Rat torture is the use of
rats to
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
a victim by encouraging them to attack and eat the victim alive.
History
The "Rats Dungeon", or "Dungeon of the Rats", was a feature of the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...
alleged by
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
writers from the
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...
. "A cell below high-water mark and totally dark" would draw in rats from the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
as the tide flowed in. Prisoners would have their "alarm excited", and in some instances have "flesh ... torn from the arms and legs".
During the
Dutch Revolt
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Ref ...
,
Diederik Sonoy
Diederik Sonoy or Snoey ( Kalkar (Duchy of Cleves), 1529 - Pieterburen, 2 June 1597) was a leader of the Geuzen during the Eighty Years' War.
Biography
Diderick Sonoy was born about 1529 in the Duchy of Cleves, but afterwards resided mostly in ...
, an ally of
William the Silent
William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...
, is documented to have used a method where a
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
bowl filled with rats was placed open side down on the naked body of a prisoner. When hot
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ...
was piled on the bowl, the rats would "gnaw into the very bowels of the victim" in an attempt to escape the heat.
Rat torture appears in the famous case study of a patient of
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
. The
Rat Man
"Rat Man" was the nickname given by Sigmund Freud to a patient whose "case history" was published as ''Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose'' Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis"(1909). This was the second of six case histories ...
obsessed that his father and lady friend would be subjected to this torture.
Rat torture was used by several South American military dictatorships: in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
during the
military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer.
The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...
of 1964–1985, in
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
during the
civic-military dictatorship of 1973–1985, in
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
during the
dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990), and in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
during the period of the
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...
(1976–1983).
The report of
CONADEP
National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Spanish: ', CONADEP) was an Argentine organization created by President Raúl Alfonsín on 15 December 1983, shortly after his inauguration, to investigate the fate of the ''desaparecidos'' (v ...
in Argentina detailed the use of a torture method known as "the recto-scope" (reserved primarily for Jewish prisoners) which consisted of inserting living rats into a victim's
rectum
The rectum is the final straight portion of the large intestine in humans and some other mammals, and the Gastrointestinal tract, gut in others. The adult human rectum is about long, and begins at the rectosigmoid junction (the end of the s ...
or
vagina
In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen ...
through a tube.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
documented the case of a woman tortured by the Chilean CNI (National Information Center, successor to the
DINA
Dina ( ar, دينا, he, דִּינָה, also spelled Dinah, Dena, Deena) is a female given name.
Women
* Dina bint Abdul-Hamid (1929–2019), Queen consort of Jordan, first wife of King Hussein
* Princess Dina Mired of Jordan (born 1965), Princ ...
) in 1981, who described being kept in a room full of live rats during interrogation.
On October 16, 2010 in
Lakewood, New Jersey,
David Wax
The New York divorce coercion gang was a Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jewish group that kidnapped, and in some cases tortured, Jewish men in the New York metropolitan area to force them to grant their wives ''Get (divorce document), gittin'' (religious ...
was alleged to have threatened kidnap victim Yisrael Bryskman with rat torture unless he agreed to give his wife a ''
get
Get or GET may refer to:
* Get (animal), the offspring of an animal
* Get (divorce document), in Jewish religious law
* GET (HTTP), a type of HTTP request
* "Get" (song), by the Groggers
* Georgia Time, used in the Republic of Georgia
* Get AS, a ...
'' (Jewish divorce document). He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for assisting in a kidnapping.
In fiction
Rats are featured in the
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
story ''
The Pit and the Pendulum
"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual ''The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843''. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of ...
''. The narrator lies on
the rack
The rack is a torture device consisting of a rectangular, usually wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one or both ends. The victim's ankles are fastened to one roller and the wrists are chained to the other. As the in ...
, and can only watch as a
scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor m ...
swings back and forth, approaching closer each time, as rats swarm over his body. The narrator later manages to make the rats eat through the straps.
An account similar to the Sonoy torture appears in the 1899
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the ...
novel ''
The Torture Garden
''The Torture Garden'' (french: Le Jardin des supplices) is a novel written by the French journalist, novelist and playwright Octave Mirbeau, and was first published in 1899 during the Dreyfus affair. The novel is dedicated: "To the priests, the ...
