Separating the Shadow: About Doubles in the Story “Vidosavа” by Miomir Petrović and the Film Тhe She-Butterfly by Đorđe Kadijević

Abstract

The main purpose of the work is to look at the two main female characters, Vidosave, from the story of the same name by Miomir Petrović, and Radojka from the film „The She-Butterfly” by Đorđe Kadijević, from the perspective of Baudrillard’s understanding of symbolic exchanges and the independence of the primitive double. The observed motif similarities in the mentioned works are related to the phenomenon of transformation, which both Radojka and Vidosava experience and which includes all three phases of the rite of passage (preliminary, liminary and postliminary), according to the typology of Arnold van Gennep. By combining Baudrillard's and Van Gennep's postulates, the separation of the primitive double from the personality is presented: through the preliminary and liminal phase, the double figure gains more and more strength, so that in the final, post-liminal phase, it is directed against the subject; the double is represented as a shadow that has separated. This type of manifestation of the double figure is connected with the Freudian term "Das Unheimliche". The image of the vampire is also significant, which as a common motif connects "Vidosava" and "Butterfly" and places them in the field of mythic, ritual and fantastic, while at the same time confirming Baudrillard's position about the double that returns to haunt and haunt the subject.