Quotes I like from the text relevant to this class: Hope these will further your thinking on the matter of Self-identity and the centrality of our "face" as a medium for INTERACTION in society. This is central to "social interactionism" proposed by Goffman and others as well as part of what phenomenologists call the experience of the "lived body".
DEFINING OURSELVES AS SOCITY SEES US: OUR FACE
"This singular meaning-I was my face, I was ugliness-though sometimes unbearable offered a possible point of escape. It became the launching pad from which to lift off, the one immediately recognizable place to point to when asked what was wrong with my life. Everything led to it. Everything receded from it-my face as a personal vanishing point. (7)"
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN BODY & MIND
"While our bodies move ever forward on the timeline, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark. (27)"
WE GET OUR SELF_PERCEPTION AS WE INTERACT WITH THOSE AROUND US AND SEE OURSELVES AS WE THINK THEY SEE US. BEFORE THE "REJECTION" OF OTHERS, WE HAVE MORE POSITIVE VIEWS
"Though I had looked at the scar running down my face, it had not occurred to me to scrutinize how I looked. I was missing a section of my jaw, but the extreme swelling, which stayed with me for two months hid the defect. Before the operation I hadn't had a strong sense of what I looked like anyway. Proud of my tomboyish heritage, I'd dogmatically scorned any attempts to look pretty or girlish…on the day I went home I felt proud of my new dramatic scar and eager to show it off" (62)
THE SOMATIC SENSE OF EXISTING IN A BODY IN SPACE CAN SHIFT WHEN WE EXPERIENCE OUR BODIES IN DIFFERENT WAYS
"Suddenly, my perception of the world shifted. I wasn't the only person in the world who suffered…my sense of space and self lengthened and transformed, extending itself out the door and down the corridor, while at the same time staying present with me…" (86)
HEIGHTENED SENSE OF AWARENESS THAT MAY COME OUT OF HEIGHTENED EXPERIENCES WITH OUR BODIES (PHENOMENOLOGY). IN THESE STATES WE SEARCH FOR OUR SENSE OF SELF WHICH HAS COME INTO QUESTION
"I was becoming aware that I was experiencing my body, and the world differently from other people…At times I was desperate and could find no solace anywhere…the weight of being trapped in my own body made it difficult to lift even a hand off the sheets. Other times a sort of physical awareness would take hold of me. Each breath was an important exchange with the world around me, each sensation on my skin a tender brush from a reality so beautiful and so mysterious that i would sometimes find myself squealing with the delight of being alive" (91)
WE CAN NEVER SEE HOW OTHERS REALLY SEE US
"I knew I was going bald. I knew I was pale and painfully thin. i knew I had a big scar on my face. In short I was different looking, and I knew my appearance had an effect on other people…but I was still keeping myself ignorant of the details of my appearance, of the specific logic of it. My intuition must have known it was better this way." (104)
FACE=IDENTITY
"Assuming this was how other people felt all the time, I again named my face as the thing that kept me apart, as the tangible element of what was wrong with my life and with me…it was easier to slip back into my depression and blame my face for everything." (127)
"My face may have closed the door to love and beauty in their fleeting states, but didn't my face also open me up to perceptions I might have otherwise been blind to? …I considered my powers, my heightened sense of self-awareness, feeling not as if I had chosen this path, but that it had been chosed for me. " (150-1)
"When I awake I was in a lot of pain, but the pain was in my hip where the graft came from, far away from my face, my "self", so it was easier to deal with." (170)
SOCIETY AND OUR DEFINITIONS OF BEAUTY AND OUR SELF ESTEEMED WHICH IUS ATTACHED TO THIS INTERACTION.
"The people in the plastic surgery ward hated their gorgeously hooked noses, their wise lines, their exquisitely thin lips. Beauty as defined by society at large seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else. If I had my original face, an undamaged face, I would know how to appreciate it, know how to see the beauty of it….I knew there would always be a next operation and a new chance for my life to finally begin." (187)
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