The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Final Post Reading Compression Lesson Plan Activities
Grade Level: 8th grade
Estimated Time: 180 minutes (for this particular lesson) best employed if split into 3 separate, 60 minute lessons
Objective: After completing the entire novel and interacting with the text The Picture of Dorian Gray; before, during, and after reading, students will be able to apply their comprehension by interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating the novel in order to construct a cereal box demonstrating their knowledge of the themes as well as effectively answering post comprehension questions.
WI State Standards:
A.8.1 Use effective reading strategies to achieve their purposes in reading.
A.8.2 Read, interpret, and critically analyze literature.
Goals: Students will be able to;
• Identify the defining features and structure of literary texts, such as conflict, representation of character, and point of view
• Analyze the effect of characters, plot, setting, language, topic, style, purpose, and point of view on the overall impact of literature
• Draw on a broad base of knowledge about the genres of literature, such as the structure and conventions of essays, epics, fables, myths, plays, poems, short stories, and novels, when interpreting the meaning of a literary work
• Use knowledge of sentence and word structure, word origins, visual images, and context clues to understand unfamiliar words and clarify passages of text
Background: This lesson plan is to be utilized in an 8th grade level, language arts/ reading course. This particular lesson plan is designed to be the concluding activities from a larger unit on The Picture of Dorian Gray. (for the sake of simplicity, I chose to design one lesson plan rather than an entire unit) For this lesson, the students must have prior knowledge of various comprehension strategies and familiar with analyzing character conflicts, setting, plot, and themes within literary texts.
Rationale: This content is relevant to the themes the students have been practicing throughout the unit. The students have been reading the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray in literature circles for the last couple of weeks. They have received comprehension questions and critical analysis questions after each chapter. This particular lesson is for after the students have completely finished reading the novel. I have incorporated several analysis questions taken from specific parts of the novel, however, the questions pertain to an overall assessment of the novel as a whole. The purpose of the lesson activities is to assess students post comprehension.
Procedures:
Beginning: 60 minutes
• Initiate constructive discussion and have students do a retelling of the entire story to assess comprehension.
o Ask the following prompting questions to engage conversation:
o Who were the main characters?
o Where does the story take place?
o What conflicts arise in the story?
o Who is the villain?
o What is the purpose of the story?
o What message does the story portray?
• Hand out the following worksheet and instruct students to complete it on their own.
POST READING COMPRENSION WORKSHEET:
Name:________________________ Date:_____________
Are the following statements RIGHT or WRONG? Justify by quoting the text (make sure to write page number):
1) Lord Henry must be old and he regrets it.
2) Dorian agrees that it is wonderful to be young.
3) Lord Henry advises Dorian to be as moral as he can in his youth.
4) Dorian wishes that both he and his portrait could remain young.
5) If Dorian had grown old normally, his life might not have been a disgrace.
6) Dorian destroyed his portrait with his hands.
7) The servants identified the dead man at once
8)For Lord Henry, someone who is beautiful is superior to someone who is intelligent.
Answer the following questions and support your answer:
1. Why does Dorian decide to destroy the painting at the end of the novel?
2. What is the yellow book?
3. Who is Sybil Vane?
4. How would you describe the relationship between Dorian Gray and Basil Howard?
5. What are Lord Henry’s perceptions and values about life?
Analyze the following quotations and passages made by Lord Henry. What do they say about his values and ideas?
1.) "I hope that Dorian Gray will make this woman his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by someone else. He would be a wonderful study." Ch. 6
2.) “My Dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analyzing women at present, so I ought to know. The subject is so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London with talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?”
“Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.” (55).
Based on the above excerpts would you say that Lord Henry is judgmental? Why?
Match the word with the correct context
What does Lord Henry mean on page 25 & 26?
“Triumphs”
1) Being admired and envied by everybody for one’s physical appearance
2) Political triumphs
3).Being stronger and more intelligent than anybody else
What does the phrase “something dreadful” describe on page 28?
1) Death
2) Old age and physical ugliness
3) A terrible accident
What does the phrase “your lilies and your roses” describe on page 29?
1) The flowers in your garden
2) The flowers you give to your lover
3) Your physical perfection in general
What does the character who states “the old of your days” mean on page 32?
1) Your money
2) Your best years
3) Sunny days
Vocabulary:
1. What is narcissism?
2. What is tedious?
3. What is sincerity?
4. What is withered?
5. Please include at least two other vocabulary words from the text that puzzled you. Use a dictionary to provide a definition.
Middle: 60 minutes:
• Introduce cereal box activity:
• Hand out the following instructions and template:
Students will decorate a real cereal box with illustrations and information related to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
FRONT OF BOX: Use a piece of white or light colored paper to cover the front of your cereal box.(You will probably want to create the cover before gluing it on your box.) Include the name of the cereal and a picture. Invent a name for the cereal that is related to the title of the book and sounds like a cereal. Do not use the exact title of the book. You may want to look at the attached page of real cereal boxes to get some ideas. Choose a shape for the cereal as well as colors and ingredients that all relate to the book. For example, for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you might invent a cereal called Lightning Bolt Crunch!
RIGHT SIDE: Make a list of ingredients that includes facts and vocabulary from the book. Under the heading "Ingredients," list five facts from the book that you found interesting. Then choose five unfamiliar vocabulary words from the book and include their definitions. Use the template on the attached sheet.
LEFT SIDE: Write a summary that describes the book. Try to use words that will “grab” readers’ attention and make them want to buy your cereal. Use the attached template. Your summary must be three to five sentences. Also include a brief summary of each major character.
BACK OF BOX: Design a game that is based on the book. It can be a puzzle, a word search, a word scramble, a maze, a crossword puzzle, a hidden pictures illustration, or any other fun activity that might be found on the back of a cereal box. Make sure it includes information from the book.
TOP OF BOX: Include the title, author, number of pages, and number of stars you would give this book if you were a book critic. Also, include your name. The maximum number of stars would be 5.
PRIZE: Cereal boxes often include a prize. Your prize must be something related to the topic of your book. You can even include a picture of the prize on the front of your box to let the reader know what is inside the box.
End: 60 Minutes:
• Give students time to cut and paste their template onto a cereal box and include illustrations.
• Allow students to present their completed cereal box to the class
.
Assessment:
Students actively engage in discussion and can identify the major themes and features of the novel. Students can also apply their knowledge to effectively complete the cereal box activity and post reading comprehension questions.
Assignment:
Cereal box activity
Post reading comprehension questions
Works Cited
http://www.cps.k12.va.us/Schools/WBM/Summer%207th%20grade%20assessment%20nonfiction%202009.pdf
POST READING COMPREHENSION WORKSHEET ANSWERS:
Name:________________________ Date:_____________
Are the following statements RIGHT or WRONG? Justify by quoting the text (make sure to write page number):
Most of the answers are opinionated, I have left these ones blank. Use your own judgment, just make sure the students support their answers. However, there are some answers that have a definite answer, that I will provide.
1) Lord Henry must be old and he regrets it.
2) Dorian agrees that it is wonderful to be young.
3) Lord Henry advises Dorian to be as moral as he can in his youth.
4) Dorian wishes that both he and his portrait could remain young.
5) If Dorian had grown old normally, his life might not have been a disgrace.
6) Dorian destroyed his portrait with his hands.
7) The servants identified the dead man at once
8) For Lord Henry, someone who is beautiful is superior to someone who is intelligent.
Answer the following questions and support your answer:
6. Why does Dorian decide to destroy the painting at the end of the novel?
7. What is the yellow book? The yellow book is the book that Lord Henry gives Basil. It provides vain perceptions on life and virtually corrupts Dorian’s decisions.
8. Who is Sybil Vane? Sybil Vane is the actress that Dorian fell infatuated with. She eventually killed herself because Dorian refused to marry her.
9. How would you describe the relationship between Dorian Gray and Basil Howard?
10. What are Lord Henry’s perceptions and values about life?
Analyze the following quotations and passages made by Lord Henry. What do they say about his values and ideas?
1.) "I hope that Dorian Gray will make this woman his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by someone else. He would be a wonderful study." Ch. 6
2.) “My Dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analyzing women at present, so I ought to know. The subject is so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London with talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?”
“Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.” (55).
Based on the above excerpts would you say that Lord Henry is judgmental? Why?
Match the word with the correct context
What does Lord Henry mean on page 25 & 26?
“Triumphs”
1) Being admired and envied by everybody for one’s physical appearance
2) Political triumphs
3).Being stronger and more intelligent than anybody else
The correct answer is 1.
What does the phrase “something dreadful” describe on page 28?
1) Death
2) Old age and physical ugliness
3) A terrible accident
The correct answer is 2.
What does the phrase “your lilies and your roses” describe on page 29?
1) The flowers in your garden
2) The flowers you give to your lover
3) Your physical perfection in general
The correct answer is 3
What does the character who states “the old of your days” mean on page 32?
1) Your money
2) Your best years
3) Sunny days
Vocabulary:
5. What is narcissism? Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.
6. What is tedious? Tiresome by reason of length, slowness, or dullness; boring.
7. What is sincerity? Freedom from deceit, hypocrisy, or duplicity; probity in intention or in communicating; earnestness.
8. What is withered? to lose the freshness of youth, as from age
5. Please include at least two other vocabulary words from the text that puzzled you. Use a dictionary to provide a definition.
Final Project Reflection:
For my final project, I decided to take a “creative” approach and design a lesson plan activity for the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I chose this activity because I am studying to be teacher. I chose this novel for this activity because, I think it is a challenging novel to teach to young students however, I think it can be done. Many people are concerned that perhaps some of the content in the novel is not appropriate for young students, however, the novel is considered to be a young adult fiction. I’m not disagreeing with people who believe that this novel is not suited for a young audience however, as a future educator I’m sure I will experience challenging concepts to teach young adolescents and I thought creating a lesson plan on this novel would be a perfect opportunity to refine my skills in approaching challenging subject matter. I also really enjoyed this book and think that the conflicts, characters and themes incorporated in the novel are interesting to analyze.
Through this project, I tried to accomplish scaffolding the necessary steps in order to critically analyze the complex aspects of the novel. In doing this, I provided prompting questions and tools of inquiry to foster students’ understanding of the novel and to help reveal some of the underlying themes. For example, I implemented a lesson activity on vocabulary. Understanding the vocabulary in the novel will help aid students’ fluency and comprehension. Students can practice using context clues in order to determine the vocabulary. I also, implemented various approaches to character analysis and character relationships. I encourage students to consider how characters interact with other characters and what type of outcome these relationships produce. I also encourage students to view the themes and symbols incorporated in the novel and what knowledge they can learn from the characters’ experiences.
Some of the things that I talk about the most in my lesson plan is the reoccurring theme of peer pressure and bad influences. I think this is an important concept to teach young adolescents so they do not succumb to peer-pressure and they realize that the outcomes are often negative. For example, I encourage the students to analyze Dorian Gray’s relationship with Lord Henry and how Lord Henry influences Dorian’s decisions. I encourage students to notice symbolization like the little yellow book and I offer various passages from the novel that can be analyzed. For example,
“My Dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analyzing women at present, so I ought to know. The subject is so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London with talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?”
“Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.” (55).
I encourage the students to recognize that Lord Henry tries to fill Dorian’s head with negative and impure thoughts. I also encourage the students to recognize Lord Henry’s values and his perceptions on life.
I also implement several quotations from the book to further re-iterate Lord Henry’s perceptions. For example,
"I hope that Dorian Gray will make this woman his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by someone else. He would be a wonderful study." Ch 6
My incorporating these lesson prompts, I am applying what we have read and discussed about the Picture of Dorian Gray. From discussion, we gathered that Lord Henry values beauty over anything else therefore; these quotations that I have applied to my final project reflect this idea.
I liked that I included vocabulary from the novel in my final project. I like this because throughout the semester we often focused on specific terms or topics from the novel in order to analyze them and gain a better understanding of the text. I think this was a really helpful method to critically analyze therefore; I thought it was important to include in my final project-lesson plan activity.
To be honest there are many parts of this project that still bother me. I wish I had time to develop a lesson plan activity after each chapter of the book, however, since I am incredibly busy this semester (I took 20 credits! Ah!!) time did not allow, but I hope that at least creating an extensive post reading compression lesson activity represents my understanding and critical analysis of the novel. I think if I were to re-do this activity again, I would probably use it for a higher grade level. The reason I chose 8th grade is because when I’m a real teacher my degree will only be for grades 1st-8th. Therefore, I felt that I am not qualified enough to design a lesson plan for older students.
