Evil Women
3rd Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference

Saturday 11th September 2021 – Sunday 12th September 2021
Online: ShockLogic Platform

Evil Never Looked So Good: Reimagined Wicked Queens in 21st Century Screen Media
Anthony Stepniak & Lorna Jowett

From Harley to Hela, Maleficent to Missy, Cat Woman to Catra, female villains are alive, well, and raising hell in film, TV and other popular screen media. A continuing fascination with villains as well as heroes, coupled with the rise of fantasy genres in visual media, results in new villains for the twenty-first century, villains who emerge from a rich heritage of representing evil. This makes commercial sense: recent attempts to critique or renegotiate the villain’s place in a range of genres are part of the constant drive to reinvent long-running, malleable, and saleable, properties, titles and characters. In the twenty-first context of #MeToo, BLM, TERFs and Karens it is not surprising that female heroes in contemporary media now frequently embody intersectional identities designed to promote the idea of inclusivity, in some cases to actively appeal to under-served audiences—and so do some female villains. Thus, reimaginings often work to reframe familiar villains in terms of race, gender, sexuality, disability and so on, situating them as marginalised and misunderstood. This process of critical retelling gives the evil female characters we know and love on screen reasons for being nasty, angry and persistent. We argue that key screen iterations of the Wicked Queen character from the Snow White fairy tale, such as Lana Parrilla’s Regina from ABC’s Once Upon A Time and Charlize Theron’s Ravenna in the Huntsman films exemplify trends in representing female evil across popular visual media. Our presentation covers costume, hair, make up, and casting to interrogate how the female villain is visually signalled as competent, powerful, and arrogant, often through overt sexualisation (or, as one of the presenters chooses to call it, evil cleavage), at times in uneasy contrast with recuperation of the evil queen in a reimagined, redemptive narrative.

 Key Words: Fairy tales, Female, Film, Popular culture, Retelling, Representation, Television, Wicked Queen.

From Maleficia to Magical Glamour: Postfeminist Film & the co-optation of the Witch
Amelia Crowther

As an implacable enemy of cis-hetero-patriarchal order, a figure of gendered deviance, sexual perversity and violent, destructive magic, the Euro-American witch is one of the most widespread and recognisable models of evil womanhood, embodying culturally specific fears and fantasies of transgressive feminine power for over 600 years. While the witch has a long history as a personification of this ‘evil’ in the horror film, often as a figure that must be destroyed in order to symbolically cleanse society of her abject influence, this paper asks what happens to cinematic representations of witchcraft when transgressive feminine power becomes commodifiable.

To this end, this paper will analyse popular film Practical Magic (1998) to investigate the specific strategies of co-optation and domestication it employs. Particularly, I will argue that the film works to transform witchcraft from an expression of women’s deviance and rage to a charmingly eccentric form of feminine difference, and then uses this domesticated magic to construct a glamorous rural domestic idyll that ultimately reifies a hegemonic white bourgeois mode of femininity. The film thus works as part of a wider cultural landscape of postfeminism, responding to the upheavals of the Sixties by acknowledging subversive pleasures in feminine transgression but rendering these safe, co-opting the figure of the witch, stripping her of her productive ‘evil’ and instead harnessing her power to hetero-patriarchal ideology, reproducing her as a figure of respectable empowerment.

Through this analysis, I aim to open up a conversation about the complex ways in which feminine ‘evil’ and transgressive power are being dealt with in the post-Sixties landscape. No longer simply an image of abjection to be destroyed, the witch has been co-opted, domesticated and glamorised so as to disavow and disarticulate the productive oppositional potential she once offered.

Key Words:    Witches, film, postfeminism, glamour, domesticity.

