The position of the maternal body within patriarchy is the topic of this discussion where, rather than looking at a linear sequence of events, various aspects of this position are explored. On an individual level, the intrusion of the father into the dyadic, and potentially incestuous mother-child relationship, marks the entry of the child into the Symbolic Order, and this reflects the mythical account of creation in the Old Testament, where actual maternity is repressed in favour of a paternal monopoly in creation. Just as monotheism both represses and appropriates many aspects of the goddess cult which preceded it and which it replaces, the maternal body is repressed and appropriated within patriarchy. The acquisition of language and awareness of sexual difference marking entry into the 'Law of the Father,' are constructed on a duality of self and other, a dichotomy of inside and outside with a border, represented by the skin, separating the two. This border, separating the symbolic from its other is tenuous and ambiguous, for it is not entirely impermeable barrier. What seeps across this border, what transgresses the barrier between inside and outside, is considered by Kristeva to be abject. Positioned at the threshold separating inside and outside, abjection is the threat of the ever present, but submerged mother crossing the threshold and disrupting social order. Throughout the paper are images selected from an entire body of related visual research which is closely linked to the ideas contemplated here. / Master of Arts (Hons)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235882 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | O'Loughlin, Antoinette, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, Faculty of Performance, Fine Arts and Design |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_FPFAD_XXX_OLoughlin_A.xml |
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