Narratives on the Body Session Two: Monsters (and Monsters Inc.)

Agenda  Summary and Development of Session One.  Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing  Stevenson, ”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Summary and Development of Session One  The cardboard box and ”The Cardboard Box”  The mirror text

Summary and Development of Session One  Looking at the Body: Physiognomy  19th century uses of physiognomy: Moral and ethical uses Political uses: class, sex, ethnicity, race Cultural uses: a new mapping device, a new semiotics for making sense of urban reality (Michael Shortland, ”The Power of a Thousand Eyes:…”

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing  Representations of the human body are mediated, i.e. they are specific with respect to medium and genre  Representations of the human body are culturally and historically specific

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing  Media: speech, writing/print, sculpture, painting, dance, performance, installation, photography, comix, film, music  The law of writing  The temporality and linearity of the signifier

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing A narrative has a beginning, middle, and an end (story – discourse distinction) Temporality – a series of temporally ordered events: actions, unfolding in time, rather than objects, unfolding in space. Causality – logical or causal connections between events Teleological progression – end-oriented: the end = the revelation of meaning. striptease.

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing  A narrative involves someone telling someone else that something happened  Narrative power and authority  Teller – listener, narrator – narratee, author – reader.

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing  Four functions (according to J. Hillis Miller): 1.Investigation, revelation 2.Creation, invention 3.Reinforcement, policing 4.Subversion, demystification

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing – Peter Brooks  The semioticization of the body and the somatisation of story: Odysseus, Lucy, Potter

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing – Peter Brooks  Why is narrative interested in the human body?  The body = the ultimate site of Otherness (nature); outside language and culture; object of curiosity; must be made meaningful

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing – Peter Brooks  How is narrative interested in the human body?  Indirection, reticence, fetishism  An interest in the way rather than the endpoint, unveiling rather than unveiled, process rather than product  The double logic of narrative: the end is both pursued and put off

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing – Peter Brooks  Why is writing interested in the body?  Inscribing the body with meaning  Saving the body from otherness and showing that writing has its referent in the body – a motivated sign system

Theory: Bodies and Narrative Writing – Peter Brooks  How is writing interested in the body?  Inscribing and reading signs on the body.

Stevenson, ”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”  Consider ”Story of the Door”  Consider how the narrative can be said to exemplify what Peter Brooks calls the semioticization of the body and the somatisation of story  Whose body is the object of semioticisation? Whose body somatises the story?  Consider how the narrative can be said to exemplify indirection, reticence, and fetishism

Stevenson, ”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”  Story of the Door  Search for Mr. Hyde  Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease  The Carew Murder Case  Incident of the Letter  Remarkable incident of Dr. Lanyon  Incident at the Window  The Last Night  Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative  Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case