Langue and Parole

Langue and Parole may mean two different things, but I think they need each other to work. It’s like peanut butter and jelly. Sharon Daniel’s, The Public Secret, includes much of langue and parole. Daniel creates a text that includes many other texts. She uses the statements of women who are treated horrendously in prisons, her own statements, and Fredrick Jameson’s theories. The statements in the projects are the paroles and the project as whole and how it is created is the langue. Even though it is argued that langue and parole are complete opposite to one another, I don’t believe that theory can be applied to Daniel’s project. The text as a whole would not work out without the statements. The statements would not be as effective if it wasn't for the way the project is laid out. Langue and parole work to make this project standout and make it a statement that cannot be ignored.

Daniel was clever in creating the project the way she did. The key phrases in statements pop on the screen, and then fade. It catches your eye and then makes you want to know what the sentence actually means. The black and white is also a parole. The “inside” and the “outside’’. Daniel uses symbolism as a text which is very powerful in this type of text. What really spoke out to me had to be, “The prison is a no-man’s land that perforates the space of the state.” This also sums up Daniel’s project and the vision she wanted us to see. All the statements are in this space, and they can’t permanently leave. They’ll pop up, fade out, but eventually come back. Just like the women prisoners.