Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part V. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother', Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Blog Contents:

2.0–2.7: Omitted /

3.0–3.5: The Bridge Builder /

4.0–4.4: "Blud Und Boden" /

5.0–5.3: Making Use Of Sociological Methods /

6.0–6.4: Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause /

7.0–7.4: The Sexes /

8.0–8.7: The Case Of Bridget Cleary /

9.0–9.5: Persecuting White Christians /

10: Cannibalisation /

11.0–11.2: Disclaimer //.

☆☆☆

2.0 — Omitted: Until now my series of blogs on the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan, have treated the 'Faustian bargain' as part of an hitherto undiscussed cultural complex that I will tentatively call: "the macabre tax", viz. the forced taking of one's own life or children, such as implicated "by signing one's own life away [to the devil]" or "by making a pact with the devil". As such phrases are often stated and inasmuch are readily at hand: point towards an already existing wide-ranging awareness of such macabre tax, the quite obvious concern that is unofficially represented is irrespectively treated as marginal, or irrelevant history, or part of fanciful folk-lore. The question begging an answer: is that how the perpetrators perceive such matters?

2.1 — It is mostly omitted from serious social analysis and instead is found among lulling children's tales, such as: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', based on a rat-catcher, who introduces rats to the town later to demand a fee for removing the vermin, is accused of extortion, then, out of revenge for no receipt of payment, re-appears on the Feast Day of Saints John and Paul, 26 June, to take the children with him—and note, the narrative is, in fact, recorded by 'The Lüneberg Manuscript', circa 1440 / circa 1450, of Lower Saxony—refer to 'The Herzog August Bibliothek' web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://www.hab.de/en/digitising-the-medieval-manuscripts-in-the-ratsbuecherei-lueneburg/>.

2.2 — The specific narrative has been a recurring literary theme, not losing relevance, such as demonstrated by Robert Browning's poem: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', circa 1842, for which the abduction is dated circa 1376; or the tale of: "The Rat-catcher" in 'The Red Fairy Book', ‎Dover Publications; a new publication: 1 June 1966, [Longmans, Green And Company, London, circa 1890], ‎367 pages; ISBN-10: ‎048621673X; ISBN-13‎: 978-0486216737, by Andrew Lang, 31 March 1844, Selkirk, Britain, until 20 July 1912, Banchory, United Kingdom—the renowned cultural critic, folk-lorist and anthropologist.

2.3 — The concern of the truth being of such horrorific proportions that it can only be told through fantastical contexts, viz. folk-lore, or super-natural / horror, or super-realist / psychological thriller genres, is the main point to be made: paradoxically, the truth can only be told through a fabulous lie; but the further question required an answer is: to whose benefit is that fictitious arrangement, exactly?

2.4 — In historical or report-based texts, such modern histories are generally absent of the horror: euphemistically referred to here as "the macabre tax"; and the assumption to make is: if there is no such horrific news then such events do not take place—surely, a logical deduction to make due to the pervasive surveillance culture of many cities, that is, when such surveillance can be contrived, controlled by who taxes.

2.5 — The point is, the matter of such tax appears hitherto officially discussed, particularly in any theoretical context, that is, unless the holocaust of Northern Europe during the 20th century is the one and only time such horrors occur in rarity; as a one-off trait of wide-scale war. It simply could not occur regionally or regularly—a point that contemporary French literature appears to confute by numerous authors telling of an experience of holocaust-like character, such as exemplified by: 'Le Rapport de Brodeck / Brodeck's Report', circa 2007 / English translation by John Cullen, 7 January 2010; a novel by Philippe Claudel; Quercus Publishing: London; 288 pages; ISBN-10: 1906694680; ISBN-13: 9781906694685; or the post-holocaust night-mare of: 'Le Non De Klara / Refusal', circa 2002, by Soazig Aaron, publisher Maurice Nadau, ISBN 2862311723, 9782862311722, in which "Klara", a pronoun and noun re-encoded dialectically to refer to a Nun, such as of the once pervasive order of Saint Clare of Assissi, portrays a protagonist who is refused entry back in to society because the cultures of caritas and such cultures' representatives are rejected, that is, within the new—or perhaps very old?—system of the macabre tax.

2.6 — The silence on the matter of such tax may be caused by the register of a degree of poetic license whenever it is spoken of; in saying some-one has made a pact with the devil, hyperbole is said to be demonstrated, if only to convey the feeling of cost involved by establishing a particular contract—on which point the discourse refers to that interminable matter of exploitation in which the pay rate is incommensurate with the demands of a type of employment: really enslavement.

2.7 — The tyrant / dæmon as the merciless boss is subject to an extensive examination in cultural texts, such as in reference to C.S. Lewis's text: 'The Screwtape Letters', [circa 1942] 12 April 2012, 224 pages; ISBN-10: 0007461240, ISBN-13: 9780007461240; often in these contexts the religious and profound are displaced to the secular terms of exploitation found in employment law and the great machine of civilisation turns it's cogs as part of an impersonal system supposedly permitting an attitude of indifference.

2.8 — Or where the arena of the court ought to be the bastion of counter-action against the oppressions of society, it regulates the mechanisms of persecution: the whole-scale elimination of quite blameless folk, trundled in a conspiring system of persecution. Franz Kafka's 'The Trial', Tribeca Books, 11 October 2011 [circa 1915], 160 pages, ISBN-10: ‎1612931030; ISBN-13: ‎978-1612931036, is one of the so-called existential or "demythologized" fictional musings on the court system gone awry; a textual treatment found more tangibly examined as disability discrimination in the film: 'Let Him Have It', 4 October 1991, by Peter Medak, produced by Canal+ et al., Britain—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0102288/?ref_=m_tttr_tt>.

2.9 — Filmic texts of American popular culture, such as the: 'Devil's Advocate', circa 1997, by Taylor Hackford, produced by Regency Enterprises—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0118971/>, are seen to portray the courts and legal firms as the very places where the devil him-self can be found; a cloaked figure who betrays his privileged position to wrought ruin upon people's lives in the name of greed.

3.0 — The Bridge Builder: There is, then, the under-pinning Christian-Judaic religious symbolism, viz. of "the devil": the Slanderer or Satan who obstructs freedoms of movement, both literal and figurative, to prevent particular classes of people from flourishing: it is the case that the classes of people must be oppressed and kept destabilised by interference and sabotage.

Figure 1. 'Die Teufelsbrücke Saint Gotthard / The Devil's Bridge Of Saint Gotthard', circa 1804, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, oil on canvas, 76.8 cm x 62.8 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich.

3.1 — Yet what I argue of, the macabre tax, that under-scores the narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is some-thing else: atrocity in the back-yard; the maniacal amid the every-day; yet it is still a matter apparently out-side rational thinking or discussion because psychology must place it's devils on it's particular bridges to work within the over-all system of "civilisation".

3.2 — The folk-lore of The Devil's Bridge / Teufelsbrücke serves as an illustration of the crossing of traditional oppositions that the devil figure is often considered to demand remains opposed and obstructed. With construction of the bridge "new ground", that is, new knowledge, will be gained, of which the devil would prefer remained inaccessible. The bridge builder must endure unbearable conditions to construct the bridge, in which case the bridge builder emerges as a hero, rather than a traitor who has betrayed even his own family to attain power, such as in the cases of Faust or Aaron.

3.3 — The notion of "the pact with the devil" was, during Wolfgang Goethe's time of 19th century Germany one of freely made choice; whereas the narrative of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, indicates a family over-taken by an insidious influence foreign or super-natural to the regional community.

3.4 — I have already discussed how Mephistopheles disappears in: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, to leave behind no trace of his presence—expert criminal that he is—to reveal a male presence in the family home, the character of Aaron, left-over instead, as an index of a demeaned masculinity; as an adult son who is coerced in to copulating with his sister, and further, demeans her and her daughter too: significantly in ways which are inimical to the family and the father's natural culture.

3.5 — The case seems that regarding: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, that the devil has not waited for the bridge builder to emerge out of one of the homes of the village to go to the river to construct his juncture between the opposite points of land; the devil has anticipated the movements of the potential bridge builder; the devil has entered the home to derange the family members and further apply an unspeakable and, or, or immemorable macabre tax; possibly to the extent the devil has promised a better way of life to the immediate father or father substitute, such as Aaron.

4.0 — "Blud Und Boden": The phenomena may have a less fantastical correlation with the practice of "blud und boden / blood and soil", of spilling blood in to the earth in order that a people may be able to claim it as truly their own; as a type of naturalising, except that often revised or contemporary texts interpret the phrase as referring to the abstracted notion of the "national body".

