The Interconnection of Panopticism and the Cult of Domesticity - Essay Example

The Interconnection of Panopticism and the Cult of Domesti In Michel Foucault's discussion of Panopticism, he describes the measures of discipline taken in the late 1600's to control an outbreak of plague. The controlling authorities set up a system of isolation for the town's inhabitants, as well as appropriate measure's by which the people's welfare could be both determined and addressed, should the need arise. Foucault describes the authoritarian position that by controlling the people, their best interests could most easily be maintained. He furthers this illustration by describing Bentham's panopticon prison design, a model in which a central tower observes a surrounding circle of prison cells. The prisoners themselves are constantly isolated from each other but remain in full view of the watchtower. The psychological affect upon the prisoners is that by being constantly aware of the possibility of the tower's attention, they modify their behavior accordingly. Foucault claims this relation has been adapted to all aspects of society, elements of which will be discussed shortly. However, the implications of this system are apparent in the social doctrines of the "Cult of Domesticity" which existed in America roughly from 1850-1950. The Cult of Domesticity refers to the prevailing attitudes that arose with the industrial age, in which the patriarch of the household went to work while the wife and children remained at home. Social standards therefore demanded a woman be pious (to uphold the religious standards of the house), pure (in terms of sexual felicity to the husband), submissive (in that the husband had final authority), and domestic (housework maintenance was believed to strengthen piety and purity). As the working world belonged to men, the order of the household was a woman's domain. The combination of social panopticism and demands of the cult of domesticity naturally caused distress to the psyche of many women. Evidence of both can be illuminated through examining their influence in the lives of women: firstly by analyzing such stories as "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, and "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, then lastly by examining the life of Ida B. Wells through the documentary Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman portrays an invalid narrator who is essentially kept helpless and bedridden by her husband, John, and his sister Jennie. Not only is her husband the authority in the house, he is also a practicing physician. This makes the narrator at a distinct disadvantage, for not only must she be submissive to her husband, but he is privy to the 'scientific' theories bolstering the cult of domesticity. These sexist theories were supported by several masculine observations: firstly, that women had less physical stamina than men, as their monthly menstruations incapacitate them while also inducing 'insanity', and secondly, because female systems fluctuated so to their reproductive cycles, women were viewed as delicate and therefore susceptible to over exhaustion. Medical opinion of the time held that the body contained only a certain amount of energy; as a woman's reproductive system was so complex, all of her energy must be available to its equilibrium. Intellectual activity was believed to drain away energy need for these organs hence, Gilman's narrator is constantly fearful that she will be discovered writing in her book. John, as a doctor, proscribes nothing but rest for the narrator to recover her energies; as her husband, he enforces this by keeping her isolated in the bedroom most of the day. The circumstances of the narrator directly parallel the conditions Foucault describes in the Panopticon prison model. The prisoner is kept under constant, but random, observation, to the point where she begins to suspect constant observation when she personifies the wallpaper into a watchful guard. The wallpaper becomes a symbol of her imprisonment, while she identifies with the hallucination of a woman that she has projected as a prisoner beneath the wallpaper. Foucault uses the comparison of the plague community and the prison as a sign of disciplinary evolution, where it first must be broken into mechanical function ability and the moves towards a definition of everyday power relations "power reduced to its ideal from," as he refers to it. This power structure is clearly borne out in Gilman's narrator, for she is kept virtual prisoner by her 'keepers'. Moreover, the psychological effects Foucault has described are illustrated in how the narrator both acts in and seeks to project the picture of a 'model prisoner'. Foucault notes that the nature of the Panopticon machinery is such that it is open to outside observation (i.e. the narrator and husband might receive visitors) or that the surveillance can have interchangeable observers (which is why John can be exchanged for Jennie). Regardless of her caretaker/guard, the narrator attempts to act as demanded of heruntil the pressure grows too great and she locks the door, thereby blocking the vision of the tower and leaving her to deal freely with the imagined observer of the wallpaper. But Foucault points out the myriad of applications of the mechanism, for it allows the observer to compare prisoners, workers, schoolchildren, or anyone else the power structure's essence can be applied to and make comparisons. This hierarchal