"on beauty" wrap-up & self-destruction

-more than just a novel about howard — a man who cheats on his wife w/ traditionally "beautiful" women — on beauty is a story about a man on the path to self-destruction.  by the novel's end, howard has lost the loyalty of his children, has sabotaged his marriage and is on the verge of ruining his professorial career.  zadie smith invents the character of howard's father (a racist, sexist, lower-class guy who sits around all day watching t.v. and never reads).  he also believes in the concept of genius (howard doesn't).

-part of the reason howard may have ended up essentially self-destructing is b/c of pressure felt from his father.  as a child and teen he may have felt pressure to "do better" than his father.  BUT, by ascending class lines into the upper class academic elite, howard may have felt guilt for "doing better" than his dad.  it is difficult for children to be more successful than their parents at times b/c inevitably we may feel like our success is a "condemnation" of our parents and our background and heritage.

"on beauty" (end) & the state of english lit

-the end of the novel is a contemplation of intellectual life in the western hemisphere, grabbing at the crux of the future of the study of english literature.  the discipline of english as an institution is relatively new.  for a long time, the study of literature wasn't in english.  students read latin classics and tried to apply them to their own english texts.  samuel johnson and his peers were beaten for failure to memorize texts.  it was not reading for pleasure.  it was not until 1833 that english lit became a discipline.

-on beauty asks what it means to be an intellectual.  in "the anatomy lesson" section of the book, on pgs. 225-226, claire explains her motivation behind her affair w/ howard.  claire says she instigated the affair b/t the two of them: ..."(claire) intervened in the most successful marriage she knew."  claire has read all the classics expected of her.  she is also trained in all the latest literary theory.  what is an intellectual?  who would make a better teacher, claire or zora?

-in the novel, beauty becomes de- reified (unconverted from a concrete thing).  it's about taking women as objects and how horrible that is.  zadie smith hates the objectification of women, but she also hates the fact that the left disallows talk about beauty on the other end of the spectrum.  the biggest contradiction in the book is howard, who claims to be above any kind of mystical turning art into objects or celebrating geniuses, but the minute two good-looking women come on to him who are good looking, he sleeps w/ them (claire and victoria).

-the left believes that beauty is compromised due to all these political circumstances underlying the surface.  at the end of the novel, zora gets her dad put on indefinite leave for sleeping w/ a student (she basically turns him in).

-on pg. 416, zora had been championing carl in his defense for being enrolled in the english class w/o having the money to pay for the class.  monty was trying to get all of the non-paying students kicked out of the class.  besides all his right leanings, monty was also sleeping w/ chantelle, and wants to cover his ass by kicking her out of the university.  at the same time, carl fell in love w/ victoria and not zora, to zora's dismay.  zora calls him out for not sleeping w/ someone "classier" and carl tries to tell zora that howard has slept w/ victoria as well.  victoria desperately doesn't want him to b/c jerome lost his virginity to her.  thus, both father and son have slept w/ the same woman (gross).  jerome figures this out all on his own.

-"you people don't believe like human beings man — i ain't never seen people behave like you people ... my daddy's a worthless piece of shit too, but at least i know he's a worthless piece of shit ... you got your college degrees, but you don't even live right," rants carl to jerome and zora and everyone like them.  this is a vital moment in smith's novel where she criticizes the very people she works alongside.  carl functions to point out the moral failures in the upper class intellectual elite.

"on beauty" part III

-the term "genius" alienates us from our own talents.  it prevents us from creating our own great works b/c we look to others for greatness and feel we can't achieve the same kind of greatness.  zadie smith is lionized by the left in this culture war, and is lifted up as a black woman writer, as an antidote to the right's patriarchal great male writers.  smith portrays a very dim view of "lefty" academics.  we should be able to talk about great art and great beauty hand in hand.  smith seems to be anti-left through her stories of elitist academics in on beauty.

-in the book, howard is snide and attempts to bring down great artists like rembrandt.  when asked to come give a talk about the greatness of rembrandt, smith writes of howard's speech: " 'well,' he said loudly, hoping to finish it off with a daunting display of academic pyrotechnics, 'what i meant was that rembrandt is part of the seventeenth-century european movement to ... essentially invent the idea of the human,' howard heard himself saying, all of it paraphrased from the chapter he had left upstairs, asleep on the computer screen, boring even to itself."

-the above quote is an example of smith hating on the academic left, whose goal most of the time is to shame their audience into silence either through hatred of great artists or a showoff-y display of canonical knowledge.  one of the reasons the left is able to feel this superiority complex is due to the fact that a college or university is NOT a place that protects beauty, rather, it is an accrediting institution.  "it's like sorting peas," said laura.

-in the novel, the character of carl functions to question institutional knowledge.  carl isn't paying for college but he still attends art and cultural events in the city as often as he can.  in the section, "the anatomy lesson," chapter 1, carl visits wellington and runs into zora.  they engage in a conversation about the value of college and the difference b/t english classes and his own spoken word poetry he records.  on page 140, carl says, "the future's another country, man ... and i still ain't got a passport."  his passport is another way of saying a college diploma.

-carl's argument, and his subsequent point to zora, and maybe his over role in the novel is like the lyrics to a lil' wayne rap song from tha carter III.  "talkin' about it" is a rap song where he criticizes people who don't follow through with what they say, or practice what they preach.  just like how many college kids just "talk about" books or topics vs. going out into the real world (at least during their time at school) and just doing it, 2 lines from the song seem particularly applicable to carl's view on colleges like wellington: "(man they just) talkin' bout it / and i'm on the streets with it."

-on page 155, smith critiques howard as a professor the worth of what he teaches and the mechanical way he goes through the motions at this point in his career.  "howard asked his students to imagine prettiness as the mask that power wears.  to recast aesthetics as a rarefied language of exclusion.  he promised them a class that would challenge their own beliefs about the redemptive humanity of what is commonly called 'art.'  'art is the western myth,' announced howard, for the SIXTH YEAR IN A ROW."

"on beauty" cont'd

-the idea of omens/objects instead of the person or thing is a problematic occurrence that happens when people fall in love with the idea of something rather than the person —> like when older rich men marry "trophy wives" or vice versa, when young women marry old me and end up w/ their own t.v. show.  while "we" scorn the idea of those kinds of relationships, many times we have similar relationships, which don't have to be limited to romantic.  for example, if a friend and fellow student fails or drops out of miami, do they remain our friend?  to what is the extent that we objectify others w/o necessarily wanting to?  how much did their status as a miami student have to do w/ our positive feelings towards that person?  how much do we consider our friends as objects vs. subjects or people?

