Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MODERNISM
The Modern Tradition- Backgrounds of Modern
Literature
Modernism refers to sth INTIMATE, ELUSIVE, NOT
OBJECTIVE and easily ANALYZED. The modern is NOT
like the reassuring landscape of the past, open and readable
everywhere. It is at once more IMMEDIATE and OBSCURE,
a MOOD IMPATIENCE with anachronisms, a DIFFUSE
FEELING of DIFFERENCE. One characteristic of works we
call modern is that they positively insist on a GENERAL
FRAME of REFERENCE WITHIN and BEYOND
themselves. Modernism supplies some sort of HISTORICAL
DISCONTINUITY, either liberation from INHERITED
PATTERNS or DEPRIVATION and DISINHERITANCE.
Trilling singles out a radically anti-cultural bias as the most
important attitude of the modern imagination. Modern
literature has elevated individual existence over social man,
UNCONSCIOUS FEELING over self-conscious perception,
passion and will over intellectual and systematic morals,
DYNAMIC VISION over the static image, DENSE
ACTUALITY over practical reality. It has been that H. James
called imagination of disaster.
The personal urgency of the modern masters is a sense of
LOSS, ALIENATION, DESPAIR. These are the two faces of
the modern: FREEDOM and DEPRIVATION, LIVING
PRESENT and DEAD PAST.
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Tragedy- a dialectical relation between Dionysian (nonethical energy) and Apollonian standing for our urges,
sexuality, passion, desire and turbulent emotions. Apollonian
stands for our reason and it is predominant principle today.
Because this balance has been lost, there is a danger that a
suppressed portion of ourselves can burst in a destructive way.
If we put some elements on the right side and those not
acceptable for the society on the left there must be a balance,
but only if these two are equal. If we push much on this dark
part, there is a loss of balance and we flip to the other side. We
can talk about the outburst or revenge of the suppressed
energies.
Trilling- Freud: Within and Beyond Culture
Trilling maintains that modern culture gives us a very narrow
concept of the self. It gives us an inadequate concept of the
self. Although modern culture gives high importance to an
individual it does not have accurate knowledge of the self,
what his general needs are. The self is usually identified with
the intellect. The danger lies in the fact that the intellect is not
connected with the rest of the world. It is detached and
observes the rest of the world as an object. However, if we
approach the world by imagination, feelings, Eros, it will give
us a sense of belonging. So, it is important to restore this half
of our being that connects us to the world. If we are not
connected with the world, we can easily become destroyed,
because intellect is able of destroying anything which is not
the self. Culture forces an individual to accept this wrong,
narrow concept of the self. In the totalitarian society it is open
oppression, in the other type of society it is coercion- you are
seduced into accepting this narrow concept.
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struggle with it but they did their best to ignore it, to keep their
imagination free of it. they were considered maladjusted
persons.
Rimbaud- 2nd response to the outer world- to struggle with the
world and survive but to survive as sth other than a poet.
The poet must be a visionary and he makes himself a visionary
through derangement of all the senses. He arrives to the
unknown because he has cultivated his soul. He has indulged
in all kinds of perverted activities in order to penetrate to that
layer of being. He discovered it and the result was One
reason in hell and Illuminations.
I am another- he didnt want to watch through culturally
colored glasses.
I am a nigger, a beast- return to his biological, irrational
soul.
No more wordsdance- he gives up language because it
was contaminated. Biological beings cannot be expressed in
words, but gestures.
He planned an escape from European reality by more effective
means than self-hallucination. He felt that in spite of his
poetry he couldnt assure the kind of life he wanted to live so
he left Europe. he rejected Europe altogether its society, ideas
and even the sensibility that literature supplied. He chose the
life of action and a more primitive civilization in contrast to
Axel who chose pure contemplation. You have to combine
these opposites: action and contemplation/imagination, a
public person and inner self in order to live in this society.
Ultimately, the oscillation between reason and imagination
must cease.
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*Scientific vs. poetic statements. The use of pseudostatements help us organize our urges. They give us a sort of
meaning- pseudo-statements which refer to religion, myths.
They also deal with goal in life, god, and soul. Richards- the
danger of this civilization is in Platonic impulse. We dont
believe in those states anymore. We cant organize our inner
life upon scientific statements.
*Neutralization of nature: both inner and outer nature. We
have lost that emotional contact with nature. We have lost the
basis of our life and became groundless- a thirst for a life
giving water. It should be sth spiritual- a need for spiritual
refreshment. How does he explain our state of being? There
are some exceptions. There is sth. missing between our
intellect and our inner being. Our urges nowadays have only
biological justification. There is no deep meaning. According
to Richards we cannot have a pure knowledge. We have
always the need to moralize our needs according to our hopes.
Love poetry gives more comprehensive nature than
psychoanalysis. This is how he justifies these pseudostatements.
I.A. Richards- Pseudo-statements
He makes a distinction between science and literature by
making a distinction between units by which they operate.
Science operates with proper statements- referential
statements which have their reference in the world, their truth
depends on the correspondence with the world outside. Those
statements are verifiable and they offer us objective
knowledge as science establishes facts and deals with factual
reality. It replies to the question How? These statements are
no doubt true, but they are not sufficient. On the other hand,
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Men are not only biological beings, but spiritual ones as well
and they need meaning spiritual goal. Verifiable scientific
knowledge cannot provide us with the purpose. So,
justification of any attitude lies not in the object (verifiable)
but in itself. The imaginative life is its own justification.
T.S.Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
All these people preserved tradition. Looking back, they
identify the best poetry as metaphorical. Eliot is the most
conservative. He was very contradictive he is anti-romantic,
classicist and royalist. In religion he was a catholic and in art
he was a classicist. In all these choice he repudiated the
individual option.
He claims there is a self that is generic- possessive part. Ego is
motivated by the desire to acquire things (food, sex, shelter).
This generic part has an acquisitive relation to its community.
This is insignificant self. There is also significant self-spiritual
reality beyond the social. We are all in the prison of our ego
and cant get out. You become significant through
transhumanization. We must become impersonal by
developing historical sense. Tradition for him is the living one.
We cant live in the vacuum of the present. Turn back to the
past to see how valid it is. He bended himself to the dead
tradition. He was against the dissociation of sensibility. He
blames the Romantics for their insignificant emotions such as
self-pity. Metaphysical poetry most successfully achieves that
unified sensibility.
T.S.Eliot-Tradition and the Individual Talent- Eliot was
keen on tradition. His idea is transcending that egoistical self
and reaching the whole self. It is called transhumanization.
