(From Wednesday, September 29, 2010)
Of the many threads running through In the Heart of the Country, I want to analyze what I have found as the “And Next?” dilemma. The narrator says on page 21 (that is, in section 42), “Would that all my life were like that, question and answer, word and echo, instead of the torment of And next? And next?” She wants a word and an echo, a cause and effect, a beginning and an end. Indeed, she wants anything to pull her out of her pointless present.
I am no mathematician, but I see this as a Cartesian dilemma: the narrator’s life lacks the necessary balance of two cooperating planes, time and choice. As I see it, ideally a person’s life can be structured neatly as follows: infinite time running along the x-axis, infinite individual choice along the y-axis; life beginning at point (0,0), following a course staked across sundry points on quadrants I and IV, and finally reaching a definite endpoint somewhere six feet below ground. An echo heard is a small point on the graph left by a word spoken. Cause and effect exists because these two planes cooperate.
For our narrator, however, these two planes never do meet; that is to say, time passes with no regard to her decisions, and she sees no need to make decisions with regard to time. On one hand, she has no hope for the future: she will never redeem her lost youth, she will never have children, her father will never love her, and no one will ever care. But on the other hand, this gives her enormous personal freedom, basically allowing her to do whatever she wants, whether that be murdering her parents with an axe (hypothetically, thank goodness) or changing her physical appearance. She fashions these together in a meaningless philosophy: because "life will continue to be a line trickling from nowhere to nowhere, without beginning or end" (96) a person ought never to be "more than whim" (115). Essentially, nothing will change, so nothing matters; therefore, let's all do crazy stuff and see what happens.
Of course, this doesn't work out so well for her. She finds herself trapped within the indefinite bounds of a "black hole" (85), or "a yawning middle without end” (89), thus denied any form of definition. She knows instead only an asymptotic existence in which she “can expand to infinity…[or] shrivel to the size of an ant” (Section 96).
This novel is many things, but it is at least an exploration of this kind of unbounded, pointless existence. The narrator neither knows her past nor wishes to accept the pointless “And next?” future that lies ahead of her. She yearns for definition and meaning, for anything that might take her off a pointlessly winding path and give her direction. This seems clear, both textually and mathematically. The next task, then, is to determine the causes of why she was lead down that path in the first place. (See close-reading assignment.)
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Orlando's Nature Sanctuary: No Longer a Future Heaven
(From Monday, September 13, 2010)
With these words Orlando the woman escapes once again to her Never-Never Land beyond time and space. She lies in an English moor outside London and traverses decades and oceans alone, lying comfortably on her back. Anne McClintock might disagree, however, with the nature of Orlando’s so-called escape. Her chapter on gender and nationalism (Ch. 4 “No Longer in a Future Heaven”) describes an escape of a rather different sort, claiming that often through history, in literature as in nations, women
Further connection between Orlando and McClintock's text is provided, of course, by Orlando's remarkable ability to flit through time and place. I like McClintock's use of the word elide in her analysis. The term packs an underhanded implication: behind its dictionary definition, "to omit", stands the result of the omission, a slurring of something- often speech- or in Orlando's case, identity. McClintock is implying that women have not only been exiled into social no-where land, they have been denied a corporeal self they might call their own. Both an omission from society and a slurring of identity across time and place is readily visible in Orlando. As she lies fugitive in her wooded sanctuary, Orlando progresses, we might imagine by textual hints ("Tick-tock, tick-tock, so it hammered, so it beat" (183)) several years, perhaps even decades, through time; and as she does so, she significantly alters her life philosophy, insert: identity, ("I am nature's bride") unto passionate love with Shel (184). Though these events in a fictional novel are by definition quite unreal, a visible elision of Orlando the character is, according to McClintock, an everyday reality for women everywhere, and therefore something always worth a further look.
