Foucault locates the seam that stitches together the medical and the judicial in “the power of normalization,” a “fundamentally positive power that fashions, observes, knows, and multiplies on the basis of its own effects” (48). I would like to trace how a similar stitching together of the medical and the judicial can be located in Roxana’s criminal acts and psychological deterioration, illustrating how Foucault’s theories operate in a historical moment caught between repressive and positive technologies of power.
When Roxana first consents to become the mistress of the Jeweler, her landlord, she insists that her crime is doubly significant: “I was a double Offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to commit the Crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime…” (Defoe 44). While Roxana’s careful self-examination persists throughout the novel, her resolve to commit crimes fades into a confusion that borders on hysteria. Raymond Stephanson writes that Roxana is a “study of psychological breakdown which applies contemporaneous medical and philosophical theories about mental illness” in order to focus on “the mental and psychological welfare of the individual” (101). I would add to Stephanson’s argument the qualification that welfare is not so much at stake as much as psychological warfare between the self, the pathological criminal, and the mentally ill subject. Roxana grapples with articulating her crimes as she succumbs to mental illness, failing to uphold the Preface’s promise to “make frequent Excursions, in a just censuring and condemning her own Practice” (Defoe 2). That is to say, the line between madness and crime becomes increasingly blurred as she becomes vulnerable to the normalizing force Foucault describes.
While Roxana frequently alludes to a sense of being guided by an unknown power, it is never entirely clear who is monitoring her. An allegorical reading might posit that Roxana is haunted by her Puritan roots and never entirely able to divorce herself from a religiously-based piety. But Roxana makes her contempt for religion known in the moments following the storm, telling us she has “no View of a Redeemer, or Hope in him…” (Defoe 129). If Roxana is responding to a norm enforced by her readers, one can account for Roxana’s constant availability for surveillance, even when she is unable to distinguish between her acts and their consequences. It is not so far a stretch to imagine Roxana presenting herself for inspection at the window in the plague town—she would not have us believe her dangerous or ill.
Neglecting the mechanisms of exclusion Foucault cites in relation to the exile of the lepers seems to be a mistake, though, given Roxana’s publication date. Foucault writes that “Plague replaces leprosy as a model of control, and this is one of the great inventions of the eighteenth century…” (48). Once again, I turn to the alternate endings of Roxana to identify how remnants of repressive power remain intact. At least one reviser felt it necessary to banish Roxana to jail, and more than several sentence her to death, suggesting a power that operates through exclusion. It is difficult to reconcile these negative forces with the ending eerily reminiscent of plague power: Roxana repeatedly recounts “all the Passages of her ill spent Life to me” (where “me” is never specified) and “made her peace with God” (Defoe 1). Even after the book draws to a close, Roxana must repeat her confessions over and over in an effort to gain absolution. Such an ending could very well account for Roxana’s willingness to tell her tale in the first place, as she “presents herself at the window” to be counted (46). Could eighteenth-century readers choose the ending they liked best? Is it possible that they could align themselves with either leper or plague power, as we did in class?
Stephanson, Raymond. "Defoe's "Malade Imaginaire": The Historical Foundation of Mental Illness in "Roxana." Huntington Library Quarterly. Vol. 45, No. 2, Spring 1982.
Great post! I especially liked the way in which you read the alternate endings as being "remnants of repressive power." I do wonder how you might reconcile Foucault's assertion that "[m]adness cannot be crime, just as crime cannot be, in itself, an act rooted in madness." (39) I think you make a similar claim when you state, "the line between madness and crime becomes increasingly blurred...," but I'd be interested to know how you would deal with Foucault's assertion explicitly.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post! It makes me remember another post in which you discussed modes of looking in the novel. I remember you writing about Roxana's relationship to the vision of herself in the mirror, and the vision of someone she associates with herself in bed with her lover. It would be so interesting to hear how these specific images of observation in the novel relate to Roxana's sense of surveillance! If only there were time...
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