O Mundo de Claudia: Depressed princesses and wizards

December 08, 2005

Depressed princesses and wizards

"The tradition of a deadened, lethargic woman aroused from her numbness by a man's call was well under way in the nineteenth century: suffice it to recall Kundry from Wagner's Parsifal who, at the begginning of Act II and Act III, is awakened from a catatonic sleep(first through Klingsor's rude summons, then Gurnemanz's kind care), or - from 'real life' - the unique figure of Jane Morris, wife of William Morris and mistress of Dante Gabriel Rosetti. The famous photo of Jane Morris from 1865 presents a depressive woman, deeply absorbed in her thoughts, who seems to await a man's stimulation to pull her out of her lethargy.
(...)
The philosophical name for this depression is absolute negativity, what Hegel calls 'The night of the world', the subject's withdrawal into itself. And the link between this depression and the indestructible life-substance is also clear: depression, withdrawal-into-self, is the primordial act of retreat, of maintaining a distance towards the indestructible life-substance, making it appear as a repulsive scintillation." - Slavoj Žižek, The Metastases of Enjoyment

Paula Rego, "Snow White choking on the apple" - which, had I painted it and would have entitled it "where's a Heimlich manoeuvre specialist when you need one?" :-)

This also reminded me of Bruno Bettelheim's interpretation of fairy tales and how all of them seem to be directed at conditioning women's behaviour ("Waiting for Prince Charming" Syndrome, etc.)

And how I immediately associated the description of the Dementors in Harry Potter's books with the symptoms of depression:

"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can't see them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself...soul-less and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life." - J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

( maybe this is the Jane Morris photo he's talking about)

Note to self: will have to post about that annoying habit people have nowadays of saying "I'm depressed" when they're just sad.

Posted by claudia