Mind over Body? Stigma, Staring, and the Self

Abstract

Mind over Body?Stigma, Staring, and the Self Anna C. Spafford Novelty is fragile and staring volatile because the longer we look, the more accustomed a once surprising sight becomes … Seeing disability reminds us of what Bryan S. Turner (2006) calls "ontological contingency," the truth of our body's vulnerability to the randomness of fate. Each one of us ineluctably acquires one or more disabilities—naming them variably as illness, disease, injury, old age, failure, dysfunction, or dependence.1 The eighteenth-century German literary canon does not, as a rule, focus specifically on unexpected bodies in central characters, with some notable exceptions such as those discussed by my esteemed colleagues in this forum. This being said, there is an emphasis on stigma across literary genres and periods in this century of German literature. This thematization of stigma and the precarity of individual existence culminates in an intense interest in psychological pathologies in Sturm und Drang as well as Weimar classicism. This interest has problematized distinctions between mind and body and emphasized the influence of an individual's social and material context on their psychology. In this forum entry, I attempt to outline parallels in the portrayal and function of various stigmas in this broad literary period, which is credited with the development of modern individuality. I posit that Garland-Thomson's theory of the extraordinary body is an extension of this modern individual, who, contrary to popular understanding, is in fact born of, sustained, and afflicted by stigma. When we think of the individual in eighteenth-century German literature and especially the literature of the Goethezeit, we think of an individual with agency. All men, according to Locke, are Adam—created in God's image and sovereign over their inheritance. According to Kant, every individual is charged to use his own mind. With the rise of Lutheranism and especially among Pietists, it became the individual's responsibility to find his or her own private way to God. In literature, we see the creation and rise of the novel—an individualistic endeavor if ever there was one. In sentimental works, Enlightenment values and pure emotions lead the hero or heroine to a good life of moral steadfastness in the face of an immoral world. Gellert's Swedish Countess weathers political intrigue and physical capture. She witnesses incest and suicide—all unscathed. Her happy ending is directly attributed to her strength of character. Almost fifty years later, Caroline von Wolzogen's Agnes von Lillien suffers similar adverse circumstances, with similar reward. [End Page 141] Even if we look to the Sturm und Drang, where plots are characterized by human volatility and suffering, we find stories of individual strength where our protagonist is strong, just not strong enough. Karl Moor in Schiller's drama Die Räuber (The Robbers) is an excellent example of strong individuality that becomes bent towards its own destruction. Then we have Weimar classicism. The Bildungsroman: What greater act of individual strength is there than one's own journey to self-discovery? Gnothi sauton—know thyself. Any weakling—even Faust!—can conquer the world when given enough power. The true challenge of life becomes self-knowledge. Given this focus on individual fortitude in German literature of the mid- to late eighteenth century, we might want to characterize this period as one that neglects stigma and in which few, if any, extraordinary bodies may be found—existing only on the margins of these narratives: characters weakened with age, oddly androgynous youth. And yet we know from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Erving Goffman—one of her major theoretical inspirations—that stigma is a universal human experience. It is the nature of norms that deviation is the norm. Being the focus of attention—positive or negative—is an isolating experience. While Kant and Locke's ideals portray individual human fortitude of momentous proportion, they both knew themselves to be writing counterfactual narratives. Private property ought to exist. People ought to think for themselves and not just follow their local thought leaders. Similarly, the agency shown in late eighteenth-century literature demonstrates the difficulties of individuality: Gellert's countess only demonstrates her tempered morality by being forced to operate as a beleaguered...