Convicts actively narrated and performed their own criminality in the spectacle

Evidence

The convicts themselves responded to this game, displaying their crimes and enacting their misdeeds: this was one of the functions of tattooing, a vignette of their deeds or their fate: ‘They bear the insignia of their crimes, either a guillotine tattooed on their left arms, or on their chests a dagger plunged into a bleeding heart.’ As they passed, they mimed the scenes of their crimes, mocking the judges or the police, boasting of as yet undiscovered deeds of wickedness. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395

Categorization

• XREF: Convicts scripting their own infamy inverts the panoptic visibility: the supervised here are not passive objects but co-authors of the display — a nuance against the fully passive internalized subject. — connects to: The chain-gang spectacle fused public torture ceremony with the path to prison — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 394; Execution sites and torments mirrored the crime’s form and setting — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 97; Crowds read criminal identity from physiognomy and dress as a folk science of crime — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395 (+1 more)

Related

• The crowd functioned simultaneously as audience and participant in royal punishment (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The crowd functioned simultaneously as audience and participant in royal punishment #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 114
• Execution sites and torments mirrored the crime’s form and setting #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 97
• Crowds read criminal identity from physiognomy and dress as a folk science of crime #corroborates (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395