Response 13, April 25, 2014 We’ve covered several different views of colonialism in Africa over the course of the class, but the view from Chocolat puts it in a different perspective. I’m not sure if it was a result of the things the director chose to focus on versus the details the writers of the novels have shown, or if it’s a difference of films versus books, but there seemed to be some tensions in Chocolat that weren’t there in The Heart of Darkness or Things Fall Apart. We discussed in class the significance of the looks between Aimee and Protée, and those would not be as potent in words.
But there are other tensions as well. The title of the film means “to be cheated,” but I don’t think it refers to France’s father and the almost-relationship between Aimee and Protée. It refers to the way colonialism cheated all of them of something more in life, of power and having a proper life. Protée is stuck between the white and African worlds, not able to really live in either of them, to cross the boundaries. He cannot assume a more familiar role with the family he is already close to, so he cannot stay. He was forced to make bonds that could have no future for him, so ultimately those years were a waste.
France is also cheated of some of her roots, as she grew up in a country that was not hers, that would not claim her fully on her return. This movie introduces the lack of roots and confusing social place as main concerns of colonialism, experienced by both France and Protée; a slightly different view than the novels, but in a way, they all are concerned with the moral character of the colonizers or the colonized, revealing the dehumanizing effects of imperialism.
Response 12, April 18, 2014 My final project will be in the form of an 8-page mini-magazine. I’ve chosen this because it relates to my publishing major, and I have experience designing a magazine from another class I have taken. It will be an ideal way to present the information I want to discuss.
There will be a front and back cover, highlighting a bit of all the readings and units we have done in this class, and the six inside pages will each feature a type of freedom we have discussed, revealed through a reading assignment or sample or art or music. I’ve chose freedom as the main theme of the class, because I think that everything we have encountered was an attempt to find freedom through expression (of the word, the brush, or the music note) or to expose a lack of freedom (through colonialism or slavery). The modern era seemed to me to be a search for the best way of living, and throwing off the old bindings is a crucial step in this modern process.
I’ll also explore some of the different art styles that accompanied the works I will feature. For example, as I discuss colonialism, I may base the design on African art, or the art styles prominent in Europe at the time. I’ll also take into account the Romantic and Modern styles we have discussed, so show visually the changes that have occurred since those writings were introduced.
Rebekah, this is a great idea, and I can't wait to see what you come up with. I really like the idea of using specific texts or topics as the basis for the design of different parts of the magazine. -MH
Response 11, April 11, 2014
After discussing modern art this week, it seems to me that the theme is about change, about reimagining the world and making it different. We’ve seen this with art and literature, and with the glass artist we saw today. In the past, the focus of art and literature has always been to perfect the forms, such as adding depth and perspective to paintings, and developing perspective in stories. Now, art seeks to make a statement, to expand the perceptions of its audience.
Artist Dafna Kaffeman seeks to make a statement about oppression and location, using objects like insects and lettering to create something apart from the ordinary and that grabs our attention. The insects are relatable, and they say things the words cannot. She also uses the Arabic and Hebrew lettering to speak beyond the language as simple letterforms, a very modern way of viewing typography.
Modern literature speaks in new ways by moving beyond the character and towards the audience, in the form of content that reader’s could adapt for their own lives and was open to interpretation, as exemplified by “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” There is beauty in the descriptions that probe deep into the details of the setting, and into the character. This poem, and other modern works, offer themselves to the reader, allowing it to say what the reader and writer need most.
Art also went through many movements at this time, coinciding with global attitudes and relating to wars and new technologies. It expressed the turbulent mood of the time, the uncertainty about society, and what was good or bad about it. Art sought to find true expression of humanity, and in this way, the modern era was not so different from the ones that have come before. The modern era sought change in form, but only to better express the human condition.
Response 10, March 28, 2014 After being interested in modern art for years, I am curious about other tenants of the modernist movement that cause and comment on other expressions of the movement, and what exactly “modernism” is. Understanding Freud’s theories seems to be a key role in this process, and until now I was not aware of the effect his ideas would have had on the evolving ways people thought and interacted with their world.
His ideas of dreams being the result of wish-fulfillment must have seemed very selfish at the time, and people would not have wanted to believe that not only did they have a whole other self that was unconscious controlling their motives, but that this self was so egotistical and sexual. The modern era was home to so many changes, and this was not an external change like the telephone, but a change in the way people thought of themselves, even to merely admit the possibility.
