“Darkness is different for me now. I know all its depths and textures”: the panoptical gaze in Sarah Waters’s "Affinity"

Elsa Adán Hernández

doi:10.18172/jes.3762

Authors

Elsa Adán Hernández Phd Student at the University of Zaragoza

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3762

Keywords:

Desire, gaze, (Neo-)Victorianism, panopticon, Sarah Waters, scopophilia, surveillance

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to analyse Sarah Waters’s novel Affinity (1999) from the perspective of the panoptical system of surveillance, based on the controlling power of the gaze, that was widely employed as a system of represión in Victorian society. It seeks to explore Milbank prison as a perfect example of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon and Michel Foucault’s ideas about punishment and imprisonment. Drawing on Laura Mulvey’s notion of scopophilia, the essay goes on to explore the characteristics of the interaction and mutual attraction felt by two of the main characters, with the aim of proving that the gaze can be a powerful weapon to subjugate another person. Finally, it tackles the relevance of the third protagonist, Ruth Vigers, a lady’s maid whose job makes her invisible both to the readers and to other characters in the novel. The analysis shows that it is precisely her social invisibility that allows her to escape the gaze of this panoptical society and become the master puppeteer controlling everything from the shadows.

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Author Biography

Elsa Adán Hernández, Phd Student at the University of Zaragoza

I am Elsa Adán Hernández, a PhD Student at the University of Zaragoza. I am actually starting the third year of my thesis. My main concerns are Victorian and (Neo-)Victorian Literature as well as contemporary literature, paying special attention to female writers who bring to the fore hidden and problematic questions. For that reason, I focus primarily on gender and class issues. Besides, feminism is also omnipresent in my research, given the fact that it is becoming a quintessential aspect of our present society.

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