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Monsters in Our Minds: the Myth of Infanticide and the Murderous Mother in the Cultural Psyche

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Monsters in Our Minds: the Myth of Infanticide and the Murderous Mother in the Cultural Psyche MONSTERS IN OUR MINDS: THE MYTH OF INFANTICIDE AND THE MURDEROUS MOTHER IN THE CULTURAL PSYCHE INGRID LANA SCHER A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Law University of New South Wales, Sydney MARCH 2005 ©Copyright 2005 by Ingrid Lana Scher All Rights Reserved ii Originality Statement ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgment is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged’. Ingrid Lana Scher 31 March 2005 Faculty of Law The University of New South Wales iii Abstract If, as author Toni Morrison believes, we tell stories about what we find most terrifying, then our cultural narratives suggest an overwhelming preoccupation with the murderous mother – the monster in our minds. This dissertation examines some of the most powerful and enduring stories told about the murderous mother and considers how these stories are shaped by the unconscious fears and fantasies that dominate the cultural psyche. Revolving around the idea of infanticide as an ‘imaginary’ crime, this dissertation uncovers the psychoanalytic foundations of the obsessive telling and consumption of stories of maternal child-murder in Western culture and contends that infanticide narratives can be read as symptoms of psycho- cultural dis(-)ease. Underlying all stories about the murderous mother is an unconscious fear of infanticide and fantasy of maternal destructiveness that is repressed in the individual psyche. These fears and fantasies are expressed in our cultural narratives. Chapter 1 examines fairytales as the literary form that most clearly elaborates individual fears and psychic conflict and locates the phantasmic murderous mother within psychoanalytic narratives of individuation. Chapter 2 shows how individual fears and fantasies of maternal monstrosity are transferred to society and revealed in the myths through which our culture is transmitted. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the particular neuroses of ancient Greek society and early modern culture and consider stories of the murderous mother that most powerfully reflect anxieties of maternal origin and fantasies of maternal power. Chapters 5 and 6 shift to a contemporary setting and consider stories that reveal, in differing ways, how the murderous mother haunts the cultural psyche. Examining a variety of texts and drawing material from a spectrum of disciplines, including law, literature, criminology, theology, philosophy, and medicine, this dissertation concludes that it is only by exposing the underpinnings of our cultural stories about the murderous mother that we can hope to break free from the unconscious attitudes that imprison us. Emerging from this study is an original and important theoretical framework concerning conceptualisations of infanticide, the ways in which we imagine maternal child-murder and the limits of that imagination, and how we might escape the murderous maternal monster buried deep in the labyrinths of the mind. iv Dedication I dedicate this work to Eve and John, for their unfaltering love and support and for always letting me shine, and to the memory of Joy – forever in our hearts. v Acknowledgments Dear Muse, show me the sacred stream … offering vision to the heart, passion to the mind … Support me in those healing waters, Plummet me one depth more than I can bear; give me aspiration, give me tranquillity; give me … the curiosity to go on and on and on … “But First …” Diane Fahey Metamorphoses The process of writing this dissertation full time over the past five years has been enriched by the generous support of many friends and colleagues too numerous to mention in this brief space. They know their individual contributions and graciously accept my gratitude. Special mention should be made of the support provided by the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, in particular the Associate Deans of Postgraduate Research, Angus Corbett and Professor David Dixon, and the postgraduate co-ordinator Kerrie Daley. I would also like to express special thanks to Associate Professor Jill McKeough for ‘setting the ball in motion’. Many thanks also to my review panel members Dr Kathy Bowrey and Dr Annie Cossins for their enthusiasm and sensible advice. vi I would like to acknowledge the interlibrary loans staff at the University of New South Wales library for their commitment to postgraduate researchers and the reference librarians at the State Library of New South Wales and the Mitchell Library. Special mention must also be made of law librarian