-in on beauty, how is beauty defined?  is it blurred images w/ lines, juxtapositions and light?  or is it more conventional, in terms of thinness, starvation, etc.?  kiki, howard's wife, was conventionally beautiful at the time of their marriage.  according to their eldest daughter, zora, kiki "let herself go."  regardless, it's true that kiki has put on a lot of weight since being married.  the concept of this is rehearsed over and over in kiki's head, as her body is anatomized over and over again

-later in the novel, when jerome convinces the family to go to a mozart concert, howard is facetious and an asshole throughout the entire concert.  he makes fun of mozart, kiki, her "lower" class and jerome's passion.  jerome was so moved, he cried during the performance.  howard, an archetypal multiculturalist and leftist, parodies everything about "genius" and mocks kiki's appreciation of mozart —> later on, the part of "requiem" that kiki identified as genius, was in fact composed by sussmayr after the fact, effectively disproving her argument that this song or movement HAD to have been written by a "genius."  "great man" theory is plaguing us (arguments over who wrote what, or who composed what or who painted what).  this problem of the arts is therefore also a gendered problem.  no one is interested in whether or not virginia wolff wrote everything under her name, for example

-on pg. 116, kiki finds out that howard didn't have a one-night stand at a conference in michigan.  instead, she discovers he had a 3-week long affair w/ claire, the couple's family friend, whose now-husband warren is also friends w/ howard and kiki.  claire's body is the exact antithesis of kiki's very womanly body.  this makes howard's decision to cheat on claire slightly understandable (but not justified) in terms of satisfying his curiosity of another type of body

zadie smith's "on beauty"

-in real life, she resembles "kiki," howard's wife in her own novel, w/ her head wraps.  the youtube interview of her in stockholm, sweden, 2006 helps the reader get a better idea of what ideas smith represents (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAmXET6hT8).  "the greatest obstacle to the good in human life is vanity and self-perception.  it's also the same case in art."  what smith means by this is that when people tell political truths in their novels they are bad.  art is a case of morals, or an analogy of morals.

-smith says it's really difficult in both life and art to be honest b/c of self-perception.  adults should be mature enough to be able to see the world in terms of other than themselves, in order to see multiple perspectives, vs. engaging in an "us vs. them" scene.  on beauty is about multiculturalism (howard's family), the bard (monty's family and culture wars.  people on the right care about standards of greatness, like shakespeare and other patriarchal authors.  liberal multiculturalists on the other hand, think that great literature has been put up on a pedestal for centuries for all the wrong reasons.  in the novel, jerome is the mediator.

-literature is about human relationships and the difficulty of knowing that, and knowing yourself.  it's interesting that zadie smith has been uplifted in the field of bardolotry by the left.

-the novel starts w/ jerome's emails to his father, which he refuses to respond to.  the family is liberal and not religious and don't understand why jerome is a moral christian.  the kips are a black family from trinidad who live in great britain.  monty is very religious, conservative, pro-business, pro-family, etc.  howard attacks monty publicly for an analysis of a rembrandt painting, saying that the painting isn't genius, and says it's a horrible painting.  monty writes back and tells him that he is talking about the wrong painting (like getting caught w/ your pants down).  this mortifies howard, who is academic rivals w/ monty.

what is great art?

(created by banksy)

-all of us are great artists and greatness is too narrowly defined.  celebrities make it easier for people to follow rather than keeping up w/ our neighbors.  ralph waldo emerson said that when readers read a work by a great author they get the return of their own "alienated majesty."

-projection sometimes works to our disadvantage (we look for the best and worst of us in other people b/c we are not only afraid of failure, we are afraid of success).

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM ("stand by me" video) of people around the country covering the song in different voices and on different instruments.  the concept is that everyone can be a great artist, and although some people are more "talented" than others, idol worship of musicians or otherwise can negatively affect those who "woship" those people b/c more often than not they end up thinking that they can never be that great

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq8upzJDJc ("pearls before breakfast" experiment) where world famous violinist joshua bell played a priceless violin in the subway station in washington d.c. during rush hour during the morning commute.  dressed in street clothes and a baseball cap, he was largely ignored by passerbys and got little to no money thrown in his violin case.  only a select few stopped to really listen and the social experiment asks the question, "what is great art?" and brings up the question that does art needs to be in the right  "frame" or venue to be truly enjoyed?  in other words, if you took a kandinsky out of a frame in a museum and put it up in a restaurant and asked an art historian what he thought of it, he would have a completely different reaction to it than if viewed in the "proper" setting (i.e. a museum).  story by gene weingarten.

"the child and flowers" by felicia hemans

1) is the meaning of the poem the same in all different versions?  does the format affect the meaning?

-yes, since the text is the exact same in all versions (except for the weird digital code on a couple), however the older scanned poem on the antique paper is what our group preferred b/c of how natural it reads w/ the breaks in the stanzas.  hemans never planned on having her poem scanned onto the internet and have her stanzas broken up.  it's really in a completely new format now, and although the meaning of the words are still the same, to some people, the meaning may change (and in my opinion cheapened) by a digital version.

-it's sort of like looking at a painting in a museum (heman's original poem) versus looking at that same painting as a jpeg online.  it's technically the same image, but art history lovers tend to swear that certain paintings look so much different when viewed in person (either the lighting, the figures' expressions, etc.).  or, another way of looking at it, in a slightly more pessimistic view, is that it's as if one ripped the painting out of its frame.  people need the right setting to view certain works of art, painted or written.  similarly, reading an old hard copy of a book is a different experience than reading it on the computer.  still, it's probably better to have the poem online than to not have it at all.

2) what difference (if any) will digitizing make to our understanding of poems?

-although this was sort of addressed in the previous question, to expand on that, it might make some people's understanding slightly altered.  it may make the poem more difficult to understand.  it's sort of a weird juxtaposition that the poem uplifts nature yet its digitized version is like nature's antithesis.  this poem is now displayed on the same piece of technology (a computer) that kids spend hours playing world of warcraft rather than go outside and experience the real world and real nature.  so there's that. 

3) how are each of these versions made?

-the first version looked at was made by taking a digital image of the original poem and then uploading it onto a computer.  the library has a special camera that does less damage to the original poem when photographed than other cameras.  the 2nd version could have been created by anyone just by typing the poem onto a blog or web site.

my interpretation:

-the meaning of the poem is more than just a girl that's picking flowers and being innocently happy.  on page 2, the lines

 "nature hath mines of such wealth—and thou

never wilt prize its delights as now!"

give the poem a deeper overall meaning.  hemans is saying that not only are children naturally happy and  more reactive no nature than adults, but that children value aesthetics in general on a different scale (and perhaps more so) than adults do.  in defense of adults, they have to grow up and deal with the real world.  the line in the epigraph

"griefs that along thy altered face"

means that grief and sadness affects children slowly over time and add character and wrinkles to adults' faces.  wordsworth defended his childhood view of nature as an adult and vowed he would never lose his innocent childlike perspective.  hemans seems to echo a little bit of that way of thinking about life as an adult.

aurora leigh book V

(pg. 151, lines 139-155)

the critics say that epics have died out

with agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods;

i'll not believe it.  i could never deem

as payne knight did (the mythic mountaineer

who travelled higher than he was born to live,

and showed sometimes the goitre in his throat

discoursing of an image seen through fog),

that homer's heroes measured twelve feet high.

they were but men — his helen's hair turned gray

like any plain miss smith's who wears a front;

and hector's infant whimpered at a plume

as yours last friday at a turkey cock.

all actual heroes are essential men,

and all men possible heroes: every age,

heroic in proportions, double-faced,

looks backward and before, expects a morn

and claims an epos.

