Shame as Narrative Strategy—
Prose by Scottish Writers Laura Hird, Jackie Kay,
A.L. Kennedy and Ali Smith
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades des Doktors der Philosophie
an der Universität Konstanz, Fachbereich Literaturwissenschaft, vorgelegt von
Katharina Metz
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 23. Juli 2009 Referentin: Prof. Dr. Silvia Mergenthal (Konstanz) Referentin: Prof. Dr. Ingrid Hotz-Davies (Tübingen)
Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS)
I. Shame and Narrative
I.1 The Rehabilitation of Shame in Psychoanalysis and Psychology 7 I.2 Shame in Literary Studies 9
I.3 Prose by Laura Hird, Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy and Ali Smith and the Discussion of Literary Shame 13
II. Facts and Fiction
II.1. Psychoanalytic Definitions of Shame Affect Groups 19 II.1.1 From Assimilation Shame to Shamelessness 24 II.2. Literary Representations of Shame Affect Groups 28
II.2.1 Assimilation Shame: Ali Smith, The Accidental I—‘Astrid’ 29
II.2.1.1 Existential Shame: A.L. Kennedy, Looking for the Possible Dance 37 II.2.1.2 Competence Shame: Jackie Kay, Trumpet I—‘Colman’ 43
II.2.1.3 Ideality Shame: Ali Smith, The Accidental II—‘Eve’ 49 II.2.1.4 Dependence Shame: Ali Smith, Like I—‘Amy’ 55
II.2.2 Intimacy Shame: Jackie Kay, Trumpet II—‘Millie and Colman’ 68 II.2.2.1 Traumatic Shame: A.L. Kennedy, “The moving house” 79
II.2.3 Conscience or Moral Shame: Ali Smith, The Accidental III—‘Magnus’ 85 II.2.3.1 Shame-Guilt Dilemma: A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need 89
II.2.4 Group Shame: Laura Hird, Born Free I—‘Joni, Jake and Victor’ 106 II.2.4.1 Scotland and Shame: Ali Smith, Like II—‘Ash’ 121
II.2.5 Shamelessness 135
II.2.5.1 Ali Smith, The Accidental IV—‘Michael’ 137 II.2.5.2 Jackie Kay, Trumpet III—‘Sophie’ 142
II.2.5.3 Laura Hird, Born Free II—‘Angela’ 147 III. Summary
III.1 Shame in the Literature of Contemporary Scottish Women Authors 155
III.2 Shame in Narratives by Laura Hird, Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy and Ali Smith 156 IV. Perspectives on Emotion and Literature
IV.1 Recent Discussion of Emotions in the Humanities 159
IV.2 Shame Transference from the Literary Text to the Reader—an Exemplary Affect-theoretical Approach 166
IV.2.1 Recapitulation of Narrative Forms of Literary Shame 166
IV.2.2 Two Ways to Evoke Reader Shame, and their Presumed Evolutionary Psychological Foundation 168
V. Corpus and Bibliography
V.1 List of Literary Texts Discussed in Shame as Narrative Strategy 177
Im Kern ist die vorliegende Untersuchung zu “Scham als narrative Strategie” eine Untersuchung verschiedener Schamaffekte in Romanen und Kurzgeschichten von Autorinnen der schottischen Gegenwartsliteratur. Die seit 1990 entstandenen Texte von Laura Hird, Jackie Kay, A. L. Kennedy und Ali Smith bilden ein in seiner Vielfalt und Präsenz herausragendes Korpus literarischer Schamnarrative. Die behandelten Texte schildern eine große Bandbreite von Schamerlebnissen, Schamgefühlen und Schamreaktionen; da sie dies sowohl aus weiblicher wie auch aus männlicher
Perspektive tun, decken sie ein sehr großes Spektrum möglicher Schamszenarien ab.
Der Aspekt der Scham hat in Bezug auf die hier behandelten Texte in der Forschungs- literatur bislang noch keine Erwähnung gefunden, weswegen sich der Hauptteil der Arbeit diesem Desiderat widmet.
Das Einleitungskapitel “Shame and Narrative” führt kurz in den Forschungs- stand der Schamtheorie in der Psychoanalyse und der Psychologie einerseits und der Literaturwissenschaften andererseits ein. Daneben bietet es einen Überblick über bisherige Untersuchungen der im Rahmen der vorliegenden Studie diskutierten Prosatexte. Um eine systematische Untersuchung der literarischen Repräsentationen von Scham zu ermöglichen und die Diskussion zu erleichtern, wurden auf aktuellen psychoanalytischen Untersuchungen basierend Schamaffektgruppen ausgearbeitet.
Der erste Teil des zweiten Kapitels “Facts and Fiction” stellt die gängigen psychoanalytischen Definitionen von Scham vor und führt in die später heran- gezogenen Schamaffektgruppen ein. Danach folgen die einzelnen Literatur-
diskussionen. Sie besprechen jeden Schamaffekt exemplarisch an einem der Texte;
lediglich in Bezug auf das Phänomen der Schamlosigkeit werden drei Texte miteinander verglichen. Gegenstand der Interpretation ist aber nicht nur die inhaltliche Darstellung, sondern auch die formale Präsentation dieses flüchtigen Affekts.
Die reale Kommunikationsstruktur der Scham weist eine gewisse zeitliche und psychologische Distanz zum eigentlichen Schamerlebnis auf, die eine (Selbst-) Konfrontation mit dem Gefühl überhaupt erst möglich macht. Auf narrativer Ebene werden daher die Aspekte der Zeitlichkeit, der Chronologie der Ereignisse,
Distanzierungsmechanismen im Bereich der Erzählperspektive und Perspektivwechsel untersucht. Ziel ist dabei ein Vergleich real-psychologischer und literarischer
Strategien in der Schamerzählung.
Scham ist trotz ihrer Tendenz, sich zu verstecken, ein enorm sozialer Affekt, sowohl in ihrer Funktion als auch in ihrer Wirkung. Ihre Funktion besteht ganz allgemein in der Einhaltung von Normen und deren Wiederherstellung nach Normverletzungen. Ihre subjektiv wahrgenommene, prinzipiell negative Wirkung erstreckt sich jedoch nicht nur auf das beschämte Subjekt selbst. Als Grundformen der Reaktion auf die Beschämung Dritter sind denkbar: a) Mit-Scham (in dem Fall, dass
Schamreaktion des Anderen entfällt). Ein dritter und letzter Teilaspekt der Literatur- diskussion sind mögliche Leserreaktionen auf literarische Schilderungen von Scham.
Auch hier gilt das Interesse den Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden zwischen realer und literarischer Scham. Die Ergebnisse der Literaturdiskussion werden in einem
“Summary” zusammengefasst.