organization allows the central power to have a constant flow of input for assessment; it can be applied whenever a single authority is dealing with a multiplicity of single units. John from Gilman's story could easily have had a sting of patients isolated across the land and been comparing treatment methods. Moreover, Foucault (and Bentham) acknowledges that the central tower is equally observable to it surrounding spokes of power and that therefore it's fate is linked to the cells it observes. A riot, or spread of disease, for example, would immediately attack the center. This feedback loop is evident in John's distraught for his wife's madness, but is even more apparent in Kate Chopin's story "The Story of an Hour". In this plot Louise Mallard is told her husband is dead, to which she responds with such a strong sense of freedom that, when he returns alive, she dies of "the joy that kills" or what is diagnosed by her doctors as heart disease. Mrs. Mallard's perspective is basically that of a prisoner in a cell watching as the central tower, and therefore the existing power structure, collapse before her eyes. There would be "no powerful will bending hers" anymore. Unfortunately, this proves to be a momentary freedom, a fleeting possibility, and with her husband's return, the shock of disappointment is strong enough to kill her. Yet Foucault also sites one of the historical predecessors of the formation of the Panopticism power model to be the history of investigation. Through the Middle Ages inquisitory investigation came to replace random accusation when penalties were concerned; likewise the culminating public execution served as both verifiable evidence and behavior reinforcement to the general population. This scientific method is represented in Chopin's story by the newspaper agent waiting for a second confirmation before Mrs. Mallard was informed of her husband's death. This proves perfunctory, for had they waited for final evidence - Brently Mallard's body - then Louise's subsequent death could have been avoided. The mechanics of procedure here were not followed satisfactorily, yet the implications of the events can be interpreted as validating 'scientific' claims of the Cult of Domesticity regarding the physique of women. Louise's body was naturally weak; the female's smaller brain (which was therefore inferior and more primitive) was undoubtedly overcome by the rush of blood needed to contemplate her new station. The Cult of Domesticity would declare that her physical state was weakened by having to contemplate affairs outside of the household. Chopin instead reveals that her excitement was due directly to contemplating her newfound freedom, implying that having that freedom realized, however briefly, was enough the Louise Mallard could not return to the previous power structure. She would die instead. The full ramifications of Mrs. Mallard's actions imply that not only do women oppose the accepted cult of domesticity, but are capable of acting against it. The inherent constrictions of the social standard can be used as a weapon, and is done so to a greater extent in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily". The character of Miss Emily Grierson Uses the social standard as both a defense and a weapon, both through her seclusion and through her murder of Homer Barron. Because she is a woman, she is able to withdraw from society completely within her house; because of the general sympathy of her spinsterhood, she is informed (through an inventive story) that she will never have to pay taxes after her father dies. Because Emil is told this by Colonel Sartoris, the mayor and a recognized male authority figure, she clings to this fact despite later attempts of the local government to levy taxes upon her property. She recognizes him as a dual authority, both from his military standing and his elected position, and therefore the highest authority the 'house' (i.e. the community) has had - a position that the council finds hard to refute. Homer Barron's demise is directly related to the understanding of a woman's submissiveness to her 'husband', in that her most precious 'treasure' was her virginity and that when she surrendered this to a man, she became subordinate to him. Because a woman's accepted natural role was motherhood, spinsters and celibates were expected to be easily susceptible to mental and physical illness, due to the unrelieved pressures of their reproductive systems. Emily's eccentricities were tolerated for these reasons, but she herself used these social expectations to ensure her own piece of mind. By murdering Barron, keeping his body and presumably sleeping beside it for years, she has re-established in her mind a household order accommodating with the social demands of her day. Moreover, she has established an improved version, for not only does she have a husband physically present, but she does not have to tolerate many demands from him. Foucault points out that the methodology of Panopticism was of most immediate benefit to such discipline oriented organizations as schools, religious institutes, and the military. It is when the benefits of this power structure became evident that the centralization of authority began to be applied to other organizations: especially those of state-controlled discipline. Jefferson county operates under this principle, both in its organization of the Board of Aldermen, but most especially paralleling Foucault's description of the rise of