Mary of Egypt and 'Breaking the Waves': the irresistible attraction of the martyr prostitute
Abstract
The life of Maria of Egypt has been for centuries imagined and disseminated by a notable number of men, mostly members of the clergy. Within this literary corpus there is a clear way of writing about women conversions, space where the corporal sacrifice is idealized and, therefore, promotes essentialist images and ideas about women and/or feminity. This article analyzes the intertextuality between the legend of Mary of Egypt and Lars Von Trier’s film Breaking the Waves (1996), whose protagonist—herewith proposed—is a contemporary representation of Mary of Egypt.
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