Confessor and Confessant

Brooks' The Confessor and Confessant shows how a false confession can be created even without torture. When torturing someone they torturer is inflicting some sort of physical or mental pain on the accused. They do this because they are assuming the accused is guilty. However, today police officers often assume the person they are interrogating is guilty as well. All though a false confession may not be as likely without torture as with it their still is a bigger chance when assuming the accused is guilty. This is because the cops can often use a non physical form of torture. This is because the law enforcement can be faced with tasks of needing a confession. An example of a situation where they need a confession would be if the case did not have enough evidence. This forces the cops to do the best they can to put the bad guy away, but they may sometimes try too hard and get a false confession. The Police often use a strategy that is known as "good cop, bad cop" this is of course where one cop seems like he wants to help you and the other seems like he is completely against you. Contrasting extremes has been shown to put a large amount of stress on people. Along with the nerves that anyone would have when being questioned by the police it is easy for "I'm nervous because I'm being heavily questioned by the police" to be interpreted as "I'm nervous because I was the one that killed that guy." The best way for the police to avoid false confessions is to be neutral, but is that the best way to get a confession when they need one?

Response to The Fall by Albert Camus

    The Fall is a first person story narrated by a man named Jean-Baptise. The writing style of the story sets up an interactive feel with the audience, making them feel like the narrator is speaking to them. This story is very multidimensional when it comes to themes. One of the main themes is the theme of power. Jean-Baptise speaks of his every action all throughout his life being made with the intention of gaining power. He says this is the same for all people. That whether consciously or not, we are always making decisions that will improve our status in life. He speaks of always needing to be right and this contributing to the power he craves.

    Along with the theme of power comes a metaphor that he uses to further prove his need for power. He tells the reader of his need for being even physically above other people. Jean-Baptise tells us how his favorite spots are places like balconies overlooking the town and its people or mountain tops where he can look out over the towns. He is so craving of this power that it has affected his life so greatly to where he even has begun to despise places like underground subways and caves, even scientists who study caves. Power has consumed him.  

The Fall by Albert Camus response

The Fall by Albert Camus is about a man who remembers severe guilt for a severe action (letting a woman drown) that he had forgotten, but uses this guilt to find power when he is later imprisoned in a Nazi camp. He decides that because he is extremely guilty, arguably more guilty than all the other prisoners, he must be the one that is forgiven by all and seen as the martyr for the less powerful. By declaring everyone to be guilty and himself as the "pope" of these unfortunate people, he twists his guilt to make himself better than others. He manages to take advantage of his guilt by pulling out the guilt in those who are actually ashamed of it, causing him to be in a position of power. I personally found it revolting that he would revel in his guilt for a very real "crime", but it is interesting to think that guilt can be a tool for authority over others.

This story reminded me of The Trial by Franz Kafka not in the way that they are similar, but in the way that they are complete opposites. Instead of having a man who is innocent accused of a crime, you have a man who is actually guilty but seen as innocent in the eyes of the law. I would expect the prior to have the upperhand in the knowledge of truth that he has done no wrong, but instead the latter is able to manipulate his evils in order to exercise power. It implies that in order to be "free", or at least freer than the average man, one must embrace the guilt that every person supposedly has.

Response to The Fall by Albert Camus

The first-person narration in Albert Camus’ The Fall is unlike any narration we have come across in class thus far. The main character/narrator, Jean-Baptiste, makes the reader into a character by using “you” in the narration. The novel begins with Jean-Baptiste’s inability to save a woman who has fallen off of a bridge. The title of the novel not only literally symbolizes the woman’s fall, but also Jean-Baptiste’s psychological fall and spiral into a dark place subsequent to the event.

It becomes obvious that Jean-Baptiste’s character in the novel is also the character that the reader plays in the novel: he describes himself as having a “double face.” In a way, Jean-Baptiste not only symbolizes the reader, but also mankind. By not telling the reader right away that they are one and the same, he is allowing the reader to search deeply into themselves. This becomes recognizable when Jean-Baptiste says, “I am skipping… over these details which have certain significance. Well,… I am skipping over them so that you will notice them better.” 

