Summary
This is a collection of essays that fills several crucial gaps in the critical analysis of the relations between Western state-sanctioned confinement, identity, nation, and literature. This volume is the first examination of the ways in which diverse types of confinement intersect with Western ideology, investigating the modern reliance on captivity as a means of consolidating individual and national or state sovereignty.
Contents
1. Being Jane Warton: Lady Constance Lytton and the disruption of privilege / Jason Haslam -- 2. Form and authority in Russian serf autobiography / John Mackay -- 3. I, hereby, vow to read the Interesting Narrative / Tess Chakkalakal -- 4.From the slums to the slums: the delimitation of social identity in Late Victorian prison narratives / Frank Lauterback. -- 5. Stone Walls do (Not) a Prison Make: rhetorical strategies and sentimentality in the representation of the Victorian prison experience / Monika Fludernik -- 6. National Feeling and the colonial prison: Teeling's Personal Narrative' / Julia M. Wright -- 7. A nation in chains: Barbary captives and American Identity / Jennifer Costello Brezina -- 8. A prison officer and a gentleman: the prison inspector as imperialist hero in the writings of Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908)' / Christine Marlin.