Lovers of Life, Lovers of Death: Relational Violence that does not end up in the Newspapers

Abstract

The article analyses the phenomenon of the “subtle” relational violence in the male-female relationship, and the entanglements deriving from this symbolic violence, historically sedimented in the female psyche; these enticements provide the unconscious element of collusion that exposes women to numerous violations of their otherness in the relationship with men. To that end, the author proposes a symbolic interpretation of a well-known film by the director W. Allen, Match point (2005), which pictures a situation of extreme violence against a female figure by the male partner who, due to mutual sentimental involvement, feels his narcissistic balance and social climb threatened. Thus, a betrayal of the soul takes shape, which, as stated by the French philosopher Lévinas, reveals itself through the face of the other.
These stories that seem to concern exclusively the private sphere of the relationship between men and women, in reality have a correspondence in the public life of human beings, in the polis, because what happens in the individual psyche, in our personal relationships, has always also a political value.