Im Anschluss an den Hauptteil der Studie folgt ein Ausblick auf aktuelle Forschungsarbeiten zu Literatur und Emotionen. Im Kapitel “Perspectives on Emotion and Literature” werden verschiedene affekttheoretische Perspektiven angeboten. Diese können bei der Beantwortung der Frage behilflich sein, ob Scham nicht eines der seltenen Beispiele für die mögliche direkte Übertragung eines literarischen Gefühls auf den Leser ist.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. / And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3, 7-8)
The first thing Adam and Eve got out of the tree of knowledge was shame, not wisdom.
Despite this prominent position in human history, the subject has only been examined in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology and philosophy for about 30 years, and even shorter in cultural and literary studies. This thesis joins a slowly but steadily growing number of studies that combine the two fields and apply
contemporary psychoanalytic and psychological shame research to literary inter- pretations. Within the realm of English speaking literature, a number of readings informed by shame research have been produced over the past years, and these readings have covered a wide range of authors from John Keats (Ricks 1974) and Herman Melville (Adamson 1997) to Toni Morrison (Bouson 2000) and William Shakespeare (Fernie 2002). The first part of the following introduction provides a small survey of the current psychoanalytic evaluation of shame and its effect on the
humanities. The second and the third parts introduce the literary shame discourse as well as the corpus of narrative texts and some of the main questions raised. Finally an outlook will provide a survey of recent emotion theories and literature, and an
alternative perspective on affect theoretical aspects of shame as narrative strategy.
I. 1 The Rehabilitation of Shame in Psychoanalysis and Psychology
What do we talk about when we talk about shame? Do we talk about being embarras- sed for greeting a stranger we mistook for somebody we know? Or do we talk about the feeling of not being loved by the one who means everything to us? Do we talk about your reaction one morning when a painter was watching through the window as we stepped out of the shower? Do we talk about how it feels to be humiliated in front of our colleagues at work, or do we talk about our colleagues’ feelings when our boss humiliates us in front of them? All of this is what we talk about when we talk about shame, and the list of possible shame situations, events, and triggers inducing shame could continue endlessly. Prominent as it seems, the affect was almost unrecognised in scientific discussion until the second half of the 20th century. The recurrence of shame as an independent affect,1 i.e. not intrinsically connected to guilt, is primarily a North
1 In the context of this study, the term shame affect is meant to include as many aspects of an emotional response as possible. It covers both unconscious and consciously tangible shame reactions, shame feelings and shame responses.
American phenomenon. The revision of Freud’s psychoanalysis from the 1960s on has brought up, among many other things, a differentiated view of shame affects. “Freud’s theory of neurosis never carefully differentiated guilt from shame, so that when guilt came permanently to the fore in his theoretical writings, shame was neglected”
(Harder 1995, p. 368). Recent psychoanalytical research has acknowledged the psychological relevance of a whole range of feelings and functions assigned to the shame affect. From uneasiness and embarrassment to crushing humiliation, the entire realm of shame is supposed to affect considerably more areas of both individual and group psychology than guilt. Very generally speaking, guilt refers to one’s actions, while shame refers to one’s self, although in fact the two affects often interrelate (cf.
Wurmser 1981, pp. 27; 39). The all-encompassing nature of shame makes the resultant feelings at the same time unavoidable and undesirable, for the experience of shame is negative as a matter of principle (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 18). Among its positive functions are the stimulation of the formation of the self-system (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 14) and its outstanding role for identity formation (cf. Kaufman 1989, p. 5). The primary source of shame is norm violation. It refers to conventions, moral and social norms, and laws.
The feeling of shame can prevent the individual’s private sphere from being violated, but it also possesses warning and punishing functions that are directed against the individual in order to ensure the cultural stability of society (cf. Wurmser 1981, p. 48;
Roos 2000, p. 264). Shame is both the self’s acceptance of a norm and a confession of its violation—more or less independent of the individual’s intellectual convictions (cf.
Landweer 1999, p. 37). The fact that shame is not conscious can turn the affect into a potential instrument of societal power and suppression. In terms of control, shame is an equally appropriate agent since it can be experienced both in public and in private, witnessed and unobserved, with or without others involved (cf. Kaufman 1989, p. 6).
In this respect, shame also develops its most gender specific functions. Even though the shame affect itself is not gendered in terms of being a primarily male or female emotion, men and women are supposed to react differently to experiences of shame. While female shame shows a tendency towards self-related passivity, male shame tends to develop into other-related, active, and occasionally aggressive defence reactions (cf. Marks 2007, p.101; Lewis 1992). As a consequence, a considerable number of scholars have suggested that shame is also a means of patriarchal control (cf. Bartky 1990; Lehtinen 1998; Sedgwick 2003; with respect to the disciplining aspect of the novel of conduct, cf. Schabert 1997).
When considered from this perspective, shame appears indeed ubiquitous, as if “shame [were] everywhere” (Lewis 1992, p. 2) and as if we lived ‘in an atmosphere of shame’ that ‘reigns the world’ (Marks 2007, pp. 13; 102). The humanities reacted to this newfound access to psychological and societal (dys)functions to an extent that suggests a literal turn ‘from guilt to shame.’ In her study with that very title, Ruth Leys sees a sort of jack-of-all-trades at work:
[M]any theorists find shame a better affect than guilt to think with. Donald Nathanson believes you can do better self theory with shame than with guilt;
Bernard Williams believes you can do better moral theory with shame than with guilt; Eve Sedgwick believes that […] you can do better queer theory with shame than with guilt; Giorgio Agamben thinks that you can do better survivor testimony theory with shame than with guilt; Elspeth Probyn thinks that you can do better gender and cultural studies with shame rather than guilt; psychiatrists and therapists think you can do better trauma theory with shame than with guilt; and so on.
(Leys 2007, p. 124)
I. 2 Shame in Literary Studies
But that’s not all there is to say: one might want to add to Ruth Leys’s fair observation that many literary scholars prefer to focus on shame rather than guilt. In fact, the vital tension that arises from the ambivalence of shame’s ubiquity, its undesirability and the inherent tendency to hide (oneself, the feeling itself, or the cause of that feeling), which leads to shame’s proverbial aim of disappearance (cf. Wurmser 1981, p. 84), would seem ideally suited to literary representations—and thus to literary interpretation. It would be a shame indeed to ignore this aspect, especially since there are almost as many different possible shame readings as there are shame feelings.
Joseph Adamson, the author of Melville, Shame, and the Evil Eye (1997) focuses on the negative, active-aggressive shame-rage of the male protagonists in his readings of Moby Dick, Pierre and Billy Budd. Ewan Fernie (2002), by contrast, examines the positive functions of shame with regard to both sexes in Shakespeare’s tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and Corolianus, while Christopher Ricks (1974) suggests that embarrassment is the (equally positive connoted) presumed energetic force behind John Keats’ poetic writings. In her study Quiet as It’s Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison (2000) J. Brooks Bouson discusses the traumatic shame experiences among Black Americans.
