Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysic of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s Great Cat Massacre by Harold
Mah - 1-20
References
Footnotes - Harold Mah, ’Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s
Great Cat Massacre’, History Workshop, 31 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 1-20.
Bibliography - Mah, Harold. ’Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s
Great Cat Massacre’, History Workshop, 31(Spring 191), 1-20.
Notes and Quotes
- ‘Chartier and Dominick LaCapra have questioned Darnton's tendency to treat symbols and texts as
transparent registers of cultural meaning, arguing instead that they have more ambiguity and internal
complexity than Darnton allows’ - 2
- Raises the question of whether reading for mentalities encourages historians to misinterpret or
overanalyse symbols and metaphors in order to construct some sort of subtle undertone that could
indicate the overall attitudes of society
- ‘Darnton never discusses the cook and we might conclude then that he does not take seriously this
metaphor- that the cook is the devil. But how can Darnton select some metaphors or signifiers over
others? Why do some signifiers contain a greater volume of symbolic meaning than others?’ - 7
- This argument suggests that historians using Danton’s method of searching for mentalities in the
undertone of texts are prone to cherry picking and ignoring various potentially important aspects of
texts in order to fit their narrative, thus making these explorations an unreliable source of history, on
top of their factual inaccuracy
- ‘Contat's text in fact provides a good example of how writing, to paraphrase Geoffrey Hartmann, can
destabilize direct communication by overdetermination or indeterminacy, by an excess of figural
language or by a defect of equivocation.'3 To put this more simply, figural language can generate an
excess of meaning so that stable meaning becomes impossible and a single unified interpretation
untenable.’ - 9
- This argument directly contradicts the idea that one can gain a significant amount of untapped
cultural history by searching for mentalities in these otherwise insignificant texts. Crucialy this
argument shows that just like any work of fiction, this text can be interpreted in a variety of ways,
making the interpretation less of a reflection on contemporary society, ad more of a reflection on the
views and beliefs of the historian
- ‘What is to be noted about Darnton's argument is that the identification of cat and master is sustained
solely by a supposed logic of association, a logic that in turn relies on a hypothetical external repository
of communal symbolism. There is a possible identification through metonym of cat and wife - she cries
out, 'They have killed my pussy' - but there is no explicit linkage or identification of cat and master’ - 9
- Again this argument demonstrates the instability of Darnton’s analysis as it is often based upon
assumptions about what people would have thought and what people would have associated these
Mah - 1-20
References
Footnotes - Harold Mah, ’Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s
Great Cat Massacre’, History Workshop, 31 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 1-20.
Bibliography - Mah, Harold. ’Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s
Great Cat Massacre’, History Workshop, 31(Spring 191), 1-20.
Notes and Quotes
- ‘Chartier and Dominick LaCapra have questioned Darnton's tendency to treat symbols and texts as
transparent registers of cultural meaning, arguing instead that they have more ambiguity and internal
complexity than Darnton allows’ - 2
- Raises the question of whether reading for mentalities encourages historians to misinterpret or
overanalyse symbols and metaphors in order to construct some sort of subtle undertone that could
indicate the overall attitudes of society
- ‘Darnton never discusses the cook and we might conclude then that he does not take seriously this
metaphor- that the cook is the devil. But how can Darnton select some metaphors or signifiers over
others? Why do some signifiers contain a greater volume of symbolic meaning than others?’ - 7
- This argument suggests that historians using Danton’s method of searching for mentalities in the
undertone of texts are prone to cherry picking and ignoring various potentially important aspects of
texts in order to fit their narrative, thus making these explorations an unreliable source of history, on
top of their factual inaccuracy
- ‘Contat's text in fact provides a good example of how writing, to paraphrase Geoffrey Hartmann, can
destabilize direct communication by overdetermination or indeterminacy, by an excess of figural
language or by a defect of equivocation.'3 To put this more simply, figural language can generate an
excess of meaning so that stable meaning becomes impossible and a single unified interpretation
untenable.’ - 9
- This argument directly contradicts the idea that one can gain a significant amount of untapped
cultural history by searching for mentalities in these otherwise insignificant texts. Crucialy this
argument shows that just like any work of fiction, this text can be interpreted in a variety of ways,
making the interpretation less of a reflection on contemporary society, ad more of a reflection on the
views and beliefs of the historian
- ‘What is to be noted about Darnton's argument is that the identification of cat and master is sustained
solely by a supposed logic of association, a logic that in turn relies on a hypothetical external repository
of communal symbolism. There is a possible identification through metonym of cat and wife - she cries
out, 'They have killed my pussy' - but there is no explicit linkage or identification of cat and master’ - 9
- Again this argument demonstrates the instability of Darnton’s analysis as it is often based upon
assumptions about what people would have thought and what people would have associated these
