Open Secret Research Articles

Deccal Ä°ncili by Fırat Caner (review)

persona. As such, Bunch is iconic, always outrageously in your face, sometimes very funny, sometimes cringeworthy, sometimes lovable, and sometimes revolting (even to herself), but always and forever authentic. Rita D. Jacobs New York City Franziska Hauser Die Gewitterschwimmerin Cologne, Germany. Eichborn Verlag. 2018. 428 pages. How does someone turn into the person they don’t want to be? Franziska Hauser answers this question in her autofictional book, Die Gewitterschwimmerin (The thunderstorm swimmer). The title character is based on the author’s own mother, and the book, Hauser’s second novel and longlisted for the 2018 Deutscher Buchpreis, is a journey to discover how this woman was shaped by both history and her family. Two converging timelines skillfully alternate between the chronology of the Hirsch family from 1889 onward and the story of Tamara, the thunderstorm swimmer , told from the present day back to her birth in 1951. We accompany members of the Hirsch family through the pivotal events of the past century, from the Jew who wanted to be a communist to the puppeteer who embraced the chances brought by German reunification. As readers, we become involved in the triumphs and tragedies of the Hirsch family. Being privy to their thoughts, we reflect on why they behave the way they do. As the trajectories meet around fourfifths of the way through the book, the open secret that has been lurking since the very first pages is unveiled; the actions and reactions of the characters gain context, and we start to understand what has hardened Tamara. We question whether her father, the decorated resistance fighter and celebrated socialist author, was really as good a man as his public persona would suggest. However, it is only in the closing scenes when an old acquaintance visits Tamara that she becomes aware of the unpleasant secret she has spent a lifetime hiding from herself. Although the topics and background events of Die Gewitterschwimmerin may be familiar to readers of contemporary German fiction, Franziska Hauser’s vividly drawn characters keep the story moving and the interest high. The detailed images and descriptions allow us as readers to fully appreciate the constraints of the times, which are the key to understanding the novel. For all it is character led, it is the situational circumstances that dictate their actions. Die Gewitterschwimmerin is a painfully beautiful exploration of what makes a person who they are. Catherine Venner Durham, UK Fırat Caner Deccal İncili İstanbul. Heyamola. 2018. 88 pages. In this playful and provocatively ironic book, Fırat Caner makes his readers suspect the foundations of alleged truths and provides a critique of cultural and sociopolitical assumptions within his narrative. Caner’s iconoclastic effort, perhaps best translated into English as “The Demon’s Gospel,” exploits a variety of emotions, including anger, sarcasm, and irony, through which he discusses a range of issues, from the interaction of good and evil, fate and free will, to knowledge, mineworkers, alienated individuals , inequality among genders, fixed gender roles, and power relations. In his rich narration, it is hard to pinpoint when it is the demon or the narrator ’s voice surfacing. It is, however, certain the narrator/evil endeavors to unmask the genuine intentions of the status quo and expose the disguised forms of social degradation , economic exploitation, and political manipulation. Through the cynical identities of aspiring Faust and alluring Gretchen, the narrator not only portrays the corruption of interpersonal relationships but also provides a panoramic view of society. Society is argued to have emerged among the compromising forces of wealth, advertisement , authority, and media. Through his reinterpretation of history and deconstruction of popular culture with all its concrete institutions and abstract notions, Caner provides concise formulations or brief aphorisms such as “The smartest censorship ever invented is noise” or “Opposition is the smartest invention of Power.” Books in Review 106 WLT WINTER 2019 Nota Bene By embodying evil, the narrator chooses a different strategy in telling the truth, particularly when the demon is regarded as the scapegoat of every bad deed. He refutes the accusations and tries to prevent the potential rebuttals by claiming he has never existed. It is an argument that recalls the aphorism from The Usual Suspects...

Shutting our eyes to an open secret: Knowledge, attitude, and behavior of dentists regarding domestic violence in India

Background: The majority of victims of domestic violence sustain maxillofacial injuries. Dental professionals can play a vital role in preventing violence against women, helping identify abuse early, providing victims with the necessary treatment, and referring women to appropriate care. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and behavior regarding domestic violence among dental health practitioners in India. Materials and Methods: The authors surveyed a random sample of 106 dental health practitioners using a pretested, structured, and validated questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge, attitude, and behavior regarding domestic violence. Survey items were developed based on the domestic violence and health-care literatures. Collected data were subjected to statistical analysis using Chi-square test, and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Sixty-four percent of the responding dentists believed that it is not their responsibility to screen patients for abuse; 7.5% never screened for abuse, even when signs of abuse were present; and 34.9% did not have enough time in their practice to raise the issue of domestic violence. The majority of respondents believed that domestic abuse should be a private matter and asking about abuse is an invasion of privacy. Female respondents' attitude toward domestic violence was more positive when compared to the males. Conclusion: The level of knowledge regarding domestic violence among the respondents was insufficient. The findings of this study strongly recommend that this issue be included in the undergraduate dental education curriculum to improve the health care and assistance provided to the victims of abuse.

