"The Indiscreet Jewels"

“Of the power of imagination” discusses how powerful our imagination can be in determining our mental state, despite our physical surroundings. The idea that our body often refuses its function to our will and goes against our will is very interesting. Montaigne says that our own will is “charged with rebellion and sedition for its disorderliness and disobedience” and that it “often wills what we forbid it to will.” At first, it was hard to understand why this occurs. I realized that this idea reiterates the question we have posed about social constructions. The social constructions of what it means to be male and female in terms of desire are laws that we have created which make homosexual desire seem disobedient, even though it is not.

This idea of one’s internal wills being hidden from society is portrayed through “The Indiscreet Jewels.” The fact that the women do not want their jewels to speak shows that they are afraid and embarrassed of exposing their internal desires. The reason for this is portrayed as one woman’s marriage is ruined after her jewel expresses her desires for another man. The ironic title of the story shows that the author is trying to convey how people’s internal thoughts and wills are not synonymous to their words and actions. He uses Mangogul’s ignorance as he says “Do we not already know a great deal of what the jewel mights say?” to show that there is a problem with this discrepancy and that we should question the institutions we have created (such as marriage and religion), which incite these discrepancies.

It is interesting how the story points to the assumption that the genitals are the most honest parts of the body and can reveal the most. This points to the problem with our constant preoccupations of the genitals as sources of our “true identities” both biologically and, in this story, socially.