Patrick McEvoy-Halston

English 376r-
Eric Miller
10 March 2005

I made use of it in my paper,but it seemsespeciallyappropriateto bring up Scott

Paul Gordon' s The Power of the PassiveSelf in English Literature, I 640-I 770 in my

responseto Caleb Williams. Gordon saysthat improper public behaviour was largely

policed in eighteenth-centurysociety by the fear that someoneout there was watching

you, even if you couldn't seethis person. He suggeststhat "[t]he early eighteenth-

centuryperiodicals,including the Spectator,[which invade people's homes,] monitor

London by meansof invisible rather than visible watchers. By convincing readersthat

the city teemswith invisible informants, ready to report any transgression,these

periodicals aim[ed] to motivate readers-made to fear that nay offenseswill be publicly

exposed-to preemptively discipline themselves"(94). He refers to the effectivenessof

's
the Spectator Mr. Spectatorin this regard. But were charactersfrom periodicals, such
lnf.,ct$t"g)
as Mr. Spectator,or, later in the century, from widely read books, such as Mr. Falkland,

really responsiblefor nurturing a senseamongstthe public that someonewas out there

who would find them out, regardlessof the clevernessof their evasivetactics? Might

peoplehave felt a strangesensethat they were being observed,regardless?

What I am suggestingis that one's feeling of being watchedmay owe its causeto

\
"r'-f.i*
?,j*'N*sthe nature of our early childhood experiencesmore than it does to modern policing

technologles. (The watching Eye's apparentomnipresencein narrativesin every time

period I am familiar with, makes me wonder if this "eye" "technologt'' [as Gordon calls
ton 6\ts\
it] was really a new way to police behaviour.) That is, if our parentsgave us looks

which made us feel intensely scrutinized by a disapproving source,if they told us they

were-like SantaClause-always aware of our badness,we might carry their judgmental

 assessment
of us throughoutour lives. Somepsychologistssuggest
that eachof us in
fact-to a lesseror greater extent-possess alters, that
is, neurological ..demons,,,which
watch over us and "attack us," causeus self-reproof,
when ever we do anything which

might arousefeelings of parental rekibution. In a sense,

they suggestthat part of our
brains is always keeping an eye on the rest of the rubbery
mass.

If thesepsychologists are right, perhapspublic representations

of this all seeing
"Eye" such as we find in Caleb Williams, might actually
serveto tes$n people,sfear of
I
rehibution more than it encouragesit. That is, if, when
we encounterthis . Eye,, in our
reading, we recall our childhood watchers,perhaps
they provide the meansby which we

might re-encounteafiddle with, and perhapscombat

the influence our parents, scary
looks had on how we choseto live our lives. Perhaps
they help us accessexperiences,

/ parts of the brain, that have always affected us

but which are difficult to accesswithout
t technologcal assistance.

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