The Enlightenment,
or “L’Age des Lumieres”: Spectacle,
Theatre, and the Imagination
Introduction: Theatre of Performance and the Theatre of
Place
“And then we find
ourselves asking whether modernity constitutes the sequel to the Enlightenment
and its development, or whether we are to see it as a rupture or a deviation
with respect to the basic principles of the eighteenth century.” (Foucault 39)
Kant has written that a separation exists between the
private and the public use of reason; the private use being that which is bound
by the rules of our station or role in life. Publicly, we have a right to
reason freely as individuals, whereas within our role, we need to suppress this
reason to comply with the standards set down by how a person of our position is
supposed to act. Aphra Behn’s “Emperor of the Moon” and Jane Austen’s Northanger
Abbey subvert this idea, showing that not only can the private use of
reason be dangerous especially when bound by the requirements of role, but the
private use of imagination and emotion (not bound by a public display) can
actually supersede Reason and lead to a better, more objective use of Reason.
This is albeit a complex dynamic with many caveats to pull apart, but, as seen
in both these examples, we see a rupture in the standard Kantian Enlightenment
narrative that had been gaining ground throughout the 17th and 18th
centuries. From the beginning of the
period in 1687 when “Emperor of the Moon” was first performed to the end in
1798 when Northanger Abbey was first published, we see alternatives to
the typical Enlightenment narrative.
It is not
only dangerous for a person to be left to themselves with tools which are
limiting to the particular application, it is also dangerous to rely on public
use of reason to always be reliable or immune from manipulation. “The Emperor
of the Moon” was performed a century before Kant wrote his essay “What is Enlightenment?”,
so clearly, it is not so much going against Kant as much as hitting on an
alternative early on. Was Behn also veering off from science and acting/writing
as a scientist? Her work shows us that she had understood science well and
could not only write about current scientific discoveries, but also could apply
these discoveries in a way that expressed her competency. In the play, the
virtuoso Baliardo was certainly claiming to be using reason in accordance with
his role. Could we then be seeing of glimpse of Foucault’s idea of modernity in
Behn’s work? Through Behn, the spectator is asked to see glimpses or vignettes
of the ability of individuals (either as a group or singular but in the case of
theatre spectatorship, this would constitute both) to use a form of reason
distanced from role and the public. The outward passions and political displays
of spectacle can be used with intent and being unaware due to the necessity of
one’s role can lead to not only ridicule and blindsiding, but inevitably, farce.
Behn, in essence, is criticizing empty spectacle and spectacle which serves to
manipulate without individual use of Reason.
In
“Emperor of the Moon”, Behn makes use of performative space to accomplish her
objectives. She makes use of the spectators to serve as a “captive audience”
enlisted voluntarily to forward these objectives (as one would do in a blind
experiment, or a focus group). She is using her power and role as playwright to
show how the private “role” of Baliardo can lead him astray. Interestingly
enough, Behn’s role is public and involves consumption by the public. Behn is
satirizing the very theatre she is creating using a form of metatextuality (the
play is a parody of Dryden’s “Albion and Abanius”). Is she following the
standards of her role? While this is debatable, what should be emphasized is
that the play itself (her creation) speaks indirectly on the problem of public
display of spectacle, and it is her use of reason and the imagination required
to create a literary work that enables this to happen. Could we also be seeing
the playwright becoming a novelist? Is her private use of reason and its
ability to speak metaphorically about her work in essence a novelistic
technique at a time when the concept of the novel is still in the works? If we
look at Behn’s timeline, this play was written right at the time when she was
starting to immerse herself into fiction, and Oroonoko was published the
following year. Mannheimer has argued:
“Behn
explores these contrasts ultimately implies that the most internal, subjective
forms of mental imaging -the kinds of enraptured fantasizing usually associated
with acts of reading-can give rise to the most externally demonstrative forms
of spectacle. Moreover by thus obscuring the boundaries between public and
empirical on the one hand and the empathic and private on the other, The
Emperor of the Moon begins to “regender” these modes of experience.”(Mannheimer
39)
It is a very early
modern example of the individual coming to the forefront of thought. It is
interesting to note that the empirical is paired with the public; something
that Kant emphasizes in his description of the Enlightenment. Could Behn be
saying that the Enlightenment is causing us to forget about the private?
