The pursuit for Jouissance within Hellraiser.

Okay, so I recently got an essay back in which I decided to not use any of the given essay questions and films studied on the course and picked my own...just to be diffcult. Mwahaha.

But my pain-in-the-ass-to-seminar-leaders paid off and I got a FIRST. BOOYAH!

Here's the essay...(sorry it's fairly long for a blogpost but I'm rather proud of it.)

How pertinent to an understanding of Hellraiser do you find ideas derived from psychoanalysis, such as the theory of the Oedipus complex and enjoyment (jouissance).

“The Garden of Eden is a Garden of the Flesh.”

The ever evolving genre of Horror is one abundant with similar images and hidden metaphors with themes spanning decades from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart in literature alone. Repressed desires work as the doorways to the macabre in these stories, materialising in monstrous acts from the narrative’s characters as they pursue these forbidden wishes. The paradoxical theme of pleasure through pain is one that arises often in these pursuits of forbidden wishes, with Clive Barkers adaptation of his novella The Hellbound Heart delving into this topic sometimes termed jouissance.

It is this pursuit for the highest realms of pleasure that is the foundation for his adaptation, entitled Hellraiser. Critical theorist and philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, comments upon this theory and its arousal through a paradox by saying, “the surplus of enjoyment over mere pleasure is generated by the presence of the very opposite of pleasure, that is, pain.” It is what brings about these levels of extreme pain and pleasure and what lengths human curiosity will go to in obtaining them that Hellraiser focuses upon and what gives the narrative its horrific attributes.

Further issues of pleasure and sex are then brought into play once jouissance has been dappled with by the character of Frank, with Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex developing. What will be analysed is whether these theories are important to an understanding of the plot that drives Hellraiser and how they make Hellraiser an important component within the genre of Horror.


The pursuit for jouissance within Hellraiser comes about with the fairly banal object of a box, otherwise known as The Lament Configuration. It is the small item that potentially holds all the secrets to reaching untold ecstasies that our dimension cannot even begin to fathom. It is this new place of enjoyment that the character of Frank attempts to discover in the opening sequence of the film when he purchases the box in Morocco and then begins to unlock the device in his attic. The scene of unlocking the box is given an atmosphere of Black Magic with Frank surrounded by candles as if performing witchcraft.

It turns the environment of a seemingly innocent looking household from the outside into a domain of the supernatural. This is a key idea within the genre of horror, making the home appear un-homely. Freud comments upon this by using the terms of Heimlich and Unheimlich roughly translated to mean homely and un-homely. With Unheimlich being the opposite of homely it makes the house an unfamiliar place, or uncanny as Freud would say, “and we are tempted to conclude that what is ‘uncanny’ is frightening."

So due to Frank bringing the box into this Heimlich environment, it instantly makes the house a horrific place that gets gradually more sinister through-out the narrative so that the viewer is always unsettled by the surroundings that the majority of the plot takes place in.

As soon as Frank manages to render the veil of the box that has altered the atmosphere of the house, a series of horrific hooks are unleashed, latching onto his skin and bridging Frank to the new world of untold experiences through his flesh. It is an important image as John Kenneth Muir comments upon the Hellraiser franchise by stating that the “flesh is important…it’s the human bridge to the outside world.”

With Frank intrinsically linked through his flesh to the dimension that the box is the key to, he enters the unforgiving world of the Cenobites. We are then dragged through into this dimension via Frank, with the audience’s sense of curiosity as to what this new place is, being gradually appeased through the use of a few tracking shots which pan back into the attic door and then transport us to the Hell-like domain, once again mixing the Heimlich environment with the uncanny Unheimlich dimension. The first sound we hear is the melodic clinking of chains and hooks, the sound of the hooks linking us to the Cenobite’s dimension much like the hooked chains did with Frank.

Monumental amounts of gore scatter the industrial-like room, with human blood and chunks of flesh standing out amongst the harsh rigidness of the metallic looking walls. A Cenobite lurks into camera and guides us to the Conductor of this world and patriarch of the Cenobites; Pinhead. A close-up shot then reveals his pale vampiric like hand as it searches through a pile of what we can only assume to be Frank’s remains and then finally we are treated to another shot within this Hellish world showcasing Pinhead’s work. Pieces of Frank’s face are being puzzled back together, giving the remains of the human body a jigsaw puzzle effect. It is a mesmerising juxtaposition against the earlier scene of Frank trying to work out the puzzle elements of The Lament Configuration.