To get this final project done, I had to re-read some parts of the novel. I also had to come up with authentic lesson plan activities. I took into account many of the things I have learned from my curriculum and instruction courses at UWM and many of the things I have learned from being in a classroom. I set up the lesson plan in the same format that I have been taught by my instructors. I hope that I did an okay job and I hope that I have the opportunity to implement this lesson to a real group of students some day Thanks for a great semester everyone! And the abundant amount of new knowledge
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Lesson Plan Rough Draft
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Post Reading Lesson Plan
Grade Level: 8th grade
Estimated Time: 180 minutes (for this particular lesson) best employed if split into 3 separate, 60 minute lessons
Objective: After completing the entire novel and interacting with the text The Picture of Dorian Gray; before, during, and after reading, students will be able to apply their comprehension by interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating the novel in order to construct a cereal box demonstrating their knowledge of the themes as well as effectively answering post comprehension questions.
WI State Standards:
A.8.1 Use effective reading strategies to achieve their purposes in reading.
A.8.2 Read, interpret, and critically analyze literature.
Goals: Students will be able to;
• Identify the defining features and structure of literary texts, such as conflict, representation of character, and point of view
• Analyze the effect of characters, plot, setting, language, topic, style, purpose, and point of view on the overall impact of literature
• Draw on a broad base of knowledge about the genres of literature, such as the structure and conventions of essays, epics, fables, myths, plays, poems, short stories, and novels, when interpreting the meaning of a literary work
• Use knowledge of sentence and word structure, word origins, visual images, and context clues to understand unfamiliar words and clarify passages of text
Background: This lesson plan is to be utilized in a 7th to 8th grade level language arts/ reading course. This particular lesson plan is designed to be the last activity from a larger unit on The Picture of Dorian Gray. (for the sake of simplicity, I chose to design one lesson plan rather than an entire unit) For this lesson, the students must have prior knowledge of various comprehension strategies and familiar with analyzing character conflicts, setting, plot, and themes within literary texts.
Rationale: This content is relevant to the themes the students have been practicing throughout the unit. The students have been reading the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray in literature circles for the last couple of weeks. They have received comprehension questions and critical analysis questions after each chapter. This particular lesson is for after the students have completely finished reading the novel. I have incorporated several analysis questions taken from specific parts of the novel, however, the questions pertain to an overall assessment of the novel as a whole.
Procedures:
Beginning: 60 minutes
• Initiate constructive discussion and as students a retelling of the entire story to assess comprehension.
• Hand out the following worksheet and instruct students to complete it on their own.
Comprehension Questions:
Are the following statements RIGHT or WRONG? Justify by quoting the text (make sure to write page number):
1) Lord Henry must be old and he regrets it.
2) Dorian agrees that it is wonderful to be young.
3) Lord Henry advises Dorian to be as moral as he can in his youth.
4) Dorian wishes that both he and his portrait could remain young.
5) If Dorian had grown old normally, his life might not have been a disgrace.
6) Dorian destroyed his portrait with his hands.
7) The servants identified the dead man at once
8)For Lord Henry, someone who is beautiful is superior to someone who is intelligent.
1. Why does Dorian decide to destroy the painting at the end of the novel?
2. What is the yellow book?
3. Who is Sybil Vane?
4. How would you describe the relationship between Dorian Gray and Basil Howard?
What does Lord Henry mean?
1.25 & 26: “Triumphs”
1) Being admired and envied by everybody for one’s physical appearance
2) Political triumphs
3).Being stronger and more intelligent than anybody else
1.28: “something dreadful”
1) Death
2) Old age and physical ugliness
3) A terrible accident
1.29: “your lilies and your roses”
1) The flowers in your garden
2) The flowers you give to your lover
3) Your physical perfection in general
1.32: “the old of your days”
1) Your money
2) Your best years
3) Sunny days
Vocabulary:
1. What is narcissism?
2. What is tedious?
3. What is sincerity?
4. What is withered?
Middle: 60 minutes:
• Introduce cereal box activity:
• Hand out the following instructions and template:
Students will decorate a real cereal box with illustrations and information related to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
FRONT OF BOX: Use a piece of white or light colored paper to cover the front of your cereal box.(You will probably want to create the cover before gluing it on your box.) Include the name of the cereal and a picture. Invent a name for the cereal that is related to the title of the book and sounds like a cereal. Do not use the exact title of the book. You may want to look at the attached page of real cereal boxes to get some ideas. Choose a shape for the cereal as well as colors and ingredients that all relate to the book. For example, for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you might invent a cereal called Lightning Bolt Crunch!
RIGHT SIDE: Make a list of ingredients that includes facts and vocabulary from the book. Under the heading "Ingredients," list five facts from the book that you found interesting. Then choose five unfamiliar vocabulary words from the book and include their definitions. Use the template on the attached sheet.
LEFT SIDE: Write a summary that describes the book. Try to use words that will “grab” readers’ attention and make them want to buy your cereal. Use the attached template. Your summary must be three to five sentences. Also include a brief summary of each major character.
BACK OF BOX: Design a game that is based on the book. It can be a puzzle, a word search, a word scramble, a maze, a crossword puzzle, a hidden pictures illustration, or any other fun activity that might be found on the back of a cereal box. Make sure it includes information from the book.
TOP OF BOX: Include the title, author, number of pages, and number of stars you would give this book if you were a book critic. Also, include your name. The maximum number of stars would be 5.
PRIZE: Cereal boxes often include a prize. Your prize must be something related to the topic of your book. You can even include a picture of the prize on the front of your box to let the reader know what is inside the box.
End: 60 Minutes:
• Give students time to cut and paste their template onto a cereal box and include illustrations.
• Allow students to present their completed cereal box to the class
.
Assessment:
Students actively engage in discussion and can identify the major themes and features of the novel. Students can also apply their knowledge to effectively complete the cereal box activity and post comprehension questions.
Assignment:
Cereal box activity
Post comprehension questions
Works Cited
http://www.cps.k12.va.us/Schools/WBM/Summer%207th%20grade%20assessment%20nonfiction%202009.pdf
This is what I have completed so far. I would like to reiterate that this is a rought draft so I apologize if it is really terrible! Please tell me if you think I am trying to do too much. I would also appreciate suggestions for major vocabulary terms from the novel that students should identify. This has been a lot more work than I originally thought, but for my final draft I intend to include an answer sheet for the post comprehension questions. Please let me know if my instructions are clear. If you were my substitute teacher, would you be able to read my lesson plan and effectively conduct the lesson to my class?
COURSE REFLECTION:
I have learned so much from this course! I honestly had no background knowledge of Irish culture, therefore, from the novels we have read I have learned a lot about Irish culture. For example, I have learned about the Irish famine, the style of Irish literature, the issues with identify, the conflict between Catholicism and Presbyterian. The conflict between rich and poor. The conflict between Great Britain and Ireland and so forth. I have also learned how to pick apart challenging pieces of writing and critically examine a literary text. I have learned that the Irish novel has many patterns and themes. Particularly, dry, related to desire, many things that we have discussed weekly in our blog posts.
Grade Level: 8th grade
Estimated Time: 180 minutes (for this particular lesson) best employed if split into 3 separate, 60 minute lessons
Objective: After completing the entire novel and interacting with the text The Picture of Dorian Gray; before, during, and after reading, students will be able to apply their comprehension by interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating the novel in order to construct a cereal box demonstrating their knowledge of the themes as well as effectively answering post comprehension questions.
WI State Standards:
A.8.1 Use effective reading strategies to achieve their purposes in reading.
A.8.2 Read, interpret, and critically analyze literature.
Goals: Students will be able to;
• Identify the defining features and structure of literary texts, such as conflict, representation of character, and point of view
• Analyze the effect of characters, plot, setting, language, topic, style, purpose, and point of view on the overall impact of literature
• Draw on a broad base of knowledge about the genres of literature, such as the structure and conventions of essays, epics, fables, myths, plays, poems, short stories, and novels, when interpreting the meaning of a literary work
• Use knowledge of sentence and word structure, word origins, visual images, and context clues to understand unfamiliar words and clarify passages of text
Background: This lesson plan is to be utilized in a 7th to 8th grade level language arts/ reading course. This particular lesson plan is designed to be the last activity from a larger unit on The Picture of Dorian Gray. (for the sake of simplicity, I chose to design one lesson plan rather than an entire unit) For this lesson, the students must have prior knowledge of various comprehension strategies and familiar with analyzing character conflicts, setting, plot, and themes within literary texts.
Rationale: This content is relevant to the themes the students have been practicing throughout the unit. The students have been reading the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray in literature circles for the last couple of weeks. They have received comprehension questions and critical analysis questions after each chapter. This particular lesson is for after the students have completely finished reading the novel. I have incorporated several analysis questions taken from specific parts of the novel, however, the questions pertain to an overall assessment of the novel as a whole.
Procedures:
Beginning: 60 minutes
• Initiate constructive discussion and as students a retelling of the entire story to assess comprehension.
• Hand out the following worksheet and instruct students to complete it on their own.
Comprehension Questions:
Are the following statements RIGHT or WRONG? Justify by quoting the text (make sure to write page number):
1) Lord Henry must be old and he regrets it.
2) Dorian agrees that it is wonderful to be young.
3) Lord Henry advises Dorian to be as moral as he can in his youth.
4) Dorian wishes that both he and his portrait could remain young.
5) If Dorian had grown old normally, his life might not have been a disgrace.
6) Dorian destroyed his portrait with his hands.
7) The servants identified the dead man at once
8)For Lord Henry, someone who is beautiful is superior to someone who is intelligent.
1. Why does Dorian decide to destroy the painting at the end of the novel?
2. What is the yellow book?
3. Who is Sybil Vane?
4. How would you describe the relationship between Dorian Gray and Basil Howard?
What does Lord Henry mean?
1.25 & 26: “Triumphs”
1) Being admired and envied by everybody for one’s physical appearance
2) Political triumphs
3).Being stronger and more intelligent than anybody else
1.28: “something dreadful”
1) Death
2) Old age and physical ugliness
3) A terrible accident
1.29: “your lilies and your roses”
1) The flowers in your garden
2) The flowers you give to your lover
3) Your physical perfection in general
1.32: “the old of your days”
1) Your money
2) Your best years
3) Sunny days
Vocabulary:
1. What is narcissism?
2. What is tedious?
3. What is sincerity?
4. What is withered?
Middle: 60 minutes:
• Introduce cereal box activity:
• Hand out the following instructions and template:
Students will decorate a real cereal box with illustrations and information related to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
FRONT OF BOX: Use a piece of white or light colored paper to cover the front of your cereal box.(You will probably want to create the cover before gluing it on your box.) Include the name of the cereal and a picture. Invent a name for the cereal that is related to the title of the book and sounds like a cereal. Do not use the exact title of the book. You may want to look at the attached page of real cereal boxes to get some ideas. Choose a shape for the cereal as well as colors and ingredients that all relate to the book. For example, for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you might invent a cereal called Lightning Bolt Crunch!
RIGHT SIDE: Make a list of ingredients that includes facts and vocabulary from the book. Under the heading "Ingredients," list five facts from the book that you found interesting. Then choose five unfamiliar vocabulary words from the book and include their definitions. Use the template on the attached sheet.
LEFT SIDE: Write a summary that describes the book. Try to use words that will “grab” readers’ attention and make them want to buy your cereal. Use the attached template. Your summary must be three to five sentences. Also include a brief summary of each major character.
BACK OF BOX: Design a game that is based on the book. It can be a puzzle, a word search, a word scramble, a maze, a crossword puzzle, a hidden pictures illustration, or any other fun activity that might be found on the back of a cereal box. Make sure it includes information from the book.
TOP OF BOX: Include the title, author, number of pages, and number of stars you would give this book if you were a book critic. Also, include your name. The maximum number of stars would be 5.
PRIZE: Cereal boxes often include a prize. Your prize must be something related to the topic of your book. You can even include a picture of the prize on the front of your box to let the reader know what is inside the box.
End: 60 Minutes:
• Give students time to cut and paste their template onto a cereal box and include illustrations.
• Allow students to present their completed cereal box to the class
.
Assessment:
Students actively engage in discussion and can identify the major themes and features of the novel. Students can also apply their knowledge to effectively complete the cereal box activity and post comprehension questions.
Assignment:
Cereal box activity
Post comprehension questions
Works Cited
http://www.cps.k12.va.us/Schools/WBM/Summer%207th%20grade%20assessment%20nonfiction%202009.pdf
This is what I have completed so far. I would like to reiterate that this is a rought draft so I apologize if it is really terrible! Please tell me if you think I am trying to do too much. I would also appreciate suggestions for major vocabulary terms from the novel that students should identify. This has been a lot more work than I originally thought, but for my final draft I intend to include an answer sheet for the post comprehension questions. Please let me know if my instructions are clear. If you were my substitute teacher, would you be able to read my lesson plan and effectively conduct the lesson to my class?
