Blog Prompt 3-16

"Reflect on the relationship of the body to the typewriter, citing work from today's reading in the Wershler-Henry."

The typewriter has a relationship to the body in 5 different ways. I will break them down:

1) The typewriter itself can be the dictator of the amanuensis. In many passages, Wershler-Henry gives examples where the typewriter is seen as possessed. On page 31, Wershler-Henry tells the story of Auster and Messer. Messer goes downstairs to look at Auster's typewriter and Auster says: "God knows what he did down there, but I have never doubted that the typewriter spoke to him. In due course, I believe he has even managed to persuade it to bare its soul." Thus, the human body is just typing what the type-writer wants him/her to type.

2) In the case of a woman, the typewriter can also be part of the woman. A woman could not do her job, apparently, unless she had her typewriter. They came as a packaged deal. On page 79, the caption under the picture says that "...the 'Typewriter' refers to the woman and the machine, separately and as an assemblage."

3) The typewriter also can simply act a medium through which truths flow through the body. It takes one's truths and transforms them into written form. It can also be the medium through which "spirits" tell the body to type. On page 46, for instance: "the invention was... for the purpose of illuminating...epistolary truths"). And Chapter 12's Theodora Bosanquet supposedly types James words even after he was dead.

4) Finally, the typewriter is that which one must position themselves precisely from, and have a precise typing method. It is something which the human must adjust to:

On page 142, a certain typing textbook explains: "There should be approximately 6 to 8 inches of space between the top of the knee and the frame of the typewriter. The front of the body should be from 8 to 10 inches from the base of the machine..." and goes on and on with numbered questions one must ask themself. In this manner, one also "becomes" the machine, but in a more physical sense rather than #2 where it is just society that sees the woman and the typewriter as one in the same.

5) This last relationship is again with the woman and the typewriter. Women and machines was a very different concept a hundred years ago and so it was seen as somewhat taboo, and, thus, created the "Type-Writer Girl."