Melissa Murawski
Martin Jay’s Downcast Eyes discusses the danger of
visibility. In his text, the excerpt I found most relevant to the subject of
torture is one which, fittingly, involves the sense of touch: “Touch…is
connected to the primacy of doing over contemplation, in particular a kind of
doing that reveals the vulnerability of the self to the world” [557]. From
this, the major connection between sight and touch can be argued – the idea
that touch and pain, when visible, are even more destructive.
An exercise performed in class confirmed the
obviously intimate world of pain: oftentimes, without any verbal indication,
pain in a person can go unnoticed, because of his unique personal connection
to it. That person, by controlling his pain, is controlling his world. But
in cases of torture, when pain is inflicted to the point that it cannot be
hidden, the control lies with the torturer and not the person who ought to have
express control of his sentience. As evidenced in The Crucible,
when John is asked to confess in front of women he admires for their dignity
and resolution, and in Heresy, when
Francisca is forced to walk nude among the other prisoners - namely her young
son - torture is a way of parading agony in front of others for the purposes of
humiliation and conversion. That being so – the victim surrendering all rights
to his own composure – all sense of self and of world is destroyed.
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis, Melissa! Martin Jay is clearly concerned with the visibility, and your examples of visibility in the Crucible and Heresy gives an idea as to why that might be. Sight is such a powerful element of torture, as also demonstrated in “O Judea” when Antonio’s lover’s hair is cut and she is further forced to hang from the ceiling nude. This brings up the question of whether or not it’s ethical to visually represent tortured bodies in all types of mediums. When people view a tortured body, the sight of such torture usually sparks a reaction in us: an extremely negative one. By viewing a tortured body, we often imagine what the person went through, and in a way relive that torture inside of us.
I agree that visibility plays a distinct role in torture. As you stated, there are forms of torture that utilize visibility to facilitate torture: exposing a prisoner's nude body as in Heresy or being forced to make a moral decision in front of others as in The Crucible. The question being posed here is if no one were to witness Doña Francisca being indecently exposed would it still be considered torture? Or if no one were to see John Proctor make a false confession via his signature, would he still have gone through with the confession? The obvious answers to these questions indicate that visibility is definitely dangerous and integral to both torture and interrogation. Another instance of the danger of visibility was discussed in class. If the Abu Ghraib photos were never exposed to the media, it might've been as if the events never existed. The American soldiers didn't feel guilty for taking the photos, but only when there was backlash when those photos were made public.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with your point that visibility is dangerous. As you pointed out, visibility can be used as a form of torture - sometimes arguably worse than physical torture, even. Doña Francisca's trauma from being stripped naked and being "put on display" has been discussed; however, her son also underwent torture through the experience by being forced to watch her mother naked despite the fact that she was in much humiliation and distress. This "torture" is achieved by utilizing visibility. As a theoretical example in real life, take the situation of being forced to watch someone tortured. I would assume that to the majority of people, this would be unbearable.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how being forced to watch someone being tortured, like Franz's example, can actually be itself considered torture. This raises the idea that not only is visibility a key part of torture, but it can even be the sole part of torture in itself. Like in Heresy, something that is a normal part of life, such as being naked, is considered torture as soon as it is visible. Seemingly normal actions can be turned into tortuous ones merely by being made public. In Downcast Eyes, Martin Jay clearly realizes that visibility is not only a major factor of torture but sometimes even the deciding factor in considering something "torture".
ReplyDelete