4.1 — The German Nazi were of Aryan, that is, Iranian-Median or Scythian / Hunic racial supremacism, rather than Anglo, Nordic or Saxon, as is often confusingly reported as white supremacy—there are different whites—such that the highly militaristic society of the Aryans is found expressing the loss of life as a necessary sacrifice; whereas genuine Northern European Christian cultures bear heavily any loss of life.

4.2 — The holocaust and genocide of the Jewish Semites and Christian Slavs are extensively documented, but the killing of children is some-thing else that must be told through the lulling effects of the fantastical—religion is often kept out of the discourse because tensions mount in regard to specific enmities, such as the Israeli against the Palestinians, or vice versa, at which point the context of genre has changed and matters are taken more seriously, if not cynically.

4.3 — The religious texts are subjected to the cynical reader who reads a pseudo-history, yet the truth nonetheless is found as an illumination and enlightenment of the nature of humankind.

4.4 — The accounts of the Old Testament state according to: 1 Kings 11:7, that Solomon erected a high place for [the idol of Molech] on the Mount of Olives, and from that time till the days of Josiah his worship continued, 2 Kings 23:10, 13. The calf-type idol sculpted of brass, hollow and heated by fire within, Molech, is the fire god of child sacrifice; is similar to that other demi-god, the Minotaur, to which seven youths and seven maidens were sacrificed as the fulfilment of King Minos's tax, applied every nine years on the people of Athens as recompense for the loss of his son: such occurrences echo through the halls of time, in mystified symbolism, to resist having the semblance of a precise relevance to now.

5.0 — Making Use Of Sociological Methods: An amount of blind faith is required to give credence to the claims such horrors occur now, when people are more willing to place faith in what is hopeful, unless fear is a type of hope in reversal and that which is goodly is too paradoxical to conceive: a point of not so much cynicism but faithlessness and Godlessness.

5.1 — Faith, of course, is insufficient "sola fide"; there is the matter of proof of faith, a work, in this case of reconstruction, that is, with what little structure that is available to reconstruct a glimpse in to the family life of North Dublin, the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, a type of psychological interpellation must be applied that more realistically perceives triggers of external occurrence as the cause of Angela's depression, rather than accept the often touted notion, mental illness or disabilities of a physical category are similar to the stigma of a changeling as incurable or innately defective, automate abjection and persecution.

5.2 — The film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, reveals a perspective in which the world is flat, that is, before the so-called Copernican Revolution, that proved the earth to be spherical: to extend upon the analogy, then using psychological interpellation, I have rendered through these series of five blogs the narrative of the film that is portrayed flatly in three-dimensions by examining the assumptions, which are all too easily and readily accepted—the first assumption being that the filmic text is completely fictional.

5.3 — While I refer to psychological interpellation as part of the deductive method that anticipates behaviours caused from triggers rather than an innate causation, I substantiate this approach in reference to applying both a standard set of intertextual analyses focused on a comparative method; such as found in the most basic structural anthropology espoused by Claude Lévi-Strauss or folk-lorist Vladimir Propp, who are credited with the notions of the mytheme or narrative unit, as a narrational set of relations, and as it correlates with a psycho-social complex, in which there is located the psychoanalytical concern of foreclosure, viz. Mephistopheles——Faust, or Mephistopheles——Grand-mother, and daughters——Faust or daughters——Grand-mother, and not: daughters——Mephistopheles or the Law; such that it can be asserted the over-all faculty of the work exists within the disciplines of sociology, viz. literary / cultural discourse analysis based on anthropology / psychoanalysis through an intertextual analytical method.

6.0 — Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause: Confronted with the almost impossible conditions of joining a point of impasse of the super-realistic æsthetic—subtly infusing the social scientific discourses through the quality of it's subject with implausibility—and a societal "establishment" that may function to discourage the building of bridges between the sexes, cultures and classes of people; I nonetheless argue that this macabre tax is extolled; that the agitator, the Mephistopheles, has slipped away, a shadow cast as quickly as it has faded from the action of the narrative, to perform his greatest trick yet, to leave the blameless behind and let accusation fall upon them. 

6.1 — From the out-set, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, portrays an elderly woman as a suspected murderer of an infant, that is as much as the super-realist æsthetic will permit the consideration to be made: the immolation is it-self omitted as a mark of the foreclosed suspicion that the style plays with.

6.2 — The elderly woman is seen to limp with a pram to a bushy area away from the neighbour-hood where a fire is lit and the baby, placed on the pile of dead branches, watches the elderly woman stare back at the infant; the old woman, Rita, acted by Ingrid Craigie, stares with suspicion, disbelief and welled-up eyes, as the flames suffuse her face with an orange glow.

Figure 2. Film still at 03:15 of 93:00: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan.

6.3 — It would be presumptuous to blame the elderly woman of immolating the child—there is the fact, an infant is not reported as missing or burnt dead later in the film. The trap would be to confer credence to the fallacy of: 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc', that is: 'because of this, therefore that': because of this scene, the elderly woman immolates children. The assumption is coaxed, that some-one is guilty because of an happenstance placement amid circumstantial evidence; condemnation occurs at the risk of a complicity with the devil's deception.

6.4 — Could the arrangement, the set-up, not be a trick of the devil? The devil, that master illusionist, demands from the arrangement, that on-lookers confer to his trick of controlling the people to perceive a blameless person as guilty for the devil's own crimes: he has ordered one of the mothers to do that which he would do, but for the fact, he must evade a direct connection to the collection of his tax.

7.0 — The Sexes: The structural elements of a narrative based on a witch often involves a pact with the devil: the narrative of Washington Irving's 'The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow', circa 1820—adapted to film: 'Sleepy Hollow', 17 November 1999 at Mann's Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles—portrays the character of Lady Van Tassel as pledging her soul to Satan: a moment that is found in the film: 'Belladonna Of Sadness', circa 1973, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, in which the character of Jeanne makes a pact with the devil who is a spirit of the wilderness rather than a tycoon.

7.1 — The devil is considered to bestow a woman with her witch status as a matter of an agreement; such that the division of the sexes cannot exonerate one side and only blame men.

7.2 — The world that comes in to view through the film, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is mysterious as much for the expression of an adolescent girl's brain-washed perspective, as the decontextualisation of greater causes of historical significance: if not God versus the devil, then, what?

7.3 — The further point is: to be disconnected to the causes of true history is to establish a position neither interactive with or consequential to the changes of history: what occurs in Char's world is of no consequence to any-one else.

7.4 — The primary concern is, rather than treat the symptoms, the cause is seen to be treated: which comparatively refers to the Mephistopheles who has slipped away from sight and accountability, as exemplified by the Irish narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021—he will return and cause the recurring patterns of strife when measures of intervention lack.

8.0 — The Case Of Bridget Cleary: To cross the thresholds of the fictional to the historical, the further argument is made: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is based, at least in part, on the Irish case of Bridget Cleary, a young woman who was immolated, at Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, Ireland, on 15 March 1895, for allegedly being either a witch or changeling. 

8.1 — Bridget Cleary disappeared and returned to her family no longer her-self; was ill and three days later, her husband, Michael Cleary, and father, Patrick Boland, and seven further family members, burnt her alive.

8.2 — Three extensive case studies of Bridget Cleary have been published:

8.3 — 'Murder Of Bridget Cleary', by Carlo Gébler; Hamish Hamilton, circa 1994; 160 unnumbered pages; ISBN: 0241132061, 9780241132067, 9780349103150, 0349103151.

Figure 3. The cover of Angela Bourke's 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary, A True Story', circa 2006—refer to point 8.4, directly beneath.

8.4 — 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary', by Angela Bourke; New York: Penguin, circa 2001; 279 pages; ISBN: 0141002026, 067089270X, 9780670892709. 

8.5 — 'The Cooper's Wife Is Missing: The Trials Of Bridget Cleary', by Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates; New York: Basic Books, [circa 2000], reprint circa 2006; online 477 pages; ISBN: 9780465030880, 9780465012084, 0465012086.

8.6 — A further text shows the case of Bridget Cleary as a witch trial, not a matter regarding a fairy's changeling, that is titled: 'The Tipperary, Or Clonmel, Witch Case: transcripts of newspaper reports etc., concerning Bridget Cleary, burned as a witch, and the trial of her husband and neighbours for murder, circa 1895', by Doctors William Osler and George Foy, circa 1917. 

8.7 — Because all nine family members were convicted, five of murder, the further four, of wounding, the social science of law demonstrates that the stigmatising mechanisms of folk-lore, such as the applied label of the changeling, is found only to motivate hatred, violence and murder.

9.0 — Persecuting White Christians: The folk-lorist of the state of Idaho, the United States Of America: Dee L. Ashliman, refers to the German folk-lorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimms' accounts: '... of changelings being thrown in to water, beaten severely with a switch, left unfed and crying in an open field, or placed on a hot stove', and further notes, that such ordeals are reported as common, told in reference to the changeling legends of Northern Europe, which: '...do not misrepresent or exaggerate the actual abuse of suspected changelings': in 'Changelings;

An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.

