On the Panoptical Eye of Self-Caring in Nabokov’s The Eye: A Foucauldian Analysis

Nabokov’s protagonist’s sufferings, suicide, and final happiness in The Eye (1930) can be analyzed through Foucault’s policy of the “care of the self” based on which an individual acts in a parrhesiastic relationship with himself to panoptically watch and discover himself. Smurov’s first-person I/eye sacrifices his former self to be reborn from the surveying eyes of his separated self. This Panopticon metaphor is bifurcated into the monopticon and the synopticon, the former letting Smurov externally watch over himself and the latter reflecting back to him others’ views of him. Thus, Smurov recognizes the true nature of his identity to be the sum of his concept of himself and his reflections in others’ minds. He recognizes that he is always being panoptically watched and created. His final happiness, therefore, emphasizes that identity stands in a symbiotic relationship with the surveillance of the self, without which the individual stays in darkness

On Dr. Stockmann’s Parrhesia: Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” in the Light of Foucault

An honest intellectual dutifully standing with truth against lies and treacheries of his society is a parrhesiastic figure in Foucault’s terminology. Foucault takes parrhesia as the fearless and frank speech regarding the truth of something or a situation before truth-mongering and public deception and he takes the parrhesiastic as the spokesperson for truth. In this light, Dr. Stockmann in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People occupies a unique position within Ibsen’s political philosophy. Dutifully criticizing what the majority blindly take for granted from their liar leaders in the name of democracy, Dr. Stockmann fulfills the role of a parrhesiastic figure that stands against socio-political corruption. He enters a parrhesiastic game with both the majority and the officialdom to fulfill his democratic parrhesia as a truthful citizen before the duped community, while covertly preparing for his own philosophic parrhesia or self-care within the conformist community. However, his final failure lies in his confrontation with democracy itself, which wrongly gives the right of speaking even to the liars. This article thus aims at analyzing Ibsen’s play through a Foucauldian perspective regarding the concept of parrhesia and its relation to democracy. It is to reveal Ibsen’s satire on the fake ideology of democracy and highlight the necessity of humanity’s parrhesiastic self-care for the well-being of the self and the others

THE DIFFÉRENED IN PAUL AUSTER’S CITY OF GLASS: A LYOTARDIAN APPROACH

Postulating on Quinn and the Stillmans’ state of dissipation at theend of Auster’s City of Glass, one can align it with what Lyotard dubs as astate of différend. Lyotard defines différend as a state of clash between twoparties over the distribution of justice which is conventionally made through metanarratives.Since the concept of justice, in Lyotard’s view, has always been in such a waythat there is always justice to one party and injustice to the other one,Lyotard holds that there can be no true justice. Hence Lyotard claims that the appropriatestate of justice in such a condition is the différend, a state of the sublime,of simultaneous pleasure and pain, in which there is no resolution for eitherparty and the clash is always on the run. Extrapolating on this issue, thispaper argues that Quinn and the Stillmans are left in such a state at the endof Auster’s City of Glass, and it is in accordance with the inability oflanguage to signify or to convey meaning effectively as presented by Auster.Quinn develops madness, a consequence of his pain over his identity crisis,while merging as a “Private eye” in the urban world of his pleasure; StillmanSr, suffering the corrupt state of language, finds pleasure and relief in committingsuicide; and Virginia and Peter just vanish, their pleasure or pain being unrepresented,since there is no medium of articulation for their rights. The findings pointto the incommensurability of justice among and specific to these characters alongwith the inability of language to convey any meaning which highlights the stateof the différend that Auster presents. The case remains open as neither party achievesan appropriate justice. Their final disappearance hints to their unpresentablepresences or final painful pleasures

Double Effect and Black Revenge in Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing

