Introduction: “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
“The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey first appeared in Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry in the Autumn/Winter 2004 issue, published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. In this article, Mulvey delves into psychoanalytic theory, particularly drawing from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the death drive, which she connects with the structure and aesthetic of narrative cinema. She explores how cinema represents the tension between movement and stillness, particularly through the metaphor of death as narrative closure. The essay’s significance in literary and film theory lies in its investigation of how cinematic techniques reflect broader philosophical concerns about desire, time, and narrative closure, building on ideas from theorists like Gilles Deleuze. By framing the death drive as central to both cinematic form and narrative structure, Mulvey offers an influential lens for understanding the deeper psychological forces at play in visual storytelling.
Summary of “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
- The Relationship Between Narrative and Cinema
- Mulvey examines the rich interplay between cinema and narrative, highlighting how both are driven by movement and stasis. She describes cinema’s power to create the illusion of life and movement through storytelling: “Cinema could bring to storytelling much more than the illusion of life…the stillness of order and the finity that Rivette associates with Hitchcock”.
- Freud’s Concept of the Death Drive
- The article connects Freud’s death drive theory, which suggests a compulsion to return to an original state of inertia, with narrative structures in cinema. Mulvey explains that narrative movement is driven by desire but ultimately seeks closure: “Throughout ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ the stimulation to movement, inherent in the death instinct, jostles with its aim to return, to rediscover the stillness from which it originally departed”.
- Narrative Movement and Its Limitlessness
- Mulvey discusses how narrative cinema often seems bound by beginnings and ends, but within the narrative, there exists a “middle passage” that allows for potentially endless extensions. She draws on Deleuze’s philosophy of movement, describing “Deleuze’s action-images…are the material of narrative change, altering situation to situation”.
- Death as a Narrative Closure
- In cinematic storytelling, death often serves as the ultimate narrative closure, symbolizing the end of movement and desire. Mulvey points out that films frequently end with death or marriage as symbols of stasis: “Marriage as closure also brings with it the topographical stasis conventionally implied by the new home…Death prefigures the hero’s wedding so that both ‘death’ and ‘wedding’ are closely juxtaposed to represent a formal limit of narrative, and to figure its closure”.
- Cinematic Movement and Stasis: The Freeze-Frame
- The article explores the use of freeze-frames in cinema to illustrate the finality of death and narrative closure. Mulvey argues that “the freeze-frame ending leads in two directions…it is the ultimate finality, exploiting the association between the still and death itself, the photograph as the death mask”. This technique underscores the inherent tension between motion and stillness in film.
- The Role of the Body and Embodiment in Narrative Cinema
- Mulvey describes how the human body, particularly through dance and movement, embodies narrative desire and its drive toward closure. In the film The Red Shoes, for instance, the heroine’s death through dance represents this interplay: “Her desire to dance belongs with the restless movement of the ballet company, always caught in the perpetual motion of travel”.
- Desire and the Drive Toward Death
- Mulvey notes that the movement of desire in narrative cinema can only find its stopping point in death, which becomes a metaphor for both narrative and literal ending: “The red shoes, figured as desire and death simultaneously, allow the relationship between the two to be represented…dances itself into its only possible stopping point: death itself”.
Literary Terms/Concepts in “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
| Term/Concept | Explanation | Reference from Article |
| Death Drive | A psychoanalytic concept from Freud, where there is an unconscious desire to return to a state of stasis or death. | “Freud theorized a death drive, or instinct, that overwhelms the pleasure principle.” |
| Narrative Closure | The formal ending of a story, often symbolized by death or marriage, marking the end of narrative movement. | “Narrative ‘ending’…brings with it the silence and stillness associated with death.” |
| Movement-Image | A concept from Gilles Deleuze, describing how cinema captures movement and translates it into narrative progression. | “Deleuze’s action-images…are the material of narrative change, altering situation to situation.” |
| Stasis | The concept of stillness or a return to inertia, often used in narrative to signify endings or death. | “The death instinct jostles with its aim to return, to rediscover the stillness.” |
| Freeze-Frame | A cinematic technique where a single frame is held still, symbolizing narrative or literal death. | “The freeze-frame ending…exploiting the association between the still and death itself.” |
| Desire in Narrative | The driving force behind the progression of the plot, often linked with the quest for fulfillment or closure. | “Desire activates a story out of its original static state.” |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech where one thing is used to represent another, often used to convey abstract concepts in narrative. | “The red shoes, figured as desire and death simultaneously, allow the relationship between the two to be represented.” |
| Metonymy | A literary device where something is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it. | “Desire and narrative ‘need’ metonymy, one can find textual elaboration in the other.” |
