490
My Mother, My Sister, and My
Brother .
.. ,
ed . Michel Fou–
cault, trans. Frank Jellinek (Pan–
theon). The book reprints the doc–
uments and reports in a case
from 1835 .of a young French
farmer , who wrote a memoir of his
crime at the instruction of the
court. His mother and father were
embroiled in ceaseless domestic
quarrels , and Riviere finally killed
his mother to relieve his father of
his troubles. Several medical
experts intervened after the trial
and successfully petitioned the
King to commute Riviere 's death
sentence on grounds of insanity.
The case shows a struggle between
medical and legal institutions over
the power
to
classify the event,
to
apply a .. disc.ourse" to it as Fou–
cault would say. Is the event a pun–
ishable "crime of parricide" or a
nonpunishable " insane act" ? Fol–
lowing the memoir and legal
reports come several essays by
Foucault and his students, which
sketch the social and historical con–
text as well as contemporary legal
and medical ideas. Most of these
are not very interesting, and several
deploy an inhumanly abstract rhet–
oric upon these terrible events.
Foucault's essay situates Riviere 's
narrative among the ballads,
broadsheets, and other quasi–
journalistic " discourse" in the pe–
riod which reported, ab.out equal–
ly, shocking crimes and great his–
torical deeds. The book is likely to
be used and misused to support a
PARTISAN REVIEW
variety of contradictory positions .
Some may see little point in con–
templating this particular horror; it
certainly provokes more thoughts
than Foucault and his colleagues
can deal with. But there may be
reasons not to look away, to try in–
stead
to
understand.
PUNTa
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is a new i ndependent review
opened to the Interaction of
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Engl ish and Spanish
to the reun ion of d ifferent areas of cri t ic ism
l iterary, philosoph Ical, scientific
to the process of writing itself :
to poetics and ideology.
JEAN FRANCO
Tk. lImit, 01 ,h. liberol
Imoginotion:
Ont'
H~nd,.,d
YrQr,l
of SoIlIlldr
ond
Nostromu
Winter
NOE JITRII<
T••lo,
Int.rvl..... With
ElOftIDGE
CLEAVER
CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON
Poem'
JOSE RUl8Al
NOlO' d. Produccl6n
R...IMUNDO PANII(KAR
n•• Menoge 01 V.sterday·,
tl'tdin
to Todoy, World
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