Inflict Pain Research Articles

Clinical manifestations of alpine pit viper (Trimeresurus gracilis) bites

Introduction The alpine pit viper, Trimeresurus gracilis, is an endemic species in Taiwan. The incidence of human envenoming is rare. Case summaries We present three events in two patients bitten by Trimeresurus gracilis. In the first patient, envenoming inflicted pain, local bleeding, hemorrhagic bulla, and progressive swelling, leading to necrosis of the bite wound. In the second patient, the two snakebites caused pain and progressive swelling. There were no systemic effects such as organ damage or neurological deficits observed. A paraspecific antivenom against Trimeresurus stejnegeri and Protobothrops mucrosquamatus was used to treat both patients, with a favorable outcome in each. Discussion Combined with the clinical manifestations of two previously reported cases of Trimeresurus gracilis envenoming, the known effects of Trimeresurus gracilis venom in humans include local toxicities, severe soft-tissue damage, compartment syndrome, and coagulopathy without spontaneous systemic bleeding. The paraspecific antivenom, which has demonstrable cross-neutralization effects in animal studies, appeared to be effective against the local toxicities as the patients showed prompt cessation of the progression of their swelling. Conclusions The knowledge of clinical manifestations and management approaches to Trimeresurus gracilis envenoming is helpful for patient care. The use of the paraspecific antivenom should be considered in managing such envenoming.

Housing discrimination in Mississippi, the last 20 years

AbstractHousing discrimination persists decades after the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. Limited qualitative research exists that examines the experience of victims. This qualitative study used data from newspapers that reported housing discrimination in Mississippi from 1998 to 2018 to examine the experience of victims. Content analysis was used to assess the sociodemographic characteristics of victims and the penalties awarded to perpetrators. Inductive thematic analysis was used to assess victims' perspectives and thoughts on their experience and included four themes: “it's never about money,” “inflict pain,” “racism is still a problem,” and knowledge.

(036) Chasing the Two-Headed Dragon: Using BDSM to Manage Pelvic Pain from Endometriosis

Abstract Introduction Endometriosis is a chronic gynecological condition that indiscriminately effects approximately 176 million women across the world. Three major symptoms – dysmenorrhea (painful menses), dyspareunia (painful intercourse), and infertility – are the most commonly seen both at diagnosis and throughout management of the condition. Objectives Pain due to endometriosis impacts a woman on a daily basis and management of this pain is as varied as the woman diagnosed. Research has been done on the utilization of alternative treatments ranging from yoga to spinal cord stimulation. Methods This presentation will present a firsthand experience of a woman engaging in BDSM (Bondage and discipline, Dominance and submission, Sadism, and Masochism) to manage her endometriosis pain. Using a clinical case report format, a history of the patient’s diagnosis, interventions, and treatment will be presented as well as how the patient came to utilize BDSM in response to debilitating endometriosis pain. The patient’s decision-making process as well as descriptions of actual engagement in BDSM and how it connects to management of the pain for the patient will be presented. Results A common myth about BDSM is that it is about the desire to experience or inflict pain. In this case, it is the actual control and power over the pain as well as the displacement of pain that mitigates the experience of endometriosis pain for this patient. Conclusions Considered an “invisible illness,” many women with endometriosis express their feelings of loss in their quality of life across multiple facets including their primary intimate relationship. By expanding a clinician’s repertoire with additional methods of pain management for women with endometriosis and other pelvic pain experiences broadens the opportunity for improved quality of life for the patient and the couple. Disclosure No.