She quickened her pace; she ran; she tripped; the tough heather roots flung her to the ground. Her ankle was broken. She could not rise. But there she lay content… (182)
With these words Orlando the woman escapes once again to her Never-Never Land beyond time and space. She lies in an English moor outside London and traverses decades and oceans alone, lying comfortably on her back. Anne McClintock might disagree, however, with the nature of Orlando’s so-called escape. Her chapter on gender and nationalism (Ch. 4 “No Longer in a Future Heaven”) describes an escape of a rather different sort, claiming that often through history, in literature as in nations, women
Haunt analysis as an elided shadow—deferred, displaced, and dis- remembered…and are thus effectively deferred to a no-where land, beyond time and place. (95)When Orlando falls contented in her secret moor, then, it’s a bit shortsighted to consider the action a comfortable escape. Rather, she has been thrust there, like a dust mop set roughly in its place in the closet under the stairway. This is supported in the description of Orlando’s almost helter-skelter jaunt through the woods. The heather roots don’t coax her gently down, they fling her, even breaking her ankle so that she can’t rise back up. If Orlando is forced to find contentment in a place where there can be no real contentment, McClintock is justified. Her sanctuary, isolated from society as it is, is still a no-where land that can bring her nothing.
Further connection between Orlando and McClintock's text is provided, of course, by Orlando's remarkable ability to flit through time and place. I like McClintock's use of the word elide in her analysis. The term packs an underhanded implication: behind its dictionary definition, "to omit", stands the result of the omission, a slurring of something- often speech- or in Orlando's case, identity. McClintock is implying that women have not only been exiled into social no-where land, they have been denied a corporeal self they might call their own. Both an omission from society and a slurring of identity across time and place is readily visible in Orlando. As she lies fugitive in her wooded sanctuary, Orlando progresses, we might imagine by textual hints ("Tick-tock, tick-tock, so it hammered, so it beat" (183)) several years, perhaps even decades, through time; and as she does so, she significantly alters her life philosophy, insert: identity, ("I am nature's bride") unto passionate love with Shel (184). Though these events in a fictional novel are by definition quite unreal, a visible elision of Orlando the character is, according to McClintock, an everyday reality for women everywhere, and therefore something always worth a further look.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Fight Club: A Lopsided Picture of Masculinity
(From Tuesday, April 7, 2009)
Tyler Durden’s whole purpose as an invented alter-ego was to change what is into what should be. First in the main character’s immediate life, and then much beyond that as well, he sought to radically overturn all the things that were holding people back from being who they were truly meant to be. In our society, how many of us are actually pursuing the things that we really want to pursue? How many of us are gas station attendants instead of veterinarians? But Tyler Durden wasn’t concerned with “people” in general.
For rather than focusing his well-meaning efforts on everyone in society, all of his efforts were geared toward men, and men only. To jump on the scene that Scott brought up last in his argument, there’s a point in the film where Tyler says, “We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” That quote gets right at it. In his view, true men should have very little to do with the influences of women.
Those men in the movie outside of Tyler’s fight club are pictured as wimpy, drab, effeminate boys working uninspiring jobs and leading all-around meaningless lives. I think of the main character’s boss, or the main character’s catalogue-decorated apartment. This portrayal conveys the message that maleness should have nothing to do with femininity; that masculinity is altogether different in purpose than femininity; and that men chasing un-male pursuits are effectively wasting their lives.
Bob, for example, is first introduced to the audience as a blubbering, big-breasted bambi whose manhood has been eliminated by his testicular cancer. He spends his nights crying about the man he used to be. That is, until he is radically transformed by Tyler Durden’s new definition of a man, as someone who uses his life, even in dying, to pursue a cause worthy of his calling as a man. Even without his male parts Bob is able to die a man.
A feminist, however, would with good reason be appalled at Tyler Durden’s version of a “man”. The only relations Tyler has with women are sexual. Marla’s terrible emotional state doesn’t concern him at all. Although she could definitely use his self-improvement practices just as much as anyone else, she’s disposable sex property. It’s only at the movie’s end, when Tyler Durden and his “men” are done away with, that Marla’s other female qualities are accepted by the masculine. When the main character holds her hand and really means it, we see him understanding the bigger picture of his role as a man. Men actually can benefit from relationships with women. It's a novelty of which Tyler Durden was apparently unaware.
