Eros/Thanatos – Frida/Slavenka

/, Literature, Blesok no. 118/Eros/Thanatos – Frida/Slavenka

Eros/Thanatos – Frida/Slavenka

Eros/Thanatos – Frida/Slavenka


Today, the relation Lilith-Eve is seen as the two sides of the same coin. Lilith is the subconscious and hidden with every woman, the one that she (sub)consciously yearns for, and Eve is their consciousness (template) of behavior. Frida is the coin between the conscious and subconscious, i.e. Lilith and Eve in this novel.

After Frida once leaves her Adam, she returns to him as the second wife of Adam – Eve. Love is an emotion of the soul caused by the movement of spirits, which encourages the soul to voluntarily merge with the objects that seem good for it (Декарт, 2004: 68). Such a merge happens when Diego and Frida meet for the first time. Diego is the biggest reason for this in-between space where Frida resides. In-between is the safety zone, but insecurity in one’s own identity.

The three women, Lilith, Eve and Frida are connected by pain and the intensity of pain. Lilith cannibalistically ate her children. Eve has committed a sin because of her curiosity. Frida, because of her solitude and big love. However, this pain did not make them aware of themselves, they started to feel and know themselves because of this pain. Lilith became aware of her own identity and aware that pain is the inseparable substance of life, and therefore she started to eat her children. Eve became aware of the share and started to cover her body with leaves. Frida became aware of her power of a medium and started to transmit her pain via paintings. Heaven is filled with beauty and harmony, which do not allow them to know themselves. In-between is a stretched rope above two puts, and Frida walks along it; every turn and unplanned step carry her into one of the pits. The first was the triangle where she found herself with Diego and Christina. The second one with Trotsky and Natalia.

In her first marriage she would dive into passion, just as Lilith did when she was persecuted from Heaven (which was not even Heaven for her), proving her non-inferiority. In her second marriage, she would be an obedient and quiet wife, which would enable her to achieve her goal. She would win his love for her only, despite all of his women – she would be his only love.

The cannibalism theme is also quite present. The reason because of which I mention cannibalism is because of Lilith’s presence, and if she is the first woman – cannibalism starts with her. This metaphoric cannibalism is present in Frida’s paintings and life. If Lilith ate her children, Frida was eaten by her children that remained inside her, she could not give birth to them. The thought about the child in her insides ate her. In the beginning, it lamed her heart, her soul and every part of her. These demonic (fetuses) children fed from her and from her pain. And she gave them birth on her paintings, so that they can also eat her from outside, visibly, so that the people see that she has them, that she is not alone. And they almost ate her up, but Diego chased them away and he became her only obedient son, trying to heal the wounds of the disobedient children, whom did not want to be born.
Her relationship with Trotsky would be in a way crucial for leaving her comfort zone, that is, leaving the space in-between Lilith and Eve. From Natalia, the obedient and invisible wife of Trotsky, she would learn patience and understanding to keep love alive. In the Trotsky-Frida-Natalia triangle, she experiences transformation of her character, under the influence of Natalia, with whom she is related in many ways, and the main one is losing the children. Previously, she was in a love triangle Diego-Christina-Frida, where Christina tasted the forbidden apple. Despite the rage caused by her persecution, Frida ate herself instead of her children, from within, with big, but almost unnoticeable bites in her soul, which were sometimes seen on her face only. In this triangle, with Trotsky and Natalia, she decided to feed only on her motherly love, which would be directed to Diego only. When she first left the space in-between, it was the first love triangle with Diego and Christina, where she moved into Lilith and she soothed her pain with sex and persecution, proving her inferiority, by sleeping with the most beautiful women. The second time she left the space in-between was in this relation between Natalia and Trotsky. Here she came closer to Eve and soothed her pain by caring and being patent towards Diego.

AuthorDijana Petrova
Translated byElizabeta Bakovska
2018-11-29T14:43:30+00:00 March 27th, 2018|Categories: Essays, Literature, Blesok no. 118|0 Comments