VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 12 ]


[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 19:44:04 04/20/08 Sun
Author: Cara
Subject: Isabel's "Liberated Desire"

The author of an article in /Contagion/ concerning Henry James' Portrait of a Lady describes Isabel Archer as "hypermimetic". She latches on to really strange, perverse models and ideas, and bases the largest decisions of her life on them. In /Things Hidden/ Book III, Chapter 1, Girard describes a phenomenon like this "hypermimesis". He says it is unique to the modern world, and calls it "liberated desire". He points out that moderns use language increasingly hostile to all sorts of societal and religious prohibitions as if they were continually "growing more and more oppressive", when really, no such prohibitions restrain modern people at all.

Isabel exemplifies this phenomenon in that she grew up free from restrictions, formal instruction, or significant external pressures. Yet she continually expressed her desire to be free from constraints and do whatever she wants. “I’ve only one ambition – to be free to follow out a good feeling” , she says.

Isabel's fate is just what Girard predicts: "liberated desire ... ends up in sterile conflict and anarchic confusion, with a corresponding increase in the sense of anguish".

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]


Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.