Yvonne Wilcox for her determination and persistence in locating a ‘phantom’ trial transcript. I am extremely grateful for the kindness of several international scholars who made available otherwise unattainable material – Dr Susan Sage Heinzelman at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr Jennifer Thorn at Duke University, and Dr Eva Hunter at the University of Zimbabwe. Many thanks also to Dr Daisy Neijmann at University College London and Professor Matthew Calarco from Sweet Briar College, Vancouver. I also appreciate correspondence with Jeff McDonald at the Attorney-General’s Department in Canberra. Most of all, I would like to express heartfelt gratitude to my doctoral supervisor, Dr Dirk Meure, for his wisdom, patience, and intellectual rigour, and perhaps most importantly for encouraging me to pursue ideas others were too afraid to even contemplate. Thank you for letting me dream … vii We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world…. -Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time -T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets ‘Little Gidding’ viii Table of Contents Page Abstract iv Dedication v Acknowledgments vi Prologue: ‘Monsters in Our Minds’ 1 Introduction 13 Telling Stories: Maternal Child-Murder, ‘Mythic Mother Narratives’, and Murderous Mothers in the Cultural Imagination PART 1: Anatomy of the Psyche 63 Chapter One 64 Infanticidal Phantasmagoria: Monstrous Imagos, Devouring Mothers, and Fantasies of Maternal Malevolence in the Social Unconscious ‘Phantoms of extreme evil’ ‘Monsters from the id’ The fear of infanticide ‘A child is being eaten’ Child-victim/predator-villain The phallic mother ‘My mother, she killed me’ ‘The spectral mother’ Chapter Two 121 Murdering Mothers: Infanticide, Matricide, and Oedipal Lore Cultural psychopathology The mother archetype Primal antagonism: Hero(self)/dragon-monster(mother) Archetypal shifts Primordial symbolism ix The myth of Oedipus Freud, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and the mundus imaginalis Jocasta and the Sphinx Jocasta’s crime(s) and punishment Return of the repressed PART 2: Phallocentric His(-s)tories/Cultural Neuroses 218 Chapter Three 219 ‘An Unnatural Crime, A Monstrous Act’: Imag(in)ing Maternal Child-Murder in the Theatre of Dionysus Tragic conflict ‘Theatres of the mind’ ‘A time out of time’ Psycho-cultural productions ‘Too much blood’: (Paternal) sacrifice/(Maternal) child-murder ‘A disorder that threatens all order’: Mothers, mania, murder, and maenadism ‘Foul murderer of children’ Chapter Four 300 ‘Deeds Against Nature and Monsters By Kind’: Childbirth, Child-Murder and Early Modern Anxieties of Origin ‘Anxious masculinity’ (Mis)conceptions ‘Monstrous imagination’ Engendering monsters ‘Perhaps my mother murdered me’ ‘The devil is in you’ Metamorphoses Sins of the mother (tongue) ‘Malevolent nurture’ Reproductive demons ‘[Save] our nurse-lings from … the destroyer’ ‘Wicked and divellish practises and murthers’ ‘No naturall Mother, but a Monster’ PART 3: Haunting Tales 421 x Chapter Five 422 ‘A Monster Pure and Simple’: Incredible Mother Plots ‘The real as the impossible’ ‘The perfect crime’ Presumed guilty: The Lindy Chamberlain case ‘Trial by suspicion’: The murder of JonBenét Ramsey False innocence: The Susan Smith case Stranger than fiction: The Darlie Routier case ‘Imaginary infant’: The case of Caroline Beale ‘A woman to blame’: The case of Joanne Hayes ‘An abominable affair’: The case of Christine Villemin Chapter Six 507 ‘Her Side of the Story’: Scenes of (In)justice, Fables of Desire, and Revisionary Mythopoeism ‘Dangerous possibilities’ Mythic Scenes 1: Medea ‘Death of the Innocent’: Christa Wolf’s Medea – A Modern Retelling Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women – Reality is Just Outside the Window ‘Rain to wash away the blood’: Vivian Deborah Wilson’s Medea – An Original Play in Two Acts Fantasmas: Cherríe Moraga’s The Hungry Woman – A Mexican Medea Mythic Scenes 2: Jocasta ‘Imprint(s) of the Mother’: Michèle Fabien’s Jocasta ‘An innocent slice of moon’: Ursule Molinaro’s Power Dreamers: The Jocasta Complex Mythic Scenes 3: Eve and Lilith Consuming narratives: Dismembering and re(-)membering the mother in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name Novel transformations: Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve Conclusion: The Spectre of the Murderous Mother 605 Bibliography 621 xi Prologue: ‘Monsters in Our Minds’ [T]ry to imagine your life being spread out, ripped to pieces, examined, opinions cast, character assassinated, your every word, action, thought, doubted, and you’re told you don’t know yourself. Add to that, because of all of the above becoming the most HATED woman alive …You can’t.
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