If we
compare “The Emperor of the Moon” to Austen’s Northanger Abbey, in
Austen’s work we see a privately owned ancient architectural space being used
to also show an alternative to the prevailing Enlightenment narrative. The role
of the space has been changed, and it is no longer used as an abbey by the
clergy. Catherine’s imagination and her familiarity with Gothic tropes through
novel reading aids her in her ability to indirectly reason through the very
realistic trap she was ensnared into: John Thorpe’s lies and General Tilney’s
greed were recognized by Catherine (of course, contrasted with Miss Thorpe’s
inability to recognize Captain Tilney’s seductive manipulations). General
Tilney used Catherine opportunistically and gave her preference over all others
due to Thorpe’s lies from the outset. The general wished to obtain her hand in
marriage for his son so that the money (her supposed wealth) could go towards
maintaining their non-ancestral estate property. Behn and Austen using their
writing to subvert the Enlightenment narrative is not pure chance. Both works
had one foot into the Baroque and Gothic/Romantic, respectively, so it makes
sense that for both emotion and its imaginative potential or trappings would be
a source of inquiry to be both questioned and pieced apart. As Ros Ballister
points out:
“The
importance of a myth of female readership for prose narrative -especially love
narrative or stories of amorous intrigue- had already been established in prose
fiction before the late 1680’s.” (Mannheimer 42)
Catherine is in essence scolded by Henry Tilney for not
adhering to Enlightenment standards, just like everyone else. To Henry,
conformity to the principles of Reason and trust in their fellow countrymen was
enough that the logic of her musings was held into question. Was Catherine
exhibiting the use of reason through her role? No, she wasn’t, but she was
using her reason through a medium that was typically the realm of women i.e.
novel reading. Was this in fact her role? To read novels because she was
expected to be entertained by them? Another debate without an answer. Women and
novels were criticized during this period, so to say that this would be her
“expected” role would not give any clarity. For Catherine, her role within a
marginalized group i.e. women allowed and even may have required this
subversion of the Kantian Enlightenment structuring. What cannot be denied is
that women were digesting the Gothic novel at a frenetic pace, Catherine being
no exception, and the popularity of the novel gives it the agency to be read.
These novels became a common language not only for women, but for some men such
as Henry, at the very least to be ridiculed and sensationalized.
Kant’s
exit strategy or “way out” (Foucault 34) through the Enlightenment simply
doesn’t work when the individual is marginalized and forced outside of the
system of control (or role) for whatever reason, be it the feminine realm,
servitude, class, or race. Outsiders to the system would subvert the system. Outsiders in many cases have the upper hand as
seen in the lives of servants, such as described within Gillian Russell’s essay
“Keeping Place: Servants, Theater, and
Sociability in Mid-Eighteenth century Britain.”:
“The
servants thus occupied a position on the boundaries of all kinds of social
formations-between the family and the public world beyond , between intimacy
and impersonality, between mastery and subordination, between the rulers and
the ruled (often this is complicated by the reversal of conventional gender roles
in the case of mistress and male servant)-a position that combined both power
and abjection.” (Russell 23)
Outsiders serve as liminal placeholders and observers of
multi-perspective viewpoints. They have the ability to use covert techniques
and make use of their hidden advantages to succeed at their objectives.
Artists and writers were also
liminal figures, as were women of all classes. Their abjection and both mental
and bodily separation from the norm became their ability to evade a prescribed
standard.
“Men
are at once elements and agents of a single process. They may be actors in the
process to the extent that they participate in it; and the process occurs to
the extent that men decide to be its voluntary actors.” (Foucault 35)
Behn, a Royalist female playwright who constructs temporary
worlds and vignettes, like curiosity cabinets that require Behn’s individual
framing, speaks on the manner of “improper peeping” and places Baliardo into a
space where he is in fact voluntarily acting. She is calling forth a plea
towards propriety and manners in the midst of the virtuoso’s enthrallment with
science and the tools of science. Contrast what Behn does with Austen and the
character of Catherine: a young female character is plunged into a Gothic
romance by virtue of an old abbey and her imagination, then called out for
“improper peeping” when she enters the mother’s room (after being informed by
Miss Tilney that the room is off limits). So, what is the common denominator
between these two examples? The tool that is used.
