Punishment and Narrative

Identity, Pain and the Suspension of the Self between Harry Potter and the Contemporary Penal System

Abstract

This article proposes a philosophical and narrative analysis of contemporary punitive power, based on the articulation between Paul Ricœur's theory of narrative identity and symbolic forms of identity imposed through suffering. Drawing from the scene in which Harry Potter is forced to rewrite phrases into his own skin under pain—as an authoritarian imposition of a denied truth—we discuss how modern punitive narrative, exemplified by the prison system, operates as a suspension of the self: not merely by restricting freedom, but by blocking the right to self-narration. Using contributions from Ricœur, Foucault, Judith Butler, and studies on memory and trauma, we argue that pain repeated without listening does not rehabilitate but solidifies an imposed identity. Finally, we propose an ethics of listening and the word as a symbolic resistance to the dominant narrative of crime and guilt.