The main character gained a lot from Tyler- an identity and an insight into what makes up life-, but from this crazy, ultra-man alter-ego he could never gain an accurate understanding of what a full man really looks like.
Tyler Durden’s whole purpose as an invented alter-ego was to change what is into what should be. First in the main character’s immediate life, and then much beyond that as well, he sought to radically overturn all the things that were holding people back from being who they were truly meant to be. In our society, how many of us are actually pursuing the things that we really want to pursue? How many of us are gas station attendants instead of veterinarians? But Tyler Durden wasn’t concerned with “people” in general.
For rather than focusing his well-meaning efforts on everyone in society, all of his efforts were geared toward men, and men only. To jump on the scene that Scott brought up last in his argument, there’s a point in the film where Tyler says, “We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” That quote gets right at it. In his view, true men should have very little to do with the influences of women.
Those men in the movie outside of Tyler’s fight club are pictured as wimpy, drab, effeminate boys working uninspiring jobs and leading all-around meaningless lives. I think of the main character’s boss, or the main character’s catalogue-decorated apartment. This portrayal conveys the message that maleness should have nothing to do with femininity; that masculinity is altogether different in purpose than femininity; and that men chasing un-male pursuits are effectively wasting their lives.
Bob, for example, is first introduced to the audience as a blubbering, big-breasted bambi whose manhood has been eliminated by his testicular cancer. He spends his nights crying about the man he used to be. That is, until he is radically transformed by Tyler Durden’s new definition of a man, as someone who uses his life, even in dying, to pursue a cause worthy of his calling as a man. Even without his male parts Bob is able to die a man.
A feminist, however, would with good reason be appalled at Tyler Durden’s version of a “man”. The only relations Tyler has with women are sexual. Marla’s terrible emotional state doesn’t concern him at all. Although she could definitely use his self-improvement practices just as much as anyone else, she’s disposable sex property. It’s only at the movie’s end, when Tyler Durden and his “men” are done away with, that Marla’s other female qualities are accepted by the masculine. When the main character holds her hand and really means it, we see him understanding the bigger picture of his role as a man. Men actually can benefit from relationships with women. It's a novelty of which Tyler Durden was apparently unaware.
The main character gained a lot from Tyler- an identity and an insight into what makes up life-, but from this crazy, ultra-man alter-ego he could never gain an accurate understanding of what a full man really looks like.
Sula- A True Hero of Femininity (But to a Major Extreme)
(From Tuesday, March 31, 2009)
Sula is a smear of problems over every page of her namesake book, Toni Morrison's Sula.
In the storyline itself Sula is a problematic character. At her death no one cares but one, and leading up to her death no one, including that one (Nel), even likes her. In fact, Nel is the only member of her entire community who even cares enough to emotionally attend her funeral. Sula likes no one but herself, and herself she worships as an ultimate God. In her community, even in her dearest friend, she excites no love, only deep disregard. In the world in which Sula lives, then, she is far from being anything heroic.
Sula is equally as problematic in feminist reading analysis. For despite all of these negative personal and social qualities, she is utterly exemplar- to a major extreme- of a hero of womenfolk everywhere. She is a character of intense personality- strong, hot-headed, and head-strong. She refuses to be anything but herself. Social norms she throws away, including- and especially- the social norm of womanhood. In this sense she represents a feminist hero, a true champion of full womanhood.
But it takes a full reading to accept this view. Before the tale's end, at which Nel finally realizes how socially transcendent and freeing Sula's strong female personality is, the reader can only see how foreign her extreme feminist personality is. Her womanhood proves to be more villianous than heroic. Rather than being socially freeing, it is in fact socially desctructive, a wrecking ball to community, family, and friends. But in light of Nel's final realization, Sula's impact forces a new perspective. For by it Nel is, for the first time in her life, effectively freed from the constraints of womanhood that have always been placed on her. She realizes she doesn't miss her husband, she doesn't need her husband, and she doesn't ever desire another man to love her like her husband had.When Nel realizes this, Sula becomes her feminine hero.
