Author: Octave Mirbeau Publisher: Library of Alexandria ISBN: 1465606947 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 219
Book Description
One evening some friends were gathered at the home of one of our most celebrated writers. Having dined sumptuously, they were discussing murder—apropos of what, I no longer remember probably apropos of nothing. Only men were present: moralists, poets, philosophers and doctors—thus everyone could speak freely, according to his whim, his hobby or his idiosyncrasies, without fear of suddenly seeing that expression of horror and fear which the least startling idea traces upon the horrified face of a notary. I—say notary, much as I might have said lawyer or porter, not disdainfully, of course, but in order to define the average French mind. With a calmness of spirit as perfect as though he were expressing an opinion upon the merits of the cigar he was smoking, a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences said: “Really—I honestly believe that murder is the greatest human preoccupation, and that all our acts stem from it... “ We awaited the pronouncement of an involved theory, but he remained silent. “Absolutely!” said a Darwinian scientist, “and, my friend, you are voicing one of those eternal truths such as the legendary Monsieur de La Palisse discovered every day: since murder is the very bedrock of our social institutions, and consequently the most imperious necessity of civilized life. If it no longer existed, there would be no governments of any kind, by virtue of the admirable fact that crime in general and murder in particular are not only their excuse, but their only reason for being. We should then live in complete anarchy, which is inconceivable. So, instead of seeking to eliminate murder, it is imperative that it be cultivated with intelligence and perseverance. I know no better culture medium than law.” Someone protested. “Here, here!” asked the savant, “aren't we alone, and speaking frankly?” “Please!” said the host, “let us profit thoroughly by the only occasion when we are free to express our personal ideas, for both I, in my books, and you in your turn, may present only lies to the public.” The scientist settled himself once more among the cushions of his armchair, stretched his legs, which were numb from being crossed too long and, his head thrown back, his arms hanging and his stomach soothed by good digestion, puffed smoke−rings at the ceiling: “Besides,” he continued, “murder is largely self−propagating. Actually, it is not the result of this or that passion, nor is it a pathological form of degeneracy. It is a vital instinct which is in us all—which is in all organized beings and dominates them, just as the genetic instinct. And most of the time it is especially true that these two instincts fuse so well, and are so totally interchangeable, that in some way or other they form a single and identical instinct, so that we no longer may tell which of the two urges us to give life, and which to take it—which is murder, and which love. I have been the confidant of an honorable assassin who killed women, not to rob them, but to ravish them. His trick was to manage things so that his sexual climax coincided exactly with the death−spasm of the woman: 'At those moments,' he told me, 'I imagined I was a God, creating a world!”
Author: David Wood Publisher: Creation Books ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 206
Book Description
Technology and the human body are becoming increasingly entwined. As we enter the new millennium, Body Probe provides a graphic, penetrative and confrontational insight into the work of leading international performance artists and designers.
Author: Medlar Lucan Publisher: ISBN: 9781873982822 Category : Gardening Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This book looks at the role in gardening played by torture, eroticism, blasphemy, the grotesque, narcotics, the artificial, and many other subjects dear to the decadent's heart.
Author: Franz Kafka Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing ISBN: 3961893489 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 37
Book Description
In the Penal Colony is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. "In the Penal Colony" describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification. The story focuses on the Explorer, who is encountering the brutal machine for the first time. Everything about the machine and its purpose is told to him by the Officer. The Soldier and the Condemned (who is unaware that he has been sentenced to die) placidly watch from nearby. The Officer tells of the religious epiphany the executed experience in their last six hours in the machine. Eventually, it becomes clear that the use of the machine and its associated process of justice – the accused is always instantly found guilty, and the law he has broken is inscribed on his body as he slowly dies over a period of 12 hours – has fallen out of favor with the current Commandant. The Officer is nostalgic regarding the torture machine and the values that were initially associated with it. As the last proponent of the machine, he strongly believes in its form of justice and the infallibility of the previous Commandant, who designed and built the device. In fact, the Officer carries its blueprints with him and is the only person who can properly decipher them; no one else is allowed to handle these documents.