A white woman’s murder by a black man, as depicted in Doris Lessing’s The Grass IS Singing, incorporates the revengeful act of an abandonment-neurotic black servant against a white female master with tactile delirium in the course of a paradoxical relationship of love and hate. The final homicide and the consequent act of surrender by Moses, the murderer, convey his paradoxical attitude toward his white master-beloved. This attitude begins with hatred, intensifies with mutual affection, and ends in murder. Focusing on the interracial revenge that takes place in the novel under study, the authors of this paper argue that Moses’ motivation in killing Mary originates from the ambivalence of his state of living under colonization and his learnings in Christianity, struggling with the Double-Effect Reasoning inaugurated by and in defense of black honor or negritude. As such, Moses’ sense of guilt and his subsequent surrender are the consequences of traditional and colonial internalization of sin, already present in him as a native of his revenge or honor-based society, influenced by Lobengula’s rule in which the criminal submits to punishment willingly, as well as missionary teachings. Through an interdisciplinary link between the Double-Effect Reasoning and the psychoanalytical perspective to the black problem promoted by Frantz Fanon, The Grass Is Singing thus seems to exempt Moses in his crime against the white race, represented by Mary, as well as to justify Moses self-surrender in defense of negritude and black honor

Tubitak i „potencijal za bitak“ u pustoj zemlji: Austerova Zemlja posljednjih stvari

This paper proposes a reading of Paul Auster’s novel In the Country of Last Things (1987) through the conceptual lens of Heidegger’s theory of Dasein. It focuses on Heidegger’s definition of human nature as Dasein by discussing the range of existential possibilities that the German philosopher outlined for human beings in order to make authentic sense of their being and life before death. The progression from birth to death constitutes Dasein’s state of being or its existence. However, not many individuals are conscious of this process, being lost in the limiting situation of their everydayness. Accordingly, inauthentic lives without understanding one’s true possibilities take place. A fictional visualization of Dasein’s attempts at an authentic existence within its limiting situation or, we could say, within its typical society, can concretize Heidegger’s points in a better way. Concerning Paul Auster’s existential outlook on life, In the Country of Last Things is a portrayal of such a struggle for an authentic existence in a dystopian predicament where humankind is thrown into the lowest possible situation. Allegorically, the novel is a laboratory for experimenting with human potentiality for being in the face of severely lacking conditions for the fulfilment of biological needs, with death always in the background. In such a thrown state of life, the protagonist, Anna Blume, is called to authenticity against others’ inauthenticity and life-threatening situations, highlighting the possibility of living in a dystopia through authentic selfhood. The paper thus argues that Auster’s existentialism in this novel is not alien to Heidegger’s worldview on human existence.Rad predlaže čitanje romana Paula Austera U zemlji posljednjih stvari (1987) kroz konceptualnu perspektivu Heideggerove teorije tubitka. Naglasak se stavlja na Heideggerovu definiciju ljudske prirode kao tubitka i pritom se raspravlja o rasponu egzistencijalnih mogućnosti na koje njemački filozof upućuje ljudska bića kako bi prije smrti postigla autentičan osjećaj vlastitoga bića i života. Kretanje od rođenja prema smrti predstavlja tubitkovo stanje bitka, odnosno egzistenciju. Međutim, rijetki su svjesni toga procesa te su izgubljeni u ograničavajućoj situaciji svakodnevnog života. U skladu s time, neautentični su životi nesvjesni vlastitih mogućnosti. Fikcionalna vizualizacija tubitkovih pokušaja autentičnoga postojanja unutar svoje ograničavajuće situacije ili, mogli bismo reći, unutar svog uobičajenoga društva, može na bolji način konkretizirati Heideggerove tvrdnje. Kada je u pitanju Austerov egzistencijalni pogled na život, U zemlji posljednjih stvari prikaz je jedne takve borbe za autentično postojanje u distopijskom svijetu u kojem je čovječanstvo svedeno na najnižu životnu situaciju. U alegorijskom smislu, roman predstavlja laboratorij za eksperimentiranje s ljudskim potencijalom bitka suočenog s izuzetno nepovoljnim uvjetima za ispunjenje bioloških potreba neprestano praćenima smrću koja vreba iz prikrajka. U takvom teškom životnom okruženju protagonistica Anna Blume osjeća poriv prema autentičnosti usprkos neautentičnosti drugih ljudi i sveprisutnoj smrtnoj opasnosti, pritom naglašavajući mogućnost života usred distopije na temelju autentične svijesti o sebi. U radu se stoga tvrdi da je egzistencijalizam u Austerovu romanu blizak Heideggerovu svjetonazoru o ljudskom postojanju

