Amelia Russell

Introduction and aims 

In this investigation, I will explore the representation of dysfunctional relationships. I chose this area of focus as it is a prominent theme throughout history and presently especially being the relationship between  a mother and daughter. The bond that is supposed to be most sacred and maternal turned deformed and manipulative is both heart wrenching and intriguing and by investigating the representation of how and why these relationships are the way they are fascinates me. Enabling me to unpick through layers of facade each person feels they must put on against the other poses to me as worthy of investigation.

The horror novel ‘Carrie’ by Stephen King focuses on the dismal life of Carrie White, following her through both home and school trauma until she psychologically  breaks, throwing the whole town of Chamberlain, Maine into a frenzy of death and destruction left in her wake. The book includes breaks from a heterodiegetic narrator firstly as a fictional report called ‘The shadow exploded’ exploring the documented facts and specific conclusions of her case. The second diversion from the main storyline was by a memoir called ‘I am Susan Snell’ recalling the perspective of Sue Snell a prominent character in the book being one of the only people to show sympathy towards Carrie and try to rectify the wrongs she committed towards her. The storyline’s prominent focus is on that of Margaret White and her fluctuating relationship with Carrie, leaving you to question whether the basis of their relationship is that of love or fear? Margaret is depicted as a wild force, obsessed with the bible yet straying away with her cultish twists of scripture she believes the Bible teaches. Her manipulative and indoctrinating grasp has controlled Carrie her whole life and shapes her into a monster similarly to the idea of frankenstien’s monster. Margret’s making is her grisly demise.

In my first extract Carrie and her ‘Momma’ return home after having her first period and all the girls throwing tampons and pads at her. Carrie why she didn’t tell her about periods and how she was scared yet she is met with a strike to the face causing her to fall to the floor as her mother starts to recite her altered bible verses about how she has sinned therefore must face the curse of blood like Eve did. The physical abuse continues bringing them to the dreaded closet where she demands Carrie to pray to repent from her sins; she tells her mother that she will make the stones come again, resulting in the beating increasing and getting her thrown into the closet and left for six hours till she breaks. Her mother lets her out a mere hour after she bakes, crying for her to let her out. This is unexpected due to Carrie’s extreme retaliation in their argument, while screaming and swearing would make the reader expect her to be locked away for longer than usual. The difference in their argument that could explain Margret’s different reaction could be as Carrie saw fear in her mother’s eyes when she talked about using her powers, this marks a beginning of Carrie gaining some power in their relationship as Margaret has always been the one to strike fear into Carrie. 

Black Swan is a psychological horror film focussed on the mental turmoil of a blossoming professional ballerina and her quickening descent into madness as she can no longer detach herself from her character as the Black Swan, leading to her demise. The black swan itself represents evil and darkness, she is the evil sister of the white swan who impersonates her to steal her love, in regards to Nina her black swan side takes over her and acts similarly to the ballet by making her act out sexually and sabotages her professional and personal life.. She is taken on a journey of the reality of being the swan queen which is foreshadowed by her predecessor Beth, Thomas’ (the director) lead ballerina who ends up stepping in front of oncoming traffic as she has to retire. Nina is introduced as a feeble eager to please girl who has had issues with self harm in the past and is determined to push herself to get what she wants. When she is met with laid back ballerina Lily who has as much interest in the party life as her ballet career, she tries to get Nina to relax more but only leads her to start spiralling after a night out when she breaks out after an argument with her mum. Her mother who is a retired ballerina vicariously lives through Nina, she is toxic and overbearing to the point where Nin;a is still treated as a child in her 20’s; their relationship declines as Nina’s hallucinations and paranoia takes over.

Extract 1 depicts a typical morning at the beginning of the new ballet season where it is calm and Nina and her mother, Erica laugh over an inside joke before the mood is dampened when she notices scratch marks on Nina’s shoulder but this is glazed over with a kiss and a hug goodbye as she affectionately calls her “sweet girl”.