Author: Sepp Graessner Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 9780801866272 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
"An outstanding collection that brings an extraordinary international perspective to the growing literature on the treatment of the survivors of torture." -- New England Journal of Medicine
Author: Tara McKelvey Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0786732148 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
In April 2004, the Abu Ghraib photographs set off an international scandal. Yet until now, the full story has never been told. Tara McKelvey -- the first U.S. journalist to speak with female prisoners from Abu Ghraib -- traveled to the Middle East and across the United States to seek out victims and perpetrators. McKelvey tells how soldiers, acting in an atmosphere that encouraged abuse and sadism, were unleashed on a prison population of which the vast majority, according to army documents, were innocent civilians. Drawing upon critical sources, she discloses a series of explosive revelations: An exclusive jailhouse interview with Lynndie England connects the Abu Ghraib pictures to lewd vacation photos taken by England's boyfriend Charles Graner; formerly undisclosed videotapes show soldiers "Robotripping" on cocktails of over-the-counter drugs while pretending to stab detainees; new material sheds light on accusations against an American suspected of raping an Iraqi child; and first-hand accounts suggest the use of high-voltage devises, sexual humiliation and pharmaceutical drugs on Iraqi prisoners. She also provides an inside look at Justice Department theories of presidential power to show how the many abuses were licensed by the government.
Author: Jennifer Mitchell Publisher: University Press of Florida ISBN: 0813057671 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
Ordinary Masochisms reveals how literary works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries frequently challenged the prevailing view of masochism as a deviant behavior, an opinion supported by many sexologists and psychoanalysts in the 1800s. In these texts, Jennifer Mitchell highlights everyday examples of characters deriving pleasure from pain in encounters and emotions such as flirtations, courtships, betrothals, lesbian desires, religious zeal, marital relationships, and affairs. Mitchell begins by examining the archetypal tale of Samson and Delilah together with Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, from whom masochism gets its name. Through close readings, Mitchell then argues that Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, George Moore’s A Drama in Muslin, D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow, and Jean Rhys’s Quartet all experiment with masochistic relationships that are more complex than they seem. Mitchell shows that, far from being victimized, the characters in these works achieve self-definition and empowerment by pursuing and performing pain and that masochism is a generative response rather than a destructive force beyond their control. Including readings of Octave Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden and Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers, Mitchell traces shifts in public consciousness regarding sex and gender and discusses why masochism continues to be categorized as a perversion today. The literary world, she asserts, has repeatedly questioned this notion as well as masochism’s associations with passivity and femininity, using the behavior to defy heteronormative and heteropatriarchal gender dynamics.
Author: Trevor Paglen Publisher: Icon Books Company ISBN: 9781840468304 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
This is an investigative journalism in the mould of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. This is an incredible story of shadowy CIA kidnappings followed by imprisonment and torture. The secret may be out, but the horror remains in this original expose of extraordinary rendition. This is the incredible story of how the CIA's darkest secret of the War on Terror - the 'extraordinary rendition' programme - was exposed. It's no longer a secret: since 9/11, the CIA has quietly kidnapped more than a hundred people and detained them at prisons throughout the world. Often, the detainees are tortured or disappear entirely. Now infamous, the 'extraordinary rendition' programme is a key part of the largest clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. In this shocking book, an award-winning investigative journalist and a 'military geographer' explore the programme in journeys around the world: to suburban Massachusetts to profile a CIA front company supplying the agency with planes; to North Carolina to track down the pilots; to the San Francisco suburbs to study with a planespotter who monitors the CIA's movements; and to Afghanistan, where they visit the notorious Salt Pit prison and interview released Afghan detainees. The kidnappings have not stopped. On the contrary, the rendition programme has been formalised, colluding with the military when necessary, and constantly changing its cover to remain hidden from sight. This is a chilling looking at the logistics of torture which shows how far Bush is prepared to go in the 'war on terror'.
Author: Octave Mirbeau
Author: David Wood
Author: Medlar Lucan
Author: Franz Kafka
Author: Christopher H. Pyle
Author: Sepp Graessner
Author: Tara McKelvey
Author: Karen J. Greenberg
Author: Jennifer Mitchell
Author: Trevor Paglen