Last week we discussed the work of Franz Kafka together with Michel Foucault’s idea of panopticism as a symbol for disciplinary societies. Although criticism was raised against the adaption of panopticism in contemporary times, I would like you to focus once more on the connection of power and knowledge that can be used to modify individual behavior. While in Kafka’s short stories the artistic characters internalized the disciplined mechanisms of their “masters” and society, the protagonist of Stefan Zweig‘s Fear oscillates between acts of obedience and liberation from the disciplinary techniques implemented by the bourgeois society.
The relationship between Irene and Eduard visualizes more clearly the oscillation between the two different worlds in which diverging values, rules, and morals collide. Please investigate with your blog entry how the power relationship between Eduard and Irene changes in the first half of the novella. In which ways is Irene a disciplined character or a controlled character? How does she exercise power over others? How do knowledge, shame, and fear enhance but also hinder her “liberation” process and ultimately change her individual behavior?
The relationship between Irene and Eduard in the beginning is a secretive one where Irene is cheating on her husband to be with Eduard and Eduard is sleeping with Irene, which takes away time he could have been spending with the woman who blackmailed Irene. At first, Irene seems to have a lot of false power, in that no one knows what she is doing and she enjoys the excitement of cheating but as soon as she is found out by someone, she comes to the realization that she could lose everything she had been taking for granted in her bourgeois life. Irene goes from being in a position of power to one of fear. Irene becomes a controlled character once she is caught by Eduard’s former mistress and forced to pay lump sums to the mistress in larger and larger amounts in return for her adultery to be kept secret. Although one could make the argument that she was already being controlled by societal norms when she had to sneak around in the first place to see another man. She exercises a small degree over her husband and family by keeping them in the dark about her extra-marital affair but also exercises power over Eduard’s former mistress because she is consuming Eduard’s time, she has the power to stop the mistress from seeing him. Knowledge of the affair from the mistress causes shame and fear for Irene but also those same emotions are part of what fueled the affair. Also the possibility that her husband may find out causes more shame and fear of what will happen. These emotions ultimately lead to her suicide as Irene felt trapped and didn’t know what to do.
At first, Irene and Eduard seem as if they are more powerful than their significant others and previous lovers by having this affair with each other, but as the story progresses they both become more and more vulnerable, losing understanding of each other and their loved ones, especially Irene. Irene lives a very controlled life, married to a successful husband with children, even her affair is a set part of her life. In the story it mentions how Irene meets up with Eduard once a week and it becomes a normal, scheduled, meet up. When she gets home she usually has a story already made up to tell her husband, and her husband believes her stories to be true, not questioning if she has been cheating. This all changes when Irene starts getting blackmailed, which begins to mess up her disciplined life style. She begins to feel guilty for what she has done and realizes she does not even know how her own husband will react to the news of her affair. She also begins to question how she ever felt attracted with Eduard. Although these emotions cause Irene anxiety, they also cause a sense of adventure, which is what she wants in her very structured life.
The story starts off with Irene and Eduard’s affair, in which both are believed to be in control of the situation and enacts power over their partners. In the beginning Irene seems to be a disciplined character, as she’s the one calling the shots and has built the affair to be a part of her weekly routine. It appears that she’s in control of the situation. Irene exercises power over others by having a place and time for everything to be done as well as she’s the one who has the means to afford such a luxury to do what she wishes with her time (parties, shopping, affair), and the ability to tell a lie so effortlessly (to her husband, friends) at first. At first knowledge was what gave Irene power over her husband’s blissful ignorance as well as power over her lover’s undivided attention. That power disappeared when that knowledge was discovered by the black mailer in which caused fear and shame to occur. Although the fear and shame caused extreme anxiety and panic it also gave rise to excitement and arousal. As the black mailer became threatening to the structure of her home life, her behavior became abnormal and off character. Her family and house keepers mentions that she’s not acting normal. Anytime she would attempt to be her usual self she was reminded of the black mailers intent. Over time this changed how she responded to everyday situations and how she fulfilled her role.
