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Author
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Comment
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(2/5/05 8:22 pm)
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Insatiable Woman
Hi, I'm currently researching a paper on appetite in the Otherworld and was hoping to bounce ideas off people. Starting with the characteristic of changelings to eat their households into poverty while failing to thrive, and the inability of fairy food to nourish, I've been thinking lately about the woman who devours her children. Particularly interesting to me is the second part of the Sleeping Beauty story, in which the prince's mother is an ogress intent on eating her grandchildren (begotten on the unconscious protagonist who awoke to labor pains). There's a parallel, I think, in the passivity of the first woman to the fierce ambition of the second. As you can see, I'm still in the 'mulling' process, and obviously there are boundless references to appetite in folklore (the obligations of food sharing, the woman done in by peculiar appetite as in Rapunzel or even Persephone...)
For the moment I'm just eager to hear others' thoughts as I find the theme I will pursue.
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janeyolen
Registered User
(2/6/05 2:50 am)
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Re: Insatiable Woman
Interesting topic. Must mull.
And wonder if it will head south (yep, I meant this!) to stories about Poison Damsels and Vagina Dentata.
Jane
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midori snyder
Registered User
(2/6/05 4:43 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: Insatiable Woman
My first thoughts were of Baba Yaga and her house on chicken legs, the fence of human bones and skulls, the great big oven and her penchant for eating the folks who wander too close to her little homestead. Also the fact that she flies around in a mortar and pestle and has iron teeth for chomping. It seems at time as though she's all about the consuming...that even the little domestic details about her point to the cooking or preparation of food. Since she tends to appear in the narratives just as the hero or heroine is under going a rite of passage--it might be argued that this bone crunching forest woman is there to figuratively "consume" the old identity.
Hmmm...reminds me of the Cannibal Queen in Tibetian "Lhamo" performances (traditional folk opera) that cuts up and eats the hero--until the Khandroma (female trickster goddesses) force the Queen to vomit him up again and then put him back together.
Swallowing and then disgorging is a big activity in narratives...but you are only interested in the activity when it concerns female characters?
Edited by: midori snyder at: 2/6/05 8:57 am
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(2/6/05 5:12 am)
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Insatiable
Here's a story, on just this theme, in case you are interested
mysite.wanadoo-members.co...ungry1.htm
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(2/6/05 1:38 pm)
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Re: Insatiable
Another insatiable woman is the witch in Hansel and Gretel. The food she creates (the gingerbread house) leaves her hungry and exists solely to attract what she really wants to eat: children.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 2/6/05 1:46 pm
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(2/6/05 3:42 pm)
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Re: Insatiable
What are poison damsels and vigina dentata?
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(2/6/05 5:35 pm)
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insatiable woman
Thanks for the input; I hadn't considered Hansel and Gretel and the idea of Baba Yaga eating the former self is definitely worth further consideration.
It isn't that I specifically started looking at women and appetite, or want to exclude other interesting points, but I feel like the overlap of consumption and sexual appetite is leading me in that direction. The vagina dentata has been mixed up in the mulling process for a while; the fear of the woman literally consuming the man, and the woman who eats her own children, are two related threads I plan to pursue.
Other obscure figures calling for my attention are the Entangling Woman (with the ambiguous vagina/mouth on her neck, who impregnates her male victims) and the Yakshi, those horse-headed cannibal women of pre-Buddhist myth.
At the moment I feel a little overwhelmed with material, but I'm kind of enjoying it. :rolleyes
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(2/6/05 6:53 pm)
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Re: insatiable woman
I don't know if this is going to far afield, but there are vampire stories that fit your theme. I'm thinking of Angela Carter's "The Lady of the House of Love" in The Bloody Chamber and both "Snow, Glass, Apples" and "Tastings" from Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. In all three the woman/vampire is insatiable. In the first she dies because she is unable to consume her victim, in the second she is a vampire that makes you completely reconsider the story of Snow White, and in the last, her appetites steal the most valuable gift each man has.
Sounds like you have a fascinating topic.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 2/6/05 6:54 pm
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spoonmoonhollow
Registered User
(2/7/05 12:56 am)
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Re: insatiable woman
one of my favorite woman eating man stories is in Tanith Lee's "Weasel Bride" from her collection Secret Books of Paradys. Wonderful and creepy. Also in Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market" the girl, Laura, eats the goblin men's fruit and wastes away in longing...
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Richard Parks
Registered User
(2/8/05 4:19 pm)
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Re: insatiable woman
If you're not confining this to western culture you get a fair number of possibilities in Japanese legend. For instance, there's Kiyohime, a young girl who fell in love with a priest. He refused her because of his vows but, frustrated, she would not give him up but pursued him, finally transforming herself into a giant serpent to catch and devour him. There's a fair bit in Japanese legend about frustrated desires manifesting as unholy appetites(makes sense, coming from a Buddhist tradition). For instance, a woman who has lost her children in infancy might mourn their loss to the point that she becomes an ogress, and then catches and devours other people's children in an attempt to possess what she cannot have.
http://dm.net/~richard-parks |
kristiw
Unregistered User
(2/8/05 6:27 pm)
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insatiable woman
Timely post; I was just becoming discouraged with my inability to get past the immediate read of the stories and you've given me food for thought. In so many stories the cannibal woman serves a pointed misogynistic moral; literal consumption by the ambitious or aggressive woman as a parallel to loss of male agency. Very interesting, but also somewhat exhaustively written on. I am having trouble getting past the obvious and a finer focus is exactly what I need. I have no particular attachment to Western stories; if you could point me in the direction of relevant texts I would greatly appreciate it!
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Helen J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(2/8/05 7:35 pm)
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Re: insatiable woman
Dear Kristi:
Given the common association between the woman and the hearth, you might consider the idea (stemming from Baba Yaga, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapunzel), of immurement within the various homes of cannibal women as a form of consumption in and of itself. In that vein, you might also think about the parallels between the fairy otherworld and Hades, and the various fairy queens who entrap their victims by offering fairy food as Hades offered the pomegranate to Persephone ... you might also consider the story of the Green Serpent.
Best,
Helen
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Richard Parks
Registered User
(2/8/05 11:48 pm)
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Re: insatiable woman
The legend of Kiyohime and Anchin is online several places, though this site might be better to point you at some sources. One interesting point is she's usually credited with devouring him by fire, not actually eating him:
www.theserenedragon.net/T...nchin.html
Variations of the asian ogress grandmother are listed here, along with sources:
home.arcor.de/marcmarti/y...tale11.htm
There's also a Buddhist legend of an ogress called Kishi-mojin who devoured nearly 500 children, until the Buddha hid the 500th under his begging bowl and then made the ogress mend her evil ways. From that point on she became a protector of children. She supposedly was derived from the Hindu goddess Hariti.
http://dm.net/~richard-parks |
janeyolen
Registered User
(2/9/05 1:53 am)
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Re: insatiable woman
Try Lilith as well. Her "hunger" for equality with husband Adam led God to throw her out and give him Eve instead. And poor Lilith became the demon devourer of dead children. See midrash stories.
Jane
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(2/9/05 1:53 pm)
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insatiable woman
Thanks for everyone's help, I think I can see something taking shape...
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