Blog Post 12/3-Final Paper

When deciding what text I wanted to write about for the final paper (Curious Case or Persepolis), I looked at what theoretical articles fascinated me most.  I personally enjoyed the article written by Naghibi and O'Malley that discusses Satrapi's familiarization of the "eastern culture" for the "Western audience."  While those comparisons may be interesting, I found their brief reference to Scott McCloud's cartooning theory the most applicable to what I want to write about.  I immediately started to make a connection to the "identity" issue that plaques Satrapi throughout the text to the identity that she places on her drawings, or "cartoons."

So far, I am about half done with my paper.  As I wrote my outline, I was afraid I wouldn't have enough information to discuss in the paper.  Luckily, I realized early that I wouldn't be able to base my whole paper off McCloud's theory of cartooning, so I have been able to incorporate elements of the Naghibi/O'Malley text along with the "Graphic Narrative as a Witness" article as well.

Blog Post 11/26

1a) “I find people confusing….The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words.” (14 Haddon). 

1b) “(Temple Grandin) is now aware of the existence of those social signals.  She can infer them, she says, but she herself cannot perceive them, cannot participate in this magical communication directly, or conceive of the many-leveled, kaleidoscopic states of mind behind it” (197, Zunshine). 

2)         How does the first-person storytelling of Persepolis and The Curious Incident differ to better accommodate the events in the novel?

3)         Reading both Persepolis and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in a row, it is clear that both deviate from common literary storytelling devices.  While both texts uses unconventional devices to tell a story, Persepolis manages to maintain a more “coherent” story throughout the novel.  This is mainly due to the fact that Satrapi allows herself to describe how the other characters, besides her, react to the situations around her.  She is, more or less, aware of her environment to the point where she can aptly describe the situation through picture or text.  With Curious Incident, Mark Haddon’s use of the first person perspective through the eyes of a person with these “difficulties”, ones that often associated with autism, allows this story with a more “narrow” view of the environment this story takes place.

            As I started to find topics for my final paper, Liza Zunshine’s “Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness” provides a “scientific” approach to how autistic people have trouble comprehending fictional stories due to the fact that they are unable to “mind-read” people’s actions.  Zunshine uses Temple Grandin as an example of she was unable to read “social signals”, a problem that the main character, Christopher, often face in the novel.  The novel’s unusual, often cryptic, pace left me in the dark in numerous occasions, mainly due to the fact that Christopher’s retelling of his experiences were often the opposite of what I expected.  Like Persepolis though, both novels dealt with describe minute details that wouldn’t usually be in “ordinary” literary texts.  Persepolis allows the drawings to convey the details, where Curious Incident uses Christopher’s uncanny attention to detail to express these small moments.       

Blog Post 11-12

1a) “The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition.” (Benjamin, Lit Theory, 1236).

1b) “No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger” (Satrapi 142). 

2) How do the historical aspects, or “tradition”, of Perseopolis affected the “uniqueness” of the work?   In other words, why use the graphic novel approach to tell about the Islamic Revolution?

3)         As I read “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, I was having a difficult time connecting it to Persepolis.  Walter Benjamin has a very Marxist approach in his article, someone that Satrapi brings up multiple times throughout the graphic novel.  The idea of how “reproduction” removes an “aura” from work was fascinating, especially when looking at his reasoning behind it.   The idea that the removal of this “uniqueness” is political in nature allowed me to make a connection to Persepolis.  While the graphic novel may be a reproduction, the pictures or drawings, unlike, say photographs of “revolution,” provide a unique approach to the story.

            The graphic novel approach allows Satrapi to use this medium to find the “aura” in tradition.   She is able to explain the brutality and sadness of the Revolution in a simple comic square.  As Satrapi explains the time where she founds her friends’ body in the rubble, the story cuts to a completely black stare, and she says “No scream in the world could relieved my suffering and anger” (142).  This “unique” approach to the story allows the reader to remove the “politicized” nature that a straight-forward story about this situation might bring.  It is merely using the “uniqueness’ of the medium to explain the “historical aspects” of her life in much different life.   Explaining her emotions with a simple black box allows the reader to understand the emotional “traditions?” that this revolution caused, rather than the politicized ones. 

P.S. This post may not make that much sense.  Had a hard time connecting the two.  

Weekly Response 11/5

1a) “Cartooning, he (Scott McCloud) argues, is a way of seeing, not just a way of drawing, so the simplicification of characters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool.” (Naghibi 228).

