Reading outside the Novel

Despite academically rejecting the notion of high literature, I find it useful to question my initial sentimental response to English literature especially when it carries early feminist underpinnings. Why do such novels seem to appeal to our human sensibility or feminist ‘subjectivity’ over others? Although I am not an English major (and therefore many of Spivak’s references were lost on me), I think that both authors seek to contextualize explicitly constructed humanistic ideas within a larger imperialist subtext. For Said, notions of space, domestic pleasures, and morality are intricately linked to the economic and imperialistic subjugation of an Other. The novel is questioned as the vehicle for imperialistic validation, and notion of the author critiqued for stylistically depoliticizing a strictly political/nationalist/imperialist project. Taking cues from Raymond William’s deconstruction of geographic space in British literature as the fabric of a larger colonial landscape, Said uses spatial demarcations within Mansfield Park to explore how language is used to centralize morality as characteristic of class, and implicitly, race. He writes, “The question is thus not only how to understand and with what to connect Austen’s morality and its social basis, but also what to read of it” (1122). This brings up several questions about how we read history and biography within the novel form. Said attempts to take Austen’s imperialistic framework for what it is, while at the same time questioning how moral themes in her text have been universalized and politically neutralized. I think here Said is looking for the middle ground between literary relativism and conflating a text to project contemporary ideas onto the past. Its all a matter of how you go about finding the connections—especially if those connections are rendered transparent as the material basis of literary meaning. After all, these examples of British Literature cannot be separated from the politics of the publishing house—the PR institution of the higher classes.

Spivak, the Other, and the Frame

Before getting to the texts, here's a thought that's just occurred to me and that I find encouraging. Picking up on the comment that the essays (or at least Said's) were clearer and easier to access than some of the other theory we've read , I'd like to suggest a different possible for this accessibility. Rather than the accessibility being merely a matter of the author's style, maybe it is a result of all the texts that we've worked (and/or struggled) through up to this point. I think it's very rewarding to look down at the footnotes and back to the endnotes and realize a lot of the references are to essays we've read excerpts of, and that a lot of what we've been working on really has built upon itself. So maybe that's part of why Said is more accessible. It could also just be that he isn't Derrida.

Anyway, reading the Spivak, it seems one point to which she often returns is that "the absolutely Other cannot be selfed" (850), with selfing being an important process in her conception of both feminist individualism and imperialism. In discussing the monster of Frankenstein, I think she finds very interesting structural support for her argument: namely in the role of Margaret Saville, "who is neither tangential, nor encircled, nor yet encircling" (851). Spivak seems to suggest it is because Mrs. Saville does not respond to Walton's letters (and therefore does not encircle the text?) that "the monster can step 'beyond the text' and 'be lost in darkness'" (851). What I'm interested in is the necessity of this open frame in enabling the monster to escape the text. In Spivak's discussion of Christophene from Wide Sargasso Sea, this frame doesn't seem to be a necessity. Spivak notes that "immediately after the exchange between her and the Man, well before the conclusion, she is simply driven out of the story, with neither narrative nor characterological explanation or justice" (846). This expulsion is attributed to the same impossibility as the expulsion of the monster: "No perspective critical of imperialism can turn the Other into a self..." (846, her emphasis), and through this connection Spivak ties the character of Christophene to the character of the monster, in much the same way that it seems Christophene is tied to the character of Bertha in Jane Eyre. So what I'm wondering, is if the frame, or lack of frame, is necessary for Christophen to leave the text in the same way it can be seen to be necessary for the monster. Maybe it's not an important point at all and maybe that's why Spivak doesn't address the notion of the frame in relation to the other characters and novels. Maybe the open frame of Frankenstein is the allowance of "justice" that Spivak claims Christophene was denied, in which case maybe the question is, why does the monster receive that sort of justice when Christophene does not; is it because he is seen as more "absolutely Other" or would it be that Christophene is? I'm probably making too much of Spivak's mention of the frame. I would think that the monster would escape the story, even if Mrs. Saville had responded and so, perhaps, Spivak's claim that this lack or response allows him to escape is simply not true. So, after all that rambling, maybe my question actually is, what do Spivak's comments on Mrs. Saville's role in the monster's stepping beyond the text actually do, and can they be applied to her analysis of the failed selfing of other Others?