In extract 2 Nina has told Erica that she got Swan Queen. She rushed home after an emotional phone call, upon arriving at home her mum wasn’t home so she looked in different rooms to find her. When entering the room where her mum paints there are many paintings of her. She sees one move and looks towards her then she leaves. After a shower, she notices a rash of bumps on her shoulder then looks again to see it bleeding. Her mum comes home and she meets her in the kitchen, hugs her and sees a cake. She is unwilling to eat it due to unhealthy conditioning done by her ballet career and asks for a small slice, Erica ignores then Nina says no so she goes over to put the whole thing in the bin. Nina feels guilty so agrees to have the big slice.

There is an obvious difference in the interaction between the mothers and daughters. Where Nina and Erica’s relationship in the extracts seems to be closer and more caring there is a prominent theme of over caring for the daughter; Erica’s love constricts Nina therefore fueling her mental breakdown later on in the movie. This contrasts with the lack of love and connection with fear and anger in its place in Carrie and Margret White’s relationship certainly acts as a catalyst to Carrie’s downfall and destruction. The contrasting dysfunctionality of each relationship interests me as both daughters appear to die in the end and it shows how there is such a fine line between hate and love, both emotions being so strong and being able to push someone to the edge.

Analysis

How do King and Aronofsky use the theory of linguistic politeness to represent dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships? 

In extract one, despite the reader feeling empathy for  Carrie, she is the one to challenge Margret’s positive face through “I didn’t sin” “you did”. Through Carrie’s use of the aggressive verb “sin”, Margret’s perspective is worse than a swear as her entire livelihood is built on living sinlessly in the fear of God, therefore this gravely threatens Margret’s ‘positive face need’ to be appreciated and recognised for her unwavering beliefs in living by God’s word. In response to her verbal retaliation Carrie is met with the force of being pushed towards the closet. The closet itself is the embodiment of Margaret’s religious torture in which Carrie is stuck in and continues to be until she breaks the cycle by killing her mother. The “blue glare” of the closet as Carrie is forced towards it signifies a foreboding  personification of the closet as she is trapped between two sources of suffering, her mother and the closet. The blue typically being the colour representing the Virgin Mary and peaceful spirituality and wisdom is contrasted with the discomforting verb “glare” depicting it as a hellish embodyment of Carries religious and maternal torture. The semantic field of religion is used through Margret’s use of reciting religious words to threaten Carrie’s negative face. Despite Carrie’s declarative phrase “let me go”, her mother ignores her and recites her distorted bible verse to her “- and Your sign that she must walk the straight and narrow from here…”. Threatening her negative face need to not feel imposed on shows their dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship through the lack of respect for face needs and constant overstepping; as Margret never wanted to become a mother through her belief that sex is a sin and therefore Carrie coming from her sin predesposes her to be a reminder of how she has failed what she believe to be God’s laws. The idiom “straight and narrow” refers to how Margret believes her abuse will help Carrie to become a good christian like her, however this leads us to the question of whether Margret puts Carrie through a lifetime of abuse and conditional love for the benefit of her daughter to be good ‘in the eyes of God’ or as an expression of aggression against her biggest sin, Carrie.

In contrast, Aronofsky’s directorial style of the third extract can have politeness theory reflected onto it in regards to Erica’s failure to meet Nina’s negative face needs at the assent into her breakdown at home. In this scene of high tension the camera shakily focuses on the faces of them both somewhat moving with them and shaking with the stress of the situation. In between Nina’s screaming declaratives of “get out” Erica has burst through the door originally held closed by a piece of scraped wood, she comes towards Nina and after saying the interrogative “what’s wrong with you?” Nina’s desperation for her to leave is evident from her slamming the door on her mother’s fingers multiple times while she screams in pain until she lets go. Erica ignores Nina’s blatantly vocalised negative face need in order to fulfil her own need to know that Nina is ok and she wants to help her. Once Nina knocks herself out by hitting her head on her bed frame she later wakes up the following morning to see her hands bound in thick socks and rubber bands to stop her from scratching herself, this further violates Nina’s negative face need as she wants to leave to perform. There is a split contrast in whether considering the theory of politeness she should have let her be and let her be independent then maybe she may not have gotten so mentally unstable of she should have taken better care of her even if that means not facing up to her negative face by letting her stand alone considering her consistent mental illness from before the storyline, this being stuck in the middle signifies how dysfunctional the mother-daughter relationship is in The Black Swan. The camera angle of looking down over Nina and up towards Erica shows the power dynamic here and throughout the movie, depending on the scene it can be seen looking over nina and down onto Erica opposingly in high stress scenes where Nina slams her mother’s fingers in the door.