1b) “And this is a class photo.  I’m sitting on the far left so you don’t see me.” (Satrapi 3). 

2) How do the use of the graphic novel conventions and its use of “cartooning” to tell the story of Persepolis play in part with the story’s theme of “identity”?

3)         Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis can be seen as a “familiar” coming-of-age story where “identity” plays a crucial part in the protagonist’s quest.  Yet, the story takes place in a revolutionary Iran, which is far from the “coming-of-age” style.  Many “English” teenagers would find this to be interesting, but would have a hard time relating themselves to this aspect of the story.  If Persepolis was written in a traditional novel approach, the reader would most likely have a disconnect from the main protagonist, because the written words provide a story of an “other”, not themselves.  Naghibi relates to McCloud’s saying: “When you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face- you see it as the face of another but when you enter the world of a cartoon- you see yourself” (228).  Just like a photo or realistic drawing, text provides some “relatability” for the reader, but Satrapi’s “cartooning” illustrations provides the reader to put themselves in her shoes and to relate with her struggle with identity.  Satrapi immediately enters her story with an identity crisis by stating the readers “don’t see me” in a class photo.

            Yet, why does Satarpi use the “cartooning” approach to tell her story?  Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan discusses the power of “English” literature on a world scale, by saying “It is (English) also, Paul Gilroy would argue, transgeographical, a culture without national boundaries that thrives on a lateral connections and syncretism, a culture where in-betweenness replaces identity as the defining trope of culture production (1074).  While Persepolis was translated from French, the idea that with English, “in-betweenness” replaces “identity” is a very interesting concept.  It can be seen that with Persepolis, Satrapi knows that language brings a lack of “identity”. In order to connect on a “transgeographical” level, illustrations, or “cartooning” will provide the “identity” for readers from different continents and countries to fully understand how this coming-of-age story can relate to their own personal struggles with “identity”.  

Blog Post 10/29- "Hyper and Deep Attention" + Digital Media Project

Theory Quote: “The contrast in the two cognitive modes may be captured in an image: picture a college sophomore, deep in Pride and Prejudice, with her legs draped over an easy chair, oblivious to her ten year-old brother sitting in front of a console, jamming on a joystick while he plays Grand Theft Auto.” (Hayles)

            As a future high school educator, one of main responsibility in teaching English is having the students be “connected” to the literature.  I have learned that most students need a reason why they have to read a certain text, or the importance of the book is lost on them.  The students need motivation to “concentrate” on why they need to read a certain assignment.   The best approach is having the students be connected to the text in a “personal” setting is by having the students connecting the text to their personal lives.

            The quote from “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes” captures the increasing prevalence of the “hyper attention” in children and how teachers must “alter” their teaching abilities to better suit these needs.  While the article does touch on the awareness of ADHD and ADD in our society, our generation’s reliability to media plays a very important part on “concentrating for a connection”.   As I found examples for the “Digital Media Project”, I would try to find “media” that I could use in the classroom to show how different types of media can portray the same story.  While I found many examples to fit this criteria, I was fascinated by ones that strayed from the original literary text.  I may be going too far off topic here, but I discovered a movie called “Gnomeo and Juliet”, which was an animated movie telling the story of Romeo and Juliet but with talking garden gnomes.  I didn’t watch the movie, but I think it’s safe to say that neither of main characters die a tragic death.  What fascinated me the most though, is how children will be able to make a personal connection to the plot?  Children might be interested in it because it is colorful, but was it really necessary for this movie to be made?  I struggled to find an answer to this question, connecting the “fragileness” of the gnomes to the “fragile” nature of Shakespeare’s characters (deep), but the only answer I was firmly set upon was: they did it for the money. 

Weekly Response 10/22-Second Paper Ideas

            As I mentioned in my previous blog posts, I am fascinated with Jane Austen’s use of “parody” and “satire” in Pride and Prejudice.  Her constant use of minor characters, along with her exaggerations of class “roles” perfectly fit into this construction of “parodying” social and literature norms.  For my second paper, I am planning on connecting Woloch’s brief descriptions of “parody” along with the claims in the  “Class” article to the representation of  these uses in Pride and Prejudice and how looking at this novel in a “satirical” sense provides a much deeper understanding of what Austen is trying to accomplish with these characters. 