'', and psychologist
Leonard Shengold has identified this as the possible source of the story that the Rat Man told Freud. Part of the book, an imaginary dialog between a torturer and a beautiful woman who is sexually excited by the accounts, is set in China.
The threat of rat torture occurs in ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
''. The central character,
Winston Smith Winston Smith may refer to:
People
* Winston Smith (artist) (born 1952), American artist
* Winston Smith (athlete) (born 1982), Olympic track and field athlete
* Winston Boogie Smith (born ), American man killed by law enforcement in 2021
* Winst ...
, is arrested by the
Ministry of Love
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell.
The use of contradictory ...
, and undergoes a process of mental reprogramming. The ministry imprisons him in
Room 101
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell.
The use of contradictory ...
to finalize the reprogramming. Here Winston must face his greatest fear: rats. A cage filled with hungry rats is placed over his head, their only source of food or escape being by eating their way through Winston's face. At this point Winston breaks and begs that the method actually be used on his lover
Julia
Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...
, a sign that he has finally been broken.
In
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American author, screenwriter, short-story writer, and director. Ellis was first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a w ...
's novel ''
American Psycho
''American Psycho'' is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan investment banker. Alison Kelly of ''The Observer'' notes that while "some countr ...
'',
Patrick Bateman
Patrick Bateman is a fictional character created by novelist Bret Easton Ellis. He is the villain protagonist and narrator of Ellis' 1991 novel '' American Psycho'' and is portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2000 film adaptation.Guardian Unlimi ...
inserts a starving rat into a kidnapped woman's vagina through a pipe.
In the 2003 film ''
2 Fast 2 Furious'', sequel to ''
The Fast and The Furious
''Fast & Furious'' (also known as ''The Fast and the Furious'') is a media franchise centered on a series of action films that are largely concerned with street racing, heists, spies, and family. The franchise also includes short films, a t ...
'', the main antagonist
Carter Verone (
Cole Hauser
Cole Hauser (born March 22, 1975) is an American actor. He is known for film roles in ''Higher Learning'', ''School Ties'', '' Dazed and Confused'', ''Good Will Hunting'', '' Pitch Black'', ''Tigerland'', ''Hart's War'', ''Tears of the Sun'', '' ...
) uses rat torture to force a detective to allow his men to conduct their criminal enterprises unimpeded. He places a rat on to the detectives stomach and encapsulates it inside a metal bucket. He then begins to heat the bucket using a blow torch in order to cause the rat stress, prompting it to try to escape. The rat, with no alternative, begins to scratch the detective's stomach as it tries to burrow in order to escape the increasing heat inside the bucket. Once the detective agrees to Verone's demands, the bucket is removed, revealing an array of deep, bloody scratch marks.
Season 2 Season 2 may refer to:
* ''Season 2'' (Infinite album)
* '' 2econd Season''
See also
*
{{disambig ...
of the
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
dark fantasy
Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate disturbing and frightening themes of fantasy. It often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy dark tone or a sense of horror and dr ...
series ''
Game of Thrones
''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...
'' from 2012 also uses rat torture by the Tickler on prisoners of
Gregor Clegane
Gregor Clegane, nicknamed "The Mountain That Rides" or simply "The Mountain", is a fictional character in the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its television adaptation ''Game of Th ...
in Harrenhal.
In the film ''
The Batman
Batman is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics.
Batman or The Batman may also refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
Characters
* Batman (Terry McGinnis)
* Batman (Thomas Wayne)
* Batman (Earth-Two)
* Batma ...
'', the
Riddler
The Riddler (Edward Nigma, later Edward Nygma or Edward Nashton) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, and debuted in ''Detective Comics'' #140 in Oc ...
livestreams himself killing crooked Commissioner Pete Savage by strapping a device to Savage's head that forced rats from a maze to burrow their way into his face.
See also
*
List of torture methods and devices
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
Commentary on rat torture with a translation of an extract from ''Le Jardin des supplices'' by Octave Mirbeau.
Torture
Rats
Nineteen Eighty-Four