Your 'shame under a microscope' corresponds with something I hear in "An Incident". I hear an homage to _Notes From Underground_. In this short novel, ashame/shame has 46 word count. Towards the end the narrator shares “At least I’ve felt ashamed all the while I’ve been writing this story: so it’s no longer literature, but corrective punishment.”
Your 'shame under a microscope' corresponds with something I hear in "An Incident". I hear an homage to _Notes From Underground_. In this short novel, ashame/shame has 46 word count. Towards the end the narrator shares “At least I’ve felt ashamed all the while I’ve been writing this story: so it’s no longer literature, but corrective punishment.”
WOW! Thanks. This gets me to consider the role of shame in writing. How it works in each of us. Is it a goad to help us find redemption or self-compassion? Is it self-flagellation or confession and expiation? It might be different with each story. Maybe we don't need to know, but shame, I'm thinking now "will out." It wants to be transformed.
I agree about transform. Neither narrator will we see smiling on a mental health wellness ad. And that said, exploration is compelling. There can be the search to transform. There can be the compulsion for further shame.
Your 'shame under a microscope' corresponds with something I hear in "An Incident". I hear an homage to _Notes From Underground_. In this short novel, ashame/shame has 46 word count. Towards the end the narrator shares “At least I’ve felt ashamed all the while I’ve been writing this story: so it’s no longer literature, but corrective punishment.”
WOW! Thanks. This gets me to consider the role of shame in writing. How it works in each of us. Is it a goad to help us find redemption or self-compassion? Is it self-flagellation or confession and expiation? It might be different with each story. Maybe we don't need to know, but shame, I'm thinking now "will out." It wants to be transformed.
I agree about transform. Neither narrator will we see smiling on a mental health wellness ad. And that said, exploration is compelling. There can be the search to transform. There can be the compulsion for further shame.