Immediately an affair is learned of, where both characters appear to be very dominate. Irene is the more authoritative character and is calling a lot of the shots in the affair. Irene seems to very organized, as in there is always an agenda for everything, she is very well off and whatever she says is believed. She lost all of her control when she got blackmailed, which induced fear in her. This fear caused her to not be able to lie as swiftly and caused her husband, friends and family to question her odd behavior. Any time she even thought about telling a lie, she was reminded of the blackmailing. So we saw a shift in power, and we saw Irene’s demeanor change once she was no longer in control.
The Irene that the reader encounters in the first half of this novella is distinctly different from the version that later unfolds. She is a typical example of a bourgeois woman: beautiful and prospering from the wealth of her husband all while maintaining very few responsibilities of her own. It is specifically these traits which drive her “placid, bourgeois world” into the the ground. The guilt of cheating, or rather the fear of being caught slowly overtakes Irene. The complete freedom she once exercised over her husband was relinquished by her own fear. Eduard’s power relationship is also impacted by Irene’s decision to withhold her secret. He grows fiercer and colder, exhibiting aloof and anger-driven behaviors toward his wife.
Irene’s social status disciplines her to live her life in a certain way. She is free to spend each day as she chooses, being unemployed and not responsible over her own children. However, it is her debilitating fear which ultimately controls all of her waking thoughts. She finds herself unable to leave her home or to let her guard down for even a moment of time. In both circumstances, she is being punished for her own choices.
Throughout the text, Irene demonstrates an almost impeccable ability to conjure up a lie on a moment’s notice. It is through these continuous lies that she exercises her power over her husband and blackmailer.
Knowledge, shame, and fear play an interconnected role in the liberation process for Irene. All three influence her to make drastic lifestyle changes in order to prevent her husband from discovering the truth. Had knowledge, shame, and fear not been working together within her, Irene likely would have confessed at the start of the story. However, they proved to hinder her liberation process on numerous occasions. Although she was aware of her fear and shame, she was not strong enough to overcome them.
Initially, the reader is introduced to two individuals: Irene and Eduard both conducting an affair. As the affair is detailed, the reader learns that both parties believe to be very dominant, or the source of power in the relationship. To me, Irene has a high confidence that she is the dominant party due to her extreme exactness and precision in conducting tasks and her affair. At first, Irene displays a sense of invincibility and power in her own mind. She displays an acute sense of her surroundings in order to have stories made up exactly when her husband is home, and she always has her meet ups scheduled and the time and place picked out. Irene seems to have an heir of invincibility at the beginning. However, as time progresses, Irene get’s blackmailed and the whole plot takes a turn. Eduard’s and Irene’s relationship becomes somewhat distant and not emotional. Irene became spooked by the blackmailing and it drives her insane to the point where she cannot leave the house, or make up any lie for her husband, and she cannot simply return to her life of simplicity and order from once before.
Irene’s husband is a successful man, while Irene is unemployed and free to do what she pleases. Irene’s power comes from her husband’s ignorance of the whole affair. To me, Irene needed the affair and her husband to be clueless to make Irene feel needed by another man rather than by just an accessory to this successful man. When she gets blackmailed, the power complex completely shifts and Irene is not the same disciplined, organized, person that she once was.
In the beginning Irene and Eduard’s relationship seems to be controlled because no one knows of it. They have power over their significant others, due to them having the secret affair. however, the power shifts in favor of Irene when she starts getting blackmailed. she starts to refuse to see Eduard and finds satisfaction in being able to dictate when or if she saw him. This is short-lived when her blackmailer and her have a slight altercation, in which the woman instates fear upon Irene. Irene then becomes the controlled character, the fear of her husband finding out changes her behaviors. She starts to hide out in her home and become anxious and nervous, which children notice as well. The shame and fear of others finding out controls her every thought and action, she continues to stay locked in her home. This prevents her liberation process even though she has the choice every time to go out, she’s too afraid and sumerges to fear and guilt.
In the beginning the relationship between Irene and Eduard are both in control of the situation ,because their affair is a secret. They have power over their significant others because they both get to Meet each other and do what they want, while no one knows. However, this changes when Irene goes on this liberation process which is inflected by her blackmailer. Irene starts to have the power over the situation, she starts to reject Eduard and say when or if they’re meeting. she becomes insatiable with having control of her life but that is short-lived. After a altercation with the woman who is blackmailing her, she becomes grippled with fear and shame. Now Irene is a controlled character, her behavior starts to change as well. She doesn’t leave the house and becomes very anxious and nervous. Irene thinks every thought profusely in fear of getting caught and carefully plans her actions. The fear of her affair getting out starts to dictate her life, she is no longer on her liberation process.