Frank’s human desires and curiosities are appeased by the box and with that now open and no longer a mystery it is the Cenobites turn to revel in their pleasures and toy with the secrets of the human body. In effect Franks body is a box of desires and a pathway to jouissance for the Cenobites; Frank’s body is their Lament Configuration.

With Frank now a slave to the torturous instruments of the Hellish Cenobites and his demise laying the foundations for the rest of the plot, the next part of the narrative begins, with the family unit of Larry, Julia and Kirsty. The relationships of the three characters are altered from the original source material of The Hellbound Heart with Larry now placed as the father of Kirsty, and the wicked stepmother role of the tale being taken up by Julia.

Larry and Julia are introduced as they move into the house that Frank was previously occupying. The character of Julia is quickly coded as a villain by means of her adulterous acts which are revealed in a flashback. She cheats on Larry with his own brother Frank, on their wedding day on top of her wedding dress no less, with the image of the pure white wedding dress forever tainted with the traitorous act. There are many images within the film that relate sex towards being a precursor to moments of horror with one of the most memorable happening during this ‘moving-in’ sequence.

With Julia in the attic reminiscing over her affair with the far more forceful and desirable Frank, Larry is in the process of carrying a mattress up the stairs. The flashbacks of Julia and Frank having rather violent sex are inter-cut with Larry’s struggle with the mattress. As the act of sex climaxes in the flashback, Larry accidentally slices open his hand on a nail on the banister. The moment of climax within the sex scene is seen with an alternative image of ejaculating bodily fluid; Larry’s blood. It is a scene that relates sexual acts to moments of violence and blood, developing the scene into a microcosm for the paradox of jouissance; pain and pleasure mixed into one moment of climax.

It is this act of spilt blood that brings the world of the Cenobites into the lives of the rest of the characters. With his hand cut open and bleeding rather heavily, Larry staggers into the attic to Julia, where we are given a slow motion sequence of his blood splattering upon the rotten floor boards where we previously saw Frank’s skin being torn open by hooks. This split blood forms the second, but far more sinister, family unit of the film. An unknowing Larry is who brings Frank back from the brink and gives him a re-birthing which places Larry in the odd role as father; it is his bodily fluid that brings about Frank‘s second birth.

This birth is far from a pretty sight, as a rather lengthy special effects laden sequence occurs. The sequence relates to many special effects moments from David Cronenberg’s body of work in that the human body is delegated to an organic form that is simply made up of watery bags and liquidated sacks. With his body crudely re-formed, the now hideous Frank lets out an unsettling cry like that of a new-born baby. Julia is the first to find his corpse-like body in the attic and despite her initial reservations, she vows to help Frank return his body to its former appearance, which can only be achieved by more blood. “The blood brought me this far, I need more.” Julia then takes on the dysfunctional motherly role, feeding the newly born creature meal after meal, or in this case, body after body, until he is strong enough to fend for himself. It is through this second family unit that the theories of Freud can be used when interpreting some of the themes of Hellraiser.

Freud has mentioned in his theories that the son can find it hard to detach himself from the mother figure and if he doesn’t face this problem early on it can develop problems for later on in life. “It leaves a secret yearning in the child for his mother…a desire to recapture the exclusive relationship.”

With Julia as the mother figure to Frank as well as his lover, it plays into these themes with him seemingly unable to detach himself from Julia but incorporating the element of incest. With her still continuing her marriage with Larry, despite the fact it is now clearly a sham from her perspective, Frank is unable to leave her alone.

In one particular scene he frustratingly bangs around in the attic, alerting Larry to his presence. Larry decides to look into the noise and it is left to Julia, the head of the love triangle, to attempt to coax him away from looking into the attic. This follows into a scene of love-making between the husband and wife but it is something Frank refuses to let happen as he leers over the couple. He toys with the corpse of a rat, repetitively stabbing the creature with a small pen knife. He comes across as a small child throwing a tantrum in front of his mother as she tries to ignore him to give the father her attention. Is it also another scene that is a prime example of how once again sex is related to violence and ugly acts, with the phallic image of the knife penetrating the rat gruesomely as Larry, unaware of the skinless form of Frank at the foot of the bed, tries to make love to his wife.