COURSE REFLECTION:
I have learned so much from this course! I honestly had no background knowledge of Irish culture, therefore, from the novels we have read I have learned a lot about Irish culture. For example, I have learned about the Irish famine, the style of Irish literature, the issues with identify, the conflict between Catholicism and Presbyterian. The conflict between rich and poor. The conflict between Great Britain and Ireland and so forth. I have also learned how to pick apart challenging pieces of writing and critically examine a literary text. I have learned that the Irish novel has many patterns and themes. Particularly, dry, related to desire, many things that we have discussed weekly in our blog posts.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Is it real or not real?
Last week, Fay made a really good point on her blog by stating, “the thing that really bothered me about the book was how every time Veronica Hegarty recalled a past memory, or even just narrated something that was happening in the present, she would conclude it by saying something like “This is real, I think. This is real. Though I am not sure that it is, actually.”
Throughout the novel, we see that Veronica is struggling with the truth. As she shares her memories from her childhood, she shares that she’s not always 100 percent sure that it actually occurred. She always says, I think this is real.
“There are things I do, actually know. I know that my brother Liam was sexually abused by Lambert Nugent. Or was probably sexually abused by Lambert Nugent”
“These are the things I don’t know: I was touched by Lambert Nugent, that my Uncle Brendan was driven mad by him, that my mother was rendered stupid by him, that my Aunt Rose and my sister Kitty got away” (224).
It appears that Veronica is very confused about her past. This interested me because I felt like I could relate.
Essentially, 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18 and 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (not sure how accurate that statistic is) I hope I’m not being too open but I feel I must tell you to support the validity of my ideas. I became one of those statistics when I was 11 years old.
As I read the novel I felt pity for Veronica because maybe I felt a little bit like her. (I’m not obsessed with talking about penises though!)
http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/stress/art1964.html?getPage=1
I can understand how Veronica might have confused her past. There is a website in which I attached above, that discusses what happens to the brain and memory after severe trauma. The website mostly focuses on sexual abuse and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“Recent studies have shown that victims of childhood abuse and combat veterans actually experience physical changes to the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as in the handling of stress”
I think the above statement describes Veronica well, because she seems to struggle with memory. I believe that the death of her brother may have also caused more stress leading to more confusion and disorientation.
“Many abuse victims report that they remember seemingly random or minor details of the abuse event, while forgetting central events. For instance, one woman who had been locked in a closet had an isolated memory of the smell of old clothes and the sound of a clock ticking.”
I won’t post too many quotes, I will let you read the article for yourself but I think it is very interesting.
PTSD can also affect emotional response in the brain which might explain Veronica’s relationship with her husband.
In conclusion, I think this is why Anne Enright wrote the novel the way she did. There’s definitely a pattern in the way that these novels we have read this semester are written. The humor and wittiness can definitely be associated with Irish culture. I suppose I would describe it as outspoken. Perhaps this is connected to the trauma that the county experienced and it has affected the mentalities of all Irish people.
Throughout the novel, we see that Veronica is struggling with the truth. As she shares her memories from her childhood, she shares that she’s not always 100 percent sure that it actually occurred. She always says, I think this is real.
“There are things I do, actually know. I know that my brother Liam was sexually abused by Lambert Nugent. Or was probably sexually abused by Lambert Nugent”
“These are the things I don’t know: I was touched by Lambert Nugent, that my Uncle Brendan was driven mad by him, that my mother was rendered stupid by him, that my Aunt Rose and my sister Kitty got away” (224).
It appears that Veronica is very confused about her past. This interested me because I felt like I could relate.
Essentially, 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18 and 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (not sure how accurate that statistic is) I hope I’m not being too open but I feel I must tell you to support the validity of my ideas. I became one of those statistics when I was 11 years old.
As I read the novel I felt pity for Veronica because maybe I felt a little bit like her. (I’m not obsessed with talking about penises though!)
http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/stress/art1964.html?getPage=1
I can understand how Veronica might have confused her past. There is a website in which I attached above, that discusses what happens to the brain and memory after severe trauma. The website mostly focuses on sexual abuse and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“Recent studies have shown that victims of childhood abuse and combat veterans actually experience physical changes to the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as in the handling of stress”
I think the above statement describes Veronica well, because she seems to struggle with memory. I believe that the death of her brother may have also caused more stress leading to more confusion and disorientation.
“Many abuse victims report that they remember seemingly random or minor details of the abuse event, while forgetting central events. For instance, one woman who had been locked in a closet had an isolated memory of the smell of old clothes and the sound of a clock ticking.”
I won’t post too many quotes, I will let you read the article for yourself but I think it is very interesting.
PTSD can also affect emotional response in the brain which might explain Veronica’s relationship with her husband.
In conclusion, I think this is why Anne Enright wrote the novel the way she did. There’s definitely a pattern in the way that these novels we have read this semester are written. The humor and wittiness can definitely be associated with Irish culture. I suppose I would describe it as outspoken. Perhaps this is connected to the trauma that the county experienced and it has affected the mentalities of all Irish people.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Gathering
I haven’t completely finished the novel (about half way done) but this is by far the most powerful piece of Irish literature that we have studied throughout this course (at least for me).
I feel a sort of kinship with Veronica that I can’t describe. After the death Liam, she is in shambles. In Chapter 4, Veronica explains that everyone has lost someone that they love. Everyone has lost someone. But it affects us all differently, in ways we may never understand.
“There is something wonderful about death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge, after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest” (27).
After Liam’s death, his suicide, Veronica obsesses over Lambert Nugent and her grandmother, Ada. After Liam is gone, Veronica stays awake at night, writing and re-writing the meeting of Ada and Nugent at the Belvedere Hotel. This story and initial meeting between Nugent and Ada, determines the fate of Veronica, and her family (like the butterfly effect). I wonder if Veronica had given Nugent much thought prior to her brother’s death.
In the beginning of the book we learn that Nugent virtually sexually abused his own sister. (Am I reading into that right?) We know that she is dead. We don’t know how she has died. At least I haven’t gotten to that part in the story. We later learn, (I flipped ahead a few chapters because the suspense was killing me) that Liam was also sexually abused by Nugent.
“There are things I do, actually know. I know that my brother Liam was sexually abused by Lambert Nugent. Or was probably sexually abused by Lambert Nugent” (224).
I think we can conclude that Liam’s past led him to commit suicide. The entire book Veronica has to make sense of what led him to take his own life. She has to put together remnants of the past.
For this blog, I watched the Youtube video of Sinead O’Conner on SNL. I had never seen the clip before, and I was stunned to see how powerful its message was. Upon some research, I discovered that Sinead O’Conner had experienced abuse as a child and his known for her protests over the sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
Fairly recently (last month) Sinead appeared on Anderson Cooper to speak out about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/27/video-sinead-oconnor-on-the-catholic-church-abuse-scandal/
I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I agree with Sinead O’Connor in this particular interview. How can these particular priests consider themselves to be holy or moral Christian people? And the scandal of the clergy trying to cover up the cases is just making them look worse.
Just recently, Pope Benedict XVI released an apology to the people of Ireland. The Pope said he was "truly sorry" for the harm done to Catholics who suffered "sinful and criminal" abuse at the hands of priests, brothers and nuns. He acknowledged the "serious mistakes" made by the clergy. S
Sinead also recently had an opinion piece in the Washington Post about the sex abuse scandal and commented back towards Pope Benedict’s apology. She believes that the Pope is mocking the Irish peoples’ intelligence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html
Child abuse seems to be very prevalent in Ireland. The Prime Minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen recently apologized to victims of child abuse for the government’s lack of interference in sexual abuse and severe beatings in Irish schools. He also promised reform for Ireland’s social services. Further investigation will take place against members of the Roman Catholic Church. Something definitely needs to be done to stop this horrible issue. I don’t know how the government has let it get this far.
To end back with the novel, it is sad to think that in cases of poverty, such as Veronica and Liam, little is done to prevent the issue.
I feel a sort of kinship with Veronica that I can’t describe. After the death Liam, she is in shambles. In Chapter 4, Veronica explains that everyone has lost someone that they love. Everyone has lost someone. But it affects us all differently, in ways we may never understand.
“There is something wonderful about death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge, after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest” (27).
After Liam’s death, his suicide, Veronica obsesses over Lambert Nugent and her grandmother, Ada. After Liam is gone, Veronica stays awake at night, writing and re-writing the meeting of Ada and Nugent at the Belvedere Hotel. This story and initial meeting between Nugent and Ada, determines the fate of Veronica, and her family (like the butterfly effect). I wonder if Veronica had given Nugent much thought prior to her brother’s death.
In the beginning of the book we learn that Nugent virtually sexually abused his own sister. (Am I reading into that right?) We know that she is dead. We don’t know how she has died. At least I haven’t gotten to that part in the story. We later learn, (I flipped ahead a few chapters because the suspense was killing me) that Liam was also sexually abused by Nugent.
“There are things I do, actually know. I know that my brother Liam was sexually abused by Lambert Nugent. Or was probably sexually abused by Lambert Nugent” (224).
I think we can conclude that Liam’s past led him to commit suicide. The entire book Veronica has to make sense of what led him to take his own life. She has to put together remnants of the past.
For this blog, I watched the Youtube video of Sinead O’Conner on SNL. I had never seen the clip before, and I was stunned to see how powerful its message was. Upon some research, I discovered that Sinead O’Conner had experienced abuse as a child and his known for her protests over the sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
Fairly recently (last month) Sinead appeared on Anderson Cooper to speak out about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/27/video-sinead-oconnor-on-the-catholic-church-abuse-scandal/
I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I agree with Sinead O’Connor in this particular interview. How can these particular priests consider themselves to be holy or moral Christian people? And the scandal of the clergy trying to cover up the cases is just making them look worse.
Just recently, Pope Benedict XVI released an apology to the people of Ireland. The Pope said he was "truly sorry" for the harm done to Catholics who suffered "sinful and criminal" abuse at the hands of priests, brothers and nuns. He acknowledged the "serious mistakes" made by the clergy. S
Sinead also recently had an opinion piece in the Washington Post about the sex abuse scandal and commented back towards Pope Benedict’s apology. She believes that the Pope is mocking the Irish peoples’ intelligence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html
Child abuse seems to be very prevalent in Ireland. The Prime Minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen recently apologized to victims of child abuse for the government’s lack of interference in sexual abuse and severe beatings in Irish schools. He also promised reform for Ireland’s social services. Further investigation will take place against members of the Roman Catholic Church. Something definitely needs to be done to stop this horrible issue. I don’t know how the government has let it get this far.
To end back with the novel, it is sad to think that in cases of poverty, such as Veronica and Liam, little is done to prevent the issue.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Desire
I just got done reading “Lacanian Pussy” and I’ll be honest, my brain is fried! I had a difficult time trying to keep up with Peter Mahon and Jacques Lacan’s theories about ‘the unconscious is the discourse of the Other.’ In order to assist my comprehension I looked up several vocabulary definitions. I learned that Phallocentric means, centered on men or on a male viewpoint, especially one held to entail the domination of women by men. According to Mahon, Breakfast on Pluto, re-inscribes Lacanian thought ‘beyond’ itself. And that Breakfast on Pluto also encompasses a non-phallic strategy for intervening in the rhetoric of sameness as neither apolitical or non-violent. I also did a little bit of web research on Lacanian psychoanalysis and this is what I found;
Lacan rejected attempts to link psychoanalysis with social theory, saying 'the unconscious is the discourse of the Other' -- that human passion is structured by the desire of others and that we express deep feelings through the 'relay' of others. He thus saw desire as a social phenomenon and psychoanalysis as a theory of how the human subject is created through social interaction. Desire appears through a combination of language, culture and the spaces between people.
Lacan focused largely on Freud's work on deep structures and infant sexuality, and how the human subject becomes an 'other' through unconscious repression and stemming from the Mirror phase. The conscious ego and unconscious desire are thus radically divided. Lacan considered this perpetual and unconscious fragmentation of the self as Freud's core discovery.
I don’t know why, but I imagine the “Other” as the evil shoulder conscience that whispers impure temptations into the character’s ear.
So basically the author believes that the novel claims to be apolitical and remaining outside of politics when in fact many features, events, and comments from the novel are very political statements and this is due to the discourse or fantasies of the Other. So I ask you Mahon (and blogger friends), huh? I’m still trying to decipher what point Mahon is trying to say. To try to understand, I took Colleen’s suggestion and visited the following website; http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/lacandevelop.html
Desire is a main theme within the novel because Pussy is completing driven and deranged by desire. Constantly longing for that feeling of belonging. The website suggests that we have no control over desire.
