Scenes Of Torture Research Articles

Mirbeau's Ultraviolence

SET IN A MYTHICAL CHINA, Octave Mirbeau's 1899 novel Jardin des supplices is a sustained narrative in which scenes of bloody torture are set against a story of a decadent love affair between the narrator and the female protagonist, Clara. The novel is divided into three sections, of which the first is a frontispiece, consisting in the main of reworked material from Divagations sur le meurtre (1896) and loi du meurtre (1892). The frontispiece is a somewhat sardonic and ironic defense of murder reminiscent of the preand post-coital philosophical treatises in Sade's novels. The second section, En Mission, the first part of the novel per se, is told in flashback and is a disquisition on the petty and tawdry politics of Europe. In the middle of this section, the narrator first meets Clara. They go to the Indies and then head toward the China of hallucinatory scenarios, of fantastic justice, of torture, eroticism, and death. The third and longest part, entitled Le Jardin des Supplices, is a tour of the Chinese torture garden that gives its name to the book; it is a series of tableaux serving as fantasized image of Chinese justice and punishment. The dimensions of the love affair resemble many of those masterfully described by Mario Praz in his classic work, La Carne, la morte e il diavolo. More singular, however, is the discussion of politics. Through its construction, which opposes a satire about European politics and institutions to the depiction of the scenes of torture, Jardin des supplices has often been seen as an indication of the author's disgust with the Western world's hypocritical smugness about democracy and freedom.1 For Mirbeau, modern Western societies parade their violence as virtuous justice, their abuses as economic and moral strengths, their chicanery as a fair political system (Ziegler 162-65). Mirbeau rails against the inhuman, depersonalized world of the West for which Kafka will provide the most poignant literary version in works like The Castle and of which Hannah Arendt will eventually say, Today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such domination [of man over man]: bureaucracy or the rule of an intricate system of bureaus in which no men, neither one nor the best,

儒家的生死價值觀與安樂死

儒家的生死價值觀與安樂死

Fuente Ovejuna on the Rack: Interrogation of a Carnivalesque Theatre of Terror

relation has been established between the theatricalization of punishment and terror and the torture scene in Act 3 of Fuente Ovejuna, when the pesquisidor comes, in the name of the Catholic Monarchs, to discover the identity of Fernin G6mez's killers: Monarchs, or in this case the pesquisidor, serve as the 'dramatist,' the torturer or executioner and the villagers become the 'actors,' and the rack the 'stage' (Blue 307). The carnival of terror, however, does not dominate solely the climactic offstage representation of public torture and collective resistance; it permeates the entire performance experience of Marsillach's rendition of the play, from the moment of the audience's entry into the theatrical space until its final exit some one hundred thirty

The Experience of Places and People

The Blitz Experience is truly sensational with simulated bombing and a tour of the smoke-filled streets of London… For those with a thoroughly blood-thirsty dispostion, the London Dungeon offers horrors, like medieval torture scenes and special effects, including blood splashes as the guillotine actually beheads a victim. — It is open daily from 10.00a.m. until 5.30 p.m. and the nearest tube is London BridgeHistory was being made today as Manx Gaelic, the island's native language, was being taught for the first time in schoolsSo said the Nottingham Evening Post in two recent items, one on ‘Children's London’ (9 September 1992) and the other in ‘News in Brief’ (14 September 1992).

Theater and Terrorism: Griselda Gambaro's "Information for Foreigners"

Questions about the place of theater in a well-run society, originally debated by Plato and Aristotle, take on a new meaning, as well as a special urgency, in criminal states in which theaters are bombed and spectacular acts of cruelty exceed the boundaries of the stage. In Argentina during the 1970s both State and anti-State terrorism competed to capture the public's attention and control its behavior by staging highly dramatic acts of violence.' Terrorism, with its scenes of torture and abductions, proved highly theatrical both on a practical and on a symbolic level. Terrorists dressed their parts and set the drama in motion. The victims, like actors, stood in (albeit unwillingly) for someone or something else. Antagonists appeared on the scene as if by magic; protagonists disappeared into thin air. The revelation of corpses at the appropriate moment was as typical of terrorism as of the Elizabethan stage. Crimes became unreal, invisible in their theatricality. After all, doesn't theater allow us to deny what we see with our own eyes? Even with fifteen thousand people missing in