Why India urgently and dearly needs population norm for establishing medical college; - A case study of Madhya Pradesh

A good medical college transforms quotidian 12th pass students into an outstanding surgeon, paediatricians, or physicians who collectively lay the foundation of an effective health system. It is an open secret that the Medical Council of India (MCI) is solely responsible for the broken medical education system of India. On multiple occasions, MCI has been criticized for its corrupt practices and several newspapers have even called MCI by a variety of names.[1-4] The deteriorating quality of medical education in India is secondary to the establishment of substandard medical colleges due to the nexus between various stakeholders. The indifferent attitude of the medical fraternity has led to this situation. However, only a few people know about the other felonies that the MCI is silently committing. The MCI has catalysed the deterioration of the medical education system by formulating flawed policies, which are not evidence-based. One such policy-related misdemeanour is discussed in this article.

“Soothing My Child's Soul and My Own”: Dealing with Pregnancy Loss in Postcommunist Romania

AbstractIn Romania—where induced abortions were legally prohibited during communism and are now morally condemned by many—those who lose a pregnancy against their will have long been regarded with suspicion, confronted with a sense of culpability, and surrounded by silence. This ambiguity is reflected in the local terminology and the perceived etiology of loss. In this article, which is based on 15 months of fieldwork between 2012 and 2015, I illustrate the various meanings and manifestations of a silenced sense of culpability around involuntary pregnancy loss in the lives of women from Bucharest and a small town in Central Romania. I also show how many of these women attempt to break the silence around their lost fetuses and carve out a personal space of commemoration and consolation. Their informal use of forbidden religious rituals paradoxically allows them to confirm the existence of their lost little ones and to position themselves as caring, rather than culpable, mothers. [pregnancy loss, commemoration, culpability, postcommunist Romania]

The Formative Power of Metony#metoo

ABSTRACTWhat can we learn about #MeToo starting with a formal analysis of its structure? What does the linguistic affirmation of adding one “me” to another “me” ad infinitum create in its powerful drift? This metonymical structure, moving part by part, creates the wildfire spread of the movement, adding to its volatility, including its power against institutional structures that trade more in identity, the stability of an “I,” and the self-preservation of metaphor. This little fragment that we name in this regard “metony#metoo” aims to point to and name a primal scene that is both the open secret of misogynistic violence and the pain and impossibility of sexual relationships. Putting these two together, this volatile structure that points to and exposes structural violence, we ask in this essay—where will we land? What further invention beyond the vent of venting is necessary to help lend this movement an ethical dimension?

PCE Use in the Workplace: The Open Secret of Performance Enhancement

Increasing evidence suggests employees are turning to the nonprescribed use of stimulants to supplement their performance. We sit in a unique position regarding stimulants in the workforce. They are easily available, there is little stigma attached to use, and there is little information regarding the long-term safety effects of use. With that in mind, almost no formal research has been executed in the realm of organizational behavior. The purpose of this JMI ( Journal of Management Inquiry) Generative Curiosity article is to introduce readers to this literature and identify what we believe are the most important avenues of inquiry for management scholars.

Rationing: an open secret?

Rationing: an open secret?

Bargaining and the effectiveness of economic development incentives: an evaluation of the Texas chapter 313 program

Existing research has examined how the mobility of capital shapes bargains between firms and governments. The major barriers to examining bargaining behavior include the large number of dimensions to these bargains and differences in capacity and strategies firms and governments. In this paper, I examine data from a unique economic development incentive program in the state of Texas that holds almost all elements of bargaining constant, leaving only the ability of firms to walk away from a given location during the bargaining process. Using original data on the bargaining outcome as well as elite opinions, I document the extent to which firms that chose to locate in Texas made their decisions independent of this special economic development program. My findings suggest that only 15% of the firms participating in the program would have invested in another state without this incentive. The majority of these projects, and incentive dollars, were allocated to firms already committed to investing in Texas. Case studies of over 80 projects reveal that in many cases it was an open secret that companies had already committed to their investment locations prior to receiving the incentive. This implies that structure of the program encourages the overuse of incentives.