Lef1 ablation alleviates cartilage mineralization following posttraumatic osteoarthritis induction

Cartilage mineralization is a tightly controlled process, imperative for skeletal growth and fracture repair. However, in osteoarthritis (OA), cartilage mineralization may impact the joint range of motion, inflict pain, and increase chances for joint effusion. Here we attempt to understand the link between inflammation and cartilage mineralization by targeting Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) and lymphoid enhancer binding factor 1 (LEF1), both reported to have contrasting effects on cartilage. We find that inflammatory-dependent cleavage of SIRT1 or its cartilage-specific genetic ablation, directly enhanced LEF1 expression accompanied by a catabolic response. Applying a posttraumatic OA (PTOA) model to cartilage-specific Sirt1 nulls displayed severe OA, which was accompanied by synovitis, meniscal mineralization, and osteophyte formation of the lateral joint compartment. Alternatively, cartilage-specific Lef1 nulls presented reduced lateral mineralization, OA severity, and local pain. Differential gene expression analysis revealed that Lef1 ablation reduced nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and Toll-like receptor (Tlr) pathways, while enhancing SRY-Box transcription factor 9 (Sox9) and cartilaginous extracellular matrix genes. The results support a link between inflammation and Lef1-dependent cartilage mineralization, mediated by the inactivation of Sirt1. By ablating Lef1 in a PTOA model, the structural and pain-related phenotypes of OA were reduced, in part, by preventing cartilage mineralization of the lateral joint compartment, partially manifested by meniscal tissue mineralization. Overall, these data provide a molecular axis to link between inflammation and cartilage in a PTOA model.

Suffering with Style

Suffering with Style

Effects of thwarted interpersonal needs and alcohol consumption on physical pain tolerance

We investigated the effects of thwarted interpersonal needs and acute alcohol consumption on physical pain tolerance using data from 67 undergraduate students who drank alcohol at a level not classified as alcohol dependence. We assessed their physical pain tolerance and speed of action to inflict pain on themselves with the proactive paradigm (PAP), and their physical pain tolerance to externally inflicted pain with the reactive paradigm (RAP). We found that acute alcohol consumption had a main effect on the PAP for speed of action to inflict pain. Our results also showed that thwarted interpersonal needs and acute alcohol consumption had an interaction effect on the RAP but not on PAP pain tolerance. The combination of thwarted interpersonal needs and acute alcohol consumption increased pain tolerance and alcohol induced participants' behavioral impulsivity, potentially leading them to enact self-aggressive behavior by increasing their ability to inflict harm on themselves and facilitating acting out behavior.

Our Minds, Our Selves: A brief history of psychology

An original history of psychology told through the stories of its most important breakthroughs and the people who made them Advances in psychology have revolutionized our understanding of the human mind. Imaging technology allows researchers to monitor brain activity, letting us see what happens when we perceive, think, and feel. But technology is only part of how ideas about the mind and brain have developed over the past century and a half. In Our Minds, Our Selves, distinguished psychologist and writer Keith Oatley provides an engaging, original, and authoritative history of modern psychology told through the stories of its most important breakthroughs and the men and women who made them. Our Minds, Our Selves traverses a fascinating terrain: forms of conscious and unconscious knowledge; brain physiology; emotion; stages of mental development from infancy to adulthood; language acquisition and use; the nature of memory; mental illness; morality; free will; creativity; the mind at work in art and literature; and, most important, our ability to cooperate with one another. Controversial experiments--such as Stanley Milgram's investigation of our willingness to obey authority and inflict pain and Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues' study of behavior in a simulated prison-are covered in detail. Biographical sketches illuminate the thinkers behind key insights and turning points: historical figures such as Hermann Helmholtz, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, B. F. Skinner, and Alan Turing; leading contemporaries such as Geoffrey Hinton, Michael Tomasello, and Tania Singer; and influential people from other fields, including Margaret Mead, Noam Chomsky, Jane Goodall, and Gabrielle Starr. Enhancing our understanding of ourselves and others, psychology holds the potential to create a better world. Our Minds, Our Selves tells the story of this most important of sciences in a new and appealing way.