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this essay Althuser says that the real art is not ranked among
the ideologies. Art doesnt replace knowledge but stands in a
specific relationship with knowledge. Art has the ability to
make us see, perceive, feel sth which allude reality. It makes
us see, perceive and feel the ideology from which it is born,
from which it detaches itself as art, and which it alludes.
Ideology slides into human existence, therefore the ideology in
great novels appears as the lived experience of individuals.
It helps us to distance ourselves from ideology and perceive it.
both art and science have the same objects of interest, but the
difference lies in the specific form in which they give us the
same object in quite different ways: art in the form of seeing,
perceiving and feeling; science in the form of knowledge.
Science makes us penetrate the mechanisms of ideology and
defines the means by which the effects nay be transformed.
Art makes us see conclusions without premises, whereas
knowledge makes us penetrate into the mechanism which
produces the conclusions out of the premises.
Althuser- All of these theorists (Wilson, Leavis, and Lukacs)
believed that the writers inside can convey knowledge, get
into the society. They have a kind of faith in the personal
vision of the author. Althuser does not have this faith. He
thinks that writer is not capable of transmitting knowledge. He
is just like other persons and we are all brain-washed by
ideology. We are all constructed, shaped by ideology. The
writer is limited by ideology. However, by reading literature,
we still manage to understand smth about society. But this is
not thanks to the conscious wisdom of the author. This is not
the merit of the author. Althuser calls it distantion- aesthetic
effect. Literature enables us, gives us some distance from
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abstract. This presence of the abstract is alternative- traitsspecial category- operates on a temporal level. The process is
endless. Another interpretation- lg.- a never ending
chain(znacenje i presijavanje)- creating the illusion of
meaning. The real meaning never arises. The meaning is never
present, nor completely absent. Deconstruction can be used
creatively. It can deconstruct people like Hitler. It is good to
doubt about absolute truth. For Derrida this is not the case. He
simply believes that all thinkers cannot say what they mean,
and cannot mean what they say. Lg. is totally unstable, no way
for us ever to know any kind of truth about the world, about
ourselves. This radicalism turns against his method. It turns
out that everything has been the same. Any lg. no need to
compare, judge and choose. This method turned against those
who were critics of western culture- unselectively
deconstructed people who criticized it. Nobody, Rousseau
included, can say anything with any certainty- to disqualify
any attempt to look back upon past traditions and to connect it
to our culture. Every lg. is like that- binary opposition
resolved by violent deconstruction is necessity. Everything has
always been the same. Derrida- phone-centric- speech is more
authentic, immediately present- not, so he says. Writing
proceeds speech- structuralizing the exclusion of certain thing
in order the meaning can be identified. In that sense, speech is
no longer primary. Illusion that speech connected those people
to nature. All lgs. equally estrange us. Derrida makes ethical
thinking impossible. Judgments cannot be made because
everything has been the same. Choice is out of place. He
deprives man of choice. The only ethics that he does
appreciate is free play- the multiplicity of interpretations none
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the great mother. They present the spiritual guide in us. And,
in the end there is self- the whole being- the road to the centre
of our soul. Self occurs in the dreams in the shape of Mondale.
(ego/personal- shadow- anima/animus- wise old man/ great
mother- self).
Jungs view on art/poet
He distinguishes two modes of artistic expression (writing):
1. Psychological art- self-explanatory, talks about what is
familiar everyday, un-shocking. It deals from the materials
drawn from the realm of human consciousness. The poet gives
an interpretation and illumination of the contents of
consciousness. The experience as well as its artistic expression
belong to the realm of understandable.
2. Visionary art- is a correction, revision of narrow, one-sided
concept of reality. It demands interpretation of the artists
vision which even the artist himself cannot understand in a
rational way. With the visionary modes of writing, the
experience is no longer familiar. It derives from the hinterland
(background) of mans mind and is primordial experience
which surpasses mans understanding. It demands
explanations and interpretations. It reminds us of nothing of
everyday human life but rather of dreams, nightmares, fears.
The primordial experience is the source of mans creativity. It
requires mythological imagery to give it form. That which
appears in vision is the collective unconscious (CU)- a
certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity.
Whenever the CU becomes a living experience and is brought
to being upon the conscious outlook of an age, this event is a
creative act which is of importance to anyone living in that
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can never mean what we say nor say what we mean. Meaning
is never that and never there. Binary opposition:
Speech/Writing. He tended to favor speech believing that
writing is just a supplement. We believe that in speech the
meaning is present, immediate, closer to the speaker and
listener. Writing is open to various interpretations; its not as
original as speech. For Derrida, writing always precedes
speech, though not in its graphic form. In order to think sth, to
say sth we have to use signs arranged by certain rules and
norms which have to precede any thought, language in order
for it to have meaning. A Paradox- he creates binary
opposition although all the time he wants to deconstruct them.
His theory is not really liberating, not valid because he refuses
to conceive, as a kind of myth, language in which binary
opposition would be reconciled. Derrida criticizes LeviStrauss, who uses the opposition nature/culture, which for
Derrida doesnt exist. (incest prohibition, both natural and
cultural). Derrida has for his purpose to disqualify LeviStrausss humanism, ethics, nostalgia about the past, sense of
values. He reduces all ends of minds, all kinds of language, all
kinds of myths to one and the same pattern, so there is no
choice, no comparison, no presence, no ethics. There is no
need to feel guilty for the primitive tribes, no need to look
back into the past because language, structure is always the
same and binary oppositions are inescapable. We should learn
to understand the world as having no meaning, we should
enjoy in such a world without guilt, remorse, fault. The only
alternative he offers is freeplay, free from any truth and guilt
of sense of identity and thus of responsibility, of any sense of
guilt or what our culture has done to other cultures. Derrida is
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of the opposite sex. Boy abandons his incestuous desire for the
mother because of the fathers threat of castration. He adjusts
himself to the reality principle, submits to the father,
detaches himself from the mother. The boy makes peace with
his father, identifies with him, and is thus introduced into the
symbolic role of manhood. Surmounting his Oedipus complex,
the boy has driven his forbidden desires underground into the
unconscious. This is not a place that was ready and waiting to
receive such desire, it is opened up by this act of primary
repression. If the boy is unable to overcome the Oedipus
complex successfully, he may privilege the image of his
mother above all other women, which for Freud may lead to
homosexuality. The girl, perceiving that he is inferior because
castrated turns from her similarly castrated mother to the
project of seducing her father. But since this project is
doomed, she must turn back to her mother, identify with her,
assume her feminine gender role and consciously substitute
for the penis she envies but can never possess a baby, which
she desires to receive from the father. Oedipus complex is a
structure of relations by which we come to be the men and
women that we are. It signals the tradition from the pleasure
principle to the reality principle, from the enclosure of the
family to society at large, from nature to culture. For Freud,
the Oedipus complex is the beginnings of morality,
conscience, law and all norms of social and religious authority.
