Body Tracking: Sex and Crime in Dorothy Porter's ‘The Monkey's Mask’

Abstract

Mask: a covering for the face, for amusement, protection, disguise; something that conceals; masquerade; a likeness of a face or head; a device placed over the nose and mouth to prevent or facilitate breath; a shield of paper placed over an area of unexposed photographic surface to prevent light from falling on it; the face or head of an animal, especially the dark colourations of the face.Monkey: primate; a naughty child; an addict's dependence on a drug; to meddle, fool or tinker.Poetic language would then be, contrary to murder and the univocity of verbal message, a reconciliation with what murder as well as names were separated from. It would be an attempt to symbolise the ‘beginning’, an attempt to name the other facet of taboo: pleasure, pain.1