Allomotifs and the Psychoanalytic Study of Folk Narratives: Another Look at ‘The Roommate's Death’

Abstract

OVER the past two decades or so, folklorists have paid increasing attention to a form of oral narrative that circulates widely in modern industrialized societies. Such narratives are most often called 'contemporary legends' though the labels 'urban legends', 'urban belief legends', 'modern migratory legends', 'mercantile legends' (and others) have also been used. Whatever the label, these stories are localized in a setting familiar to those telling and hearing the story, set in the recent past, and told as true. The series of books by Jan Brunvand' serves as a useful compendium of contemporary legend texts. An extensive sampling of the scholarly work on these stories can be found in the series of edited volumes associated with the 'Perspectives on Contemporary Legend Seminar' at the University of Sheffield.2 Some of the scholarly literature on contemporary legends is concerned with origins (what actual events might have given rise to these stories?)3 or with the relationship of these legends to earlier folk narratives.4 My concern here, however, is with their popularity. I take it as self-evident that contemporary legends would not be popular unless they were in some ways satisfying to those who tell these stories and to those who hear them. Sometimes these legends are humorous, and this alone could explain their appeal. But there is an entire class of legends that are not at all humorous. On the contrary, the legends in this class are laced with blatantly sadistic elements and routinely contain graphic portrayals of interpersonal violence. What is the appeal of stories like this? What is appealing, for example, in stories about five-year-old boys castrated in shopping centres by strangers or at home by their sisters; about women who find their dead boyfriends hanging above their cars; about young girls who are kidnapped in toy stores and disguised as boys; about baby-sitters who place children in gas ovens in order to get them to sleep; about mothers pierced with construction beams while driving their cars; about children strangled in their rooms while their baby-sitter is downstairs; etc.' Such stories are gruesome, repugnant and often degrading. But they are also immensely popular, and that popularity needs to be explained. Most previous commentators confronting these violent legends have suggested that they are popular because they allow people to express fears and dissatisfactions associated with modern life. Goss,6 for example, argues that such legends spotlight areas of social life that are seen as needing reform. Thus, he suggests, legends about a maniac who prowls the London Underground, pushing people off platforms in front of oncoming trains, reflect concerns about personal safety in enclosed and unsupervised public places. Wachs' interprets the 'Mutiliated Shopper' story in much the same way. In this legend, a woman shopper is robbed while at a shopping mall and the thief cuts off her finger in order to get at a ring. This story is popular, Wachs argues, because it reflects not just the white majority's fear of minorities (since the thief is often explicitly identified