| Temporal Construction | The way in which time is structured and manipulated in cinema to create narrative flow and meaning. | “Their original presence merges into an extended duration able to articulate thoughts, resonance and ideas.” |
| Cinematic Stasis | The use of still images or freeze-frames in cinema to represent moments of narrative or existential halt. | “The problem of a final stasis…may present cinema with the return of its own repressed.” |
Contribution of “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey to Literary Theory/Theories
| Literary Theory | Contribution of “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey | Reference from the Article |
| Psychoanalytic Theory | Mulvey’s work builds on Freud’s concept of the death drive, linking it to narrative closure in cinema. She explores how the unconscious desire for stasis (death) manifests in storytelling, particularly in how films often resolve with either death or a symbolic cessation of narrative motion, such as marriage. | “In his 1920 essay ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, Freud theorised a death drive…that overwhelms the pleasure principle.” |
| Narrative Theory | Mulvey analyzes how narrative cinema is structured around beginnings and endings, with the middle section potentially extending indefinitely. She adds depth to narrative theory by exploring how films both reflect and challenge traditional narrative structures, particularly through Deleuze’s concept of the movement-image. | “Deleuze’s action-images…are the material of narrative change, altering situation to situation.” |
| Film Theory | This article is significant in film theory for its examination of how cinematic techniques (like freeze-frames, movement-images, and stasis) are used to explore the tension between narrative flow and closure. Mulvey argues that cinema has a unique ability to represent both movement and stillness, contributing to the medium’s storytelling power. | “The freeze-frame ending leads in two directions…it is the ultimate finality, exploiting the association between the still and death itself.” |
| Feminist Film Theory | As a pioneer in feminist film theory, Mulvey’s exploration of the death drive and narrative structure also touches on how these concepts reflect gender dynamics in cinema. For example, the female body often becomes a site where narrative desire and closure (marriage or death) intersect, reinforcing traditional gender roles within narrative closure. | “Vicky’s suicide brings it to stillness. As Julian cannot tolerate Vicky’s creative drive…the conflict between them comes to revolve around the stillness of marriage.” |
| Post-Structuralism | By drawing on Deleuze and examining how narrative form is open-ended, Mulvey aligns her analysis with post-structuralist ideas. She questions the rigid boundaries between beginnings and endings in cinema, suggesting that narrative movement and desire are continuous processes. | “But Deleuze’s emphasis on the conceptual significance of cinema’s mobility chimes with narrative’s necessarily mobile nature…it is also limitless.” |
| Phenomenology of Cinema | Mulvey’s exploration of how cinema can represent both movement and stasis contributes to phenomenological approaches to film theory, where the viewer’s experience of time and space in film becomes central. By examining how freeze-frames and movement-images affect our perception of narrative time, Mulvey contributes to an understanding of how cinema shapes our experience of temporal flow. | “Movement must go beyond itself, but to its material energetic element…the photogramme is inseparable from the series which makes it vibrate.” |
| Structuralism | In discussing how narrative structure in cinema moves towards closure, Mulvey engages with structuralist ideas about the formal elements of storytelling. She shows how narratives are constructed around the need for a return to stasis, whether through marriage or death, reinforcing traditional narrative frameworks. | “Marriage as closure also brings with it the topographical stasis conventionally implied by the new home…Death prefigures the hero’s wedding.” |
Examples of Critiques Through “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
| Literary Work | Critique Through “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey | Reference from the Article |
| Hamlet by William Shakespeare | In Hamlet, the protagonist’s obsessive drive towards death can be interpreted through the lens of Mulvey’s analysis of the death drive. Hamlet’s fixation on mortality and his ultimate resignation to death reflects Freud’s death drive, which Mulvey ties to narrative closure. The play’s climax, with multiple deaths, aligns with Mulvey’s observation of death as a common narrative end. | “Death prefigures the hero’s wedding so that both ‘death’ and ‘wedding’ are closely juxtaposed to represent a formal limit of narrative.” |
| Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy | Anna’s eventual suicide can be seen as an embodiment of the death drive, with her personal desires and narrative arc leading inexorably to self-destruction. Mulvey’s critique of narrative movement suggests that Anna’s trajectory is not just about personal downfall but also about fulfilling the narrative’s compulsion toward closure via death. | “The red shoes, figured as desire and death simultaneously, allow the relationship between the two to be represented.” |
| The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of an idealized past can be critiqued using Mulvey’s death drive theory. His desire for Daisy leads to a series of events that culminate in his death, aligning with Mulvey’s idea of narrative desire and the drive toward stasis. His death marks both personal and narrative closure, reflecting Mulvey’s view that desire inevitably leads to a return to stillness or death. | “If desire activates a story out of its original static state, then that same force seeks a means to return, at the end, once more to stasis.” |
| Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë | The obsessive love between Heathcliff and Catherine, leading to both their deaths, can be critiqued using Mulvey’s theory of narrative closure through the death drive. Their love transcends life, with death being the ultimate reunion and fulfillment of their desires, reflecting Mulvey’s assertion that death often serves as a natural endpoint for narrative desire. | “Vicky’s suicide brings it to stillness…the stasis of death for that of marriage.” |