Freud (and a group of others) brought about an era of introspection and metacognition that forced humans to look closely at the world their new technologies were creating, and the motives behind it. That ideal is the driving factor for societal change, reflected in new art movements, such as impressionism and surrealism. It seems to me that the basis of the modern era is not new technology, although it would not have been possible without it to an extent, but the idea of understanding the self. As we are closer to discovering possible other life beyond earthlings, it becomes increasingly important to know who humanity is, and if we are driven by selfish nature, to challenge it and ensure that it doesn’t win. If knowledge of the self is the defining factor of the modern era, it will only end when humans figure that out. This could continue indefinitely, as the more we discover, the more we realize we don’t know.
Response 9, March 21, 2014 Conrad’s novel The Heart of Darkness is early in the modern writing style. In light of what was happening in the world in terms of civilization, this seems very important. The world, or at least Europe and America, had reached such a point in their own civilizations that they were able to conquer others, yet they had such a small-minded view that they immediately characterized those civilizations that had prioritized skills besides gun power and railroads to be lesser than them, even in need of saving. Paradoxically, the modern era brought about attitudes of imperialism, and the writing styles (modernism and journalism) to expose it.
This was a world where only those with guns and the pen writing in a European language had power, and Conrad’s novel, among others, shows how dangerous that was, and how tenuous the line between the dark savages and the white civilizers. One of the first characters met by his narrator Marlow is an accountant, impressive for his ability to stay starched and clean in the tropical grime. This was the measure of a man, despite the disorganized outpost, in no way capable of a civilizing mission, to which the colonial powers claimed.
The lesson from that century is that those with the strongest weapons get to determine the things of importance to the world, trampling at will the countries focused on possibly more peaceful pursuits, and the danger of controlling areas and cultures that are unknown, and running the risk of extinguishing those cultures forever. The most dehumanizing weapon may even be the pen, as those who write to condemn colonialism may just as easily condemn the colonized as well, as this modern world has proven that lines drawn are more subtle than they were before.
Response 8, March 7, 2014 Over the course of the week, we have seen many different ways husbands have repressed or controlled their wives, from John’s rest cure in The “Yellow Wallpaper”to Torvald’s pet names in “The Doll’s House.” Both Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”and Bazan’s “Revolver” concern death by heart attack, although readers are able to see this is as the result of oppression, from the trauma caused by a marriage that repressed their spirit.
These stories reveal the very fine line between accepted ways men could control their wives and ways that were unacceptable, such as physical abuse. This was looked down upon at the time, and if Reinaldo had shot his wife, he would have been punished, albeit probably less severely had the situation been reversed.
But it does seem to be tolerable, even normal, for the husbands to belittle their wives in the form of minute schedules, secluding them from their friends and family, forbidding them to earn an income, and using the pet names of small animals. We identify these behaviors as illegal or harmful forms of mental and emotional abuse, but this seemed to cause little concern for anyone at the time, with the exclusion of the women. Even in “The Revolver,” the manservant is aware of Reinaldo’s plan, even offering to buy bullets, yet this never happens.
We see in the last two stories the effect of mental trauma on the physical body; something was just beginning to be known at the time. It is interesting that a heart attack is the weapon of choice, as it’s causes were not well understood at the time. This gives the impression that it is somehow the fault of the woman, as if her heart is too weak the strains of a normal marriage, or if it is uniting with the husband to suppress and kill her. This newest form of oppression seems to favor getting the oppressed’s own body to kill them, eliminating any hint of crime for the guilty party.
Response 7, February 28, 2014
After reading both A Doll's House and The Yellow Wallpaper, I see many similarities in the way the husbands treat their wives. They call them dear and darling, and belittle them, while misleading everyone, including their wives, that they care about them. Nora and John's wife have few choices, both are trapped in the role of darling wife, who can never bring her own problems into the house. Nora makes the option for herself to escape the disgusting "affection" of her husband, and make a life for herself, but her alternative, which would be to remain with her husband, would be to continue as her doll, and to resign away her identity, freedoms, and hapiness.
The narrator of Perkins-Gilman's story has no hint of a choice. She is forced to stay in the room that obviously unsettles her as she deals with postpartum depression, something that was not known of at the time, yet her doctor husband should have realized that her struggles were more than the result of her imagination, and in a society that was more understanding of women, this might have been the case. The very things that might save her sanity are denied her: no visitors, and and no light work. She literally has no other recourse than to stare at the walls, and what sane person doesn't see movement and shapes when they stare at things long enough? Her sheltered state begins to make her suspicious of those who are keeping her there, and even if her condition had not deteriorated as much as it did, she would not have been able to recover from her depression for a very long time, and the relationships she had with those around her would have continued to stifle her. Perkins-Gilman examines what happens when a woman is not only trapped socially, but also suffers from a mental condition, and how stifling it is when these oppressions are combined, making a firm point about the wrongful idea of the treatment of women.
