Monstrous Births and Abject Bodies: Reading “The Head” through Julia Kristeva and Barbara Creed

In Chung Bora’s short story “The Head,” a head appears out of the toilet, claiming to be born from a woman’s bodily waste. The bodiless creature directly embodies the idea of abjection proposed by Julia Kristeva. The story’s Frankenstein-inspired plot development illustrates how the abject figure, initially rejected and denied recognition, persists and ultimately undermines the woman’s sense of identity. The story also calls for Barbara Creed’s theory of the monstrous feminine, as the process of giving birth through unnatural and abject means disrupts traditional reproductive norms. The story’s depiction of the head’s monstrous features amplifies the sense of abjection, highlighting societal fears about uncontrolled and aberrant female sexuality and reproductive power. While the head’s usurpation may signal the resistant potential of the abject, it also alludes to the woman’s proximity to the abject and the fragility of her place in the symbolic order. Eventually, the study suggests that the ending’s subversive potential is ambiguous, as the head continues the woman’s life within the same unchanging structure.