Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol52no211
The Witch as the Anti-mother: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Trial Records
Nataša Polgar
; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb
Sažetak
The article analyzes the records from witch trials which took place in Northwestern Croatia from the late 17th century until the mid-18th century, identifying their underlying thorny issue, i.e. the relationship towards the body and physicality. The analysis of trial statements, seen as women’s personal narratives about their lives, fears, projections and phantasms, shows that the anxieties related to the manifestations of the body spring from the psychological structure of subjectivity. Certain elements of witch imagery, including infanticide and anthropophagy, indicate the existence of fear of the mother who prevents the subject from entering the space of the symbolic, thus leading to a sort of trappedness in a liminal area between the imaginary and the symbolic. At the end of the 17th century, the mother as the subject’s Other that guarantees his/her life and identity, becomes a monstrous witch threatening to abolish the entire “female” domain – children, home, food, animals, at the same time becoming a collective Other that channels conflicts, anxieties and violence within society.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
149490
URI
Datum izdavanja:
14.12.2015.
Posjeta: 3.016 *