9.1 — Dee L. Ashliman reports: 'Court records between about 1850 and [circa] 1900 in Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Ireland, reveal numerous proceedings against defendants accused of torturing and murdering suspected changelings'—in 'Changelings; An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at: <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.

9.2 — The cruel and unusual punishments meted to children based on a stigma constructed through the changeling myth, to confer the superstition that a child had not developed a deformity or disability, but had been replaced with a child not of the parents, that is by other-worldly beings, has allowed the vilest cruelties known, not only to children but adults with fair complexions of North Western Europe and colonial regions, often Christians.

9.3 — Within the discourse emerges the problem of racism against white-skinned folk of a Northern European heritage—as distinct from white-skinned Berber, Iranian, Hun or Han ethnicities—and that is predicated against Christians, viz. is Christaphobic or of the Anti-Christ.

9.4 — Where domestic abuse might be terms of reference, as though family members are involved, the motivation being racist and religiously intolerant, more correctly applies persecution; the matter is not simply white against black.

9.5 — The figure of the adult changeling, as discussed in Part IV. of my blog, regarding the film of 2021 and music, such as by the band Toyah, involves a reduction of white-skinned Christians to the status of children; who might be considered unborn, that is, fœtal; are held to be the equivalent to souless flesh; as live stock raised, as cattle are raised, for ingestion.

10.0 — Cannibalisation: In regions of Ireland the thought of cannibalisation may be startlingly or one of disbelief, when truthfully the matter is old; such as demonstrated by the text 'A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children Of Poor People From Being A Burthen To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial to the Publick' ("A Modest Proposal"), circa 1729, in which the Irish clergyman and author Jonathan Swift, 30 November 1667, Dublin, Ireland until 19 October 1745, Dublin, Ireland, ironically advises the poor Irish to sell their children to the rich as food.

11.0 — Disclaimer: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

11.1 — Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.

11.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 

☆☆☆

Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part IV. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother'—Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Contents /

2.0–2.5: "Identity" /

3.0–3.5: A Macabre Tax /

4.0–4.1: Baal-zebub /

5.0–5.4: Paranoia /

6.0–6.3: "Devil's Elixir" /

7.0–7.8: The Sage /

8.0–8.5: The Christian Genius /

9.0–9.4: A Paradigm Shift /

10.0–10.2: Disclaimer //.

☆☆☆

2.0 — "Identity": An analysis of the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, would be incomplete with-out a commentary on that which is symbolically refused in the film's narrative: "mother-hood". Hence the film's title: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, that consists of an exclamatory phrase using the second-person pronoun: 'you'.

2.1 — The phrase is unusual because it's subject suggests a second-person form of distance to exist between the relations of the mother and child, in which case, the child or some-one who the woman mistakens for her child is probably making the exclamation to some-one not the mother of the person.

2.2 — Further, the phrase is unexpected because a mother typically knows who her children are. Conversely, a child will know her mother. The matter is one rarely confused, at least, that is the standard perception. According to Western World traditions, a mother represents some-one's origins, such as from whom some-one is born in to family as to establish social contexts and status.

2.3 — The importance placed upon parentage, familial origins and ancestry within Western World culture involves the special significance Christianity places upon personal identity.

2.4 — Many Asian countries once respectively named a child after his or her father or mother; little difference was perceived to exist between the parent and child, or children. The use of a Christian name, that is, a first name, acknowledged a difference between the parent and child as being one of character and soul, such that each person could be judged in reference to his or her own relation to God.

2.5 — The film's protagonist, named 'Char', is grossly ascribed that name because the character immolates her mother. To 'char' is to burn slightly, a back-formation of the noun: 'charcoal'. The name suggests a predisposition to burn—such that the question needs to be asked: is 'Char' a "pet name" attributed to her to predispose her to commit the act of burning, and in this case, burning and killing people? If yes, then, her family has encouraged such a disposition by way of "nominal determination", in which a noun as a pronoun has a defining impact on some-one's behaviour, that is, Char will probably char some-one more than some-one named Carol.

3.0 — A Macabre Tax: In Part III., my previous blog regarding: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, I have hypothesised that an arrangement of the family is made in which the hidden figure of Mephistopheles, most probably an older man, demands from the man of the house, as exemplified by the character of Aaron, to pay his way through providing him infants who will be at his mercy; that, in terms of common knowledge of the criminality involved with black-birding, may herald a system of child trafficking: a topic that is often elided in texts of Western World cultures as not so much taboo, but incomprehensibly horrorific.

3.1 — None of that sub-plot of a macabre tax, mentioned here, is necessarily narrated in the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, because of it's engendering taboo; nonetheless it is considered as still active to the narrative, only the sub-plot has been censored.

Figure 1. 'Faust And Marguerite In The Garden', circa 1846, oil on canvas, 218 cm x 135 cm, part of a private collection at New York, by Ary Scheffer. 

3.2 — It is argued because of the points of parallel between a text that is found to forward the position and role of Mephistopheles—the exemplum being the text: 'Faust', circa 1880, by the German Wolfgang Goethe—Kate Dolan's film of 2021 is considered a highly censored version of this arch-narrative. 

3.3 — One of the points which find no parallel to 'Faust', circa 1880, is the variant of the man of the house, Aaron, instead of Faust selling his soul to the devil, the man of the house pays off the devil with his children. Note, a man is, often according to patriarchy, his sons, or his sons are his soul: a symbolic inter-change represented in the Christian doctrine of Trinitarianism as a connection made through God.

3.4 — A further variation of the Faust narrative is found in what may have been one of Wolfgang Goethe's inspirations for the 'Faust' narrative, viz. 'The History Of The Caliph Vathek', circa 1782, originally published in French by the Englishman, William Beckford, the text was translated to English by Reverend Samuel Henley.

3.5 — "Vathek", as the text is referenced, involves a devilish figure, Giaour—a name that implies he is an infidel, or gabr, that is, a Zoroastrian magician—with who the protagonist, Vathek, bargains the lives of fifty children in order he gain great knowledge and enter: "the palace of the subterrain fire", where resides Soliman Ben Daoud, a Jewish, Israeli magician-king, who controls the talismans which control the world. The motif of the killing of fifty innocents, that is, children, is entered in a type of "Faustian bargain".

4.0 — Baal-zebub: The killing of fifty people is a motif with possible allusions to: 2 Kings 1:3–14, of the Old Testament, in which the prophet Elijah is involved with a "righteous kill" by means of divine fire of fifty Israeli or Philistine men. The killing of the fifty men is deemed righteous, because the fire is divine, sent from the heavens, to smote men representative of a lack of conscience. "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?"—Elijah is recorded as asking the Israeli monarch, Ahaziah.

4.1 — Baal-zebub, according to a number of Christian theological discourses, is one of the seven princes of Hell—each being a personification of the seven deadly sins—and Baal-zebub is a permutation of Satan, in a symbolic inter-change that is characterised by a high degree of morphology, in which case, Baal-zebub may also be a variant of Mephistopheles: both servants of Lucifer, the General and ruler of the legion of Hell.

5.0 — Paranoia: 'The Necromancer; Or, The Tale Of The Black Forest', circa 1794, by Karl Friedrich Kahlert, published under the pseudonym, Lawrence Flammenberg, involves a sorcerer who acts as a former lord of a castle, is discovered to be: 'a very wicked and irreligious man who found great delight in tormenting the poor pesants', to exhibit the killing of blameless persons, that demonstrates paranoia, not reasonable suspicion.

5.1 — Later in the narrative it is learned, the necromancer, so named because of his performance of black magic in the castle's dungeon, was a servant of a lord under whose tutelage he adopted the lore of black magic, through which various misdeeds and greater crimes were committed.

5.2 — The highly censored version of the arch-narrative that is found in the filmic text: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, arguably dissolves the macabre or Satanic aspects, which might incriminate the older father figure, a type of land-lord, who evades the accusatory blame for the familial organisation and suspicion to fall on the mother. 

5.3 — The textual variation may, in fact, pursue a vein of suspicion that was known to dislocate the relationships between fathers and sons; a circumstance that is arguably more easily arranged because of the mother's close proximity to the infant during birth, and the almost ubiquitous paternity test that has been applied across cultures for approximately a century.

5.4 — The failing of recognition of a beloved is to be taken a demonstration of the failing or non-existence of love. How could some-one not recognise their beloved?

6.0 — "Devil's Elixir": When lithium is abused to deliberately cause amnesia, the problem is the drug, the poison, and what the poison represents: acts of revenge, such as to involve the fathers against the mothers—at least it is inferred—for removing the men's role as father. 