The Gender and Sexuality of Armenia

The Gender and Sexuality of Armenia

Suburban landscape and the painterly screen in Kurkvaara’s Open Secret

Abstract The article examines the constructions of space in Maunu Kurkvaara’s 1962 film Open Secret. This early Finnish New Wave film was the first to explicitly deal with the newly emerging suburban landscape around Helsinki. The theme of architecture and design, however, is not only a superficial one, but one that resonates throughout the film’s cinematic style. Kurkvaara explores the leap from architectural planned space to a physical built environment by rendering the cinematic screen into a two-dimensional canvas. The way the film plays with dimensions, shadows and uses the screen as canvas creates a painterly flatness to the film, accentuating the planned quality of the cinematic spaces. This article examines the way Open Secret uses the screen as an intersection of drawn canvas, built environment and cinematic space.

Macroeconomic Determinants of Urbanization in Pakistan

Urbanization refers to the migration of rural people to urban centers in search of better jobs. Urbanization and growth go together; no country has ever reached middle-income status without a significant population shift into cities. Urbanization has strong association with unemployment, economic growth, poverty, infrastructure, crimes, health, socio-economic conditions and education. In 2050, most of the urban population of the world will be concentrated in Asia (52%) and in Africa (21%). A simple and modest model provided reasonable results. Increase in literacy is a decisive factor that has significant impact on increasing urban population. Per capita GDP growth also positively influences the urban population. Age-structure is too an important determinant of migration and urbanization. It is an open secret that generally young persons have gone abroad. Specification and diagnostics test supported the model which reveals appropriateness and statistical soundness of the model. Serious heed is paid to delimitation of cities to make them manageable and governable. Agriculture is provided sufficient resources to discourage migration to cities.

Book Review of, Words Marked by a Place: Local Histories in Central Oregon

549 Reviews 548 OHQ vol. 119, no. 4 He became president of a bank, a position that suited the silver-tongued autocrat’s desire for the good life. Nokes has crafted an engaging portrait of an often-unlikable figure, and the book will likely appeal to a general audience. Some of the stand-alone chapters, particularly those on the Donner Party and the 1859 Broderick-Terry duel, are fascinating but somewhat disconnected from the main narrative. Nokes finds in Burnett a useful through-line to connect the early political histories of Oregon and California . One problem, however, with Nokes’s focus on the machinations of elite individuals is that he seldom examines Burnett’s life — and his commitment to ethnic cleansing, racial exclusion , and wealth accumulation — within the context of broader nineteenth-century historical processes, such as the emergence of settler colonialism and the market revolution. The limited scope of the political history also leaves major historical questions unasked and unanswered . For instance, Nokes fails to address why Oregonians repeatedly embraced Black exclusion laws while Californians consistently rejected them. Still, Nokes is an unpretentious and witty writer with an ear for a good story. Moreover, he had to rely on Burnett’s own self-serving writings for the bulk of his primary research, and he approached these texts with laudable skepticism. Ken Coleman Portland, Oregon THE SECOND COMING OF THE KKK: THE KU KLUX KLAN OF THE 1920S AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Linda Gordon Liveright Publishing Corp., a division of W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2017. Illustrations, notes, index. 288 pages. $27.95 cloth. How did the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the 1920s gain so many members and influence politics? Distinguished historian Linda Gordon draws on others’ work and her own original research to document why the Klan “owed much of its considerable electoral success to nonelectoral activities that signaled its mass following” (p. 164). She takes readers on a vivid and disturbing tour of Klan recruitment, rallies, and lobbying, and builds to a finale where the KKK disrupts the 1924 Democratic National Convention. Gordon distinguishes the twentieth century KKK from the original post–Civil War Ku Klux Klan, which mobilized white former Confederates to intimidate freed people. The modern Klan invoked this history, especially when screening D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic, Birth of a Nation. But the new KKK was a national organization, run from the top down by key leaders who profited from selling dues and regalia. The main tenets of KKK ideology were racism (especially white supremacy); nativism (that fueled anti-Catholicism and antiSemitism ); temperance; fraternalism; Christian evangelicalism; and populism. The modern Klan advocated vigilante violence and political terrorism, and its national reach and broad popularity made it a very effective political lobby. Klan supporters upheld Jim Crow and opposed immigration, championed Prohibition , lobbied against parochial schools, and advocated forced sterilization. The Klan was not confined to small-town America. Gordon demonstrates that “it was in cities and states that the Klan amassed its greatest dominance” (p. 170). Who joined? The modern Klan signed up white male (and female) native-born Protestants , and targeted African Americans, immigrants , Catholics, Jews, and others. Shared ideology was important, but Gordon shows readers that the KKK’s real strength was social networking. There was also a financial motive: any Klan member could become a recruiter and secure a share of the fees paid by those they converted. This incentive prompted like-minded people to utilize their political, social, religious, and family networks to find new Klansmen. The organization soon boasted impressive numbers. Membership was an open secret: the Klan was a public and political presence. The Klan roiled the 1924 Democratic National Convention, fueled by hatred of Catholic, anti-Prohibition contender Al Smith, whose nomination they helped to defeat. Even those who did not support the KKK feared their influence: “Neither major political party, and none of the presidents in this period . . . could be persuaded to condemn the Ku Klux Klan” (p. 165). Gordon emphasizes the emotional appeal of this new Klan, and the “structures of feeling” they manipulated. Local leaders sponsored widely advertised mass entertainments, including picnics with free food and airshows that featured a...