There are other studies to add, e.g. Georgia Brown, Redefining Elizabethan Literature (2004), which attests the Elizabethan era a particular obsession with shame, and David Ellis, Shakespeare’s Practical Jokes: An Introduction to the Comic in his Work (2007), which deals among other things with the shame-liberating force of laughter.
Despite not dealing with an English author, Deborah Martinsen’s discussion of ‘Dostoevsky’s Liars and Narrative Exposure’ in her study Surprised by Shame (2003) is to be mentioned here for its methodological focus. As many other scholars she refers to recent shame theories from the fields of anthropology, psychoanalysis, sociology, and psychology. Her concrete text analysis is based on a rather general perception of the connection between lying and shame in the means of the dynamics of concealment and exposure. What is interesting, though, is that Martinsen is one of the very few who pay special attention to the narrative background of literary shame and its effects on
the reader. With respect to the outstanding presence of liars in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work, she assumes that
by positioning readers as witnesses of exposed shame, Dostoevsky makes us
experience our post-lapsarian heritage, thereby dramatizing his social, political, and metaphysical message of human interconnection. By creating and exposing his liars, whose narcissistic stories manifest their shame, Dostoevsky reveals fiction’s
function not only to expose but possibly also to save readers as he affords us ethical awareness and thus the impetus to change. (Martinsen 2003, p. XIV)
Although Martinsen uses the term of “shame as narrative strategy,” she neither elabo- rates on its exact forms nor on its concrete ways of function. ‘Strategy’ is merely used in the means of a ‘strategic use’ of shame in order to re-establish and support moral and social order. Such a moral(ising) function of shame narrative plays only a minor role in the literature of contemporary Scottish women authors, which will be discussed in this study. The exposure of a shamed subject to the judging eye of the audience is not their main aim; only in connection to shameless characters this strategic use of shame might be at stake. Therefore, Martinsen’s position will be referred to again in Ch. II. 2. 5 on Shamelessness.
Reader reaction is also a subject matter in J. Brooks Bouson’s study of Toni Morrison’s novels. This study of the interrelation between racism and shame is based on recent psychoanalytical and psychological shame and trauma theories. Bouson’s concept of shame concentrates on the connection between racism and traumatic shame, and she only discusses shame affects related to this particular type of shame.
The emotional demands on the reader for being forced “into uncomfortable
confrontations with the dirty business of racism” (Bouson 2000, p. x) are repeatedly stressed. Like Martinsen, though, Bouson does not analyse the exact narrative forms of the novels and their supposed functioning. The study assumes reader attachment to the point of vicarious shame feelings, but the mechanism behind this reaction is not investigated.2
In the introduction to Melville and the Evil Eye, Joseph Adamson provides by far the most elaborate introduction to contemporary psychoanalytical shame theories.
He focuses on the interrelations between shame-proneness and shame-rage, and between idealisation and grandiosity. His analysis of Herman Melville’s novels works mainly text-immanent without reference to an assumed reader response to the shame narratives, or their textual construction. By contrast, Adamson refers extensively to
‘the private Melville’ (Adamson 1997, p. 21). The autobiographical relation between literary shame and the actual or presumed strong shame disposition of the author
2 Given a North-American white audience, feelings of guilt as a reaction to Morrison’s minute descriptions of violent racism and shame-rage among Afro-Americans appear in fact more likely.
occurs in Martinsen’s and Bouson’s studies alike, and it also appears in Christopher Ricks’ approach to Keats and Embarrassment.3
Written in 1974, Ricks stands out among the other studies quoted here since he predates recent psychoanalytical shame theories. His only theoretical reference is Charles Darwin’s observations on blushing as a means of human distinction from other animals. Furthermore, he operates with different terminology, discussing the correlation between embarrassment and indignation instead of shame and anger. To Ricks, embarrassment is both synonymous with the 19th century, and for England.
Keats’ poetry is ‘full of blushes,’ and the text analysis is to discuss blushing and
embarrassment not only as “sensation and imagining of life,” but also in the means of a
“moral and social matter,” and with regard to “Keats the man.” (Ricks 1974, p. 20) For that purpose Ricks reads Keats’ poetry in turn with his private correspondence for the meaning of embarrassment.
Ewan Fernie, finally, argues against the “dominant contemporary view, fostered by psychotherapy,” that shame was “a disease to be cured.” (Fernie 2002, p. 1) His phenomenological text analysis attempts to employ a somewhat ‘objective,’
historiographic view upon shame in Shakespeare. To Fernie, Shakespeare offers a more positive notion of shame than recent shame theory supports. Shame is an “ethical wake-up call,” (ibid., p. 6) a concept interpreted against the background of
philosophical and sociologist studies.
The small choice of studies, their thematic focus and methods already depicts the wide range of affects, feelings and emotional dispositions that can be subsumed under the term of ‘shame.’ Furthermore it shows that authors and interpreters alike mostly concentrate on few aspects of the shame affect in its literary representation. In its very early conceptual state, this study was meant to discuss 20 novels and short stories from 10 different volumes of altogether eight different contemporary Scottish women authors with respect to intimacy and traumatic shame. This particular literature was chosen for personal interest; the thematic focus developed slowly and with regard to the complete works of the respective writers. In addition to the remaining four, these were Janice Galloway, Meg Henderson, Margaret Livesey, Zoë Strachan (for a discussion of the latter’s novel Spin Cycle cf. my reading in Metz 2005).
Evidently, both the size of the corpus and the phenomenological focus has been altered radically since. Instead of discussing one singled out aspect in a very broad context, the study offers now a broad phenomenological discussion on a clear-
3 Autobiographical aspects are not considered in this study. First of all, shame is neither seldom nor uncommon. Each and every individual experiences shame all through his or her lifetime. Second, to try and trace back particular forms of literary shame to the
authors’ individual shame history is rather limiting than enriching the possibilities of inter- pretation.
cut basis. The literary texts have suggested this orientation; they cover more or less any major shame affect as defined by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. The choice of texts reacts to this multitude of perspectives on the shame affect. Furthermore the novels and short stories in question represent both male and female shame
experiences, which was also a reason for their selection into my corpus. The forms and functions of shame as narrative strategy are by no means limited to the literature of contemporary Scottish Women authors. Any reader of fiction and any viewer of drama will have her or his own private corpus of shame narratives. Reader reactions to
literary shame are as individual as shame reactions in real life. I even suspect that almost any literature in any time has its own shame narratives with a particular set of narrative strategies and textual forms that communicate this affect literally. In an accumulation and broad representation, though, as it can be observed in the literature of contemporary Scottish women authors, shame as a narrative strategy is a rare phenomenon.
In the introductory part to the main section, detailed definitions of shame affect groups are formulated; for the time being they should only be mentioned briefly.
