Fleshing Out The Body in Pain
An Examination of Elaine Scarry's Text
Torture, according to Elaine Scarry, does not qualify as such unless the physical act of torture is accompanied by the verbal act of interrogation. This interrogation does not rely on content, but on tone, as there is no truthful motive for torture - except, of course, the search for power. For torture itself is a language based on agency, and agency as a weapon: the objectification of a personal human response to agony, that places power on the interrogator and fortifies a shaky regime. Torture can deny and twist a prisoner's reality, through what Scarry deems a dissolution of the victim's world.
Confession cannot be betrayal, for when someone is made to feel pain in ever-intensifying ways, all thought and feeling that is present in the absence of pain is thus absent in the presence of it. No friend, paramour, or cause can be betrayed because they no longer exist once a person's world is destroyed by all-consuming physical agony. This kind of pain lasts for an eternity, and has no control and no purpose for the sufferer, and so the content of the confession does not matter as long as it is uttered. That is how the torturer splits the sentience and the conscience and sets them against each other for the sake of a twisted truth.
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ReplyDeleteVery nice summary of the reading, Melissa! I like how you expanded on the loss of language, self, and world for those being tortured. It is all indeed a game of power for the torturer. There is no honest truth that can be found with this process because when the tortured is being interrogated, he is not processing the questions, instead, he is consumed by the excruciating pain. This shows the rejection of self. Suddenly, all the prisoner wants is for the agony to stop. The “answer” the interrogator receives from his prisoner is a scream, expressing not the truth, but rather the elongated pain, far worse than death. This is the clear loss of language, which you thoroughly explain. The disappearance of world is something you briefly mention. Their world begins to disappear when a room is longer a place of comfort, but is instead a place of suffering; when furniture or everyday appliances become weapons. Like in “The Wall,” the meaning of concrete objects changes. Power is gained when there is a clear separation between the torturer and the tortured. The interrogator feels no pain and can process the world around him, he can strategically choose his words, and he can manipulate his setting as he pleases. Like Scarry says, as the world of the prisoner diminishes, the torturer’s territory expands.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, this is great! I love how you emphasized the importance of power and how torture was used to reinstate the individual's power.
ReplyDeleteI also loved your thoughts on how confession cannot be a form of betrayal. I completely agree that once someone has lost "the self" they no longer have feelings towards their friends, family, or anything in the physical world. This was also seen in "The Wall" when one of the protagonists no longer cared for his lover. Once an individual has been forced to face an inescapable death, they begin to shut down the world around them, attaching no significance or emotion to anything.