I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century (Paperback)

by Michel Foucault (Editor), Frank Jellinek (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A spell-binding account-not only of the murder of a family by a ''madman,'' but also the murder of free will and responsibility by the mad-doctors. A glimpse into the birth of the psychiatrization of law, the medicalization of crime, and the therapeutization of justice."-Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. (Thomas S. Szasz )

"For Foucault, Rivi�re provides the ''excuse'' to examine power structures and social institutions, to question the scientificity of medical science, and to delineate the chaos of values and beliefs, of knowledge and power as it existed 150 years ago-a chaos we have not yet eliminated."-Edith Kurzweil, The Age of Structuralism (Edith Kurzweil )

Product Description

To free his father and himself from his mother's tyranny, Pierre Rivière decided to kill her. On June 3,1835, he went inside his small Normandy house with a pruning hook and cut to death his mother, his eighteen-year-old sister, and his seven-year-old brother. Then, in jail, he wrote a memoir to justify the whole gruesome tale.

Michel Foucault, author of Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish, collected the relevant documents of the case, including medical and legal testimony, police records. and Rivière's memoir. The Rivière case, he points out, occurred at a time when many professions were contending for status and power. Medical authority was challenging law, branches of government were vying. Foucault's reconstruction of the case is a brilliant exploration of the roots of our contemporary views of madness, justice, and crime.

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (December 1, 1982) Language: English ISBN-10: 0803268572 ISBN-13: 978-0803268579 Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #406,683 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in this category: (What's this?) #33 in  Books > Nonfiction > Crime & Criminals > Offenders

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Citations (learn more)

4 books cite this book:

• Abnormal: Lectures at the College de France, 1974-1975 by Michel Foucault on page 29
• Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America by C. Daniels on page 68
• Over the Threshold by C. Daniels on page 133
• Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist by Richard Rhodes in Back Matter

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	93% buy the item featured on this page: I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century 4.2 out of 5 stars (4) $17.05
	7% buy Herculine Barbin (Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth Century French Hermaphrodite) 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $11.20

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (3) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars A Battle of Discourses, June 6, 2006 By  Bobbem (Evanston, IL) - See all my reviews The reason Foucault is not attempting to interpret Riviere's deeds is NOT to show simply how "people respond to a crime", as a previous reviewer put it. By publishing this collection of texts, Foucault was attempting to recover the struggles and plays of forces between juridical and psychiatric discourses in their attempt to make sense of the murders and the murderer. The legal and psychiatric discourses attempt to envelop Riviere's own account of his deeds in various power relations (mainly by marginalizing Riviere's voice as either that of a parricide or that of a madman). Had Foucault interpreted Riviere's deeds, he would have subjected them to strategies similar to those employed by the medical and legal experts. This is a fascinating collection (don't skip Foucault's introduction though!), but a reader would definitely appreciate it more after reading Discipline and Punish or "Two Lectures" in Foucault's Power/Knowledge. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Against Interpetation: The Bald Man Pleads Indecision, July 4, 2001 By  Lloyd Ravlin III - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Okay, the reason why Foucault did not interpet the reasoning behind the crime was because the issue of guilt or innocence was not his topic. He was more interested in how people treat crimes and approach the issue of criminality. It is not Riviere who is at trial *again* in Foucault's book, but rather it is a trial described, which could be any trial. A crime after the fact is a story, a memory for those who were involved, but we all become involved in an event as if it were a story we have heard before. What other way to approach a murder that is to us words and the heaving bosom of a witness, the placid tension of the accused? We confront a forced performance with confused or feigned characterizations. Yet even said, this is not Foucault, nor what Foucault was reaching for. All Foucault does is show how people act in response to crime and reveal the obvious ploys that repeat themselves throughout history, because the story that composes our lives has not died. And if a man approached you with a mark on him, and claimed to have killed his brother, and the soil did cry out to you, would you raise your hand against him? This book is a good accompanyment to his work Discipline and Punish. 1 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Story--Not Enough Analysis, June 19, 2000 By A Customer The story of the young Frenchman who murdered his family is a fascinating piece of documentary work by Foucault and his student assistants. However, I would have liked to know much more about how they interpret this "unusual" behavior.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and enlighting read. First don't be mislead Foucault has a paper in this work, but acts as editor not author. Having said that, it is another great work by Foucault. Published on August 8, 1998 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (December 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803268572
• ISBN-13: 978-0803268579
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #406,683 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #33 in

  Books > Nonfiction > Crime & Criminals > Offenders

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Battle of Discourses, June 6, 2006

By	Bobbem (Evanston, IL) - See all my reviews

The reason Foucault is not attempting to interpret Riviere's deeds is NOT to show simply how "people respond to a crime", as a previous reviewer put it. By publishing this collection of texts, Foucault was attempting to recover the struggles and plays of forces between juridical and psychiatric discourses in their attempt to make sense of the murders and the murderer. The legal and psychiatric discourses attempt to envelop Riviere's own account of his deeds in various power relations (mainly by marginalizing Riviere's voice as either that of a parricide or that of a madman). Had Foucault interpreted Riviere's deeds, he would have subjected them to strategies similar to those employed by the medical and legal experts.

This is a fascinating collection (don't skip Foucault's introduction though!), but a reader would definitely appreciate it more after reading Discipline and Punish or "Two Lectures" in Foucault's Power/Knowledge.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Against Interpetation: The Bald Man Pleads Indecision, July 4, 2001

By	Lloyd Ravlin III - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Okay, the reason why Foucault did not interpet the reasoning behind the crime was because the issue of guilt or innocence was not his topic. He was more interested in how people treat crimes and approach the issue of criminality.

It is not Riviere who is at trial *again* in Foucault's book, but rather it is a trial described, which could be any trial. A crime after the fact is a story, a memory for those who were involved, but we all become involved in an event as if it were a story we have heard before. What other way to approach a murder that is to us words and the heaving bosom of a witness, the placid tension of the accused? We confront a forced performance with confused or feigned characterizations.

Yet even said, this is not Foucault, nor what Foucault was reaching for. All Foucault does is show how people act in response to crime and reveal the obvious ploys that repeat themselves throughout history, because the story that composes our lives has not died.

And if a man approached you with a mark on him, and claimed to have killed his brother, and the soil did cry out to you, would you raise your hand against him?

This book is a good accompanyment to his work Discipline and Punish.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Story--Not Enough Analysis, June 19, 2000

By A Customer

The story of the young Frenchman who murdered his family is a fascinating piece of documentary work by Foucault and his student assistants. However, I would have liked to know much more about how they interpret this "unusual" behavior.