            As I was reading the excerpts from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it was very clear to me (and probably most readers) that the author was “parodying” Austen’s literary structure and story-telling devices.   Author Seth Grahame Smith exposes the satirical nature of Austen’s famous text about romance and class structure and uses “humor” and “parody” to help readers enjoy the original text even more.  and  While this may be an “extreme” form of satire, especially involving zombies, the humor comes from the reader’s familiarity with the norms expected from Austen’s work and the unexpected nature that two such different literary genres would combine successfully.  As I begin to write my paper, I need to flesh out a better understanding of why Austen wants the audience to see the “satire” in her work and how different (and satirical)  versions of this text are connected to the Austen’s own “self-satire”.

Weekly Response-10/15

Weekly Response 10/15/12
1a) In Jane Austen’s world, human worth is to be judged by standards better and more enduring than social status; but social status is always relevant…The importance assigned to class distinction is the source for much of her comedy and her irony, as of her social status” (McMaster 129)
1b) “I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been in much love...were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance.” (Pride and Prejudice, Volume 2, Chapter 3).
2) Can Jane Austen’s descriptions and attitudes to social class and rank be considered as “parody” or “satire”?  If so, how is this “comedic” approach beneficial to the story compared to a straight-forward dramatic tale?
3) In last week’s literary theory article, Woloch described Austen’s overuse of minor characters as her own version of a “parody”.  Parody can be described as a trope that skewers or disassembles perceived norms, which in this case, would be the literary expectation that the story will mainly focus on the protagonist.  Yet, this week’s article discussed how Austen’s viewed “class rank” as misguided but important.  The expectation that with higher class equals means a more “prestigious” personality is mocked in Pride and Prejudice, with Austen commonly using “higher class” characters as sources of foolishness and snobbery.
Elizabeth’s passage about Wickman and her “comparative insignificance” can be seen as “satire” in hindsight.  If Austen’s novel awarded high-nobility individuals with the personality they deserve, the conflict would cease to exist.  Elizabeth’s battle with her “insignificance” allows her to see the “higher-class” individuals with “parody”, and as the protagonist, she is able to “rise above” these individuals and their notions of lower-class individuals, such as Mr. Collins, Miss Bingley, Lady Catherine, etc.  While adding a “comedic” light onto this conflict may seem unwarranted, Austen develops a consistency to how the characters will act based on their class standings.

Blog Post 10/8

1a) “…as Tony Tanner writes, to show ‘the relief with which an intricate person seeks out some solitude away from the miseries which can be caused by the constant company of more limited minds’” (Woloch 46).

1b) “Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half as Jane, nor half so good humored as Lydia.  But you are always giving her preference.”

2) How does the characterization of the minor characters, such as Elizabeth’s sisters, and their “limited minds” actually benefit the story arc of Elizabeth?  Why does Austen’s use competition (one vs many) create a narrative difference between Elizabeth and her sisters?

3) The first time the reader hears about Elizabeth, Mr. Bennett compares her positively to the other Bennett girls, and Mrs. Bennett scolds him for creating such a “competition” between the sisters. As I read through Pride and Prejudice, the idea of “competition” rarely came to my mind.  The use of “comparison”, though, was embedded due to our discussion in class on this subject.  The minor character’s “limited minds” in the novel were definitely compared to Elizabeth’s actions.  Knowing that Elizabeth is the protagonist allowed me to see these comparisons on the “Elizabeth-side” mainly because her motives are much more fleshed out and realized than Jane and Elizabeth’s “lustful” (too harsh of word?) younger sisters.  Woloch describes that the “protagonist needs a contrast here to be fully individualized.”  Elizabeth’s hesitation of marriage and her drawn-back demeanor sets her apart from the other minor characters in the play.

            Yet, Austen’s over-reliance on the minor characters and their motives (very one-dimensional), or as Woloch calls it a “parody”, may make a reader feel overwhelmed by the constant contrasts between them and Elizabeth.  Yet, the “one vs. many” approach to the novel creates a narrative difference between Elizabeth (one) and her sisters (many), which provides the reader to comprehensively understand why the motives of Elizabeth will eventually provide a positive ending.  The characters’ constant competition between themselves provides the distinction that Elizabeth’s happy ending will “win”.   

Weekly Response 10-1

1a) “…the woman writer acknowledges with pain, confusion, and anger that what she sees in the mirror is usually a male construct, the “pure gold baby” of male brains, a glittering and wholly artificial child.”- (Gilbert and Gubar 813).

1b) “Affection of Candour is common enough;-one meets its everywhere.  But to be candid without ostentation or design-to take the good of every body’s character and make it still better, and says nothing of the bad-belongs to you alone.” (Austen 275).   

