“Jack the Ripper” Strikes Again

Abstract

This paper identifies the dominant cultural narrative that grew up around the “Jack the Ripper” murder case of 1888, and examines the representational treatment of the female murder victims within that narrative. It observes that this cultural narrative of the Ripper's crimes developed as a warning for women: if they transgressed the margins of traditional, domestic femininity, they risked incurring the ferocious punishment meted out by the Ripper. Thus the Ripper narrative is one means of controlling potentially subversive female behavior. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars such as Walkowitz and Caputi, this article argues that this cultural narrative persists in contemporary accounts of violent crimes against women. By comparing the original “Ripper” newspaper reports with media coverage of the 2006 “Ipswich Ripper” crimes, this paper demonstrates the ongoing cultural power of the original “Ripper” narrative. The paper concludes that we must interrogate the way we tell stories of violent sexual crimes against women. “Ripper” stories may retain their original function as cautionary tales—but feminist intervention can transform the nature of that caution into a reminder for both men and women about the enduring cultural power, and danger, of representation.