-in this stanza from book V, EBB defends the vitality of epic poetry.  she does not believe that epic poems such as homer's can never again be repeated.  in fact, she names names of contemporary critics (i.e. payne knight) who she disagrees with.  payne knight, who viewed greek antiquated heroes as literally 12 feet high (hector), or always courageous (astyanax), or eternally beautiful (helen), also viewed these epic heroes as more abstract than did EBB.  her basic point is that these legendary characters were just as human and just as mortal as victorian contemporaries.  thus,  heroes from her era have just as much potential for epos as homer's characters do.  "all actual heroes are essential men."

-in defending her own generation as just as worthy of epos as homer's greek heroes, EBB takes a firm stance on not only victorian culture, but also the worth and lasting value of epic poetry.  aurora leigh was written at a time of crossroads for british poetry.  many writers and critics argued that the time of epic poems was over and that poets should confine themselves to topics and styles more realistic and relevant to contemporary life.  EBB does not completely disagree w/ this; she merely argues that epic poetry can still be as monumental as homer's was and is.  given the fact that 21st cent. students are still reading her poetry, it seems that both EBB and aurora were correct.

aurora leigh close reading

(book I, 304-12)

...she had lived

a sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,

accounting that to leap from perch to perch

was act and joy enough for any bird.

dear heaven, how silly are the things that live

in thickets, and eat berries!

i, alas,

a wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage

and she was there to meet me.  very kind.

bring the clean  water, give out the fresh seed

1) how does the metaphor of the bird work in this passage?  (clue: what two things are being compared and how are they alike?  women and birds.  first discuss how the aunt is like a bird, and second how aurora is like a bird.)

as the question sort of answers itself, 2 things being compared in this excerpt are women (aurora and her aunt) and birds (cage bird and free bird).  the aunt is like a bird in that she is content to spend her life cooped up (i.e. in a cage) like a bird, rather than go out and really experience culture and the world.  

as aurora lands in england after the death of her father, she sees her father's sister standing outside of her house,

"...straight and calm, 

her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight as if for taming accidental thoughts 

from possible pulses..."

the aunt has trained herself to be restrained and conservative and dutiful at all times.  she is a caged, civilized, christian bird, and she's fine w/ it.  it's also interesting that the aunt is never given a name, further suggesting how impersonal she is towards aurora.

as for aurora, she can also be considered to be a bird, but more wild and free than her aunt.  she wants to "spread her wings," if you will.  however, her aunt views aurora as a wild italian tuscan girl that needs to be taught manners, modesty, hard work, etc.  since she is still so young at the time she moves in w/ her aunt, the aunt feels she has the opportunity to undo the progressive ideals instilled in her.  however, aurora doesn't think that people should be "tamed."  the term "fledged" applies to birds whose wings are clipped to prevent them from being able to fly.

2) what does this passage say about the relationship b/t aurora and her aunt?  what can we infer from this passage to make sense of how aurora views her idea of femininity as it relates to the womanhood her aunt presents?

this passage illustrates the conditional love b/t aurora and her aunt.  when aurora writes "very kind," it sounds less than authentic, as if the reader is supposed to acknowledge that this is sarcasm.  the short staccato sentence suggests this further.  later, on pg. 14, she writes, 

" 'she(her aunt) loved my father and would love me too

as long as i deserved it.' very kind."

at this point, the reader knows that her aunt is basing her love for aurora off a failed ideology of british conservatism during the height of the victorian age of manners.  it also shows a flawed side of the aunt, who selfishly wants to change aurora so she is less and less like her dead mother, who the aunt did not approve of.  it seems the aunt quit loving her brother (aurora's father) once he left for italy and became immersed in culture and his love affair.

aurora's view of femininity do not align w/ her aunt's.  she has no desire to do house chores, dressing properly, etc.  aurora is a free spirit.  the womanhood her aunt presents is a reserved kind.  aurora has no interest in this type of housewife womanhood career.  she wants to make money through her writing, regardless of w/e plans her aunt might have for her.

aurora leigh by elizabeth barrett browning

elizabeth barrett browning brief bio

-EBB was born in 1806 and died in 1861.  when wordsworth died, EBB was considered for poet laureate (a revolutionary consideration for women writers).  her father was an enormous personality who dwarfed his children and enveloped all of them and did not want them to marry.  EBB (like most other women) became unknowingly addicted to morphine as an invalid child.  in 1845 EBB met robert browning via letters and soon eloped against her father's wishes. they loved each other until she died and to robert, she met some of what is considered to be the best love poetry of all time (ex: "how do i love thee? let me count the ways...").  they had one child and she died happy.

book I

-the 1st book in browning's long poem discusses aurora's (browning's semi-autobiographical alter ego) childhood growing up in florence, italy w/ her father. her mother, a tuscan (italian), had died when she was only 4, and aurora's english father was forced to raise her on his own w/o the supplement of her mother's additional, nurturing love. aurora meditates greatly on the life and death of her mother, of what she wished for her childhood vs. her reality and of her mother's presence in death (thru her father, thru portraits of her, thru her aunt, etc.) during aurora's early upbringing.

-aurora's father is an english man w/ property and money, who seems to be too old to marry. the lady of the house (in england) is his younger sister, so if he never married, his sister (aurora's aunt) would become lady of the house. while on vacation in florence, aurora's dad witnesses a catholic parade one afternoon and falls in love w/ a tuscan woman walking in the streets (aurora's future mom). they marry and give birth to aurora. her aunt resents aurora for this and sees aurora's mother's face in hers.

-this late marriage makes aurora's father become uncommon and a free spirit (although this is shortlived). forgetting his estate in england, he becomes more interested in love and the arts (to his sister's dismay and annoyance). this brief period of lifestyle difference and happiness ends when his bride dies and he becomes a man suffering from overbearing melancholy and a sense of loss. a broken man, he struggles to raise aurora on his own and does his best, in her opinion

-aurora leigh is up there w/ other epic poems such as milton's paradise lost. it is also a "bildungsromans" (a novel concerned w/ the edu, development and maturation of a young protagonist).

-EBB did not believe that humans are born as tabula rasas. instead she thinks that we are born as some form of parchment of papyrus that has previously been written on and continues to be written on while we grow. it shapes us. in book I, aurora ponders what has shaped her in her young life so far (like how tv and books have shaped us).

-in the beginning of book I, EBB explains the purpose for writing it. she is now writing for her own use to look upon it later to hold together what she was and is. the murmur of the outer infinite is what you hear if you disregard what culture is telling you (like listening to eternity). thus, the murmur from travels inland = experiencing what culture and life and youth have to offer.  aurora explains that her mother died out of a sense of joy and bliss at giving birth (another example of an adoring mother):

"...if her kiss
had left a longer weight upon my lips
it might have steadied the uneasy breath,
and reconciled and fraternised my soul
with the new order..." (pg. 6)

—> in this portion of book I, aurora tells how her childhood was spent looking for a maternal love that her father could not offer her, as mother's love foolishly and father's love wisely, as EBB puts it.  mothers understand all the little nuances that babies / their children have and they kiss "full sense into empty words" (pg. 6). they get it.  dads can only do so much (it is thought).

