Losing face

[Karl]

It might be of interest to note that when chimps attack, they specifically target the face and groin, attempting to completely mangle both. It seems there is something deeply primal in the symbolism we attach to these parts of the body.

[Pierre]

Being a bad monkey

It might be of interest to note that when chimps attack, they specifically target the face and groin, attempting to completely mangle both. It seems there is something deeply primal in the symbolism we attach to these parts of the body.

Just as we expected: A monkey did it!

http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_147711/Daniel-Urrabieta-Vierge/Illustration-for-The-Murders-in-the-Rue-Morgue-by-Edgar-Allan-Poe-1809-49-engraved-by-Eugene-Michel-Abot-1836-94

And the painter even managed to paint Bowyer outside the window.

Regards Pierre

[curious4]

There actually is a link between facial mutilations and "losing face". The most cited reason for cutting up a woman's face is to devalue her. A woman's face being her most important asset in the eyes of her attacker, he does it to ruin her in the eyes of everyone else. Thus causing her to lose face for having been the victim of such an attack. And she does. We do judge women with facial scars.

Not that expression's origin has anything to do with facial mutilations....

Hello Errata

According to a friend of mine, who is a highly qualified psychiatrist , a murderer would attack mouths because they had said cruel or critical things, noses because "they shouldn't poke their noses in", eyes because they have seen things, ears because they have been eavesdropping. I wonder, if the idea was to make Mary unattractive, why he didn't cut off her hair, one of her best features. Personally in this case I think there was no motive other than that he enjoyed doing what he did.

Best wishes
C4

[Pierre]

Mary's face was mutilated all over though, almost completely destroyed, not just the nose. Of the others only Eddowes nose was attacked, with the tip of it cut off.
So, did Eddowes try some sort of blackmail which would cause the killer to lose face in his community, Pierre? Is that the theory? Or did the killer's wife cuckold him with another man and Eddowes died for it as she was also adulterous?

What about the other victims?

Hi Rosella,

No, he had a larger motive so any prostitute could have become a victim.

Regards Pierre

[Phil Carter]

Hmm

The cutting off of one's nose to spite/save ones face.



Whilst I have no real belief in any facial mutilation connected to the theme Pierre has brought forward here, the above line is perhaps a little more apt in the circumstances of the two final C5 victims.

I only write this with the thinking. .IF the killer is trying to display a message of sorts... The message is clever enough to go unobserved. Suggesting it to be TOO clever.
However, exactly who would actually use such a tactic, is another issue all together.

Because if the message after Eddowes wasn't clear enough, the message was after MJK.

Why? Because the murders stopped.

I'm not suggesting this IS the case, but do suggest it is food for thought.

Thoughts anyone?



Phil

[Errata]

Hello Errata

According to a friend of mine, who is a highly qualified psychiatrist , a murderer would attack mouths because they had said cruel or critical things, noses because "they shouldn't poke their noses in", eyes because they have seen things, ears because they have been eavesdropping. I wonder, if the idea was to make Mary unattractive, why he didn't cut off her hair, one of her best features. Personally in this case I think there was no motive other than that he enjoyed doing what he did.

Best wishes
C4

Those symbols assume a previous relationship with the victim, and also assume a "tit for tat" punishment is enough for the killer, which it often isn't.

And some mutilators have described a need to "even the playing field", where they cut their victims face because their self esteem is so low, that they need their victim to be as damaged as they are in order to rape or murder them. I don't think that's the case here, though I could probably make an argument for it, but cutting up a woman's face is almost never as simple as straight symbolic punishment. Especially among strangers or lovers.

And if he didn't enjoy it, he wouldn't have done it. He had to get something out of it, enjoyment, satisfaction, revenge, redemption. Something.

It's also worth pointing out that women get their faces mutilated more than men do, by a considerable percentage if I recall. It means more to cut up a woman than a man. There's a reason for that, and it's not based on revenge.

[Karl]

Hmm

The cutting off of one's nose to spite/save ones face.