Irene as a character seems only to care about the dangers of her illicit relationship when they begin to directly affect her negatively. She constantly shifts between a state of total fear and anguish and pride and joy depending on whether or not she knows someone is observing her or knows about her affair. She’s not so much a disciplined character as she is a character who acts based on consequences. She seems so have no moral quandaries whatsoever, and she acts in accordance to consequences.
The story opens with Irene and Eduard’s affair. They both portray controlling characteristics. Irene’s sense of power is quickly changed once she realizes that she has a lot to lose if she is discovered. It is the same within any relationship. The thrill of the chase and the secret world that you have with your affair partner is exciting and something new. But at sometime, reality kicks in and that’s when Irene realized that she has more to lose with her current marriage then she has to gain with Eduard. Irene’s power was greatly reduced when she began to be blackmailed. Her lose of confidence became to eat away at her as she is no longer in control of everything in her life. The excitement of being wanted soon vanished as she realized that her mistakes could cost her everything. Most affairs happen this way, everything is great because you have someone who shows you attention that you may not receive from your current lover. Then one judgment error turns your outlook on life and the affair completely different.
At first Eduard and Irene seem to be confident in their relationship and even have some power because they feel as if they are smart enough to outsmart their significant others. This quickly changes after Irene meets Eduard’s lover. Their relationship turns into something foreign and somewhat despicable to Irene. This shunning of Eduard makes Irene feel like she has all the power over him. She says she likes to feel wanted yet have no need for the other person. I believe this is where she gets her feeling of power from. She feels happy around all of her husband’s friends that compliment her and adore her and as soon as this goes away she feels miserable. Her behavior changes drastically because of the fear she constantly has. She never goes out and is trapped not only in her apartment but her own mind. She says she would feel better in a mental institution than in her own home, subject to her thoughts of fear that constantly overtake her. Everyone also notices this fear, not only her husband but also family and servants.
In the beginning of the novella, Irene is very much in control. She is living with her husband and family, taking on few responsibilities as she is prospering off of the wealth of her husband. Behind the scenes, she is having an affair with Eduard, who she begins to see on a regular basis. While she maintains a structured lifestyle apart from the affair, she uses the affair as an addition of excitement into her routine life. Later on in the novella, her power shifts. She is then found out by the woman Eduard was initially with, and the woman begins to use what she has newly found out against Irene for blackmail. If Irene were to no cooperate, she would release her secrets to the public, which Irene realizes would cause her to lose everything. She then begins to rethink everything, including her feelings toward Eduard. Where she once had all the power in the beginning of the novel, controlling all parts of her lifestyle, in the later part she loses much of the control with the addition of the blackmail.
The relationship between Eduard and Irene is a very suspicious connection. Irene spends her time cheating on her husband with “her lover” while also knowing she is cheating and has children. They seem to be a dominant/controlling type and want to know what is happening at all times. Irene thinks that she can control what is happening by controlling her life with thinking that suicide is the option to escape the guilt of cheating on her husband. Irene did everything to make sure “her lover” was paid by even giving her engagement ring to “her lover” as a way to pay her the amount. While Irene is feeling this way, Eduard already knew about what the affair and wanted to build the guilt onto her for it. The letters Irene was receiving from “her lover” asking for money to keep the secret quiet were all set up by Eduard. Everything happening to Irene and her reactions to what was happening resulted in a lot of shame and fear of what could happen. She believed at one point that taking her life would be the best options to escape everything. Once she found out that her husband already knew, she seemed to calm down a bit because he wasn’t as angry as she thought he would be.