The fictional accounts discussed do present a wide range of shame affects such as assimilation shame (the feeling for not meeting the prevalent norms and expectations of a group or a society), ideality shame (the feeling of discrepancy between ideal and self ), and dependence shame (the feeling to be at someone’s mercy) and, of course, said intimacy and traumatic shame (the reaction to the violation of physical or psychological boundaries of the self ).
They present a number of shameless figures, but hardly any shame-free characters. Contrary to the first impression, shame does not have an exclusively negative connotation in the literature discussed, although its negative functions prevail. The authors rather represent the inherent ambiguity of the shame affect, bringing to the foreground the exclusively negative experience of shame. Furthermore, the choice of authors suggests both a gender and a national shame discourse. The bottom line is, though, that a number of texts do in fact deal with shame in relation to gender differences and the implied imbalance of power, yet the overall impression is that contemporary Scottish women authors rather present the full scale of shame scenes, both for female and male characters. Some literary accounts even present figures that experience and react to their shame feelings decidedly not according to commonly perceived gender tendencies.
I. 3 Prose by Laura Hird, Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy and Ali Smith and the Discussion of Literary Shame
Laura Hird’s Born Free (1997) describes the almost prototypically male shame defence reactions of a female alcoholic; by contrast, her husband’s shame is passive and self- depreciative. Joss Moody in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998)—a woman who lived her life as a man—is remembered by his wife as showing textbook examples of male shame reactions. The choice of texts thus presents a multitude of perspectives on the shame affect, as they represent many different types of gender specific shame experiences (with the exception of male homosexual shame).
As for the connection between Scotland in its different manifestations (topographically, linguistically and socio-culturally) and shame, these texts illustrate equally diverse results. Only a few texts present such a connection, although the history of the country, its opposition to England, and its religious and economic make- up offer a number of potential shame triggers. These are recognised, yet they do not play as dominant a role as might be expected. Only one text, Like (1997) by Ali Smith, is ultimately discussed with regard to the shame-inducing potential of Scotland, though this discussion references a number of texts by the other authors. To a certain extent, the interpretation at hand thus developed in a direction that was contrary to my original intentions and it may appear to contradict a large number of discussions that regard the works of these authors as closely connected to their gender and / or national affiliation (cf. Whyte 1995; Gifford / McMillan 1997; Craig 1999; Christianson /
Lumsden 2000; March 2002; Bell 2004; Carruthers / Goldie / Renfrew 2004;
McGonigal /Stirling 2006; Mitchell 2008). Many of these critical interpretations of the work of contemporary Scottish women authors have nonetheless paid great attention to its stylistic and thematic particularities. As for the authors discussed in this study, the works of Jackie Kay and A.L. Kennedy are indeed widely discussed, while studies on Ali Smith’s prose are somewhat rare; Laura Hird finally is recognised only
sporadically. The following paragraph provides a small survey of the interpretative work on the novels and stories discussed in this thesis and its respective focus.
The discussion of Jackie Kay’s Trumpet developed around three major aspects.
First and most prominently, the novel’s discourse of gender constructions, sexual identity and self-determination is analysed. The gender-theoretical readings of the past five years are somewhat based on more general approaches on the construction of identity in Jackie Kay’s work (e.g. Lumsden 2000a). In her study on theoretical and literary perspectives of gender-bending, Eveline Kilian (2004) discusses the inter- relation and interdependencies between gender theories by Michel Foucault, Paul Ricœur, Judith Butler and Teresa de Lauretis, and the presentation of sexual and gender identities in contemporary British literature. Kilian discusses Trumpet next to Patricia Duncker’s novel James Miranda Barry in terms of ‘masquerade and passing.’
She focuses on the novels’ presentations of alternative concepts of living, and their break with the heterosexual dogmas of sex, gender and sexual orientation. Angela Walz (2005) chooses a rather different focus on the same subject. As part of her study on the (in)comprehensibility of narrative voices in contemporary British fiction, she discusses the transgender subject of Trumpet with regard to non-linearity, fragmentation and dissonance both on the formal and the content level. Walz also connects gender and sexual identity to Blackness as it is presented in the novel. Tracy Hargreaves (2003) also recognises a close connection between sexual and social identities, both in the main character, Joss Moody, but also in his son Coleman. Blackness, especially British or Scottish Blackness, is indeed another central aspect of Trumpet interpretations.4
Susanne Hagemann (2003) analyses homosexuality and blackness in Jackie Kay and Naomi Mitchison in terms of speech-act theory. Peter Clanfield (2002)
discusses Kay’s work in the general context of contemporary black Scottishness, and so does Andrene Taylor (2007). Other studies connect questions of social, regional and racial identity to the realm of music. Jazz music does not only play a prominent role in Trumpet but also in Kay’s poetry; she also wrote an autobiography of Jazz singer Bessie Smith (Jackie Kay: Bessie Smith. London 1997). Lars Eckstein (2006) discusses music as metaphor of being, while Tracey Walters (2007) examines the aesthetic strategies of music and metafiction in Black British writing. Carole Jones (2004) connects jazz, diaspora and the construction of Scottish Blackness as concept of alternative families.
The notion of black, or African diaspora in Scotland also builds the basis of Sarah McClellan’s study (2005) on “The nation of mother and child in the work of Jackie Kay,” and Alan Rice (2003) writes about white and black fascination with African Americans in contemporary Black British fiction.5
A.L. Kennedy’s prose is often discussed in close connection to her ‘identity’ as Scottish woman writer—to her own regret, as it occasionally appears (Mitchell 2008). None- theless, Looking for the Possible Dance is rich in representations of contemporary life in Scotland and Scottish identity in Great Britain. Cairns Craig (1999) discusses the novel rather briefly to this respect, while Kaye Mitchell (2008) presents her own and other readings extensively in her monograph on Kennedy and her work. Fiona Oliver (1996) reads the novel in the context of ‘self-debasement of Scotland’s Post-Colonial Bodies,’
while Eluned Summers-Bremner (2004) interprets Looking for the Possible Dance and Everything You Need along the lines of ‘the paradox of the national in A.L. Kennedy.’
4 Other studies on gender and identity in Trumpet are: Anderson 2000; Gerberding 2002; Rose 2003; Rodríguez Gonzáles 2007; Williams 2005; Mergenthal 2008.
5 One of the most recent articles on Trumpet is yet to be published, Nadine Böhm (2009) on the novel’s staging of hermeneutical ethics.
Sarah Dunnigan (2000) writes about the narrative structure of the novels, the temporal framework of the former and the high complexity of the latter, in her discussion of Kennedy’s longer fiction. Glenda Norquay (2005) interprets Looking for the Possible Dance and Everything You Need in terms of the political and social significance of the individual life, next to the texts’ constructions. Cristie March (2002) concentrates largely on aspects of physicality and interpersonal relations in the texts of A.L.