Response 6, February 21, 2014 I've read many books of that era, and it’s a very different style of narration from the modern style, on that values internal monologue very highly. This style is great when delving into the views of a character. It is also very useful when the character changes internally quite a bit, as Ivan does through the course of his illness.
I’m currently in a creative fiction writing class, and we are told to “show” through our writing, not “tell,” meaning that we give details to reveal a character’s mood and personality, rather than telling. This style may be more interesting to someone who is unfamiliar with the setting, but Tolstoy gets away with the technique precisely because the details of Ivan’s home would have been so well known, even by people who were not members of the bourgeoisie, because all of those people socialized with the same people, and had the same furnishings and attire.
The class boundaries in this piece are so clearly drawn, and capitalism takes on an almost feudalistic character here, so it is not so difficult to see why some members of society would have preferred communism. Since all readers see are bourgeoisie, with a cameo by Gerasim, the lone servant, and how the bourgeoisie overrun the other classes, drawing them into their empty morals, the portrait of capitalism drawn here seems hateful and foolish.
This story reminds me of the Buchanans in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes, “The were a careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” In Tolstoy’s story, Ivan and his family, and the other civil servants were the ones to smash things, and Ivan had to be smashed to realize the hypocrisy of it all. His death cleaned him up, and we are left to assume that his family and friends continue smashing things until they die as well.
Response 5: February 7, 2014 It was interesting to me to learn that Romantic poetry does follow a form, because I had previously thought that it was so free and expressive that the poet did whatever seemed right, according to their artistic sensibilities. But after a time, and with the Romantic Movement being so widespread, it also makes sense that a pattern would evolve after some time, even if that were not the original intent.
The form of Romantic poetry seems very similar to the form developed by Shakespeare for his sonnets. There is a beginning in each type, where the narrator sets the scene somehow, in the first stanza or a few lines for a sonnet, and then we see the problem. The subject matter is occasionally be different, as Shakespeare focuses of course on love or unrequited love, while the theme in Romantic lyrics is expanded concern death, love, or the passing of time. Shakespeare also famously featured a “turn,” in which the sonnet is resolved, and the change is sometimes very striking. In a sonnet, this is usually the last two lines, and in a Romantic lyric poem, it may take the final stanza.
Because the subject that Shakespeare uses is somewhat similar to the subjects of the Romantics, the resolution can also be similar. In Sonnet 130, for example, the resolution and turn is the fact that the narrator is accepting that his woman is not perfect, but still he loves her. Nothing has changed outwardly, but there is resolution nonetheless. In a Romantic lyric, the solution is also inward, but it is often when the narrator turns to nature for solace or a solution, such as in “The Lake” by Alphonse de Lamartine. He charges nature with keeping the memories he shares with his love who is soon to pass, and takes solace in the fact that their love can then last longer than their lives.
Response 4: January 31, 2014
I think it’s interesting to note the social movements through the ages and how they develop and respond to each other. The previous reading mentioned that as the bourgeoisie gained power, they suspected the heroic ideals of the aristocracy, and favored more grounded qualities like “thrift, honesty, and industry.” It says something interesting about the classes and the time periods they represent. The heroic ideals provided a place for aristocrats to shine, with their money and the power they were already born with. It wasn’t too difficult for them to brood around an ancient castle over which they were the Lords, in an eternally cloudy England. But romanticism also gave something to the masses: a sort of hope that no matter how awful the circumstances, and despite the tragic flaws inherent in humanity, there were people who were reaching for the highest achievements of civilization, and those who wanted to be the best they could be.
These romantic ideals ushered in the ideals of freedom and democracy, and ironically enough, the industrialization and equality those ideals encouraged allowed the rise of a middle class, who no longer had time to pursue such lofty goals. New social values became the norm, and the busy, striving, middle class must have seemed trite by comparison, as only those able to achieve that status were provided hope. There was little emotional food for the lower classes still starving.