Desire, in other words, has little to do with material sexuality for Lacan; it is caught up, rather, in social structures and strictures, in the fantasy version of reality that forever dominated our lives after our entrance into language. For this reason, Lacan writes that "the unconscious is the discourse of the Other." Even our unconscious desires are, in other words, organized by the linguistic system that Lacan terms the symbolic order or "the big Other." In a sense, then, our desire is never properly our own, but is created through fantasies that are caught up in cultural ideologies rather than material sexuality. For this reason, according to Lacan, the command that the superego directs to the subject is, of all things, "Enjoy!" That which we may believe to be most private and rebellious (our desire) is, in fact, regulated, even commanded, by the superego.
Throughout the novel we see that Pussy has a strong desire to feel love. He/she desperately seeks the love of his/her parents. I agree that desire is something that we can’t control. And sometimes are actions are led by this unconscious or conscious desire. Therefore, maybe that is why Pussy wanted to be a woman. By being maternal and nurturing to her lovers, perhaps Pussy was trying to create the mother she never had. So the other, is designed around cultural ideologies. Pussy also claims to be apolitical when clearly she is not. The nationalism and gender boundaries that Pussy medals with are construed from her desires.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Final Project Idea
I'm taking this week to use my freebie not to do a blog post. I'm student teaching full time for the next two weeks so I'm using this week to focus on designing Lesson Plans. Wish me luck because I'm super nervous but also excited :)
For my final project, I would like to further explore The Picture of Dorian Gray. I enjoyed reading and analyzing the novel, therefore I would like to revisit the novel. Since I’m an education major, I think it would be fun to design a lesson plan around the novel. My objective would be for the students to be able to read, interpret, and critically analyze the novel. After reading students will be able to identify the defining features and structure of literary texts, such as conflict representation of character, character vs character conflict, character vs world conflict, and character vs self conflict, and point of view. After reading the novel students will be able to analyze the effect of characters, plot, setting, language, topic, style, purpose, and point of view on the overall impact of literature. Identify common historical, social, and cultural themes and issues in literary works and selected passages.
To successfully and effectively teach the objectives to students, I will design a thorough lesson plan describing the procedures for instruction. I will plan instruction prior to reading, during reading and after reading. I intend to include comprehension assessment strategies among other ideas…so far this is what I have in mind. Any suggestions? What grade level do you think would be appropriate to teach the novel?
Good luck everyone! Can't wait to hear everyone's ideas
For my final project, I would like to further explore The Picture of Dorian Gray. I enjoyed reading and analyzing the novel, therefore I would like to revisit the novel. Since I’m an education major, I think it would be fun to design a lesson plan around the novel. My objective would be for the students to be able to read, interpret, and critically analyze the novel. After reading students will be able to identify the defining features and structure of literary texts, such as conflict representation of character, character vs character conflict, character vs world conflict, and character vs self conflict, and point of view. After reading the novel students will be able to analyze the effect of characters, plot, setting, language, topic, style, purpose, and point of view on the overall impact of literature. Identify common historical, social, and cultural themes and issues in literary works and selected passages.
To successfully and effectively teach the objectives to students, I will design a thorough lesson plan describing the procedures for instruction. I will plan instruction prior to reading, during reading and after reading. I intend to include comprehension assessment strategies among other ideas…so far this is what I have in mind. Any suggestions? What grade level do you think would be appropriate to teach the novel?
Good luck everyone! Can't wait to hear everyone's ideas
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Time
What an interesting lens to view the novel through! While reading this article my mind kept flashing to the concept of time. Time is everywhere. Time is consistent. Time is always present. Time is continuous. Time is relative. Etc etc…I am studying to become a teacher and this semester I’m taking a social studies course aimed at, “how to teach social studies.” We are learning that one of the main aims of teaching history is to help students develop a concept of time. Historical evidence itself obtains its meaning from the time-frame in which it is set. Without a concept of time there can be no real understanding of change, development, continuity, progression and regression. As an educator I have to aim to teach my students to learn how to take on the attitudes and understanding of a past age. In the novel, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man what does Time really mean? What is the relevance of time within the novel? How are time and the concept of epiphany linked? There are many instances in the novel and from the article that dwell on this concept of time. I’m going to try to stay on topic here (which is often hard for me to do) and bring forth some instances that correlate with this concept.
The first instance is from the article, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the Individuating Rhythm of Modernit. Tobias Boes describes the novel as “leaping and bounding” through time. Boes brings forth many terms pertaining to the concept of time; linear and cyclical temporalities, individuating rhythms, polyrhythmic, etc. The terms are subjective and therefore open to interpretation. Linear time is sequential. Cyclical time is relative, pertaining to its surroundings. Individuating rhythms is the time spent in relation to a backboard of time as a whole. Perhaps polyrhythmic is the whole. I’m not entirely sure what these terms mean. I can break apart these terms and analyze but that might take too much time for right now. Boes says,
“Like his Russian contemporary, Lefebvre regarded time and space as inextricable from one another; he was well aware, for example, that the temporal rhythms pulsing through the boulevards of a colonial city can be very different from those that hover in its back alleys. In his most extensive project of “rhythmanalysis,” a study of the patterns of everyday life in Mediterranean cities, Lefebvre concluded that, “the large Mediterranean towns appear to have always lived and still to live in a regime of compromise between all the political powers. such a ‘metastable’ state is the fact of the polyrhythmic.”16 “Polyrhythmicality” in this context should be understood as the simultaneous existence in close spatial proximity of life-worlds that place differing emphases on the linear and cyclical elements that constitute historical experience” (770).
From this passage about time and all of it’s terms and how they affect one another I have concluded that much of the novel is about how time, time affected change, time metabolized Stephen’s current state, present time is affected by past time..etc.
“Stephen is constantly struggling to synchronize his internal beat with an ever-changing environment” (772).
We are always fighting time! I found it interesting in the above quote where is says that, “Lefebrve regarded time and space as inextricable from one another” Throughout the novel we see Stephen bounce back and forth between memories, at Clongowes, university, home, etc..each time his mind is changed. New times bring forth new identities, past times and experiences constitute identity. This is where the concept of epiphany comes into play. Epiphany can be described as something becoming clear. This occurs when you look at the concept of time. The article describes when Stephen is on the Dublin-Cork night train. It describes how as the train leaves the station, the boy overcome by a curious feeling of detachment that enforces a definite rupture between his present self and his personal recollections. (Reflecting back in time)
“As the landscape that he has known for all his life fades into darkness, his primary markers of experience become the passing “telegraphpoles,” which no longer frame recognizable vistas, but instead measure out the relentless advance of empty time at the rate of one bar every four seconds” (775).
In this passage his experience is measured in time. He begins to measure the time between the passing telegraph poles, and as he is doing something, something new becomes clear to him. At night he watches is father sleep and he remembers how at one time he regarded he greatly respected his father, and at this exact moment in time on the train as he watches his father sleep he looks small and weak. But as the evening moves to day, The Irish landscape becomes visible as something more than a mere abstraction, something more than a dark mass of shades broken up every four seconds by a pole. Suddenly, the previous feeling of detachment and disjunction gives way to a definite sense of place; the experience of locality that is steeped in custom, organic social experience, and instransgent historical continuity. Stephen’s sense of his own position in the world changes in accordance with the landscape that he glimpses outside of his window.
“Suddenly, his father’s presence—so easily dismissed just a few hours ago—takes on an almost claustrophobic heaviness, and the dim outlines of the fellow passengers in his compartment inspire in him a strange dread. His experience of time changes as well. His attention is no longer held by the passing telegraph poles, which measure out the advance of historical time in a relentlessly repetitive mechanical continuity, but by his father’s heavy breathing and occasional sleepy movement. The mechanical thus yields to the biological, and mere repetition is replaced by the organic cycle of pulmonary activity. Time no longer progresses, but appears almost at a standstill” (775)
It’s almost as suddenly in this moment, Stephen has an epiphany that time and space are linked. And that with each passing moment, visions can be blurred or they can be made clear yielding to some new realization. With a new realization it is almost as if time is put on pause and for that moment, even if it’s just an instant, by putting time on pause the mind becomes clearer. Your thoughts belong in that moment and nothing else. Time affects everything.
The first instance is from the article, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the Individuating Rhythm of Modernit. Tobias Boes describes the novel as “leaping and bounding” through time. Boes brings forth many terms pertaining to the concept of time; linear and cyclical temporalities, individuating rhythms, polyrhythmic, etc. The terms are subjective and therefore open to interpretation. Linear time is sequential. Cyclical time is relative, pertaining to its surroundings. Individuating rhythms is the time spent in relation to a backboard of time as a whole. Perhaps polyrhythmic is the whole. I’m not entirely sure what these terms mean. I can break apart these terms and analyze but that might take too much time for right now. Boes says,
“Like his Russian contemporary, Lefebvre regarded time and space as inextricable from one another; he was well aware, for example, that the temporal rhythms pulsing through the boulevards of a colonial city can be very different from those that hover in its back alleys. In his most extensive project of “rhythmanalysis,” a study of the patterns of everyday life in Mediterranean cities, Lefebvre concluded that, “the large Mediterranean towns appear to have always lived and still to live in a regime of compromise between all the political powers. such a ‘metastable’ state is the fact of the polyrhythmic.”16 “Polyrhythmicality” in this context should be understood as the simultaneous existence in close spatial proximity of life-worlds that place differing emphases on the linear and cyclical elements that constitute historical experience” (770).
From this passage about time and all of it’s terms and how they affect one another I have concluded that much of the novel is about how time, time affected change, time metabolized Stephen’s current state, present time is affected by past time..etc.
“Stephen is constantly struggling to synchronize his internal beat with an ever-changing environment” (772).
We are always fighting time! I found it interesting in the above quote where is says that, “Lefebrve regarded time and space as inextricable from one another” Throughout the novel we see Stephen bounce back and forth between memories, at Clongowes, university, home, etc..each time his mind is changed. New times bring forth new identities, past times and experiences constitute identity. This is where the concept of epiphany comes into play. Epiphany can be described as something becoming clear. This occurs when you look at the concept of time. The article describes when Stephen is on the Dublin-Cork night train. It describes how as the train leaves the station, the boy overcome by a curious feeling of detachment that enforces a definite rupture between his present self and his personal recollections. (Reflecting back in time)
“As the landscape that he has known for all his life fades into darkness, his primary markers of experience become the passing “telegraphpoles,” which no longer frame recognizable vistas, but instead measure out the relentless advance of empty time at the rate of one bar every four seconds” (775).
In this passage his experience is measured in time. He begins to measure the time between the passing telegraph poles, and as he is doing something, something new becomes clear to him. At night he watches is father sleep and he remembers how at one time he regarded he greatly respected his father, and at this exact moment in time on the train as he watches his father sleep he looks small and weak. But as the evening moves to day, The Irish landscape becomes visible as something more than a mere abstraction, something more than a dark mass of shades broken up every four seconds by a pole. Suddenly, the previous feeling of detachment and disjunction gives way to a definite sense of place; the experience of locality that is steeped in custom, organic social experience, and instransgent historical continuity. Stephen’s sense of his own position in the world changes in accordance with the landscape that he glimpses outside of his window.
“Suddenly, his father’s presence—so easily dismissed just a few hours ago—takes on an almost claustrophobic heaviness, and the dim outlines of the fellow passengers in his compartment inspire in him a strange dread. His experience of time changes as well. His attention is no longer held by the passing telegraph poles, which measure out the advance of historical time in a relentlessly repetitive mechanical continuity, but by his father’s heavy breathing and occasional sleepy movement. The mechanical thus yields to the biological, and mere repetition is replaced by the organic cycle of pulmonary activity. Time no longer progresses, but appears almost at a standstill” (775)
It’s almost as suddenly in this moment, Stephen has an epiphany that time and space are linked. And that with each passing moment, visions can be blurred or they can be made clear yielding to some new realization. With a new realization it is almost as if time is put on pause and for that moment, even if it’s just an instant, by putting time on pause the mind becomes clearer. Your thoughts belong in that moment and nothing else. Time affects everything.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Church vs State
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce is written in a unique way. The fact that the book doesn’t provide quotation marks around dialogue kind of set me off guard for a minute. Becoming familiar with new characters was also challenging for me because they were often brought forth with little introduction (in my opinion) Perhaps it was Joyce’s creative language and puns that set me off guard. Regardless, I have enjoyed the story so far and I like the character of Stephen. Upon research about James Joyce himself, I have found many sources claiming that the character of Stephen Dedalus is somewhat of an autobiography of Joyce’s own life. Although there are many differences, there are many similarities that I have noticed as well. For example, James Joyce actually did attend the Clongowes Wood College that is presented in the book. Stephen Dedalus is educated by Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College and at first has a hard time adjusting there.
