Spectrality: Etymology/Term, Meanings and Concept
Spectrality
Derived from the Latin “spectrum” (apparition or image), spectrality encompasses the quality of the spectral, the intangible, and the otherworldly. Key meanings and conceptual uses include:
- The Persistence of Absence: Spectrality addresses how that which is absent continues to hold influence or presence. This can manifest in the haunting of historical traumas, unresolved sociopolitical issues, or deeply personal memories.
- The Elusive Nature of Identity: Spectrality questions fixed notions of identity and representation. It highlights how both are fluid and subject to constant reconfiguration, especially within social and technological contexts.
- Deconstruction and Theoretical Frameworks: In literary and critical theory, spectrality is a powerful tool for deconstructing texts and challenging ideas of fixed meaning or singular truth. It finds particular resonance in movements like hauntology.
- Technological Mediation: In contemporary life, spectrality explores the ways technology creates a sense of presence and absence simultaneously. Digital images, representations, and virtual identities can become spectral, possessing a reality independent of their source.
Spectrality: Definition of a Theoretical Term
Spectrality is a theoretical concept examining how the absent or intangible retains a presence that disrupts notions of linear time and singular reality. It explores the persistence of memory, trauma, and the ways in which technology shapes spectral representations that blur boundaries between the real and the virtual. Spectrality often serves as a tool in critical theory to challenge fixed meanings and identities.
Spectrality: Theorists, Works, and Arguments
Spectrality: A Haunting Presence in Theory and Literature
Spectrality, transcending the literal realm of ghosts and apparitions, delves into the theoretical terrain of presence, absence, and the persistence of the past. It explores how these concepts resonate within cultural forms, literary works, and philosophical discourse.
Foundational Theorists
- Jacques Derrida: Derrida, a pivotal figure in this field, brought spectrality to the forefront with his work “Spectres of Marx.” Here, he uses the ghost as a metaphor for the lingering influence of past ideologies on the present, highlighting their unfulfilled promises and ongoing impact.
- Jacques Lacan: Through the lens of the “mirror stage,” Lacan explores the formation of self-identity through image-based identification. Spectrality, in Lacanian theory, signifies the failure of this identification, resulting in a haunting sense of incompleteness.
- Slavoj Žižek: Building upon Derrida’s work, Žižek delves into the political dimensions of spectrality. He argues that unresolved societal contradictions and traumas from the past continue to haunt and disrupt the present, taking the form of spectral figures.
Literary Manifestations
- Hamlet (William Shakespeare): The play hinges on Prince Hamlet’s encounter with the ghost of his murdered father. This specter embodies the past demanding vengeance and disrupting Hamlet’s present reality.
- The Turn of the Screw (Henry James): The novella masterfully exploits the ambiguity of the supernatural. Are the ghosts tormenting the governess real or figments of her imagination? This uncertainty reflects anxieties about memory, perception, and the nature of reality itself.
- Beloved (Toni Morrison): Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman in Morrison’s novel, is haunted by the ghost of her deceased daughter, Beloved. This specter represents the enduring legacy of slavery and its traumatic impact on individuals and communities, persisting long after the physical chains are broken.
Theoretical Implications
- Challenging History and Memory: Spectrality disrupts traditional notions of history as a fixed and knowable entity. It suggests that the past is instead a dynamic and contested space, constantly evolving through interpretation and reinterpretation.
- Critiquing Power Structures: By highlighting the unresolved contradictions of the past, spectrality offers a critical lens for analyzing dominant ideologies and the power structures they uphold.
- Grappling with Loss and Trauma: Spectrality provides a framework for understanding loss, trauma, and the experience of mourning. It acknowledges the ongoing presence of the absent and facilitates the process of coming to terms with them.
Spectrality: Major Characteristics
- A Sense of Haunting: Spectrality often involves a lingering presence of the past—a ghost, a memory, or a trauma that disrupts the present. It’s about the return of something that should be gone.
- Example: Hamlet’s encounter with his father’s ghost in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The ghost unsettles Hamlet and shapes the course of the play.
- Displacement and the Uncanny: Spectrality creates a feeling of the “uncanny,” where something is familiar yet unsettling. It suggests a space or situation that is not quite right, or a blurring of boundaries.
- Example: The eerie atmosphere and psychological distortions of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, like “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
- The Blurring of Time: Spectral elements defy a linear sense of time. The past and present co-exist, and sometimes even the future becomes entangled in a spectral return.
- Example: In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the ghost of a murdered child embodies the unhealed wounds of slavery. The past intrudes forcefully on the present.
- Spectral Figures and Motifs: Spectrality often manifests in recurring images or figures:
- Ghosts – The most obvious example, but they may be metaphorical as well as literal.
- Doubles – Like in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where one person splits into two, suggesting a spectral haunting of self.
- Ruins and Abandoned Places – Representing a lingering sense of what has been lost.
- Ambiguity and Unresolved Meanings: Spectrality rarely provides clear answers. It revels in the uncertainty of what is real, what is memory, and what is truly gone or not.
- Example: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw leaves it ambiguous whether the ghosts are real, or are hallucinations of the troubled governess.