-In Behn,
a telescope is used to spy into the emperor’s closet as a form of political
intelligence.
-In Austen, a Gothic novel is used
and its various lenses as a form of personal protection in the face of opportunism
and abuse.
In Behn, the telescope is called out and proved to be a
limiting, invasive, dangerous tool, and in Austen, the Gothic novel ends up
unveiling the truth; the first being a tool of science, whereas the second is
the tool of the imagination. Therefore, the imagination becomes a more reliable
tool in the ability to reason.
Neither
example shows that reason has been relinquished. Rather, they both show that
proper and skilled use of individual reason is the answer, away from the
ambiguous and troubling concept of role.
“The Emperor of the Moon”: Manners, Bodies, and the Ownership of Space
Aphra Behn problematizes Kant 100 years before he even wrote
his essay on the Enlightenment. Behn creates for herself a liminal role-neither
woman, nor writer, neither actor, nor spectator. She mixed the public with the
private in her play to show not only that they are interdependent, but that so
much depends on the connections between people and their perceptions. By using “anti-spectacular epistemologies”,
Behn “restages debased spectacle in order to contain and defuse it.” (Coppola
1).
At a time
when the political landscape in England is at a crisis point, Behn’s configures
her play in order to call a halt to the trajectory away from rational mindfulness
and towards the credulity of an entire population of people. What she
recognized was that the science of curiosity that was so much in fashion was at
fault and the spectacles that were being performed in the streets were being
taken in without skepticism, thus affecting the political balance and the
strength of the monarchy.
“As
a committed Tory and a canny professional author, Behn is attempting to
identify, stimulate, and ultimately retrain a troubling appetite for uncritical
wonder in her audience, one which traverses all domains of culture, aesthetic,
scientific, and especially political.” (Coppola 2)
The play was composed
during the Tory Reaction, but then wasn’t performed until the end of the reign
of James II. So, while it is speaking about events from the past, the play
itself reflects what had happened to public discourse and display in those
intervening years since. In essence, Behn wants critical thinking and agency
brought back to each individual, so that the collective can tell the difference
between empty spectacle vs. spectacle meant to sway the people towards a
political stance.
The
character Baliardo has lost this ability to discern spectacle. He is ironically
blinded by his spy glass, both to the meaning of what he is seeing and to the
consequences of the act of spying. Behn is turning the light on to the social
abuses that were occurring, invasion of privacy being one of those abuses, thus
calling into question what is the meaning of ownership, both in space and body.
Baliardo doesn’t have access to the big picture, yet insists upon reading the
signs anyway. His family calls attention
to these signs and to their absurdity in the larger scope of things
Behn’s life story was one of
ambiguity and apparent struggle to keep the facts of her life unclear. Behn may
have been married, yet we are not sure. She was a spy herself, so of course the
facts around this profession would be inherently muddled. Behn seemed to be
hyperaware of celebrity and the dangers of having her privacy breached. So,
anything that Behn put out to the public was in a sense “on display” and
scrutinized and could affect how she was perceived and her works accepted by
the public, making it of vital importance that her works stood alone. We cannot
say very much about her life that has been proven conclusively, but it appears
that this idea of privacy was something important to Behn, and since so much of
her biography is obscured, we could conclude that she was highly protective of
her privacy. “The Emperor of the Moon” was in essence designed to show that the
tools of science should not be used for nefarious ends; the right to privacy
being the one thing that individuals need to be able to keep. This is coming
from a woman who is writing about historically gender specific fields such as
astronomy and physics. Appler has argued that
“Behn’s playful treatment of science concepts for mixed
gender audiences aligns her work with scientific material by early female
practitioners of science, such as Margaret Cavendish and Gabrielle Emilie le
Tonnelier de Breteuil.” (Appler 28)
Behn combining science and ethics
in this play shows that Reason shouldn’t be performed in a vacuum without an
ethical component. Behn seems to want to
express that science cannot be explored, studied, and utilized without being
mindful of the consequences. To Behn, there is a difference between using the
mind and encroaching on the rights of the body and space. The character
Baliardo brings to mind court gossip and intrigue, of course since only wise
politicians use their telescope as a “statesman’s peeping hole”. Behn is
calling into question those boundaries; keeping these boundaries up and
established can only allow science to flourish and individuals to keep their
sovereignty through the changes that are being undertaken in society. Or, as
Mannheimer writes,
“When it came to seem that the movements of the individual
mind might contain more “truth” than outward passions or political displays,
the newer medium came to seem more relevant, more revealing.” (Mannheimer 40).