Unravelling the ‘crimmigration knot’: Penal subjectivities, punishment and the censure machine

This article explores the challenges that (cr)immigration practices pose to draw the boundaries of punishment by examining foreign national prisoners’ penal subjectivities. More exclusionary and draconian migration policies have blurred the boundaries between border control and crime control, creating hybrid forms of punishment that, even if officially claimed as measures outside the criminal justice realm, inflict pain and communicate censure. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews with foreign national prisoners facing expulsion in the Dutch penitentiary facility of Ter Apel, we detail how hybrid (cr)immigration practices are capable of imposing and delivering meanings that go well behind rooted significances and aims of administrative measures. Traditionally designed with preventive purposes, administrative measures have now become part of a project of social exclusion and reaffirmation of the worth of citizenship. This circumstance raises problematic questions for the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in dealing with non-citizens.

Autism Screening Questionnaire: Abnormal Symbolic or Imaginative Play

Autism Screening Questionnaire:Abnormal Symbolic or Imaginative Play Oliver de la Paz (bio) 1. Does your child flap his hands or other finer flapping? Does he self-stimulate? In ecstatic moments it is a kind of rememberingthe body is the body. For example, these are armsfor grasping. These hands are forholding and touching the known and unknown.And how remarkable it all is—scintillate the waywonder surges towards the filaments. 2. Does he bang his head? On the inside, the retort of feeling accumulatesas weight. It is like smoke had risento the cellar and suddenly became thick and resinous.A song heard while submerged in a pool. 3. Does he self-mutilate? Inflict pain or injury? Huddled close against the thrum of rainfallon our roof and his fingers hookinto my eye-sockets. It is alwaysthis: his fingers seek emptiness to fill, chorusof nails pressed into my flesh thrust into the seamof our borders. My body. His pain. Our pain. 4. Does he toe walk? Possess clumsy body posture? Foal-sure and big-footed he tumblesacross the laminate. Shakyflicker of sense up the spinal pathways.Synaptic leaps sayingmove or glide. The effort of nervesto shape the body's urgenciesstuttering into what's stuck. [End Page 73] 5. Does he arrange toys in rows? Because design is a prism of the mind.Because placement is in relation to.Because the polyglot of form needs order.Because blue car next to green carnext to red car all along the highway.Because the serpentine of die cast metalrelentlessly gleams. Because formis relentless, relentlessly infinite. 6. Does he smell, bang, lick, or inappropriately use toys? Unbuffered tang. Metallic with a murmurof salt. An ersatz flavor fevering plastics.Having tasted sugar. Having knownsugar when knowing is a haunt.A shape in the mouth that is not a souffléand not a seed. This palpable fat.This gummy warmth.This tender unknown. 7. Does he focus interest on toy parts such as car wheels? Every object has a purpose. Every purpose hums its will.Plastic tires in close orbits. Firestones nearly spuninto the eye. As if the urge to become the eyewas the tire's concern.The idea that the thingcould move beyond the membranesof the self to become fully boy. To be sewn intothe boy's mind. And having been possessed,intensely by the thing, upon the thing's cessation, grief. 8. Is he obsessed with objects or topics? The Amanita genus is his favorite and includes the "death cap."You will know a death cap by its off-colored patches,the remnants of what was once a veil that had surroundedthe mushroom when it was young. We had livedin a place of quiet, surrounded by every manner of fungusand he would stand in the rain until drenched lookingat the same clump of mushrooms. Fairy rings. Polypore shelves.Sleek and concealed little spore bearers hidden under leaves. [End Page 74] Lobes of chanterelles. The coral-like hemispheres of morelsthinking in their darkness. 9. Does he spin objects, himself? Is he fascinated with spinning objects? Pinwheels staked along the sidewalk.Their abiding gyres a mess of colors. He seemsto take them as evidence ofthe refuge. An embrace behind the eyes.A wild ecstasy trammeled by a center. It homes him in.His being wound down as one winds a clock to takeample measure of what is infinitesimallydaunting and thus pulled in by the swirl. 10. Are his interests restricted? (Does he watch the same video over and over?) In the dark. In the night. In the glow of the day. Audible fuzzof the screen like passing rain. Shuddering spray of TV light.Its pixelated filaments pierce the gloom, splits the gap that veilsin from out. The image makes a testament constantly upheld. 11. Does he have difficulty stopping a repetitive "boring" activity or conversation? The toy truck's wheels rotate clockwise then counter.In...

