Judith and Beatrix: Oedipal Echo-Effects in Kill Bill

Quentin Tarantino's monumental epic Kill Bill is more than a formal tour de force, or cinematic "eye-candy." Underlying the deadly love story between Bill and the much younger Beatrix Kiddo is a story of incestuous desires and their violent consequences. The sword-wielding Beatrix is likened to Judith, the hero of the Apocrypha, and Freud's interpretation of that story, which is seen as both the virgin's revenge against her "defloration" as well as the daughter's ambivalence towards the father whose love must be denied, is key to understanding the deeper meanings of the film. This essay on "Oedipal Echo-Effects in Kill Bill I/II" examines this and other ways that the film's latent meaning, like the opening song (Bang Bang My Baby Shot Me Down) that echoes throughout the film, is based on childhood, infantile desires.