Faubourg Saint Patrice - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

doctrine and common superstition which thoroughly permeated the Irish culture; the
social and political power of the clergy; the ever-present and highly visible physical
manifestations of the Church's temporal and spiritual authority (chapels, church bells,
crucifixes, clerical garments, etc.); and, most significantly, the concept of the
omnipresent and omniscient God of Christian doctrine.
The omnipresent nature of the Christian divinity can be likened to Foucault's
description of the surveillance inherent in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon prison. As
described in Discipline and Punish, the prison was designed in a manner which permitted
optimal surveillance of the prisoners without the surveillants being visible. This
technique caused the inmates to internalize the power of those in the position of
authority. The major focus of the Panopticon was "to induce in the inmate a state of
conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power"
(Discipline 201). The physical manifestation of the prison's architecture elicits an
impression of omnipresence and omniscience of the surveillants. Thus, the prisoners
begin to watch themselves. Foucault writes that the major effect of the Panopticon is
to induce in the inmate a state of consciousness and permanent visibility
that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things
that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous
in its action. . .in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power
situation of which they are themselves the bearers. (201)
In essence, the physical manifestation of the prison structure creates the internalization of
the power of the institution in the individual, but "thepower should be visible and
unverifiable"(201). As R.B. Kershner indicates in his essay, "Genius, Degeneration, and
the Panopticon," this is a valuable metaphor in explaining the institutional powers of the
5