But the romantic heroes and ideals have never faded from Western culture, as those characters remain beloved, and new ones are created with the same principles. It seems that the world of modern industry creates a need for the sublime, for the brooding hero, who may create more problems than he solves, but attempts to find the answer. Modern times still need the reminder of people willing to help and to strive, even if they are doomed to failure.
Response 3: January 24, 2014
The introduction for the text says that Faust is Goethe’s metaphor for the fallible human intellect, and I see that here very clearly. There are many times when a man of his knowledge and the powers of deduction necessary to reach it, should have been able to resist or avoid the snares of Mephistopheles. He has suspicions about the poodle, the way it has “welts of fire” and he senses the poodle following him, and the way it howls on Easter, the most Holy day of the year. Faust also wavers on his commitment to God, as it appears only on Easter and when he is scared of the spirit in the poodle.
Another sign that Goethe’s knowledge is unable to protect him occurs when he fails to catch Mephistopheles’ allusion to Peter, the disciple who denied Jesus. This occurs in line 1538, when Mephistopheles returns and says he needs to be asked three times and later mentions rooster feathers, also a sign of a fool. It becomes clear that the Devil will win God’s little wager, and Goethe’s criticism of human reason is strengthened.
With Faust as the example, it is easy to lose hope for the human race, and to see why Faust himself has lost his desire for life. Goethe is using Faust and Mephistopheles to say that physical pleasures can be better, because human knowledge in itself can be useless. This argument in strengthened when Mephistopheles tells Faust to get a poet to help him seem more noble, a poet who is more expressive, more attuned to the pleasures and feelings of life that a scholar who has nothing but the knowledge he has cultivated but is unsure what to do with. Mephistopheles jerks Faust between the extremes of feeling and reason, amplifying how unhappy he is with his life.
Response 2: January 17, 2014
I found it very ironic that in Ivan’s mind Jesus had lost the power of religion to the Church. The Inquisitor takes the position that Jesus’ main intention was to hold onto power, but that is not so; if it had been, Jesus would not have needed to be berated for “wasting” the opportunity to win people through bread or miracles or a sense of unity—he would have already done those things before he was even tempted. The fact that he didn’t do them at the start of his ministry hints that he had other methods or goals in mind, something a man of the Inquisitor’s education should have discovered.
It seems like an obvious move: fulfill people’s simple needs and desires to ensure their loyalty and your power, and if they lose access to all other resources in the process, so much the better. This is what the Church had done at that point, and it worked well. The Inquisitor considers it a weakness that God would want involuntary love, that that kind of love is not worth having, or is unattainable throughout a large population, and maybe it isn’t, but that’s not the point. The idea is that it is better to have some devoted followers than the blind masses, as they can help the others along.
There is another problem with the Church’s strategy that was not an issue during the setting of the parable, but it was beginning to emerge at the time Dostoevsky was writing: secularism. At the high point of Christianity other religions were not seen as important, but secularism introduced yet another set of ideals that could compete. Feudalism and other oppressive economic states were a necessary component to widespread Catholicism, and the introduction of market economies and other avenues of revenue allowed the possibility of another, maybe better life. Once people were exposed to better ways of living in the modern era, it was harder to force people blindly into one belief system. People now cannot be satisfied with just bread, power, and a sense of unity, we want more; we want freedom.
Response 1: January 10, 2014
After reading Douglass’ words, it seems to me that freedom brings with it a type of responsibility. Even when he had merely learned of freedom’s philosophies and doctrine, before he was free, it was a burden to not only escape and find his own freedom, but to convince others to attempt freedom as well. He mentions that if it is possible for a slave to be content in bondage, it would only be so for someone who has no concept of the rights and freedoms due to them simply for being human. Slaves only have one duty to themselves: to survive, but one who knows of freedom also owes himself the attempt to escape. The knowledge of the imbalance between slaves and whites plagued Douglass, and helped him realize his responsibility as an abolitionist, since he was among the few escaped slaves, even fewer of which could speak skillfully and write fluently. His knowledge was what enabled him to change lives, more than his circumstances.
Literacy is another type of freedom, and it also brings responsibilities. Literacy opens people up to new ideas and new ways of living; it may be the one true weapon against oppression, because when people see other ways of life, other morals and systems of government, they see more clearly the problems with their way of life. Those who live different lives, and are able to write about it, have the responsibility to hold their society and their leaders accountable, just as Douglass did when he was able to write and speak about the evils of slavery. It is not about the call to change things for other people, but to simply provide access to other modes of living, to ensure that those people can always see more than one way of living, so they have options to feed their minds as they consider the best way to live and how to accomplish that dream.
