Keep Fighting!

To go back briefly to the topic of Zombies, as we finish up reviewing those essays; I recently remembered a quote:
E.E. Cummings wrote: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

Keep fighting, ARTS ONE!

Water, Water everywhere!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner obviously has a lot of content to analyze, but to do so extensively would take too many hours. So, instead, I will focus on the points which interest me most.

As I was reading the poem, my attention was drawn to the attention Coleridge gives to the Albatross. There is legend that the albatross represents the soul of drowned sailors in addition to being the driving force of the winds. With this in mind, Coleridge’s lines take on a meaning beyond just an anecdote concerning the birds.

“At Length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name”

After this point in the poem, the Albatross begins to follow the ship around wherever it sailed, which of course, can be read in such a way that the souls of drowned sailors were haunting the ship. I say “haunting” deliberately because the narrator feels the need to shoot the Albatross at the end of Part 1 of the poem, and once the Albatross is shot, the sun rises, which usually symbolizes positive aspects in poetry:

“The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!”

Immediately after they establish that everything is fine and good after shooting the bird, the narrator makes a confession:

“And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ‘em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun purist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
‘Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.”

Outwardly, and to the other sailors, the death of the Albatross was justified and the proper thing to do, but the narrator’s doubts on the matter, in going with the legend, seem to suggest that by killing the Albatross, he wasn’t paying proper respects to the fallen sailors, and that there would be consequences to his actions, which, of course, there are.  (Also note that the two stanzas where the narrator expresses regret are lengthened by two lines each, giving them emphasis and reiterating their importance – the meter is disrupted here to lengthen these two stanzas, which would not have been done lightly, if meter was indeed so important to these poets!)

After the narrator’s regret is expressed, the second part of the legend takes effect: The Albatross is responsible for providing favourable wind, and the next major event in the poem is that the sails drop, and the ship stops moving for a few days due to lack of wind, which brings me to my favourite lines in this poem, not only for them being part of a lovely little inside joke with my friends, but also because I think they are quite well constructed!

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”

Following these beautifully crafted lines, terrible misfortunes continue to befall the crew of the sailing ship, part two ends as follows:

“Ah! well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”

Here, read that the sailor feels the weight of all the dead souls of drowned sailors on his shoulders as a burden to bear, taken upon himself for his actions of shooting the albatross. Although, at this point, I should think that he also feels the weight of all the souls of the living on the ship who are probably near death due to the misfortunes that the mariner supposedly caused by shooting the Albatross in the first place… Interestingly enough, once the sailor accepts the responsibility as his metaphorical cross to bear, something else big happens: Death approaches, and my prediction rings true: the living crew begins to drop dead as a consequence of the one sailor’s actions. Interestingly to this particular small analysis, Coleridge notes the following:

“The souls did from their bodies fly, -
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!”

Alone, and feeling bad about his actions, part four ends with the following:

“The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

At this point, the Albatross doesn’t only represent the drowned souls and the favourable winds, but it is used by Coleridge to include certain values into the anecdote like religion and forgiveness and regret to keep piling the layers of meaning of the Albatross.

Back to the narrative of the poem though, once the Albatross falls from his neck, the dead sailors start to rise. Here in the poem enters the idea of the savage torpor, which I’m not going to talk about except in terms of my Albatross examination. The image of the dead crew coming back as a ghost crew seems to me to be an attempt to show their souls. In fact, these souls eventually echo back to the sailor his own regret at killing the “harmless Albatross” where the living crew had celebrated it. The sailor’s penance is his regret and the blood on his hands from killing the Albatross, and the idea that he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to make things right again.

Interestingly, the narrator finds his peace in telling the story, which makes the anecdotal nature of this poem quite effective. And the Albatross legend thing is also very cool. 

Northanger Abbey: An Uncanny Novel

As I was reading Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, I was struck by its similarities to Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance. What made this more interesting is that Austin’s characters do note in the novel that they have enjoyed reading Radcliffe, which leads me to believe that the similarity between the two novels was intentional. The novels share somewhat of a similar plot, but also setting, character profiles, and themes.

The plot is similar in that both feature a love triangle where the main character is running away from and towards one gentleman over the other. In the case of Northanger Abbey, Catherine is running away from Mr. Thorpe in pursuit of Mr. Tilney. Radcliffe’s Julia and Austin’s Catherine also share some character traits in that they both are…what’s the word? Immature? Julia faints often for no apparent reason, and Catherine is entirely upset over her candle going out, and can hardly bear being more than a couple of paces from the chest in her room once she notices it. Both stories take place in a gothic setting: Radcliffe’s in Sicilian castles, and Austen’s at Northanger Abbey.