2) Does the “angel/monster” opposition occur in Pride and Prejudice in ways that favor the extremes? In other words, does evilness have to be connected to the “monster” or are there other traits that are considered “monster”?

3)  As I was reading Gilbert and Gubar’s literary theory, I was surprised at how “dark” the material was.  The idea of women being able to constitute both sides of the “moral spectrum” whether it was “angel” or “monster” quite intrigued me.  I was reminded of Shakespeare’s treatment of Desmondia in Othello, where Desmondia “switched” between angel and monster in Othello’s eye.  Yet, as I was reading this article, I was having problems facing the “monster” side when it came to Pride and Prejudice.  There were multiple examples of the “angelic” women in Jane Austen’s novel, in which Gilbert and Gubar describe angelic characteristics as “the arts of pleasing men…or proper acts of a lady” (816).

            Gilbert and Gubar state that women cannot be successful writers if they do not “kill” stereotypes that “male-defined masks” put on them.  I have never read any Jane Austen’s novels before (I know), so reading the first volume with their article in mind allowed to respect the arguments they were making.  Yet, the “evilness” of the monster metaphor still stuck to me as being a bit harsh.  I really couldn’t connect any of the female characters to this side.  Sure, there were many characters who weren’t the “most” proper.  As I flipped through the act again, I ran across the conversation between Jane and Elizabeth after the first ball.  Jane seems to be transfixed on how perfect everything was at the ball and how Mr. Bingley was “just a young man ought to be”, and acting in a very angelic-like nature, where Elizabeth complains Mr. Bingley’s sisters and criticizes Jane’s ability to be so nice.  Elizabeth does play off Jane’s gleefulness and critiques her angelic-like behavior.  It struck me that in the first act, Elizabeth’s reluctance to various angelic-like characteristics can be seen from a “monster” perspective.  Not because she is “evil”, but because she is acting in the opposite nature of her “angelic” counterparts.  Her relationship with Darcy and Collins are based on them adapting to her “non-angelic” side.  

Weekly Response 9/24

1a)       “The transformation of Othello, the “Moor of Venice,” from a virtuous lover and Christian soldier to an enraged murder may be read in the context of early modern conversion, or “turning,” with particular attention to the sense of conversion as a sensual, sexual transgression” (Vitkus 154).

1b)        “Ay, let her not rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live! No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.” (Othello 4.1.176-78). 

2)         During the time of Shakespeare, England was extremely worried about the Ottoman Turks and their power to convert people.  How does conversion, religious or otherwise, play a part in Othello’s demise?

3)         Daniel J. Vitkus’ “Turning Turk in Othello” shows how fear was embedded in the audience during the time Othello was written.  The constant threat of Turk attacks and their ability to convert Christians allowed them to make connections between the events in Othello and their notions about Turks and other groups that could harm their Protestant religion.  Vitkus states that Othello’s view of Desmondia from “wife” to “whore” is linked to the racial idea of “turning Turk” (146). 

The idea of “converting” plays a big part in Othello’s demise, mainly due to his “turn” to downfall and his accusations of other characters “turning”.  The fear of “converting” to something much more evil is echoed in the play with Iago pushing Othello to turn due to “sexual transgressions”.  As Desmondia is incorrectly perceived to be a “whore” in Othello’s eyes, his conversion to “murder” can be seen as religious in nature.  Vitkus recants how writers of this era would often include stories of prostitutes and conversion to religious betterment.   As Othello states his heart “turned” to stone due to Desmondia’s “whore” actions, the audience can see the foolishness of him putting the blame on Desmondia.  His murder shows the collapse of a proper conversion and to remind the audience of how preconceived notions of outside forces could affect their ability to understand a greater threat.  The idea of “turning” in this play invokes that once you “turn”, you can never go back.  

Weekly Response 9/17

1) It (evasion from race) is further complicated by the fact that the habit of ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture.  To notice is to recognize an already discredited difference (Morrison 1008). 

1a) “Haply for I am black, And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have,” (Othello Act 3, Scene 3-265).

2) Does Othello’s ethnicity play a part into his eventual demise and the judgment of the characters around him?

3) The quote “Haply for I am black” is (I could be incorrect) the only time Othello brings up his ethnicity to the audience.  Othello brings his ethnicity up in a “laundry list” of why Desmondia may not love him anymore. Personally, I never saw “race” as playing a big part in Shakespeare’s tragic plot.  Iago seems to have other motivations behind the fall of Othello than simply because he is “black”.  Yet, as I read Toni Morrison’s “Playing in the Dark”, I started to consider if “race” was being kindly  avoided in Othello.