Devotional Themes in the Violence and Humor of the Play of the Sacrament

Devotional Themes in the Violence and Humor of the Play of the Sacrament Richard L. Homan The Play of the Sacrament has long been regarded as a historical curiosity but not as a work of art worthy to be compared with the best English plays of the fifteenth century. William Davenport's assessment in his recent book, FifteenthCentury English Drama, exemplifies the position of most critics. After summarizing the plot, he says, "This material is presented in a very odd way; it sounds in outline like a devout miracle play, but in fact it is, for much of the time, farcical."! Davenport echoes the many critics who have interpreted the admittedly sensational events of the play as intentionally comic.2 Though Davenport applauds the author's effort to employ comedy toward teaching a lesson, he concludes that this playwright does so poorly: "When a dramatist controls the relationship between slapstick and exemplification better, as in Mankind, then it is no longer at all a matter of the 'addition' of comic effects to serious subject matter ..." (p. 76). This then is the gist of the complaint against the Play of the Sacrament, that its comedy is not integral. The scenes most at issue constitute the central third of the play in which Jonathas and his four companions witness a series of miracles occasioned by their torturing of a Host, and Doctor Brundyche and his boy Colle call upon Jonathas. Because the principals are Jews and because the events are so violent as to be gruesome, most critics have assumed an underlying tone of ridicule, and indeed the play derives from a traditional antiRICHARD L. HOMAN is an assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Rider College, Lawrenceville, New Jersey. 327 328Comparative Drama Semitic tale. Also, the Doctor's scene appears tangential at best to the main action. Hence, critics have charged, the play's violence is unintentionally comical, and its intentional comedy is irrelevant. My analysis will concentrate on these three scenes: the dismembering of Jonathas (11. 385-524), the introduction of the doctor and his boy Colle (11. 523-652), and the climax which includes the appearance of Christ (11. 653-797).3 Preceding these scenes is the circumstantial sequence which results in Aristorius delivering the Host to Jonathas. Following is the sequence in which Episcopus takes over and performs a series of liturgical actions. I will suggest that the scenes with the Jews could have been taken quite seriously by the original audience, both because of the skill with which they are written and because they incorporate devotional sensibilities popular in the art and prose of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, I will show that the admittedly comic interlude with the doctor and his boy reflects the serious message of the main action in ways not previously detected. In doing so, I do not pretend to solve ultimately the problem of interpreting the play, but I hope rather to add another layer of meaning to our reading of it. A similar purpose was accomplished by Sister Nicholas Maltman, who traces the liturgical references throughout the scenes in which the Jews appear to show that their actions are not simple, physical farce, but a detailed re-enactment of the Passion with the Host taking the place of Christ himself. Her study is significant not only because it shows a pattern behind the Jews' actions (the banns which accompany the play explicitly call their actions a "new passyon "), but also because it establishes the continuity of the scenes of torture with the liturgical scenes which end the play. Though arguing that "The Croxton play deserves greater respect than it has received," these central scenes must, according to Maltman "strike the modern reader as crude and grotesque" (p. 162). Yet, perhaps like much that we admire in the Corpus Christi plays, they need only to be seen more fully within the sensibility of the fifteenth century. Any performance which hazards the use of horrific special effects risks appearing ludicrous. If the audience has any doubt about their justification in terms of the overall theme and action, the effects cause laughter or, if they are quite vivid, revulsion. Such apparently was the...