Post-Colonialism

I particularly enjoyed the clarity of the excerpt from Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said. He was very careful about emphasizing the important in evaluating each text, however flippant it may appear to modern readers, in light of the Post-Colonial understanding of Imperialism. I think that too often theorist condemn certain texts instead of using them to understand the perception of the society and culture which perpetuated things like imperialism, class and racism, and other forms of oppression. Said's reading of Austen was very subtle; obviously, the spatial resonance between Mansfield Park and Antigua and England and its colonies isn't as apparent as the romance or the gender tensions in Mansfield Park. However, the analogy works well in describing the process of Nationalism and what Gayatri Spivak referred to as worlding, that the attempt to recast Western dominance as natural and without mechanism. By walking us through the entire novel, Said cast light on Imperialism as it was without explicitly condemning his findings or manipulating it to match his theory. This only proves that Imperial philosophies permeated every aspect of society, even the domestic social structures that were Austen's primary focus. Spivak's article is was not as acessible to me. It was a little more cluttered with dense terms, and it seemed to be trying to cover too much ground by discussing feminist theories of Imperialism and individualism.

Frankenstein and Imperialism

In Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism, Spivac states that, “The discourse of imperialism surfaces in a curiously powerful way in Shelley’s novel...” (847). Shelley’s novel, of course, being Frankenstein. Yes, we have gone over Frankenstein quite a lot, but from reading this essay I was given new incite to Frankenstein’s demolition of the female monster. Before when reading this part of the novel, I had compared it to rape or violence. Spivac takes a different turn. He writes that, “(Victor Frankenstein gifted with his laboratory- the womb of theoretical reason) cannot produce a daughter...Frankenstein cannot produce a “daughter” because “she might have become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate...” (848). Saying that a daughter cannot be produced because she will turn out worse than the son, opens the floodgates for different kinds of criticism. According to Spivac, “This particular narrative strand also launches a thoroughgoing critique of the eighteenth-century European discourses on the origin of society through (Western Christian) man” (848). This new comparison broadened my understanding of different possible ways one can read just one portion of Shelley’s novel.

Space+Culture=Ideology

Does the Equation Balance?

I was very intrigued by Edward Said's analysis of how physical spaces in Mansfield Park mimic the imperialistic ideology of the English state, to which the characters ascribe.  I felt that he used an interesting technique in taking Austen's description of Fanny's reaction to her Portsmouth house and applying it to the greater English cultural consciousness of the relationships between space, sociability, and awareness.  It is certainly provocative to look at how cultural ideologies are subtly reproduced in the hearts and minds of participants; Said even seems to indicate that Austen herself did not realize the way in which she was reproducing a discourse of imperialism.

As I read this essay, I attempted to apply Said's analysis of space in Mansfield Park to American culture.  Though the recent boom in "McMansion" housing developments has often been explained as the excess of American consumerism, might it also be construed as displaying American attitudes regarding, if not imperialism and globalization, then the seemingly more positive ideologies of universalism or cosmopolitanism?  I might add that the preexisting analysis of "large houses" as "excessive consumerist/capitalist culture" seems to indicate how commonplace this mode of meaning-making has become.

Though I enjoy this kind of literary analysis and am inclined to agree with Said on his point about Austen, I wonder if any of you thought that this was "reading too far into" Austen's descriptions of physical spaces.  He could be accused of straying too far from what is "actually" being said or implied in the text, as Natalie thought about his comments on Austen's beliefs regarding slavery.  Does a discussion such as Said's make too many assumptions about the unconscious manifestations of ideology?  How much can we legitimately argue the text is "saying"?  What considerations ought/ought not be made for the "subjectivity" of the author or her characters in contrast to the greater culture of which they are a part?  Can they be separated from their culture at all?

Paradox of Austen?

In Edward Said’s “Jane Austen and Empire” he argues that Austen in Mansfield Park assumes “the importance of an empire to the situation at home” and that events in the home correspond to and reflect imperialism in India (1119).  He discusses the “paradox” of reading Jane Austen is the novel seems to say that slavery is “cruel stuff” but that “everything we know about Austen and her values is at odds with the cruelty of slavery” (1124).  I found this statement interesting.  At first I thought of taking a cue from Structuralism and say that Austen’s opinion, or rather his opinion of what Austen’s opinion is doesn’t matter.  But I don’t think that is even necessary, because from the essay I don’t believe that we get a clear enough picture of Austen herself in order to say what her opinion was on slavery.  His support of Austen's opinion seems more like speculation.  Why can’t we just let the book speak for itself?      