Empathy during consoling touch is modulated by mu-rhythm: An EEG study

The aim of the present study was to examine the mechanisms of empathy for pain that contribute to consoling touch, a distress-alleviating contact behavior carried out by an observer in response to the suffering of a target. We tested romantic couples in a paradigm that involves consoling touch and examined the attenuation of the mu/alpha rhythm (8–13Hz) in the consoling partner. During the task, the toucher either held the consoled partner's right hand (human touch) or held onto the armrest of the chair (non-human touch), while the consoled partner experienced inflicted pain (pain condition) or did not experience any pain (no-pain condition). In accordance with our hypotheses, the results revealed an interaction between touch and pain at in mu/alpha rhythms in all central sites (C3, C4, Cz). Specifically, we found that the toucher's mu suppression was higher in the consoling touch condition, i.e., while touching the partner who is in pain, compared to the three control conditions. Additionally, we found that in the consoling touch condition, mu suppression at electrode C4 of the toucher correlated with a measure of situational empathy. Our findings suggest that electrophysiological and behavioral measures that have been associated with empathy for pain are modulated during consoling touch.

Dealing with China: Tough Engagement and Managed Competition

Sino-American relations are the major overarching factor in Asian international relations (many would argue internationally). As the broad trajectory of the relationship in recent years has been toward increasing frictions and comprehensive competition, simply managing the competitive dynamic so that it does not bleed into a fully adversarial relationship should be a principal goal. The relationship could worse-much worse-but that is not in the national interests of either country.Building cooperation where possible is a twin objective but should not be an end in itself. For example, the two governments engage in nearly one hundred bilateral dialogues, but these exchanges are quite pro forma and yield limited tangible benefits for the United States. The new Trump administration should scrub them from top to bottom-beginning with the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED)-and radically reduce them so as to maximize tangible outcomes and minimize the expenditure of time, money, and bureaucratic resources. The Chinese government has managed to freeze and trap the U.S. government in a panoply of diplomatic processes, while Beijing assiduously maneuvers worldwide to expand its own presence and influence.There is a deep reservoir of frustration and disillusion in the United States concerning China-some of which emerged during the presidential campaign-and a seeming consensus exists that Washington needs to tougher with Beijing on a broad range of issues. Donald Trump tapped into this sentiment concerning business outsourcing, but it runs far deeper into a variety of issue areas. But despite Trump's emphasis on the economic element of the relationship, the big change in U.S.-China relations is that security issues are now as or more important than economic issues, and as a result, the economic ballast is not as important as before. A big part of this reality is that American business has been experiencing a much more difficult environment in China.1The United States' growing frustrations with China lead to the temptation to get with Beijing. But this may prove difficult given the interdependencies between the two countries and China's own ability to retaliate against and inflict pain on U.S. interests. Moreover, the relationship is at something of a geostrategic inflection point-with China's power and influence growing regionally and globally, while the United States' power appears to be declining relatively. While tempting for Washington, getting tough at such a time can be provocatively dangerous. Power-transition theorists are quick to remind us that this is precisely the most unstable and vulnerable period in relations between established powers and rising powers-i.e., when one or the other misjudges its own relative position and takes preemptive actions against the other. The United States remains far stronger than China across a range of indicators,2 but the Chinese leadership may overestimate both China's strengths and the United States' weaknesses. For its part, the Trump administration may underestimate China's sensitivities and capacity to retaliate against U.S. interests.Under such conditions, mature management of a volatile relationship is mandatory-bounding the negative dynamics while working to expand the areas of positive cooperation is the principal challenge for both governments. With this broad maxim in mind, the balance of this essay assesses the state of the relationship that the Trump administration inherits and the deeper variables that will affect its evolution in the future.Looking Back to Move AheadIn anticipating how the Trump administration may move in its dealings with Beijing, it is first useful to take stock of the state of U.S.-China relations and the China policy that the administration will inherit. Of course, no new U.S. administration must continue the policy of its predecessor-although continuity is reassuring, particularly to markets. …