The Bough of Summer by Duane Carr, and: The Grass Creek Chronicle by Pat Carr, and: The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales by Forrest Carter, and: The Chisholms: A Novel of the Journey West by Evan Hunter, and: Don Q: A Novel by José López Portillo, and: Quetzalcoatl: A Novel by José López Portillo, and: Walks Far Woman by Colin

Reviews 289 The Bough of Summer. By Duane Carr. (El Paso, Texas: Endeavors in Humanities Press, Inc., 1976. 82 pages, $4.00.) The Grass Creek Chronicle. By Pat Carr. (El Paso, Texas: Endeavors in Humanities Press, Inc., 1976. 115 pages, $4.00.) The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. By Forrest Carter. (NY: Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede, 1976. 202 pages, $6.95.) The Chisholms: A Novel of the Journey West. By Evan Hunter. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1976. 208 pages, $8.95.) Don Q: A Novel. By José Lopez Portillo, translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger and Wilfrido Corral. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1976. 149 pages, $8.95.) Quetzalcoatl: A Novel. By José Lopez Portillo, translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger and Diana S. Goodrich. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1976. 151 pages, $8.95.) Walks Far Woman. By Colin Stuart. (New York: The Dial Press, 1976. 342 pages, $8.95.) The Carr books are really novellas, technically done well enough. Both of the Carrs can write well. They have been printed with care. Duane’s The Bough of Summer follows a young protagonist from his initial idyllic investigations into sex with a girl named Pat to a rather satisfactory orgasmic conclusion with another girl named Pat, which, evidently, will lead to marriage. There are a number of women in between, plus some good descrip­ tions of the West and Westerners from one railroad assignment to another. We are asked to believe that the young protagonist has matured through his experiences, and that he has found himself. There is a distinct tinge of Hemingway in Carr’s style, which reminds one to reflect, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” Pat Carr’s novella, The Grass Creek Chronicle, is, in some ways, more interesting. It is centered on a small Western town during World War II, and the young female protagonist is also initiated into life, this time into the recognition of the capabilities for cruelty in the smallness of small-town people. Japanese civilians come to the area for their internment, and the Grass Creekers react, for the most part, with insensitivity and “patriotism.” The rather effective conclusion takes place in Cody, with the young girl looking at the statue and thinking about the young Japanese boy who has been murdered by a Wyoming red-neck, and about death. The first chapter, published as a short story in The Southern Review, is perhaps the best chapter. Several other chapters read like good short stories. One does not wish to damn with faint praise, but any more than faint praise is not really justified. However, the Carrs write well, and when they learn to be less obvious, they may well produce some fine novels. Nothing, however, can be more obvious than Forrest Carter’s The 290 Western American Literature Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. There are enough scenes of torture and bloodshed to satisfy any reluctant sadist, and Josey is a self-sacrificing, courageous, blood-and-thunder code-of-the-West-and-the-common-man type of hero — sort of a combination of Billy the Kid, Daniel Boone, Woody Guthrie, and several other mythical figures. Evidently, this is a sequel to Josey Wales, which I haven’t read —and won’t. It is enough to find out that even viciousness can be handled with sentimentality. Evan Hunter, author of The Blackboard Jungle, has a try at the American West with The Chisholms. It is a novel about the journey West and the disintegration of a family on the way. There is some occasional good writing about highly compulsive characters, but I can’t expect it to replace any of the standard novels about the covered wagons, and it is probably too disjointed even for a good film. Colin Stuart’s Walks Far Woman is an adequate historical novel, but it lacks the depth of his Shoot an Arrow Into the Wind. The narrative device is too obviously a device, and thus mars the tale of Walks Far Woman, an exceptional character. The contemporary love affair between a young Indian boy and a white girl serves to introduce the major story of the life of Walks Far Woman, but...

