The novel Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is one that makes the reader think and reflect on almost everything that we as humans consider human nature. Here are a couple excerpts from the novel and how they connect to what we are discussing in class, the body.

“The whole idea of men creating perfect robot women for their own pleasure, it happens every day. The most "beautiful" women you see in public, none of them are for real. They're just men perpetuating their perverted stereotypes of women. Just the oldest story in the world. There's a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.”

This quote from the novel Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, is the perfect example of how we as humans are “in drag” as well as the concept of women seeing themselves through the eyes of a male. This concept is brought up in part by Leppart in his article about the female body in art. His concept of the male gaze reflects the statement made in this quote in that the “male gaze” is something that can negate a woman’s own experience and identity. As we discussed in class, when a women feels she looks the best is when she feels as if a man will like what he sees when he views her. That is what this quote is pulling off of, that men do not need to create their own perfect robot’s because women already do that for them. This also goes back to another discussion we had in class when we were looking at women’s magazines and seeing that the images of women were directed towards men, even though the main audience for these magazines is women. This is where we find “a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan.” The images of women are a direct result of this concept of the “male gaze” and the effect that has on women and how they view themselves and their femininity.

"The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors." p144

212-213

“Cassandra had on her new black dress. The short-short one.

That night, she wanted a long glass of white wine, just to hold it. She didn’t dare lift the glass, because her dress was strapless, so she kept her arms down at each side, holding her elbows close in. This flexed some muscle across her chest. Some new muscle shed found playing basketball in school. It pushed her breasts so high her cleavage seemed to start at her throat.

That dress, it was black and stitched with black sequins and beads. It was a crust of rough black glitter with her breasts pink and meaty inside. A hard black shell.

Both her hands, the way her painted fingernails meshed together, they looked handcuffed around the stem of her wineglass. Her hair coiled and pinned up high, it was so heavy and thick. Strands and curls were coming undone, dangling, but she didn’t dare reach up to fix it. Her bare shoulders, her hair coming apart, her high heels clenched the muscles of each leg, pushed her ass up, curving it out at the bottom of a long zipper.

Her perfect lipstick mouth. No red smeared on the glass she didn’t dare lift. Her eyes looking huge under long eyelashes. Her green eyes the only part of her moving in the crowded room.

Standing and smiling in the center of an art gallery, she was the only woman you’d remember. Cassandra Clark, only fifteen years old.

This was less than a week before she disappeared, just three nights” (Palahniuk 212-213).

This other excerpt from the same Chuck Palahniuk novel Haunted, is a perfect example of the docile body. This is a description of a fifteen-year-old girl and how she looks at an event that she is not normally a part of. She is at the opening for an art gallery, and this image that she has created of herself is a reflection of one that she has associated with such an event. This fifteen year old biological individual is showing signs of her being a cultural subject by the way she is shaping her body in order to fit into this group of people that she is surrounding herself with on this occasion. This is a reflection of the docile body because of the way this girl is changing her body from the way her dress fits her, to the way her makeup is done in order for her to fit into this culture she wants to be a part of. This excerpt can also be used as an example reflecting the concept that Bourdieu brings in of how important, not only how we visually change ourselves, but how our mannerisms are changed by culture. This girl is wearing something that she is not used to, and this is changing the way she is standing and the ways she moves her body. Her shoes being so high that her legs and buttocks are made to look different and the way she has to keep her arms down in order to keep her dress up are all things that point to how not only her body is changed, but the gestures she makes are also changed. This story goes on to explain the disappearance of this girl. She takes a look into what is called “the nightmare box” and is forever changed. It is said in the story that the box contains the truth of the world and that anyone that looks inside of it is forever changed. The box shows you reality, which makes you realize that your life is worthless, that our reality isn’t reality at all. This concept within the story of our lives being not what they seem can also be connected to what we have been discussing in class. This concentration on the body for both sexes is one that could be seen as an illusion, something that is keeping us from our “real” lives, as this “nightmare box” concept is trying to get across. Our narcissism and superficiality are the things that are an illusion, that are keeping us from the truth in the world that this “nightmare box” can show us. As is put in the story, “One look, Rand says, and your life—your preening and struggle and worry-it’s all pointless.”