Spectrality: Relevance in Literary Theories
| Literary Theory | Relevance of Spectrality |
| Psychoanalytic Criticism | Spectrality reveals repressed desires, traumas, and the workings of the unconscious mind. Ghosts and uncanny figures can represent unresolved conflicts from the past or aspects of the self that are hidden. |
| Gothic Literature | Spectrality is a core element of the Gothic, creating an atmosphere of suspense, decay, and the supernatural. Ghosts, haunted settings, and a focus on the past’s influence on the present are common spectral features. |
| Marxist Criticism | Specters can embody the unresolved histories of oppression and exploitation. They can represent the lingering effects of social inequalities, economic injustice, or a return of the repressed voices of the marginalized. |
| Postcolonial Criticism | Spectrality highlights the lasting consequences of colonialism. Ghosts can represent displaced peoples, lost cultures, and the ongoing struggles against lingering power dynamics. |
| Deconstruction | Spectrality challenges notions of a stable present and fixed meaning. The spectral blurs boundaries (life/death, past/present), undermining the idea of a single, authoritative interpretation of a text. |
| Feminist Criticism | Spectrality can illuminate the marginalized or silenced voices of women. Spectral figures can be a means of reclaiming forgotten female histories and experiences, or disrupting patriarchal narratives. |
Spectrality: Application in Critiques
1. Beloved by Toni Morrison:
- Argument: Spectrality is applied to the character of Beloved, who embodies the lingering trauma of slavery and the spectral presence of the past within the present.
- Theorists: Drawing on Derrida’s hauntology, the novel explores how the specter of slavery haunts the lives of the characters, shaping their identities and relationships.
- Analysis: Beloved, the ghostly figure, represents the unresolved trauma of slavery and the ways in which its horrors continue to exert influence on subsequent generations.
2. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James:
- Argument: Spectrality is central to the ambiguity surrounding the ghosts in the story, blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination.
- Theorists: Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage and the construction of the self through identification with the other can be applied to the governess’s perception of the ghosts.
- Analysis: The ghosts in the story function as projections of the governess’s repressed desires and anxieties, revealing the spectral nature of the psyche.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:
- Argument: Spectrality is used to explore the cyclical nature of history and the persistence of memory across generations.
- Theorists: Foucault’s idea of the discursive formation of power and knowledge can be applied to the novel’s portrayal of the ghostly presence of colonialism.
- Analysis: The recurring motifs of ghosts and apparitions in the novel serve as reminders of the unresolved conflicts and traumas of Latin American history, highlighting the spectrality of colonial oppression.
4. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski:
- Argument: Spectrality is employed to destabilize the boundaries between reality and fiction, creating an atmosphere of uncanny dread.
- Theorists: Derrida’s notion of deconstruction and the blurring of binary oppositions informs the novel’s exploration of the spectral nature of narrative and representation.
- Analysis: The labyrinthine structure of the novel, filled with footnotes, appendices, and unreliable narrators, creates a sense of haunting as the reader navigates through layers of text and meaning, encountering specters of the unknown.
Spectrality: Relevant Terms
| Term | Definition |
| Ghost | A spirit or apparition of a deceased person, often seen as a haunting presence. |
| Haunting | The lingering presence of the past, often in the form of memories, trauma, or unresolved conflicts. |
| Uncanny | A feeling of the familiar yet strangely unsettling; a sense of something not being quite right. |
| Ruins | Decayed structures or remnants of the past, symbolizing loss, forgotten histories, or a spectral presence. |
| Double/Doppelgänger | A mysterious double of a person, representative of hidden desires, split selves, or a spectral other. |
| Revenant | A being that returns from the dead, embodying the spectral intrusion of the past on the present. |
| Trace | A mark or remnant left behind, suggesting a presence that is no longer fully there. |
| Memory | The faculty of recalling the past, often entangled with spectrality as memories can be haunting or distorted. |
| Trauma | A deeply distressing experience that leaves lingering psychological or emotional wounds, often manifesting in spectral ways. |
| Liminality | A state of being in-between or on a threshold; a concept related to spectrality’s blurring of boundaries (life/death, past/present). |
Spectrality: Suggested Readings
Key Theoretical Works
- Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Routledge, 1994. (This seminal work by Derrida explores spectrality in relation to Marxist thought, themes of justice, and the spectral nature of inheritance).
- Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. 2nd ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2008. (Gordon offers a sociological lens on spectrality, examining how histories of oppression, exclusion, and violence create spectral presences that shape the present).
- Luckhurst, Roger. Gothic. Reaktion Books, 2022. (This detailed introduction to the Gothic literary tradition provides a strong foundation for understanding spectrality as a core element of the genre).
Primary Literary Examples
- Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage, 1987. (Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel powerfully demonstrates the spectral legacy of slavery and its haunting impact on individual lives and the American consciousness).
- Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1992. (A classic exploration of haunting, vengeance, and the ways in which the unsettled past disrupts the present).
- James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Dover Publications, 1898. (This ambiguous novella exemplifies the potential for psychological spectrality, blurring the boundaries between the real and the imagined).
Further Exploration
- Buse, Peter, and Andrew Stott, editors. Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History. Macmillan, 1999. (This essay collection offers diverse critical perspectives on spectrality, spanning deconstructionist, psychoanalytic, and historical approaches).
- Wolfreys, Julian. Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality, Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. (Wolfreys analyzes the prevalence and function of spectral figures and themes in Victorian-era literature).
Additional Resources:
- Academic journals such as Critical Inquiry, Representations, or Gothic Studies often feature articles on spectrality.
- Online databases like JSTOR or Project MUSE provide access to scholarly research.
