It is also one of the oldest, judging from its appearance in the Bible and in Sumerian texts five thousand years old. The evil eye-the power to inflict illness, damage to property, or even death simply by gazing at or praising someone-is among the most pervasive and powerful folk beliefs in the Indo-European and Semitic world. The evil eye-the power to inflict illness, damage to pr.) He edited Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore (1991), which was published by University Press of Mississippi. Among many others, his books include Interpreting Folklore (1980) and From Game to War and Other Psychoanalytic Essays on Folklore (1997). Bloody Mary in the Mirror is an expedition into psychoanalytic folklore techniques and constitutes a giant step towards realizing the potential Freud's work promises for folklore studies.Īlan Dundes is professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.
The plausible analysis of this well-known-if somewhat puzzling-American rite is one of many surprising and enlightening finds in this book.Īll of the essays in this remarkable volume create new takes on old traditions. One of two essays Dundes co-authored with his daughter Lauren Dundes, professor of sociology at Western Maryland College, successfully probes the content of Disney's The Little Mermaid, yielding new insights into this popular reworking of a Hans Christian Andersen favorite.Īmong folk rituals investigated is the girl's game of "Bloody Mary." Elementary or middle school-age girls huddle in a darkened bathroom awaiting the appearance in the mirror of a frightening apparition. In the seven fascinating essays of Bloody Mary in the Mirror, psychoanalytic theory illuminates such folklore genres as legend (in the vampire tale), folktale (in the ancient Egyptian tale of two brothers), custom (in fraternity hazing and ritual fasting), and games (in the modern Greek game of "Long Donkey").
One notable exception is folklorist Alan Dundes. Most folklorists have been slow to consider psychoanalysis as a method of interpreting folklore. However, psychoanalysts, handicapped by their limited knowledge of folklore techniques, have tended to confine their efforts to the Bible, to classical mythology, and to the Grimm fairy tales. Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristicsīloody Mary in the Mirror mixes Sigmund Freud with vam.)īloody Mary in the Mirror mixes Sigmund Freud with vampires and The Little Mermaid to see what new light psychoanalysis can bring to folklore techniques and forms.Įver since Freud published his analysis of Jewish jokes in 1905 and his disciple Otto Rank followed with his groundbreaking The Myth of the Birth of the Hero in 1909, the psychoanalytic study of folklore has been an acknowledged part of applied psychoanalysis.
0 kommentar(er)