"the lifted veil" by george eliot

(news flash: "george" was a girl)

-pg. 28: "low spirits!" i [latimer] thought bitterly, as he rode away; "that is the sort of phrase with which coarse, narrow natures like yours [alfred's] think to describe experience of which you can know no more than your horse knows."  latimer says this in response to alfred, but really, this statement cannot be true, everyone feels low @ some point in there life, despite alfred's self-complacency —> so, if latimer were truly clairvoyant, he would be able to sense some of alfred's flaws / insecurities (it seems instead that latimer is blinded by his own passionate feelings towards bertha, alfred's beau)

-latimer's jealousy towards his older brother leads him to all of his self-pity & accusations.  latimer is jealous of alfred for 1) their father's preference for the older child and 2) their shared love for bertha, who at least outwardly prefers alfred.  these harsh critiques of alfred on the part of latimer are eliot's (the author's) way of revealing to the reader that he in an unreliable narrator

-for example, in chapter 2, alfred dies that day, so latimer's assumption that "there was no evil in store for him" (pg. 28) was completely wrong.

-"the fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst" (pg. 24) is an amazing quote uttered by latimer, who hates himself for loving bertha, who is the literal antithesis to his ideal woman, but his desire for her remains and is perhaps even stronger b/c of it.  bertha carelessly admits to latimer that she does not love alfred, who she agrees to marry.  latimer argues w/ her against this way of thinking, insisting that either she really loves alfred or must marry someone else: "bertha, that is not your real feeling.  why do you delight in trying to deceive me by inventing such cynical speeches?" (pg. 29)

-when latimer is in love w/ bertha, he projects onto her a perfect nature; when he doesn't have these feelings for her anymore, he resents he and projects a horrible nature onto her

-it may be impossible not to project onto somebody you really love (do you love the person or your projections?) —> latimer doesn't love bertha at all, but what he's made of her, she tells him how shallow and cynical she really is but he refuses to accept it as fact, he thinks she's still just trying to cover up some hidden feeling

-is latimer a sort of psychotic character who does evil acts w/o realizing them? (like robert deniro's character in hide and seek)  "latimer seeks desperately for ignorance, freedom from the terrifying, nauseating knowledge of human pettiness" (from new york times review titled "the wimp who knew too much")

-both bertha and latimer look at each other and judge each other —> he finally realizes there is no depth there, "the narrow room of this woman's soul" (pg. 35).  this question of judgment begs asking if you behave differently when you go to your teacher's or boss's office to discuss your work when he/she thinks you're brilliant vs. a teacher who thinks you're a slacker?  yes.  two opposite ends of the projection spectrum are: idealize (high) & demonize (low) —> judgment is not the way to know a person, and latimer can't presume bertha is either amazing or the worst person ever

-latimer's iconic & idealized projection of bertha could have stemmed from his mother's extreme caring & nurturing as a child.  from safe atop the judge's stand, latimer puts himself in the position where he himself cannot be looked at under a microscope or judged —> he never thinks to analyze or "judge" himself.  the blood transfusion scene towards the end of the novella was a sort of gothic, science-fiction, futuristic scene @ the lifted veil's time of publication (interesting that eliot's invention is now a reality)

frankenstein (end) + heromachine characters

*hero machine character would not upload to blogger (emailed to you instead)

-i based my character off of frankenstein's monster, like everybody else.  however, in an attempt to avoid making the hero look like 1) the cinematic portrayal of the monster and / or 2) the incredible hulk, i based my hero's look off of walton's last description of the monster when he boards the ship right after victor's death.  i gave him long ragged hair, scruff on his cheeks, mummy-esque bandages wrapped on his arms and other general characteristics like walton describes.  i couldn't help making most of his clothing and accessories "hulk green" however.

getting inside a character's head:

-free indirect discourse (getting inside the consciousness of a character) is different and unique to novels —> compared to movies, which use voiceovers, close-ups and cuts less effectively in an attempt to get the same effect —> what then do video and computer games do to develop a similar sense of interiority?  if you're acting out as the character, then that character's interiority = your interiority (if you have the option of killing off another character, that ethical decision is also up to you).  the poet william butler yates said, "who can tell the dancer from the dance?" (asks if a choreographer or a dancer, or a game's creator or a player, is truly expressing themselves thru dance)

end of novel:

-victor sees the flaws in his methods but can't seem to get past them.  he sacrifices family for a heroic ideal, the stereotypical hero who chooses career, fame, etc. over family commitments.  the monster is therefore an expression of victor's real desires (to escape intimacy w/ loved ones?)

frankenstein friday

-victor wants to destroy the potential relationship b/t the 2 monsters, so the monster seeks revenge on victor on his wedding nite.  victor is so blinded by ambition he is afraid that the monster's threat is for him (instead, the monster kills elizabeth) —> the monster COULD have killed victor at anytime throughout the novel, but instead tortures him by killing several of his loved ones (clerval, william, elizabeth, etc) —> the monster may also have chosen not to kill victor b/c he is his creator.  he tortures him by killing those closest to him.

- one of our class's theory: what if there is no monster?  what if victor and the monster are 1 and the same, a la fight club?  (victor hallucinates the monster).  this is backed up by the fact that even though walter thinks he sees the monster, he is just as confused and delirious at times as victor, so he could be mistaken as well —> both could be just sheer self-destruction

-victor seems to be taking his time in marrying elizabeth, he could have married her before creating the monster, so is it really the case that he wants his loved ones around?  does he want them to die?

searching for "wretch" in etext version of original edition of vol. III of frankenstein

chapter 3- "she (the new monster) might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness"

chapter 5- "(victor, talking to his father on the futility of pride, blaming himself for justine's murder) ... human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as i felt pride," then a couple paragraphs later, (victor, referring to the monster), "i avoided explanation, and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch i had created"

walton's letters- (writing to margaret, telling her of victor's horrible story) "[victor's] fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow, and quenched in infinite wretchedness"

-shelley is deliberately setting up the question of if there is really a monster or not, or if he is really victor?  what's psychology's role in this?  usually, laura wants to blame victor for elizabeth's death and call him selfish.  but now she sees his whole attitude as a summation of his desire to be the one to save everyone and have the attention all on him, maybe his reason for wanting to be completely alone in the world.

frankenstein psychology & parenting

-"and now, once again, i bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper," is shelley equating her novel w/ the monster.  around the time of 2nd edition, locke wrote that he imagined all humans as "tabula rasas" (blank slates, nurture, etc), claiming that if you bring up children properly, you will have a more understanding, better world (some people took this too far, like thomas day, who adopted 2 young girls and told them nothing and left them to learn everything themselves b/c he felt culture was so corrupt —> allowed the children to even stick their hands in the fire to teach them that fire burns —> children grew up to be schizophrenic.

