Incest and the Limits of Family in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Disgust that Fascinates: Sibling Incest as a Bad Romance
This article compares the discourse of sibling incest evident in a corpus of fiction with the discourse found in clinical, sociological and criminal literature. Whereas the former primarily regards the coupling as a bad romance, the latter presents the idea that it is unequivocally harmful. This discrepancy between the two discourses surrounding sexual relationships between brothers and sisters speaks to literary fiction's need for thwarted romances for the purposes of the literary market. A more detailed look into three novels from the corpus, Tabitha Suzuma's Forbidden (2010), Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992) and Pauline Melville's The Ventriloquist's Tale (1997) shows how this logic of sibling incest as a bad romance works in practice.
This paper deals with the influence of sibling relationships on the development of the individual from an interdisciplinary perspective comprised of three components: psychoanalytic thinking, literary texts from a variety of genres and periods, and literary criticism. Both the psychoanalytic discipline and that of literary criticism have a marked lacuna visa -vis relationships and their influence on the individual, which constitutes the departure point of this study. Although there is no doubt of the importance of sibling relationships and the influence they have on the subject, the theory and research of both disciplines contributed little or nothing on the topic. Both transference relationships in the clinical field and in the case studies of major psychoanalytic ts, but absent in both psychoanalytical theory attempting to shed light on the psyche and its development, and clinical transference relationships, and in the field of literary criticism. Therefore, this paper wishes to address the sibling issue, thus becoming part of the current trend, which had its onset in the momentum over the past decade, due to the groundbreaking work of Prof. Juliet Mitchell, the British psychoanalyst and gender researcher. The decision to base this study on works of literature was twofold: the common conception amongst thinkers from the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy and literary criticism that literature uniquely reflects emotional and experiential truths of the human spirit, as well as the prevalence of sibling relationship as a dominant, widespread and fertile theme in works of literature of different genres from the very inception of humankind throughout the ages. This portrayal of myriad dynamics and patterns is a reflection of the importance, complexity and strong influence of sibling relationships on the being and identity of the subject.
Sibling Incest in Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden and Kate Avelynn’s Flawed
Journal of English Language and Literature
This study purposely appoints the topic of sibling incest as reacted from the phenomenon of proliferation of illicit relationships that are increasingly being shown blatantly especially in social media. Through literary works such as novel, the phenomenon can be analyzed since those works are the portrayal of real life. 'Forbidden' by Tabitha Suzuma and 'Flawed' by Kate Avelynn were analyzed with three objectives; 1) describing sibling incest in both novels, 2) finding out the causing factors, 3) describing the impact toward the characters' life. To achieve those objectives, the concept of incest, theory of psychoanalysis by Karen Horney and theory of comparative literature were applied. While in analyzing the data, it used interpretive perspective with author-oriented approach which concerns with psychoanalytic criticism. The results of this study reveal that the sibling incest in the two novels is different in type although the offenders' composition is the same, incest between older brother and younger sister. 'Forbidden' shows non-abusive incest since it is done on mutual willingness which is motivated by affection, while 'Flawed' shows abusive incest since it is done forcefully by the older brother against his sister which is motivated by affection, eroticism, and aggression. The similar factors causing the sibling incest found in both novels are dysfunctional family and between ages peers, while the factor of Law of Homogamy is only found in 'Forbidden'. Those factors do not cause the sibling incest just like the way without any influences of the characters' psychological condition which is shaped by their childhood experience and neurotic needs. This study also reveals how sibling incest impacts the characters' life. They suffer from psychological problems such as anxiety, self disgust, depression, self-destruction, self-blame, low self-esteem, and trauma. The enactment of incest taboo in their state also impacts them to self-isolation and prosecution. Evidently, this study reveals that any kinds of sibling incest with any reasons behind it lead into bad impact and dark phase of the offenders' life.
Christina von Braun has traced an intriguing reversal in the meaning of the word Blutschande over the course of the nineteenth century.1 While the ultimate disgrace to the blood originally referred to incest, i.e., to sexual relations between kin deemed too close, it had been transformed by the twentieth century into a shameful exogamy, a betrayal of the race through sexual relations with the "other," and not just any other, but specifically with the Jewish other. Braun suggests that the transformation of the word signals a unidirectional shift in dominant anxieties , from fear of incest to fear of interracial relationships. My claim is, however, that as early as the eighteenth century the nightmare or fantasy of incest already encapsulated within itself the fear of otherness, while the twentieth-century definition of Blutschande had not in fact drifted very far from its incestuous origin. Against the ferment of cultural encounter in the eighteenth century, the prevalence of the overdetermined motif of incest in the cultural imagination can be read in two different ways which sit uneasily with each other, but are nonetheless interdependent. First, incest fantasies constitute a conservative response to anxiety over confrontation with otherness, in the form of a model of ultimate insularity through radical endogamy. According to this model, incest is a way of conserving the purity of a race.2 Second, and simultaneously, incest fantasies constitute an apocalyptic vision of the dissolution of civilization (i.e., of Western or German culture defined as civilized) in a mimicry of "primitive" sexual behavior. Thus, even in the very act which guarantees the biological segregation of a group, the efficacy of biological segregation is called into question. This particular alignment of oriental-ism with sibling incest originated in the mid-eighteenth century and persisted into the twentieth, adapting itself to new cultural constellations as they arose. While the first work that I will address, Karoline von Gtinderode's Udohla (1805), takes place in India and rests upon the assumption that Hindu law permits siblings to marry, the last work under consideration, Thomas Mann's Wiilsungenblut (written 1905, first published 1921), projects the charge of incest onto German Jews. As we will see, the significance of racial and cultural anxiety in the incestuous imagination remained remarkably constant, providing a backdrop against which changing perceptions of race appear in stark contrast.
Beyond the Taboo: Imagining Incest
American Anthropologist, 2002
This article provides an overview of anthropology's 150-year discussion of the incest taboo in light of the last 30 years of feminist and psychoanalytic discoveries about the incestuous abuse of children, it invites anthropologists to explore incest ethnographically and offers three suggested ways: one biosocial, a second social relational, and a third psychoanalytic, focusing on a connection between what psychologists call dissociation and what anthropologists call trance or possession.