I, Pierre Riviére, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century

Description

To free his father and himself from his mother's tyranny, Pierre Rivière decided to kill her. On June 3,1835, he went inside his small Normandy house with a pruning hook and cut to death his mother, his eighteen-year-old sister, and his seven-year-old brother. Then, in jail, he wrote a memoir to justify the whole gruesome tale. Michel Foucault, author of Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish, collected the relevant documents of the case, including medical and legal testimony, police records. and Rivière's memoir. The Rivière case, he points out, occurred at a time when many professions were contending for status and power. Medical authority was challenging law, branches of government were vying. Foucault's reconstruction of the case is a brilliant exploration of the roots of our contemporary views of madness, justice, and crime. Cover Title Page Copyright CONTENTS Editor's Preface 1. The Word Parrhesia 1. The Meaning of the Word Frankness Truth Danger Criticism Duty 2. Evolution of the Word Rhetoric Politics Philosophy 2. Parrhesia in Euripides The Phoenician Women [c.411-409 B.C.] Hippolytus [428 B.C.] The Bacchae [c.407-406 B.C.] Electra [415 B.C.] Ion [c.418-417 B.C.] Hermes' Prologue Apollo's Silence Ion's Role Creusa's Role Orestes [408 B.C.] Problematizing Parrhesia 3. Parrhesia in the Crisis of Democratic Institutions 4. Parrhesia in the Care of the Self Socratic Parrhesia The Practice of Parrhesia In Human Relationships Community life Public life Personal relationships In Techniques of Elmmlnation Preliminary remarks Solitary self-examination Self-diagnosis Self-testing Concluding Remarks Bibliography