Frank Reflections on Specific Secondary Readings @ Michigan State University

In reflecting upon the secondary readings assigned to fulfill the honors option requirement at Michigan State University (MSU), I have chosen to comment upon the latter half of Foucault’s, The History of Sexuality, An Introduction: Volume I, Wendy Jones’s article, "Stories of Desire in the Monk," and Tilottama Rajan’s, Autonarration and Genotext in Mary Hays’ Memoirs of Emma Courtney. The reflection commentary will begin in like order.

Michel Foucault’s second half of the History focuses on both the "Deployment of Sexuality" and the "Right of Death and Power over Life". The former chapter addresses Foucault’s attempt at further unmasking the historical significance of sex and what this type of discourse can explain and expose about a given society. He claims that sex, the entity is not hidden at all, but “shines forth; it is incandescent” (77). As we fast-forward toward sex existing in a binary system of licit and illicit forms Foucault draws attention to the fact that sex is then still “permitted and forbidden” (83). He continues to discuss the repressive spirit concerning sex and the movements that held a strong affinity toward its suppression. This suppression Foucault mentions to exist in the variant forms of institutions such as the Church and state powers that be. Through methods of fear for example, the Middle Ages were witnesses to “a multiplicity of prior powers, and to a certain extent in opposition to them” (86). Furthermore, these powers were, what Foucault notes, as “entangled, […] powers tied to the direct or indirect dominion over the land, to the possession of arms, to serfdom, to bonds of…vassalage” (86). Here, power is held in the arena of its superiors and fleshed out upon the backs of the inferior class. Something Foucault mentions time and time again. One imaginative quote that I inquired after was Foucault’s assertion that “We must at the same time conceive of sex without the law, and power without the king” (91) to which I responded, “Why not conceive of sex without power and law without the king?” However, as I pondered my question I realize how limited an audience this would ensnare leaving me still with much to be desired regarding the power dynamic and sex. Ultimately, every bit of sex is laced with power of some kind, and the level of sovereignty, existing more than just mere mercenary motivation(s), delivered more than a Robin Hood (In Tights no doubt) sensibility. One last point about Foucault is his point on the deployment of sexuality coinciding with the “archaeology of psychoanalysis” (130). This form or gathering of systems used to study the past of human life is firmly embedded into the rhetoric of the future, or what Foucault calls, the “general technology of sex” (130). This great technology seems to exist as a farce however because it still utilizes an ancient methodology to launch it, the discourse of confession. One final point that I must raise concerning Foucault’s History is his allusion or hinting at a “Lord” within the context of religious sentiment. It is unclear which “Lord” or God Foucault refers to, and though in past chapters he does mention the Middle Ages and the term Christian alongside Catholic rhetoric we can only assume he is referring to the Judeo-Christian Christ, or Lord, or God. This can be seen in his concluding, and in my opinion, highly-stimulating chapter regarding the right of death and power over life. He states, “Now it is over life…that power establishes its dominion; death is power’s limit…the most secret aspect of existence” (138). Foucault moreover, contemplates the subject of suicide in light of this power/control level. Though he refers to suicide as existing in the past as “once a crime” (138) as if it is no longer so. I find this a bit presumptuous on his end. He further acknowledges my earlier premise by stating suicide as a precursor to the 19th c. benchmark regarding sociological analysis. In short, suicide was “a way to usurp the power of death which the sovereign alone, whether the one here below or the Lord above, had the right to exercise” (138). These were the more interesting insights or reflections on Foucault toward the latter end of the History.

