From Discipline and Punish Class WIki
Tracing the Development of Conscience and Human Nature in Early American Crime Narratives
Early crime narratives seem to show a development of the conscience of the condemned from based on a notion of grace and salvation to one determined by some internal factor. In the latest narratives, conscience seems to be almost absent. Each criminal sees them self as guilty in some way: whether or not they claim to be actually guilty of the crime they are being executed for, but the degree to which they feel guilty and for what reason is extremely varied from text to text. As the criminal’s conception of conscience seems to change, so do their ideas about their nature: some see themselves as corrupted by certain people or situations whereas others seem to see themselves as naturally evil and destined for a life of crime. How do these changing notions of nature affect the concept of conscience in these narratives? What dictates these changes—were they a result of religious changes in early America or changing perceptions of race?
The earliest narratives in early 17th century America were mostly about repentance and achieving a state of grace through faith. Both Esther Rodgers and Patience Boston become very concerned with the idea that any believer will be saved, regardless of their actions on earth, although both seem to have some insecurities about their futures in the afterlife. In Esther Rodger’s narrative, The Declaration & Confession of Esther Rodgers a concept of religious right and wrong emerges as one drastically different form the one upheld by the justice system: believers are in the right, and non-believers in the wrong: “whoever believeth shall be saved” (101). Esther Rodgers conception of conscience seems irrelevant from anything the justice system tells her (after all, it has sentenced her to death), and also seems far removed from the crimes she committed, about which we receive very little information. Her conception of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, is entirely determined by her religion. When she feels that she is in a state of grace she is blissfully happy and wishes to be executed sooner, but when she feels that she might not be saved she is depressed.
Patience Boston, in The Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life of Patience Boston like so many other writers of these narratives, has a view of herself as innately wicked: despite the good efforts of her parents, she would “play on the Sabbath, tell lies, and do other Wickedness” (Rodgers120). Although her mistress attempts to correct this early wickedness with some of the religious warnings that seemed to change Esther Rodgers, they have a more short-term effect on Patience, and her “convictions were too weak for strong and violent corruptions” (121). Interestingly, like Esther, Patience speaks of the times in her life in which she is good as times when she was influenced by religion, and the times in which she commits crimes as times when religion cannot control her wicked nature: “sinning would make me leave praying or praying would make me leave sinning” (122). . It is possible that earlier 17th century narratives, written during a highly religious period in America’s history, saw crime as nothing more than a turning away from God, a concept that changes with the emergence of a more defined conscience.
Patience, again much like Esther Rodgers, is deeply comforted by the fact that regardless of her sins, her faith in God will be her salvation. She mentions that she is troubled when she hears that all adulterers and liars will be cast into hell, but is comforted when told that the greater debtor will be forgiven equally as the lesser debtor, no matter how much more he owes. She repeats to herself the same quote that Esther does, that a man who believes in God shall never die, but have eternal life. While awaiting her execution, she is calmed and comforted by a belief that her soul will be saved—she seems to have no concern for her body, and like Esther Rodgers, anxiously awaits the day of her execution.
Patience Boston does make one particularly interesting comment. When she first decides to kill “the child”, the first time she attempts to she finds that she is stopped by what she calls the eye of God: “I got a great stick for the same purpose; but as I was going to lift it up, I felt a trembling, from a sense of God’s eye upon me, so that I had not the power to strike” (Boston 124). This early mention of the idea of conscience is interestingly never really identified as a conscience, which comes from an internal sense of right and wrong but simply as a monitoring by God.
Isaac Frasier’s mid 18th century narrative, A Brief Account of the Life and Abominable Thefts of the Notorious Isaac Frasier, may not be the first to deal with conscience, but it is the first to mention it by name. Frasier is always referring to his true nature as one of wickedness: he seems to see himself as a naturally evil person, held back from time to time from committing evil deeds. First his mother instills in him a sense of honesty, although he states that this is quickly undone by a later mistress. When his future bride wants nothing to do with him, he notes that he has “no restraints of character,” and is “abandoned to my former course of wickedness” (Frasier 153). He refers to himself as having a “thievish calling,” perhaps attempting to excuse his crimes by arguing they are a part of his nature (154). He says that perhaps he could have been reclaimed early in life “when education would have been most powerful to restrain from vice” (158). Interestingly, this seeming preoccupation with one’s true nature seems to arrive at the same time as a focus on conscience. Unlike Patience’s Boston’s comment about praying making her leave sinning or sinning making her leave praying, criminal tendencies are constructed by Isaac Frasier as a part of his nature, not as a turning away from God. Perhaps it is this very idea of crime having a personal internal source that helps the development of an internal conscience: when crime is caused by turning away from God, a return to God is seen as a means of redemption. When crime comes from a mental factor, however, redemption seems to come internally as well, from a pang of conscience.
While Frasier is still in the middle of his life of thievery, the first mention of his conscience occurs: “upon committing these last thefts, I found what I had never experienced in all my scene of villainy before, which was the working of a guilty conscience, whose power was so great that it forced me to recede from my wicked designs several times.” Frasier’s second mention of his conscience occurs after he has already been sentenced to death and escaped from the prison where he is awaiting his execution. He steals a pair of shoes and some clothing from a gentleman and then “found what I had never experienced in all my scene of villainy before, which was the working of a guilty conscience” (157).
Buchanan says that at the time of the killing “I was instantly struck with the horror of conscience”, one of the earliest mentions we’ve seen of the conscience in these narratives (223). Interestingly, this mention of conscience has nothing to do with God and is also for a man who the murderers do not even know.
The late 18th century narrative of Samuel Powers, a black rapist, The Narrative and Confessions of Thomas Powers, A Negro, reveals a man who has seemingly no conscience at all. After raping a girl, he goes home and plays checkers with his master’s children. This narrative reveals none of the humanizing details such as the repentance exhibited by many other criminals. Although Powers reveals that he knows his actions were wrong, there is no sense of regret. Interestingly, Mountain’s narrative also shows little regret for anything other than being arrested, embarrassingly, for a petty crime. Black criminals are in many ways dehumanized by these texts by not showing any conscience whatsoever. At this point in the history of crime narratives, when they were produced for entertainment than for any real warning, it is perhaps possible that black criminals were characterized as guiltless monsters simply to be entertaining.
As the spheres in which criminals were judged changed, so did their ideas of conscience. To Patience Boston and Esther Rodgers, God determined guilt and no personal conception of guilt or innocence could possibly be as important. What they did and how they felt about it was irrelevant, only what God thought mattered, and they simply had to wait and find out. Other criminals answered to a more personal sense of right and wrong, something they identified by name as a conscience and came from some internal source. The latest narratives often reveal characters who are constructed as having no conscience at all, perhaps to entertain the masses who were by this time reading crime narratives purely for entertainment. Although the word conscience has since the 13th century been used to mean “the internal acknowledgement or recognition of the moral quality of one's motives and actions,” it only appears in early American crime narratives once the Puritan grip on law, criminal justice, and perhaps most importantly, literature, has been loosened. Once both the motive for crime and means of redemption from it turned from religion to a concept of personal morality, crime narratives began to reflect this shift and focus on the idea of conscience. Once, however, crime narratives were produced for entertainment, the idea of conscience seems to disappear altogether, perhaps reflecting another shift in the national character from one of religion to one of internal morality to one focused one on production, consumption, and entertainment.