            Toni Morrison believes that our current literary history in America is not giving enough credit to how much of an impact Africans had on the culture.  Instead, literature is mainly influenced from a white males’ perspective.  After reading Toni Morrison’s article, I began to realize how little “race” played a part in the play’s plot.  I tried to remember times in the play where Othello’s ethnicity was brought up, but I only found a few “quibs” from Iago.  I started to ponder the idea that Iago wanted vengeance on Othello because of his race, but could find very little claims to prove it.  This left me somewhat disheartened because I thought I would be able to connect the two texts together for this close reading.  I concluded that Othello’s demise was based on the fact that Shakespeare wanted a “massive” tragedy to occur and maybe ignoring race was, as Morrison called it, “a liberal gesture”.  

Weekly Response 9/10

1a) “To degrade is to bury, to sow, and to kill simultaneously, in order to bring forth something more and better” (Bakhtin 688).

1b) “The Nymph, tho’ in this mangled Phlight, Must ev’ry Morn her Limbs unite.  But how shall I describe her arts To recollect the scatter’d Parts? Or shew the Angush, Toil and Pain, Of gath’ring up herself again?” (Swift, A Young Nymph Goes to Bed 65-70).

2) Does Swift bring on the “degradation” of the female character in the poem or is he trying to “bring forth” an accurate account of her profession?

3)         Mikhail Bakhtin describes “degradation” in Medieval times as not only being a “negative aspect” but also a “regenerating” one, comparing to the reproductive powers of the lower stratum of the body (which strikes me as odd).    He goes on to criticize modern text because it “has a solely negative character and is deprived of regenerating ambivalence.”  The poem “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” can be seen in a very degrading light.  The first time I read it, I found it to be somewhat disturbing, especially because Swift goes into such great detail about what the main female character does for her profession.  Swift’s use of word choices and the structure of his repetitious descriptions of the prostitute lifestyle give the poem a negative tone.

 After reading Swift’s analysis on “degradation”, I tried to find a moment of “regeneration” in the poem.  It proved to be quite difficult.  I just assumed that this poem was one of the “negative” modern texts that Bakhtin was talking about.    I then realized the “regeneration” doesn’t have revelatory or “life-changing”.  The “regeneration” of the main character was waking up and “gath’ring up herself again”.  The items she uses to look “proper” (not sure if that’s the best word), allows herself to start new again.  This “regeneration” isn’t a positive one, but it shows how she “kills” herself every night, only to “renew” herself the next morning.

Weekly Response 9/3

1a)       “Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important…” (Shklovsky 16).

1b)       “Confusion, like energy, is neither created nor destroyed.  It never vanishes.  It merely changes forms” (Andrews 28).

2)         How does theoretical analysis of literature cause objects or ideas to be “unfamiliar”?

3)         As being fairly new to the complex nature of “literary theory”, the idea of formalism can be a hard topic to fully comprehend.  When analyzing a text, it is easy to fall back on mundane explanations, such as the author’s motives or the period when the text was written.  These narrow perspectives allow only a very limited view on what the text really means.  Shklovsky describes how “art” can make common objects that are well known to become something “unfamiliar”.  How we perceive art depends on how open we are to “unfamiliarity”. 

            The quote I selected from the Dear Professor poems deals with the comparison of “confusion” and “energy”.  One can perceive that these poems deal with (somewhat) common classroom problems from a student’s perspective.  As a college student, I can easily relate to the “object” of these poems, yet my understanding of the “artfulness” of the object is where the confusion sets in.  After re-reading the poems, I tried searching for the “unfamiliarity” of these poems, or as I saw it, a “double meaning”.  As I analyzed the text further, I moved away from this “double meaning” search and considered how my confusion of the “artfulness” of these poems was affecting my ability to fully understand them.  I then realized that these poems have much more complex meaning than just a student’s troubles; it explains the troubles of everyone.  The poems deal with the “unfamiliarity” of life’s problems, such as gender differences, communication, and “proof”.  As I saw these poems in this context, my confusion shifted over to certain poems and what the “unfamiliarity” was for them.  I learned that “confusion” will always be by your side when you are analyzing a text.  Yet, confusion is not a bad quality; it keeps us searching for the “unfamiliarity” that art throws upon us.