Sula is a smear of problems over every page of her namesake book, Toni Morrison's Sula.
In the storyline itself Sula is a problematic character. At her death no one cares but one, and leading up to her death no one, including that one (Nel), even likes her. In fact, Nel is the only member of her entire community who even cares enough to emotionally attend her funeral. Sula likes no one but herself, and herself she worships as an ultimate God. In her community, even in her dearest friend, she excites no love, only deep disregard. In the world in which Sula lives, then, she is far from being anything heroic.
Sula is equally as problematic in feminist reading analysis. For despite all of these negative personal and social qualities, she is utterly exemplar- to a major extreme- of a hero of womenfolk everywhere. She is a character of intense personality- strong, hot-headed, and head-strong. She refuses to be anything but herself. Social norms she throws away, including- and especially- the social norm of womanhood. In this sense she represents a feminist hero, a true champion of full womanhood.
But it takes a full reading to accept this view. Before the tale's end, at which Nel finally realizes how socially transcendent and freeing Sula's strong female personality is, the reader can only see how foreign her extreme feminist personality is. Her womanhood proves to be more villianous than heroic. Rather than being socially freeing, it is in fact socially desctructive, a wrecking ball to community, family, and friends. But in light of Nel's final realization, Sula's impact forces a new perspective. For by it Nel is, for the first time in her life, effectively freed from the constraints of womanhood that have always been placed on her. She realizes she doesn't miss her husband, she doesn't need her husband, and she doesn't ever desire another man to love her like her husband had.When Nel realizes this, Sula becomes her feminine hero.
Flowing Disarray All Down Toomer's Seventh Street
(From Friday, March 6, 2009)
The repeated use of "flowing", "wet", and "soggy" strikes my attention. It creates a consistent image of a river, or a flood, even, pouring through a city. But this is no ordinary river: through this city is flowing a flood of blood. The blood all over Seventh Street is of unnatural origin. It's shown to arise from the "bastard of Prohibition and War", flowing from the splintered and shattered world of Washington. We get a picture of this splintered world in the list: "shanties, brick office buildings, drug stores, restaurants, cabarets." Similar to the scene of Toomer's "Theater", the city holds a stark juxtaposition of poor and prosperous, but the river of blood flowing through blends these two together, so that the whole scene reeks of death. The flow exposes the rotten aspects of the city, the pocket-burning money, the bootleggars and the zooming Cadillacs that are at the backdrop of the scene. Toomer calls this to shame: "Who set you flowing? ...Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? Who set you flowing?"
The repeated use of "flowing", "wet", and "soggy" strikes my attention. It creates a consistent image of a river, or a flood, even, pouring through a city. But this is no ordinary river: through this city is flowing a flood of blood. The blood all over Seventh Street is of unnatural origin. It's shown to arise from the "bastard of Prohibition and War", flowing from the splintered and shattered world of Washington. We get a picture of this splintered world in the list: "shanties, brick office buildings, drug stores, restaurants, cabarets." Similar to the scene of Toomer's "Theater", the city holds a stark juxtaposition of poor and prosperous, but the river of blood flowing through blends these two together, so that the whole scene reeks of death. The flow exposes the rotten aspects of the city, the pocket-burning money, the bootleggars and the zooming Cadillacs that are at the backdrop of the scene. Toomer calls this to shame: "Who set you flowing? ...Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? Who set you flowing?"
The Pillowman in McDonagh's Pillowman
(From Monday, March 2, 2009)
I was greatly intrigued by Katurian’s short story about the Pillowman, and why McDonagh chose it as the namesake of his entire production. I did not understand the story the first time I heard it, nor the second time, but only after it was explained to me by a friend. After putting some thought to it now, though, and looking at how it applies to the rest of the play, I’ve come to hold a little stronger grasp of it.
