The personification of sadomasochistic ideals in the novel comes from Martin Vanger, head of the Vanger companies and, unknown to everyone, a serial rapist and murderer. For example, Vanger may very well have felt that his father, Gottfried Vanger, by raping him as a child, had forced him to not only become the man he became, but to accept his “fate.” Stekel and Brink also explained why many serial sadomasochists kill their victims, something he labeled the death clause. The death clause explained the idea of “the parapathic amalgamation of death and normal intercourse” (Stekel and Brink 2: 246). That is, that the algolagnic behavior is so ingrained into their mind, that they can only derive normal sexual pleasure through the ultimate pain one can inflict, death. The death clause is something that Vanger seemed to very much experience, and it would explain not only his torture chamber, but why he killed almost every girl he raped.
Vanger is not an isolated example; numerous times in this Swedish novel do misogynistic and sadist examples appear. Nor does the book portray an isolated culture of sadists in Sweden, as is evidenced by Lisbeth Salander who says that, “by the time she was 18…did not know a single girl who at some point had not been forced to perform some sort of sexual act against her will” (Larsson 228).
The first sadist scene experienced in the book comes from Nils Bjurman, Salander’s court-appointed guardian. As stated previously, he expected a quid pro quo relationship and he enacted his sadistic pleasures on her twice. It is important to note how he focuses in on what she does not enjoy. “So you don’t like anal sex” (Larsson 250), he asks, and once she affirms that statement, he has found her weakness; a we...
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Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Trans. Reg Keeland. New York City: Random House, Inc., 2008. Print.
Rosenberg, S., Robin, and Shannon O'Neill. The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Understanding Lisbeth Salander and Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. BenBella Books, Inc., 2013. Google eBook. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
Stekel, Wilhelm, and Louise Brink. Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty. 2 vols. New York: Liveright, 1953. Questia School. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
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Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, a senior writer at U.S. News and World, published her article, "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," in 2004. She uses the article to briefly overview the scandal as a whole before diving into what can trigger sadistic behavior. The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal took place in 2004, wherein American troops humiliated and tortured Iraqi detainees (Szegedy-Maszak 75). The main objective of Szegedy-Maszak’s article is to investigate the causation behind sadistic behavior, exclusively in the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal. She effectively does so by gathering information and research from professional psychologists and professors of psychology, specifically Herbert Kelman and Robert Okin (Szegedy-Maszak 76). She finds
...pe, both sex and aggression become fused together into a single experience called sadism. There is a transformation of anger and power so that aggression becomes erotic. This offender finds the intentional mistreatment of his victim extremely gratifying and takes pleasure in her torment and suffering (Hazelwood 1).
Other People’s Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy by Victoria Purcell-Gates recounts the author’s two-year journey with an illiterate Appalachian family. Purcell-Gates works with Jenny, the mother, and her son, first grader Donny, to analyze the literacy within the household. Throughout the journey, we learn the definition and types of literacy, the influences of society and the environment, and the impacts of literacy on education from the teacher’s perspective. In order to evaluate literacy in the household, one must study multiple types, including functional, informational, and critical literacy. As the name implies, functional literacy incorporates reading and writing as tools for everyday survival. Informational literacy is used through text to communicate information to others. The highest level of literacy, critical literacy, requires critical interpretations and imaginative reflections of text. In her study, Purcell-Gates strives to teach Jenny and Donny functional literacy.
Deviating from the norm within her time, Aphra Behn’s, “The Disappointment,” tackles the concept of sex from the female perspective, something still relatively taboo in the modern world. Behn offers readers a glimpse into the confusion and anxiety that accompany a woman’s loss of virginity, in addition to the heightened expectations of masculinity enforced on the man. By creating sympathetic and pitiable characters out of both Cloris and Lysander, Behn imagines a narrative in which there are no winners or beneficiaries in this uncomfortable exchange, directly resulting from societal expectations. During the specific instance in which Cloris gives into her desires only to discover that Lysander is unable to perform, the narrator illustrates
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” reflects the notion O’Reilly conveys. The female protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, is a world class computer hacker with a photographic memory. Salander is also the survivor of an abusive childhood which makes her a fiercely anti-social heroine with a violent streak. She is an independent and intelligent person who holds the capability of taking care of herself. Throughout the book she demonstrates the ability to fight against anything or anyon...
