In this article we will present a literature case related to boarding school through which we exemplify and discuss some aspects of violence and subjectivity in the total institution. We make use of Goffman’s analyses about the total institution and some psychoanalytic hypotheses on the aggressiveness concerning the reading of “The Young Törless”, by Robert Musil. The total institutions seem to be old-fashioned but continue to exist: minors discipline institutes, almshouses, orphanages, convents, prisons, army headquarters, mentally disturbed institutions, catholic seminaries, etc. Our research aims to unveil the way those institutions function and explain their effects on the subjectivity production of those who took part on it. We concluded that there are more than one simple analogy in the parallel we can establish between the educational goals of the boarding school and the corrective-therapeutic objectives of the psychiatric hospital and prison as well.
total institutions; subjectivity; boarding school