By the prohibition of incest, the child begins to form what
Freud calls superego- the voice of conscience. The human
subject who emerges from the Oedipal process is a split
subject, torn between conscious- ego (or individual identity)
and unconscious- the place of guilty desires. The royal road to
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Freud
A man is an exile from the Garden of Eden. Like Strauss, he
believed that there was a time when man did enjoy blissful
identity with nature. Those periods refer to the first periods of
development when man was not conscious. The prenatal
period and the first few months of the childs life, the child
enjoys unity with the mothers body and is not aware of the
difference between his and mothers body. We are completely
merged in the world around us and there is an absolute reign
of pleasure principle- oceanic feeling. But in order to
become a social being, the child must renounce the pleasure
principle, separate from it and experience the world as the
other- accept the reality principle. And the agent for this is the
father who faces upon the child the incest taboo by the threat
of castration. What happens is that the desire for the mother
(natural reality) is repressed. Repression is a condition of
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want and because they want it. The real identity starts with
death. The phase which Freud calls pre-Oedipal, Lacan calls
imaginary- a condition in which we lack any definite centre
of the self and the child feels the complete unity with the
mothers body. It doesnt experience itself as a separate
subject. The whole external reality is presented to him through
the mothers body and the child doesnt feel separate from her.
Next phase is according to Lacan the mirror-stage- there is a
blurring of subject and object. The childs first development of
an ego begins to happen, a process of constructing the centre
of the self. This self is essentially narcisstic: we arrive at the
sense of I by finding that I reflected back to ourselves by
some object or person in the world. This object is at once
somehow a part of us- we identify with it, and yet not
ourselves, somehow alien. This phase can be called
metaphorical because the child compares itself to all the
images. This is a world of plentitude. This harmonious state is
disrupted when the child becomes aware of the father. The
father signifies what Lacan calls the law- the childs first
awareness of the social laws- incest prohibition- the child
cannot have its mother for a lower. The child represses his
guilt desire- what is called unconscious. Lacan claims that
once the child realizes that its identity is separated from the
mothers, it will never again have the access to reality. The
child also becomes aware of the difference between his own
identity and the one of the mother. It becomes aware of the
absence, it can no longer desire the mothers body; it is pushed
into the unconscious. In this way the childs social and sexual
identity are defined by exclusion and absence. This
psychological process coincides with the acquisition of
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difference between Freud and Jung. For Freud, the desire for
the mothers body is wrong because it is incestuous. It has to
be suppressed in order to create civilization. For Jung, what
we desire is not the mother but what the mother symbolically
stands for- the sensual, irrational, emotions, imagination,
unconsciousness, intuition, instinct- one whole aspect of our
beings. Kristeva claims that through semiotic we have contact
with this. As for Jung, for Kristeva there are no gender
barriers. She presupposes that both men and women are
damaged by the patriarchal society and that they both think of
a vision of a better kind of life.
Lacan & Kristeva(2)
The most important point about Lacan is that he relates
Freuds theory to language. The Oedipal phase- the moment
child becomes aware of the father- pre-oedipal phase Lacan
calls imaginary. He also refers to it as the mirror stage. At this
stage the child feels unity with the mother body and doesnt
have a clear notion of its own ego, personality. There is no
clear distinction between the child and the mother in the
childs consciousness and between child and anything else in
external reality. There is this blurring of child and any other
object of external reality. Mirror stage- the child seems to see
the reflection of itself on everything else. Lacan also calls it
metaphorical world. The child sees the metaphor for himself
in everything around. The external reality is primarily defined
through the mothers body. For Freud the fathers law- the
incestual desire, for Lacan it is the entrance/ entry to the
symbolic order. Symbolic order means that the child has no
direct connection with the mothers body. Its no longer one
with the mother
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When the child leaves the mothers body it enters the symbolic
order. These sexual differences happen simultaneously- the
differences in gender, language, social identity. Language is
connected with the Oedipus stage in which we have a kind of
wordless possession. We feel that we possess the whole world.
2nd phase- language appears to fill the gap. We use language to
fill the gap. For Lacan it is the only possible way- you either
enter symbolic order or become a neurotic. There is no
alternative.
Kristeva- pre-oedipal- semiotic. When we felt oneness with
the reality in general (oceanic oneness) we dont speak, do
not use language. Kristeva explains our conscience in this
period as a sort of flow. She calls it semiotic flow. She is more
hopeful than Lacan. She says that throughout life something of
semiotic flow still remains. It is not completely lost to us.
Semiotic flow is present in the physical elements of speech
(rhythm, stress, the parts of body that you use when you talk).
Semiotic is in a way subversive. It tends to subvert the binary
opposition which the culture lives by.
FEMINISM
There are two kinds of feminisms:
1. Essentialism- Essentialists are perhaps more political. They
talk about oppression, social injustice, consciousness, position
in society. What they offer to us is prescription for action.
Gender as a set of essential qualities- Showalter, Rich.
2. Constructionism- Kristeva belongs to constructionism. She
is looking for a feminine as a quality which can be discerned
in the works of both male and female authors. Feminine is a
part of both male and female psyche. Constructionists are
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DRAMA
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Henrik Ibsen
Modern drama in England and everywhere in Europe begins
with Ibsen. An open quarrel with the culture- the defying
feature of the modern drama- for the spiritual salvation,
salvation which is a matter of freeing oneself from the
constraints of bourgeoisie respectability. For this purpose a
bourgeois artist opens a quarrel initiated by Ibsen. Joyce wrote
a letter to Ibsen expressing his admiration for spiritual
salvation. Ibsen starts this war with his naturalistic plays. His
first nature plays are his greatest. Setting is remote in place
and time. The themes, setting is placed in a space/place remote
and they are treated in a manner that is unnaturalistic. BrandIbsens works possess a unity. There are several themes. One
of them is the chain of vacation- mans duty to become what
he really is- the fulfillment of the self. In Brand- the
protagonist is summed to reform the society so that every
individual can be whole. How to achieve self-fulfillment in
context? Barrier which prevents it Ibsen calls inherity debta kind of sin but not an individual. A notion of the self is what
we inherit. In most of his plays the end is tragic or
contradictory. Why is it difficult to fulfill yourself? Why are
we all born to be exiled from the sun? A kind of illumination
comes at a tremendous crise(?) Peer Gynt. He is prevented
from self-fulfillment- examination of culture in terms of
patriarchal culture. In Gynt the plot is a kind of fairy-tale.