Comparative Anatomy of Folk-Myth Films: Robin Hood and Antonio das Mortes

By an odd coincidence, the San Francisco Festival included two weirdly relevant films: Michael Curtiz's 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version) and Glauber Rocha's Antonio das Mortes. Both films are mythic, having little concern with character in the particularist, realist sense we associate with novels or most modern cinema; they strive instead for epic sweep and symbolic impact. (Antonio das Mortes, which is practically operatic in parts, makes some of its points through singing and dance.) Both draw upon folk tradition for much of their resonance-though in the case of the Brazilian film we must rely upon hearsav evidence, since Brazilian culture is very alien to contemporary European or American sensibilities. Juxtaposing the two films may thus throw some light on how we react to folk-myth films, and on some of the distinctions that need to be made about them, both aesthetically and politically. And it may also lend a better perspective for viewing Antonio das Mortes than that of certain enthusiastic young American radicals; for it is at least possible that both films are fundamentally conservative, and constitute (like most folk art) diversions of thought and feeling from tender political questions. Robin Hood now looks somewhat quaint stylistically, especially in its detailing: the costumes, the dialogue (You speak treason! -Aye, fluently!), Errol Flynn's flashing teeth. It has a lush, full-orchestra score, and that characteristic Technicolor visual fulsomeness which now seems so overripe. Its photography and editing are straightforward, competent Hollywood craftsmanship; there is not a daring shot, and not an ineffective one, from one end to the other. The compression of the Robin Hood story, though naturally drastic, does violence chiefly in leaving out the real ending (psychologically perhaps the most intriguing part of the legend); the basic anatomy of the myth is kept intact. Robin and his merrymen were the first--or at any rate the now best-remembered-guerrilla army. Based in the impenetrable wilds of Sherwood Forest, which was the English equivalent of Cuba's Sierra Maestra, they sallied forth on their adventures but could always rely upon the safety of the forest. They could also, in Che Guevara's phrase, hide among the people like fish in the sea. Indeed the film, which heavily emphasizes the race conflict between oppressed Saxons and domineering, corrupt Normans, emphasizes this far more than the story. Robin stole from the rich, and gave to the poor, but his political position was unambiguously monarchist. He was trying to save the Saxons from the oppression of King Richard's brother-who was freely taxing, enslaving, and torturing them-until Richard got back from his crusades. Curtiz takes pains to establish the Norman oppression concretely: Robin gives Marian a guided tour of a kind of Sherwood field hospital, where aged or broken Saxon peasants murmur thanks and devotion to Robin; and near the opening he includes scenes of torture, brutality, and confiscation of Saxon property. The emotional center of Robin Hood, in both story and film, is in the devotion of Robin (who is a noble-Sir Robin of Lockesley) and his band to Richard, the true and reputedly just king. It is this which makes it possible for everyone to approve wholeheartedly of Robin's exploits: the people he robs are clearly vile wrongdoers, intent on usurping the crown for venal ends, and the people he kills are their defenders

The Technique of Bridging Gaps in the Action of German Drama since Gottsched. II (Concluded)

Not infrequently reports are strengthened by some accompanying audible or visible manifestation, elsewhere than on the stage. If audible, the audience may, or may not, be permitted to hear. If visible, of course only the characters can see. In Gottsched's Cato, noises (groans) are heard twice by the audience as well as on the stage, according to the stage directions: (Man h6ret einen Tumult drinnen). At the first noises Porcius rushes into the next room. The others continue the conversation, for the stage must never be left unoccupied. Then Porcius comes back with the report that Cato has turned his dagger against himself. As he concludes, Cato staggers forth, having stabbed himself in secret, to die openly, on the stage, after a long exhortation to son and daughter. Schlegel in his tragedies makes frequent use of alarms as additional testimony in support of narrative. In the Trojanerinnen,' Andromache, in the confusion of the storming of the city, has hidden Hector's son in a temple. Ulysses is determined to destroy the house of Troy root and branch, and in his search for this very youth finds the mother, Andromache, who denies any knowledge of her son's whereabouts, pretending fear that he is already dead. Ulysses shrewdly suspects that the boy is hidden in the sanctuary and sends his soldiers to raze the temple to the earth. As the work of destruction progresses he points to the falling walls, for all is visible from the stage. In rising anxiety Andromache watches until her courage weakens, and to save her son's life she confesses his hiding-place in the temple. The boy is then found, seized, and hurled headlong from the highest battlement. The scene of torture for the mother, of cold calculation on the part of Ulysses, is extremely effective.