Saint Margaret's Tattoos: Empowering Marks on White Skin

Saint Margaret, as presented in the “Katherine Group” life of the virgin martyr, claims to have Christ’s “marks” and “seals” on her. Bringing together postmodern theories of body modification and Paul Zumthor’s concept of mouvance, this essay reads these marks as tattoos that consist of virtual (tattoo fantasies), oral (tattoo narratives), and written elements (the actual marks on skin). Margaret defends and empowers herself by claiming to possess Christ’s ownership tattoo. Her oppressor Olibrius, in turn, intends to overwrite that mark palimpsestically and hence to empower himself, not unlike slave-owners in antiquity. While the gruesome torture scenes suggest that Olibrius wins the upper hand in this contest, the outcome of the narrative instead proves that Margaret triumphs. She dies a virgin after defiantly appropriating, in her tattoo narrative, the torture marks as her own, divine tattoo.

Margaret Goldsmith, Ein Fremder in Paris. P. List Verl. Leipzig [Rezension]

Bertha Badt

Margaret Paton als Jacqueline, Alec Fraser als Réné, Szenenfoto, in: Anthony Mars: The girl in the taxi

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F05689

Margaret MacIntyre, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F09165

Margaret OH̀ea, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F09444

Ellen Terry als Margaret, Rollenbild, Kniestück

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F10054

Harriet Berlioz-Smithson als Margaret, Rollenbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G00126

Margaret Macintyre, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G01510

Margaret Martyr, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G01567