Texts of Terror by Donald Capps

If we are to seek some virtue in the rhythmically weak and stodgily unamusing offerings of Professor of Pastoral Theology Donald Capps, perhaps it is their usefulness as a lesson in what a Sighting should not be.

In a frankly unpleasant passage in the otherwise merely unfunny A Time to Laugh (2005) Capps recounted his horror at D. W. Winnicott's concept of the "good-enough mother": the woman who "makes active adaptation to [her] infant's needs, an adaptation that gradually lessens, according to the infant's growing ability". This reassertion of adult female independence so disgusted him that he coined the notion of the "bad-enough mother" as a cudgel against it.

So far, so grim... but worse was to come: having stumbled across him in The Oxford Book of Comic Verse Capps decided that in Mrs. RAVOON Dehn was unknowingly affirming the existence of his weird Freudian invention and so, adding injury to this insult, wrote the following

A Letter to My Future Bride

I was sleeping quite soundly and dreaming of you,
And pledging, my darling, I'd always be true,
When I suddenly spied by the light of the moon,
Stretched by my side lay... Mrs. RAVOON!

"How could you get in here?" I asked with a start,
As I felt the mad beating of my horrified heart.
For aghast, I beheld her, and started to swoon,
For t'was my old mother, she's... Mrs. RAVOON!

"Oh, Mother, how could you?" I asked with dismay,
"You disrupted my dream of my blest wedding day!"
She answered, "Oh, Willy, what a tired old tune.
You don't know the power of Mrs. RAVOON!"

She left and I vowed my dream to resume,
But I felt all around me a dire sense of doom.
So I leapt from my bed - tripiing o'er the spittoon -
And dashed off in search of... Mrs. RAVOON!

Capps wrote that he hoped this would exorcise his demons, but alas, he clearly failed to drain the oedipal boil because he soon felt compelled to return to his theme. Not content with disparaging mothers alone, Capps reveals his conviction that all women are monstrous succubi:

I struck upon the idea that there is a Mrs. RAVOON subtext to every biblical story in which a man desires a woman... and decided to rewrite several biblical narratives that become "texts of terror" once this subtext is recognised

Thus, Adam, David, Hosea, Herod and even Christ are presented as victims of evil femininity (clearly, to Capps, a tautology):

Adam's Mistake

Naming the birds and the beasts was a chore,
So I laid down to rest and proceeded to snore.
Awakening I saw what appeared a baboon.
Not so, 'twas a woman...Mrs. RAVOON!

David's Misjudgment

I walked out on my terrace and peered down below,
And my eyes lit upon a most wonderful show.
A woman was bathing and crooning a tune.
"Bathsheba," I cried! No, t'was Mrs. RAVOON!

Hosea's Error

I wandered through town, unhappy and glum,
For Jezreel, the eldest, was missing his Mum.
Then a surreal shape loomed over the dune.
"Is it Gomer?" I cried. Nope, t'was... Mrs. RAVOON!

John the Baptist's Revenge

Amid cheering and clapping while the veiled woman danced,
Herod beckoned her toward him and said, "I'm entranced.
But please, little butterfly, shed your cocoon."
She did, and he saw. T'was... Mrs. RAVOON!

Jesus' Confusion

I stood in the garden 'mid roses and such,
When from out of the haze came a womanly touch.
"Oh, Mary, sweet Mary," I proceeded to croon,
But my senses deceived me. T'was... Mrs. RAVOON!