Thus, allowing new societal paradigms to form and become
established. Concealment would preserve and keep reputation and decrease
chances of people being “misread” and so discarded as being unsuitable for
polite society.
In Behn’s play we also see a public
display of the privacy of Baliardo. This display is only seen as right because
they are attempting to expose his nefarious habits. But, Behn does this in a
clever way to not only expose publicly the farce of his fascination with the
telescope, she also sexualizes Baliardo into becoming a voyeur. Something quite
similar to a movement that will occur in the future: the wide- ranging
popularity of the novel and, in particular, the Gothic novel. The novel is a
safe way to peer because these are fictional narratives. We aren’t peering into
others’ lives so much as spectating some hypothetical scenarios. Baliardo is in
his own head thinking he is peering into the Emperor of the Moon’s closet,
while in actuality he is looking into a real person’s closet. Baliardo as
voyeur subverts the power dynamic and, in turn, opens it up indiscriminately to
the gaze of many. Baliardo of course gets pleasure out of doing so, and the
fascination and awe that it produces encourages his continual breaching of
boundaries. This idea of disrupted spaces was a new one once the telescope had
been introduced and the attitude toward empiricism needed adjustment so that it
wasn’t used in a way to hurt others. During the late seventeenth century, there
was a shift from a culture where everything is public (court) to one where the
private is valued. Although during the early modern period, women participated
in the public realms such as politics, law, religion, and economics, space was
still gendered, and Behn seems to be saying that if privacy is breached for
those who have their agency and reputation at stake the most, then empiricism
cannot end well on this path.
Behn makes clever use of her drama,
so that we see the interplay between the breach of the private and the exposure
to the public, all through the character of Baliardo. In the end, she does show
that all of this hiding and revealing that is taking place is in essence
meaningless, for Baliardo believes he is only seeing people on the moon and the
constellations. Behn turns the entire play into an empty farce by the end, a
resplendent pageantry, yet still a farce.
Northanger Abbey: The Secret Chamber and the
Darkness
Moving more than one hundred years into the future, we see a
different sort of voyeurism within Austen’s novel. The private is emphasized
even more within Austen’s narrative to the point where a sort of tyrannical
disavowal of agency occurs concerning Catherine. From Behn to Austen, we go
from a comic drama of exposure to a Gothic parody of the evil that lurks within
ancient architectural space. In this case, a young woman is seen as a voyeur.
She is also using story and narrative fantasy to encourage her irrational
thinking by needing desperately to enter the dead Mrs. Tilney’s bedchamber. One
could say it was merely her curiosity that encouraged this, but we could look further
to see that it was the sublime. Catherine is attracted to the horror. It brings
her pleasure. Again, a character is disrupting space to breach privacy. This
time the privacy of a dead woman is at stake and the family’s attempts to
protect her are seen attempts to cover up something by Catherine.