Feminine Evil in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Anna Clifton

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner proffers a conversation about good and evil in individuals. Although the sinful Mariner is the focus of the tale, bad women also have a significant role. Women are bringers of bad luck and are evil omens. They curse and condemn the Mariner, as well as serving as reminders of the idyllic past which has been sought and bitterly lost. For example, in the first part of the poem, the bride’s hymeneal journey mirrors the end of innocence that happens with the death of the albatross. She, like the dead bird, represents the end of carefree life. The first woman in the poem is linked to the next. Later, the Mariner is greeted with a whole host of women who condemn him. A water sprite leaps from the rotting sludge of water and bites the Mariner’s arm, causing him to draw blood. ‘Heaven’s Mother’ ignores his prayers, instead allowing him to flounder in the sludge of his own sin.[1] He is also greeted by Life-in-Death herself. Her body is rotting, decaying and repulsive, like the ocean from which she has come, yet her hair hangs golden and free, her lips red and rosy – just like the bride. The women in the Mariner’s lament represent an unchartered evil, from which the Mariner can never truly be free. They are evil in themselves, yet they also reflect the perpetual misery of the Mariner, who must endure the remainder of his life under the weight of his terrible story, as well as the condemnation of the women who watch from a distance.

Key Words: Coleridge, coast, bride, death, death-in-life, Christianity, curse, ocean, sin, decay

Donatien Alphonse François De Sade’s Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded. Representation of the liberated feminine from the most depraved literary character of all the times to goddess. An outline of the reception and interpretation
Ewelina Sochacka

This presentation will consider the academic interpretation (based mostly on John Phillips, Angela Carter, Annie Le Brun, and Georges Bataille findings) of the strong character women’s re-presentation in a novel: first-person narration Juliette that is traditionally read in a dualistic spirit of extreme contrary of her famous, younger sister Justine, her companions: Clairwil and Durand, unhistoric figures like Catherine the Great  and the philosophical image of ruthless Mother Nature.

Violence and transgression, desire, unfettered freedom constituted in the conviction that “Philosophy must never shrink from speaking out”, ways of breaking moral laws, taboos, conventional mores, socially conditioned reflexes of repulsion, and gender or species boundaries through the members of The Society of the Friends of Crime. Amoral, cruel, rotten to the core – is it just a literal meaning or something more? Are these anti-heroines, represented equality with men’s libertine in XVIII-century society, are the symbols of evil, fate, or changes taking place in society?

The story about the intellectual, political, and sexual force of upper-classed courtesans shows us the darkest side of human nature in a way that only Sade could express. Two centuries after, we are still trying to decode, analyze and interpret all aspects of what he had to say involved in the text. There is no doubt, in the XXI century: the Marquis was one of the greatest thinkers taking a decisive role in understanding the limitations of human capacity. And the idea is still unspoken, we are still unprepared for the naked truth expressed by the author.

Controlling the Rebel Body: Burning Witches and Institutionalizing Women.
Shannon Spence

Women have been persecuted as evil witches for centuries, ultimately inspiring a number of feminists to reclaim the witch as a symbol of female empowerment. Although there was a lack of persecutions of women as witches within Ireland, there are a number of Irish feminists who have a deep affinity to the image of the witch due to Ireland’s dark history of persecuting women as women. After the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, a close relationship between the Catholic Church and Irish State was formed, portraying purity as a key aspect of Irish identity. Purity was considered a woman’s responsibility and the Catholic constitution disseminated a discourse of shame towards women who expressed overt sexuality. Internalization of Catholic teachings on the role of women and sexuality in society generated a social climate where institutions that punished individuals who deviated from the norm were tolerated. Most predominately, unmarried pregnant women (‘fallen women’) were institutionalized in Magdalene Asylums where they experienced an array of mental, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the Church. Unlike the witchcraft acts that saw women legally persecuted as witches, there was no law passed that legitimized the need for ‘fallen women’ to be placed into institutions. However, the commonality between the legal persecution of witches and the social persecution of Irish women lies within the fear of unregulated female sexuality, which has been considered a threat to patriarchal structures. I therefore propose that by utilizing a Foucauldian framework to explore the correlation between the persecution of witches as a result of accusations stemming from a sexual nature, and the persecution of Irish women who did not comply with social norms regarding sexuality would fit within the scope of the Evil Women Conference as both were viewed deviant and evil transgressors.

Key Words: witches, Ireland, female sexuality, Magdalene Asylums, witchcraft persecutions, Foucault, Church and State

Witches: Evil, Abusive or Protective?
Derry Canning and Helen Gavin

“Witch!” is the epithet often assigned to any woman operating outside of the usual female stereotypical behaviour. The word may appear in different forms in different languages (ведьма, wise woman, キツネ ‘ázhnít’įįh, etc.) but the meaning remains –a woman (usually) whose behaviour has inexplicable motives and outcomes for those observing her. The mysteriousness of actions such as delivering babies safely when, typically, they would have died, or easing the passage from this world without pain, frequently frightens the uninitiated, and that which frightens us becomes, in our minds, evil. The cultural pervasiveness of the evil female witch trope bears examination, and this paper will attempt to explore several different representations of the witch as an evil woman.