-as far as parenting goes, "sticking around" is step 1 for successfully raising children —> victor's total abandonment of his monster leaves the creature w/ no one to care for it.  BUT, on some kind of level, there is always a moral choice for the child (and the monster) ex: the monster frames justine, this shows he has some sense of right and wrong.  at first, the monster has no way of measuring himself in relation to other people before getting to observe families (monster tells victor he should have been his adam, but he abandoned him). 

-some parents put kids into extremely busy schedules b/c they don't know what else to do w/ them.  if a child is made to live out his parents' wishes, or made to prove something (like the way the monster was made to prove victor's genius), sometimes they make statements against this (either towards their parents or towards their institution, etc.).  for example, the monster will do anything to get his "father's" (victor's) attention, even (or especially) violent acts.  on pg. 109, shelley writes, "suddenly, as i gazed on him (william, victor's son), an idea seized me, that (william) was unprejudiced, and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity" —> later, the monster says to victor that essentially, "i was good, you made me bad."  on a related note, one  study claims that w/ the legalization of abortion, crime rates have gone down (less accidental or unwanted children or little unintended monsters entering the world).

frankenstein, etc...

-premature deaths are worse for the parents of children who don't outlive their child(ren).  this is b/c parents' love for children is the most intense thing you can imagine (laura).  applicable to other relationships than parents and kids, the more you love someone the deeper the hurt can be  this is why some people don't have children, or don't fall in love, b/c they don't want to get hurt (selfish, but understandable).

- in frankenstein, victor's parents were extremely good to him, and he basically grew up as an only child until his sister came along.  some of the poems most related to this text that influenced shelley were: "prometheus unbound," "rime of the ancient mariner," "alastor."  in fact, the novel quotes coleridge's poem (the bird loved the mariner unconditionally, just like victor's mother).  so, why did the mariner shoot the bird?  why did people crucify jesus? —> divine love isn't always received, if you push it out of your life than its death cannot hurt you emotionally.  having children changes your whole emotional outlook (if you push it away first, you save yourself the heartbreak)

-in "alastor," the main character travels all over the world (arabia, persia, kashmir on pgs. 252-254) and dreams of an arab maiden who he did not take notice of in person earlier.  once he wakes up from this dream he realizes she was not real, she was a vision (dream girl).  similarly, victor spurns nature's gifts in the process of creating his monster.  victor used to get joy just from going outdoors before becoming obsessed w/ his monster project.  he doesn't write his father or contact elizabeth during the creation stage of his monster (little to no human contact).  he neglected nature and forget his friends

-part of his motivation to create the monster is to recreate his mother, or to prevent elizabeth from dying / hurting him (he's afraid of a world w/o her).  from victor's perspective (pg. 40), he claims fate reached out and grabbed him (his passion being to create a new species), fate attacked him — here shelley accuses victor as being an innocent bystander when he should stand up for certain things.  instead of trying to prove that he created a monster, he becomes passive and gives up attempting to save others for fear of being laughed at.  on pg. 63 victor the egotist doesn't think about elizabeth's suffering.  he has really failed in all aspects of his life, and one can fairly say that it is victor who is the true monster.

wuthering heights wrap-up / frankenstein intro

wuthering heights

-by the novel's end, catherine and nelly end up imprisoned in the house.  linton is sickly and feeble, very influenced by heathcliff and willing to sacrifice catherine —> in the end though linton is the one who lets catherine out of her room to talk to her father one last time (he still has no real character though).  hareton embraces his uncivilized upbringing (swears constantly and is encouraged by heathcliff), he grabs catherine's hair when she come to the heights like a child. this is b/c heathcliff ruins hareton, doesn't appreciate nelly and was labeled as a satanic character by one of bronte's sisters (also labeled emily's book as "great art")

frankenstein

-1819 & 1831 were years of 1st and 2nd edition of the book (huge differences b/t the 2, many prefer the earlier version).  the character of walton gives up trying to become homer after just 1 year (wants his name to be remembered, not to be a great writer).  and so, the novel starts off thru series of letters written by walton to his sister.  walton and his group gets stranded on their ship in the middle of icy region and they discover a sickly victor, who begins to tell his story on the creation of his monster to walton.  victor is motivated to tell walton his story b/c 

 of what we see in letter 4, 2nd paragraph near beginning of novel, " ... unhappy man, do you share my madness?" quote pulled from 1831 edition.  victor saw the same madness in walton's eyes as in his own.  victor and walton both share the same madness in wanting so badly to become famous and to leave a legacy (victor's story to walton is therefore a cautionary tale so walton does not make the same mistakes)

-sidenote, as for percy shelley, he wrote some of the best poetry in the english language, his novels however do not compare (especially to his wife's).

volume II of wuthering heights — class discussion

-heathcliff is justifiably angry w/ catherine for marrying edgar instead of him.  in one film version, daughter and mother are the same actress (a medium specific analysis of the story showing the closeness of love & hate).  the 1939 film version is a less harsh / cruel portrayal of catherine and heathcliff's relationship (they're kinder to each other)

-why would emily bronte want to darken romance? (maybe b/c of the appeal of realism, it's more likely to happen in real life —> being able to love 2 people @ the same time in totally diff. ways).  in some ways, the love narrative parallels 2 modern films, the notebook & sweet home alabama.  it is similar in the manner that marrying soulmate vs. marrying the person who is best fit for your social life (catherine's decision she has to make).  it is unfair to condemn catherine for wanting to retain both loves some could argue (although some claim she is unfair to edgar in marrying him for "empirical" reasons).

"the two faces of love in wuthering heights" by james phillips

-in order to gain a better understanding of not only the second half of wuthering heights, but also the novel as a whole, i chose to look at james phillips' essay on the 2 types of love he claims exist within bronte's story throughout between catherine and heathcliff.  his essay, published quite recently (july 2007), combines ideas of kant and freud in an effort to define the love that exists in the story — mainly between catherine and heathcliff vs. catherine and linton.

-while it starts off promising, it quickly begins to reach for an abstract analysis surely unintended by ms. bronte when she penned her novel over 100 years ago.  the fact that she died soon after finishing wuthering heights invites all sorts of intriguing literary analysis since she did not have much time to comment on her own work and her own authorial intent / views on and experience w/ romantic love.  in my view, phillips is nothing more than a participant in the idolatry of author worship (or intense analysis centuries after the fact).  whether phillips is right or wrong isn't important, what occurs is that bronte's name is immortalized thru his essay, which is rather annoying.

-phillips starts off by immediately creating a binary in which he forms his essay around.  "heathcliff is the transcendental face of love, linton is its empirical face" (96).  this is where he makes his first leap, and also his first mistake.  by limiting himself to kantian philosophy, there are only 2 classifications of love for him to label for heathcliff and linton respectively.  i am of the opinion that it is quite human nature to desire to classify things between 2 labels, one or the other.