Troubling Confessions: Confessor and Confessant

In this week's reading, Brooks discusses the truth, or rather, lack thereof, in confessions made by suspects in traditional police/interrogator situations. He argues that by putting the suspect under the pressure of guilt and other interrogation techniques, the suspect is less likely to make truthful confessions. While this seems counter-intuitive, it seems logical that a suspect in fear of the law and under heavy guilt would be inclined to make false or exaggerated confessions in order to escape his guilt and be redeemed. In a much more extreme case, this could compared to the prisoners of Abu Ghraib or victims of the Inquisition who would make false confessions after physical torture (if one would compare great guilt to torture.) Brooks's argument seems sound, but only at a heavily generalized value. I had to wonder about the suspects that felt no regard for the law or guilt for their actions because they were indeed innocent. Would they eventually feel guilt for the actions they didn't commit just from the techniques of being interrogated, feeling guilty for being suspected at first? Or would someone completely resilient just be interrogated for eternity until...what? In simple American police situations, I would assume that the police would have to release the suspect, but it makes me wonder what would happen in other situations where neither party is willing to give in.

The Fall by Albert Camus

The Fall was written by Albert Camus and is a story of guilt and hypocrisy. This story is narrated by Jean-Baptiste. His life is changed after he remembers letting a woman drown and not having turned around to help her. Guilt and judgment play a large role in this story because Jean-Baptiste uses confessions as a way to release his guilt and form judgments of others. After becoming the “pope” at a Nazi prison camp he uses his power to avoid the demons he faces from his past by shinning light on the judgment of others. This truly shows how hypocritical Jean-Baptiste is. This reminds me of Troubling Confessions by Brooks because Jean-Baptiste is forcing others into seeming wrong for things even if it is not necessary. He even states that every man is a murderer. The Fall is a story that shows how power is used to find truth, and it is seen in almost all previous readings that power is essential to uncover truth. Although he is using his obligations as the “pope” while imprisoned to lose the guilt felt for his repressed memories of this woman who drown, he is unsuccessful because he is incapable of change. This is proven when he drinks the water of a dying man in order to secure his survival. The story of The Fall shows guilt, power, hypocrisy, judgment, and truth.

Troubling Confessions: Confessor and Confessant

In Confessor and Confessant Brooks explores the idea of entering into an interrogation with the attitude of the suspect being guilty and how that affects the relationship of the confessor and the confessant. By acting in the belief that the suspect is guilty, the detectives not only increase the likelihood that a guilty person will confess, but also the chance that an innocent person will see confession as their only escape from the situation they are placed in. The use of the assumption of guilt as an interrogation not only causes implies that the suspect is already assumed to be guilty, the act of interrogating a suspect implies an assumption of guilt by the interrogator, an assumption that can lead the investigator to lead an innocent suspect to a false confession. This form of interrogation also has a few parallels with torture. It is used to break down the victims world view, causing them to see confession as the escape from their situation. It also places an assumption of guilt on the suspect; they wouldn’t be interrogated or tortured if they weren’t considered guilty. Such pressured form of interrogation could be considered psychological torture and by that extension, could be considered just as prone to false confessions as torture.

Troubling Confessions: “Confessor and Confessant”, “Confession, Selfhood, and the Religious Tradition” and “The Confessional Imagination”

In this last reading, many complex themes were covered about confessions, a few of which I will attempt to discuss. One of the the subjects I was initially interested in was the fiction that is involved with self exposure. On one hand, an autobiography or a confession of identity can be true, but it can also be romanticized. We see this is the example of book 3 of Confessions. On page 50, Jean-Jacques lies about his identity, claiming that he is a royal foreigner to get out of trouble. While this was false, it also was somewhat true. He is indeed a foreigner and royal in the sense that he always felt he was much better than just a servant. There is a grey area between truth and fiction that we must consider.