Irene and Eduard’s relationship starts off as a secret affair after they met at a gathering in which he was the pianist. Their relationship appeared strong and wanted by both of the characters. Irene was a bourgeois woman who was married to a well known lawyer with whom she had two kids. She is shown in the story as very cautious, disciplined, and controlled. For example in the first few visits with Eduard she is nervous to go see him and makes sure to wear a veil to not be seen by anyone else and even when she left his apartment she felt overcome with the same feeling of fear and guilt. Other than Irene’s affair, she follows the social norms of her place in society. One part in the story also displays her disciplined and controlled characteristics is when they were describing her routine and it was said she didn’t mess up her orderliness from her affair but instead she added to it, in which she went to see him out of habit. Eduard is a man with a gypsy way of living, extravagant clothing, a love for the arts, and an irregular financial status, much opposite to the lifestyle of Irene.
As the story goes on their relationship and themselves change. Irene is encountered by Eduard’s main woman and she comes to realize how much is at stake if the woman decides to share Irene’s affair. Irene begins as very fearful of being blackmailed and shameful for having done such a thing and getting caught by the woman. She then thinks about the lifestyle she lives and her family, realizing all of its importance and comfort to her. Her decision to end the affair leaves her feeling more free and she slowly becomes more adventurous and independent.
Because of what she feels is a mundane life, Irene finds herself searching for something exciting and new. She finds this in her secret lover, Eduard. In a way, Irene is using Eduard for her own devices which is rather rare in novels like this. She has much of the control within their secret relationship. He pays attention to her, so much so that the narrator says that his “passion intoxicated her” (163). We see her control in the relationship during times when Irene learned how to “make herself even more desirable to him by refusing her favours without giving any reason” (161). She obviously knew how to get what she wanted out of this exciting bump in her mundane road of life. Once things become known, Irene has to use her newfound shame and fear to encourage her to keep her secret a secret. Once this fear materializes, her power is lost. She is constantly giving into the woman blackmailing her rather than controlling the situation, as she had been doing with Eduard. There is a power shift; one that is not in Irene’s favor.
Initially, Eduard has some influence over Irene. When they begin their relationship, Irene is invested in their affair. During this affair, Irene spends little time with her family. In this sense, Eduard and the relationship he has with Irene is able to influence her decisions. Eduard does not have a large amount of power over Irene and this becomes clear later on in the story. Later in the story, Irene has power and control over Eduard’s emotions. Irene stops seeing him, and he follows her around because he is desperately wants to continue their affair. Irene asks for Eduard’s help to search for the blackmailer and he agrees to initially even though it is unlikely that their affair will continue. By the end of the story Irene is very different from how she acted during the beginning. Initially, Irene had a greater degree of control over her own life, but this changes. After being blackmailed by the mysterious woman, Irene becomes controlled by her own fear of the threats that the woman made. Over time Irene’s life deteriorates and she loses control over her own life, resulting in a situation where the woman had control.
In the beginning of the novella the relationship between the two seems very stale, like she was a very free person and he let her do her own thing. It seems to be like there isn’t much of an issue her having the freedoms. As it continues though, he seems to be more closing in on these freedoms at the same time that her emotions begin to control her more. Irene seems to be a very controlled character. She’s controlled by her emotions, by the people around her in a sense when you include the blackmailer. She lets her anxieties control her instead of overcoming them or discussing them. Her power over others is that she has the power to stop everything around her but she doesn’t exercise it at all because she is so controlled by her anxieties she gives up that power. In return because of those anxieties the knowledge she has that she could end it by speaking up hinders her own life. She lets her shame take over her and stop her from truly living.
Irine at the start of the story seems very freewilled and care free, it is only from her guilt by cheating on her husband and by being blackmailed by the woman he hired she becomes anxious and homebound. She is controlled by her fear and anxiety of her husband finding out about her infidelity and has noone but herself to trust with her secret. As my group disussed if she had just told her husband at the start she would not be as suisidal. She controls her own destiny by having the opporunity to end her suffering but she cannot.
In which ways is Irene a disciplined character or a controlled character? She is a controlled character because at the beginning is very bland and boring, she is controlled by the person she loves, until she cheats on him and becomes a disciplined character. So both answers for this question are correct.
How does she exercise power over others? By cheating and uses emotions to control people
How do knowledge, shame, and fear enhance but also hinder her “liberation” process and ultimately change her individual behavior? They make her into a powerful person rather than a controlled person as we saw in the beginning in the story.