Kennedy, but she also comments on the antagonism between Kennedy’s fear to be pigeonholed as ‘feminist’ and the actual and indisputably feminist content of her novels. Helen Stoddart (2007) also discusses dysfunctional interpersonal relations in Looking for the Possible Dance and Everything You Need, though on the level of articulation in terms of ‘tongues of bone.’ As most other interpreters, she also pays attention to the narrative construction of the texts, their ellipses and unchronological order. Mathilda Slabbert (2006) finally concentrates in her study on Inventions and Transformations on mythification and re-mythification in Everything You Need.
Ali Smith’s novels and short story collections are considerably less present in literary studies. She is often discussed in connection to Jackie Kay, as for instance in Kirsty Williams (2006) on social and sexual diversity in contemporary Scottish writing.
Williams also discusses the narrative techniques employed in Like, and so does Kathrin Gerbe (2007). Mark Currie (2007) finally discovers a key to the Philosophy of Time in The Accidental.
Laura Hird is the least discussed of all four writers. Alison Lumsden (2000b) briefly introduces Hird and her first collection of short stories. Lumsden’s interpretation brings to the foreground the bleak atmosphere Hird’s prose evokes and mentions its unapologetic tone.
Beside the amount of research that has already been done on Hird, Kay, Kennedy and Smith, shame is only—if ever—mentioned occasionally. The first aim of this study is therefore a phenomenological interpretation of different shame affects as they are discussed in Born Free, Trumpet, Looking for the Possible Dance, in the short story “The moving house,” in Everything You Need, The Accidental and Like. The choice and dis- cussion of these texts, and the omission of other texts by the same and other authors implies first of all the exemplary character of these works, although there are, without a doubt, a large number of texts that might be discussed with comparable results.
A second, formal aspect is also of great interest: how is this affect, which in itself is rather shy, described? As mentioned above, shame is not an agreeable affect. It is annoying at best, and the shamed subject’s first impulse is to hide. Shame
experiences remain rather unpronounced, and if they are communicated they often lie way in the past (cf. Landweer 1999, pp. 51sq.; Probyn 2005). This would suggest that
the dominant narrative perspective is characterised by distance, either in the form of a past-tense account or a third person narrative. The literary texts examined in this study, though, all provide different sorts of postmodern narrative structures, including multiperspective, temporal changes and ellipses. The formal examination of the novels and short stories therefore pays special attention to the construction of the literary shame narrative. The question is not only how the shame event is narrated, but also when and by whom. In addition to the text-based analysis, clinical examples from Léon Wurmser’s comprehensive shame study The Mask of Shame (1981) are consulted for the formal nature of real-life shame narratives. Commonalities and differences between literary and real-life shame narratives are examined in order to find out whether literary texts mimic real-life shame narration from the perspective of the shame subject or whether they rather engage the perspective of a shame witness by dealing with the shame event from an outward, descriptive level.
At this point a last aspect comes into play. As shown briefly with the example of my colleagues’ feelings in the face of my public humiliation, shame has the
extraordinary quality of a profoundly empathic emotion. It can be as painful to see somebody else being shamed as being shamed oneself. Empathic shame is therefore a vicarious emotion which can be felt on behalf of another individual—independent from the shamed subject’s own feelings. In case the other is ashamed, the witness feels co-shame; in case the other is not (recognisably) ashamed, the witness feels vicarious shame (cf. Landweer 1999). The question that somehow suggests itself is: how does a reader possibly react to the literary shame scenes she or he observes (‘reader’ as in the ideal reader who reads and appraises the literary situation against the background of Western, Judeo-Christian culture and society)? Two major perspectives upon a literary shame event are imaginable. Either from an exterior position, in which the reader is installed as a shame witness, or from an interior position from within the literary character’s shame disposition or shame theory as Silvan S. Tomkins calls it: “Shame theory is one such source of great power and generality in activating shame, in alerting the individual to the possibility or immanence of shame and in providing standardized strategies for minimizing shame” (Tomkins 1995, p. 165).6 The third aim of the inter- pretation at hand is therefore to examine whether the literary shame narrative
facilitates vicarious reader emotions in the form of co-shame with, or vicarious shame for the literary character. An alternative possibility, which will also be taken into
6 Ingrid Hotz-Davies has pointed out the possible connection between Elizabeth Bennet’s strong shame theory in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the reader’s appraisal of the novel’s shame events (cf. Hotz-Davies 2007, p. 200sqq.). At this point, the terminol- ogical haziness of Deborah Martinsen’s Dostoevsky study becomes apparent, since she remarks with regard to Pride and Prejudice, “unlike Austen, Dostoevsky uses shame as a narrative strategy.” (Martinsen 2003, p. 22)
consideration, is that the corresponding narrative strategies rather impose a text- immanent, foreign shame theory upon the reader, which remains independent from her or his own shame theory.
The next chapter will provide a survey of contemporary psychoanalytic definitions of shame. This will be followed by an outline of the various shame affect groups that have been designed for the literary discussion and then the respective interpretations themselves.
II. Facts and Fiction
II. 1 Psychoanalytic Definitions of Shame Affect Groups
The following survey of psychoanalytic definitions of shame affects, shame feelings and shame reactions will present representative research material from the last three
decades.7 The introduction to the different approaches is followed by the groupings designed for the organisation of this study’s literary discussion. One major aim of the earlier approaches towards the long ignored shame affect was to prove its enormous relevance and wide range. While the realms of shame forms, shame feelings and shame reactions are interwoven, clear-cut definitions are avoided for the benefit of a broad application of the term. More recent psychological texts attempt to distinguish between particular shame affect groups for a more practical application without ignoring the important fact of interdependence between different forms, feelings and reactions.
In The Mask of Shame (1981) Léon Wurmser sees any type of shame initially based on its positive effect as “guardian protecting the core of integrity” and as “prevention of actually being shamed” by violated private or societal values (1981, p. 48). Besides the recognition of shame’s purpose as ‘guarantee of the cultural stability of society,’8 though, this and other studies by Gershen Kaufman (1989), Michael Lewis (1992), Micha Hilgers (2006) and Stephan Marks (2007) focus primarily on outweighing the negative potential of the affect. This is ever present, even as part of the most (self- )protective and preventive positive function. The constructive and the destructive aspects of shame are intrinsically connected (cf. Hilgers 2006, pp. 14sq.). When shame anxiety, for instance, is “triggered by a milder type of rejection,” this happens in order to warn the self, “lest a more intense one reach traumatic proportions” (Wurmser 1981, p. 50). It seems consequent that especially in shamelessness, the total absence of the affect points directly to its positive dimension, proving both its socio-cultural
relevance and its inevitability. Habitual shamelessness does not lead to freedom from shame, neither in the form of “brazen, arrogant loss of pudor, of shame as attitude” nor in the form of “value privation,” that is “the fight against values in general” (ibid., p. 258).
Wurmser draws the conclusion that shamelessness “can be understood primarily as a reaction formation against shame. In the typical ‘return of the
7 Compared to the vast number of publications on the subject, the basis for the phenomenological organisation of the literary discussion may appear meagre. The major criteria for the choice of reference were the studies’ validity and their applicability to the literary discussion; however, this selection does represent a common consensus of opinion regarding the effects of the shame affect as it is generally found in publications on the subject.