6.1 — The use of poison, but as it is dubbed an elixir, is found in the narrative variation of 'Faust' in E.T.A. Hoffmann's 'The Devil's Elixirs', circa 1815. In this variant of the arch-narrative, 'Faust' a Capuchin monk, Medardus, is placed in charge of a monastery's relics, learns of the devil's elixir, which when consumed consigns ownership to the devil, but entwines any other who consumes the elixir to the other one who took drink of it.

6.2 — Not quite a potion, lithium is provided as dissolvable powder-compressed tablets which may be crushed and placed in consumable liquids or foods, such that it is plausible, it's use is out-side prescriptions, and out-side moral orthodoxies such as to symbolise the presence of devilish motives. 

6.3 — One must wonder as to whether an inter-cultural warring rages on between cousins of different tribes, such as to be involved with the Jews, or Phœnicians, Palestinians and Christians?

7.0 — The Sage: Whether the filmic text: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, that is almost completely denuded of cultural symbolism, could connect the discourses to a historical sense of meaningfulness, ought to be queried, because a psychotic state of foreclosure could arguably be considered the norm for partly ethnically Celtic, Irish teenage girls.

7.1 — The North Dublin suburban setting shown within Kate Dolan's film, certainly is stripped of Christian symbolism, but a type of Neo-pagan sage, that is, green leafed twigs rounded in to a ball, referred to as a good luck charm, is one of the few visual symbols to emerge in the film to which a wicca or neo-pagan influence is indicated—that is, amidst the Halloween carnival of night-marish costumes—as prevalent through-out Ireland.

Figure 2. A detail of a still of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021: during the film's finale, Char hands Angela a sage charm, as part of her fantasy her mother remains alive.

7.2 — The sage, a type of talisman, is a symbol of the globe or world, in which there are no regional boundaries, but a type of pantheism, in which the truth is found in universality, whereby boundaries and differences, cultural and political, are perceived as illusory—in reality, all is emergent of the one in complex uniformity. 

7.3 — During the 16th century the British Isles started to show signs of scientific discourse connected with Christian doctrines, with the advent of the encyclopædia that was integrated in to Christian texts used by missionaries against those who would misuse knowledge, advocates of the Anti-Christ.

7.4 — 'The Tragical History Of The Life And Death Of Doctor Faustus', circa 1593, by the Elizabethan play-wright Christopher Marlowe, was in part inspired by the man of science, art and Christianity, the "doctor mirabilis", Roger Bacon, circa. 1220, born near Ilchester, Somerset, England, until circa 1292, Near Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, who wrote 'Opus Majus', circa 1267, designed for Christian missionaries against those of the Anti-Christ who claimed to know greater than the Christian clergy.

7.5 — Another Elizabethan dramatist, Robert Greene, wrote the play: 'Friar Bacon And Friar Bungay', that was entered in to the Stationers' Register (a trade guild) 14 May 1594, as a dramatisation of Roger Bacon, who may consequently be regarded as identifying the figure of Doctor Faust who has partaken of too much knowledge has found him-self party to the "Faustian bargain".

7.6 — The theme of the Faustian bargain is prevalent henceforth in British literature, such as further represented by the play: 'The Merry Devil Of Edmonton', printed circa 1608, attributed to William Shakespeare, that narrates a pact made between a devil and magician—whether parents will consent to their children's education involving references to the devil, may decide as to whether the text is William Shakespeare's or not.

7.7 — The text that is officially attributed to William Shakespeare and that celebrates the supremacy of the magician-king, Prospero, is: 'The Tempest' circa 1610, in which his daughter, Miranda, is tutored by him, and conducts her father's plans; possibly as Char is found to eliminate her mother for her father's sake.

7.8 — Ben Jonson's satirical plays, 'The Alchemist', circa 1610, entertains the pseudo-pharmacist figure of science and superstition the alchemist at the center of a complex of social organisation, replete with eccentricities and irrationality, that is similarly treated in Ben Jonson's 'The Devil Is An Ass', first performed circa 1616 and first published circa 1631, to mock a society interwoven by a sub-culture beholden to the "Faustian bargain".

Figure 3. A statue of Roger Bacon holding a globe, at the University of Oxford, Britain.

8.0 — The Christian Genius: The point of Roger Bacon, circa 1220, Ilchester, Britain, until circa 1292, Oxford, Britain, as the British Isles's great man of knowledge, it's veritable 'magus', similar to a term of reference that had yet to gain it's popular world-wide appeal, viz. 'genius', emerges as a key figure of English-language based early modernity.

8.1 — Where the term magus is used, the term of doctor or professor and, or, or minister, was used in reference to the Christian man of learning: as found represented by the historical figures of Anselm of Canterbury, William of Ockam, or out-side of the British Isles, Albertus Magnus of Germany or Thomas Aquinas, France—for example.

8.2 — Such figures of scholasticism are often over-looked for their focus on the disciplines of the humanities, areas of skill and knowledge considered less lucrative than, figuratively speaking, the science of making gold, alchemy.

8.3 — Possibly, the man of Christian culture is of that genius of creativity connected to the arts, in which Leonardo da Vinci figures largely, who nowadays is so appraised for the monetary value of his works than anything else: refer to the documentary film: 'The Lost Leonardo, premiered 13 June 2021, directed by Andreas Koefoed.

8.4 — Comparatively, the evil genius, super-natural or some disguised fiend, Mephistopheles, is diminished in significance only as a ploy, viz. to delimit speculation that he is culpable of crimes and wanton despotism. The inference is, according to Kate Dolan's film of circa 2021, that he acts increasingly in a space of society, in which that society—the women and children—can only barely remember, if at all, his involvements, that is due to abuses of medical treatments, such as lithium.

8.5 — The speculative field is laid bare in films, such as: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, it would seem, to contemplate whether the grand-mother, son or daughter, are responsible for the immolation of the mother. 

9.0 — A Paradigm Shift: The mother being the pre-eminent figure, symbolic of the primary care giver, is made subject to a doubt of identification and authentication, such that the mother is needed less than that paradigm of care found advocated within Christianity, such as symbolised by The Nativity Of Jesus Christ, particularly by the Madonna and child, or per Eastern Orthodox Church, the Theotokos, is a symbolism pervasive through-out the visual arts of millennia?

9.1 — Are the feelings of trust, love and compassion, similar to the doctrines of Christianity, as easily dismissed as imagined, because society, secretly crafted by that svengali figure, Mephistopheles, finds only power attractive? 

9.2 — The values of society seem to be misplaced due to a submerged political discourse that ought to surface; in which the Mephistopheleses of the world ought to put down their disguises and reveal them-selves; to answer the question: wherefore, causing corrosion of the family and institutions of the church and education, viz. scholasticism?

10.0 — Disclaimer: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

10.1 — Four photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.

10.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 

☆☆☆

Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part III. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother'—Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Blog Contents: 
2.0–2.4: An Unfunny Reality /
3.0–3.7: Edited Out /
4.0–4.7: An Early Reference To The Changeling /
5.0–5.7: Trimalchio As Mephistopheles /
6.0–6.4: Returning To The Direct Discussion Of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021 /
7.0–7.5: The Great Change Of The Changeling Myth /
8.0–8.4: The Adult Changeling /
9.0–9.3: Die Hexen /

10.0–10.2: Disclaimer //.

☆☆☆

2.0 — An Unfunny Reality: One of the earliest references to a 'changeling' is recorded in the satire, the Ancient Roman text by Gaius Petronius of Marseille, France, 1st Century A.D., an author who migrated to and lived in the city of Rome; Petronius became the "arbiter of elegance", that is, among the Emperor Nero's intimate circle—as is intriguingly chronicled in the historical novel: 'Quo Vadis' circa 1896, by the Polish author, Henryk Sienkiewicz.
2.1 — Gaius Petronius's satire: 'Satyricon liber' exists along-side: 'The Golden Ass', of the 2nd Century A.D., by the "Algierian" Lucius Apuleius, as seminal texts which satirically portray the social customs and cultures of the regions of the Ancient Mediterranean; possibly, the seat of the Western World's civilisation and, as such, continues to exert relevance to contemporary society through foundational tropes, arch-narratives and crucial symbolism.

2.2 — Satire is thought to have been developed by the Ancient Greeks, such as by the play-wrights Aristophenes of the "Old Comedy", and Menander of the "New Comedy"; as a means of portraying on stage, the truth of society: to affect a sort of realism for comedy in which the laughter of the audience diminishes the facticity and consequences of the revealed truth, the veritable revelation, as a matter of trivia or a point of which deserves sympathetic understanding to the common experience of limitation and frustration.