If we focus on the accusations of
Henry Tilney towards Catherine, we can see that he is following the Kantian
principles of Enlightenment thinking:
“What have you been judging from? Remember the country and
the age in which we live in. Remember that we are English, that we are
Christians. Consult your own understanding your own sense of probable, your own
observation of what is passing around you.” (Austen 204)
What is most ironic here is that it is Henry who isn’t
observing what is happening around him, not Catherine. It is Catherine who
spends all her time observing her surroundings. It could be that this is what
she is best a and her curiosity leads her to explore and investigate what she
needed to explore in order to come to the “right” conclusions. Although, in the
end, what mattered was that Catherine disobeyed the General, Miss Tilney, and
Henry when she was told not to explore that part of the abbey. Catherine did
not obey the authority, so she is the one to blame for her inability to reason,
which of course is problematized by the end of the novel. Like Behn’s play,
Austen’s novel is meant to educate the reader, as Henry Tilney educates
Catherine in the use of irony. Doesn’t matter that Tilney is actually fooled by
irony in the end, he still teaches her how not to see the world in such a
literal, straightforward manner throughout the novel. As Terry Castle has
written: Austen is using Northanger Abbey as “an instrument of the
Enlightenment” (Schaub 1), the question in the end is: Why does Austen use the
Gothic genre the way she does in her own narrative? Yes, it is a parody, but it
is also instructional and without the information coming from the Gothic
elements we would not be instructed at all. Both Henry and Catherine need to
learn from each other, and it is the blaming of Catherine and her immediate
removal from the abbey that shows that her transgressions have not been allowed
due to her marginalization and General Tilney’s inability to get past this
blame. Henry learns through Catherine’s suffering and being cast aside, just
like what would happen in a Gothic novel. The reader would learn second hand
through the characters.
Is Austen
saying that obeying authority is problematic when it comes to reason? Austen
seems to be saying that authority isn’t always right, so it is better to trust
your own judgment and in essence your own intuition. Even figures of authority
who you do trust could be deceived themselves. She could also be saying that women especially
need not be afraid to trust themselves and what they are feeling or seeing.
That is the subtext that is running through the entire novel. When she was
asked to go driving with Mr. Thorpe, she should have trusted herself. When she
tells Miss Thorpe that they should be more careful, she should have trusted
herself that Miss Thorpe’s naivete may get them into trouble. When she
questioned Henry about whether he should be courting a girl without money, she
should have trusted herself. In the end though, it all worked out for the
couple, as Austen novels tend to do, but we cannot deny that Austen had been
schooling us all along through Gothic conventions. It is the Gothic convention
and fear or terror that signal our bodies and minds that we are in danger, even
when that danger is fictional at source. It is not always within the light do
we find the truth. Sometimes we need to brave the darkness in order to find our
way through in our imagination.
Paul
Morrison has argued convincingly that it is the ideology of the Heimlich
that Henry is calling forth in his speech, and it is apparent that what is at
stake here in this novel is not the comfort of Enlightenment thought, but a
combination of both the light of the contemporary English combined with the
carceral economies and dark spaces of the Gothic. Morrison writes,
“I
shall argue for the presence of an “unheimlich” movement, both within Northanger
Abbey and between Northanger Abbey and The Mysteries of Udolpho, subversive
of the oppositions here/there, now/then, light/dark, open/closed, the various
binarisms that structure his celebration of a “country like this.” (Morrison 2)
If we examine what is present within the text and what is
not present and missing, we could get closer to why Tilney’s authority within
his speech is both flawed and incomplete. The abbey itself is a product of the
past. The abbey is a symbol of past authority. The abbey itself has combined
what he speaks of as “English” but it is covered by darkness and illusion. What
is problematized in this novel is that idea that not everything should be or
can be en-light-ened. In order to see the light, you need the darkness.
Modernism disrupts this line of thought by showing us that there is chaos and by
attempting a containment of this dark unpredictability, you have already lost
the battle.
“What
grows in the garden is always a small, consciously selected sample on what might
be grown there…An Enlightenment in the social improvement of man became, by
degrees, a belief in the perfectibility of social order.” (Scott 92-93)
James Scott argues that social engineering seems at odds
with our experience of modernity. The world being in flux and at the point of
potential profound, vast change is not conducive to the solid structure called
for in Enlightenment principles. Henry wishes for a world that is easy to
quantify and delineate because it gives him a sense of stability and that we
can rely on this social order to not contain corruption. Catherine knows better,
and to her and to James Scott, managing society and expecting to act by this
construct “seems rather like trying to manage a whirlwind.” (Scott 93)
Catherine embraces the chaos and uncertainty, welcoming sublime terror with
open arms and even searches it out.