In this book, we also see how democracy has reshaped the judicial system, but somehow manages to keep many similarities with a totalitarian government. Joseph D. Grano says, “Respect for the individual...yields limits on what will be permitted in the otherwise laudable search for truth”(71-72). With the Miranda rights, we protect every citizen’s right to remain silent in attempt to only receive voluntary confessions. As a democracy, we want to embody the idea that every individual is important, that the government works for the sake of their people. As simple as it sounds, this subject becomes incredibly complicated. What makes a confession voluntary? Does a voluntary confession always imply truth? Many have argued that the police have created a way to work around the Miranda rights in interrogations, which can lead to involuntary or even false confessions. How different then are we from a totalitarian government?

Last but not least, we also explore the influences of the church on our judicial system today. Confession was required in the church in order to be absolved of one’s sins. Ironically, confessions were done verbally so that the person would be more aware of their guilt. However, this would also confirm their selfhood and their role as a person rightfully part of society. In the same way with modern society, we encourage honesty and verbal confessions, which we assume will allow people to change for the better.

Response to "The Confessional Imagination" in "Toubling Confession" by Peter Brooks.

   I find it kind of hard to understand all of Brooks' idea considering how dense it is and how much he wants to cover. Nevertheless, I particularly enjoyed reading the cases he presents. In this particular chapter that I selected, it is interesting to me how the police uses persuaded confession to force people, that might even be innocent, to confess their crime. Particularly in the cases of Peter Reilly and Edgar Garrett. In both cases, the police present to suspect that they know he did the murder and have evidences for it. Using their memory gap. They fill in those gap with detail of murder and slowly makes them think that they actually did the murder. These techniques seem to me a form of psychological attack. Suspects are assume guilty even before evidence of guilty is found. The police, showing confidence in their "evidence" makes the suspects aware of some possible guilt. This starts the break down of the dam. Once their defense weaken, the police fill them in with details of the murder to rebuild the scenery.
  Another idea that set me thinking was the part where he mentioned the confession through torture. He mentioned how confession at the point where the victim is stripped and showed torture tools are consider of free will and those after torture are needed to be repeated the next day. This let me think what exactly is free will in confession. The confessor know that their confession can be use to condemned themselves or that they are asked to confess. This leads to another idea he presented in the previous section, the only authentic confession is those of individual confessional discourse.

Response to the Fall by Albert Camus

The Fall by Albert Camus is an interestingly written sorry about a man named Jean Baptise who was a high rolling defense lawyer until one day he uncovered repressed memories. He realized that he had passed a woman on a bridge and heard her fall, but had not turned around or saved her from drowning. On realizing this he recognizes how he has been conniving himself along with everyone else and that he is a hypocrite. He flees to Amsterdam and starts practicing the profession of a "judge penitent", where he confesses his own sins so that he has the right to judge you.
The last word in the book is "Fortunately!" and I feel like this further proves the narrators hypocrisy that despite his efforts did not go away. The narrator seems almost glad that he was not given a second chance, because he knows given the opportunity he would fail to act again,
We see underlying themes of Guilt and Power in the Fall. Like our other readings so far, in the fall we see how power is deemed necessary to unveil the truth, and how it is assumed that only authority can get the actual truth to light. We also see how everyone is presumed guilty, in fact the narrator even goes so far as to say that all men are murderers even if it be so by accident or negligence.