This threat from the child - Frank - and his toys - the rat and the knife - causes Julia to give up on the act of sex with the father figure and she yelps for him to stop. Both of the men are sexually imposing themselves upon her, fighting for her attention with Frank ultimately being victorious. With Frank and Julia’s outright disturbing relationship affirmed, it can be said that it is similarly related to that of jouissance.

Jouissance can take many shapes and forms of unbidden pleasures, and although the act of incest that their metaphoric roles apply to isn’t a higher realm of pleasure, the fact Julia has resulted to killing men and supernaturally restoring Frank’s skin to achieve her desires takes their relationship to one centred on death and unachievable with normal methods. Frank is no longer a human creature, like a vampire he is the hesitation between life and death, and it is this gap that the hestitation creates which is filled with a foreboding sense of the uncanny, and it is Julia reaping her sexual desires with this uncanny persona that creates the unnatural jouissance within their relationship. They are having an affair due to supernatural turns of events which makes their ‘romantic’ scenes moments that reach different realms of delight that normal sexual pleasure cannot achieve.

The fact that Frank has managed to evade the Cenobites with Julia’s help however does not sit well with the hellish creatures and as the plot unfolds and the character of Kirsty becomes bridled in the after-effects of Frank using the box, the two worlds of Reality and Fantasy begin to collide.

After a confrontation with Frank in the attic, Kirsty manages to obtain the box and wakes up in the hospital with the contraption. Due to her curiosity as to why Frank holds the box so preciously, she begins to try to work out what it is and as a result accidentally sparks The Lament Configuration back open.

Cynthia A. Freeland delves into the legacy of the Hellraiser franchise in her book, The Naked and the Undead, and in reference to Kirstys opening of the box states, “she desires just enough sexual knowledge that she opens the box and must pay the price but she escapes in the end because her desires are not perverse.” According to Freeland, there is underlying knowledge in Kirsty that this device will lead her to possible sexual revelations but this fact is hidden in her sub-conscious. By opening the box she brings the Cenobites down upon herself, but because she is the innocent of the narrative and not in an explicit search of jouissance she is spared, or at least given an alternative to a horrible death; return Frank to the Cenobites and have him confess himself and they might let her go.

When Kirsty returns to the house and the game of cat and mouse continues, Frank utters the phrase, “Come to Daddy.” It is a line that relates the family dynamic to Freud’s Oedipus Complex once again. One of its conflicts according to Freud is the result of the Oedipus Complex on the father/son relationship, “facing this conflict is painful for the child…experiencing hatred and jealousy for the father.”# Frank has taken drastic measures and has now taken out his figure of hatred, Larry - the father figure - because of his jealousy and has now taken over his role as the patriarch of the family unit, in more ways than one as he now dons the flesh of Larry adding another layer to his need to become the controlling father figure. He seems to desire Kirsty - the daughter figure - and chases after her lustrously, adding more essence to the underlying incestuous vibes of the film.

However, because Kirstys search for knowledge within the box was not perverse, she manages to outwit him and hand him over to the Cenobites who mutilate Frank and Julia with their hooks as they enter our world and appear in the attic. With the Cenobites occupying the space of the attic it completes the gradual transformation of the house into a domain of the Unheimlich or the uncanny that began with Franks set up of the candles at the beginning of the film. The house is now under the influence of the Cenobites and therefore is now a place of Evil that Kirsty must fight her way out of, which she eventually does as it collapses about her.

Hellraiser is a horror that when its excessive amounts of gore are over-looked, has a wealth of hidden meaning and metaphoric understanding that can be hard to come by in many modern horrors. It is a highly important contribution to an over growing genre in that, despite the fact its narrative reveals a hell dimension populated with grotesque creatures, it still focuses upon the evil of human nature.
Freeland’s earlier statement in reference to the character of Kirsty gives the impression that an understanding of the term jouissance in relation to the plot of Hellraiser is important.

The characters that are perverse and search for sexual liberation through disgraced methods will ultimately meet their death with this theory supported by the fact that the character who opens the box without these desires manages to survive. It is not the Cenobites that are the true villains of the piece, they are simply there to do what they have been called forth to do. They exist and come about in the film because of human curiosity. The Cenobites can be seen to be the manifestations of the human super-ego as man searches for “pleasures which would redefine the parameters of sensation,” as he believes he has conquered and overcome his normal earthly desires.

In summary it is the humans who are the malevolent forces within the narrative meaning the search of jouissance by the human characters is pertinent to an understanding of Hellraiser and is clearly the message that Clive Barker was hoping to achieve.