In British history and fiction for example, Mother Shipton was one of the most famous prophetesses after predicting several cataclysmic events. More “traditional” witches can be found in fiction. Shakespeare’s wyrd sisters lead Macbeth and his wife to madness and despair, and all for their own merriment. Contrast this with the wyrd sisters of Pratchett’s Discworld, where magic is the core power. These witches represent the symbolic tropes of maid, mother, and crone. Three also appears as the magic number in the Slavic folklore icon Baba Yaga, a supernatural being depicted as three sisters who live in a hut with chicken legs. Yaga presents different personas, the midwife, the physician, and the harbinger of death. This is also seen in the ways in which Native American peoples viewed shamans, those individuals who traverse the spirit world. European colonists either mocked them or regarded them as akin to the witch. Such reactions are like those expressed by Europeans encountering indigenous populations in Australia and New Zealand. For example, the Māori Mākutu is a force that can kill via black magic. This multidimensional persona is seen in multiple cultures, including the Japanese kitsune-tsukai, who can transform herself into a nine-tailed fox. Such global cultural representations of magic all herald the practitioner as a multitude of identities, protective, abusive, or evil. This paper will discuss these views regarding the mystery and evilness of female magic. 

Key Words: Witches, wise women, evil, folklore, transformation, indigenous beliefs.

Portrayal of Witches in The Museums of Salem, Massachusetts – A Case Study
Bryce Goyer

Magic and women are linked throughout history. The term witch has been gendered in contemporary discourse to relate almost exclusively to women. This case study aims to explore this relationship between gender and magic, the display of magical items in the museums of Salem, Massachusetts, and how these two ideas intersect. I argue that there are vast issues with cataloging and collecting magical items in museums due to the labeling of magic as Other and feminine. These issues can be seen prominently in the museum exhibitions and collections of Salem, Massachusetts. Institutions with power – the Church and Academia – have Othered magic since the early modern period in Europe. These ideas were then carried over to the American colonies by the early Puritan settlers of New England, leading to the infamous Salem With Trials of 1692. This Othering has also led to long-standing stereotypes and expectations about what is appropriate to label as magic in museums. Labeling, cataloging, and collecting magic is also complicated due to objects’ multi-layered uses and a nuanced material record of magic. Magical objects are difficult to collect and label correctly in museums because magic has been ascribed feminine attributes and has historically been used to target women. I argue that while the gendering and Othering of magic have historically caused museums to mislabel and misrepresent magical objects in their collection, gender discourse can begin to help rectify these mistakes. Applying feminist theory and looking at objects through a new and more diverse perspective can benefit these museum collections and the magical objects they have acquired. I apply these arguments to the museum collections and displays at the Salem Witch Museum and the exhibition The Salem Witch Trials 1692 at The Peabody Essex Museum. 

Key Words: Witch, Women, Salem, Museum, Collections, Exhibitions, Gender theory

The Status of Iranian Women and Girls after the Islamic Revolution
Ameneh Baseri

After the Iranian Revolution of 9191, the first thing the new government (Islamic Republic of Iran) did was to abolish the law of protecting the family. Although practically part of those laws was enforced, the 9191 law, which introduced important reforms in favor of equalization, such as the restriction of polygamy, the granting of a fairly equal divorce to men and women, the custody and guardianship of children to women, and Man, and so on, all of these laws were abolished, and along with it, they laid the “Qisas” law, a law that, in terms of the level of criminal law, takes us to the era of tribal relations and its values. So, for example, the criminal laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran constituted the death of a woman as a half man. This created a great contradiction from the start. On the one hand, Iranian women went ahead, became more active, their expectations went up. On the other hand, they told you that you have half the right man, half the worthy man, and in some laws really took Iran into a period of even barbarism, like stoning and so on. Gradually, women noticed that they had the same size of legal rights, and that moment, of course, many did not realize this. For example, the forced hijab forced many women into the streets on the eve of the March 8th International Women’s Day (9191), but they strongly contested the right to openly and openly contest the rights of women. That is, they were severely suppressed. The main issue that later changed the social and political climate of the society and the protest against the forced hijab in a hall of ambiguity was one of the issues of the capture of American hostages in Iran, on the one hand, and the second was the beginning of the war between Iran and Iraq, which, though For years, especially during the Iranian war, there was a kind of submission and silence about women. In the present study, we examine the status of women and girls in Iran after the 9191 revolution and review its feedback.