In the
end though, she is blamed for transgressing the boundaries of the abbey: its
dark halls, its hidden secrets, its ability to cover up fault and tyranny.
Catherine knows and understands this potential. The question is: why does no
one else spot it? It may have something to do with her being an outsider and
borderline unremarkable: Catherine was not a heroine, not neglected, not poor,
nor handsome, does not have a rich, neglected father, her father never locked
up his daughters, her mother did not have a poor constitution, not beautiful or
gifted in a physical sense, she didn’t play with girl’s things, did not gather
flowers, played with boys chiefly for pleasure and mischief, and she was
occasionally stupid. She wasn’t formed to be a Gothic heroine. So, putting her
into a Gothic abbey shouldn’t put her in danger, or should it? This is where it
gets muddled and tricky. The danger lies not within the history of the abbey,
but it’s present. They are all “still” within the abbey, living and dying,
working, socializing, eating, and drinking. What makes a difference is this
Enlightenment thought that pervades its corridors, which does not allow for the
darkness to escape.
Miranda Fricker: Blame and Hermeneutical Injustice and
Why an Abbey, or an Empty Spectacle.
The Kantian Enlightenment narrative attempted a hollowing
out of the bits and pieces of cloudy thought. It asked for clarity and light to
be brought to those things that still were shrouded by uncertainty. It wanted
to brush under anything that didn’t agree with its concept of Reason and why
things must be organized and structured into these ways of thought. Catherine
is blamed by more than one person for violated the privacy of the abbey. She
crossed boundaries to find out the truth. Was it correct that she was blamed?
The abbey did and does contain secrets, for that is what an abbey represents.
Miranda Fricker has pieced apart six requirements for justified blame:
First, the blamed party must be
blameworthy.
Second, blame must be proportionate
to the wrongdoing.
Third, Blame should be
appropriately contained in its proper remit, both in terms of time and
relationships.
Fourth, blame must be expressed
using proper ethical levels and intent must be considered.
Fifth, blame must be fitted to the
amount of offender’s entitlement
Sixth, it cannot be considered as
an aspect of no-fault moral responsibility. (Fricker 168-170)
In Catherine’s case when she was scolded for transgressing
the mother’s bedchamber, she was to blame in some cases, but not others. In one
sense, she was not given all the information and curiosity was peaked. She was
also left alone there without a chaperone. She did not, as Henry seems to
think, have malicious intent in entering the room. Henry had accused her of
thinking unmentionable evils about his father, which goes beyond her actual
intent of being curious about his mother. Even if she considered these as
possibilities doesn’t mean she actually thought these things were true. Which
of course comes into the rules of Enlightenment and what is acceptable.
Catherine should not have been blamed for this event, just as much as she
should not have been thrown out of the abbey at night time to make her way home
alone. These examples both show misplaced blame towards someone who is not
blameworthy. Fricker writes,
“Perhaps
this is simply because there are indeed socially prominent styles of blame that
are bad. Those, for instance, that spring from a censorious habit of finding
fault, or from projected guilt or shame, form moralistic high mindedness, naked
vengeful drive, or the simple cruelty of seeking satisfaction from making
someone feel bad.” (Fricker 168)
In Catherine’s case, I do believe it was misplaced guilt and
shame: two feelings that were “brushed under the carpet” and seen as not
acceptable. They are dark feelings filled with the grief that has not passed,
and all three family members were exhibiting within the narrative repression of
guilt and shame; General Tilney of course being the worst of the three.
Why does
Catherine not speak up? Why does she allow it all to happen? Is she feeling
guilt?