In Chapter 1 the young Stephen breaks his glasses and is thus “pandied” for his “lazy scheme.” There are some sources that say that this event actually happened to James Joyce in real life. However, there are other accounts of history that claim this particular event did not happen but Joyce was “pandied” for other events” Whether it happened in to Joyce in real life or not, it is interesting that he incorporates it into his novel. A passage that I found interesting is on page 48 in the novel. It describes how Stephen felt after he had been brutally punished after breaking his glasses.
“Yes, he would do what the fellows had told him. He would go up and tell the rector that he had been wrongly punished. A thing like that had been done before by somebody in history, by some great person whose head was in the books of history” (48). I could be wrong but I feel like the event that happens to Stephen is some reference towards the event with Charles Stewart Parnell.
Earlier in the chapter we see that Stephen’s family argues over the case of church vs. state involving Parnell at Christmas dinner. We learn that the case of Parnell, who was a priest is very controversial. He was charged by the Catholic Church. Stephen’s relatives argue over the church at Christmas dinner.
“-We go to the house of God, Mr. Casey said, in all humility to pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses.
-It is religion, Dante said again. They are right. They must direct their flocks.
-And preach politics from the altar, is it? Asked Mr. Dedalus.
-Certainly, said Dante. It is a question of public morality. A priest would not be a priest if he did not tell his flock what is right and what is wrong” (27).
I think that the breaking eye glasses event and Stephen presenting his cruel punishment to the church and the discussion at Christmas dinner, highlights the fact that James Joyce himself had a rocky relationship with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church and the Church vs State was a very controversial issue in Irish Culture, especially during Joyce’s time. Maybe I’m drawing on coincidental events from the novel but I think that they relate to Joyce’s on personal feelings about the Catholic Church. Having been institutionalized in a religious environment in real life, it seems that he is very sensitive about the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, not to get all controversial talking about religion but I found it interesting on page 43 when Stephen was analyzing the order of the “highup people” in the church. “It was because he was allowed because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do it. But if he did it one time by mistake what would he do to go to confession? Perraps he would go to confession to the minister. And if the minister did it he would go to the rector….etc” (43). Now maybe I’m just drawing upon random things but this analysis could be used in the case of Parnell. If a state official makes a sin…isn’t there some sort of higher order he can go to within the state to take care of it…it’s almost as if Stephen is drawing the conclusion that in the case of Parnell the church is seen as the higher order….
Ok I’m going to stop babbling on. I’m not sure I’m making sense but just some things I have cooking in my head.
In Chapter 1 the young Stephen breaks his glasses and is thus “pandied” for his “lazy scheme.” There are some sources that say that this event actually happened to James Joyce in real life. However, there are other accounts of history that claim this particular event did not happen but Joyce was “pandied” for other events” Whether it happened in to Joyce in real life or not, it is interesting that he incorporates it into his novel. A passage that I found interesting is on page 48 in the novel. It describes how Stephen felt after he had been brutally punished after breaking his glasses.
“Yes, he would do what the fellows had told him. He would go up and tell the rector that he had been wrongly punished. A thing like that had been done before by somebody in history, by some great person whose head was in the books of history” (48). I could be wrong but I feel like the event that happens to Stephen is some reference towards the event with Charles Stewart Parnell.
Earlier in the chapter we see that Stephen’s family argues over the case of church vs. state involving Parnell at Christmas dinner. We learn that the case of Parnell, who was a priest is very controversial. He was charged by the Catholic Church. Stephen’s relatives argue over the church at Christmas dinner.
“-We go to the house of God, Mr. Casey said, in all humility to pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses.
-It is religion, Dante said again. They are right. They must direct their flocks.
-And preach politics from the altar, is it? Asked Mr. Dedalus.
-Certainly, said Dante. It is a question of public morality. A priest would not be a priest if he did not tell his flock what is right and what is wrong” (27).
I think that the breaking eye glasses event and Stephen presenting his cruel punishment to the church and the discussion at Christmas dinner, highlights the fact that James Joyce himself had a rocky relationship with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church and the Church vs State was a very controversial issue in Irish Culture, especially during Joyce’s time. Maybe I’m drawing on coincidental events from the novel but I think that they relate to Joyce’s on personal feelings about the Catholic Church. Having been institutionalized in a religious environment in real life, it seems that he is very sensitive about the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, not to get all controversial talking about religion but I found it interesting on page 43 when Stephen was analyzing the order of the “highup people” in the church. “It was because he was allowed because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do it. But if he did it one time by mistake what would he do to go to confession? Perraps he would go to confession to the minister. And if the minister did it he would go to the rector….etc” (43). Now maybe I’m just drawing upon random things but this analysis could be used in the case of Parnell. If a state official makes a sin…isn’t there some sort of higher order he can go to within the state to take care of it…it’s almost as if Stephen is drawing the conclusion that in the case of Parnell the church is seen as the higher order….
Ok I’m going to stop babbling on. I’m not sure I’m making sense but just some things I have cooking in my head.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Happy almost St. Patrick’s day to everyone! I’m trying to get this post out of the way so I can get a good night of sleep tonight and go out and celebrate the Irish Tradition tomorrow evening.
At first I didn’t know where I should begin because there are so many aspects of this piece of literature that can be further explored. I decided to take some of Colleen’s suggestions into consideration and eventually chose to further explore the term hamartia that she presented.
Prior to this post I had never heard of the word hamartia before. Following some research that I found on about.com, I learned that Hamartia is a concept used by Aristotle to describe tragedy. Hamartia refers to the fall of a noble man caused by some excess or mistake in behavior, not because of a willful violation of the god’s laws. Hamartia is related to hubris. (I believe hubris means overwhelming pride.) When I first read about.com’s definition of hamartia, I immediately thought of Dorian Gray.
“Dorian, the gods have been good to you. But what the Gods give, they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live. Then your youth goes – and your beauty will go with it. Then you will discover that there are no more triumphs left for you” (18).
My initial interpretation of the word was that a hamaritious person (Yes, I think I just invented the word hamartious) is someone who is well liked by society for varying reasons but experiences a great fall due to an error in behavior or judgment. I thought my initial interpretation of the word accurately described Dorian Gray’s character.
The above passage from page 18 of the book is foreshadowing the outcome of Dorian’s character. At first we see Dorian as beautiful and of elite society; than we learn that something causes him to make poor choices and his behavior begins to spiral out of control. This makes me second guess my initial interpretation… maybe this term isn’t describing Dorian
After reading the definition of hamartia from Britannica.com my perception of my initial interpretation has changed:
Aristotle introduced the term, hamartia, casually in the Poetics in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgment” (hamartia). This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello’s jealousy or Hamlet’s irresolution, although most great tragedies defy such a simple interpretation.
For whatever reason, I immediately thought of Basil Hallward after reading Britannica’s definition of hamartia. My interpretation from this definition is that hamartia describes a character that is of noble rank but unfortunately something happens for people to misinterpret this character, therefore he is never seen as the hero but sometimes he is seen as the villain, or nether. I could be completely way off but that is the way I interpreted Britannica’s definition.
I thought of Basil Hallward because Oscar Wilde is known for his passion for aestheticism, therefore, Basil being an artist, can be portrayed as noble rank in the novel. Many people in elite society regarded artists as important people. The error in judgment could be that he was the one who painted the picture of Dorian Gray; therefore, he might be blamed for Dorian’s wild antics after the picture ultimately impaired Dorian’s morals and values.
The definition goes on to say that this imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, “such as Othello’s jealously or Hamlet’s irresolution.” Perhaps Basil’s moral flaw is that he worries too much about Lord Henry’s influence on Dorian but doesn’t consider how is painting might influence Dorian. Maybe if Basil had insisted that he see the portrait when Dorian wouldn’t let him the course of events what have greatly been altered. I also think that Basil is very naïve. On page 146 he says,
“You must care Dorian. Of course, I don’t believe the horrible things people say. I think sin is something that writes itself across a man’s face. I cannot be hidden. You look as young and pure as you did when we first met” (146).
Basil is easily fooled by Dorian’s looks. Therefore his moral flaw could be that he judges people based upon how they look and not how they act. Basil’s painting could have just fueled Dorian’s narcissism and immoral values. I think a lot of people tend to point their finger at Lord Henry, but in reality they both could have made a bad influence on Dorian. I might have this all wrong but just some ideas I’ve been trying to put together the last couple of days. Maybe I should just go straight to Aristotle’s, Poetics, (where the word hamartia originated) to develop a further understanding of the term.
Works Cited:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/drama/g/Hamartia.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/253196/hamartia
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The picture of Dorian Gray
First of all, I would just like to say that I enjoyed this novel. Although, it was an engaging ‘easy’ read, I’m sure the symbolization within the novel is very complex and I’m sure there are a lot of things to discuss. I took some of Colleen’s suggestions and did a bit of internet research on Oscar Wilde. I was not surprised to find that although he was married to a woman, Oscar had a homosexual relationship with a man named, Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas. I found it curious throughout the novel that Basil was so infatuated with Dorian’s beauty. I also found it curious that Lord Henry was so obsessed with seducing Dorian’s decisions and lifestyle. (i.e. the yellow book that led Dorian to believe that “evil was now beautiful” (140). Therefore, I was not surprised that my suspicion towards homosexual bonds may not have been far fetched.
Oscar Wilde was also a big advocate of the aestheticism movement. I think this plays a major role throughout the novel. The Britannica Encyclopedia describes the aesthetic movement as
“The movement began in reaction to prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to what was perceived as the ugliness and philistinism of the industrial age. Its philosophical foundations were laid in the 18th century by Immanuel Kant, who postulated the autonomy of aesthetic standards, setting them apart from considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure.”
Essentially, the aestheticism movement strived to free art from the considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure. Therefore, the male characters in the story (tending to allude towards homosexual relations) speak for the aestheticism movement by setting apart from utilitarian social philosophies. Homosexuality definitely was not accepted during this period in time so it was a big advancement for Oscar to make such references, and it definitely was not considered ‘moral.’
Although Oscar says to be such an advocate for the aestheticism movement, I think that in the novel, he tends to contradict his own beliefs. The aestheticism movement holds the meaning of valuing new ways of seeing the world over moral ways of seeing the world. However, throughout the story the picture of Dorian Gray becomes transformed each time Dorian commits a sin. Isn’t that saying that morality is in deed affecting art?
“The portrait had changed! It was incredible! How could such a thing occur? Was there some connection between the picture painted on the canvas and the soul that was within him? He gazed at the picture in sickened horror and fear” (100).
The above quote reiterates the idea that the portrait (art) was affected by morality. When Dorian was cruel to Sybil Vane, the portrait grew ugly, just like the ‘soul that was within in him.’
This topic leads me to the role of Sybil Vane, or shall I refer to her as Sybil VAIN. Personally, I think Sybil is very vain to fall in love with such an egocentric man whom she barely knows; she is just infatuated by his beauty. I think her role in the novel is to show that beauty can blind you from the truth behind the perfect image. I also think the notion that she falls out of love with acting when she finds real love with Dorian is a symbol of the aestheticism movement. Advocates of the movement, such as Oscar Wilde, believed that life should copy art. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art. (I found this from wikipedia, which isn’t the most reliable source, however it supports my argument) Sybil Vane was beautiful and a wonderful performance artist, this is why Dorian fell in love with her. She flawlessly performed beautiful art and was thus considered beautiful. However, Sybil lost her talent and passion for acting when she realized she was in love with Dorian Gray. Dorian saw her untalented performance and quickly found her repulsive and fell out of love with her.
“But don’t you realize what you have done? You have killed my love for you,” Dorian coolly replied. He looked at her harshly” (84).
Dorian found her repulsive once she seemed real and not a ‘copy of art.’ Maybe I’m all wrong here, but these are just some of the things that I thought while reading the novel. Overall, I think that the picture of Dorian Gray is a symbol of this idea that life should copy art because art can be portrayed as perfect. However, as we learn in the novel, perfect is not attainable. Dorian Gray wants to remain perfect like his portrait, but he soon learns that his desires and life get in the way. Thus the imperfections of his life cause him to stab his portrait in frustration, because his life will never be as perfect art.
Works Cited
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7474/Aestheticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/bio4.htm
Oscar Wilde was also a big advocate of the aestheticism movement. I think this plays a major role throughout the novel. The Britannica Encyclopedia describes the aesthetic movement as
“The movement began in reaction to prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to what was perceived as the ugliness and philistinism of the industrial age. Its philosophical foundations were laid in the 18th century by Immanuel Kant, who postulated the autonomy of aesthetic standards, setting them apart from considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure.”
Essentially, the aestheticism movement strived to free art from the considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure. Therefore, the male characters in the story (tending to allude towards homosexual relations) speak for the aestheticism movement by setting apart from utilitarian social philosophies. Homosexuality definitely was not accepted during this period in time so it was a big advancement for Oscar to make such references, and it definitely was not considered ‘moral.’