Key Words: Islamic Revolution 9191, Family Protection Law, Qisas law, Islamic Republic of Iran, International Women’s Day, Forced Hijab.

Transitional Justice Needs the Participation of “Evil” Women: Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina and Sri Lanka
Chrystal Whetstone

This paper examines transitional justice (TJ) – the process of holding accountable perpetrators of human rights abuses through courts, remembering crimes against humanity and making amends for past transgressions – through Argentina’s Madres of the Plaza de Mayo and Sri Lanka’s Mothers’ Front. Both groups catalyzed during internal armed conflicts against the enforced disappearance of their children. The mothers demanded the return of their missing children and justice for these crimes. In doing so, the women were harangued by their respective governments and portions of the general public as “bad mothers” whose poor mothering led to the “deserved” disappearances of their children. Even when gross violations by Argentina’s and Sri Lanka’s governments were revealed, many continued to vilify these mothers for seeking justice, or for pursuing forms of justice deemed “unfeminine.”

Using a theoretical framework that complicates previous understandings of “evil” women’s political participation, this paper argues that vengeance sought by women for acts of inhumanity perpetrated against them is integral to TJ. It seeks to upend both the perception of characteristics that make women “evil” and standard approaches to TJ promoted by international peace processes that emphasize courts, truth commissions and reparations. While these mechanisms are a starting point, these alone will not achieve TJ. The cry of “No forgiveness” by the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo and the pleas for the president’s death by the Mothers’ Front defy respectability politics. Yet these “evil” women have done more for TJ – and ultimately for long-term peace – than any respectable “feminine” notions of forgiveness.

This paper contributes to TJ, women’s political participation and postconflict scholarship and specifically calls upon international, national and local governments to include women’s participation in TJ, especially “evil” women who seek vengeance for terrible crimes committed against their communities.

Key Words: Political participation; Mothers; Transitional justice; Postconflict; Peace

Her Beauty Which Causes the Country to Fall, the Myth of the Nine-Tailed Fox in East-Asian Culture
Vickie WK Monthong

The myth of the Nine-Tailed Fox has been closely linked to the image of a “femme fatale”. In contemporary Asian culture, this spiritual figure is held responsible for the collapse of a country or dynasty. In the modern version, the Nine-Tailed Fox disguises as beautiful woman and distracts emperor from ruling the country with its beauty. The perception has transformed throughout Chinese history. From the mythical beast in Han dynasty, to the symbol of luck in Yuan dynasty, all the way to the malevolent spirit seducing kings and men of power, the myth of the Nine-Tailed Fox has come a long way, evolving into the version commonly known today. This paper explores the mythical figure of the Nine-Tailed Fox and how beautiful women are blamed for the decay of a country in East-Asian folklore.

The discussion follows five women in Chinese and Japanese history who are suspected to be the Nine-Tailed Fox in folklore and works of literature. It includes four ‘evil’ women who are famous for bringing down their countries across different dynasties in Chinese history: Moxi (妺喜) from Xia dynasty (~2070 BC), Daji (妲己) from Shang dynasty (~1600 BC), Baosi (褒姒) from Zhou dynasty (~1046 BC) and Liji (驪姬) from Jin dynasty (~266 AD). The tale travels across the East China Sea to Japan in Heian period (~794 AD) and spreads the bad luck as Tamamo-mo-Mae (玉藻前/たまものまえ), the fifth figure in the analysis. These figures are investigated respectively in an attempt to remap the origin of the Nine-Tailed Fox, as well as study the socio-political status of women in ancient East-Asian culture. Their passive and inferior gender role, instead of their beauty, is suggested to be the reason they receive bad press for destroying countries.