2.3 — The main inference of the comedic, satirical text is, that beneath the appearance of society exists cultural activities which remain hidden, and which require to be "spelt out" for what those activities represent, viz. brain-washing; exploitation; enslavement.

2.4 — An unfunny reality emerges when Kate Dolan's film is examined: the point should be made, while satire is often thought of as comical, some satire repesents racism and persecution of various categorisation.

Figure 1. A film still with Hazel Doupe as Char confronted by Ingrid Craigie as Rita, in the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, from the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 25 May 2021: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10406596/>.

3.0 — Edited Out: Audiences ought to cautiously treat texts, such as 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, as signifying greater than that which is shown; rather that the text shows: "the tip of the ice-berg".

3.1 — The point to make is of the under-lying discourses of a political reality that apparently no-one is permitted to discuss or criticise; that is applicable to either side of the political divide, viz. every-one is censored and has been subject to concussed states by asphyxiation, drugs, electro-convulsive therapy, etc. The cause of failing to remember the truth of what really has happened, is equal to causing cultural genocide and the denial of democratic forms of government. 

3.2 — A film such as: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, to be taken as representative of a near-to-exhaustive exposition of a pattern of narrative is an improbability, because back-ground information drawn from similar narratives to construct a more truthful perspective reveal the lacunæ in the narrative's telling. The film's narrative is over-edited, either in terms of the film's script that focuses on a truncated narrative, or the film at the post-production stages, such as to have edited out strategic filmed parts.

3.3 — The argument must hold, that the audiences who attend and consider the film's narrative complete are the same as Char, edited and censored through brain-washing by psychological, violent or drugging methods. The cinematic screen is a mirror of the audience—all forms of art are mirrors of the soul, not simply the surface appearance of some-one or some-thing. I would estimate, that an older audience would resist walking out on such a trite and superficial film, because an older audience would know greater than that being shown; that the film constitutes some-thing of a mockery. 

3.4 — The presiding point remains that our existence occurs under the control of a tyrant, the veritable Mephistopheles who controls society from, not so much "behind the scenes", but from the point of a lithium-based, erased memory of his ever having involvement.

3.5 — The satirical form in which the tropes of hyperbole, sarcasm and irony, facilitate an insight beyond the perceptual reality of "the every-day", such that "the every-day" is shown to be a prescriptive conceit or contrivance, is nonetheless lived out. 

3.6 — Perhaps the contrivance is made bearable for the freedoms of use of the double entendre? Where double or further significations are made often to refer to a position of relation to the status of hiding, that is, one-self, others; or hiding some-thing which authorities or society would prefer to have revealed and dealt with. 

3.7 — Often there exists sympathy for the rebel who is inevitably a fool or newly emerging tyrant, but the matters are always ironically treated afresh regarding compliance, censorship and dictatorship, as concerns relative to each circumstance and to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps, there is a case for justice still?

4.0 — An Early Reference To The Changeling: What is the pattern of the changeling narrative, exactly? To turn to that earliest point of reference found in Chapter 63 of 'Satyricon liber', an indication of answer may be found; specifically regarding a narrative told by the character, Trimalchio, the ostentatiously wealthy freed-man, at whose dinner party, the protagonists Encolpius and Asclytos, are guests and serve as an audience. Trimalchio's anecdote of the changeling is prefaced with two brief anecdotes involving those other things of the æther-world, witches. Note, refer to an online version of Petronius's 'Satyricon liber' that is translated by W.C. Firebaugh, including the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, and the introductory readings by De Salas and the illustrations by Norman Lindsay, on The Gutenberg Project web-site, accessed 25 May 2022, at: <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5225/5225-h/5225-h.htm#linkp050>.
4.1 — The first tells of a mysterious death of a boy steward whose death is blamed upon the peculiar and vindictive witches, heard screetching as the mourners mourn the steward's death.
4.2 — The second incident involves the witches who make provocation, such that a large Cappadocian slave leaves the group of mourners to enter the street from where a scream is over-heard to emanate, and from whence the Cappadocian returns, but: "black and blue, as if he had been flogged with whips." The discolouration is purportedly caused by the touch of one witches' "evil hand": and it is commented that the Cappadocian never regains his natural complexion and that he dies a few days later.
4.3 — The third incident refers to the topic of the changeling, in which the mourning mother of the steward finds a 'straw changeling' substituted for the boy's body: an act that is also attributed to the: 'witches [who] had swooped down upon the lad and put the straw changeling in his place!'.

Figure 2. A still of Mario Romagnoli as Trimalchio from the film adaptation: 'Fellini's Satyricon', premiered, 3 September 1969, Rome, Italy, from the "BAMPFA" web-site, accessed 24 May 2022, at: <https://bampfa.org/event/fellini-satyricon>.

4.4 — Trimalchio is found to remark in emphasising the point that must be derived from his own anecdotes: '...there are women that know too much, and night-hags, too, and they turn every-thing up-side down!'

4.5 — Can the summation of Trimalchio's narrative really be that the women—those witches!—must always be held to suspicion for using the evil hand, or swapping the body of a child for straw, viz. causing the changeling? Are Trimalchio's words to be taken in earnest, and the witches, who are only over-heard, not seen, not be taken as decoys? 

4.6 — The boy steward may have been intoxicated, laid unconscious, and misinterpreted by the mourners as dead—possibly a perception cultivated by Trimalchio. The boy is referred to as perfect, "a jewel", and may have been the object of Trimalchio's designs in abduction; an argument particularly plausible because pæderasty, men's erotic love of pre-pubescent or pubescent boys—not to be confused with sodomy, viz. the erotic love shared between men—is one of the central tenets of Petronius's satire; that is, the protagonist, Encolpius, through-out the texts' five volumes, contests with his friend, Asclytos, to find and regain the affections of a boy, Gitón—the central plot of the satire that consists of numerous sub-plots.

4.7 — Trimalchio's hair-raising tale is, then, to be considered propaganda used to direct suspicion for the offence of abduction to be directed at another, the witches, and to deflect suspicion from the men, such as Trimalchio and his Cappadocian slave. The latter, while brawny, is labelled a simpleton, a booby, who could inspire little cause for suspicion. Whereas Trimalchio, once a slave, has managed to free him-self—a praise-worthy feat—but also, Trimalchio has become a wealthy freedman, such that suspicion could be placed upon him as cunning enough to under-take a staged abduction.

5.0 — Trimalchio As Mephistopheles: Is Trimalchio really involved with a self-aware politics which seeks to manipulate people's perceptions, such as to allow him, as is said, "to get away with it", viz. the abduction of a boy to be at the disposal of his pæderastic fancies?

5.1 — Trimalchio indicates he is already aware of the cultivated opinion that the author, Homer, such as of 'The Odyssey', is of renown and repute, to mention Trimalchio grew up with long hair as of the fashion of the island of Chios, the place of origin of the great Greek bard, Homer, whose texts precede Petronius's own text of the 'Satyricon liber': 'When I was a long-haired boy, for I lived a Chian life from my youth up...'.

5.2 — The reference to Chios bestows a greatness, at least, regarding the ability to narrate, by way of association to Trimalchio. Homer represented then, and to an extent continues to represent, the greatness of authorship per se; that is, certainly to the author Gaius Petronius who constructs the character of Trimalchio and Trimalchio's use of association as to impress his guests.

5.3 — Acknowledge, that Trimalchio is only moments before to comment on his own prowess at narration in the apparently tasteful manner of self-deprecation, by comparing him-self badly to Niceros, whose narrative of a were-wolf preceded his own in being made to the dinner guests: '...if you’ll believe me, my hair stood on end, and all the more, because I know that Niceros never talks non-sense: he’s always level-headed, not a bit gossipy. And now I’ll tell you a hair-raiser my-self, though I’m like a jack-ass on a slippery pavement compared to him'.

5.4 — Trimalchio as representative of the nouveau-riche, while able to afford the gala, may not yet demonstrate the æsthetical and political sensibilities, such as of the existing elite, to gain membership. The horror tale of the witches, the evil hand and changeling, could be considered representative of a grotesque æsthetics crudely manipulative in a political context, that is, to the educated, not the laity.

5.5 — An analysis of the name of 'Trimalchio', 'Tri-' and 'Malchus' refers to: "Thrice King", or "king of kings", which is partly hyperbolic in the satirical gist of Petronius's text, but further alludes to Trismegistus, the Hermetic mage or magus, who may be a senior representative of a gnostic sect that involves the Phrygian or Oriental cultures of pæderasty.

5.7 — It ought to be remembered when Trimalchio introduces him-self as being from Asia, that is, Phyringia—refer to Chapter 44 of 'Satyricon liber'—he compares him-self to the catamite "Ganymedes": the boy stolen by the god, Zeus, who took the form of an eagle and "swooped down upon the lad"; that is, to use the very words used by the character of Trimalchio to describe the witches' conduct in swapping the boy for the changeling straw.