Reconsidering the boundaries of the shadow carceral state: An analysis of the symbiosis between punishment and its memorialization

Beckett and Murakawa conceptualize the ‘shadow carceral state’ as institutions deriving their authority from administrative and civil law that dole out punishment in conjunction with the penal state. This concept enriches criminological inquiry by expanding the boundaries of what punishment work entails. Left unexplored are the contributions of memory institutions such as penitentiary, prison and jail museums intersecting with the penal state that bolster the latter’s power to deprive liberty and inflict pain. Based on an analysis of three Canadian penal history museums, we illustrate how Correctional Service Canada mobilizes federal prison labour and other involuntary prisoner contributions, as well as agency staffing and resources to naturalize punishment. After examining this symbiosis between punishment and its memorialization, we argue for a conception of the shadow carceral state that includes cultural entities and processes which reproduce state control as a dominant way of responding to criminalized conflicts and harms.

“We Didn’t Let the Neighborhood Win”: Black Male Students’ Experiences in Negotiating and Navigating an Urban Neighborhood

Research on Black males and their education reveal a complex interplay of individual, structural, institutional, and policy factors that concomitantly affect their experiences (Ferguson, 2000; Howard, 2003; Noguera, 2008; Swanson, Cunningham, & Spencer, 2003; Toldson, 2008). Examining these various factors help to provide a broader canvass from which to explore student successes and the challenges they face. Earlier studies on Black males argued that their opposition to school negatively impacted their educational outcomes (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). This framework problematized the students without examining some of the contributing factors to their behaviors and outcomes. A number of more recent studies not only criticize this early work for lacking statistical significance (e.g., Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998; Harris, 2006), but they also show how schools impact Black males' identity development and performance (Ferguson, 2000; Howard, 2003), how neighborhoods matter (Catsambis & Beveridge, 2001; Turley, 2003), and how peer status contributes to schooling outcomes (Staff & Kreager, 2008). Findings from this research suggest that myriad factors complicate students' educational aspirations and, particularly germane to the current study, more attention is needed on the effect of neighborhood context on Black males' schooling experiences. Stewart and colleagues (2007) contended that many studies focused on educational aspirations often neglect to investigate the impact that different dynamics of neighborhoods (type, ecology, etc.) have on educational aspirations of youth. A lack of attention to these types of contextual factors limits one's understanding of students' attitudes, behaviors, and performances both during school and out-ofschool hours.Research on the lived experiences of Black males is important to consider as well since it demonstrates the need to nuance their experiences across the intersections of their race, gender, and class (Anderson, 2008; Jenkins, 2006; Johnson & Leighton, 1995; Young, 2004). For instance, Johnson and Leighton (1995) focused on the disproportionate death rates among poor Black men, which they examined as one of a number of products of social deprivation. The authors asserted that social deprivation subjects Black males to many disabling conditions that restrict opportunity, inflict pain and suffering, and shorten their (p. 2). Similarly, Anderson (2008) asserted that many young Black men who are poor are up against the wall.1 He contends that the social condi1The tions in their neighborhoods require Black men to develop a variety of coping styles and strategies in efforts to mitigate some of the risk factors they face. In considering this context for the Black males in the current study, the majority of whom self-identified as low income (N = 13), taking account for their out-of-school experiences in navigating the neighborhood and its effects is critical in appreciating their resilience and persistence efforts (Carter, 2005; Floyd, 1996; Young, 2004).Similar to Ginwright's (2009) offering, more work is needed that allows space for selfexploration and healing for Black young men. This work has the potential to transform their lives and their communities. The current case study seeks to contribute to the literature by exploring the lived experiences and perceptions of young Black men. The goal of this research is to learn what the students experience and investigate how urban neighborhoods matter in their experiences. While a great deal of attention has been paid to urban violence in cities such as Chicago, Flint (MI), and Camden (NJ), and what is not working in inner-city schools, this project is timely in that it offers an opportunity to hear the narratives of young men who successfully navigated the streets, felt supported and valued in school, and are thriving academically.BLACK MALES AND URBAN EDUCATIONVarious studies have identified numerous factors that affect how Black male students experience school, which ultimately impact their academic achievement (Ainsworth, 2002; Flowers, Milner, & Moore, 2003; Marsh, Chaney, & Jones, 2012; Noguera, 2008; Swanson, Cunningham, & Spencer, 2003; Toldson, 2008). …

Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders

Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders

Medicaid Cuts Could Inflict Pain in Multiple Sectors

Medicaid Cuts Could Inflict Pain in Multiple Sectors

When Fear Is Near: Threat Imminence Elicits Prefrontal-Periaqueductal Gray Shifts in Humans

Humans, like other animals, alter their behavior depending on whether a threat is close or distant. We investigated spatial imminence of threat by developing an active avoidance paradigm in which volunteers were pursued through a maze by a virtual predator endowed with an ability to chase, capture, and inflict pain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that as the virtual predator grew closer, brain activity shifted from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to the periaqueductal gray. This shift showed maximal expression when a high degree of pain was anticipated. Moreover, imminence-driven periaqueductal gray activity correlated with increased subjective degree of dread and decreased confidence of escape. Our findings cast light on the neural dynamics of threat anticipation and have implications for the neurobiology of human anxiety-related disorders.

Expressing and responding to pain and stoicism in home‐care nurse–patient interactions

Addressing pain and suffering are critical issues for home-care nurses. Pain is frequently experienced by people living at home with chronic illnesses, as well as acutely ill people discharged early from hospitals. The purpose of this qualitative ethology study was to explore and describe the interactions and experiences expressing and responding to pain in home-care nurse-patient interactions. A qualitative video ethology design was appropriate to inductively describe micropatterns of communicative behaviour in natural settings. Ten home-care nurse-patient dyads were videotaped over multiple visits. Data consisted of 31 videotaped visits (over 19 hours) and accompanying participant interviews. Recursive and cyclical qualitative analysis was used to describe the patterns of communication with which stoicism or endurance of pain and suffering was supported or challenged. Dominant patterns of interaction were concerned with: negotiating appropriate forms of stoicism; negotiating ways to express, understand and measure pain and suffering; and dealing with intractable or inflicted pain. The methodology of this study allows an in-depth view of typical nurse-patient interactions. It explores the subtle communicative expertise of nurses by investigating the types of communication used in nursing encounters and by explicating behavioural patterns of expressing and responding to suffering. Observational research of interaction-as-it-occurs must continue to better understand how nurses and patients co-construct personal identities of suffering and stoicism.

Osteoporosis in Rett Syndrome: A Study on Normal Values

Osteoporosis is the reduction of calcium density in bones, usually evident in postmenopausal females, yet the tendency for osteoporosis can also be identified at a young age, especially in patients with chronic diseases, disabilities, and on chronic anticonvalsant treatment. Individuals with Rett syndrome (RS) have been found to show signs of osteoporosis at a young age. This condition may cause pathological fractures, inflict pain, and seriously damage mobility. In such cases, the quality of life of the individual and her primary caretakers will be severely hampered. This article reviews the current knowledge of the phenomenon and suggests some clinical directions for the individual with RS who shows signs of osteoporosis. The article also presents novel findings from a screening test of bone strength in 35 individuals with RS at different ages using the Sunlight Omnisense 7000P ultrasound apparatus. The primary results from this investigation showed a strong and significant positive correlation between calcium intake and bone strength (p < 0.0001) as well as bone density Z values (p < 0.005). The occurrence and frequency of fractures were found connected with reduced bone strength in measurements of both the radius (p < 0.0001) and the tibia (p < 0.004) as well as with negative bone strength Z values (p = 0.03). Other findings specified within the content of the article support the implementation of a comprehensive antiosteoporotic preventive management for this population.