Response to "Confessor and Confessant" in "Troubling Confessions" by Peter Brooks

Brooks is interested in the nature of interrogations, specifically the relationship between interrogators and suspects and how a suspect is moved to confess through interrogations.  It is argued that interrogations establish a “context of dependency, where confessing is made to appear the only way out, the only escape from interrogation itself” (Brooks 38). Through various interrogation techniques, the interrogator is able to elicit a confession, whether it be a true one or not. The principal way of doing this is by going through the interrogation with implied guilt on the suspect: the interrogation is not presented as a means of figuring out whether or not the crime was committed, rather it presented to find out why the crime was committed. Brooks suggests that because of this, suspects feel as if the only way to cease the interrogation is to confess. The confession itself highlights the true dependent relationship the confessor has with the confessant: it is only the interrogator that can make the interrogation stop, and the interrogation will only stop if the suspect utters a confession. Brooks further argues that interrogation creates “a situation in which the individual surrenders his free will and makes statements contrary to his interest, perhaps even contrary to the truth” (41). Interrogators are allowed to lie in order to elicit statements from the suspect, such as informing them that crucial evidence linking them to the crime has been discovered when it really has not. In Frazier v. Cupp, the court ruled that a confession as a result of interrogator lies is allowed to be used to condemn the suspect. If this is so, is confession really a tool of truth? I personally find it hard to believe that confession can truly lead to truth if the entire purpose of interrogation is to produce a confession. When pressure is placed upon a suspect to provide a confession in order to allow them to make the interrogation cease and therefore allow them to regain some power, it is clear that many false confessions would be produced.

'The Fall' by Camus

    It is a daunting task to dissect such a complex and contradictory work as this. The Fall is rich in concepts of confession which can be analyzed. Both sides of Peter Brooks' concept, 'Qui s'excuse, s'accuse,'or 'Qui s'accuse, s'excuse' are applicable here. Much of what the narrator Jean-Baptiste Clamence argues is the idea that by confessing, we incriminate ourselves; but he also exemplifies the conceit which can be gained through confession.
    Jean-Baptiste, by remaining ignorant of his own hypocrisy, led a happy life in the beginning; he had every success, and felt that he was doing everything he ought to lead a meaningful existence. But after recalling one fateful night when he let a woman drown in the Seine, he admits to himself his own awful nature, and from then on for the rest of his days he is subject to his own guilt, earning within himself the label of hypocrite and murderer which cannot be shrugged, even if on paper he has committed no crime.
    But just as this sentence would rule his life, he lets it benefit him just as he has every other success in his life. During his imprisonment in a Nazi camp, Jean-Baptiste names himself 'pope' among the other prisoners because he is the most reproachable, and happily accepts the power he has been given over the other men. His excuse is that there must be a pope living among the downtrodden, one whom all must forgive so that he may serve his purpose as martyr and benefactor. Quite simply, it is an abuse of his privilege, especially after Jean-Baptiste drinks a dying man's water so that he may continue to live for his subjects.
   Where another, more genuine man might fall to suicide in light of his grave misdeeds, Jean-Baptiste revels in his own guilt. And resolves to remain unchanged, because he knows that by confessing every so often for his wrongdoing, he does not have to change his ways. He can continue to wring guilt from other men, for the powerful feeling it gives him. As cruel a man but tactful man, Jean-Baptiste understands the power of guilt and of confession, even if he does abuse it.

Response to The Fall by Albert Camus

When reading The Fall, some interesting themes occur throughout the plot, such as guilt and judgment. Exploring the theme of guilt, blame goes hand-in-hand with it.  Through Jean-Baptiste's narrative, a recurring theme is that all individuals are guilty, regardless of what he or she has or has not done.  He even boldly states that everyone deserves blame for being a murderer, whether by accident or negligence - such as allowing someone else to die.  An interesting fact to note is the time period at which this novel was written - immediately after World War II - which can explain the attitude expressed above.
Another theme which derives from guilt and blame is judgment - mainly, the hypocrisy of judgment.  By assuming all individuals are guilty, is it not hypocritical for a guilty person to accuse another individual of being guilty?  However, as shown throughout the novel, people tend to be judgmental by nature, whether the judging is of others or of the self.  Jean-Baptiste's story shows the innate fear of humans to be judged by others; however, it is not just the end result of judging humans despise, but the actual process which occurs during judging that causes disgust.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Excerpt from “Book Two” of Confessions