5.6 — Refer to page 80 in the article: "Trimalchio" by Gilbert Bagnani, in 'Phoenix', Autumn, 1954, Volume 8(3); pages 77–91; published by: Classical Association of Canada; stable URL: <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1086404>.

6.0 — Returning To The Direct Discussion Of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021: Earlier I averred that Angela is sorrow-stricken due to the inferred fact she mourns the loss of a child—a point to which reference is not made within the film. I provide a plausible explanation to the abduction or murder of a baby boy, that is, because depression is typically triggered by loss, such as the loss of a beloved, rather than, as some psychologists maintain, as a feature of an inherently flawed character, that is, as a manifestation of the unwanted change symbolised by the changeling, it-self. Psychology could be found to pathologise, that is, diagnose some-one along similar lines for being inherently flawed, such that to be labelled a changeling or some-one with a disability, such as depression, persecutes a person for illness that really requires understanding, not ignorance, fear and loathing.

Figure 3. A film still with the actor Carolyn Bracken as Angela tied to a bed-head and covered with a sheet in the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, from the IMDb web-site, accessed 25 May 2021: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10406596/>.

6.1 — Arguably, a recurring pattern is found connected to the changeling mythos in which a boy is abducted, viz. the steward boy of Trimalchio's tale. The abduction of Angela's baby boy may be a second or third time of such a case of abduction, at which point, Angela, feeling trapped in a setting of a domineering brother figure and mother, starts to act in hitherto known ways, unfamiliar and spontaneous, exists out-side of the family's typical standards of control, and becomes the very fuel for confirming perceptions of her as a changeling, that is, the "changed thing".
6.2 — The point of explanation where Rita explains to Char that Angela is a changeling, that is, an adult changeling, arguably is made before Angela is about to convey to Char that Angela's infant sons are taken from her; because, by way of inference, the boys are labelled 'changelings'—similarly marked out through her to her sons, according to Rita's and Aaron's perceptions.
6.3 — By Rita telling Char before Angela, Char is indoctrinated to Rita's and Aaron's perceptual approach.
6.4 — There is the further sub-plot, that Char is similar to Margaret (also known as Gretchen) to have established a relationship with Faust, that is, Aaron; in which case—should the reading of the older narrative be considered edited out in the 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021—Char immolates her mother to remove the romantic competition. Margaret is, thus, far from being the guileless, gullible adolescent girl as Char portrayed in Kate Dolan's film.

7.0 — The Great Change Of The Changeling Myth: Should the ancient text of 'Satyricon liber' be taken as offering an elucidation of the changeling myth, because that text is one of the first to mention the changeling, there is a further inference of the figure of the patriarch who manipulates perceptions to blame witches—that is, to allow for his abductions of boys—such as that Mephistopheles who arranges to have the scenes of the action and drama, edit out the parts of his performance.

7.1 — Further, by applying the formula of Wolfgang Goethe's text of 'Faust', circa 1880, Aaron is a type of Faust him-self, who is inferred as paying Mephistopheles with his infant sons, supposedly as justified by the manipulative narration given by Trimalcio of chapter 63, 'Satyricon liber'. 

7.2 — Note, some of Wolfgang Goethe's texts can be read free of charge at The Gutenberg Press, at: <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/586> 

7.3 — The text by Petronius is by Goethe's text of 'Faust' to celebrate the dark powers of Trimalchio, the gnostic Trismegistus, as Mephistopheles, who takes possession of Faust him-self. A man's sons may be referred to as him-self, on which point 'Faust' shows a consistency with the variants of the changeling narratives mentioned in these blogger posts. 

7.4 — The film, 'You're Not My Mother', circa 2021, arguably, has removed all traces of culpability to the Mephistopheles figure, and only a vague inference of culpability on the father, viz. Aaron, to leave the witch, the grand-mother, who is Rita, to settle the matter. 

7.5 — The great change of this old narrative, then, is that the changeling is no longer a straw doll, nor a real but apparently tainted infant, nor the curious, and inasmuch, childish man, Faust, him-self—but is the mother labelled an "adult changeling", who, resembling the figure of the witch, can easily take the place of the witch as who is burnt at the stake.

Figure 4. The cover art of the album: 'The Changeling', 30 June 1982, by the British band, Toyah, in which Toyah Wilcox appears as a changeling, from the Discogs web-site: <https://www.discogs.com/ko/release/4542167-Toyah-The-Changeling>.

8.0 — The Adult Changeling: The female (and male) adult changeling began to make a cultural impact from within Britain through a post-punk, new wave, pop music scene of the early 1980s until current. The British musical artist Toyah Wilcox, represented her-self as a changeling with the release, 30 June 1982, of a same-named album by the band Toyah. The pop album became a vehicle to transport the audience to the world of the fairies or trolls, where the folk-lore offers a symbolic correlation to an alternative cultural presence within the Western World.
8.1 — The album's tracks, such as: 'Street Creature', 'Castaways', or 'Life In The Trees', convey a folk-lorish world that is less fantastical and more palpable, to suggest a musical experience as much as a lived experience. This involves the ancient notion of the artist as the medium: who offers a way of channeling between different worlds: which may, in fact, refer to an unobviated inter-cultural mixing.

Figure 5. The single cover art, 'Changeling', circa 2018, by The Dagons; image from the Bandcamp web-site, accessed 26 May 2022, at: <https://thedagons.bandcamp.com/track/changeling>.

8.2 — A more recent example—and note there are many musicians and songs predicated on the changeling—of the changeling mythos within music is provided by the Californian band: The Dagons, viz. their single titled: 'Changeling', 7 January 2018, in the cover art of which a reversal of the mildly strange within the nursery as represented by the changeling is affected by the strangeness said to impact the figure of a mother, that is, as the water monster, viz. the crocodile, "Moby Dick" or leviathan, depicted as nursing a "batch of infants" with ever-so-slightly a hint of menace.
8.3 — Two lines of the lyrics of the song reads of a sort of gripping reality, such that the nursery fairy tale elements are registered in the modality of realism: "So they pull the child from the bed / And put in something of their's instead ... Leave the windows open to your room / Lose you now, you're never coming home ...'.
8.4 — The Dagons' 'Changeling' single is similar to the film 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, in which a horrorific truth is indicated, but not "spelt out". The "indexical phenomena" is to be taken as "sufficient" in pointing towards a reality that is suggested as in occurrence within the Western World—possibly in what was once the true origins of the Western World, viz. Ireland. Denial is a powerful affect; or, is it people could not be bothered with the change that is required of society and one-self to prevent such "back-yard persecution"?

9.0 — Die Hexen: As for the film's own music, the sound-track is by Die Hexen ("The Witches"), also known as the Irish performance artist and composer, Dianne Lucille Campbell; who approaches the numinous with traces of the neo-pagan and macabre, made both visually and musically to references of films regarding dæmonic possessions—a Catholic sub-discourse of the changeling—such as portrayed by the films: 'Rosemary's Baby', 12 June 1968, the United States of America, by Roman Polanski; 'The Exorcist', 26 December 1973, the United States Of America, by William Friedkin; 'The Omen', 6 June 1976, Britain, by Richard Donald Schwartzberg; or to the musical compositions of Krzysztof Penderecki for the sound-track of films, such as: 'The Devils of Loudun', circa July 1971, Britain, by Ken Russell, or the more recent film: 'Wild At Heart', 15 November 1990, Australia, by David Lynch.

Figure 6. A still of Dianne Lucille Campbell within an audio-visual presentation titled: 'Siamese', based on a recurring dream of ceremonial magic; from 'Die Hexen' web-site, accessed 25 May 2022, at: <http://www.die-hexen.com/film>.

9.1 — The celebration of the witch is to be read as representative of a neo-paganistic discourse, that seems to resist the complete telling. Is the witch, who-ever she is, or Mephistopheles, who-ever he is, responsible for stigmatising and persecuting persons who ought to have been treated with dignity and respect?

9.2 — Personally, I feel for Angela who is imprisoned in a home life that society approaches as normal. Perhaps I am not the normal one? I have my imperfections, as do we all—but then, perhaps those are misdirected questions to start with? 

9.3 — For the sake of some perspective on the matter it ought to be remembered, Ireland was a country iconic of Christianity. Yet in this film, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, a satire is displayed on the Christian sensibilities of home, family and mother-hood. Thus, the questions remain, how did Ireland and the many regions of Irish colonisation, including Australia, become places celebratory of not so much the macabre, but the Satanic? What do the permissible celebrations of the Satanic represent, really? 

10.0 — Disclaimer: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

10.1 — Six photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 6; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.