Whilst I have no real belief in any facial mutilation connected to the theme Pierre has brought forward here, the above line is perhaps a little more apt in the circumstances of the two final C5 victims.

I only write this with the thinking. .IF the killer is trying to display a message of sorts... The message is clever enough to go unobserved. Suggesting it to be TOO clever.
However, exactly who would actually use such a tactic, is another issue all together.

Because if the message after Eddowes wasn't clear enough, the message was after MJK.

Why? Because the murders stopped.

I'm not suggesting this IS the case, but do suggest it is food for thought.

Thoughts anyone?



Phil

Well, I guess it was no skin off his nose, then. Ah, ah, ah.

[Rosemary]

Malinowskit, Pierre

Pierre... Malinowski please read this

[Rosemary]

Malinowskit, Pierre

Pierre... Malinowski please read this what ever, sha

[Pcdunn]

Which title?

Pierre... Malinowski please read this what ever, sha

Bronislaw Malinowski wrote lots of books-- which one did you have in mind, Rosemary?

Or am I confused?
(Happy Halloween, by the way!)

[Mayerling]

Pierre, I have a question for you.

Where do you hide a tree?

Please allow Pierre to answer this one.

[Pierre]

Hmm

The cutting off of one's nose to spite/save ones face.



Whilst I have no real belief in any facial mutilation connected to the theme Pierre has brought forward here, the above line is perhaps a little more apt in the circumstances of the two final C5 victims.

I only write this with the thinking. .IF the killer is trying to display a message of sorts... The message is clever enough to go unobserved. Suggesting it to be TOO clever.
However, exactly who would actually use such a tactic, is another issue all together.

Because if the message after Eddowes wasn't clear enough, the message was after MJK.

Why? Because the murders stopped.

I'm not suggesting this IS the case, but do suggest it is food for thought.

Thoughts anyone?



Phil

Well, they did not stop. There was one dismemberment case and there was McKenzie.

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

Pierre, I have a question for you.

Where do you hide a tree?

Please allow Pierre to answer this one.

Hi,

That´s a riddle.

Regards Pierre

[Mayerling]

Hi,

That´s a riddle.

Regards Pierre

Hi,

Yes I know that. It's just that I wondered if you could answer the riddle. If you can, please do so.

Regards,

Jeff

[Pierre]

If someone has experienced A, someone might do B.

A =

Lose face

Fig. to lose status; to become less respectable.
Be embarrassed or humiliated, especially publicly.
To not maintain your reputation and the respect of others

(http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/lose+face)

B =

1)

"Losing face? The symbolism of facial mutilation

In August 2010, ‘Time’ magazine’s front cover featured a photograph of a young Afghan woman, Bibi Aisha, whose nose had been hacked from her face by her in-laws as punishment for fleeing her abusive marriage.

The world was appalled. At Swansea university, historian Dr Trish Skinner was struck by references to the ‘medieval’ nature of the act. “It got me wondering whether facial mutilation really was a typically ‘medieval’ act, and how we tend to apply this term to modern cases without really considering what separates us from the Middle Ages.”

http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2012/11/22/losing-face-the-symbolism-of-facial-mutilation/

2)

"Bodily mutilations, such as nose-cutting, are recorded worldwide from different cultural settings. Hence the custom is not solely an example of “Oriental violence and cruelty” (at times quoted in Orientalist sources from the colonial period). I want to emphasise that I am not arguing from the vantage point of a colonial discourse with its criticism of “degenerate and barbaric” social customs. Instead, this paper deals with the human body as a symbol of society. It is particularly focused on the symbolic significance of nose-cutting and on understanding this violent impulse as a social practice. The underlying notion is that cultural categories, such as “honour” and “shame”, are encoded in body morphology and affect behaviour."

(Honour, Shame, and Bodily Mutilation. Cutting off the Nose among Tribal Societies in Pakistan. Jürgen Wasim Frembgen. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Nov., 2006), pp. 243-260)

I agree with this.

Pierre