Catherine feels at one with the house. She understands that
she is partially to blame for falling prey to the sublime, so she accepts the
blame given to her, being trained to do so by Gothic novels: she shouldn’t have
passed into that side of the abbey. It was in essence her fault. Catherine
speaks the language of the Gothic novel. Catherine does not possess the
language needed to defend herself in the language used by the Tilneys. Catherine does not speak in the language of
the prevailing patriarchal Enlightenment narrative, so she attempts to express
herself on her own terms in a way she knows best. Catherine isn’t “stupid”. She
just speaks a language that some do not know how to speak or have even tried to
speak (an example is John Thorpe giving up on reading Camilla and she
absolutely cannot speak or communicate her boundaries to him). This is an
example of hermeneutical injustice, or
“when there is unequal
hermeneutical participation with respect to some significant area(s) of social
experience, members of the disadvantaged group are hermeneutically
marginalized. The notion of marginalization is a moral-political one
indicating subordination and exclusion from some practice that would have value
for the participant.” (Fricker 99)
Catherine has been excluded from being able to express not
only her feelings, but express what she is understanding by observing the
environment and social situation she is placed within. She uses the language of
the Gothic to express herself, which is understood only in terms of its
silliness and non-reality, when really, she is using the techniques of a writer
and novelist to bring the truth to the surface of things (novels being the
realm of woman at that time). She places her narrative within the abbey, which
is the key point. Henry places her in the position of voyeur and chastises her
as Behn had done to Baliardo, without understanding the distance in
communication between them until later. Catherine is made a spectacle of, but
is being placed into a marginalized position without clear voice (or clear as
in enlightened). Catherine has not been given an equal footing within the
abbey.
Conclusion: The Legacy of Behn and Austen
Can conscious, deliberate spectacle ever be used in
accordance with rightful blame and hermeneutical justice? What have the efforts
of Behn and Austen brought to modern discourse? Anyone examining the use of
pageantry and spectacle in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Procession would recognize
the efforts to redeem the use of spectacle in performance in a marginalized
voiceless group who could potentially be shut down. The women marched calmly
(estimated to be between 5,000 to 10,000) keeping a military formation even
while being “spit upon, slapped in the face, and insulted by jeers and obscene
language too vile to print or repeat.” (https://www.history.com/news/this-huge-womens-march-drowned-out-a-presidential-inauguration-in-1913).
Two hundred people were trampled that day and 169 women were arrested for
obstructing traffic. Inez Milholland rode a dazzling white horse at the front
of the parade, carrying a banner which read “Forward into the light”. It
appears that over 100 years after Austen that women were actually given a
voice, and they used the art of spectacle to manage that. Finally, a
marginalized group was allowed to speak using a language that the populace
could understand.
There is a clear distinction
between the characters of Baliardo and Catherine in these two works. Baliardo
uses Enlightenment principles/tools in the wrong way and crosses the lines of
privacy in the process. In his case (and in Behn’s), what is highlighted is the
misuse of enlightened thought; how the enlightenment principles can and should
be regulated. Catherine is chastised for not using Enlightenment thought
whatsoever, yet still she comes up with the right answers. There is a
distinction though out that isn’t widely recognized: the issue of mind vs.
body. Ownership over one’s body in space is given a prime role in both of these
works. The complicating factor lies in that, in the case of Baliardo, he is
transgressing bodily, private space whereas with Catherine she is prevented
from entering an empty space with her body, and so her person and body are
ejected from that space in the end. Baliardo is exposed, and Catherine isn’t
given ownership even over her own body. Behn locates the light of spectacle,
exposes Baliardo and the audience for foolishness in believing propaganda through
spectacle, whereas when the same thing is accused of Catherine, she is in the
end redeemed for uncovering the truth.
Both Behn
and Austen redeem truth through the concept of bodily ownership. They both
expose hermeneutical injustice. In the case of Behn, if the person being peeped
on cannot speak of the violation, then they are in a lower, powerless position.
In the case of Catherine, if the person unchaperoned is thrown out into the
wild landscape in the middle of the night in a public coach, then they have had
their bodily ownership removed. In the
case of women’s suffrage, if women show up to get their voices heard through
pageantry, then subsequently obtain physical and verbal abuse with attempts to
bodily eject them, then it is clear that bodily ownership was something that
long needed to be questioned and rightly fought for through writing and any
other means available. It is only through spectacle in many cases, that truth
will be found and known widely.
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