We’ve covered several different views of colonialism in Africa over the course of the class, but the view from Chocolat puts it in a different perspective. I’m not sure if it was a result of the things the director chose to focus on versus the details the writers of the novels have shown, or if it’s a difference of films versus books, but there seemed to be some tensions in Chocolat that weren’t there in The Heart of Darkness or Things Fall Apart. We discussed in class the significance of the looks between Aimee and Protée, and those would not be as potent in words.
But there are other tensions as well. The title of the film means “to be cheated,” but I don’t think it refers to France’s father and the almost-relationship between Aimee and Protée. It refers to the way colonialism cheated all of them of something more in life, of power and having a proper life. Protée is stuck between the white and African worlds, not able to really live in either of them, to cross the boundaries. He cannot assume a more familiar role with the family he is already close to, so he cannot stay. He was forced to make bonds that could have no future for him, so ultimately those years were a waste.
France is also cheated of some of her roots, as she grew up in a country that was not hers, that would not claim her fully on her return. This movie introduces the lack of roots and confusing social place as main concerns of colonialism, experienced by both France and Protée; a slightly different view than the novels, but in a way, they all are concerned with the moral character of the colonizers or the colonized, revealing the dehumanizing effects of imperialism.
Response 12, April 18, 2014
My final project will be in the form of an 8-page mini-magazine. I’ve chosen this because it relates to my publishing major, and I have experience designing a magazine from another class I have taken. It will be an ideal way to present the information I want to discuss.
There will be a front and back cover, highlighting a bit of all the readings and units we have done in this class, and the six inside pages will each feature a type of freedom we have discussed, revealed through a reading assignment or sample or art or music. I’ve chose freedom as the main theme of the class, because I think that everything we have encountered was an attempt to find freedom through expression (of the word, the brush, or the music note) or to expose a lack of freedom (through colonialism or slavery). The modern era seemed to me to be a search for the best way of living, and throwing off the old bindings is a crucial step in this modern process.
I’ll also explore some of the different art styles that accompanied the works I will feature. For example, as I discuss colonialism, I may base the design on African art, or the art styles prominent in Europe at the time. I’ll also take into account the Romantic and Modern styles we have discussed, so show visually the changes that have occurred since those writings were introduced.
Rebekah, this is a great idea, and I can't wait to see what you come up with. I really like the idea of using specific texts or topics as the basis for the design of different parts of the magazine. -MH
Response 11, April 11, 2014
After discussing modern art this week, it seems to me that the theme is about change, about reimagining the world and making it different. We’ve seen this with art and literature, and with the glass artist we saw today. In the past, the focus of art and literature has always been to perfect the forms, such as adding depth and perspective to paintings, and developing perspective in stories. Now, art seeks to make a statement, to expand the perceptions of its audience.
Artist Dafna Kaffeman seeks to make a statement about oppression and location, using objects like insects and lettering to create something apart from the ordinary and that grabs our attention. The insects are relatable, and they say things the words cannot. She also uses the Arabic and Hebrew lettering to speak beyond the language as simple letterforms, a very modern way of viewing typography.
Modern literature speaks in new ways by moving beyond the character and towards the audience, in the form of content that reader’s could adapt for their own lives and was open to interpretation, as exemplified by “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” There is beauty in the descriptions that probe deep into the details of the setting, and into the character. This poem, and other modern works, offer themselves to the reader, allowing it to say what the reader and writer need most.
Art also went through many movements at this time, coinciding with global attitudes and relating to wars and new technologies. It expressed the turbulent mood of the time, the uncertainty about society, and what was good or bad about it. Art sought to find true expression of humanity, and in this way, the modern era was not so different from the ones that have come before. The modern era sought change in form, but only to better express the human condition.
Response 10, March 28, 2014
After being interested in modern art for years, I am curious about other tenants of the modernist movement that cause and comment on other expressions of the movement, and what exactly “modernism” is. Understanding Freud’s theories seems to be a key role in this process, and until now I was not aware of the effect his ideas would have had on the evolving ways people thought and interacted with their world.
His ideas of dreams being the result of wish-fulfillment must have seemed very selfish at the time, and people would not have wanted to believe that not only did they have a whole other self that was unconscious controlling their motives, but that this self was so egotistical and sexual. The modern era was home to so many changes, and this was not an external change like the telephone, but a change in the way people thought of themselves, even to merely admit the possibility.
