The malefic woman in the work of Ion Creanga

The article has as reference the valorization of the elderly woman from Ion Creanga’s stories. I caught the exclusive qualities of the baba (a popular name for older woman): omniscience, omnipresence, her experience, thanks to which she defeats the devil skillfully in any kind of confrontation. Even in the case of episodic appearances, the role of the older woman is major in the chronotope of road and happening. By the way the storyteller Ion Creanga punishes the negative female characters in the stories Soacra cu trei nurori (Mother-in-law with three daughters-in-law) and Povestea porcului (The story of the pig), can be considered a precursor of the horror genre in Romanian literature. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the lack of idealization of Ion Creanga’s characters is quite noticeable, the storyteller introduces us to the persona and the shadow of his characters in a normal, natural way, without detours and digressions. The depreciation and negative qualifications of the older woman have, in certain circumstances, a well-defined target, as in the story of Moș Nichifor Coțcariul. Negative descriptive elements function as skillful strategies in the art of seduction. The maleficent representations of women, in particular elderly women, are more numerous, in contrast to the positive representations. Thus, we find that the negative part of the older woman has its strengths, without which it would not be possible to unravel the contradictions and prohibitions and without which there would be no initiation in the knowledge of the mysteries of life.