The General and the Maid: Mark Twain on Ulysses S. Grant and Joan of Arc

FORREST G. ROBINSON The General and the Maid: Mark Twain on Ulysses S- Grant and Joan of Arc ark twain's most deliberate and sustained attempt to tell the unvarnished truth about his own life is preserved in the nearly 250 autobiographical dictations that he competed with a stenographer between 1906 and 1909. In order to encourage complete veracity , Twain decided from the outset that the dictations would be set aside for posthumous publication. Despite such good intentions, however, the Autobiography that resulted is singularly tame and unrevealing, most especially about its subject's interior life. This truth was not lost on the earnest but frustrated penitent. "I have been dictating this autobiography of mine daily for nine months," he observed on April 6, 1906; "I have thought of fifteen hundred or two thousand incidents of my life which I am ashamed of, but I have not gotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet."1 "As to veracity," he told William Dean Howells, the autobiography "was a failure" (Howells 316). Twain thus found in practice that the conscious commitment to personal candor worked paradoxically to produce its exact opposite. It is a kindred paradox that he came closest to revealing the truth about himself in his travel and fiction writing, when the pressure to tell the personal truth was much reduced. Indeed, it was precisely because he assumed that he could not open himself in fiction that he so frequently —and without knowing it—did so. It is this inadvertently revealing autobiography—the candid self-revelations that always eluded him when he set out on purpose to unveil them, but that turned up, Arizona Quarterly Volume 61, Number i, Spring 2005 Copyright © 2005 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004- 16 10 M 42 Forrest G . Robinson often obliquely, when the censors were off guard—that concerns me here. Like most people, I suspect, but only more so, the Lincoln ofour Literature felt compelled to confess what he perceived to be his sins even as he answered an equally powerful impulse to conceal the same things. By his own account, and by unanimous consent among informed observers , the humorist's special curse was guilt. His conscience was a hive of wasps that took flight at the slightest provocation and delivered stinging assaults on his consciousness and fragile self-esteem. "Remorse was always [his] surest punishment," observes Albert Bigelow Paine. "To his last days on earth he never outgrew its pangs" (1:65). Indeed, it is not altogether misleading to say that Mark Twain felt guilty about everything. "If on any occasion," wrote his daughter, Clara, "he could manage to trace the cause of some one's mishap to something he himself had done or said, no one could persuade him that he was mistaken. Self-condemnation was the natural turn for his mind to take, yet often he accused himself of having inflicted pain or trouble when the true cause was far removed from himself" (6-7). Such promiscuity notwithstanding , Twain's conscience gravitated with marked frequency and intensity to a number offlash-points in his memory. He was unable to forgive himself for the deaths of those closest to him, especially members of his family—his brother Henry in 1858, his son Langdon in 1872, his daughter Susy in 1896, his wife Livy in 1904, and his daughter Jean in 1909. He felt inordinately responsible for the suffering of childhood friends, and for the ghastly end of the tramp who incinerated himself in the Hannibal jail with matches that Twain, a well-meaning child, had given to him. He could not reconcile himselfto what he remembered of his part in the duel that prompted his departure from Virginia City in 1864. Nor was he ever comfortable with his youthful involvement in slavery. Because he felt compelled at once to reveal and to conceal these guilty memories, they frequently surfaced in his writing, quite often obliquely, in ways that at least partially veiled or otherwise mitigated the painful truth. As an illustration of this general pattern, consider Mark Twain's guilty memories of his role in the Civil War. "The Private History of a Campaign That...

Prometheus and Pandora--together again.

Prometheus and Pandora--together again.