Freud (and a group of others) brought about an era of introspection and metacognition that forced humans to look closely at the world their new technologies were creating, and the motives behind it. That ideal is the driving factor for societal change, reflected in new art movements, such as impressionism and surrealism. It seems to me that the basis of the modern era is not new technology, although it would not have been possible without it to an extent, but the idea of understanding the self. As we are closer to discovering possible other life beyond earthlings, it becomes increasingly important to know who humanity is, and if we are driven by selfish nature, to challenge it and ensure that it doesn’t win. If knowledge of the self is the defining factor of the modern era, it will only end when humans figure that out. This could continue indefinitely, as the more we discover, the more we realize we don’t know.
Response 9, March 21, 2014
Conrad’s novel The Heart of Darkness is early in the modern writing style. In light of what was happening in the world in terms of civilization, this seems very important. The world, or at least Europe and America, had reached such a point in their own civilizations that they were able to conquer others, yet they had such a small-minded view that they immediately characterized those civilizations that had prioritized skills besides gun power and railroads to be lesser than them, even in need of saving. Paradoxically, the modern era brought about attitudes of imperialism, and the writing styles (modernism and journalism) to expose it.
This was a world where only those with guns and the pen writing in a European language had power, and Conrad’s novel, among others, shows how dangerous that was, and how tenuous the line between the dark savages and the white civilizers. One of the first characters met by his narrator Marlow is an accountant, impressive for his ability to stay starched and clean in the tropical grime. This was the measure of a man, despite the disorganized outpost, in no way capable of a civilizing mission, to which the colonial powers claimed.
The lesson from that century is that those with the strongest weapons get to determine the things of importance to the world, trampling at will the countries focused on possibly more peaceful pursuits, and the danger of controlling areas and cultures that are unknown, and running the risk of extinguishing those cultures forever. The most dehumanizing weapon may even be the pen, as those who write to condemn colonialism may just as easily condemn the colonized as well, as this modern world has proven that lines drawn are more subtle than they were before.
Response 8, March 7, 2014
Over the course of the week, we have seen many different ways husbands have repressed or controlled their wives, from John’s rest cure in The “Yellow Wallpaper”to Torvald’s pet names in “The Doll’s House.” Both Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”and Bazan’s “Revolver” concern death by heart attack, although readers are able to see this is as the result of oppression, from the trauma caused by a marriage that repressed their spirit.
These stories reveal the very fine line between accepted ways men could control their wives and ways that were unacceptable, such as physical abuse. This was looked down upon at the time, and if Reinaldo had shot his wife, he would have been punished, albeit probably less severely had the situation been reversed.
But it does seem to be tolerable, even normal, for the husbands to belittle their wives in the form of minute schedules, secluding them from their friends and family, forbidding them to earn an income, and using the pet names of small animals. We identify these behaviors as illegal or harmful forms of mental and emotional abuse, but this seemed to cause little concern for anyone at the time, with the exclusion of the women. Even in “The Revolver,” the manservant is aware of Reinaldo’s plan, even offering to buy bullets, yet this never happens.
We see in the last two stories the effect of mental trauma on the physical body; something was just beginning to be known at the time. It is interesting that a heart attack is the weapon of choice, as it’s causes were not well understood at the time. This gives the impression that it is somehow the fault of the woman, as if her heart is too weak the strains of a normal marriage, or if it is uniting with the husband to suppress and kill her. This newest form of oppression seems to favor getting the oppressed’s own body to kill them, eliminating any hint of crime for the guilty party.
Response 7, February 28, 2014
After reading both A Doll's House and The Yellow Wallpaper, I see many similarities in the way the husbands treat their wives. They call them dear and darling, and belittle them, while misleading everyone, including their wives, that they care about them. Nora and John's wife have few choices, both are trapped in the role of darling wife, who can never bring her own problems into the house. Nora makes the option for herself to escape the disgusting "affection" of her husband, and make a life for herself, but her alternative, which would be to remain with her husband, would be to continue as her doll, and to resign away her identity, freedoms, and hapiness.
The narrator of Perkins-Gilman's story has no hint of a choice. She is forced to stay in the room that obviously unsettles her as she deals with postpartum depression, something that was not known of at the time, yet her doctor husband should have realized that her struggles were more than the result of her imagination, and in a society that was more understanding of women, this might have been the case. The very things that might save her sanity are denied her: no visitors, and and no light work. She literally has no other recourse than to stare at the walls, and what sane person doesn't see movement and shapes when they stare at things long enough? Her sheltered state begins to make her suspicious of those who are keeping her there, and even if her condition had not deteriorated as much as it did, she would not have been able to recover from her depression for a very long time, and the relationships she had with those around her would have continued to stifle her. Perkins-Gilman examines what happens when a woman is not only trapped socially, but also suffers from a mental condition, and how stifling it is when these oppressions are combined, making a firm point about the wrongful idea of the treatment of women.