Although Oscar says to be such an advocate for the aestheticism movement, I think that in the novel, he tends to contradict his own beliefs. The aestheticism movement holds the meaning of valuing new ways of seeing the world over moral ways of seeing the world. However, throughout the story the picture of Dorian Gray becomes transformed each time Dorian commits a sin. Isn’t that saying that morality is in deed affecting art?
“The portrait had changed! It was incredible! How could such a thing occur? Was there some connection between the picture painted on the canvas and the soul that was within him? He gazed at the picture in sickened horror and fear” (100).
The above quote reiterates the idea that the portrait (art) was affected by morality. When Dorian was cruel to Sybil Vane, the portrait grew ugly, just like the ‘soul that was within in him.’
This topic leads me to the role of Sybil Vane, or shall I refer to her as Sybil VAIN. Personally, I think Sybil is very vain to fall in love with such an egocentric man whom she barely knows; she is just infatuated by his beauty. I think her role in the novel is to show that beauty can blind you from the truth behind the perfect image. I also think the notion that she falls out of love with acting when she finds real love with Dorian is a symbol of the aestheticism movement. Advocates of the movement, such as Oscar Wilde, believed that life should copy art. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art. (I found this from wikipedia, which isn’t the most reliable source, however it supports my argument) Sybil Vane was beautiful and a wonderful performance artist, this is why Dorian fell in love with her. She flawlessly performed beautiful art and was thus considered beautiful. However, Sybil lost her talent and passion for acting when she realized she was in love with Dorian Gray. Dorian saw her untalented performance and quickly found her repulsive and fell out of love with her.
“But don’t you realize what you have done? You have killed my love for you,” Dorian coolly replied. He looked at her harshly” (84).
Dorian found her repulsive once she seemed real and not a ‘copy of art.’ Maybe I’m all wrong here, but these are just some of the things that I thought while reading the novel. Overall, I think that the picture of Dorian Gray is a symbol of this idea that life should copy art because art can be portrayed as perfect. However, as we learn in the novel, perfect is not attainable. Dorian Gray wants to remain perfect like his portrait, but he soon learns that his desires and life get in the way. Thus the imperfections of his life cause him to stab his portrait in frustration, because his life will never be as perfect art.
Works Cited
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7474/Aestheticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/bio4.htm
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Literary Criticism
Nicole Gehrman
English 263
March 2, 2010
Literary Criticism of Michael Davis’s Gothic’s Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla”
The author of this article, Michael Davis makes a lot of references towards other pieces of gothic work and he heavily mentions the enigma of gothic literature. Davis proposes many of his ideas about ‘Carmilla’ in relation to the ideas of French psychoanalyst, Jean Laplanche and his notion of the enigmatic signifier. Whether or not Davis agrees with Leplanche’s theories is unclear to me throughout my analysis.
Davis begins his analysis by discussing this idea of the enigmatic dream. Enigma can be described as a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation containing a hidden meaning. He relates his theory of dreams to Sigmund Freud’s theory that dreams are wish fulfillments and ultimately those wishes are the result of repressed or frustrated sexual desires. Davis agrees with Freud when he states,
“Similarly, to attend only to the manifest content of the Gothic text is, in many ways, to miss the point. As with the dreams, so the Gothic, of all genres, demands to be read allegorically. Like a rebus, Gothic encodes its meanings; its signifiers form a puzzle that demands to be translated.” He later goes on to say, “to recognize how the Gothic frequently confronts its characters (and readers) with teasing enigmas which, proving ultimately indecipherable, often prove to be traumatizing and, in certain cases, fatal” (223).
Basically what Davis is saying is that there are many things to be translated in the novel, however, there will never be a complete understanding. I concluded this idea because Davis states that, ‘Carmilla’ represents a failure of ‘translation’ a traumatizing failure to decode the enigmatic signifiers received from and indeed implanted, namely Carmilla” (223).
There is a reoccurring theme that caught my attention throughout ‘Carmilla” and the Enigmatic Signifier article, one being the dreams that take place in the story and how they play such a significant role in the plot of the story and two a point that Davis points out; the shadow of a lost object: Laura’s mother. On page 227, Davis says,
“Laura informs us that her mother ‘died in [her] infancy’ (243). This loss, I believe, haunts Le Fanu’s text as an uncanny absent presence. Laura claims that she does not even remember her mother because she lost her ‘so early.’ Initially, it seems, it was Madame Peredon ‘whose care and good nature in part supplied the loss of her mother. But the amnesia that, Laura believes, has left no memory trace is in fact not total. Laura does remember her mother, albeit unconsciously, and this becomes evident in her maternal transference to Carmilla” (227).
I found it interesting that Laura first meets Carmilla in a dream. Dreams seem to portray some sort of critical role throughout the novel so I can’t help but wonder what that role might be. To be honest, I don’t really know that much about Sigmund Freud’s theories about dreams or the significance of their portrayal. Basically, what I have concluded from his theories is that our dreams must mean something and there’s a reason that we construe these dreams from our subconscious. I know that I have heard many things like if you try to scream in a dream and no sound comes out it must mean that you feel suffocated by something in your life etc. I’m not to familiar with what Freud thinks certain things mean, (I’ve heard that they are very strange) but none .the less I think that the point that Davis is trying to make is that our dreams must mean something. So if Laura is having these dreams about repressed feelings and a maternal like figure approaching her bedside, it must mean something, but what? And that is the point that Davis is trying to bring across.
Another passage from Gothic’s Enigmatic Signifier that I found interesting was when Davis was comparing ‘Carmilla’ to Laplanche’s theory about the “otherness.” Davis says,
By the end of Le Fanu’s tale, we know that this element that cannot be metabolized, assigned meaning and assimilated remains actively at work in Laura’s psyche, ‘attacking the ego as agency from thing’ (letter, 108), long after the events she narrates. Like the alien (source-object) inside the subject, and like the Gothic itself, the internal alien other is ‘exciting rather than informing’ (Gothic, 4). And as Laplanche points out, what is not translatable becomes ‘the measure of the quantity of trauma’ (Otherness, 130) (226).
I must have re-read this message ten times and I still don’t understand what it is saying. I decided to challenge myself and slowly pick apart pieces of the passage trying to decipher its meaning. The conclusion that I came to, like Davis’s underlying theme is that the message cannot be fully translated because I don’t think the writer (Le Fanu) wants it to be translated, the message is that even we can’t fully grasp the meaning of our own subconscious. To better understand the meaning of this passage I researched Laplanche’s Otherness. Basically, what I interpreted upon research was that the other is basically the exact opposite of what you are. However, this supposed other tends to have some sort of control over your psyche, as defined in this adult-infant relation, it’s almost as if the perspective is transmitted from the otherness causing your original perspective to radically change.
The word translatable can be defined as to change from one place to another. This brought me back to the description about the ‘internal alien.’ What exactly is the internal alien? Is this the voice of manipulative thoughts from the other? The otherness always seems to be challenging the other. So basically Laura has some bipolar thoughts going on in her head. I know, sounds stupid, but this is what I have interpreted.
The passage that says,
“Carmilla is not just a character in a Gothic text, she is also the excess(ive) and ambiguous (allegorical) figure, or indeed the enigmatic letter(s) of the Gothic itself: Enlightenment’s dark internal foreign body. Indeed Carmilla and her enigmatic messages, together with the anagrammatical lability of her ‘name’, are like the chimeras sold by the hunchback.” Davis goes on to say, “Thus, through the allegorizing selfreflexivity of Le Fanu’s text we see that Carmilla and the Gothic are chimerical” (231).
So is Carmilla just a figment of Laura’s imagination that was developed in her subconsciou because of the repression of her sexuality and loss of a mother? I know I’m probably way off here, I’m not even sure where my thoughts are leading. However, is that the point that Davis is trying to make by comparing Laplanche’s thoughts and ideas about repression and relating Freud and how dreams are suppose to have some sort of hidden meaning etc. So therefore all of Laura’s dreams and daydreams are just illusions because she is so severely jaded by the loss of her mother and about her confused sexuality? So she creates this character in her head that cannot be metabolized so she never realizes the true message from her dreams? Perhaps it’s the word play with the word chimerical, which I looked up and found it to mean: existing only as the product of unchecked imagination, fantastically visionary or improbable (Merriam-Webster) Is Carmilla a character that Laura crafts from her subconscious because she doesn’t understand her true sexuality? I’m probably way off her, but this is what I have concluded from deciphering the words. Even though Davis says on page 223 that the words cannot be deciphered. I think the more I have analyzed the less I understand. Perhaps that is the underlying message.
Works Cited
Davis, Michael. "Gothic's Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla"." Gothic Studies 6 (2004): 223-235. Print.
Fanu, J. Sheridan Le. Carmilla: A Tragic Love Story by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. London, UK: Createspace, 2008. Print.
"Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2010.
" Radical Philosophy - Interviews - July/August 2000." Radical Philosophy - Welcome to Radical Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2010..
English 263
March 2, 2010
Literary Criticism of Michael Davis’s Gothic’s Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla”
The author of this article, Michael Davis makes a lot of references towards other pieces of gothic work and he heavily mentions the enigma of gothic literature. Davis proposes many of his ideas about ‘Carmilla’ in relation to the ideas of French psychoanalyst, Jean Laplanche and his notion of the enigmatic signifier. Whether or not Davis agrees with Leplanche’s theories is unclear to me throughout my analysis.
Davis begins his analysis by discussing this idea of the enigmatic dream. Enigma can be described as a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation containing a hidden meaning. He relates his theory of dreams to Sigmund Freud’s theory that dreams are wish fulfillments and ultimately those wishes are the result of repressed or frustrated sexual desires. Davis agrees with Freud when he states,
“Similarly, to attend only to the manifest content of the Gothic text is, in many ways, to miss the point. As with the dreams, so the Gothic, of all genres, demands to be read allegorically. Like a rebus, Gothic encodes its meanings; its signifiers form a puzzle that demands to be translated.” He later goes on to say, “to recognize how the Gothic frequently confronts its characters (and readers) with teasing enigmas which, proving ultimately indecipherable, often prove to be traumatizing and, in certain cases, fatal” (223).
Basically what Davis is saying is that there are many things to be translated in the novel, however, there will never be a complete understanding. I concluded this idea because Davis states that, ‘Carmilla’ represents a failure of ‘translation’ a traumatizing failure to decode the enigmatic signifiers received from and indeed implanted, namely Carmilla” (223).
There is a reoccurring theme that caught my attention throughout ‘Carmilla” and the Enigmatic Signifier article, one being the dreams that take place in the story and how they play such a significant role in the plot of the story and two a point that Davis points out; the shadow of a lost object: Laura’s mother. On page 227, Davis says,
“Laura informs us that her mother ‘died in [her] infancy’ (243). This loss, I believe, haunts Le Fanu’s text as an uncanny absent presence. Laura claims that she does not even remember her mother because she lost her ‘so early.’ Initially, it seems, it was Madame Peredon ‘whose care and good nature in part supplied the loss of her mother. But the amnesia that, Laura believes, has left no memory trace is in fact not total. Laura does remember her mother, albeit unconsciously, and this becomes evident in her maternal transference to Carmilla” (227).
I found it interesting that Laura first meets Carmilla in a dream. Dreams seem to portray some sort of critical role throughout the novel so I can’t help but wonder what that role might be. To be honest, I don’t really know that much about Sigmund Freud’s theories about dreams or the significance of their portrayal. Basically, what I have concluded from his theories is that our dreams must mean something and there’s a reason that we construe these dreams from our subconscious. I know that I have heard many things like if you try to scream in a dream and no sound comes out it must mean that you feel suffocated by something in your life etc. I’m not to familiar with what Freud thinks certain things mean, (I’ve heard that they are very strange) but none .the less I think that the point that Davis is trying to make is that our dreams must mean something. So if Laura is having these dreams about repressed feelings and a maternal like figure approaching her bedside, it must mean something, but what? And that is the point that Davis is trying to bring across.
Another passage from Gothic’s Enigmatic Signifier that I found interesting was when Davis was comparing ‘Carmilla’ to Laplanche’s theory about the “otherness.” Davis says,
By the end of Le Fanu’s tale, we know that this element that cannot be metabolized, assigned meaning and assimilated remains actively at work in Laura’s psyche, ‘attacking the ego as agency from thing’ (letter, 108), long after the events she narrates. Like the alien (source-object) inside the subject, and like the Gothic itself, the internal alien other is ‘exciting rather than informing’ (Gothic, 4). And as Laplanche points out, what is not translatable becomes ‘the measure of the quantity of trauma’ (Otherness, 130) (226).
