Cover Art -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 11:37:07 02/07/08 Thu
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: Cover Art

About a week ago, while reading the Violence and the Sacred, I happened to look more closely at the cover art. Up until then, I had thought that the little red figure in the center was a sheep of some sort or maybe a shapeless figure--I didn't really give it much thought. When, however, I noticed that the picture displayed was some sort of tribal priest with blade above the head of a sacrificial victim, I suddenly had a new awareness of the cover art. If Girard makes the incessant point that the whole community comes together in the violence of ritual to avoid real violence in the community, it struck me as strange that only the victim and the priest were pictured. The grey haze certainly gives us the feeling of chaos, but the leering red figures at the center hardly give us the feeling that the sacrifice of the victim will even bring about temporal peace. In fact, one I realized what the figures were, I had strong doubts as to whether there could be peace at all in the community following such a horrible image. If sacred, ritualized violence displays itself as such a horror, I could not even imagine capturing the horror of true community violence on the front cover of a book.

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Replies:

Re: Cover Art -- Caitlin, 13:11:22 02/10/08 Sun
Re: Cover Art -- Jfish, 19:44:35 02/10/08 Sun