In Katurian’s story, the Pillowman is a character whose job it is to convince young children to commit suicide before they become adults. He assumes that all children are unhappy- and if happy, only deceivingly so- and that their unhappiness will only grow as they grow older, until eventually as thoroughly unhappy adults they will take their lives anyway. He sees it as his mission to rescue them from the tragedies of life. Unfortunately he is often unsuccessful, a fact that breaks his heart over and over again. He realizes that in order to keep his own heart from breaking thus he must go back in time and convince his own young boy-self to erase the possibility of adulthood tragedy by burning himself, the Pillowman, to death. It’s quite gruesome. But when he does this, he hears the piercing cry of the thousands of young children who never would receive the refreshing comfort of his soft and happy-looking Pillowman-self, and would go on to die later in life unhappy and alone. He disappears in smoke to the shriek their cries.
Since the play is titled The Pillowman, this story must in some clever way reverberate throughout it. Its theme of unhappy children is obvious: none of the characters in the story- Katurian, Michael, Michael’s three victims, Tupolski, and Ariel- has a pleasant, happy-go-lucky childhood with a good ending. The Pillowman’s assumption is right. However, he doesn’t seem to come to life in any individual character. Obviously none of the characters fully takes on the job of “designated Pillowman,” for none of them frequently goes back in time to convince young children to die. However, there are bits of Pillowman-personality in many of them.
For example, Katurian does kill Michael with the intent of saving him from later torture and brutal execution. And both Ariel and Tupolski have devoted their lives to protecting children from the sad tragedies of life. In these aspects of their lives these characters possess the vulgar heroism of the Pillowman. In other aspects they possess also his final irony. For Katurian’s murder of his brother only serves to come against him later as providing the authorities a reason to burn his stories, and Tupolski and Ariel, despite their best efforts, at the end of the day are still left with grief and tragedy on their hands.The message of Katurian’s short Pillowman story- that is, the futility of attempting to dispel unhappiness from the world- thus becomes the message of the greater story as well. It’s a strange twist, and a strange method to reinforce a theme, but it certainly works. After watching The Pillowman there was hardly a feeling of hope or happiness within me.
(After doing some research I found that McDonagh very likely wrote the play immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington D.C. Perhaps he was trying to convey that initial overwhelming dismay and disbelief in the goodness of the world. If so, this he quite convincingly achieved.)
I was greatly intrigued by Katurian’s short story about the Pillowman, and why McDonagh chose it as the namesake of his entire production. I did not understand the story the first time I heard it, nor the second time, but only after it was explained to me by a friend. After putting some thought to it now, though, and looking at how it applies to the rest of the play, I’ve come to hold a little stronger grasp of it.
In Katurian’s story, the Pillowman is a character whose job it is to convince young children to commit suicide before they become adults. He assumes that all children are unhappy- and if happy, only deceivingly so- and that their unhappiness will only grow as they grow older, until eventually as thoroughly unhappy adults they will take their lives anyway. He sees it as his mission to rescue them from the tragedies of life. Unfortunately he is often unsuccessful, a fact that breaks his heart over and over again. He realizes that in order to keep his own heart from breaking thus he must go back in time and convince his own young boy-self to erase the possibility of adulthood tragedy by burning himself, the Pillowman, to death. It’s quite gruesome. But when he does this, he hears the piercing cry of the thousands of young children who never would receive the refreshing comfort of his soft and happy-looking Pillowman-self, and would go on to die later in life unhappy and alone. He disappears in smoke to the shriek their cries.
Since the play is titled The Pillowman, this story must in some clever way reverberate throughout it. Its theme of unhappy children is obvious: none of the characters in the story- Katurian, Michael, Michael’s three victims, Tupolski, and Ariel- has a pleasant, happy-go-lucky childhood with a good ending. The Pillowman’s assumption is right. However, he doesn’t seem to come to life in any individual character. Obviously none of the characters fully takes on the job of “designated Pillowman,” for none of them frequently goes back in time to convince young children to die. However, there are bits of Pillowman-personality in many of them.
