The main aim of this essay is to make an analysis of Pizarnik’s brief narrative

La Condesa Sangrienta. Erzébet Báthory, the bloody countess, is the focal point for a
meditation on the horror of absolute freedom, a freedom which is expressed in sexual
terms.
The story of the Hungarian countess is framed by two quotations, which
although they seem to be contradictory, actually they are complementary:
“The criminal does not make beauty; he himself is the authentic beauty”
(Sartre).
“Like Sade in his writings, and Gilles de Rais in his crimes, the Countess
Báthory reached beyond all limits the uttermost pit of unfettered passions. She is
yet another proof that the absolute freedom of the human creature is horrible”
(Pizarnik).

These two propositions do not need to be viewed as contradictory. The

analysis of the character of the Countess will help us to understand why. Erzébet
Báthory can be seen as a symbol of the masculine violence, the rape of the Other. She
could be also seen as a symbol of radical feminism, though I reject this interpretation
for some reasons I will explain later. Besides, we can give the text a political
interpretation; the Countess can be seen as a symbol both the absolute power of the
aristocrats of her own historical period and of the absolute power of the military
tyranny in Argentina at the time in which La Condesa Sangrienta was first read.
I reject the interpretation of the countess as a symbol of radical feminism
because I see her as a confirmation of the masculine violence since her victims are
young women. She may have been a woman, but her relationship with the girls who
came under her authority is the confirmation of this masculine establishment she
exemplifies.
However, if she is a symbol of the masculine violence, why is she a woman? I
think the explanation to this question may have a connection with the fact that she got
married when she was only fifteen with a cruel soldier. When he was still alive he
tortured his victims only for his own enjoyment but he never killed them. As soon as
he died, she assumed the whole power he used to have before. After his death, she felt
completely free. Thus, we can say that this masculine establishment created her and
gave her the terrible abusive power she exercised.
 Freedom is the main theme, but freedom from a sexual point of view. She
expresses her total freedom in terms of sadomasochism, homosexuality and
vouyerism..

The sadomasochism Pizarnik attributes to Báthory, which is strongly

connected to the legend of the Dracula genre, is a constant motif in treatments of the
psychology of the torturer, particularly when the victim is a woman. The countess
faces with victims over whom she has absolute power. The fact that the victims are
young women reinforces the interpretation of the bloody countess as a symbol of the
masculine violence. However, we have to be aware of the fact that Alejandra Pizarnik
is suggesting the idea of lesbianism. Maybe this suggestion is only used to create
more impression on the reader.
Homosexuality is a taboo. It is more “normal” if the person who tortures is a
man and the victim is a woman. In this case, the fact that the countess is a woman, as
well as her victims, is rather shocking. By mixing up torture, sex and homosexuality,
Pizarnik wants to shock the reader.
On the other hand, homosexuality implies voyeurism, another sexual taboo,
not so repudiated as rape or homosexuality though. Pizarnik’s text turns on the motif
of contemplation, of sexual voyeurism. Báthory contemplates the drama of suffering
enacted for her by her servants and her victims, although she, on occasion, handles the
instruments of torture herself. “La Virgen de Hierro” is only one of the texts that
centres on voyeurism:

“There was once in Nuremberg a famous automaton known as the ron

Maiden. The Countess Báthory bought a copy for her torture chamber in Csejthe
Castle (…)
The Countess, sitting on her throne, watches.
For the Maiden to spring into action it is necessary to touch some of the precious
stones in its necklace. It responds immediately with horrible creaking sounds and
very slowly lifts its white arms which close in a perfect embrace around whatever
happens to be next to it –in this case, a girl. The automaton holds her in its arms
and now no one will be able to uncouple the living body from the body of iron, both
equally beautiful. Suddenly the painted breasts of the Iron Maiden open, and five
daggers appear that pierce her struggling companion whose hair is as long as its
own (…)”.

Reading is a form of voyeurism in a way. In Pizarnik’s text, in addition to the

explicit homosexuality of the act of voyeurism on the part of the countess, a challenge
is made to the gaze of the reader, who watches the countess watch herself embracing
her victim.

The other interpretation is the political one. The countess is seen as a symbol
of the absolute power of the military tyranny in Argentina. The countess occupies a
position from which she can dictate in an absolute manner the rules of society, and it
is a dictatorship from which her victims cannot escape. Along the whole narrative we
are facing with a series of clashes between the powerful and the unprotected. This
relationship is reflected in “La Jaula Mortal”:

“(…) Dorko the maid drags in by the hair a naked young girl, shuts her up
in the cage and lifts it high into the air. The Lady of These Ruins appears, a
sleepwalker in white. Slowly and silently she sits upon a footstool place underneath
the contraption.
A red-hot poker in her hand, Dorko taunts the prisoner who, drawing back
(and this is the ingenuity of the cage) stabs herself agains the sharp irons while her
blodd falls upon the pale woman who dispassionately receives it, her eyes fixed on
nothing, as in a daze.(…)”.

She contemplates the literal figure of her power, the cage in which the victim
is imprisoned. The transference to her of the blood of the girl nullifies the victim
while invigorating her.
The Countess is a symbol of the socio-political system that nobody has yet
been able to change. The girl is obliged to impale herself on the spikes of the cage, as
though she were responsible for her own pain and death.
CONCLUSION

The fact that the Countess is a symbol of the masculine violence implies two
ironies:
- The fact that she, being a woman, exercises such power over other women.
- The fact that she herself turns into a victim of the masculine power she
symbolises since, at the end, she is locked up -as her victims in the mortal
cage.

With this analysis I wanted to explain why the two quotations by Sartre and
Pizarnik are not contradictory but complementary. The criminal is the authentic
beauty because it is him/her who makes us see that absolute freedom is horrible.
By watching them we can learn more about ourselves.
The bloody Countess has no sense of morality, no impunity. She goes to the
extreme, she is the extreme.
Bibliography:

Violence in Argentine Literature: Cultural Responses to Tyranny. [David William

Foster]. Columbia & London : University Of Missouri Press, 1995.
 The Horror of
Absolute Freedom
In
Alejandra Pizarnik’s
La Condesa Sangrienta

María Moreno Ortega (Erasmus Student)

Lecture: Modern Argentinian Fiction
Lecturer: Nuala Finnengan
Date: May 9th, 2000.