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 //.
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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.
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