8 Cf. Roos 2000, p. 264.
repressed,’ shame merely appears displaced.” (ibid., p. 264)9 It is important to note, though, that there are no positive shame feelings. Positive and negative shame effects may intermingle to a various extent, yet in the end shame feelings are always a distracting and excruciating experience (cf. Landweer 1999, p. 2). This is reflected in scientific studies, which mostly concentrate on the pathologic potential of shame. It is also reflected in the literary texts discussed in this study, which recognise shame’s positive effects only in relation to norm-violating shamelessness. My discussion of literary texts also concentrates primarily on the negative sides of shame, thus reacting to the overall tendency in scientific and artistic confrontations with shame and shaming. Only the last part of this chapter deals with the positively connoted regulatory forces of shame with respect to shamelessness.
On a very general level, Wurmser works with three phenomenological types of shame. He differentiates between shame anxiety, shame affect proper and shame as character attitude:
There is anxiety about something impending—shame anxiety; a reaction about something that has already occurred—shame affect in the narrower sense; and a character attitude that should prevent the other two—a shame attitude, shame as reaction formation, Schamhaftigkeit in German, pudeur in French.
(Wurmser 1981, p. 49)
The purpose of shame anxiety lies in the protection of the self from shame feelings and the possible avoidance of imminent shame situations. Shame affect proper, by contrast, marks the realm of the actual shame experience, the resultant shame feelings and first order shame reactions of an immediate kind and of a short duration. Shame as attitude is of a more enduring nature and may assume “the typical stereotyped, compulsive quality of a neurotic symptom, appearing without due regard for external reality”
(ibid.). As part of the three shame types, affective states may occur such as
“embarrassment, shyness, humiliation, inferiority feelings and low self-esteem, a sense of degradation, and narcissistic mortification” (ibid., p. 51). Intrinsically connected to these feelings are shame reactions that Wurmser subsumes as ‘shame’s aim:’
Shame’s aim is disappearance. This may be, most simply, in the form of hiding; most radically, in the form of dissolution (suicide); most mythically, in the form of a change into another shape, an animal or a stone; most archaically in the form of freezing into complete paralysis and stupor; most frequently, in the form of forget- ting parts of one’s life and one’s self; and at its most differentiated, in the form of changing one’s character. (ibid., p. 84)
9 The term ‘reaction formation’ is used in the Freudian meaning as “a specific and very important defense that ‘consists of the replacement in conscious awareness of a painful idea or feeling by its opposite.’” (Wurmser 1981, p. 84, quoting from Burness E.
Moore/Bernard D. Fine, A Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, 1968, p. 30)
Besides the initially protective effect of ‘shame’s aim’ (protecting the self from further shaming), its more drastic forms point directly to the negative, dissocial and potentially pathological reaction pattern of a shamed subject.
With regard to the concrete content of shame affects, Wurmser works without clear-cut definitions—primarily in order to prove the ‘paramount clinical significance of shame’ (ibid., p. 27) not only in its observable and expressible forms, but also in its veiled forms: “Shame in its typical features is complex and variable, a range of closely related affects rather than one simple, clearly delimited one” (ibid., p. 17).
Nevertheless, several general types of shame feelings can be differentiated:
The content of the affect of shame—what one is ashamed for or about—clusters around several issues: (1) I am weak, I am failing in competition; (2) I am dirty, messy, the content of my self is looked at with disdain and disgust; (3) I am defec- tive, I have shortcomings in physical and mental makeup; (4) I have lost control over my body functions and my feelings; (5) I am sexually excited about suffering, degradation, and distress; (6) watching and self-exposing are dangerous activities and may be punished: Contempt is a very important part of the shame affect. (ibid., pp. 27sq.)
These criteria may be rather circumscriptive, yet with respect to both real-life and literary shame scenes, they illustrate the relevance of subjectivity in the experience of shame. The shamed subject’s self-awareness and self-experience is at least as important as any objectively observable reasons for his or her shame feelings. This is particularly relevant with regard to shame feelings that are induced by internalised or introjected real or assumed shame triggers: “An extended and exaggerated sense of shame or guilt remains in relation to one’s images of external objects or as they become parts of the self (as they are internalized, introjected)” (ibid., p. 44).
Gershen Kaufman also argues in The Psychology of the Self in favour of the self against the ‘mistaken assumption’ that “shame requires the presence of another person.
[…] This assumption, which is fundamental to formulations of personality and culture, is in error because shame can be an entirely internal experience with no one else present” (Kaufman 1989, p. 6). Kaufman’s study is largely based on the affect theory of Silvan S. Tomkins.10 He agrees with Wurmser on the initially positive effects
10 The major difference between Tomkins’ approach and that of other late twentieth- century studies in shame is the assumption that the shame affect is innate, not acquired. The debate on innate vs. acquired shame affects has a long history, most prominently held in the Elias-Duerr controversy. With regard to the literary discussion, I decided to leave this particular aspect aside, since the artistic discourse is independent of the question of the biological or cultural basis of the affect. Besides, the strict dichotomy, or opposition, of the two concepts appears inadequate. Tomkins for instance assumes that the basis of the shame affect is innate, its individual form, though, develops according to the socio-cultural imprint of the subject.
of shame and further substantiates its “vital role in the development of conscience” and the “necessary self-correction” that the affect motivates (cf. ibid., p. 5). On the positive side, “no other affect is more central to identity formation;” on the negative side, though, “no other affect is more disturbing to the self” (ibid.). In the end, Kaufman strives for the rehabilitation of a positively connoted shame concept since it is “the experiential ground from which conscience and identity spring” (ibid., p. 7). With respect to the phenomenology of the shame affect and its primarily negative effects, Kaufman stresses the wide scope of shame just as Wurmser does. The general connection between shame and identity formation is of primary importance to the definition of actual shame feelings:
Because shame is central to conscience, indignity, identity, and disturbances in self- functioning, this affect is the source of low self-esteem, poor self-concept or body image, self-doubt and insecurity, and diminished self-confidence (ibid., p. 5).
To a large extent, this supports and supplements Wurmser’s assumptions on the subjective emotional experience of shame, adding an outside perspective on the terminological level. Kaufman further differentiates between variants of shame:
Variants of shame become manifest in a broad range of interpersonal contexts.
A variety of inner states have been distinguished, given different labels, and so mistakenly conceived as distinctly different: discouragement, self-consciousness, embarrassment, shyness, shame, and guilt. […] Discouragement is actually shame about temporary defeat. Self-consciousness is the self exposed in shame, the self scrutinizing the self. Embarrassment is shame before any type of audience. Shyness is shame in the presence of a stranger. Shame is loss of face, honor, or dignity, a sense of failure. Guilt is shame about moral transgression, immorality shame. These are the coassembled inner states that become organized around shame as their principal affect (ibid., p. 22).11
Kaufman thus stresses the role of the self in the shame affect way beyond the realm of social norm violation, either in the form of self-consciousness, self-awareness or self- exposition.