Characters are archetypal, non-realistic. A young man who
lives in a village is disliked by all the lads there. He possess
sth that attracts all the girls. But he becomes disliked by men.
During a festival a shy girl- he sees that she is her self115
that this is the deepest self in man. Just when the flock of birds
flies in a certain direction. They are acting in accordance with
their inner nature. Man has to find what is his inner nature.
Real freedom is to make any choice you want. In fact we are
not the marvelous choosers and deciders that we think we are.
There is inner life flow (this IT) which chooses and decides.
We are really free only when we act in accordance with this
IT, with this core of our inner being.
T.S.Eliot: distinguishing between two forms:
1. selfish self, egoistic self- concerned with its own interests,
gains, fulfillment of his own egoistic desire. The higher
purpose of life according to Eliot is transhumanization- to
transcend the boundaries of ones isolated ego and reach the 2.
genuine self- which is related to the whole mankind.
The key word in Eliot is surrender- how to surrender your
selfish desires to sth higher; to become selfless. For Eliot, this
sth higher is divine love or the divine plan.
Fromm: self vs. self-interest (he is not religious). Society
often criticizes us if we pursue our self interest. However, it is
important to distinguish between self and self-interest. Self
means satisfying selfish desire. From says that thinking about
our own needs is not going to make us happy, it is not really in
our best self-interest. What is really in each persons best selfinterest is to develop the most important human faculties:
productivity, creativity, capacity to love and faculty for right
human relationship.
The whole play Peer Gynt can also be interpreted in terms of
Jungian notion of individuation. Jung talks about this journey
from Ego to Self (same as Eliot- selfish to genuine self).
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them there was a hag and an ugly child (troll maiden), and she
says that that is his child, he made it. but he cannot face the
ugly part of himself and he goes round about.
Next act- Peer is traveling around the world and experiencing
some events. All these events serve to gratify his ego. He
becomes a merchant, scientist, slave-owner. All the time he is
very proud that he is always being himself. He calls it the
Gyntish self. We have this Lawrentian idea: he thinks he is
free, he is himself, free to do whatever he likes, but he really
escapes from his deepest self, from IT (according to
D.H.Lawrence). Throughout his life, Peer is always afraid that
he would reach the point of no return; he will do sth after
which the retreat is not possible. He calls it the dangerous
vapor, which makes you do sth irretrievable. Through his life,
we see Peer doing sth opposite that somehow neutralize his
acts of moral corruption. His idea of life is always to preserve
a choice free foot. He wants to remain at the point in which he
could fantasize about various things, but he would never do
anything. On one side this is good because it preserves him
from doing some bad things. But on the other hand, not going
beyond the point of no return prevents him from transcending
his selfish self. He doesnt want to change drastically, he
remains in this closed ideal. You can compare it with Solveigh
who goes beyond the point of no return because of her great
love for Peer. She says: The path I have trodden leads back
no more. This is sth that Peer cannot do. There is a parallel
between Peer and a young peasant (kralj sakuplja vojsku a
mladi seljak isece sebi prst da ne bi isao u vojsku). It was a
sort of demand, a call to do sth for others, for your country, a
demand to transcend your personal interest and serve sth
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valley is the place where people dwell, and Peer goes beyond
that to the mountains and the fantasy realm. The realm of light
may be action and reason.) The troll king asks him whether he
perceives some difference between trolls and men. Peer says
that there is no difference. One man would roast another- he
points out there is a good deal of bestial in man. Man often
succumbs to his lowest, basic urges and instincts. But the troll
king says there is a difference. Men say be thyself, whereas
the saying in the troll world goes to thyself be enough. The
principle of the trolls is egoistical, they dont care about
others, and never indulge in empathy. Be thyself invites men
to find out what their true nature is, and to live in accordance
with it. Peer must also obtain a tail in order to court the troll
maiden. The trolls want Peer to succumb to his bestial
instincts, without humanizing them in any way. The trolls
symbolize bestiality, egoism, and unredeemed animal nature.
My kings daughterpathless wood
The troll maiden was turned into an ugly witch (and an ugly
brat with her). They represent his debt in life and they came to
remind him of his mistakes. They came as a sort of an image
of his shadows- woman/brat. These are his sins that he has to
face. She will become beautiful again if Peer forgets Solveig.
The love with her represents his higher potentials and also he
should forget these potentials and remain in his realm of
dreams and fantasy- irresponsible realm. Because of the
thoughts and desires, Peer deserves his curse. And the two
figures are his thoughts and desires. He lived in the realms
where he indulged in the lowest desires. There are two
possibilities for him: 1. to go straight, 2. to go round about. 1st
means that he should realize his mistakes, but he doesnt know
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God, but it may be the Self, the Inner Master. The same motif
like in St. Joan, when she hears some voices- the deepest self.
We should allow to this nature to develop- the calling of the
self. One is supposed to hear the voice of the Master, to get in
touch with it. Master can be ones own deepest self. Jung- a
mystical center of being. It is like sth that has supremacy over
sth. Other people tell you it is superior to all the other voices.
The deepest self compelled him to undertake this journey.
When we try to hear our inner voices we can often make
mistakes.
When we dead awaken- Henrik Ibsen
(1st version ) Rubek doesnt feel guilty. Maia is full of life. He
treats her coldly, arrogantly. He has also destroyed a woman,
Irene, whose principle was tremendous love. She was reduced
to an object. The Nun is a projection of her dead soul. Woman
in this mysterious life is sth you love, but you kill it. He feels
that turning against a woman the flow of inspiration dried up.
He hopes that she can be used again, betrays the
reality(reality- an alibi for murder). Irene lost all the children.
She never enters a thought of being mother. What they finally
discover is a vision, the final vision, Rubeks vision of his
mistake to know they have never lived. The late awakening.
