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Open Secrets: Violence, Secrecy, Community A OPEN SECRETS: VIOLENCE, SECRECY, COMMUNITY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY CORY STOCKWELL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ADVISER: THOMAS PEPPER MARCH 2010 © Cory Stockwell 2010 i Acknowledgements Thanks to the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and the Graduate School at the University of Minnesota, who provided me with generous support, especially during the early stages of my research. Thanks to the CSCL office staff for all they have done. Thanks to my excellent students at the University of Minnesota and the University of King’s College. Thanks to my friends and colleagues in the Comparative Literature and Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society Graduate Programs. Thanks to D. Daryoush. And thanks especially to my adviser, Thomas Pepper, and my committee members, Andreas Gailus, John Mowitt, and Jochen Schulte-Sasse, for their support at every step of writing process. This dissertation would not have been possible without them. ii Dedication To K. For E. iii Table of Contents 2 Introduction 19 The Voice of the Secret in Kant 75 Sade’s Book of Addresses 131 Duras to Lispector, the Time of the Veil 202 Bolaño, the Disaster of Writing 262 Conclusion 270 Bibliography 1 “Everybody knows.” – Leonard Cohen 2 Introduction We begin with a text that aches to reveal a secret. We begin with its dark passenger. 1 We begin with Othello, Act 2, Scene 3. The setting is Cyprus, at the palace of Montano, the governor; yet in fact the palace functions more like a courtroom. Someone will be judged here, and he will be judged wrongly. The question is: why? The judgments commence (and everything, here, will be tied to the question of commencements, of beginnings) at the very beginning of the scene. Othello commands his lieutenant, Michael Cassio, to stand watch during the night, giving this task to his first in command as though he already sensed the approach of danger. This watching is key: as we shall see, it will come up again and again in this scene, fitting for a place in which judgments are to be made; what is more central to a courtroom, after all, than testimony, the reporting of what one has seen? Cassio, of course, obeys his command, responding to Othello thus: “Iago hath direction what to do;/But notwithstanding, with my personal eye/Will I look to’t.” 2 The slippage between I and eye is of course very interesting here, reinforcing the importance of testimony: the very ability to speak (to 1 I borrow this term from the television series Dexter, which revolves around a blood spatter analyst (the Dexter of the series’s name) who works for the Miami police, and who is also a serial killer (whose victims are killers the police have been unable to apprehend). Dexter views himself as an addict (at one point he even begins to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings) who acts on an irresistible urge to kill, and the name he gives to this urge is the dark passenger , a passenger who cannot be seen by others, but who is always present, pulling Dexter this way and that, whom Dexter cannot defeat and with whom he must therefore learn to live. 2 Shakespeare, Othello, 2.3.4-6. All further references to Act 2, Scene 3 will be made parenthetically in the body of the text, by line number only. References to other parts of the play, and to other texts, will be made via footnotes. 3 say I) in this scene will depend upon the ability of the respective characters to see, and to report what they have witnessed. But rather than focusing on this, let us give some thought to the position of Iago, Othello’s ensign, in this exchange between general and lieutenant. Othello has told Cassio to stand guard – to watch, in other words; Cassio responds that Iago has already been given this task. Iago, however, answers, ultimately, to Othello – and must we not therefore ask if it is not the latter who has given Iago the task, and who nonetheless decides to “double up” the task, to command Cassio to also keep watch – to keep watch over the watcher, as it were? Of course, the command could have come from somewhere else. Yet it is interesting in this regard that Cassio so immediately acquiesces to the general’s wishes. Even though Iago has already been given this order, he seems to say, I will also “look to’t,” as though Iago’s watch were not enough, as though the latter were not completely trustworthy. How does Othello respond to Cassio’s assurance? He seems satisfied, and immediately retires with Desdemona, followed by their attendants, leaving Cassio all alone (but only for a brief moment, as we shall presently see). Before taking his leave, however, he states: “Iago is most honest” (6). Othello thus seems to concur with Cassio regarding Iago’s honesty; indeed, his words complete the line begun by Cassio’s last words. And he concurs in more ways than one. For despite the fact that he judges Iago honest, Othello does not for all that change his command: Cassio is still to keep watch, even though Iago is to keep watch. Othello’s real agreement with Cassio, therefore, is on the need to keep watch over the watchman: Cassio’s injunction is not lessened by the fact that it is identical to that of Iago. It is almost as though Othello were telling Cassio to watch himself, to be careful in the presence of Iago. 4 And this presence is not long in coming. Immediately after Othello, Desdemona, and everyone else depart – before Cassio can speak a single line (for with rare exceptions, it is only Iago who speaks when alone) – Iago comes upon the scene. He is greeted warmly by Cassio, who tells him “Welcome, Iago. We must to the watch” (12). We will have more to say about the first sentence of this line below. But for now, let us return to the watch (for which, the ensign informs the lieutenant, it is “not yet” the hour [13]). Iago and Cassio spend a few moments conversing about, among other subjects, Desdemona (“What an eye she has!” [21], states Iago; “An inviting eye” [23], concurs Cassio). Iago convinces Cassio to have a drink, to celebrate the averted battle with the Turks, and Cassio, provoked by Roderigo (as per Iago’s plan), soon loses his temper, first attacking Roderigo, and then Montano. Bells are rung in alarm, Othello is called, and Iago once more remarks upon the watch: “Help, masters!”, he states, “Here’s a goodly watch indeed” (150). Upon his return, Othello’s first words are of admonishment: Why, how now! Ho! From whence ariseth this? Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites? For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl! (160-3) Othello’s first words, then, seek to separate, on ethnic and religious grounds (we will have more to say about this below), those present from their enemies. And after ordering calm on penalty of death, he turns to his ensign for clarification on what has happened: “Honest Iago, that looks dead with grieving,/Speak: who began this?–On thy love I charge thee!” (168-9). 5 Othello’s first concern, therefore, is clarification on how the situation began. And when the speeches that follow, from Iago, Montano and Cassio, fail to shed light on the matter, Othello repeats himself, with almost the same words. “Give me to know,” he states, “How this foul rout began, who set it on” (200-1). And if it is not immediately clear, from these words, to whom Othello is speaking, it becomes so only a few lines down: “‘Tis monstrous! Iago, who began’t?” (208). A long speech follows, in which Iago describes Cassio’s attacks. In this speech, Iago seems to attempt to mitigate Cassio’s blame: “men are men” (232), he states, and a few lines on: “surely Cassio, I believe, received/From him that fled some strange indignity,/Which patience could not pass” (235-7). Othello, seemingly grateful, responds thus: “I know, Iago,/ Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,/Making it light to Cassio” (237-9). We have, then, three statements by Othello, each of them spoken to Iago. In each, “honest” Iago seems to be posited by Othello as a beacon of trust: in the midst of a room full of men, Othello turns to only one of them, his faithful ensign, to learn the truth of what has happened. Yet each of these statements says more than it seems. Let us look at them more closely. “Honest Iago, that looks dead with grieving,/Speak: who began this?–On thy love I charge thee!” (168-9). Now on the one hand, the meaning of these lines is clear: Othello looks to Iago for the true version of what has happened. Yet these lines can of course be spoken in a variety of ways; emphasis can be shifted depending on many variables. So that when we hear the words “Speak, who began this?”, it is not much of 6 a jump to interpret them thus: ‘Speak, you who began this.’ Othello, as he states in his very next sentence, can be seen to charge Iago with the crime here, with bringing about – beginning – the entire situation. The same can be said of the next of Othello’s speeches to which we have drawn attention.
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