Axinte Delia- Georgiana, CCBCG, I, MENTALITIES, UNIT 8, TASK 2

How does Freud demonstrate that feminine beauty represents and defends
against death?
Sigmund Freud demonstrates in his essay Theme of the Three Caskets that feminine beauty
both represents and defends against death by using the dream analysis technique, relying on
myths, folk tales and other literary texts, providing examples and commenting on the features
of the chosen woman, reflecting upon the idea of choice and the relationship between Eros
and Thanatos.
Firstly the author begins by discussing Shakespeares Merchant of Venice, particularly the
idea behind the choice between the three caskets which the male characters have to opt for in
order to win Portia in marriage. He reverses the original concept of a woman choosing
between three pretenders into the decision which a male is confronted with in the selection of
one of the three caskets, that, as Freud suggest relying on his dream analysis represent women
If what we were concerned with were a dream, it would occur to us at once that caskets are
also women, symbols of what is essential in woman, and therefore of a woman herself [] If
we boldly assume that there are symbolic substitutions of the same kind in myths as well, then
the casket scene in The Merchant of Venice really becomes the inversion we suspected
(Freud, 1913: 291).
Secondly the author proceeds with offering examples of other works- myths, folklore,
literature that evoke the motif of the three women that control destiny, who are sisters and
each of them denote a specific feature Lachesis seems to denote the accidental that is
included in the regularity of destiny or, as we should say, experience; just as Atropos
stands for the ineluctableDeath. Clotho would then be left to mean the innate disposition
with its fateful implication (Freud, 1913: 298).
Thirdly Freud underlines, as Efrat Tselon reveals The typical choice of the youngest,
loveliest and quietest of the three often coincided with the choice of death the fact that the
third sister is always chosen is due to the fact that she possesses certain features that make her
unique, indicating especially isolation and silence It must strike us that this excellent third
woman has in several instances certain peculiar qualities besides her beauty. They are
qualities that seem to be tending towards some kind of unity [] We may perhaps be allowed
to equate concealment and dumbness. (Freud,1913: 293). The womans muteness represents,
according to psycho analysis, death, as a result the third sister, the most beautiful, wisest and
loyal, may be the goddess of death.Freud discussed how culture often uses the figure of a

Axinte Delia- Georgiana, CCBCG, I, MENTALITIES, UNIT 8, TASK 2

beautiful woman as an allegory for death itself, or as a goddess associated with death, he
argued that the substitution of death and decay with its absolute opposite, fecund beauty, is a
type of wish fulfillment (Bahrani, 2011: 154). Freud chooses two of the Grimms fairytales
in order to sustain his argument that dumbness represents death; in The Twelve Brothers and
The Six Swans, both the female characters must subdue themselves to silence in order to save
their brothers I will gladly die, if by so doing I can save my twelve brothers., The girl has
made a firm resolve to free her brothers, even if it should cost her her life. Both women face
mortal danger in order to help their brothers and finally succeed in releasing them from their
burden, therefore the womens pure love save them from a cruel faith. Part of the equation
between femininity and death resides precisely in the fact that Woman as mans object of
desire is on the side of death not only because she repeats the always already lost primordial
mother but because she so often serves as a non- reciprocal dead figure of imaginary
projection(Bronfen, 1992: 63).
Lastly the author extends his uncovering by citing other works- The Judgement of Paris,
King Lear, the chosen female in the former is Aphrodite, the goddess of love, victorious due
to her beauty shall bring upon him the inevitable death; the later presents the loyal daughter,
who in the finale scene is carried by her father, Freud by applying the replacement by
opposite suggests that behind this powerful imagery is in fact Cordelia, now goddess of
death ,who takes the dead king of the battle field Lear carries Cordelia's dead body on to the
stage. Cordelia is Death. If we reverse the situation it becomes intelligible and familiar to us.
She is the Death-goddess who, like the Valkyrie in German mythology, carries away the dead
hero from the battlefield.(Freud, 1913: 301).
Choice as Freud mentions is a way in which men overcome death, by this representation of
feminine beauty, fairest, most beautiful and loyal, there is no terror, thus the goddess of death
is replaces by the goddess of love and the fatality of death is transformed into a free choice.
Here again there has been a wishful reversal. Choice stands in the place of necessity, of
destiny.(Freud,1913: 298). The author emphasizes that the man is no longer the one who
chooses, but the one being chosen and that power is held by women. The three women in
these myths, Freud wrote, are the three inevitable relations that a man has with a woman
the woman who bears him, the woman who is his mate, and the woman who destroys him.
In conclusion Freud suggests that feminine beauty is represented by both Eros and Thanatos
and destiny and choice. Thus, Man has replaced the necessity of Death by voluntarily
choosing it.

Axinte Delia- Georgiana, CCBCG, I, MENTALITIES, UNIT 8, TASK 2

References

Freud, Sigmund. The Theme of the Three Caskets, 1913

Bahrani, Zainab. Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia, London:
New Fetter Lane, 2001.
Jantzen, Grace. Death and the Displacement of Beauty: Foundations of violence, London:
New Fetter Lane, 2004.

Bronfen, Elisabeth. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic, Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1992.