Living values: Maternal corporal subjectivity and the value of life and death

The article offers a reading of the Jewish myth of Samson as presenting a set of relations among masculinity, collectivity, and death. Concentrating on the role of women in Samson's life I attempt to decipher some ways in which these relations develop and to explore the role that women and mothers may play in challenging them. Building on Luce Irigaray, what I highlight in my reading of Samson's story is the process whereby attachment to life appears as a possible guiding principle but is at the same time negated and cancelled. I present attachment to life not only as a form of desire but also as a specific kind of ethicality inherent in life itself.