The top of the mountain is not just the top of the spiritual
intensity, but the top of icy snowy mountain- a symbol of
sterility. Maia and Ulfhelm- unsophisticated man. He mentions
blood, animals. The difference between Rubek and Ulfhelm is
not big. Both love height; predatory. He seduces Maia, takes
her to the path dangerous to come down. But she is not afraid
at all. She reveals him the story of her bondage, he pities her
and it turns out that he used to be in his life in love with a
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at the end. So, life is evolving all the time towards sth perfect,
towards more and more reason In terms of human beings,
Shaw also believed that man is evolving and the growth of
man should be the growth in spirit and courage. Man should
become increasingly more able to face reality, to unmask those
ideals, those hypocrisies. He says that throughout human
history there was fear and fight. Man has become accustomed
to fear and fight but in the future he should learn to love and
trust realist people who have courage to get rid of brainwashing structures- people who recognize life force. They
refuse to live for their own selfish personal goal, and instead
they turn their lives into instruments of life force. Realists try
to develop their minds eye in order to be able to perceive
what is the will of their life-force. So, the mans highest
purpose is to become aware of this will (volja koja tezi
napretku), then to serve it to this progress of evolution. For
this reason Shaw praised human brain, intelligence. Brain is
the instrument which we use to understand this will, the will
of the life force. All these ideas can be applied to St. Joan.
Nema nacionalne svesti i pojavljuje se Joan sa novom idejom
povezivanja ljudi na visem nivou- progresivna ideja- svest o
celini kojoj pripadaju. Povela ih je da oslobode Orlean. Posto
im je smetala, na kraju su je Engleski i Francuski plemici
proglasili za vesticu i spalili. She is one of those people who
worship to serve life force. She says: I dont want to mind my
own business but Gods business. This will of the life force
comes to Joan in terms of voices. She claims that she has
heard the voices of two saints- St. Margaret and Catharine.
She also says that these voices came from her imagination and
this is how God speaks to us. She is also realist in this other
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aspect because she threatens the existence of social structuresthese are the church and aristocracy. Why the church? Because
she has a personal contact with God, doesnt need any
mediator. She is a rebel in this sense. She always relies on her
individual conscience in all decisions. She claims that
everyone has the right to this individual contact with God.
Covek ima pravo da se oslobodi I osloni na odluke svoje svesti
a ne na strukture. She threatens the structure of feudalism.
Another progressive ideal which she brought is nationalism.
She in a way raises peoples consciousness for this ideal of
nationalism. England for the English, France for the French.
There is the idea that the land belongs to all people, not just to
feudal lords. The representatives of aristocracy and church of
both England and France start seeing her as a threat. In Shaws
terms they are the idealists. These are the people who know
how the structures function but are terrified of changing them.
There is also an idea that without those structures there will be
an anarchy. The people who are most afraid of change are
those threaten by Joan. There is also some motif of Joans
heart- when she is burnt at steak, her heart remains whole.
This suggests that Joans message cannot be completely
annihilated, erased. Rebels such as Joan are crucified, but they
still point the way towards progress. Eliot: Human mind
cannot stand too much reality.
(2nd version)
In St. Joan idealists prosecute Joan- the realist. It is a social
comedy- an occasion to turn his irony against English- the
idea of life is superior to the idea of English. Shaw wrote
about prostitution, slums, snobbery. For him, women didnt
have moral virtues. They are admired when they are like men.
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was to come identifying with the life force within her. She
breathes courage into common people, inspires soldiers,
achieves all political aims when she starts feeling coldness,
though she is an enormously creative person wholl never
stop. In fact, she becomes burden to them all. She becomes an
obstacle, a reminder of their mediocrity, thus they want to ruin
her, particularly Caushan and Warric. She is brought to a trial.
Double catastrophe: 1. at the trial accused by the inquisition,
she will lose her life unless she renounces her beliefs. She
signs eventually but realizes that she will lose connection with
inner self and tears the paper. She is, therefore, burnt. She
remains loyal to her vision. Her heart wont burn. The death of
a realist is never a waste. This is a story of a sainthood- the
way a cultural hero asserts the power of spirit on the fear of
death. Its also the comedy of making amends (saying youre
sorry)- an epilog taking place in Charles dream. Must a
Christ perish in every age for the sake of those who have no
imagination?. She became a saint. The irony of making
amends consists in the fact that when all the dead come around
kneel in front of her, they all admit they learned from her
courage. She suggests shell return again- Do you want me
back?-and then one by one they all step back. Oh, beautiful
Earth, when will you be able to accept your saints? Wed
rather have no saints because such realists would show other
people forthcomings. Those who killed her, proclaimed her a
saint just because of feeling of guilt.
Thematic similarities between St. Joan and The Cocktail Party.
Love not the same for Shaw/Eliot and Ibsen. For Ibsen, ego
becomes most real when it becomes attached to womans love.
For Eliot and Shaw- completeness without sensual love.
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(EXCERPTS)
Robert: What is your name?
Robert is a feudal lord (one of his peasants). Why does he ask
all these question? Hes trying to establish her identity. For
Joan these things are quite unimportant. She has a higher
consciousness than the others. They are divided by
themselves. She hears voices but doesnt want to talk about
them. Its like a part of intimacy of her soul. The voices come
from God. Robert thinks that they are not real. For her,
imagination is sth positive- thats how voices come to us. We
use the imagination to understand the life force, the idea of
evolution, creative self.
Joan: Thou poor child
The conversation with King Charles. Charles is a weak person.
Everybody mocks him. He is not strong enough to wear arms.
He is afraid of responsibility. He is selfish, hed like Joan to
live him alone. She says that her business is to help people.
She thinks egotism is not healthy, not good for your soul. They
are supposed to fight against occupation forces. He asks for
miracles that Joan does with people- they became
courageous, they got inspiration. She brings up the courage in
people. She activates their potentials. Its like when people
start seeing life force, they become courageous.
Cauchon- French priest and Warwick- an English Gentleman
two structures threatened by Joan. They explain why the
church is threatened by Joan. He is afraid for his institution.
She doesnt need the church to mediate with God. She doesnt
recognize the authority of the church. Simple people assume
that they can talk to God, they dont need the church to help
them. It undermines the authority of the church, the whole
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Additional material
J.B. Shaw- Don Juan in Hell
Modern theology conceives heaven and hell, not as places, but
as states of the soul; and by the soul it means the divine
element common to all life, which causes us to do the will of
God in addition to looking after our individual interests, and
to honor one another solely for our divine activities and not at
all for our selfish activities.
This world, or any other, may be made a hell by a society in a
state of damnation: that is, a society so lacking in the higher
orders of energy that it is given wholly to the pursuit of
immediate individual pleasure, and cannot even conceive the
passion of the divine will. Also that any world can be made a
heaven by a society of persons in whom that passion is the
master passion- a communion of saints in fact.