How do King and Aronofsky use proxemics to represent dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships? 

King uses proxemics heavily to show the power dynamics and emotions of both Carrie and her mother. In Extract 1 of Carrie they are in the midst of a violent and mostly one sided argument where Margret White is in control; this is presented through “It struck her backhand across the jaw and Carrie fell down in to the doorway” this subverts the principle that within proxemics closeness shows trust and comfort because  the closer Margaret gets to Carrie she is more inclined to hurt her. With Carrie being hit to the ground the power  is shown to be with Margaret as she now towers above her seeing there is to struggle for power and that Carrie is submissive to her. King’s violent language creates a clear boxing match like image for the reader, where you can see the scene of Carrie falling to the floor and like a knockout. Their proxemics  are hostile and show how their relationship is dysfunctional as within a typical mother-daughter relationship the close proximity would be used to show affection.

However in Black Swan, in extract 1 Aronofsky uses proxemics to not only show the love but also the control that Nina’s mother Erica craves to have over Nina. Erica is seen making Nina’s breakfast and getting her stuff ready for her ballet class. A prominent theme in their relationship is how Erica infantilises Nina despite her being fully an adult. The two share an inside joke both saying “pretty’ showing how they actively communicate and are close. Erica proceeds to take a sweatshirt over to Nina and starts putting it on her. The proxemics clearly help to show the control that Erica has over Nina. The camera angle aids the use of proxemics as it zooms in on the faces and the action of her putting the sweater over Nina’s head. The viewer is shocked by the image of a mother dressing an adult daughter.. This focuses on a different way in which the mother-daughter relationship is dysfunctional as Erica has created an over dependence which leads to Nina’s mental break later on in the film as she must rebel and doesn’t know how to be independent. 

King’s use of proxemics in extract two shows how the power balance has shifted to Carrie having the upper hand. “Margret tried to get up, staggered, and fell back on her hands and knees” shows how proxemics are used to show Carrie having the power as she stands above her mother, through the use of her powers which was one of the keys to this strength, the other being the revenge she has gotten on all the people who mocked and bullied her, she is now able to use them to her advantage. Her powers of telekinesis act as a representative of a vengeful force she is able to control her mother physically with in opposition to her entire life being controlled at the cruel hand of her God fearing mother. “Hands and knees” signifies not only her now being below her daughter but how her devout religious followings have pushed her down, the way that she has contorted a loving religion into a tool to inflict fear, pain and torture onto Carrie from such a young age shows her weakness that has been there for the whole book. The proxemics show the dysfunctional relationship through their back and forth power struggle with the violence Carrie conflicts through her choice of slowing down her mothers heart instead of just killing her symbolises the close control Margaret has had on her and the fact she has the power to do this now is conflicting for her.

Aronofsky also uses proxemics in extract three to show the breakdown of the relationship between Nina and Erica through her descent into madness. Again focusing on extract two Erica pushes Nina back down onto the bed trying to keep her there to rest and wait for this episode to be over with. The proxemics of Erica being so close by shows that she is trying to care for her and get her to stay with her, reflecting her love for her but also her overpowering control. This is met with Nina panicking as she wants to perform on opening night as the Swan Queen but she sees that the knob has been taken off the door so she can’t leave, her entrapment in the room and apartment with her mother reflects how her mother har held on too tightly for so long and she is itching to get out. The proxemic interaction where Nina grabs Erica’s wrist to ‘yank’ her out the way to get to door knob reflects Nina’s desperation to get out, I do believe Nina loves her mother but Her mental illness and obsession has taken over her yet through this blind obsession she has been able to finally see her mother as not only that but her captor.