Avunculicide


Avunculicide is the act of killing an uncle.[1] The word can also refer to someone who commits such an act. The term is derived from the Latin words avunculus meaning "maternal uncle" and caedere meaning "to cut or kill". Edmunds suggests that in mythology avunculicide is a substitute for parricide.[2] The killing of a nephew is a nepoticide.[1][2]

Contents

Avunculicide in history

Avunculicide in fiction

  • Hamlet kills his uncle, King Claudius.
  • In Vladimir Nabokov's 1928 novel King, Queen, Knave Franz intends to murder his uncle; the narrator tells us that later on he will be "guilty of worse sins than avunculicide".[4]
  • Louis Mazzini commits avunculicide in the 1949 movie Kind Hearts and Coronets
  • The 1966 movie Let's Kill Uncle is a horror movie where the evil uncle is to be killed in self-defense.[1]
  • In Hellsing, it is speculated that Integra killed her uncle, who wanted the Hellsing organization for his own selfish purposes, in self defense.
  • The founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, accidentally kill their uncle, Amulius.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Time Magazine: Nepoticide v. Avunculicide Retrieved 2009-06-06
  2. ^ a b Edmunds L. Oedipus: a folklore casebook. Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1995. p. 64. ISBN 0299148548. http://books.google.com/books?id=D3iiJT5avfEC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&ots=9lvvb6YkFG&dq=nepoticide&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 
  3. ^ Barbara Tuchman A Distant Mirror A.A.Knopf, New York (1978) p.418
  4. ^ Leona Toker. Nabokov. The Mystery of Literary Structure. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1989. Page 63. ISBN 0801422116






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