ABSTRACT
This chapter features a discussion of Symbolist art by Edward Munch in which he expresses his ambivalence towards women. Sexual insecurity and fear of the emancipated, sometimes promiscuous, female are reflected most succinctly in the image of Medusa, a devouring femme fatale. Munch’s art is built on paradox; his themes concern union and separation; death and regeneration; lust and guilt; love and loss; and especially women, who he paradoxically envisions as virgins and vampires, Madonnas and Medusas.