The devil is here true to himself: that is, he does not disguise
his damnation either from himself or others, but bodily
embraces it as the true law of life, and organizes his kingdom
frankly on a basis of idle pleasure seeking, and worships love,
beauty, sentiment, youth, romance, etc. Don Gonzalo, having,
as he says, always done what it was customary for a
gentleman to do until he died defending his daughters honor,
went to heaven. Don Juan, having slain him, and become
infamous by his failure to find any permanent satisfactions in
his love affairs, was cast into hell by the ghost of Don
Gonzalo, whose statue he has whimsically invited to supper.
Don Gonzalo was a simple-minded officer and gentleman who
cared for nothing but fashionable amusement, whilst Don Juan
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Revealed in terms of atheistic bourgeois lifetranshumanization- achieving goal which is universal. In the
C.Party we are back in the bourgeois room in which the
cocktail party is going to be given. The first party is a failure,
the last is successful. Who is in charge; dramatization of the
various play of conscious/unconscious many. Edward and
Lavinia both have lovers. They are mutually accusing each
other. They live in illusions. With lovers they hope to escape
the boredom of their marriage. They didnt succeed. Lavinia is
convenient, Celia is demanding partner. With Celia he wants
to escape the conventional nature in which only his ego can
find satisfaction. Yet, when his wife abandoned him, he reacts,
he wants her back. He cant live up to the idea in the reality.
He says there are two selves- the superficial will to do sth, and
inner self- the spirit of mediocrity. It was only an illusion.
They are not yet made aware. Reilly helps them. Their
achievement is very limited. They pass the responsibility of
the failure to each other all the time. Reilly then suggests they
should reverse the proposition: accept Lavinia that you are
unlovable, and Edward that you are unloving, and then you
will suit each other. Accept your limitations. The only thing
the unconscious many cannot achieve is consciousness of their
own limitations. Celia is not like Edward and Lavinia. She
belongs to the conscious few. She comes as a person not selfimportant. From her conversation with Reilly we find out that
her desire is to realize the vision of reality, more significant
than common. She is an actress who wants to go beyond
everyday living to transcend her ego in heterosexual love- to
stop being 2 persons but the 3rd one =we. Theyll have beyond
desire without possessiveness the delight of loving in spirit in
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experiments must go on. Its not hell for him. Jimmy refuses to
get out of this hell. They are unhappy. There are three people:
Alison, Jimmy and Cliff. Its Sunday, its traditionally a day
when you stop working and devote yourself to spiritual
pursuits. Sunday is a crown of a weekly cycle when man is the
most himself. They do nothing but read newspapers. This
dreary routine scene develops in the scene of conflict, hysteria.
Jimmy shouts at his wife. It turns then into anger, hysteria.
Why is Jimmy angry? He is furious, angry with Alison. One of
the reasons- they are substitute for the invisible enemy. Whos
they? That is the social establishment specified historicallyafter WWII- labor government promised greater justice,
opportunity for all the classes in England after the war. Jimmy
was one of those who thanks to this aspiration were able to go
to university, newly-built, public red brick. On his leaving
university he realized for the upper-class the promise of
freedom was just empty words. They ended up feeling
unwanted. Jimmy is sensitive, energetic young man. Nobody
wants what he can offer. He is frustrated. He lives in a
hypocritical culture- result of the war not against German
fascism but for the justice at home. Revolution didnt lead
anywhere but to the false democracy which is another version
of fascism. Osborne left England, wrote A Letter to My
Fellow Countryman- a declaration of hatred against false
democracy constituted to fight red Lords(??). So, he wrote that
letter, compared England with the pile of junk covered with
mannerism and on the top there are those who pretend they
dont feel the terrible smell. Socialism- the moral failure. That
was the situation after the great fascism. He feels impotent
anger. This new system is represented best in the play by
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flesh and mind of human vain. You have to accept it, cant
clear your life from that. In Helena he sees less than a human
being. Alison comes then, relaxed, in the game of squirrels and
bears- a kind of development. They are less then human. Yet,
that is a new beginning, a new departure. Not a saint beyond
the bodily, nor a movement forward- in Shaw, it develops in
term of descend to the level of uncomplicated sensual
affection. They cant understand each other intellectually. Lets
resolve our conflict on the level of affection- quite different
from Shaw, an attempt to find salvation in a love relationship.
Yet it is not as simple as that. He is raging against Alison
because she is an enemy by the fact she is a woman- devours
him while making love. The main obstacle for the progresswomen, sex, married life.
(2nd version)
Room as a setting reappears but its function changes. In Eliot,
Ibsen room- the trap of society, shapes man, but here no one
goes out of the room. It defines less the conventional life, not
a social structure but an image of a private life, shelter in
which the consciousness of man is dramatized. An alternative
to the life outside (the world of corruption) and through the
windows the sound of this world come in- church bells. The
sound of the bells is unbearable because the church supported
atom bombing. Therefore, church is an institution based on
profit through the alliance with the secular powers. The
hypocrisy of this institution to which he cannot answer in any
other way but playing a trumpet- Jazz music. Jimmy is
disappointed, angry, frustrated. He is intelligent, talented but
the world outside has no use of him. Thats why he brutally
treats Alison as its representative. This hostile world is
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tired by the roles they have been forced to play. They want to
make the end of the game whatever it is. The hope you feel
when you see that desire- to end smth- anything else might
come up. There is a glimpse of sth new- a child in the end.
What we see is not that possibility. We see suffering, ending,
dying and nothingness. Clove looks out what he reports is zero
version- thats nothing. Nothing is so real as nothing- the
uncertainty about salvation. Here, there seems to be no
chance- absurd, nothing. Everything is reduced to the zero
condition. What is the origin of the sense of nothingness in
Beckets plays? Many factors- part of his nihilism, pessimism
is found in his personal life (an Irishman, well-to do family).
He had a happy childhood. There was too much misery around
him. He did love a woman who died after which he never
surrendered himself to any kind of relationship. This misery
convinces him that he cannot share his mothers religionProtestantism. For some time he shooed the belief
everything turns to the lost- he lost this belief, but this loss of
faith, death of God was the loss of eschatology refers to after
life when we pass out of this world. The philosophy of
Protestantism continued to affect his works- the idea of
predestination. Calvinism- every individual is either doomed
or saved. This vision affected him. The God who loves us but
with some exceptions- for reason are unknown but time will
tell. What we can say about Beckett is that the death of God
never was a sense of release (as for Show). Beckett- the death
of God inspired in him worse pessimism. Show- creative
revolution- ecstasy of brain- monumental comic epic
dedicated to one organ of the human body. Beckett- both
conscience and the body are the source of despair- a source of
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inside of life- into the spiritual meaning of life. Her final word
is desert- no meaning. There is no the spiritual water of life,
spirituality. The life is now a desert. Clove looks outside and
everything is grey. She said what the world without love is
like. There is this impossibility of communication. They dont
understand each other.