Key Words: Asian mythology, femme fatale, mythical iconoclasts, women and politics

Female Evil Genius Fancying
Elaine Byrne & Aliza Shvarts

What does a female evil genius look like? How is the female evil genius represented? What does a female evil genius want? Although there are plenty of super villainesses to be found in fairy tales (Cruella Deville and Snow White’s wicked stepmother), in comic books (Knockout, and Beetle in Spiderman) and on screen (Villanelle in Killing Eve, Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter franchise), they have limited ambitions: to kill a daughter, have better clothes, win the love and praise of the male evil genius. There are no female evil geniuses, no women sitting at the top pulling the strings.

Any exploration of female evil genius entails engaging three long lines of speculation: one concerning how we know evil in the world; one on how we recognize and perpetuate genius; and one on how we know what it means to be a woman. Throughout Western religious traditions and metaphysical philosophies, these speculative lineages have often found expression in each other. From the biblical figure of Eve to the hundreds of thousands of women murdered as witches as part of the gynecides of Northern Europe, “female,” “evil,” and “genius” have all been ciphers for reproduction’s virtuosic and immense power. The monstrous feminine body and the spectral maleficent figure both encode a superlative faculty: a preternatural capacity to perpetuate, to circulate, to work—like Eve’s enchanting words or the witch’s curse—too diabolically well. 

In this sense, female evil genius perhaps finds its best expression and representation in a very contemporary speculative form: the nonfungible token or NFT.  Singular yet circulatable, ineffable yet all too effective, she is the first NFT. As a feminist intervention into the burgeoning market for these digital assets, we propose a performative lecture outlining a lineage of female evil genius figures, purchasable at the conference in NFT form.

 Key Words: Evil, Genius, NFTs, Feminism, Fictive omnipotence, Infiltration, Appropriation, Disidentification, Performative capitalism, Fancy free

Evil Women: Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse
Gurbax Matoo

By placing the body at the very core of lived experiences, the body makes itself present for a range of different phenomena which shapes a woman’s experiences (Davies, 1997). This paper will focus on intrafamilial child sexual abuse and women who commit acts of sexual abuse. The paper will examine issues relating to power, identity and agency and how these are negotiated by both the perpetrator and survivor. Historically, the body has remained an important yet contested site to examine power relationships between men and women. Within early written legal codes, the law defined women’s bodies as the property of men. As such, this legal status reflected the belief that women’s bodies were different in ways which described women as defective and dangerous. By focussing on the flesh, essentialist ideologies have firmly positioned sexuality to the materiality of the body and implicit within this, is the association of femininity where the female subject is devalued by its difference and its otherness (Bradotti, 1997). As Bradotti (1997) argues; ‘… misogyny of discourse is not an irrational exception but rather a tightly constructed system that requires difference as pejoration in order to erect the positivity of the norm’ (Bradotti, 1997 cited in Conboy et al 1997:64). By positioning the female body as having individual pathology, the visually deviant, ‘monstrous’ body ignites fear as it threatens Gurbax Matoo and continues to cause deep ontological anxiety to the social order of being (Price and Shildrick, 1999). We only have to refer to Aristotle’s choreography of the body to see how he defined the female body as “a mutilated male” (Weitz, 2003). Women for Aristotle had “improper form” and were considered “monstrosities” and “misbegotten men” (Garland – Thomson, 1997). Arguably, the naturalised normative body (male, white, heterosexual and able bodied) works to classify the female body as the ‘other’, deviant, inferior and insufficient.

Key Words: body, otherness; grooming, emotion; desire; identity; agency

Evil transgressions and the monstrous female vampire in David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015)
Taryn Tavener-Smith

David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015) provides a contemporary representation of the role of the female villain in Gothic fiction, revealing how her monstrosity is considered frightening in relation to patriarchal society’s conception of female characters. Mitchell’s female villain is represented through the time-honoured generic Gothic villain – the vampire (in this novel, Norah Grayer). Historically, women in fiction are characterised as victims; however, Barbara Creed’s (1993) monstrous-feminine subverts this one-dimensional stereotype by challenging such patriarchal representations of women. I will apply Creed’s theory as it relates to the female villain in the novel, while demonstrating the ways in which Norah Grayer surpasses female stereotypes into the realm of evil female villain. In Slade House, Norah’s embodiment of the monstrous-feminine occurs in her characterisation as a contemporary form of vampire who sexually dominates, and thus terrifies, men. Thus, her role directly subverts Margaret Atwood’s notion that “men fear that women will laugh at them, while women fear men will kill them” as she intercepts this binary through her role as vampire/murderer. My discussion will argue the ways in which Norah Grayer transgresses societal limitations, placed on her by seizing power over her victims and ultimately, triumphing in the novel as female villain – filled with evil. Such reconstructions of female identity serve to counteract patriarchal representations of women while acknowledging the need to challenge these oversimplifications in contemporary fiction. Key words: monstrous-feminine, vampire, evil women, female villain.