What’s most interesting to me is how both the authors demonstrate the uncanny. Using Freud’s definition, “the uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression”. As the “uncanny” is assuredly linked with gothic sublimity, which is no doubt a main theme of the novel, aspects of the uncanny are present within the Austen’s novel.

Like A Sicilian Romance, the mother figure in Austen’s Northanger Abbey can be analyzed in relation to the uncanny. In fact, when Catherine suspects General Tilney of murdering his wife, the only other possibility that comes to her mind is that General Tilney has instead suppressed his wife and must give her food nightly; a situation which exactly mirrors that of A Sicilian Romance (likely because Catherine has read the book). In this way, Mrs. Tilney is seen to embody the uncanny in the same way that the mother figure does in Radcliffe’s novel, which is difficult to explain if you haven’t read Radcliffe’s novel. In what other ways is Mrs. Tilney used to represent the uncanny aspects of Austen’s novel? How do Catherine’s actions also represent the uncanny?

What is the significance of Austen’s novel being a remaking of Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance? Does it bear resemblance only because they are both gothic novels, or does the similarity extend beyond their respective genres?

Could Austen convey what she wanted to convey with Northanger Abbey using a different genre? To what extent does the Gothic genre contribute or inhibit Jane Austen’s story?

Another interesting take on this novel is the ways in which reading novels influences our opinions and ways of viewing the world around us. Catherine, after having read Radcliffe’s novels, among other gothics, began to think about her world as if it was set in a gothic novel itself. She made assumptions and inquiries reminiscent of the events of A Sicilian Romance, which ended up being quite an embarrassment for her. Reading so much, Catherine was less able to separate fiction from reality. To what extent does reading or watching television in our modern age affect how we see the world? Is the effect a positive, negative, or neutral one? Does awareness of the effects of fiction affect our engagement in it?

I found the morals!

I found the morals!
"Morality began to be introduced into human actions..." (Rousseau 115)

Not that I wanted to focus on them in this post, but I find that Rousseau speaks more of morals than Hobbes did in Leviathan…

What most interested me in Rousseau was the concept of dependence. Rousseau treats dependence as an origin of inequality. Interesting things Rousseau says about dependence:

·         Makes people weak – lose ability to defend oneself

·         Leads to creation of family groups which become like little states (we all know how that turns out…)

·         Leads to inequality as man begins to measure himself against others rather than himself

·         Leads to unhappiness in the same manner

·         Led to slavery

Since a child depends on his/her mother from birth, what does Rousseau then think of children?

Is there any sort of dependence which doesn’t lead to negative results, which Rousseau has overlooked?

To what extent is Rousseau’s view of dependence similar or different from Kant’s view of dependence?

The other thing I wish to speak of is Rousseau’s treatment of women. Although he speaks mostly of men, there are a few lines which indicate the respect he has for women, which is far different from Hobbes: “Lovable and virtuous women of Geneva – the destiny of your sex will always be to govern ours…It was this that women commanded at Sparta, and thus you deserve to command in Geneva.” (Rousseau 67)

Is Rousseau’s view of women consistent throughout his discourse?

How does the idea of women governing over men fit into Rousseau’s ideas on dependence?

The final thing I wish to note is a certain line on page 128 – near the end of Rousseau’s discourse: “The jurists who have solemnly affirmed that the child of a slave will be born a slave have decided, in other words, that a man will not be born a man.” (Rousseau 128)

This idea corresponds with my post on identity from a while back – this statement being about the extent to which family lines determine identity.  The judge in the statement is of the mind that family determines identity to a great extent, but Rousseau seems to disagree – to have family be the sole determinant of identity and position is to dehumanize man. Interesting!

Where are the morals?

So I just finished reading from Hobbes. (I see why it’s called Leviathan now!) Although it was difficult to get past the first 40 pages of definitions, there were some things about what Hobbes had to say about commonwealths that struck me.

What most interested me is that Hobbes seems to argue that in the absence of commonwealth, concepts such as justice and the like don’t apply. Hobbes says: “Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice” It’s difficult to explain, but I find myself opposed to that assertion, as I find myself opposed to many other assertions made in the portion of the book that I’ve read.