10.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 

☆☆☆

Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part II. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother'—Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Blog Contents:

2.0 – 2.6: On Black-birding /

3.0 – 3.5: A Julius Cæsar Index /

4.0 – 4.4: A Deductive Method /

5.0 – 5.6: The Lithium Torture /

6.0 – 6.1: Neo-Paganism /

7.0 – 7.4: The "Faustian Bargain" /

8.0 – 8.2: Disclaimer //.

☆☆☆

2.0 — On Black-birding: Firstly, to provide a definition of 'changeling', the noun is used in reference to an infant suffering deformity, that is, disability. The infant's defectiveness or anomaly is taken, according to the folk-lore legend, as a sign that fairies have substituted one of their own children suffering physiological defects for an in-tact, healthy human child. Medical ignorance and superstition are found to be the source of a history of unjust persecution, that is woven in to a more historically grounded telling of kid-napping, such as narrated by the Scottish author, Robert Louis-Stevenson in the historical novel: 'Kidnapped', circa 10 May 1986, and the sequel, 'Catriona', circa 1893; or black-birding, such as discussed in Jack London's semi-autobiographical 'The Cruise Of The Snark', circa 1911. 

2.1 — The political discourses, with historical contextualisation, are often elided and remain mythified with a foreboding sense of the transgressive per the psychological thriller / horror genre: the film comes to represent the strange terror of which may have been over-heard among local gossips: known to afflict some house-holds, but never one's own—unless denial calls out for it's peculiar course of return to the truth: scary as it may be, it is avoided only out of foolish bravado and nothing greater.

2.2 — Another sort of recent text on the matter of black-birding, that is, the kid-napping and later coercion of children and some-times adults through isolation and deception to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in distant locations, is by the celebrated French director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, viz. 'La Cité des enfants perdus / The City Of Lost Children', co-directed with Marc Caro, 17 August 1995 at Germany; a film set within a dystopian world of highly improbable freaks, who bizarrely are reminiscent of the travelling circuses of pre-war Europe, serve a master scientist who "amorally" conducts experiments on abducted children. There is always the gaudy or obscene found to sustain a gaze of fascination among film audiences, if only to gratify a desire to confirm the deplorable state of some other world.

2.3 — Is the Western World, namely France, supposed to represent the failing of the post-punk, steam-punk, tubular or analogue "alternative" as portrayed during the 1980s, viz. iconically by the British film-maker: Terry Gilliam; for example, the failed utopia of 'Brazil', released, 18 December 1985, in the United States Of America? The gritty and grotty hyperbolic "kitchen-sink realism", that is cartoon-esque in style of satire, emanates from some-where else, but never home; no-one seems to have a home in which case no-one is responsible.

2.4 — 'The City Of Lost Children', circa 1995, is comparable to the explosive impact of entering a desolated society of strangers, where the community is over-wrought by the madness of science; whereas 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is an implosive force: a step inside the home in which nothing is shown; every-thing is concealed; where nothing really happens, because it happens to other people, and as much because the dementing effects of deadly drugs used to cause amnesia make identity and cultural heritage for such folk irrelevant. 

Figure 1. The poster of 'La Cité des enfants perdus / The City Of Lost Children', circa 1995, from: Wikipedia.com at: <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:City_of_lost_children_french_movie_poster.jpg#mw-jump-to-license>.

2.5 — Arguably the subject of the changeling invites a voyeuristic gaze in to the family home of different or similar folk, to allow commentary on the psychological and, perhaps, socio-cultural levels only? There is an immersion in to a way of life and familial relations, with the oddity of an horrific incident involved, the full measure of which is elided by drug-induced amnesia and psychological states of dissociation. Hence, the fetishism of the bed-room, involving bondage, torture, or talismanic objects, such as sages, and sites which act as a bridge to the spirit world, for example, in the film it is: EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. Such places (scenes) or objects are re-doubled with an intensity of focus upon which a sense of completeness is derived, no matter how delusional. Does the truth matter any-more?

2.6 — The domesticity of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is far away or safe from black-birding, or is it? 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, claims to show insight in to the life of an adult changeling, viz. Angela, acted by Carolyn Bracken, whose life is under siege from within; that is, from the interior of her life: her family and home.

3.0 — A Julius Cæsar Index: The problem is conferring with Char's perception, as that perception is the only one shown by way of point of view per the film's direction. Char, her-self, is a victim of brain-washing, which often has the effect of setting the afflicted to a belief she has ascertained the whole or complete set of facts, when really all that is revealed is a contrivance, deceptively altered to seem beneficial, when really it is characterised by the central feature of betrayal, further surrounded by immorality and indifference.

3.2 — For this reason what is presented within the film must be considered indexical of an underlying truth. While few literal indexical signs are on offer by the film, the brother, Aaron, acted by Paul Reid, is some-thing of a human indexical sign: he is barely featured in the film. Quite the contrary of the standard narrative, that the protagonist is the central subject of the narrative, Aaron is at the core of what happens to Char and her mother and grand-mother. Similar to the minor (indexical) appearance of the renowned rhetor, Cicero, in William Shakespeare's play 'Julius Cæsar', circa 1599, Act I., Scene III. is portrayed as a silent audience to fellow states-man, Casca, who discusses a recent storm over Rome and the raising of the dead—that is, when the play is almost entirely indebted to the rhetorical theories of Cicero: his censure is a reversal of the truth.

3.3 — Despite being Angela's brother, the siblings appear to live as a couple might, with a maternal, parental figure, that is, an unusual arrangement. Perhaps, because Angela is considered from the æther-world, the incest taboo is unbreached and permitted? Aaron's portrayed silence regarding Angela's status as a changeling is the veritable "elephant in the room": he is, going from the perceptual demonstration of the family life, apparently an innocent by-stander, subject to the superstitions of his mother. Can Aaron really be as involved as he is, with-out committing complicity?

3.4 — In Angela's circumstances, being marked out, that is, stigmatised as different by her mother and brother, finds her degraded and tortured, in supposedly permissible familial betrayals; not dissimilar to the epileptic Julius Cæsar, betrayed by his own. As part of the trap, the palpable silence of the matter through-out the film—the matter is mentioned towards the film's end—could be interpreted as expressive of the silence and censorship observed among family as it is silent among community members. When the matter is voiced to the members of community, it is considered the form of treachery, or futile cry, against engrained patterns of communal behaviour; hence, visible protest is prohibited—and the matter remains a silent or invisible experience.

3.5 — Angela's experience of mental illness, viz. depression, is not innate or of other-worldly origins, but is a consequence of a socially constructed phenomena: her position involves the double-bind of being held captive by the ones who are supposed to care for her, yet family find her endengering an evil which they experience as an unbearable burden, a feeling that the community also understands, it would seem.

4.0 — A Deductive Method: The film's narrative finds Angela at a point of crisis in her already critical situation—what can be deduced from the reversal of facts witnessed by the teenage daughter? 

4.1 — When Angela drives her daughter to school and says good-bye, an analogy of the experience of child-birth is suggested. After the "birthing" of her daughter from the private space of the home and car to the community or public space of the school, Angela abandons her vehicle in an oval. The car is already appreciated as indexical, but what is perplexing is the re-staging of her trauma at the oval. The suggestion is, Angela abandons her-self and, at least it is inferred, she stumbles off in a fugue state, unable to remember what occurred at an earlier time, and again, this time, when Angela has been reported as missing. The lawn of the oval as a place where the vehicle is abandoned, may have been the location where Angela accidentally became pregnant, or was raped by Aaron, such as during a time both went on a drive away from the stifling environment of the house with Rita there.

4.2 — The later moment of confronting the fact, that her own infant was abducted, or possibly murdered, by Rita, acted by Ingrid Craigie, or Aaron, is thought to re-trigger her own unconscious wish to be some-one else: perhaps, to take the place of the child who was accepted by the fairies? Who would not wish to be some-where else; some-one other than her, the unjustly cursed?

4.3 — The position of Aaron is indicated as in greater concord with Rita than Angela, other-wise Angela would have convinced Aaron to bring Char with her to another home. Rita must convince Aaron, that Angela's history of depression in her familial environment, possibly being difficult in the past, has led to her running away or fugue-type states of behaviour, that requires for lithium to be administered. A politics becomes discernible at the point in which lithium is forced on Angela, who is clearly forced, because during one scene Angela places high volumes of crushed lithium tablets in to Aaron's cup of tea, that is, to force upon him, what he is indicated as enforcing upon her, at least, in triangulation of Rita's decisions: Rita is held as the source of home administration, because Rita is shown to monitor Angela's use of the drug: "they can put you off your appetite," Rita comments.

