Perceiving Evil Evil Women And The Feminine

Evil. Women. The Feminine. The relationships that bring together these three ideas form the basis for the papers gathered together in this volume. By asking how, why, when, and to what purpose these three terms are often linked serves as the starting point of interrogation for each of the authors here considered.

Mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious, unruly, carping, vengeful and manipulative – from the Disney princess to the murderous Medea, the articles in Re-visiting Female Evil grapple with our understanding of what it is to be and do evil femininities.

A consideratioon of the morality of evil from the standoint of women.

With themes ranging from the personal consideration of female bodies, to the supernatural hidden realm, to the public condemnation of women who fall foul of either the law or of a male-dominated world, this collection of interdisciplinary essays provides an in-depth look at the fate of women who abuse or are abused by power.

"Evil women, who are they really? What are their motives, and how are they remembered and constructed within our culture? Evil Women: Representations within Literature, Culture and Film seeks to interrogate the nature and construction of evil women in the above fields. Through literature, poetry, history, ballads, film and real-life culture, scholars explore how the evil woman has been constructed and, in some cases, erased; the punishment and treatment of evil women; and the way evil women have been portrayed on and off screen through character, narrative and behind the camera development"--

From Alien Queens to prostitutes, 'phallic' mothers to child-murderers, evil women proliferate across cultural productions that span millennia. This collection explores the perennial question of 'evil' and its relationship to women and femininity. Taking as their starting points material as diverse as Greek mythology, nineteenth-century medical texts, Elizabethan drama and contemporary cartoons, and informed by various theoretical perspectives, the authors scrutinise the construction of the feminine as evil, and vice versa