For example, Katurian does kill Michael with the intent of saving him from later torture and brutal execution. And both Ariel and Tupolski have devoted their lives to protecting children from the sad tragedies of life. In these aspects of their lives these characters possess the vulgar heroism of the Pillowman. In other aspects they possess also his final irony. For Katurian’s murder of his brother only serves to come against him later as providing the authorities a reason to burn his stories, and Tupolski and Ariel, despite their best efforts, at the end of the day are still left with grief and tragedy on their hands.The message of Katurian’s short Pillowman story- that is, the futility of attempting to dispel unhappiness from the world- thus becomes the message of the greater story as well. It’s a strange twist, and a strange method to reinforce a theme, but it certainly works. After watching The Pillowman there was hardly a feeling of hope or happiness within me.
(After doing some research I found that McDonagh very likely wrote the play immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington D.C. Perhaps he was trying to convey that initial overwhelming dismay and disbelief in the goodness of the world. If so, this he quite convincingly achieved.)
Appearance vs. Reality in Theater
(From Monday, February 23, 2009)
My chosen binary for exploration and deconstruction is that between appearance and reality. In the initial setting it appears that greater privilege is given to appearance. This can be seen in the character John. “Light streaks down upon him from a window high above… Life of the house and of the slowly awakening stage swirls to the body of John, and thrills it” (Toomer, 52). Pictured in this light John is immediately the hero of the scene. We learn, however, that the reality of his personality is the stronger actor.
The appearances of the beautiful Dorris, also, at first are more privileged than her actual characteristics: “Above the staleness, one dancer throws herself into it. Dorris… Her own glowing is too rich a thing…” (53). Dorris dances, Dorris dances, Dorris dances. Her physicality is apparently a very strong actor in the scene.
By all appearances these are two solid characters. To the viewers of this setting in the Howard Theater, appearances are given privilege over reality. But to the reader just the opposite is the case. For underneath these appearances, reality is the greater actor in the story.
It is clear that “John’s body is separate from the thoughts that pack his mind” (52). Because of this, he is able to realize that the same is true of Dorris. He observes her subtle indications, “The leading lady fits loosely in the front. Lack-life, monotonous” (53), and sees that “Her suspicion would be greater than her passion.” Behind Dorris’ apparent physical passion, the real thoughts in her mind reveal what really is going on: “[I] can’t win him to respect [me]…” (55). Her physical passion is just a face.
The weight of this reality holds the greater privilege over appearance in this classic binary. An old proverb (that I'm sure exists) comes to mind: "The heart of a man is the man."
My chosen binary for exploration and deconstruction is that between appearance and reality. In the initial setting it appears that greater privilege is given to appearance. This can be seen in the character John. “Light streaks down upon him from a window high above… Life of the house and of the slowly awakening stage swirls to the body of John, and thrills it” (Toomer, 52). Pictured in this light John is immediately the hero of the scene. We learn, however, that the reality of his personality is the stronger actor.
The appearances of the beautiful Dorris, also, at first are more privileged than her actual characteristics: “Above the staleness, one dancer throws herself into it. Dorris… Her own glowing is too rich a thing…” (53). Dorris dances, Dorris dances, Dorris dances. Her physicality is apparently a very strong actor in the scene.
By all appearances these are two solid characters. To the viewers of this setting in the Howard Theater, appearances are given privilege over reality. But to the reader just the opposite is the case. For underneath these appearances, reality is the greater actor in the story.
It is clear that “John’s body is separate from the thoughts that pack his mind” (52). Because of this, he is able to realize that the same is true of Dorris. He observes her subtle indications, “The leading lady fits loosely in the front. Lack-life, monotonous” (53), and sees that “Her suspicion would be greater than her passion.” Behind Dorris’ apparent physical passion, the real thoughts in her mind reveal what really is going on: “[I] can’t win him to respect [me]…” (55). Her physical passion is just a face.
The weight of this reality holds the greater privilege over appearance in this classic binary. An old proverb (that I'm sure exists) comes to mind: "The heart of a man is the man."
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