The Hanged Man (tarot card): Difference between revisions
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* [[Arturo Pérez-Reverte]] in his 1993 novel [[The Club Dumas]], presents nine illustrations resembling tarot scenes, one of which makes use of a man hanged by one foot. The book was made into a film called [[The Ninth Gate]] (1999), and includes a scene where the friend of the protagonist (played by [[Johnny Depp]]), is found dead, hanged in this manner. |
* [[Arturo Pérez-Reverte]] in his 1993 novel [[The Club Dumas]], presents nine illustrations resembling tarot scenes, one of which makes use of a man hanged by one foot. The book was made into a film called [[The Ninth Gate]] (1999), and includes a scene where the friend of the protagonist (played by [[Johnny Depp]]), is found dead, hanged in this manner. |
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* In Persona 3 this Arcana belongs to Maiko and Chidori Yoshino (It fits perfectly since her Persona, Medea, emitting live by taking her own and in the end she's saving Junpei by sacrificing herself) and in Persona 4 it is potrayed as Naoki Konishi. |
* In Persona 3 this Arcana belongs to Maiko and Chidori Yoshino (It fits perfectly since her Persona, Medea, emitting live by taking her own and in the end she's saving Junpei by sacrificing herself) and in Persona 4 it is potrayed as Naoki Konishi. |
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* In [[Dragon Age II]] There is a tavern named The Hanged Man, outside there is a statue of a man hanged by the leg while the other is crossed in a triangle shape swinging in the blowing wind. |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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Revision as of 14:20, 24 April 2011
The Hanged Man (XII) is the twelfth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.
Description and symbolism
Modern versions of the tarot deck depict a man hanging upside-down by one foot. The figure is most often suspended from a wooden beam (as in a cross or gallows) or a tree. Ambiguity results from the fact that the card itself may be viewed inverted.
In his book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, A. E. Waite, the designer of the Rider-Waite tarot deck, wrote of the symbol:
The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross, while the figure—from the position of the legs—forms a fylfot cross. There is a nimbus about the head of the seeming martyr. It should be noted (1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. [...] It has been called falsely a card of martyrdom, a card a of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty [...] I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.
He who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded [sic] in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening that is possible, and will know that after the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.[1]
Waite suggests the card carries the following meanings or keywords:
- Sacrifice ----- Letting go ----- Surrendering ----- Passivity
- Suspension ----- Acceptance ----- Renunciation ----- Patience
- New point of view ----- Contemplation ----- Inner harmony
- Conformism ----- Non-action ----- Waiting ----- Giving up
Interpretation
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The Hanged Man's symbolism points to divinity, linking it to the Passion in Christianity, especially The Crucifixion; to the narratives of Osiris in Egyptian mythology, and Mithras in Ancient Persian mythology and Roman mythology. In all of these archetypal stories, the destruction of self brings life to humanity; on the card, these are symbolized respectively by the person of the hanged man and the living tree from which he hangs bound.
The Hanged Man is also associated with Odin, the primary god in Norse mythology. Odin hung upside down from the world-tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days to attain wisdom and thereby retrieved the runes from the Well of Wyrd, which in Norse cosmology is regarded as the source and end of all sacred mystery and knowledge. The moment he glimpsed the runes, he died, but the knowledge of them was so powerful that he immediately returned to life.
In literature and popular culture
The image of The Hanged Man, like other Tarot images, appears in a number of creative works.
- Tarot images, including the Hanged Man, appear in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land.
- Several Tarot cards, including the Hanged Man, appear in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, most notably in The Gunslinger. The Hanged Man symbolizes Roland, the main character, as well as his quest.
- Anne Tyler drew upon the image for a scene in her novel Searching for Caleb (1975). Duncan Peck, the future husband of a fortune teller, frightens his family by suspending himself from a tree branch by one foot.
- Tarot images are an organizing element in François Girard's 1998 film The Red Violin. The Hanged Man introduces the episode of Kaspar Weiss, a young prodigy.
- Jeffery Deaver's novel The Twelfth Card has a character who leaves the tarot card at the crime scene.
- American psychotherapist Sheldon Kopp titled one of his books The Hanged Man, subtitled Psychotherapy and the Forces of Darkness (ISBN 0-8314-0036-6) as a metaphor for a stage in life consisting primarily of stagnation and despair and rebirth into a renewed life.
- British novelist Lindsay Clarke used the Hanged Man as a chapter title in his novel The Chymical Wedding: A Romance (ISBN 0-330-30968-4).
- In episode 2 of the Doctor Who story The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Morgana shows the Doctor this card as a symbol of himself. In episode 4, we subsequently see the Doctor hung upside-down while attempting to entertain the transdimensional Gods of Ragnarok. The card can symbolise such moments of suspension between physical and mystical worlds in much the same way as the Doctor has traveled between the "real" world and the "dark" world of the gods. The card can also imply of pause in the action of life before moving on, and there is a moment in the episode when time seems to stop in preparation for the final fight against the Gods.
- In The House of the Dead, a light gun game created by Sega, the second boss of the game is named Hangedman and is a gargoyle like creature who commands a flock of bats. It should also be noted that all of the bosses in the House of the Dead are named after Major Arcana cards.
- Arturo Pérez-Reverte in his 1993 novel The Club Dumas, presents nine illustrations resembling tarot scenes, one of which makes use of a man hanged by one foot. The book was made into a film called The Ninth Gate (1999), and includes a scene where the friend of the protagonist (played by Johnny Depp), is found dead, hanged in this manner.
- In Persona 3 this Arcana belongs to Maiko and Chidori Yoshino (It fits perfectly since her Persona, Medea, emitting live by taking her own and in the end she's saving Junpei by sacrificing herself) and in Persona 4 it is potrayed as Naoki Konishi.
- In Dragon Age II There is a tavern named The Hanged Man, outside there is a statue of a man hanged by the leg while the other is crossed in a triangle shape swinging in the blowing wind.
See also
References
- ^ Waite, A. E. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, ill. by Pamela Colman Smith [1911], at sacred-texts.com
- A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
- Hajo Banzhaf, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero (2000)
- Most works of Joseph Campbell
- Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)
- T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land
- Francesca Lia Block, The Hanged Man (1999)
External links
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