In Wendy Jones’s Stories she parallels the imbrication of desire and the subject of narrative in M.G. Lewis’s The Monk. Her thesis exists in three parts. First, she notes the frequent parallels of narrative and desire. Second, she notes how this narrative motif “forms the basis of its own narrative structure” (129). Last, theme and structure lead toward a social/political argument, namely “a defense of the concept of individual desire and of the right to articulate that desire in both speech and action” (129). Jones further applies her thesis outline to the interconnected love stories The Monk produces. These networked narratives exist in Raymond/Agnes, Lorenzo/Antonia, and of course in the complicated Ambrosio. The latter is involved in a triangular love affair with Matilda/Romario. Jones notes the binding motive force to be that “all aim at erotic fulfillment” (129). Jones furthermore makes her case regarding the point that narrative incites desire, well-placed or not. I did note a bit of a typo on her end as I was reading unless I misunderstood the context. It can be found as Jones is making her case for monastic vows of silence and chastity. She notes however, “they [monks, I presume] also insist on isolation from the outside word” (132). If on one level Jones means word, then her follow up comment that “telling is so important a part” would make some sense. I suggest that she creatively used the term word in place of world, though both would make sense. In my opinion "world" would have made more sense, but in order to tie in her point about narrative and incitement to discourse in light of monastic vows of silence it could very well be a metaphor for both; i.e., the world of the narrative exists within the world itself, and is both part and apart from it. Jones presents another interesting point about Ambrosio’s lack of a retrospective narrative. She states, “It is significant that Ambrosio is one of the few characters who does not tell a retrospective narrative; his view is always forward to the promise of a satisfaction that can never be his” (134). Arguably, one can note that this is clearly in line with Ambrosio’s upbringing, or lack thereof. This man of God is still a man after all as both Lewis and Jones note. In another passage Jones is quoted, to further cement her point on “forwarding,” as stating that it is “frustration” which “propels his [Ambrosio’s] narrative forward, although it appears ironically in the guise of fulfillment” (136). All this presents a rather frail casing of a man looking for purpose, and once a hunger for the needs of the flesh is unmasked, there is no satiety for the flesh. Jones’s views of honor and virginity and established maidenhead were all equivalent to a woman’s value and worth. Her remark that “Both elopement and sex before marriage, even between engaged couples, were transgressive according to sexual codes” (141) is reminiscent on one level as Foucault and to an equally opposite regard, Blake. My final thoughts surround Jones’s forewarning as I believe she addresses this age and not just remarks upon Lewis’s period narrative. She states, The Monk was thus inadvertently caught in a conflict that involved its own themes of individual desire and oppressive authority, ironically demonstrating just how timely and important these issues were for Lewis’s contemporary readers” (146). I agree though I dare add, “…and beyond”.

My final reflection involves Rajan’s Autonarration in which my discovery of the main point involved the defining of autonarration as “a (post)romantic intergenre…that locates ideology within a fictional rewriting of personal experience” (149). Rajan spends a considerable amount of time telling her readers the difference between autobiography and autonarration as well as self-narration. Her thesis is quite clear. She “argues for the importance of Hays’ novel to both the feminist and the romantic traditions, and in the process it tries to work out a phenomenology of autonarration” (150). It would then seem that Hays, in writing Memoirs, truly did utilize her letters of personal experience to weigh her character’s decisions and their perceptions of each other independent of outside human consciousness. In other words Augustus was created to shun the love of Emma regardless of Hays’s interference. This is where the term autonarration seems to fit in. It is picked up again with Emma’s desire to join the masculine society, and is described by Rajan, as “doubly negative, in the sense that it resists the symbolic order but is also at odds with itself” (155). Rajan makes further points on Hays’s use of Emma’s passion as “deeply rational” and that these passions “are not necessarily opposed” (157). I must admit I was lost in this article on several accounts. It proved to be the densest text read thus far, although I did enjoy one last point that Rajan makes. Rajan states that “Romantic writers are both subjects of desire and figures in their own texts” (159). Furthermore the desires that are unleashed are “desires” that “are textualized rather than literalized” (159). The difference? According to Rajan, is the level of involvement that creates categories of both “the transcendental ego” and “the historical subject” (159). It would seem then that autonarration would take up the latter view. Hays in writing her novel recorded her own history and colored the narrative portrait with colors of fiction. Once finished, her creation was less of herself, yet very much her person and in a sense proved less fiction and more real. This I believe is what Rajan means by her use of the term autonarration.

Combined, these three texts gave me a glimpse into the world of sex as power, sensuality as a form of sex, and the combination of the two existing in variant degrees through both my primary and secondary readings. Although, it was through Foucault that I learned the most about the sexual power dynamic and the institutions that still attempt its suppression.