Response 6, February 21, 2014
I've read many books of that era, and it’s a very different style of narration from the modern style, on that values internal monologue very highly. This style is great when delving into the views of a character. It is also very useful when the character changes internally quite a bit, as Ivan does through the course of his illness.
I’m currently in a creative fiction writing class, and we are told to “show” through our writing, not “tell,” meaning that we give details to reveal a character’s mood and personality, rather than telling. This style may be more interesting to someone who is unfamiliar with the setting, but Tolstoy gets away with the technique precisely because the details of Ivan’s home would have been so well known, even by people who were not members of the bourgeoisie, because all of those people socialized with the same people, and had the same furnishings and attire.
The class boundaries in this piece are so clearly drawn, and capitalism takes on an almost feudalistic character here, so it is not so difficult to see why some members of society would have preferred communism. Since all readers see are bourgeoisie, with a cameo by Gerasim, the lone servant, and how the bourgeoisie overrun the other classes, drawing them into their empty morals, the portrait of capitalism drawn here seems hateful and foolish.
This story reminds me of the Buchanans in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes, “The were a careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” In Tolstoy’s story, Ivan and his family, and the other civil servants were the ones to smash things, and Ivan had to be smashed to realize the hypocrisy of it all. His death cleaned him up, and we are left to assume that his family and friends continue smashing things until they die as well.
Response 5: February 7, 2014
It was interesting to me to learn that Romantic poetry does follow a form, because I had previously thought that it was so free and expressive that the poet did whatever seemed right, according to their artistic sensibilities. But after a time, and with the Romantic Movement being so widespread, it also makes sense that a pattern would evolve after some time, even if that were not the original intent.
The form of Romantic poetry seems very similar to the form developed by Shakespeare for his sonnets. There is a beginning in each type, where the narrator sets the scene somehow, in the first stanza or a few lines for a sonnet, and then we see the problem. The subject matter is occasionally be different, as Shakespeare focuses of course on love or unrequited love, while the theme in Romantic lyrics is expanded concern death, love, or the passing of time. Shakespeare also famously featured a “turn,” in which the sonnet is resolved, and the change is sometimes very striking. In a sonnet, this is usually the last two lines, and in a Romantic lyric poem, it may take the final stanza.
Because the subject that Shakespeare uses is somewhat similar to the subjects of the Romantics, the resolution can also be similar. In Sonnet 130, for example, the resolution and turn is the fact that the narrator is accepting that his woman is not perfect, but still he loves her. Nothing has changed outwardly, but there is resolution nonetheless. In a Romantic lyric, the solution is also inward, but it is often when the narrator turns to nature for solace or a solution, such as in “The Lake” by Alphonse de Lamartine. He charges nature with keeping the memories he shares with his love who is soon to pass, and takes solace in the fact that their love can then last longer than their lives.
Response 4: January 31, 2014
I think it’s interesting to note the social movements through the ages and how they develop and respond to each other. The previous reading mentioned that as the bourgeoisie gained power, they suspected the heroic ideals of the aristocracy, and favored more grounded qualities like “thrift, honesty, and industry.” It says something interesting about the classes and the time periods they represent. The heroic ideals provided a place for aristocrats to shine, with their money and the power they were already born with. It wasn’t too difficult for them to brood around an ancient castle over which they were the Lords, in an eternally cloudy England. But romanticism also gave something to the masses: a sort of hope that no matter how awful the circumstances, and despite the tragic flaws inherent in humanity, there were people who were reaching for the highest achievements of civilization, and those who wanted to be the best they could be.
These romantic ideals ushered in the ideals of freedom and democracy, and ironically enough, the industrialization and equality those ideals encouraged allowed the rise of a middle class, who no longer had time to pursue such lofty goals. New social values became the norm, and the busy, striving, middle class must have seemed trite by comparison, as only those able to achieve that status were provided hope. There was little emotional food for the lower classes still starving.
But the romantic heroes and ideals have never faded from Western culture, as those characters remain beloved, and new ones are created with the same principles. It seems that the world of modern industry creates a need for the sublime, for the brooding hero, who may create more problems than he solves, but attempts to find the answer. Modern times still need the reminder of people willing to help and to strive, even if they are doomed to failure.
