At the very end of his article on the case of Papin sisters (‘Motifs du
crime paranoïaque’, Le Minotaure, December
1933, no. 3-4) Lacan highlights Christine Papin’s testimony in the court where
she apparently said that in the deep wounds of her victims she perceived the
“mystery of life”. It seems to me that Lacan leaves it to the reader to decide if Christine Papin actually became mad in the aftermath of the horrible act she
committed together with her sister. In the article Lacan emphasizes the emotional motives of the sisters' crime, which according to Lacan is based on the problem inherent to the relation between the two sisters and to their victims to be. In another words, without going into detail
of Lacan’s suggestions here, the crime of Papin sisters was, as I read Lacan,
not caused by madness. It was a natural, however fatal reaction due to the
circumstances of their frustrated situation which made it impossible for the two
timid maids to become lovers.
Christine’s “mystical experience” is a symptom of her loss. In her madness she recognizes the “mystery of life” in the bleeding wounds of her victim’s massacred bodies, her reaction suggests that she, like any other who was terrified by the Papin’s crime, was unable to understand what really happened, why she and her sister committed such a horrible act. She was separated from her sister during the trial, which caused her great suffering. Christine’s perception of the “mystery of life” suggests that madness perhaps offered her shelter for a moment, substituting morbid massacre with mystical vision, blinding her from the unbearable burden of guilt. Christine, confined in the asylum, desperately longing for her sister Lea whom she was not allowed to see… it was perhaps the guilt that after all led Christine to death by apathy and starvation…
Christine’s “mystical experience” is a symptom of her loss. In her madness she recognizes the “mystery of life” in the bleeding wounds of her victim’s massacred bodies, her reaction suggests that she, like any other who was terrified by the Papin’s crime, was unable to understand what really happened, why she and her sister committed such a horrible act. She was separated from her sister during the trial, which caused her great suffering. Christine’s perception of the “mystery of life” suggests that madness perhaps offered her shelter for a moment, substituting morbid massacre with mystical vision, blinding her from the unbearable burden of guilt. Christine, confined in the asylum, desperately longing for her sister Lea whom she was not allowed to see… it was perhaps the guilt that after all led Christine to death by apathy and starvation…
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