On becoming a hag: Gender, ageing and abjection

Pickard, S ORCID: 0000-0003-3429-8880 (2020) On becoming a hag: Gender, ageing and abjection. Feminist Theory, 21 (2). pp. 157-173.

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Abstract

In this article, I explore, through the novels of Elena Ferrante, the role played by the ‘abject’ in mediating ageing in women, focusing on its role in the movement from a disempowered to a more powerful subject position. The article has three sections. The first describes the role of the abject in constituting the feminine, focusing on the place of temporality and ageing in this process. Represented by the symbolic figure of the hag, the old woman is a source of primal fear which forms the foundation of a violently misogynistic gendered (self-)formation. However, following Barbara Creed, there are two representational forms of the hag, that of victim (hag) and that of monster (Hag), which I argue also suggest alternative subjectivities associated with ageing femininity. In the second section, I explore the movement from one form to the other by means of conceptual models drawn from Simone de Beauvoir and Margaret Morganroth Gullette, in which process a battle over the symbolic meaning of abjection is central. Moreover, ageing itself is significant in mediating the shift from an oppressed/fragmented to a powerful/integrated subject position. Whilst the structures of feeling involved in this subjectivity are emergent, fiction and imaginative literature may provide helpful early depictions and in the last section I illustrate the psychosocial domain with material drawn from two early novels by Elena Ferrante.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	abject, ageing, Elena Ferrante, postmaternal, the hag
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	10 Jul 2019 12:26
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 00:39
DOI:	10.1177/1464700119859751
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3047266