-in phillips' defense, disregarding this supposed binary, immanual kant did lived and died before bronte was born (born 1724, died 1804 — bronte was not born until 1818).  thus, it is in the realm of possibility that she was in fact influenced by his ideas, but to what extent it is hard to say for certain.  phillips is purely speculating from the very beginning, a lofty goal and a fascinating concept, but a shot in the dark nonetheless.

-what he means w/ his labels is that catherine's love for heathcliff transcends normal ideas of love, it transcends other relationships she has, it transcends her death (she still communicates w/ him as a ghost), etc.  concerning linton, her love is empirically based, or grounded in what he literally brings to the table for her.  it's impermanent, which, traditionally, all love is considered to be.  this makes phillips question whether or not catherine and heathcliff's relationship was really love after all, which is far more interesting than borrowing kantian and freudian terms (which he does later by offering up a hypothesis that when heathcliff moved in w/ her family at a young age she didn't really see him as a brother but as a father in a strange sort of electra complex).

-looking further into whether or not their relationship was love in its truest sense, phillips examines the "trust" they have for one another.  "trust, too, looks beyond empirical data" (98).  but, catherine never has a vulnerable moment of faith (trust by definition is uncertain).  instead, "in catherine's eyes, there is no possibility of abandoning heathcliff, b/c the foundation of their bond in insensible to empirical reversals" (98).  thus, she doesn't feel bad as one normally would when she marries linton.  for her this is a whole different type of love entirely.

-for catherine and heathcliff, "the distinction b/t love and the object of love is erased" (98).  therefore, catherine's only idea of "true love" can only be represented (and also personified) via heathcliff, her one true love throughout her life and death.  this is how phillips defends catherine's cruelty aspects towards heathcliff in regards to her marriage w/ linton.  she is so confident in her relationship w/ heathcliff that she feels nothing can break their bond.  for her, heaven is hellish w/o heathcliff in it.  theirs is an obsessive relationship, but its intensity can be complimented and observed.

-heathcliff on the other hand has to have catherine die before realizing the old cliche: "you don't know what you got til it's gone."  basically, as phillips says, "love is not abstract" (102).  both heathcliff and catherine embody each other's idea of what love is, and they cannot separate each other from their idea of what love is.  it is an absolute, cruel, timeless love. ** so intense **

-finally, phillips questionably includes near the end of his essay a line that sabotages his own arguments.  quoting an essay on the novel as a whole, he recalls that its author, leavis, "discusses the dangers of the reductive reading whose focus os the relationship b/t catherine earnshaw and heathcliff"  (104).  leavis, assumedly a feminist, instead labels the 2nd half of the book and a look at an "alternative understanding of love and of woman" (104).  this analysis is much more conceivable, and likely, to me.  on top of that, phillips does nothing after this to defend his essay, which to me is just what leavis warns against doing.  perhaps phillips doesn't consider his to be so since it offhandedly also considers the question of catherine and linton's relationship.  however, it's obvious that his main concern here is w/ the novel's 2 principal lovers, namely, catherine and heathcliff.

-this essay did not necessarily help my understanding of the 2nd half of the novel, but it did open up my mind to a whole new set of ideas and ways of looking at wuthering heights in general and esp. w/ regard to catherine and heathcliff.  so, while i'm not buying everything phillips is selling, he does have some interesting ideas and poses some good questions.

wuthering heights thru ch. 14 discussion & plot sequence

-none of the characters are very nice —> even though catherine and heathcliff are very similar and appear to be "soulmates," they're really not any better off together.  in fact, they're almost worse off.  during the 1800's, especially in a secluded part of the country (like wuthering heights & thrushcross grange), servants were incredibly close to the ones they served.  it's also infantilizing for the ones being served (catherine develops into quite the narcissist).  nelly dean (servant) is the same age as hindley (catherine's brother) —> they used to be close as children until "class reared it's ugly head" and their relationship changed.  

-later, it works into heathcliff's plans for isabella to fall for him, but one gets the sense he would have gotten her to like him if for no other reason than his own twisted satisfaction.  heathcliff is jealous of catherine's marriage to edgar.  he feels she should be his husband and not edgar's.  "i have a right to kiss her, if she chooses, and you have no right to object—i'm not your husband, you needn't be jealous of me!" says heathcliff to catherine (ch. 11, pg. 99).  heathcliff's marriage to isabella follows the logic of "you take my girl, i'll take yours" w/ regards to his competition w/ edgar for catherine's hand.

-hindley was the one who degraded heathcliff in catherine's eyes so she no longer saw it fit to marry heathcliff (although heathcliff made little to no effort to move up in class status) "i've no more business to marry edgar linton than i have to be in heaven," says catherine to nelly (ch. 9, pg. 71).  heathcliff comes back 3 years later to wuthering heights and systematically takes back the estate from hindley thru gambling (unbeknownst to hindley).  as for hareton, when he observes heathcliff abuse his father he takes pleasure from it, since hindley has always mistreated him as a child.  heathcliff's desire to torture others stems from his being tortured by catherine—> he no longer takes pleasure in anything other than seeking revenge on those who have wronged him.  heathcliff also hopes to take catherine's money (she would inherit hindley's remaining fortune)

-catherine dies after having her baby, but before she dies she goes insane (edgar isn't around, she hasn't eaten and hindley doesn't take care of her)—>heathcliff has taken away everything that is dear to her.  to laura, a soulmate is someone who is very close to you but can disagree w/ you.  the love between heathcliff and catherine is somewhat oppressive (neither can live w/o the other, in a certain way).  that makes them not really true soulmates.  after catherine dies, heathcliff feels his soul has gone into the grave (his hopes for happiness die w/ catherine).

wuthering heights cont'd (heathcliff description and class notes, thru ch. 11)

heathcliff description

-heathcliff is generally unhappy and it shows.  he's also obsessive (with regards to catherine, and her ghost), ill-tempered (towards everyone) and cruel (towards hareton and little catherine as well as zillah).  he is a horribly unpleasant, borderline sociopathic older man now.  heathcliff is brutally stoic and has his guard up 24/7.  the one instance so far of his showing any signs of weakness is after he discovers lockwood in the hidden chamber inside wuthering heights that zillah showed him too.  the room of course is haunted by catherine.

"come in!  come in!" he sobbed.  "cathy, do come.  oh do— once more!  oh!  my heart's darling, hear me this time —catherine, at last!" (pg. 24).

-lockwood describes the scene using words like "anguish" and "grief."  it is clear heathcliff put much of his hopes into catherine long ago.  mr. earnshaw (catherine's dad) was the one who brought heathcliff into their home to begin with (he was nothing more than a gipsy baby in the streets w/ no home).  catherine's brother hindley was extremely abusive towards heathcliff growing up, but he was okay w/ that as long as he got what he wanted (his horse, catherine's affections).  his emotionally and physically abusive upbringing shaped his adult personality.

class notes (sequence of events from ch's 3-10 + analysis)

-ch.9 catherine feels she should marry edgar (not heathcliff) b/c it would ruin her name

"it would degrade me to marry heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how i love him; and  that, not because he's handsome, nelly, but b/c he's more myself than i am" —> heathcliff  hears catherine say this (but not the part about her loving him), gets up and leaves

-catherine feels she's more herself around heathcliff and she's feels physically stronger and has more fun w/ heathcliff.  despite this, instead, catherine goes off and marries edgar for her reputation's sake (she really conformed to social expectations).  bronte does a good job of creating real characters (& moral ambiguity), which clouds who is right and who is wrong —> partial explanation for why critics have had so much difficulty pinning down definitive analyses of the book, it's so authentic.