Facebook as the Panoptic Model of Social Control

If only Foucault could see Facebook--I shudder at the thought. But at the same time, I feel ambivalence—Facebook is the offspring of our generation, and it is symptomatic of our cultural mentality to connect and communicate our individuality. In fact, critiquing Facebook feels somewhat futile—why? For one thing, once you become a ‘user’ and create a profile, the myth is that your profile can never be deleted. As much as my friends and I use this argument to justify not immediately deleting our accounts, there is something to be said about the anxiety within or without this social network. Central to this anxiety is the Foucauldian notion that identity is constructed for others according to a coercive model of subjectivity and surveillance. Facebook is a quintessential panoptic model because it creates the illusion of automatism where social relations actually conform to a set discourseare in fact governed by its own discourse.
After reading Foucault’s “Discipline and Punishment” I began to think about our participation on the Internet, and how Facebook renders this participation even more transparent. According to Foucault, the panoptic model of Western institutions is disciplinary to the extent that subjects internalize this coercion (PAGE). Like Panopticism, information isn’t made available to better know our world or ourselves, rather information is deployed to create us as consumers and users. Yet our participation ‘On-line’ is considered to be a kind of freedom the Internet is considered above hierarchal institutions in the real world. Is the Internet an assymetrical model of panoptic control? Foucault would argue that like the prisoner, our every click is visible and every screen backlit and surveyed (Foucault 548). Our voyeuristic participation, it could be argued, has been a slow conditioning of ‘the gaze’ from cinema to television, the Internet, instant messaging, and now—Facebook.
What are we talking about when we critique the concept of the ‘Internet’ or ‘Facebook?’ As objects of study, these networks themselves prove elusive and untraceable. Again, this is part of the panoptic model of social control. Foucault writes that political instruments for acquiring and creating a knowledge of the body are “diffuse, rarely formulated in continuous, systematic discourse…it is generally no more than a multiform of instrumentation…Moreover, it cannot be localized in a particular type of institution or state apparatus” (549) Likewise, the Internet is not one institution, nor can one institution be analyzed according to the end effect. From the participant’s perspective, there are no boundaries to the ‘actions’ of the Internet, and therefore the Internet appears to be an arbitrary creation of usership at any one point in time. In other words, through individual’s creative input, the Internet exists. But this is also flawed. Foucault’s point is that in the absence of violent control, social institutions have created an asymmetrical discourse that makes it impossible to think outside the Internet. This is a difficult notion to wrap one’s head around.
Furthermore, a Foucauldian analysis of subjectivity and surveillance provides insight into how coercive structural implications of social media are normalized. I remember the giddy excitement my seventh grade self felt when a new first instant message popped up on the browser. Then, it was slightly eerie that my friend was waiting for my reply at that very moment. Now, however I feel comfortable with the idea, and take part in a new level of intrusive behavior. As Foucault contends, “Power-knowledge is not who is or is not free in relation to the power system, but, on the contrary, the subject who knows, the objects to be known…” (550). I know the extent to which Facebook influences my understanding of mine and others’ exhibitionism, but do I realize the extent to which my exhibitionism is controlled through and analyzed within Facebook? Commercially, Facebook has revolutionized the way the Internet monitors our consumer choices and behaviors.
Not only do the pop-ads on the sidebar show Facebook’s attentiveness to the interests that I put forth on my profile, but my Facebook is an “enclosed segmented space, observed at every point…in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined, and distributed…” (Foucault 552). I am an actor in constructing my own script—through wall postings, photos, and profile information. Yet this script, in its individualized visibility, “is a trap” (554). To be a part of this surveillance system, one must first conform to a “system of permanent registration” (551), a process that requires one to submit to “binary division and branding, coercive assignment, of differential distribution…” (553). To create a profile, one must choose an identity (gender, sexuality, poltical, geographical, religious) on Facebook’s terms. In a previous class, we tried to create a profile on Facebook that didn’t identify according to gender or sexuality, and it was absolutely impossible. In sum, behaviors and identities on Facebook are in fact rule-governed, and therefore coercive.
Despite the fact that our participation as visible subjects is so obvious, there is anxiety at the sheer number of temporary observers and guilt at our own surveillance of others. Think about the number of pictures you untag for instance. You can’t delete them, why disassociate them from your name when everyone knows that was you with a mullet in the 4th grade? A leading neuroscientist thinks this is because social networking induces the “infantilisim of the mind” and “extreme narcissism.” If this is true, what does this mean for the economic or social utility of Facebook in the real world? Foucault thought that power sought to create subjectivities according to social utility and productivity. Apart from its commercial value, the time we spend on Facebook does not appear to be of any utilitarian value. Rather, if it threatens our work productivity and destabilizes identity, how can this possibly be valuable in the real world? Lets just hope Facebook continues to make poor choices in layout—or even begins to charge for use—then what point will there be in taking part? The illusion with Facebook is that these social relations are in fact created in virtual networking. I do believe they will exist before and after I log on.