Who’s Afraid of the Femme Fatale? Gender, Heroism, and Evil in Marvel’s Jessica Jones
Karen Dellinger

While the past decade has seen a rise in cinematic adaptations of comic books that feature increasingly progressive portrayals of female superheroes, Marvel’s Netflix series Jessica Jones (2015-2019) holds a unique position due to its timely social commentary and its embodiment of highly conventionalized genres, as well as its innovation of these genres’ tropes. A combination of neo-noir and superhero fiction, Jessica Jones features multiple thematic and stylistic points of interest that may be viewed through the lens of noir and superhero convention, including examples of good, evil, and everything in between.

In this presentation, I will analyze the series’ portrayals of gender dynamics and its constructions of heroes and villains, with a focus on how these portrayals utilize or subvert genre convention. My analysis will be structured as studies of the series’ key characters, with reference to theories of conventional noir elements and criticism regarding female superheroes. I will argue that Jessica Jones’ status as a subversive yet exemplary work of noir/superhero television lies in its lack of a stereotypical femme fatale, and that this strategic lack complements the series’ depiction of nuanced female characters who display a range of moral and emotional depth. Throughout the series’ three seasons, women are weaponized by evil, fall victim to evil, perpetuate evil (consciously or otherwise), but also combat and triumphantly overcome evil; besides external antagonists and threats, the women of Jessica Jones—especially the titular hero—are also confronted with internal conflict in the form of trauma, anger, and grief. Rather than emerging as femme fatales (i.e., objectified stock characters that affirm collective societal fears of female power, intelligence, ambition, and sexuality), these fictional women take on a degree of agency that deconstructs deep-seated character stereotypes and injects the narrative with memorable moral dynamics.

Key Words: femme fatale, noir, superhero, hero, heroism, villain, genre

Uemura Shoen’s Painting, ‘Honoo’: Lady Rokujo’s Living Specter
Keiko Kimura 

In this presentation I would like to analyze the painting of Uemura Shoen (1875-1949) entitled ‘Honoo’(‘The Flame’, 1918).  This painting describes the figure of Lady Rokujo in The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari).  The book was written by Lady Murasaki (Murasaki Shikibu), who was the empress’s maid-in-waiting at court in the eleventh century, in the Heian period.

In the narrative, Lady Aoi is the principal wife of Prince Hikaru Genji (Shining Genji), the son of the emperor.  In the chapter “Aoi,” one of Hikaru Genji’s mistresses, Lady Rokujō (Rokujō-no-Miyasundokoro), a widow, is consumed with resentment and jealousy against Lady Aoi, who is pregnant by her husband, and Lady Rokujō’s other self, her living specter, haunts and torments Lady Aoi.

The meaning of the Japanese word ‘mononoke’ is an aggrieved, possessing specter.  There are two kinds of ‘mononoke’.  One is ikiryo (a living specter), and the other is shiryo (a dead specter, ghost).  Usually, its character is evil and malevolent, and it torments its victims, often in the act of revenge.  Until late medieval Japan, people believed that they suffered diseases or died due to possession by ‘mononoke’.

It is rare to be described the figure of Lady Rokujo alone.  The most drawn picture related to Lady Rokujo is that of ‘Kuruma arasoi’ (the clash of the carriages).  The shocking scene of ‘Kuruma arasoi’ is the climax scene in the chapter of ‘Aoi’, and this incident has caused the fury of Lady Rokujo towards Lady Aoi, and finally has caused the death of Lady Aoi.  But even if you watch the ‘Kuruma arasoi’ paintings, it is difficult to understand Lady Rokujo’s fury and jealousy towards Lady Aoi.  Uemura Shoen’s painting, ‘Honoo’, is one of the best paintings which reveal Lady Rokujo’s hidden state of mind.