At an estate, young Rosseau committed a crime that he still haunts his conscience. While things were being moved around there, Rosseau stole a little pink and silver ribbon that belonged to a young lady. When he was asked where he found the ribbon, he panicked and blamed it on an innocent, young girl named Marion. Although she had an extremely good reputation, the authorities still doubted her and decided to question both Jean and Marion. Jean “boldly accused her” when questioned, and she firmly denied her guilt. Marion pleaded Jean to “remember [him]self and not disgrace an innocent girl who had never done [him] any harm.” But Jean continued to accuse her, until the Count dismissed the case as he remarked, “the guilty one’s conscience [will] amply avenge the innocent” (87). And he was right: Jean still feels as if he ruined Marion and her innocence and her trust for others. He feels that he will never be forgiven of his heinous crime. Interestingly, Jean wasn’t afraid of the punishment, but the disgrace, which made him blame it on Marion. After that moment, all that he felt was shame: he says, “It was my shame that made me impudent, and the more wickedly I behaved, the bolder my fear of confession made me” (88). 

The fear of shaming one’s name seems to prevail in the site of interrogation, as we see with John Proctor in The Crucible and Don Luis in Heresy. We see how the site of questioning, along with the fear of disgrace, induces Jean to create a false truth. We also see how this same scenario induces Marion to be stripped of her identity to others when she is disgraced: people thought of her as a trustworthy, innocent girl, but after she was accused and questioned, she was doubted. Ultimately, Jean seems to juxtapose an honest and flawed confession.

Response to "Troubling Confessions: Introduction" by Peter Brooks

In Peter Brooks introduction of Troubling Confessions, he describes the idea of modern confessions as dysfunctional. Brooks believes that "we want confessions, yet we are suspicious of them." This is because truth and confessions do not always go hand in hand. With interrogation comes a sense of guilt, which, in turn, creates flaws when it comes to confessing. Guilt can force someone to confess to something they may not have done just to get rid of their sense of guilt and the stress of intense questioning. This ties in to our past reading of Page duBois’ Torture and Truth in which torture, or in this case, interrogation, tries to uncover a truth that may not have been there in the first place. This relentless grilling and demand for some sort of “truth” creates the dilemma of a false confession. According to Brooks, “the law still today -as in medieval times-tends to accept confession as the ‘queen of proofs’.” Therefore, a false confession can be seriously detrimental because while it may not hold truth or weight to it, a false confession can still be regarded as definitive evidence. Thus, Brooks argues that while the law may believe confessions to be a confirmation of truth, this may not always be the case.

Response to The Trial (pg 166-231)

The life of K ends surprisingly and almost without event as two officers appear outside his door on the evening of his birthday and force him to walk. These officers, however, don't torture K in the sense where they strip K of all his power as an individual. In fact, K runs ahead of them and could probably have gotten away, as Kafka writes "the men had to run with him, although they were gasping for breath" (229). The officers stand on either side of K and pass a knife to one another, a "courtesy" (230) which occurs and K is meant to grab the knife and kill himself. However he couldn't "rise to the occasion" (230). K starts to question the meaning of the trial and the purpose of his arrest, and where the high courts and the judge were whom he'd never met. Finally, an officer stabs K in the heart and K's last words are "like a dog!" (230).
I think K's death and overall trial experience are related to the story that the priest tells him in the 9th chapter. The priest tells the parable of a man who basically sits outside the door of the law. The gatekeeper, in the beginning, says he can't let K in. The man stays in front of the door and tries to bribe the man but is never able to enter. As the man is dying, the gatekeeper reveals that the door was only meant for the man. This is similar to K's story, in that he never really gets to fully interact with the law and the high court, only briefly dance around the entrance. I'm not sure what the fault is in not being able to enter. Possibly the man didn't take enough action to warrant being entered into the law, or maybe he was never going to be allowed in for reasons beyond his knowledge. Whatever the case, there are certainly similarities between the priest's parable and K's story, including the light that both the man and K see at the end of their lives.