Thinking about Hair

A friend of mine often gives me her hair after it’s been cut and I took some with me to the residency. Hair often takes on a symbolic quality in fairy tales and mythology and I thought it might be an interesting thing to play with, in my exploration of thresholds and “the other” during my time here.

Marina Warner says of hair: “Hairiness indicates animal nature: it is the distinctive sign of the wilderness and its inhabitants.” In its similarity to animal fur, our hair links us to animals and might remind us of the more “feral side” of our own nature.

Long hair is also often taken to be a symbol of femininity. In western medieval societies, women were seen to be more closely linked to nature than men, due to their bodily processes such as menstruation and reproduction, and seemed to challenge the boundary between humans and animals, and nature and culture.

At one point in the story I am developing, the girl’s hair will be cut off as punishment for her freeing the monkey. This indicates the control the society has over her body and her femininity but also the cutting off her hair is an attempt maybe to make her less “animal”. The animal represents “the other” and the other is something unknown, which may be feared. The freeing of the monkey could suggest that,  in the eyes of the society in which she lives, she herself needs to be tamed and controlled further.