"There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark revolts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside. Going on to describe the slippery, borderlessness that threatens our stable sense of subject and object-excrement, waste, corpses, bodily fluids like blood, pus or vomit-Kristeva outlines the visceral and emotional reaction we feel towards things that we cannot easily define within the symbolic order."
"The double, or doppelgänger, has captivated the human imagination for centuries...our fascination with these figures arises from the tension between recognition and threat-between the self that is you and the aspects of the self that are repressed, denied or unconscious. In this case, the double functions as the abject, threatening the unity of the self and producing a sense of horror."
"In this deeply psychoanalytic text, Kristeva identifies the mother as our first 'object,' describing the process of becoming an individual as a process of making the maternal body abject. The breast and its milk, like the previously mentioned bodily fluids, are at once life-sustaining and somehow excessive or shameful."
Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection identifies violent, dark reactions to things that cannot be easily categorized within the symbolic order—such as excrement, corpses, and bodily fluids. These abject materials provoke simultaneous fascination and horror, eroticism and repulsion. Kristeva traces abjection to the maternal body, describing individuation as a process of making the maternal abject. The breast and milk exemplify this duality: simultaneously life-sustaining yet excessive or shameful. The double or doppelgänger functions as an abject figure, threatening the unity of the self by representing repressed, denied, or unconscious aspects. This tension between recognition and threat makes abjection fertile ground for artistic exploration and interpretation.
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