police as an institution. The community acts as a self-patrolling vanguard of the social standards, which is what draws attention to Emily's eccentricities. She is an individual cell that is not functioning in the same manner as the rest of the cells in her community. Direct action is taken in some instances, such as the sprinkling of lime on her property to alleviate the smell of some decomposing body. Indirect action is used as well, as when Emily initially begins to associate with Barron, the community is both satisfied she is adapting to normal social conduct and openly hope for her marriage. Yet while Emily is equitable with a cell in the Panopticon, the inverse relation to the tower is also apparent. She regards the social standards and adapts to them in her own way. But despite this , she realizes that she has crossed certain social mores of the community, which is why Barron's ultimate fate is hidden until after her own death. She has managed to try and rebel against the system even while attempting to adapt to it. Yet the most direct inversion of both systems can be found in the example of the life of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Wells, facing the double dilemma of being both a woman and black, recognized the systematic way in which the Panoptic system operated and attacked it through these venues. Despite her eventual marriage to Ferdinand L. Barnett and bearing children from this union, Ida was both a journalist and activist her entire life. She rejected social expectations at the age of 16 when, both of her parents dying in a Yellow Fever epidemic, she took on a teaching job to keep her three remaining siblings together. This eventually led to a career in journalism. By recognizing the economic support of racism, she encouraged some 20,000 blacks to migrate West from Memphis (taking away a significant customer base) while she herself remained to organize a boycott of the new trolley line. These efforts resulted in her exile from the South, yet her campaign through the national black press, as well as her European campaigns resulted in a cessation of lynchings in Memphis, Tennessee, for at least 20 years. While she was an advocate or organizing mobilization in general, she was especially an advocate of the black women club movements. She single-handedly helped organize the fist National Anti-Lynching Campaign (of women) in Washington, helped launch the London Anti-Lynching Committee (also of women), and then co-founded the NAACP. Ida B. Wells was using the systematic methods of Panopticism to organize a disciplined opposition to prevalent racism and sexism. Likewise, Wells used the standards of the cult of domesticity to attack social prejudices. Directly following the Civil War, Ida was taught in school by Northern women with what she called "their splendid Christian Courage." This element of piety became a powerful tool in Ida's hands, for she attacked hate crimes through the basis of Christian conscious. She was meticulous in her reporting standards, even using white newspaper as sources, to stir the cultural conscience. When she began investigating the frequent lynching excuse that a white woman had been raped, she found it untrue in every case. She instead hypothesized that it might be a natural human inclination to find beauty in the opposite sex regardless of race, a theory which so flew in the face the accepted cult of domesticity (that a woman might have sexual urges other than to her husband/her race) that the enraged reaction resulted in her exile from the South. She again used conscience, both in her international campaigns and in her attack of the World Fair Columbian Exposition in Chicago, citing that African American influence was not represented. Still, Ida did not win every battle with the cult of domesticity: black leaders grew leery of both her militancy and the fact that she was a woman despite their open acceptance of Frederick Douglas, one of her strongest supporters. Such political intrigue voted her out of authority in the NAACP. Yet she was still able to use this structure to her advantage, such as the case of the Arkansas Race Riots, when she was smuggled into prison along with a group of other visiting women. Their visit was accepted by the male guard as normal, yet Ida interviewed the prisoners, published a pamphlet with their story, and was able to secure their release. Panopticsm and the Cult of Domesticity proved daunting adversaries to the women of that time, yet through representation as the aforementioned stories, people such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett were able to learn from their instruction. These systems most understand things that operate on their level; injustie can most easily be explained through words authorities understand. The Cult of Domesticity is far from erased and the power structure of Panopticism is stronger than ever, yet through closer study they do reveal ways in which to operate within these closed systems, ideally to the benefit of all involved. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." 1894. Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House, 1979. (195-228). Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Boston: Small & Maynard, 1899. Ida B. Wells: a Passion for Justice. Videotape. Prod. The American Experience. Public Broadcasting Service, 1989. 60 min. "The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood." 1998. City University of New York. 10 Mar. 2006. Read More