-three years into catherine and edgar's marriage, heathcliff returns and is rich (catherine is grateful for this) —> then isabella falls in love w/ him (they later marry).  hindley ends up being a drunkard who gambles all his $ away to heathcliff.  nelly in ch. 11 talks about going up to wuthering heights and visiting hareton to save him from his horrible upbringing (nelly dean is now the narrator).

emily bronte's wuthering heights (chapters 1-2)

-the bronte sisters (charlotte, emily and anne; pictured above) were a talented bunch of british women writers and all published their works under male pen names (charlotte wrote jane eyre).  emily published wuthering heights in 1847 and died just 1 year later @ age 30.  over 100 years later, emily bronte was called a "female shakespeare" (she was finally fully acknowledged for her talents)

-chapter 1 of wuthering heights starts off w/ mr. lockwood as narrator, whose new landlord is heathcliff.  the setting of the novel, including heathcliff's estate, is "a perfect misanthropist's heaven" (according to lockwood).  lockwood recalls an earlier failed romantic adventure when he was on vacation on the coast: he discovers a "real goddess in my eyes" and claims it was painfully obvious he liked her.  she returns his gazes (believing he's interested in her, which he is).

-BUT, instead of making a move, he "at every glance retired colder and farther."  the time this is all taking place in is 1801, making heathcliff c. 37 yrs. old.  readers can gain insight into heathcliff's personality thru his treatment of his dogs (he is extremely brutal to people and his pets, although he claims that's not what his dogs are there for).

did bungle commit rape?

yes.

-dibbell (the author) did a good job of converting me.  it doesn't matter whether it was in the virtual MOO world or not.  what matters is when you violate an adult woman so badly she has "posttraumatic tears streaming down her face."  bungle WAS being a "fuckhead."  how messed up in the head do you have to be to log onto LambdaMOO from NYU and publicly mutilate / terrorize multiple people on the other side of the country?  the fact that bungle chose to bring other MOO users into the living room to commit these gross acts shows his viciousness.  and to those who don't believe a rape can occur online, remember the whole concept of cyber-sex.  it's real.  people do it.  "sex is never so much an exchange of liquids as it is an exchange of signs," writes dibbell.  i admit i'm immediately turned off by anything remotely resembling world of warcraft, but this bungle guy really was a WEIRDO.  his reappearance as dr. jest only added to the eeriness.  i'm glad JoeFeedack toaded his ass.  what a creep.

what the class says...

-there are things that are absolutely life altering in made-up worlds (like watching a clockwork orange or psycho).  in a virtual world, you have an emotional investment in your character.  megan meier is the most messed up case study in this debate (she was the 13 yr. old who committed suicide after her neighbor / ex-friend, w/ the help of her mom created a fake myspace boyfriend, asked meier out, broke up w/ meier, called her "fat," a "slut," and told her the world would be a better place w/o her).

virginia woolf's a room of one's own

-in a room of one's own, woolf argues that there cannot be a female equivalent to shakespeare in a patriarchal society.  women were not allowed to be actors during shakespeare's time (until english reformation of 1660).  in fact, even writing was deemed indecent for women (putting themselves out in the public eye).  to combat this, much feminist recovery work of old women writers has been inspired by woolf.

-woolf argued for women to write objectively.  women were not allowed in the cambridge library during woolf's time (her books are there though now).  it is now seen as a very symbolic exclusion; there was no real rationale behind it.  but, consequently, being denied entrance into a man's world & called back into your body doesn't help men out at all either.  men have established self-confidence through building each other up and separating themselves from "others" (women, minorities, the poor, etc.).  this ends up deflecting feelings off yourself and onto others.  some literary theorists argue that being self-conscious about your sex makes you limited as a writer (goal is to write as a soul, not a gender).  those who have brought about sex-consciousness are to blame, however, it is very interesting that shakespeare was an androgynous writer.  that perhaps is one reason why his works remain so popular today.

mary wollstonecraft's a vindication of the rights of woman

-mary wollstonecraft was the daughter of a violent, alcoholic father (worthless in terms of making $ and emotional care).  still she was well-educated for a woman at the time (self-educated); founded a school of her own as a governess.  joseph johnson was a radical gay unitarian publisher who helped launch mary's career.

-"vindication" was a response to burke's essay that was anti-french revolution.  the vindication of the rights of MEN came out 1st (1789); published anonymously (men meant all human beings).  for mary, "manly" meant virtuous and rational (+).  she wasn't valuing men over women.  in it, she defended republicanism (democracy) and criticized monarchy.  three years later in 1792 woman was published (woman meaning a class of persons who have been treated the same.

-one of the cons of referring to the human race as "man" is that is makes woman the "other."  therefore, it unconsciously communicates men as superior, and not representative of humankind.  it is worth noting that in her writing, mary is at least as hard on women as she is on men.  to her, sexism was a systematic, structural, societal problem, which was fostered partly through education.  in her day especially, education trained women NOT to be virtuous, rational or manly (this makes them occasionally turn out immoral).

 

-back then and definitely still today, women end up tyrannizing each other through their cunningness (and caddiness).  mary was a proponent NOT of monarchy, but of MERITocracy (you achieve your goals and ideals through your talents, not through your gender, which you can't help).

-in her rights of women, she writes, "every profession, in which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly injurious to morality" (ch. 1 pg. 33).  a modern day example of this is the fact that we have letter grades.  this diminishes and pollutes the quality of our education (i.e. playing the game, taking classes you have no interest in, etc.) ... this causes people to cheat & plagiarize and often stunts creativity.

-business school professors are credited for being hard graders (in the ENG dept, there is a different view that the success of the student depends at least partly on the professor).  basically, people should be thinking, not following orders all the time.  later in rights of women, ch. 2 says that women are degraded for the sake of making them sexually alluring.  on pg. 41, wollstonecraft writes, "they were taught to please, and they only live to please."  she also compares the military to the plight of women ("both acquire manners before morals").  soldiers are educated in the same way as women, if we can agree that women are nurtured to be inferior and dependent (NOT natural, like soldiers to their general).

-mary's response to jean-jacques rousseau — an 18th century philosopher who advocated women's place in the domestic sphere — was, "what nonsense!  when will a great man arise w/ sufficient strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality have thus spread over the subject!" (pg. 43).