I guess what I’m wondering is: where are the morals here? What role do morals play in determining justice? I find myself connecting justice and morals in a way that defines “justice” in a little bit of a different way that Hobbes does. I have a hard time separating morals from justice and/or injustice, whereas Hobbes treats them as entirely separate. If I was a wanderer, completely separate from any commonwealth, my actions, according to Hobbes, cannot be unjust, but I still feel as though I would view them as unjust due to morals.

One of the other things that struck me, is that Hobbes tends to see issues in black and white, so to speak. There’s either war or peace, justice or injustice, love or hate, honour or dishonour, etc. There seems to be no middle ground in such issues, which is not the way I've seen the world in my experience. I would tend to see a middle ground in a lot of these issues such as war and peace. So, in trying so hard to define the world, does Hobbes overlook a middle ground, or am I seeing a middle ground where it really doesn't exist?

Is Hobbes writing as he does, and using the definitions he does only to describe concepts in relation to commonwealths, or is he trying to also describe the human condition? If so, is he doing it justice? 

Doctor Faustus acted out!

Not satisfied with just READING Doctor Faustus?

Sometimes, reading a play is just not the same as seeing it acted out.
If you're interested, here's a link! It is quite well acted out, so check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cPT-HH198g

What about Haimon?

In Antigone, the one character that seems to be overlooked in our discussion so far is Haimon. Perhaps it is because he doesn’t really dominantly appear until part-way through the play, or perhaps it’s because he’s just not as interesting a character as Antigone or Kreon. Nevertheless, there are some interesting points about Haimon which I would like to bring up.

Haimon seems to be caught between his promised marriage to Antigone (who admits to Ismene that she could never love him for her obsession with death) and his devotion to his father, the ruler Kreon.  Haimon, who only shows up halfway into the play, delivers his first lines to his father, saying: “You [Kreon] direct a course for me with good intentions, and I follow it. I don’t believe marriage is more important to me than you and your good leadership.” (46). This point of view is not consistent with Haimon’s later actions, however, when he kills himself for his love of Antigone, completely betraying his father and the state.

Haimon’s next lines on page 49, however, remind me of Gorgias for some reason… Haimon, after flattering his father, goes on to say: “Please be different this once…It is honorable to learn from honest men.” (49). In this statement, is Haimon implying that Kreon is not honorable? What implications does/could this have for Haimon? In the following pages, Kreon and Haimon have a disagreement, where Haimon decidedly takes Antigone’s side, thus disobeying and dishonoring his father, who then regards him as “a slave; Property of a woman.” (51). Interesting. Kreon clearly now views Haimon to be an enemy of the state also.

Does Haimon truly stand by Antigone’s actions, or does he only want to disagree with Kreon? Does Haimon have more to lose (i.e. the throne) if he sides with Antigone or Kreon? Do you think Haimon is aware that Antigone has no intention of marrying him when he sides with her against his father and the state? Can Haimon possibly guess that Antigone has a death wish when he's making plans to marry her?

Haimon kills himself in the tomb. The messenger claims that it was out on anger at Kreon, but that can’t have been the only factor. Antigone had also committed suicide, which came as a shock to Haimon. Having dishonored Kreon and lost his only other connection to the throne (Antigone), Haimon kills himself. From his actions, what can we make of Haimon’s character? On one hand, Haimon’s character can be seen as selfish: he only claims to love Antigone and care about the state and morals, but he is really only looking out for self-interests. He agrees with his father ONLY UNTIL he realizes that in agreeing, Antigone will likely die, delaying his ascension to the throne. On the other hand, Haimon, being the only son of Kreon, would likely inherit the throne anyway, once Kreon was dead, so killing himself after Antigone was dead could not have been his childish reaction to losing the throne. He simply pulled a Romeo… only Antigone can't really be compared to Juliet, so that analogy only works from "Romeo's" perspective...unrequited love...

In any case, Haimon is just as interesting a character as any other, albeit a little underdeveloped by Sophocles.

Since Antigone, in contrast, is a very well-studied character, it is interesting to put study Haimon in relation to Antigone. Do Haimon and Antigone ever have an actual conversation? Does Antigone even know that she is to marry Haimon, or does Kreon keep it to himself? It is even more interesting to view the relationship between Haimon and Antigone in light of Butler’s Antigone’s Claim, taking into consideration the character analysis of Antigone.

Thoughts?