Closure as Cure: Tropes in the Exploration of Bodily and Social Disorder [and Comments and Replies

Abstract

A close semiotic relationship links textual form, social relations, and the etiology of illness. Using an ethnographic study of "evil eye" headaches on Crete and the verbal and other curing methods used there, this paper attempts to show how the villagers deploy textual form to explore and control both bodily and social discomfort and in some cases to "translate" inchoate experience-both bodily and social-into manageable bodily images. Textual closure both effects and symbolizes the provisional restoration of a sense of order, thereby also providing insight into the means by which the imagery of bodily self-control can serve as a trope of restored social harmony or moral acceptability.