Place-ing the Prison Officer : The ‘Warder’ in the British Literary and Cultural Imagination

The sadistic prison 'warder' is an all-too-familiar figure in the literary and cultural imagination of Britain and beyond. This book seeks to redress this misrepresentation of the prison officer by drawing attention to counter-discursive examples: deploying and developing spatial and cognitive narratological frameworks, it examines prison literature that lends a voice to prison officers and/or grants them a complex fictional representation. Place-ing the Prison Officer: The ‘Warder’ in the British Literary and Cultural Imagination Copyright The Spatial Practices Series Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Deconstructing the Stereotype: History and Theoretical Framework 1.1. The Subject in/vs. the Institution 1.2. The Institution and the Outside World: Conceptualising the Boundary 1.3. Hypotheses on Exclusion and Contamination 1.4. Stereotyping the Prison Officer: Theoretical Framework 2. The ‘Warder’ Writes Back: Prison Officer Memoirs 2.1. ‘Turning Themselves In’: Prison Officers in Liminal Space 2.2. Heroes and Monsters Inmates: Hobbled Defenders of Humankind 2.3. Siding with the Outlaw(ed): Dawkins and Chapman 2.4. Concluding Comments 3. Voice-ing the Prison Officer 3.1. Theoretical Framework 3.2. Releasing the Scapegoat: Brendan Behan’s “The Quare Fellow” 3.3. Crushed by the System: Allan Guthrie’s Slammer 3.4. Perspective Structures and the Deconstruction of Stereotypes: Louise Dean’s This Human Season Conclusion and Outlook Works Cited Index The sadistic prison ‘warder'is an all-too-familiar figure in the literary and cultural imagination of Britain and beyond. This distorted image continues to be informed by the stereotypically oppressive gaolers of old – trailing the figurative stench of the dungeon behind them. Even today, prison officers can, for instance, function as scapegoats to compensate for society's guilty conscience or as fictional vehicles to promote prison reform. This book seeks to redress this misrepresentation of the prison officer by drawing attention to counter-discursive examples: deploying and developing spatial and cognitive narratological frameworks, it examines prison literature that lends a voice to prison officers and/or grants them a complex fictional representation. A review of traditional depictions of ‘warders'in classics of prison literature prepares the ground for the discussion of contemporary prison officer memoirs and the representation of officers in fictional works by Brendan Behan, Allan Guthrie and Louise Dean. Annotation The prison officer as a sadistic 'warder' is an all-too-familiar figure, not just in the British literary and cultural imagination. Even with regard to the modern prison environment, officers are still frequently conflated with the jailers of the 'old prison', trailing the smell of the dungeon behind them; they function as scapegoats in compensation for society's guilty conscience towards the imprisoned, or they are utilised in fiction geared towards prison reform. The present book contests prison officers' misrepresentation by drawing attention to counter-discursive examples. Deploying and developing spatial and cognitive narratological frameworks, it examines prison literature that lends a voice to prison officers and/or grants them a complex fictional representation. A general history of prison literature prepares the ground for the discussion not only of contemporary prison officer memoirs, but also of fictional works by Brendan Behan, Allan Guthrie and Louise Dean