-mary also argues in ch. 3 that women aggravate the present negative situation ("women, deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men").  these are the kind of girls that use sexual powers to advance in society (mary's words = failure to be chaste).  wollstonecraft goes further by attacking men for instilling this thought in women and attacking women for buying in to it (gives girls more power, but less somehow).  by truly liberating women, it will give them less tyrannic power and more authentic power (not immediately felt).  this is what wollstonecraft called for.  "it is time to effect a revolution in female manners — time to restore to them their lost dignity — and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world" (ch. 3 pg. 65)

-today, most people are unaware that mary really called out to women to step their game up.  mary was a feminist AND a supporter of virtue (she wanted nothing to do w/ the corrupt marriage a la mode system at the time) —> she had a child out of wedlock b/c she didn't believe in the marriage system —> and she was betrayed by cheating "husband."  to mary, absolute chastity meant absolute transparency (no wedding required).  william godwin (her widower) published her memoirs after she died in her memory, which unfortunately temporarily discredited her for 30-odd years due to her radical lifestyle.

instances of the "cinderella fairytale" in popular culture

just last week, on jan 18., abc family premiered a relatively new movie titled another cinderella story.  it was originally released directly to dvd in september 2008.  it basically retells the disney version of the cinderella story (nice and fluffy), w/o adding any new or original elements to the tale — unless you count their replacement of the "slipper" w/ the more modern ZUNE mp3 player.

on britney spears' 2001 self-titled album, she sings a song called "cinderella."  it's actually about her LEAVING her man, not running into his arms to save her.  interestingly enough, she also sings her more popular track "i'm a slave for you" on the same CD.  hmm...  lyrics for "cinderella" are below:

I used to be your girlfriend and I know I did it well

Oh yes, you know it's true

You'd call me Cinderella, all you had to do was yell

And I'd be there for you

Here I am, so try to forgive me

I don't believe in fairytales

Here we are with nothing but honesty

I've had enough, I'm not gonna stay

CHORUS

I'm sorry, running away like this

And I'm sorry I've already made my wish

Aah, but Cinderella's got to go

From time to time I tried to tell just what was on my mind

You'd tell me not today

"Come back, do that. Where's Cinderella at?"

Was all you had to say

Here I am, so try to forgive me

I don't believe in fairytales

Here we are with nothing but honesty

I've had enough, I'm not gonna stay

CHORUS

I'm sorry, running away like this

And I'm sorry I've already made my wish

Aah, but Cinderella's got to go

I'm sorry, just trying to live my life

Don't worry, you're gonna be alright

But Cinderella's got to go

I used to say I want you

You cast me in your spell

I did everything you wanted me to

But now I shall break free from all your lies

I won't be blind you see

My love, it can't be sacrificed

I won't return to thee

I'm so sorry

I've already made up my mind

I won't return to thee

I'm sorry to say, I'm running away now

Don't worry, you will be all right

I'm running away, I've made up my mind now

You're gonna have to let me go

She's gotta go...

CHORUS

I'm sorry, running away like this

And I'm sorry I've already made my wish

Aah, but Cinderella's got to go

I'm sorry, just trying to live my life

Don't worry, you're gonna be alright

But Cinderella's got to go

angela carter's the bloody chamber

*the bloody chamber is a collection of short stories (rewritten fairy tales) published in 1979 by angela carter —fascinated by the matriarchal, oral, storytelling tradition

"the courtship of mr. lyon" is loosely based on beauty and the beast.  readers never learn why mr. lyon is so leonine (unlike disney version), but some critics think it can serve as a parable for what it means to be human.

-for example, for each fantastical element in the story, there are real elements (mr. lyon is facing what it means to be a man).  the beauty is fascinated by the beast, but horrified and disgusted by him at the same time 

-(laura) "i'm horrified by masculinity [as a woman]" ... traumatized @ age 11 by male aggression ...  "it's a typical reaction to otherness" (to be grossed out).  "destruction is much easier than creation" (learned from her son).  boys and girls are both gendered, and then tamed.  this is a problem.  as laura puts it, "i find the male potential for violence horrifying" (and men do too) ... the male psyche has to come to terms w/ that potential (what mr. lyon struggles to do).

"the snow child"

-the count created girl out of physical desire (she appears at first naked).  the thorn scene towards the end (where she bleeds and dies) can represent the snow child's 1st menstruation (i.e. she is ready for sex w/ the perverted count)

-the countess's hateful attitude towards the abused snow child represents relationships b/t women solely as rivals (didn't try to help out the snow child).  its significant that the snow child never speaks (only screams, once, when she dies).  thus, she along w/ the countess are both powerless (count vetoes all her wishes, clothes and de-clothes her at will) —> all her possessions are really his.  patriarchy wins again.

1/16 class notes & quiz (the cinderella complex)

"hopefully this sense of passivity that develops in girls from reading fairy tales no longer exists" — laura.

the cinderella complex by colleen dowling

"the collapse of ambition" explains the problematic tradition of women who are trained to need the guidance and companionship of a man — they need to be "saved."  men are trained to be just the opposite, taught to be independent and self-sufficient

-the author dowling for years had carried on a facade of sophisticated independence before realizing she was the same way @ age 35.  after doing the single mom life for a while, she thought she found the "perfect companion."  she had moved out of NYC to upstate NY, got a big house and started doing household duties, gained weight, slept in, lost the drive to write and be "productive."

-this is partly b/c relationships bring "stability" to people's lives.  still, *i'm so much more attracted to a girl that doesn't need a guy, like she's totally fine on her own; most guys who disagree are just intimidated by that type of girl*

-in the 1970's tv shows put on the "dikey-est" woman on to talk about "feminism;" not a wholly accurate portrayal ... anytime you say "oh my god," whether you're an atheist or not, you're subscribing to monotheism ... people unconsciously subscribe to similar notions of male/female relationships ... when laura got her ph d from cornell, she assumed all professors were male (these are learned gender stereotypes) ... vs. secretary, stenographer, etc. these are all passive (i.e. "feminine") professions.  in general, some theorists argue that our culture is always some form of personal amputation (even some men buy in to their traditional roles and become workaholics b/c they are taught too...)

QUIZ

jeannette winterson's weight : the effects of artistic retelling of stories; does art counteract ideology (wounded by wishes)?

yes.

it's kind of like the game telephone.  each time a story is retold, it inevitably changes a little.  "i like to take stories we think we know and record them differently," says winterson.  "in the re-telling comes a new emphasis or bias, and the new arrangement of the key elements demands that fresh material be injected into existing text."

by that, winterson asserts that her newer versions of classical tales throw readers for a loop.  by adding to, and changing pre-existing material, the author is able to change current notions of myths and ideologies from the past.

one of the things i liked best about winterson's essay was something quite simple.  in explaining the process of rewriting an existing story, she writes, "the writer must fire HERself through the text..."  for 21 years i've read him, he, himself, his — so much so, that anytime i come across a her, i do a double take.  it goes even further than saying him/herself.  i like it.  it's progressive.

in a small way, it changes my inherent bias that i fight against on a daily basis.  it's like in some ways, i'm trying to unlearn certain, seemingly harmless, sexist notions that went on for years w/o me noticing.

modern media ("the noisy echoing nightmare of endlessly breaking news and celebrity gossip...") floods our consciousness.  it is our job as consumers (of everything) to sort through the patriarchal piles of b/s and hear the "other voices."