Becoming Blind to the Landscape: Turkification and the Precarious National Future in Occupied Istanbul

This article analyzes the making of particular political topics as yasak (taboo or forbidden). It argues for understanding the yasak not as a product of state censorship, but as a local, urban cultural process, and is based on a study of representations of urban culture and politics in a humor gazette called Diken (Thorn) published immediately after the First World War, when Istanbul was occupied by Allied forces and the Ottoman Empire was in the last phases of losing its territories to Europe. Humor gazettes (mizah) have long played a central role in Turkish politics and were the primary popular platform from which to debate the causes and futures of Istanbul's lost status as the Ottoman imperial capital. Their rhetorical strategies include reference to common places and people in stories that "illuminate" the "truths" behind Istanbul's (and Turkey's, more generally) political and cultural crises. Two of the most important developments during and after the war were economic Turkification, the violent transfer of wealth and property from non-Muslim minorities (especially Armenians) to Turks, and the emergence of a Turkish nouveau riche who benefited from wartime profiteering. Although new and ill-gotten wealth was dramatically and abundantly visible in the urban landscape, the sources of this wealth became a taboo topic. Istanbulite Turks learned how not to see (and eventually forget) the sources of postwar Turkish urban wealth by turning it into an open secret: known but not acknowledged. The postwar period is an especially rich moment for examining the making of open secrets because it occurs before the foundation of the Turkish Republic and thus the more obvious role of the modern state in authoring nationalist narratives of history that silence minority experiences.

Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea by Eunjung Kim

Reviewed by: Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea by Eunjung Kim Sonja M. Kim (bio) Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea, by Eunjung Kim. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. 312 pages. $25.95 paperback. Eunjung Kim in Curative Violence lays bare the disavowal of debility, chronic illness, and disability in South Korea from the period of Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945) to the contemporary present. She accomplishes this by tracing the construction of what she calls the "imperative to cure" which requires the erasure of markers of difference and is fueled by heteronormative and nation-building mandates. Examining lived experiences, legislation, public discourse, and representations of disability in literary and cinematic texts situated firmly in the historical moments in which they emerge, Kim reconsiders cure as "a set of political, moral, economic, emotional, and ambivalent transactions," (p. 41) questioning its necessity or even desirability. Cure acts also as a form of "crossing," one of "folded time" where a future without (or a past before) disability is projected onto the present, that produce embodied, social, material, and affective transformations. Enforcing morphological conformity not only denies diverse ways of living but also deploys violence in the name of recovery or rehabilitation. Chapter one, "Unmothering Disability," analyzes "hereditary dramas," narratives which position reproduction as a site of curative intervention by preventing the birth of potentially disabled children, thereby disqualifying disabled persons, particularly women, from parenthood. Placing the texts featured in a longer history of eugenics since the 1930s through its legal manifestation in the 1973 Motherhood and Child Health Act and into the present in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or screening, Kim raises the ethical implications of practices that keep women from reproducing through their sterilization (voluntary or not), abortion, and ineligibility as marriage partners. Hereditary dramas also fail to take into account the risks harbored and agency of choice taken by disabled women who do bear children. Familial relations take center stage in the next chapter, "Cure by Proxy," where Kim examines Vietnam War-era films and cinematic adaptations since 1937 of premodern tales of Sim Chŏng, Ongnye, and Changhwa and Hongnyŏn that obligate nondisabled bodies to serve as "curative agents" for disabled persons. The moral economy that exhorts duties to parents, husbands, and nation imposes a compulsory normality that denigrates disability and demands the sacrifice of the proxy. This "corporeal bind," moreover, imposes dependence of disabled persons on [End Page 102] their nondisabled family members, which, in some cases, result tragically, serving as a cautionary tale of the burdens placed by state legal codes that grant or deny welfare eligibility. Popular discussion and adjudication of sexual violence, agency, and sexuality of disabled persons are explored in chapters three and five. "Violence as a Way of Loving" problematizes the logic that justifies sexual assault and rape of disabled women as "compassionate cure," form of communication, or enabler of femininity. Kim rereads the "madwoman" in literary texts and films such as Adada (1987, based on a 1935 novella), A Petal (1996, based on a 1988 novel), and The Song of Songs (2000) not as the vehicle for the "wound and site of the nation's healing" (p. 147) or fantasy of idyllic (and non-existent) past village communities but as instructive to the hostility and cruelty of humans in response to difference. This is poignantly demonstrated by the film Togani (2001, based on a novel inspired by actual events), which refuses to abide to the "social scripts of violence" and instead protests that the alienation and sexual victimization of disabled persons makes life not possible without substantive change. Heteronormativity and expectations for gendered performance also undergird contemporary presentations of the sexuality of disabled persons as a social problem in chapter five "Curing Virginity." The sex drive of disabled men (presumed natural, invoking pity for their virginal life) and women (understood as excess and to be eradicated) invites curative interventions. Films such as Pink Palace (2005) and Sex Volunteer: Open Secret, the First Story (2009) and the Korean translation of the Japanese book Sex Volunteers (2005) promote the legalization and subsidization of sexual services for disabled persons by "sex volunteers" or "sex surrogates...

Words Marked by a Place: Local Histories in Central Oregon by Jarold Ramsey

549 Reviews 548 OHQ vol. 119, no. 4 He became president of a bank, a position that suited the silver-tongued autocrat’s desire for the good life. Nokes has crafted an engaging portrait of an often-unlikable figure, and the book will likely appeal to a general audience. Some of the stand-alone chapters, particularly those on the Donner Party and the 1859 Broderick-Terry duel, are fascinating but somewhat disconnected from the main narrative. Nokes finds in Burnett a useful through-line to connect the early political histories of Oregon and California . One problem, however, with Nokes’s focus on the machinations of elite individuals is that he seldom examines Burnett’s life — and his commitment to ethnic cleansing, racial exclusion , and wealth accumulation — within the context of broader nineteenth-century historical processes, such as the emergence of settler colonialism and the market revolution. The limited scope of the political history also leaves major historical questions unasked and unanswered . For instance, Nokes fails to address why Oregonians repeatedly embraced Black exclusion laws while Californians consistently rejected them. Still, Nokes is an unpretentious and witty writer with an ear for a good story. Moreover, he had to rely on Burnett’s own self-serving writings for the bulk of his primary research, and he approached these texts with laudable skepticism. Ken Coleman Portland, Oregon THE SECOND COMING OF THE KKK: THE KU KLUX KLAN OF THE 1920S AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Linda Gordon Liveright Publishing Corp., a division of W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2017. Illustrations, notes, index. 288 pages. $27.95 cloth. How did the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the 1920s gain so many members and influence politics? Distinguished historian Linda Gordon draws on others’ work and her own original research to document why the Klan “owed much of its considerable electoral success to nonelectoral activities that signaled its mass following” (p. 164). She takes readers on a vivid and disturbing tour of Klan recruitment, rallies, and lobbying, and builds to a finale where the KKK disrupts the 1924 Democratic National Convention. Gordon distinguishes the twentieth century KKK from the original post–Civil War Ku Klux Klan, which mobilized white former Confederates to intimidate freed people. The modern Klan invoked this history, especially when screening D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic, Birth of a Nation. But the new KKK was a national organization, run from the top down by key leaders who profited from selling dues and regalia. The main tenets of KKK ideology were racism (especially white supremacy); nativism (that fueled anti-Catholicism and antiSemitism ); temperance; fraternalism; Christian evangelicalism; and populism. The modern Klan advocated vigilante violence and political terrorism, and its national reach and broad popularity made it a very effective political lobby. Klan supporters upheld Jim Crow and opposed immigration, championed Prohibition , lobbied against parochial schools, and advocated forced sterilization. The Klan was not confined to small-town America. Gordon demonstrates that “it was in cities and states that the Klan amassed its greatest dominance” (p. 170). Who joined? The modern Klan signed up white male (and female) native-born Protestants , and targeted African Americans, immigrants , Catholics, Jews, and others. Shared ideology was important, but Gordon shows readers that the KKK’s real strength was social networking. There was also a financial motive: any Klan member could become a recruiter and secure a share of the fees paid by those they converted. This incentive prompted like-minded people to utilize their political, social, religious, and family networks to find new Klansmen. The organization soon boasted impressive numbers. Membership was an open secret: the Klan was a public and political presence. The Klan roiled the 1924 Democratic National Convention, fueled by hatred of Catholic, anti-Prohibition contender Al Smith, whose nomination they helped to defeat. Even those who did not support the KKK feared their influence: “Neither major political party, and none of the presidents in this period . . . could be persuaded to condemn the Ku Klux Klan” (p. 165). Gordon emphasizes the emotional appeal of this new Klan, and the “structures of feeling” they manipulated. Local leaders sponsored widely advertised mass entertainments, including picnics with free food and airshows that featured a...