Criticism Against “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
- Overemphasis on Psychoanalytic Theory
Critics may argue that Mulvey’s reliance on Freud’s death drive theory narrows her analysis, making it overly deterministic. This approach might not fully account for other psychological or cultural factors influencing narrative structures, particularly in diverse genres of cinema. - Limited Application to Non-Western Cinematic Narratives
Mulvey’s framework is heavily based on Western cinematic traditions, such as Hollywood and European art films. Critics might argue that her theories are less applicable or relevant to non-Western narratives, which may not follow the same patterns of narrative closure or rely on the same psychoanalytic concepts. - Reduction of Complex Narratives to Death or Closure
Some scholars could argue that Mulvey’s analysis simplifies complex narrative arcs by focusing too much on the idea that stories inevitably end in stasis, either through death or marriage. This reductionist view may overlook other possibilities for narrative progression or non-traditional endings. - Neglect of Genre-Specific Variations
Mulvey’s analysis does not fully address how different film genres (such as comedy, fantasy, or experimental film) handle narrative closure differently. Critics may argue that applying the death drive universally across all genres does not account for genre-specific variations in storytelling and endings. - Feminist Perspective Could Be Seen as Limited
While Mulvey is a pioneer in feminist film theory, some critics may argue that her focus on the death drive neglects more nuanced feminist interpretations of cinema. Her emphasis on psychoanalysis may sideline other feminist readings that address issues of agency, subjectivity, and representation in ways that go beyond the death/marriage binary.
Representative Quotations from “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey with Explanation
| Quotation | Explanation |
| “Narrative needs an engine to start up, out of inertia, into the drive towards movement.” | Mulvey likens narrative progression to a mechanical engine, emphasizing the need for an initial force or desire to propel a story forward. |
| “Freud theorised a death drive, or instinct, that overwhelms the pleasure principle.” | This highlights Mulvey’s use of Freud’s death drive theory as central to understanding how narratives inevitably drive toward stasis or death. |
| “Death prefigures the hero’s wedding so that both ‘death’ and ‘wedding’ are closely juxtaposed to represent a formal limit of narrative.” | Mulvey discusses how traditional narratives often end with either death or marriage, representing closure and a return to stillness. |
| “The freeze-frame ending… exploits the association between the still and death itself.” | This illustrates Mulvey’s analysis of cinematic techniques, where freeze-frames are used to symbolize both narrative and literal death. |
| “Movement must go beyond itself, but to its material energetic element.” | Drawing on Deleuze, Mulvey explains how cinematic movement transcends literal motion, linking it to deeper narrative and thematic ideas. |
| “Cinema’s movement is, of course, an illusion derived from a succession of still images.” | Mulvey emphasizes the illusion of movement in cinema, where motion is created through the rapid succession of still frames, mirroring narrative progress. |
| “Narrative movement, kept permanently in motion by the image of the ballet.” | Here, Mulvey uses the metaphor of ballet to explain how some cinematic narratives sustain continuous movement, without an immediate end. |
| “The red shoes, figured as desire and death simultaneously, allow the relationship between the two to be represented.” | This discusses how objects in films (like the red shoes in The Red Shoes) can symbolize both desire and death, linking the two concepts in the narrative. |
| “Vicky’s suicide brings it to stillness…the stasis of death for that of marriage.” | Mulvey uses this example to show how female characters’ narratives often culminate in death, a symbolic substitute for traditional closure like marriage. |
| “Ultimately, narrative’s drive seeks a means to return, at the end, once more to stasis.” | This summarizes Mulvey’s key argument: that narratives are driven by desire and motion, but inevitably seek to return to a state of stasis or closure. |
Suggested Readings: “The Death Drive” by Laura Mulvey
- Mulvey, Laura. “The Death Drive.” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, no. 10, 2004, pp. 101–09. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20711559. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
- Sorfa, David. “LAURA MULVEY.” Film, Theory, and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers, edited by Felicity Colman, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009, pp. 286–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt130hd7j.34. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
- van den Oever, Annie. “Conversation with Laura Mulvey.” Ostrannenie: On “Strangeness” and the Moving Image. The History, Reception, and Relevance of a Concept, edited by Annie van den Oever, Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 185–204. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kcq9.17. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
- Manlove, Clifford T. “Visual ‘Drive’ and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock, and Mulvey.” Cinema Journal, vol. 46, no. 3, 2007, pp. 83–108. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30130530. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
- Beugnet, Martine, and Laura Mulvey. “Film, Corporeality, Transgressive Cinema: A Feminist Perspective.” Feminisms: Diversity, Difference and Multiplicity in Contemporary Film Cultures, edited by Laura Mulvey and Anna Backman Rogers, Amsterdam University Press, 2015, pp. 187–202. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16d6996.20. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.