I must have re-read this message ten times and I still don’t understand what it is saying. I decided to challenge myself and slowly pick apart pieces of the passage trying to decipher its meaning. The conclusion that I came to, like Davis’s underlying theme is that the message cannot be fully translated because I don’t think the writer (Le Fanu) wants it to be translated, the message is that even we can’t fully grasp the meaning of our own subconscious. To better understand the meaning of this passage I researched Laplanche’s Otherness. Basically, what I interpreted upon research was that the other is basically the exact opposite of what you are. However, this supposed other tends to have some sort of control over your psyche, as defined in this adult-infant relation, it’s almost as if the perspective is transmitted from the otherness causing your original perspective to radically change.
The word translatable can be defined as to change from one place to another. This brought me back to the description about the ‘internal alien.’ What exactly is the internal alien? Is this the voice of manipulative thoughts from the other? The otherness always seems to be challenging the other. So basically Laura has some bipolar thoughts going on in her head. I know, sounds stupid, but this is what I have interpreted.
The passage that says,
“Carmilla is not just a character in a Gothic text, she is also the excess(ive) and ambiguous (allegorical) figure, or indeed the enigmatic letter(s) of the Gothic itself: Enlightenment’s dark internal foreign body. Indeed Carmilla and her enigmatic messages, together with the anagrammatical lability of her ‘name’, are like the chimeras sold by the hunchback.” Davis goes on to say, “Thus, through the allegorizing selfreflexivity of Le Fanu’s text we see that Carmilla and the Gothic are chimerical” (231).
So is Carmilla just a figment of Laura’s imagination that was developed in her subconsciou because of the repression of her sexuality and loss of a mother? I know I’m probably way off here, I’m not even sure where my thoughts are leading. However, is that the point that Davis is trying to make by comparing Laplanche’s thoughts and ideas about repression and relating Freud and how dreams are suppose to have some sort of hidden meaning etc. So therefore all of Laura’s dreams and daydreams are just illusions because she is so severely jaded by the loss of her mother and about her confused sexuality? So she creates this character in her head that cannot be metabolized so she never realizes the true message from her dreams? Perhaps it’s the word play with the word chimerical, which I looked up and found it to mean: existing only as the product of unchecked imagination, fantastically visionary or improbable (Merriam-Webster) Is Carmilla a character that Laura crafts from her subconscious because she doesn’t understand her true sexuality? I’m probably way off her, but this is what I have concluded from deciphering the words. Even though Davis says on page 223 that the words cannot be deciphered. I think the more I have analyzed the less I understand. Perhaps that is the underlying message.
Works Cited
Davis, Michael. "Gothic's Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla"." Gothic Studies 6 (2004): 223-235. Print.
Fanu, J. Sheridan Le. Carmilla: A Tragic Love Story by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. London, UK: Createspace, 2008. Print.
"Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2010.
" Radical Philosophy - Interviews - July/August 2000." Radical Philosophy - Welcome to Radical Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2010.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Here are my online artifacts for my previous post. For whatever reason I could not get them to submit with my rationale. Had some technical difficulties but hope this flows easily. Thanks
Online Artifact number one:
http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/irish-famine-represented-nineteenth-century
Online Artifact number two:
http://literaryservice.com/darkecho/horroronline/irish_vampire.html
Online Artifact number one:
http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/irish-famine-represented-nineteenth-century
Online Artifact number two:
http://literaryservice.com/darkecho/horroronline/irish_vampire.html
Online Artifact
The Irish Famine and Vampirism
J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s, “Carmilla” is a mysterious story about an unexpected visitor who befriends a lonely young girl in a desolate castle in Styria. Upon reading we discover that the visitor (Carmilla) is very strange and mysterious. The narrator, Laura feels drawn towards Carmilla, but she also feels uncomfortable by some of Carmilla’s unsettling sexual advances. At first, Laura is stricken with horror when she notices the resemblance of Carmilla of that of the young girl from her disturbing dream. In the dream, Laura was awoken in her night chamber by a beautiful stranger who then pierced her in the breast. Despite the dream, the two girls become fast companions. However, Laura’s health begins to wane and Carmilla’s strange disappearance in the night lends suspicion to the reader. The story progresses, (I will go into more detail later) and we learn that Carmilla is a Vampire. I found this story very interesting and engaging. I am very interested in vampire stories, as dorky as it sounds, I love the Charlene Harris and Stephenie Meyer series. Upon research I begin to look up vampire literature in relation to the Irish Famine. I found two separate online artifacts that I would like to share and analyze in relation to Carmilla:
Online Artifact number one: “The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Famine Novels” Enotes.com.
and Online Artifact number two:
“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service
The first artifact, The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature (posted by enotes.com) discusses the Irish famine in great detail. It explains that in 1845 the potato crop failed in Ireland causing widespread hunger and starvation. This crop failure also led to disease and millions of people died during this time period. The cause of the famine was due to the disease commonly known as potato blight which was basically a fungus in the rotting potatoes. The interesting thing about this article is that it compares the history of the famine to the literature that was produced during this particular time period. The article states that,
“Critics note that the literature of this time period is scarred with incomplete, disjointed images—such as the "skeletal spectre" of death—which recur throughout the poetry and prose. Many Famine writers begin to describe a scene of a starving child, or a cabin whose emaciated inhabitants lie dead in the corner, only to abruptly depart from the image, refusing to detail it further. Often the same writers note their uncertainty regarding their ability, or even their right, to describe with words the horror of the Famine. This uncertainty, and these fragmented images, are the thread which binds together the vast array of Famine literature” (enotes).
I found this really interesting because Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” encompasses this image of death and a tone of melancholy throughout the story. In the beginning of “Carmilla” the narrator describes the setting as lonely and solitary.
“I have said “the nearest inhabited village,” because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town. Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time” (“Carmilla” Chapter 1)
This quote from “Carmilla” relates to enotes description of 19th century literature because, Although Le Fanu doesn’t directly state the reason for the desertion of Styria, he does allude to the idea that something awful has happened to cause such abandonment. The novel is sort of redundant as it describes how the area surrounding the schloss is inhabited for miles and that the nearest “village” is pretty much empty. As a reader you sort of begin to question why this area was so isolated. Looking through the lens of the Irish Famine, you will notice how similar this isolation is. Much of Ireland was deserted and many people emigrated out of the country during this time.
During the time that this novel is written, the online artifact makes clear that this time period in Ireland was a very depressing, troubling time so it makes sense as to why the literature might be dark and melancholy as well. Also, in the novel the narrator (Laura) grows very ill. In the beginning of the story we learn that General Spielsdorf’s niece also grows very ill and eventually dies. It seems that the entire novel is shadowed with illness, at least this is what I interpreted from Le Fanu’s writing. I imagined every character that Le Fanu described as weak, frail and tired looking.
“It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance” (“Carmilla” Chapter 7).
Perhaps the writers during the time period were so distraught by the famine that it reflects in their writing. The first online artifact suggests that much of the literature during this time period was indeed “edged with agony and despair. The first artifact states that “the themes of eviction, starvation, and emigration are highly prevalent in Famine poetry.” The article also leads to the idea that perhaps writers during this time wrote about such dark things to sort of express as to what the people were going through during this time. This article basically says that the famine was actually compared in contrast to the Holocaust. Writers during this time weren’t even sure how to describe the incommunicable horror they witnessed during the famine. Perhaps that’s why the literature during this time portrays scary stories, isolation, death, mystery, etc.
The second online artifact that I have listed is from a website called literaryservice.com. If you scroll down towards the bottom of the article you will see an analysis of Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” This article suggests that “Carmilla” is a political allegory. It states that the setting of the story is the substitute to 19th century Ireland.
“The English narrator, Laura, and her father live an isolated existence that parallels that of the Anglo-Irish gentry of the period. They live near "a ruined village" that resembles the results of Irish depopulation after the great famine of 1845-49. The extinct "proud family of Karnstein" is a parallel for the extinction of much of the Irish peerage after the Act of Union of 1800. After 1800, no new Irish peerage could be created without the extinction of three old ones, thus the aristocracy was "only able to regenerate by a sort of legalistic vampirism." Carmilla, an undead member of the otherwise defunct Karnsteins, "[l]ike the Irish peerage...needs extinctions to revive." The three young women who expire in the story equate with the "three Irish peerages required before a new one can come alive" (literaryservice.com).
This article implies that if you scrutinize various parts of “Carmilla” you will notice the parallels of the Anglo-Irish period or the Irish famine. Perhaps Le Fanu brought in vampirism to correspond with the death and agony from the famine. In Chapter 5 of “Carmilla” the narrator is describing Carmilla as looking ill and weak. The following quote directly mentions a strange epidemic that has invaded the country. This leads me to believe that this was incorporated into the novel to correspond with the Irish Famine.
“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some wine,” I said.
“Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the door. “Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.”
“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked.
I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with the strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us” (“Carmilla” Chapter 5).
As we all know, vampires are described as dead beings that lie in a coffin and feed off of the blood of other living beings. I believe that the reason Le Fanu incorporated vampirism into this novel was to encompass the image of death. This novel was written shortly after the Irish Famine. During the famine millions of people died. Like a lot of literature, this novel compares to the historical events that take place during its time. I bet many scholarly historians could pick apart each part of the novel, even vocabulary and find ways it relates to the Irish Famine.
The narrator in the story is of English decent, although the setting where she lives is in Austria. The narrator, (Laura) and her father must have emigrated from England. Although, the novel never explicitly states why they emigrated there, it leads the reader to wonder. During the Famine, millions of people emigrated from Ireland because of the potato disease. As we can see, many of the proceedings that take place in the novel directly relate to the history during this time period. I brought forth these artifacts because after discovering them I reread parts of “Carmilla” and saw various similarities to the famine and the novel that I did not notice before. I hope that some of my examples help you to see through this lens as well.
Works Cited
Fanu, J. Sheridan Le, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla. Chicago: Valancourt
Books, 2009. Print.
“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service
“The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature- Famine Novels” Enotes.com
J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s, “Carmilla” is a mysterious story about an unexpected visitor who befriends a lonely young girl in a desolate castle in Styria. Upon reading we discover that the visitor (Carmilla) is very strange and mysterious. The narrator, Laura feels drawn towards Carmilla, but she also feels uncomfortable by some of Carmilla’s unsettling sexual advances. At first, Laura is stricken with horror when she notices the resemblance of Carmilla of that of the young girl from her disturbing dream. In the dream, Laura was awoken in her night chamber by a beautiful stranger who then pierced her in the breast. Despite the dream, the two girls become fast companions. However, Laura’s health begins to wane and Carmilla’s strange disappearance in the night lends suspicion to the reader. The story progresses, (I will go into more detail later) and we learn that Carmilla is a Vampire. I found this story very interesting and engaging. I am very interested in vampire stories, as dorky as it sounds, I love the Charlene Harris and Stephenie Meyer series. Upon research I begin to look up vampire literature in relation to the Irish Famine. I found two separate online artifacts that I would like to share and analyze in relation to Carmilla:
Online Artifact number one: “The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Famine Novels” Enotes.com.
and Online Artifact number two:
“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service
The first artifact, The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature (posted by enotes.com) discusses the Irish famine in great detail. It explains that in 1845 the potato crop failed in Ireland causing widespread hunger and starvation. This crop failure also led to disease and millions of people died during this time period. The cause of the famine was due to the disease commonly known as potato blight which was basically a fungus in the rotting potatoes. The interesting thing about this article is that it compares the history of the famine to the literature that was produced during this particular time period. The article states that,
“Critics note that the literature of this time period is scarred with incomplete, disjointed images—such as the "skeletal spectre" of death—which recur throughout the poetry and prose. Many Famine writers begin to describe a scene of a starving child, or a cabin whose emaciated inhabitants lie dead in the corner, only to abruptly depart from the image, refusing to detail it further. Often the same writers note their uncertainty regarding their ability, or even their right, to describe with words the horror of the Famine. This uncertainty, and these fragmented images, are the thread which binds together the vast array of Famine literature” (enotes).
I found this really interesting because Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” encompasses this image of death and a tone of melancholy throughout the story. In the beginning of “Carmilla” the narrator describes the setting as lonely and solitary.
“I have said “the nearest inhabited village,” because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town. Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time” (“Carmilla” Chapter 1)
This quote from “Carmilla” relates to enotes description of 19th century literature because, Although Le Fanu doesn’t directly state the reason for the desertion of Styria, he does allude to the idea that something awful has happened to cause such abandonment. The novel is sort of redundant as it describes how the area surrounding the schloss is inhabited for miles and that the nearest “village” is pretty much empty. As a reader you sort of begin to question why this area was so isolated. Looking through the lens of the Irish Famine, you will notice how similar this isolation is. Much of Ireland was deserted and many people emigrated out of the country during this time.