The Necessity to Nullify: On the Jury and Entrapment

Jury nullification, the power of a jury to issue a not guilty verdict regardless of the evidence, is the paradigmatic open secret of the criminal justice system, deeply embedded in the tradition of the common law on which it was founded and yet perpetually controversial. It is also one of the clearest indicators of the political nature of jury service, a task of citizenship that goes beyond serving as legal functionaries to include engagement on the fundamental question of who deserves to be punished. This article suggests that the jury’s role within entrapment cases has been under-theorized at great disservice to its central task. Through an examination of how the entrapment defense was manifested and responded to in three cases, I argue that such cases, even more so than in other criminal cases, give clarity to precisely what legal judgment by laypeople, who are unconnected to the effort, expense, and ideology of law enforcement, requires. Using nullification as a beacon sheds light on key aspects of the process of judgment including: a heightened sense of the jury’s watchdog function in relation to the state, the limits of legalism in determining punishment, the need for scrutiny around juror’s biases, and the law enforcement standards necessary for maintaining the presumption of innocence of the defendant that the Constitution requires.

Failure to launch

NASA has been promising to land humans on Mars for decades, but it can't afford the trip, says Leah Crane

Elizabeth Bishop’s Grammar School for the Aspect-Blind and A-rhetorical

This paper uses Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “Over 2000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance” as an exemplar that displays the centrality of aspect perception in her work.

“Scrutinize her actions, punish her body to saver her soul”: The Figure of the Governess in Jane Eyre

&#x0D; In 1840s the figure of the governess, particularly her sexuality became a subject of much concern to the periodical essayists. The Victorian period, as Foucault argues saw an immense proliferation of discourses about sex. Sexuality thus came into being as the ultimate open secret. This justified the attention devoted to the distressed governess by emphasizing the central role she played in reproducing the domestic ideal- on one hand she, as a teacher was to teach her students ‘accomplishments’ that would attract a good husband and later make them good wives and mothers yet at the same time police the emergence of undue assertiveness or sexuality in her maturing charges.&#x0D; The employment of women as governess also mobilized and engaged with two of the most important representations of women: the figure who epitomized the domestic ideal-the wife/mother, and the figures who threatened to destroy it-the working-class women/prostitutes.&#x0D; &#x0D; It is within these contexts that the paper will try and place Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The paper would also analyse the way this stereotypical representation of women throws light on the condition of women in general and working-class women.

“Scrutinize her actions, punish her body to saver her soul”: The Figure of the Governess in Jane Eyre

In 1840s the figure of the governess, particularly her sexuality became a subject of much concern to the periodical essayists. The Victorian period, as Foucault argues saw an immense proliferation of discourses about sex. Sexuality thus came into being as the ultimate open secret. This justified the attention devoted to the distressed governess by emphasizing the central role she played in reproducing the domestic ideal- on one hand she, as a teacher was to teach her students ‘accomplishments’ that would attract a good husband and later make them good wives and mothers yet at the same time police the emergence of undue assertiveness or sexuality in her maturing charges. The employment of women as governess also mobilized and engaged with two of the most important representations of women: the figure who epitomized the domestic ideal-the wife/mother, and the figures who threatened to destroy it-the working-class women/prostitutes. It is within these contexts that the paper will try and place Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The paper would also analyse the way this stereotypical representation of women throws light on the condition of women in general and working-class women.