56, 73Russo, Vito 61

sacrifice 80, 82Sammon, Paul 49

satanism 77Scherner 117science fiction 157semen 70semiotic 12, 14, 27, 164 see also chorasexism 149sexuality: and horror film 5; woman’s sexuality see

also monstrous-feminineShuttle, Penelope 63–1, 80Silver, Alain 60Sirens 2, 126, 128slasher film 124–8Slater, Philip E. 66snake: and menstruation 64–5; and vampire bite

64–6; as bisexual image 111; in vagina 119Sobchack, Vivian 78Sodom and Gomorrah 34spectatorship 6, 10, 13, 37, 130; and abjection 154;

and fantasy 153; female 3–7, 154–6; and fifth look29, 154; and horror film 28–9, 152–6, 163; andidentification 146; male 2, 3, 7, 144–56; andmasochistic look 153–6

Sphinx 18, 26, 165Spoto, Donald 148Sprenger, James 74–5, 81Stallybrass, Peter 80Stoker, Bram 63Stone, Merlin 71striges 143Studlar, Gaylyn 153surrealism 1–2

Susanna and the Elders 146symbolic order: and abjection of maternal 13–15, 41,

57–8, 70–2, 150, 163–6; and the body 11, 13, 40see also body; failure of 38, 41; frailty of 31; andwoman 163–4 see also abject, monstrous-feminine; and paternal figure 13, 26, 160 see alsoLittle Hans; and pre-symbolic 13 see also 11, 13,14, 20, 22, 159–63

taboos 41, 69, 70Tansley, Rebecca 77teeth dreams 117–19telekinesis 35, 78–9, 82thetic 163–4Timeus 11toilet training 38, 40, 165totemism 25Tudor, Andrew 39, 59, 65twins 131–8Twitchell, James B. 4

uncanny 50, 53–4unconscious 156, 166Universal Studios 73Ursini, James 60uterine iconography 50, 53

vagina dentata: absence in Freud 105–21; in art108; conventional interpretations 109; in fairystories 107–9; and fetishism 116; and iconographyin horror 107–8; in Lacan 106; Medusa legend 2,

110–11; and menstruation 112; and mutilated malemonster 115; in myth and legend 1–2, 105–6, 166;and oral sadism 112–13; in popular speech 106–7;and teeth dreams 117–19; and vampire 66 seealso monstrous-feminine

vampire 4, 10–11, 17, 59–72, 154 see alsomonstrous-feminine

Verdet, Marc 137victim: male 2, 122–38; female 1, 4, 6–7, 122, 127,

130, 152virginity 3, 66, 115, 119–21voyeurism 23, 145–6 see also spectatorship

Walker, Barbara G. 63–4, 74, 80, 105, 109Waller, Gregory A. 131werewolf 4, 10, 32, 65, 67, 103, 115, 158–9White, Allon 80Whitford, Margaret 165Willemen, Paul 29Williams, Linda 6–7witch: in film 76–7 see also monstrous-femininewoman: male fears of 7, 57, 105–21 passim, 130–1,

152–3woman’s film 55, 77, 131–2, 139, 152, 153woman’s movement 4, 59women’s revenge film see revengewoman’s wound 48, 63, 70–1, 82womb: as abyss 27; coffin 69; children’s knowledge

of 93–1; in Freud 115; as garden of Paradise 64;in horror films 53–8; as monstrous place 43–58;as signifier of difference 27, 57; as tomb 4, 82;

and vampire myth 63–6; as wandering 57 seealso monstrous-feminine

Wood, Robin 3, 49, 61, 77, 131, 134–6, 147–8

Zeus 18Zimmerman, Bonnie 59–61zombie 4, 10–11, 45, 154