Hamm: One
Hamms story. Is he emotional about his story? He assumes
this narration as giving a performance; he assumes the role of
a story teller. He uses some figure, then he gets detached from
his story. The story is about a man who asks for some food.
The world described in the story- there is no one around; some
great disaster would happen. The world is like a desert- just a
man and his child. He is in a desperate position- he is
exhausted, he is dying. Hamm is reserved; he is not touched
by that story. He is not disturbed by this mans suffering. He
enjoys in smoking. He is selfish, egocentric, preoccupied with
himself. Its Christmas Eve- symbolically the time of
generosity- the birth of Christ- the birth of this little boyresurrection of life- a new hope of humanity- sth hopeful,
some new life. There are other actions implying that he is
selfish. He is obsessed with material wealth. He is calculating,
not emotionally involved. Inevitably connected with naturewe feel hunger, thirst- our body requires sth which cant be
denied- we cannot escape- no cure for that- its a sort of curseyou cant escape from the desire of your body as well as of
your death. He is not capable of transcending it by the means
of love. Hamm- the sense of futility of life- incapable of
loving. His parents didnt give him proper love, therefore he
lost the ability to love. The same thing between Hamm and
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of their existence; they escape into psychopathology. Lukacsthis condition- distortion- is raised on the level of eternal
human condition, not on episode of the history. Pinter makes it
difficult to recognize the enemy. He wants you to reexperience the horror of the modern life. He wants to force
people to see how difficult it is to identify the enemy. His
plays stimulate us to see through words to go out and resist.
The 2 men came to a deserted place, to a basement room. They
came to kill sb. The important moment when they reproduce
the motif as in the Birthday Party. Mccane was a bit shaken by
the spectacle of Stanley, a bit nervous. Play up, and play
up, he- some remnants of humanity. Goldberg- sentimental,
hypocritical. This motif- difference between them is
emphasized. Gus- the younger is nervous, doesnt feel at ease.
He is complaining they were treated worse than a long time
ago. He, the employer, has left no matches, gas, tea. All the
time Ben, the weaker one, subordinated, predat sluzbi sistema,
is sitting and reading the newspapers. The other one is
insisting on knowing, thinking, on which Ben shield himself
by reading newspapers, instances of violence- a child of eight
kills a cat. I am disgusted- this is true to life. Dissociation
between professional (?) and private intimacy. Inability to
recognize the connection. Process of recognition is made
impossible. All the time Gus, who is nervous, keeps repeating:
Ive meaning to ask you. Whats there to ask? He is also
upset by the lost job- the killing of a woman. He is vaguely
disturbed that the next job may involve a woman- a character
who is thinking upon the destruction of a feminine. Ben no
remnant of humanity, then a symbolic thing- a dumb waiter
comes- a wooden box carrying orders. It turns out that it used
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to be a kitchen- cooks prepared the food for those who eat upthe invisible power is fed. The basement is usurped (the
structure of the system). It comes down with the order. Ben- to
give everything its left to the system. He makes his friend
produce whatever he has. He doesnt want to give everything
up. Gus- vaguely rebellious. The system squeezes everything
out of them. After that Gus proceeds with his dissatisfaction.
Finally, the moment approaches, the last instructions came.
They are respectable. The next scene- instead of through the
door of the lavatory, Gus appears through main door. They
find each other staring at. Gus is the next victim. The system
has to be purged from the one asking questions.
EXCERPTS
Ben slaps down the paperits enough to
Ben and Gas are paid killers. They are at the bottom of the
social structure. Ben is reading the newspapers, hiding
himself. He retells two stories about the lorry run over a man
and a little girl who killed a cat. They are disgusted, horrified
by violence. Its ironic. They are both shocked by violence.
Cleavage- pukotina- kao da covek ima 2 strane. (Kurtz- The
Heart of Darkness). 1 cini nedela I odvojen je od dela za
moralno rasudjivanje. Gas wants to question the meaning, he
doesnt obey everything without questioning. Another motifthe child of 8 kills a cat. Ben say it was a girl- he makes the
theory. I bet he did it. ne moze da veruje da je devojcica
pocinila zlocin. The sort of suppressed feelings of uneasiness
about feminine.
What time
Gas doesnt like the basement they have to be in. He is also
complaining about bed- he didnt have a healthy sleep. All
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them. Dont let them tell you what to do. But he withdrawsno alternative. They- the system.
(2nd version)
Stanley is a failure, lazy, takes a refuge in a seaside boarding
house- routine. It is run by an elderly woman Meg and her
husband Petey. She adopts Stanley- a surrogate mother. She is
tremendously stupid. Her speech is horrifying in its stupidity.
A kind of woman who is a surrogate mother- obsessed with
food- a substitute for a real affection. She wants to mother her
son then she flirts with Stanley. Those words- platitude, then
comes words with erotic meaning- succulent. She wants to
control him. Although he hates her secretly, he remains with
her. She is a better option than the world outside. When he
speaks, he lies, invent stories about himself. They adopt false
names. This is indicative of their desire to have different
identities. He has invented a story- he used to be a concert
pianist. They locked the door of the hall and it was an excuse
of his desire to withdraw into shabby boarding house. His
stupidity- when he tells the story- they gave him a tipmonstrous stupidity. Then he feels less security- then a girlsth between mother and a lover. Lulu- he wants to go
somewhere with her. The reason of her failure thus lies on
both sides. Withdrawal into the routine, nothing- yet an escape
into a kind of better possibility. The crisis open when 2
strangers knock on the door- Goldberg and Mccane. Goldberg
is a Jewish, extremely sentimental- his speech of power and
dominance by which one wants to exercize his power over the
victim. This begins by questions- absurd, grotesque
interrogation. No conclusion who or what they represent. They
see Stanley,
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then sit down- they force him. Then the cross examinationabsurd but they still point to some forces. Questions are funny
and grotesque. This suggest some political authority. Some
theological theory- questions asked by father reprimanding his
son. Then they also ask philosophical questions of origin and
goal. He is unable to answer any and he finally breaks down.
Forces of bourgeoisie respectability. After the party there is a
power cut. The light goes out. They break his glasses. After
this travesty(?) of the real meaning of the birthday- initiation.