4.4 — Aaron's position and role is much greater than that represented by the film; he is shown to be convulsant in reaction to the lithium to suggest the notion he is a victim. Such representation must be considered in relation to the truth of the narrative as reversed. Aaron must be, in fact, the opposite of that which he seems, because the truth is being repressed, possibly in an horrific way.

5.0 — The Lithium Torture: The scientific / medical discourse often attached to the changeling mythos, involves lithium as a treatment to prevent radical changes in some-one's character or personality. The diagnosis of psychosis, such as bipolar disorder, has been held to suspicion, except in psychiatry where the causation is theorised as found in "the bio-psycho-social": quite an inter-disciplinarian notion, that is nonetheless reduced to a chemical solution, with possibly some psychotherapy to monitor the drug's effects. 

5.1 — The real concern is that lithium causes a number of harmful side-effects, such that it is the case, "the cause, the remedy". Lithium particularly causes a much unreported side-effect of blacking-out and amnesia, such that continuity of remembrance representative of some-one's character is lost. The memories which are depressing, or alerting such as regarding mania, are lost, and the person may afterwards present with a refreshed out-look, as though a cure has taken effect. The experience of dissociative states and unconscious disturbances of a truth that is repressed are perceived as being indications of a character flaw requiring to be "erased". Really the truth and responses to the truth are being censored at the psycho-physiological level; an abuse of medicine and psychiatry.

5.2 — For the record recent, more efficacious medications for bipolar disorder or other forms of psychosis are available, such as: Asenapine, brand name Saphris, or Carbamezapine, Tegretol—a possible prescriptive differential between the medications is in the patient's suffering brain damage caused from violence to the head, or experiences of asphyxiation, with subsequent states of concussion, which occur through-out the patient's life-time to cause episodes of seizures or convulsions.

5.3 — The use of lithium by Angela as enforced by Rita and Aaron, in fact, is indicative of a type of mental illness known as Munchausen von Proxy, that is based on poisoning some-one cared for to ensure the circumstances of care continue. While the changeling myth refers to fairies and other æther-world creatures, viz. pixies or trolls, the figure of the witch emerges here ex silentio: often perceived as an older woman who uses potions and poisons as her source of magic. Rita, whose filmic treatment by Kate Dolan offers no indication that Rita is or is not a self-proclaimed witch, is thought to be here because she later makes the extraordinary claim, Angela is an adult changeling: if changelings exist, then, witches do also. To construe the veracity of Rita's claims made to Char, who is an adolescent girl ignorant or unconscious of her family's inter-relations, that Angela is a changeling, Rita is inferred as using lithium not only to cause Angela's dissociative spells, but create the perception to Char, Angela's typically depressed, withdrawn character, changed to lively and demonstrative, is proof Angela is a changeling.

5.4 — By organising for Char to collect and provide Angela the lithium tablets, Rita makes Char blithely complicit in believing the medicine is not poison, and further, Rita shifts the modal paradigm, in which any-thing but the medicine could be questioned. Really, the lithium pack becomes the index of a hegemonic influence exerted by psychiatry, such as that it has become unquestionable.

5.5 — Rita's quite audacious claims are made in the context of the tradition of Halloween, when the nightmarish or macabre are celebrated, less as the Christian tradition of remembrance of the deaths of Saints, and more as a commercial form of revelry. Nonetheless, the Irish would approach the narrative of 'You Are Not My Mother' as redolent of 'Tam Lin', in which the eponymous character Tam Lin reaches his climatic release from the fairy queen's hold, during Halloween: the same time of Angela's climatic, tragic end.

Figure 2. A film still, viz. mother-hood under fire, in 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, from: Deadline, accessed 20 May 2022, at: <https://deadline.com/video/you-are-not-my-mother-first-clip-for-tiff-midnight-madness-horror-sold-by-bankside/>. 

5.6 — The hysteria of Halloween heats up the folk who go about trick or treating in costumes, and cause for their absence of recognition of Angela's ghastly change; she has lost her head of hair, experienced facial skin inflammation and acne, limps with a broken leg, caused by stomping on Arabic patterned carpet, to indicate that the lithium has weakened her bones. The folk lore is found to envelop Angela, whose chemically induced change, is interpreted by her daughter, Char, as demonstrating the truth of Rita's claim, that Angela is a changeling who must be burnt.

Figure 3. The poster for 'The Wicker Man', circa 1973, photograph from: Filmposter, accessed 20 May 2022, at: <https://www.filmposter.net/en/the-wicker-man-original-release-british-movie-poster.html>

6.0 — Neo-Paganism: At the back of an industrial site, where wooden crates are piled, a make-shift interior is made: a wooden cage, similar to that seen in the Scottish film: 'The Wicker Man', circa 1973, that holds within, it's sacrifice before being torched. Inside the wooden stack, a human sacrifice is placed, a type of pregnancy: here, mother-hood is set on fire—in the case of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, the sacrifice is supposedly done in a belief of killing for the sake of cleansing the beloved relative. Rita has told Char to burn Angela because that is the only way to cure a changeling, yet is it the case, pitted in the situation of survival, has Char sought to save her-self above her mother's survival? 

6.1 — Char is found to take a spray can of flammable liquid with a lighter, the weapon used by Char's bully, who earlier had Angela fended off of Char as the bully used it on Char. The true horror of the film then, is not the spectre of a changeling mother burned by a daughter, but the horror of a family to permit the torture and killing of one of their own. Is this not a reversioning of the neo-paganism of 'The Wicker Man', in which the social order is dependent and sustained by the human sacrifice? Through the warping and distortions of misuses of psychiatric drugs, and popular cultures which celebrate the macabre, the influence of neo-paganism in the Western World, once predominantly comprised of Christian cultures, is all encompassing. There is no church or Christian crucifix in sight within the Northern Dublin suburb of tenaments and grass-lands of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, but the symbol that is distinctly identifiable as pagan, the witch-based sage, a ball of twigs and leafs which is supposed to be little more than a good luck charm, is centrally placed in the narrative, the icon of Char's transition in to becoming a witch. The witch burning people seems quite the coup de tat, because burning witches was the scurge of the Western World for centuries, until the past forty years.

7.0 — The "Faustian Bargain": The question I have then is, when a daughter kills her own mother, but the social order believes there is nothing wrong with the act, is guilt still experienced? Char must fundamentally believe in witch-craft there-after, otherwise her act of murder is realised as guilty. The concern then is for the absolutism that takes place: there can be no question as to the act's correctness, whereas I whole-heartedly question the morality and humaneness of the changeling mythos.

7.1 — There appears to be an almost completely different cultural system at work in once Christian Catholic Ireland, in which a matriarchy invested in witch-craft lore, exists to corrode the very centre of Christianity, the position and role of the mother as to love her child and have her child love her also; refer to the Madonna and Infant Jesus Christ, viz. the Annuciation, the Nativity Scene and Christmas.

7.2 — Can the attack upon mother-hood emanate from women them-selves? The figure of the witch, particularly among the cultures of the Mahgreb, or Moorish Arabia, viz. Tunisia, Algiers, Libya and Morocco, may have transferred cultural practices to countries other than France. The film 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, suggests that witches from such cultures have brought a cultural complex predicated upon the position of the witch, attained within the family through the murder of a daughter's mother, as a variant of the "Faustian bargain". 

7.3 — The celebrated play, 'Faust [in two parts]', circa 1831, by the German author, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, has a number of "uncanny" parallels with the narrative of, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021. Such as, the involvement of an inferred bargain, as already mentioned; the use of potion, that is the medicine of lithium; a young teenage girl, viz. Gretchen (also known as Margaret), titled as Char; the death of the girl's mother; pregnancy, at least as inferred; infanticide that is also inferred in the latter text. The remarkable dissimilarity is the position of Faust compared with Aaron: in the text by Johann Goethe, Faust is the highly visible protagonist; in Kate Dolan's text, Aaron, is found barely visible.

7.4 — Arguably, the Faustian bargain that reflected the Moorish and Berber masculine cultures has covered over it-self with a visible female variation, to cause a barrier against accusations made by the Aarons of the families. There is, then, the further removal of blame to be made upon the imputed Mephistopheles, who in this film escapes recognition.

7.5 — Note, Johann Goethe's play was adapted to a silent film titled: 'Faust — A German Folk-tale', circa 1926, that is, produced by Ufa, directed by F.W. Murnau, with the actors Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto, Camilla Horn as Gretchen, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle as her brother and Yvette Guilbert as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt.

Figure 4. A 'Faust' film poster with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, circa 1926; the image is from Cinematerial, accessed 20 May 2022, at: <https://www.cinematerial.com/movies/faust-i16847/p/4etzjytt>.

8.0 — Disclaimer: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

8.1 — Four photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 4; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.

8.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 

☆☆☆