Michael Lewis shares this perspective on the distinctive role of the self in the emergence of the shame affect in Shame—The Exposed Self (1992). He also refers to Silvan S. Tomkins, next to Carroll Izard and H.B. Lewis,12 presuming that “shame
11 The listing of ‘shame’ as a variant of ‘shame’ is irritating only at first sight. There is a gradual difference in intensity between the individual variants, with embarrassment and shyness as weaker forms and (proper) shame and guilt as more severe types of one and the same affect.
12 Carroll E. Izard, Human Emotions. New York 1977; Helen Block Lewis, Shame and Guilt in Neurosis. New York 1971; Silvan S. Tomkins, Affect, Imagery, and Consciousness: Vol.
2. The Negative Affects. New York 1963. Though relevant within the field, Izard and Lewis will
becomes a heightened consciousness of the self, an unusual and distinct form of self- perception” (Lewis 1992, p. 32). It is “a state of self-devaluation that can, but does not have to, emanate from ‘out there’” (ibid.). In agreement with Wurmser, Lewis calls it
‘impossible’ to “define the state of shame by compiling a list either of a set of unique behaviors, or of a unique set of stimuli likely to elicit the particular feeling, or some combination of it.” Nevertheless, “a combination of behaviors and situations offers us a very powerful matrix in which to define, observe, and study individual differences in shame” (ibid., p. 33). Summarising approaches ‘from Darwin forward,’ Lewis also names hiding as “one very important feature of the phenomenology of shame,” next to distinctly negative feelings such as pain, discomfort and anger. Other features include the feeling that “one is no good, inadequate, unworthy” and “the fusion of subject and object.” (ibid., p. 34).
In shame, we become the object as well as the subject of shame. The self system is caught in a bind in which the ability to act or to continue acting becomes extremely difficult. Shame disrupts ongoing activity as the self focuses completely on itself, and the result is confusion: inability to think clearly, inability to talk, and inability to act.
(ibid.)
This ‘powerful matrix’ may indeed take into account the high flexibility and variability of the shame affect. The combination of shame reactions (hiding, paralysis) and shame feelings (feeling no good, inadequate, unworthy) into one singular descriptive tool, though, would make any systematic approach extremely difficult.
Gershen Kaufman, by contrast, does offer a ‘shame profile’ as a ‘diagnostic tool’ that provides a means of differentiation. For that purpose, he summarises his results on shame feelings, shame binds (i.e. internalised linkages between affects, drives or interpersonal needs, and shame) and shame scenes (Kaufman 1989, p. 95).
Although he presents a number of shame affects relevant for the literary texts
discussed in this thesis, his profile of “stages in psychological magnification” appears unsuitable for the present discussion. First of all, it is organised hierarchically by placing ‘Character Shame’ at the final stage III, preceded by ‘Body Shame,’
‘Relationship Shame’ and ‘Competence Shame’ at stage II and ‘Affect-Shame Scenes,’
‘Drive-Shame Scenes,’ ‘Interpersonal Need-Shame Scenes’ and ‘Purpose-Shame Scenes’ at stage I. Stage I is further preceded by the respective shame binds that are based on shame contents such as ‘Excitement-Shame,’ ‘Anger-Shame,’ ‘Shame-Shame,’
or ‘Sexuality-Shame.’ (ibid., p. 95) An application of this profile to the diagnosis of shame in literary characters is problematic, since it would ask for a valuation of the respective shame feelings of literary characters, which is neither the purpose nor the aim of this interpretation. To be able to “trace any current manifestation of shame back
not be quoted further on directly. Tomkins is quoted from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s compilation of his works (Tomkins 1995).
to its formative influences, to its actual governing scenes” (ibid., p. 94) sounds tempting, yet the obligatory link between certain shame feelings and what Kaufman calls ‘higher-order shame scene dimensions’ (ibid., p. 93) appears somehow contra- dictory to the complexity and variability of the affect, especially with respect to magni- fication. Finally, the attempt to trace shame feelings, which are exclusively part of a narrative construction, back to some supposed actual governing scene is bound to end in mere speculation that would go way beyond the text. In the majority of cases, sufficient textual clues are given with regard to the underlying shame scenes or initial experiences. In the rare undecidable case of Like by Ali Smith, several possible shame scenes and affects will be discussed (cf. Ch. II. 2. 1. 4 and 2. 4. 1).
II. 1. 1 From Assimilation Shame to Shamelessness
Two recent German publications (Hilgers 2006; Marks 2007) present some of the most practical definitions and listings of shame affect groups. They contain any of the abovementioned shame feelings and vary only slightly from author to author. Being at the same time definite and differentiated, they offer a tool to control the sometimes uncontrollable subject of shame without cutting short its inherent flexibility. These approaches are particularly appropriate for a literary discussion of shame, because both authors deal with the respective shame feelings and shame reactions separately. While most texts do present an underlying shame scene at some point or another, the
emotional experiences of their characters and their reaction patterns are never explicitly ascribed to shame. Defining the shame affect as such first is constitutive for any further interpretation of a figure’s psychological and behavioural make-up.
For the purpose of literary interpretation, both authors’ groupings have been combined with respect to the shame affects found in the literary texts. None of the major shame affect groups have been omitted, but some formerly independent groups have been subsumed into a more comprehensive arrangement. So-called ‘assimilation shame’ as defined by Stephan Marks, for instance, includes a number of sub-groupings that are defined separately by Micha Hilgers. Besides the need for differentiation, though, one has to keep in mind that the boundaries between shame variants can become blurred; several shame affects can respond to a singular shame scene, and the subjective evaluation of that scene can diverge vastly (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 26). Lastly, the literary discussions treat the most prominent or presumably most effective shame affects in the literary figures, based on the textual representation and my admittedly very subjective evaluation. In addition, four out of five novels are discussed with respect to two, three or even four different shame affects. The respective interpreta- tions concentrate on different characters within one text, which shows that shame
affects are not only highly variable within the individual, but they are indeed characterised by sociality and do not stand apart.13
In Scham—Die Tabuisierte Emotion (2007) Stephan Marks defines assimilation shame as one major shame affect group. Directed towards the outside, this self-related shame affect is oriented towards the gaze of the other and the expected appraisal of the individual’s environment. Assimilation shame occurs when the prevalent norms and expectations of a group or a society are not met. Marks gives a large number of possible triggers, including impolite and inadequate social behaviour, lack of educa- tion, losing, inconsequence, psychological problems, social weakness, low status, poverty, helplessness, dependence, unemployment, inadequate emotions, and affiliation with a discriminated social, ethnic or religious group (cf. Marks 2007, pp. 17sq.). This rather global definition still recalls the encompasssing shame definitions presented by Wurmser, Kaufman and Lewis. In order to achieve a more differentiated order within this important shame group, complementary groupings by Hilgers 2006 have been added.