Negrophobia and Anti-Negritude in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) stands as an outstanding novel of character regarding the destroying effects of Negrophobia among the black on themselves. Pecola Breedlove’s agony over blue eyes arises from an undeveloped Negritude, and the discord within the black society towards Negrophobia, and a strong fear of her own race. Pecola’s non-reconciliation with her black identity, inflamed by domestic violence and the black societal indifference, craves for blue eyes, the paradigm of whiteness and white beauty. Consequently, she develops an anti-black neurosis because of a feeling of nonexistence both within her community and the white society, although she remains entangled within the interstitial space of blackness and whiteness as in a purgatory of suffering. Her final madness is the culmination of a black human being who is unable to neither accept and defend her Negritude, nor able to transcend to a seemingly higher, but fake, state of being

THE ALTERNATE HISTORY OF THE 1918 FLU AS A CONSPIRACY IN DON’T NOD’S VAMPYR

Pandemics have always been under scrutiny as part of conspiratorial schemes to control humanity. The 1918 Flu (1918-1920), suspiciously following World War I, is a case in point that inspired the video game Vampyr (Don’t Nod, 2018). Recounting the Great Flu and the conditions of post-WWI London in 1918 with a dose of cultism and mysticism, Vampyr presents us with an alternate history of the world. This paper, following an interdisciplinary approach in investigating the alternate worlds of virtual games in light of quantum physics and conspiracy theories, tries to explore the nature of alternate histories and their plausible scenarios about the way of the world, here about the cause of pandemics. Vampyr is thus played as an alternate history where overcoming the Flu, as in other pandemics, is an existential game of schemes, choices and consequences. Considering the open world of Vampyr and the range of choices the player has in developing its storyline, this analysis reveals how conspiracies by shadow governments or polities may run the world and how the mass of people are blind to them. The mystical reason behind the disaster in Vampyr is associated with an evil entity appearing every few centuries to unleash a new pathogen into humanity, implying conspiracies against overpopulation at certain periods throughout history. Accordingly, players in Vampyr can choose to make the world better or continue with darker schemes, a gaming fact that runs through the world with policy-makers as its players

Dasein’s “Potentiality-for-Being“ in a Wasteland: The Case of Auster’s In the Country of Last Things

This paper proposes a reading of Paul Auster’s novel In the Country of Last Things (1987) through the conceptual lens of Heidegger’s theory of Dasein. It focuses on Heidegger’s definition of human nature as Dasein by discussing the range of existential possibilities that the German philosopher outlined for human beings in order to make authentic sense of their being and life before death. The progression from birth to death constitutes Dasein’s state of being or its existence. However, not many individuals are conscious of this process, being lost in the limiting situation of their everydayness. Accordingly, inauthentic lives without understanding one’s true possibilities take place. A fictional visualization of Dasein’s attempts at an authentic existence within its limiting situation or, we could say, within its typical society, can concretize Heidegger’s points in a better way. Concerning Paul Auster’s existential outlook on life, In the Country of Last Things is a portrayal of such a struggle for an authentic existence in a dystopian predicament where humankind is thrown into the lowest possible situation. Allegorically, the novel is a laboratory for experimenting with human potentiality for being in the face of severely lacking conditions for the fulfilment of biological needs, with death always in the background. In such a thrown state of life, the protagonist, Anna Blume, is called to authenticity against others’ inauthenticity and life-threatening situations, highlighting the possibility of living in a dystopia through authentic selfhood. The paper thus argues that Auster’s existentialism in this novel is not alien to Heidegger’s worldview on human existence