Wendy Doniger and Sudir Kakar call the sexually violent Kama Sutra ‘bright and shiny,’ but when people hear the words ‘bright and shiny’ sexual violence is not usually paired together with those terms. This idea of ‘bright and shiny’ contrasts the idea of intercourse being ‘dark and heavy.’ Sexual violence can be relatively cheerful though it lacks emotional eroticism. Emotional eroticism is not so constrained and is more focused around the idea of love. The violence used during intercourse helps one to obtain continuity through physical eroticism. Bataille said, “Physical eroticism has in any case a heavy, sinister quality. It holds on to the separateness of the individual in a rather selfish and cynical
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895) was an Austrian writer from the mid to late nineteenth century. The term masochism was derived from his name due to the nature of his renowned romance novels. In 1949, Reik conducted an in-depth clinical study of masochism and expressed the idea that there are four main components to such behaviour. These components are listed as fantasy, suspense, demonstration and provocation. Deleuze elaborates these terms further, describing fantasy as “the scene which is dreamed, dramatised, ritualised,” (1967, p75). Ritual is a ceremony of sorts which complies with a series of actions and does not have a prescribed outcome. Deleuze refers to suspense as the anxiety that occurs when the masochist is left to wait and
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer from the mid to late nineteenth century. The term masochism was derived from his name due to the nature of his renowned romance novels. In his literary analysis of Sacher-Masoch’s novels, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in 1967, brought attention to the importance of an assistant, ‘an agreement between partners, which Sacher-Masoch had literized by drawing up actual contract,’ (O’Dell, 1998, p.4). However, earlier, in the late nineteenth century, the term masochism was used by Richard von Krafft, a French philosopher, to give a name to what he viewed as a ‘desire to harm one’s own body,’ (O’Dell, 1988, p. 3). Without emphasising the more modern use of the sexualised word, it can be said that Stelarc, among other performance artists involved in performance with conscious intention of self-harm, performed masochistic acts. In 1949, Theodor Reik conducted an in-dept. clinical study of masochism and expressed the idea that there are four components to such behaviour. These components are listed as fantasy, suspense, demonstrati...
""The Art of Cruelty"" The New York Times Book Review, 31 July 2011. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
Roder, Thomas, Voller Kubillus and Anthony Burwell. Psychiatrists -- the Men Behind Hitler. Los Angeles: Freedom Publishing, 1995.
Throughout high school, I have come to many conclusions regarding my friends, my image, and my personality. I realize that I don’t need to conform to the stereotypical cliques in high school. In the same way, Cady Heron from the film Mean Girls, undergoes a transformation during her high school experience. Cady is intelligent but desperate for acceptance. She develops problems with her new friends, old friends, and her own personality. In the end, she realizes an important truth and strives to make peace in her life.
Knoblauch argues that there are many definitions of literacy that impact people’s lives. Although he argues there are many definitions, he focused on four types of literacy that are most common in society. Knoblauch labels them as functional, cultural, personal-growth/liberal, and critical literacy. He defines functional literacy as a level of literacy that is “readying people for the necessities of daily life—writing checks, reading sets of instructions”(1990, p. 3) and other basic reading and writing skills. However, he also warns that there are hidden agendas in these types of defined literacies. Ill prepared teachers who do not connect to and challenge their students result in no critical literacy and very little
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
Cleckley, H. (1976). The mask of sanity: An attempt to clarify some issues about the so-called psychopathic personality. St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Inc. (Original work published 1941).
Ted Bundy’s style of killing describes sexual sadism. Sexual sadism is the intense sexually arousal by the thought or act of inflicting suffering on others by dominating, restraining, blindfolding, cutting, strangling, mutilating, or even killing the victim (Comer, 2011). This condition would fall under Axis I because it causes significant impairment.