During the time that this novel is written, the online artifact makes clear that this time period in Ireland was a very depressing, troubling time so it makes sense as to why the literature might be dark and melancholy as well. Also, in the novel the narrator (Laura) grows very ill. In the beginning of the story we learn that General Spielsdorf’s niece also grows very ill and eventually dies. It seems that the entire novel is shadowed with illness, at least this is what I interpreted from Le Fanu’s writing. I imagined every character that Le Fanu described as weak, frail and tired looking.
“It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance” (“Carmilla” Chapter 7).
Perhaps the writers during the time period were so distraught by the famine that it reflects in their writing. The first online artifact suggests that much of the literature during this time period was indeed “edged with agony and despair. The first artifact states that “the themes of eviction, starvation, and emigration are highly prevalent in Famine poetry.” The article also leads to the idea that perhaps writers during this time wrote about such dark things to sort of express as to what the people were going through during this time. This article basically says that the famine was actually compared in contrast to the Holocaust. Writers during this time weren’t even sure how to describe the incommunicable horror they witnessed during the famine. Perhaps that’s why the literature during this time portrays scary stories, isolation, death, mystery, etc.
The second online artifact that I have listed is from a website called literaryservice.com. If you scroll down towards the bottom of the article you will see an analysis of Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” This article suggests that “Carmilla” is a political allegory. It states that the setting of the story is the substitute to 19th century Ireland.
“The English narrator, Laura, and her father live an isolated existence that parallels that of the Anglo-Irish gentry of the period. They live near "a ruined village" that resembles the results of Irish depopulation after the great famine of 1845-49. The extinct "proud family of Karnstein" is a parallel for the extinction of much of the Irish peerage after the Act of Union of 1800. After 1800, no new Irish peerage could be created without the extinction of three old ones, thus the aristocracy was "only able to regenerate by a sort of legalistic vampirism." Carmilla, an undead member of the otherwise defunct Karnsteins, "[l]ike the Irish peerage...needs extinctions to revive." The three young women who expire in the story equate with the "three Irish peerages required before a new one can come alive" (literaryservice.com).
This article implies that if you scrutinize various parts of “Carmilla” you will notice the parallels of the Anglo-Irish period or the Irish famine. Perhaps Le Fanu brought in vampirism to correspond with the death and agony from the famine. In Chapter 5 of “Carmilla” the narrator is describing Carmilla as looking ill and weak. The following quote directly mentions a strange epidemic that has invaded the country. This leads me to believe that this was incorporated into the novel to correspond with the Irish Famine.
“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some wine,” I said.
“Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the door. “Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.”
“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked.
I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with the strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us” (“Carmilla” Chapter 5).
As we all know, vampires are described as dead beings that lie in a coffin and feed off of the blood of other living beings. I believe that the reason Le Fanu incorporated vampirism into this novel was to encompass the image of death. This novel was written shortly after the Irish Famine. During the famine millions of people died. Like a lot of literature, this novel compares to the historical events that take place during its time. I bet many scholarly historians could pick apart each part of the novel, even vocabulary and find ways it relates to the Irish Famine.
The narrator in the story is of English decent, although the setting where she lives is in Austria. The narrator, (Laura) and her father must have emigrated from England. Although, the novel never explicitly states why they emigrated there, it leads the reader to wonder. During the Famine, millions of people emigrated from Ireland because of the potato disease. As we can see, many of the proceedings that take place in the novel directly relate to the history during this time period. I brought forth these artifacts because after discovering them I reread parts of “Carmilla” and saw various similarities to the famine and the novel that I did not notice before. I hope that some of my examples help you to see through this lens as well.
Works Cited
Fanu, J. Sheridan Le, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla. Chicago: Valancourt
Books, 2009. Print.
“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service
“The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature- Famine Novels” Enotes.com
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
"But he that goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow, lives as he out to do, and dies an honest fellow"
While reading and “tackling” this week’s post there were many confusing things I noticed about Maria Edgeworth’s writing. First, her way of writing/language. I’m not sure if most writers during this time wrote like this, but Maria Edgeworth’s way of writing is very new for me. I feel like I spent most of my time trying to understand what the heck type of message she was trying to get across. I ‘googled’ some of the terms that Colleen suggested, however, it didn’t really help me to understand some of the historical references. Anyways, that’s beside the point, the point is that the language spoken was from a different time and a different place, even though it is in English. The jargon, the “mode of rhetoric”, the historical references, all left me completely twisted. I realized while reading that a language, like anything else, augments and adapts overtime. This style of writing however, made it difficult for me to ‘connect’ to some of the characters.
The characters throughout the story all seem so cryptic to me. I find Maria Edgeworth’s description or rather Thady’s description of each character very ambiguous. I feel like there is some hidden knowledge that I’m missing out on. I think I may be feeling this way because I found Thady’s character to be incredibly absurd for lack of a better term. Thady who refers to himself as “honest Thady” states,
“To look at me, you would hardly think ‘Poor Thady’ was the father of Attorney Quirk he is a high gentlemen, and never minds what poor Thady says, and having better thant fifteen hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as I have lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family.”
I feel that Thady is constantly reminding us throughout the story how humble and modest he is. If these truly were attributes that he held, he wouldn’t constantly remind us of them. However, I think he had a lot of nice things to say about the Rackrent’s. Especially Sir Patrick, which is why I think Sir Patrick became my favorite character.
This leads me to Colleen’s discussion question about how we characterize the various author’s tones throughout the novel. In the novel we find, Thady’s narrative, the editor, and Maria’s perspective as well. It’s hard for me to figure out because I can’t tell whether or not Maria believes Thady to be honest or if that’s what she is leading her readers to believe or if there’s some sort of cryptic message saying not to trust ‘poor, old, honest, Thady’ The editor at one point in the story shares a “cryptic message” to the reader while Thady is talking about Lady Rackrent. Thady tells us that Sir Kit locked Lady Rackrent in a room for seven years. The editor’s footnote states,
“[This part of the history of the Rackrent family can scarcely be thought credible; but in justice to honest Thady, it is hoped the reader will recollect the history of the celebrated Lady Cathcart's conjugal imprisonment. The editor was acquainted with Colonel M'Guire, Lady Cathcart's husband; he has lately seen and questioned the maid-servant who lived with Colonel M'Guire during the time of Lady Cathcart's imprisonment.]”
This footnote caught my attention so I did a bit of research on my own. I discovered from the following BBC website, that Maria Edgeworth based her characters Sir Kit and Lady Rackrent on a set of real events that unfolded partly in Fermanagh and partly in Co. Longford. At the website you can see where Maria Edgeworth got her inspiration for Sir Kit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/fermanagh/lady_cathcart.shtml
So apparently Maria gained inspiration for her characters from real life characters? I found Jason to be very cryptic and quite frankly, not to be trusted. However, maybe I’m just being bias because he was an attorney. In the beginning of the story we get the idea from Thady that Jason may be to full of himself because of the way he “belittled” his own father. I sense some foreshadowing here. Because of this statement I found it hard to take anything Jason did for the Rackrent’s as ‘genuine.’ Maybe I’m reading into this the wrong, did anyone else read into this the same way? Another theme that I noticed from this reading was the treatment of women. Now, I’m not a feminist but the women in this story did not seem to be treated well at all. Sir Kit locked up Lady Rackrent for seven years! The men were constantly disposing of women and gaining new wives. Sir Condy wouldn’t take poor Judy even though she was really the one who had is heart. I wonder if the treatment of women is a point that Maria is trying to bring across…
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Violence and the Constitution of the Novel.
While I found this piece of literature by David Lloyd to be incredibly difficult, I also found parts of it (the parts I could somewhat understand) to be incredibly interesting. Lloyd begins his critique by introducing the fact that throughout history, violence has been habitually attributed to
Before discussing Lloyd’s reasons for the inadequacy of the nineteenth century novel, I would first like to pose the idea that many if not most accounts of history involve the transmission of mainstream interpretations and values. Lloyd states on page 128, “But the issue is not merely literary, nor merely a matter of the accuracy of inaccuracy of any particular representation of Irish history, politics or culture. It concerns, rather, a problem of representation in general as a crucial element in the intersecting matrices of politics, aesthetics and historiography.” What I think Lloyd is implying here is that many accounts of history tend to be single-minded or dominant perspectives. Perhaps the “subaltern” perspective that Lloyd brings forth so often is not even considered in the accounts of the nineteenth century novel. The reading even suggests that the social instability caused many voices and narratives to be unrepresented. The accounts of Irish history that I have learned talk about the complete division and polarity between landlords and peasants. Perhaps it is stereotypical of me to assume that many of the “peasants” point of views are probably unrepresented. Just as in
The reasons for inadequacy of the nineteenth century Irish novel that Lloyd suggests include; The general instability of Irish society and violence throughout history. We learn from the reading about the Penal Laws which were a series of laws imposed under British rule that removed power from the native Roman Catholic majority. This led to the 1798 uprising.
Lloyd also includes that the absence of a strong and independent middle class, as I mentioned before the “landlords and peasants” may have also been a reason as to why the nineteenth century Irish novel is inadequate. Another important factor is the bilingual nature of Irish culture. Lloyd informs us that, “recent research suggests that a large portion of the nineteenth century was quite capable of manipulating both languages” (130). Doesn’t that blatantly tell us that the accounts of history were easily manipulated overtime? You could spend hours rehashing the slight word error or manipulation in words that caused a completely mistaken view of historical fact. For example,
I also gathered the idea that Irish tradition tended to rely on oral transmission rather than written transmission. This may sound cliché’ but the game telephone that we all played as kids also shows us that stories being passed down from generation to generation are easily manipulated or exaggerated when there is no written evidence from the 1st perspective.
Without these historical accounts, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, or what happened, or what past decisions account for present circumstances and so forth, the underlying issue that I believe Lloyd is trying to allude to is that when studying Irish tradition, we must understand that all accounts are interpretations and therefore subjective, you must consider more than one perspective and the problem with the Irish novel is that many perspectives are lacking or lost.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Introduction
My name is Nicole Gehrman. I am currently a senior at UWM. I'm a Middle Childhood-Early Education major in the School of Education program. I am currently entering my 3rd block of the program. I also have two minors in science and social studies. I'm originally from St. Paul, Minnesota and was raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Some interesting things about me include that I ran for the White Bear Cross-Country team for 7 years. I have the same birthday as Ghandi and George Harrison is my favorite Beatle.
I signed up for this course because the title Irish Tradition caught my attention. I'm very interested in learning about different cultures. I nanny for a family from India and I have enjoyed learning about their customs and traditions. I am looking forward to learning about Ireland. I visited London last year and desperately wanted to travel over to Ireland. However, money and time didn't allow it. Hopefully I can visit in the future, I've heard Ireland is a beautiful country.
My favorite novel is Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I read the book when I was in high school and I believe that it inspired me to pursue my teaching career. I also enjoy novels written by Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, Jodi Picoult, Phillippa Gregory, among others. I typically choose books that engage me into the story and help me escape from my daily life. I hope to gain a new perspective on life everytime I read and a new way of thinking in ways I didn't imagine before.
I have taken the required English courses at UWM as well as an African American Women's literature course with Rikki Clark. I greatly enjoyed the class and I feel that I gained a lot of insight from the course. I believe that an online literature course may actually be easier to have critical discussion about the novels we read. On an online course we are all required to participate and present our opinions. In regular courses not everyone chooses to participate. Therefore, more perspectives and ideas will be shared during our online discussions. I have read many types of literature. I have always enjoyed reading, some of my favorite novels include; Until They Bring the Streetcars Back, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Catcher in the Rye, and The Great Gatsby (the author F. Scott Fitzgerald is from St. Paul!)
To be compeletey honest I don't really have that much background knowledge about Irish tradition. I know that Irish Tradtion includes celebrating St. Patrick's day. I also know that there have been religious controversies in Ireland. I have heard the tales about leprechauns and the luck of the Irish!
Other internet sources that I belong to include; facebook, myspace and twitter. The whole blog thing is very new to me.
The Tower Bridge in London, England is a place that I have been to. I went in March 2009 and fell in love with the city. The bridge holds a lot of history.
A website that I frequently visit is www.trakstar.com. The site offers a lot of teaching lesson ideas for teachers and introduction to curriculum topics. As an education major I use this website a lot.
I love this youtube video because it is so funny. Growing up in Minnesota, Herb Brooks was a local hero. For those of you who don't know him, he was the hockey coach for the University of Minnesota for many years and he also was the coach for team USA in the 1980 Olympics. The little kid in the video is imitating Herb Brook's speech from the movie Miracle. They movie is about how Herb Brooks led the USA hockey team to win the gold in the 1980 Olympics.
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