The latter differentiates between existential shame, competence shame, ideality shame and dependence shame (cf. Hilgers 2006, pp. 25sq.). These variants represent the four sub-groups of assimilation shame that will be employed in this study:
Existential shame is Hilger’s expression for the feeling to be unwanted in principle or to be stigmatised. It occurs e.g. in unwanted children or children who do not have the ‘right’ sex. Existential shame is also the feeling of being ignored, of being inexistent or of being unloved, for instance when parents do not react on any verbal or nonverbal self-expression of their child. This shame group also includes body shame for the experience of a principally negative or flawed physicality as opposed to momentary intimacy shame (cf. ibid., p. 25).
Competence shame occurs when the subjective competence experience is interrupted and failure becomes (publicly) visible. It describes the feeling of being incompetent, of not meeting the expectations of the social or professional environ- ment, and it is also the name for loss of control of ego-functions such as crying or shouting in the adult (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 25).
Ideality shame is the shame for the discrepancy between ideal and self. It is connected to both our self-image and our presumed social image. It may also occur with regard to culpability. In that special case, the person does not only feel guilty for the incorrect behaviour; he/she also feels ashamed for acting culpably in the given situation (‘why does it happen to me of all people?’). This shame feeling often relates to a discrepancy between ego ideal and self (cf. ibid., p. 26).
13 The subtitle of Hilge Landweer’s study on Scham und Macht (1999) reads Phäno- menologische Untersuchungen zur Sozialität eines Gefühls.
Dependence shame finally relates to the dependence on others, including the unwanted ending of relations. Love interest and not responded love are possible
triggers, but also the admiration of and subjectively experienced dependence on others (cf. ibid.).
Other forms such as body shame, which is listed individually in Marks (cf. Marks 2007, pp. 18sqq.), were included in the respective sub-groupings as shown in the definition of existential shame. Body shame also relates primarily to societal (physical) norms communicated through gazes and external appraisal. Its widespread triggers usually relate to one or several other shame affects next to body shame. Illness, deviant physical appearance, obesity and age, for instance, can lead to existential shame. Supposedly too big or too small primary or secondary sexual characteristics may trigger competence shame. The ‘wrong’ skin colour often leads to group shame, which represents another shame affect group. The loss of body control, impotence or frigidity is also closely connected to intimacy shame, which constitutes another group with traumatic shame.
Very generally, intimacy shame protects the private sphere (cf. ibid., p. 14).
Beside its preventive side, it reacts to the violation of physical or psychological boundaries of the self, for instance in case of an attack or exposition. Intimacy shame includes body shame that does not relate to a generally negative experience of
physicality, as in existential shame (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 25).
Traumatic shame is connected to intimacy shame: In case the private sphere was violated in an extreme or brutal way, for instance during sexual abuse or rape, intimacy shame can turn into traumatic shame (cf. Marks 2007, p. 14).
The next shame group, conscience-moral shame, which includes shame-guilt dilemmas, is slightly different since it necessarily relates to the subject’s actions, which is not true in any of the other cases.
Conscience or moral shame indicates the violation of one’s conscience, for instance in the case of disrespectful behaviour, the refusal to help or the damage of others. One major difference to feelings of ideality shame is that conscience or moral shame is very often linked to feelings of guilt for the shame inducing behaviour (cf.
ibid., pp. 34sq.).
The shame-guilt dilemma is closely related to conscience or moral shame. As opposed to the latter case, the interrelation of shame and guilt feelings becomes an unsolvable intrasystemic conflict: Shame or guilt prevail alternately, the avoidance of the one leads inevitably to the other (cf. Hilgers 2006, p. 26).
Group shame refers to another individual of the same (perceived, alleged or actual) group, e.g. when a family member suffers from mental illness. Group shame can be felt for an illicit or disabled child, but it also can occur for members of one’s own ethnic group or nation (cf. Marks 2007, 25sq.).
One subgroup to group shame, empathic shame, has not been included into this grouping since it hardly occurs in the literary texts discussed here; as to possible reader reactions, though, it plays a decisive role. This aspect will be discussed
throughout the readings, and especially in the very last chapter of this study.
Empathic shame is, according to Marks, the shame that we feel with somebody whose shaming we witness. Shame feelings of a humiliated individual are conveyed to the shame witness through a kind of ‘psychic contagion.’ Empathic shame is decisive for the cohabitation of a group or a society, for it enables sympathy, solidarity and friendship (ibid., p. 27). The possibility of experiencing an affect on the behalf of another person, even instead of another person,14 marks one of the most distinct characteristics of shame. Due to the high contagion of the affect, it can be as shameful to witness shaming as to be shamed directly. Empathic shame has many different names, ranging from witness shame and to-be-ashamed-for-somebody-else to ‘shame- humiliation in response to shame-humiliation of the other,’15 Mit-Scham or stell- vertretende Scham. These last two expressions are especially important within the context of this thesis. The differentiation of empathic or witness shame into co-shame and vicarious shame goes back to Hilge Landweer’s study Scham und Macht.16 While co-shame is witness shame for a tangibly shamed subject, vicarious shame is felt in lieu of the actual shame subject due to its actual or perceived shamelessness. The shame reactions of presumably empathic readers develop along this differentiation too, just like empathic shame does in real life. It is possible to imagine shame feelings with and for a literary character.17
14 “[Scham] ist ansteckend: Zeuge von Schamerlebnissen anderer zu werden, kann im Betrachter Scham auslösen und zwar in genau demselben Grad wie im eigentlichen Sub- jekt der Beschämung. Es ist sogar möglich, sich für andere, an ihrer Stelle zu schämen.”
(Hotz-Davies 2007, p. 187)
15 Tomkins 1995, p. 156. Tomkins offers yet another classification that might be interesting with respect to feelings of shame for a literary character, “shame humiliation from vicarious sources (empathy and identification)” (ibid., p. 159).
16 Cf. Landweer 1999, p. 5 and Ch. VI., “Scham als Sympathiegefühl?” For a discussion of vicarious shame and guilt in the context of group identity and reputation, cf. Lickel 2005.
17 It is important to note that the study at hand and its readings are exemplary and by no means exclusive. While I found an entire landscape of shame in the prose of
contemporary Scottish women authors, other readers will discover exactly the same in Jane Austen’s work. The opening scene of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary for instance is a great example for the possible simultaneity of shame feelings for and with a fictional character.
The awkwardly dressed and clumsily behaving ‘Charbovari’ has big potential to evoke
empathic shame, since his uneasiness is very tangible right from the start. On the other hand, his public denunciation by the schoolmaster who makes him conjugate ‘ridiculus sum’ may