Response 3: January 24, 2014
The introduction for the text says that Faust is Goethe’s metaphor for the fallible human intellect, and I see that here very clearly. There are many times when a man of his knowledge and the powers of deduction necessary to reach it, should have been able to resist or avoid the snares of Mephistopheles. He has suspicions about the poodle, the way it has “welts of fire” and he senses the poodle following him, and the way it howls on Easter, the most Holy day of the year. Faust also wavers on his commitment to God, as it appears only on Easter and when he is scared of the spirit in the poodle.
Another sign that Goethe’s knowledge is unable to protect him occurs when he fails to catch Mephistopheles’ allusion to Peter, the disciple who denied Jesus. This occurs in line 1538, when Mephistopheles returns and says he needs to be asked three times and later mentions rooster feathers, also a sign of a fool. It becomes clear that the Devil will win God’s little wager, and Goethe’s criticism of human reason is strengthened.
With Faust as the example, it is easy to lose hope for the human race, and to see why Faust himself has lost his desire for life. Goethe is using Faust and Mephistopheles to say that physical pleasures can be better, because human knowledge in itself can be useless. This argument in strengthened when Mephistopheles tells Faust to get a poet to help him seem more noble, a poet who is more expressive, more attuned to the pleasures and feelings of life that a scholar who has nothing but the knowledge he has cultivated but is unsure what to do with. Mephistopheles jerks Faust between the extremes of feeling and reason, amplifying how unhappy he is with his life.
Response 2: January 17, 2014
I found it very ironic that in Ivan’s mind Jesus had lost the power of religion to the Church. The Inquisitor takes the position that Jesus’ main intention was to hold onto power, but that is not so; if it had been, Jesus would not have needed to be berated for “wasting” the opportunity to win people through bread or miracles or a sense of unity—he would have already done those things before he was even tempted. The fact that he didn’t do them at the start of his ministry hints that he had other methods or goals in mind, something a man of the Inquisitor’s education should have discovered.
It seems like an obvious move: fulfill people’s simple needs and desires to ensure their loyalty and your power, and if they lose access to all other resources in the process, so much the better. This is what the Church had done at that point, and it worked well. The Inquisitor considers it a weakness that God would want involuntary love, that that kind of love is not worth having, or is unattainable throughout a large population, and maybe it isn’t, but that’s not the point. The idea is that it is better to have some devoted followers than the blind masses, as they can help the others along.
There is another problem with the Church’s strategy that was not an issue during the setting of the parable, but it was beginning to emerge at the time Dostoevsky was writing: secularism. At the high point of Christianity other religions were not seen as important, but secularism introduced yet another set of ideals that could compete. Feudalism and other oppressive economic states were a necessary component to widespread Catholicism, and the introduction of market economies and other avenues of revenue allowed the possibility of another, maybe better life. Once people were exposed to better ways of living in the modern era, it was harder to force people blindly into one belief system. People now cannot be satisfied with just bread, power, and a sense of unity, we want more; we want freedom.
Response 1: January 10, 2014
After reading Douglass’ words, it seems to me that freedom brings with it a type of responsibility. Even when he had merely learned of freedom’s philosophies and doctrine, before he was free, it was a burden to not only escape and find his own freedom, but to convince others to attempt freedom as well. He mentions that if it is possible for a slave to be content in bondage, it would only be so for someone who has no concept of the rights and freedoms due to them simply for being human. Slaves only have one duty to themselves: to survive, but one who knows of freedom also owes himself the attempt to escape. The knowledge of the imbalance between slaves and whites plagued Douglass, and helped him realize his responsibility as an abolitionist, since he was among the few escaped slaves, even fewer of which could speak skillfully and write fluently. His knowledge was what enabled him to change lives, more than his circumstances.
Literacy is another type of freedom, and it also brings responsibilities. Literacy opens people up to new ideas and new ways of living; it may be the one true weapon against oppression, because when people see other ways of life, other morals and systems of government, they see more clearly the problems with their way of life. Those who live different lives, and are able to write about it, have the responsibility to hold their society and their leaders accountable, just as Douglass did when he was able to write and speak about the evils of slavery. It is not about the call to change things for other people, but to simply provide access to other modes of living, to ensure that those people can always see more than one way of living, so they have options to feed their minds as they consider the best way to live and how to accomplish that dream.