Neither Meg nor they will allow him to be truly reborn. She
bought him a drum. She wants to mother him. These two men
break his glasses and we see him reduced to a child capable of
producing inarticulate sounds. They are going to make him a
new man. Theyll shape him again into a person that will fit
the system. He is inarticulate and then they offer him the
progress. Well buy you another glasses- theyll shape him,
project him to the system. He is for the first time clean-shaven,
wears a tie. These two men are the forces of conventional life.
The contrast between the privacy and the system is marked out
through the contrast between the patriarchal authority and the
maternity. Snatch him away from her and fit him into the
system.
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a choice either you enjoy this life or you devote yourself to the
next one. Either you live in nature or in some heavenly realm
beyond natural cycles. The whole Western civilization seems
to be based on these binary opposites. By making this strict
oppositions we cause great damage to our souls. The Incas
concept of divinity proposes a kind of union. Experience of
individual love: Pizarro captures Atahuallpa and he slowly
builds the first human relationship. The play is the criticism of
the hypocritical betrayal of Christianitys original concepts.
The original ideas have been betrayed. What used to be a
promise of universal love became a kind of gang love. It all
comes down to us against them. The play emphasizes the
importance and value of the individual love. The first deep,
meaningful relationship Pizarro has with Atahuallpa.
Atahuallpa teaches him how to dance and then Pizarro laughs
for the first time. When Atahuallpa is killed, Pizarro cries for
the first time. Pizarro hopes that Atahuallpa is really a God.
Atahuallpa said that he would die willingly to save Pizarro
from the fear of death. In a way Atahuallpa is God in his
fearlessness and faith. He is a God-like man. In some
objective sense he cannot find the truth. Both these religions
are just pebbles structures that people make. I lived
between two hates, I died between two darks. The dark skyno longer believes in Christian God. The dark eyes of
Atahuallpa who hasnt resurrected. Then he starts to cry for
the first time in his life. This is our ability to make water in a
sand world. This is some immortal business. The only
positive faith is found in our capacity to love (emotional and
imaginative). This is the only marvel we can create. Waiting
for Godot- they are waiting for sth transcendental to give
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who are doubles. One is the victim the other is the executioner.
The executioner is very powerful and backed up by the powers
of the structure. He in the end crushes and destroys the other.
The victim is seemingly powerless. However, as the play
develops, we discover that the victim has some insight attitude
to life which makes him morally superior. The executioner
slowly begins to doubt his position and the structures and the
system he represents. Pizarro has power over Atahuallpa and
wants to destroy him; however, he defends him in the end.
What destroys Atahuallpa is the process of destroying other
races, started by Pizarro. As long as Pizarro stays shut within
the system of his assumptions (the church, the army, the king
and behind them all the imperialism) shared by this culture, he
cannot possess what Atahuallpa stands for.
2nd version
Shaffer began to write family plays- this remains- although he
experimented with various techniques. This logical story,
will(?)- made plot remains as one of the characteristics of his
plays. The theme is the time- how to confront with the time,
how to escape the prison which is time. He did it by using a
traditional story and plot. Those plots centered around the
protagonist- illiterate- a kind of intellectual, he describes his
problem. You understand everything. The theme- refusing to
formulate in any form- the dialogue is disconnected,
meaningless, not logical, rational, life-like. The characters are
deprived of history (Waiting for Godot), they are undefined.
Here we have a story of the concrete historical event- the
conquest of Peru. Pizarro- a real character. He did exist, he is
famous for this conquest. We know his history, biography, 16 th
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They are all damaged inside and perverted. In the act 1 they all
betray these private loyalties in the name of Empire. In the act
2 we move into the present time and now all these characters
are trying to confront their inner damage. In the present,
sexual identities are more fluid, not rigidly defined. Its useful
to explore this other side of our identity, to go through these
experiments. Betty was very conventional but in the end she
leaves Clive, then she lives alone, experiments her
independency. Its the reconciliation with oneself. An
interesting motif in act 2 is the invocation of the Great
Goddess. There are Victoria and Edward, her brother. She
talks about the Great Goddess. The tradition of matriarchy has
been rejected. If it hadnt been rejected, the whole history of
our culture would have been different. This is the idea give us
the history we haven had. They fail to draw the Great
Goddess from our sub-conscience. Ireland is the last colony of
the English. It is the end of colonialism. He is the last, the
most recent victim of the imperialist culture.
EXCERPTS
Come together
The setting is Africa, the historical period is Victorian
England. The song promotes patriotic feelings, loyalty to the
governing structures. Come gather sons of England. This is
a strictly patriarchal society- a white rational colonizer. The
song celebrates imperialism. It means the whole scope where
the Empire is spread. These are Englishmen who live in all
places. Clive- I am a father- he sees himself as a ruler. There
are two concepts- male domination over women, over the
whole family and also colonial domination. White man
domination over women and colonial territories. She is a
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readers- who are the pillars of civilization. Now that the truth
is problematic it requires to be examined by 2 or more
narrators. If the narrators can tell and accept the story, so can
the readers.
Heart of Darkness (excerpts)
There are two narrators and sb listening to Marlow. The
importance of this lies in that the people listening to Marlow
are the people of our civilization. At the end, this listener looks
around, there is darkness, he sees a cigarette lit and we see that
at least one person is awaken. The novel begins with Marlow
telling to the other people that this is also one more dark place
of the earth. The darkness is also there (in Britain) as in Africa.
But Marlow was not typicalhate
He is talking about Britain which is also dark. The meaning is
outside. The moon shine illuminates the darkness. It
symbolizes rational mind. The moon doesnt make such strict
divisions. This is not the usual perception. The idea of
illuminating the darkness- the dark portion of the psyche.
Marlow is talking about Britain. Before it started its colonial
project it also was the victim of colonization. He is talking
about this continual process- taking lands, robbing, stealingthe pattern always present. Work- the colonizers came to do
the work, bring progress, science, laws, Christianity. This
concept is being ridiculed by Marlow- taking away the land
from those different from us. (The Royal Hunt- they must be
killed since they are not believers; Cloud Nine- a mythical
justification; Jung- ego, shadow, the self. If we dont realize,
dont recover, the shadow can burst out in a destructive way.
The shadow in us is projected on sb and we want to destroy
that person as we see it as evil.) Marlow tells us about the
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uniform and the gun and he is proud of this role. How does he
behave towards Marlow? He is one of the whites, he should be
trusted. The last sentence is ironic. We see 6 black men in
chain, starving. Marlow juxtaposes the reality to ideological
phrases used to cover those phrases.
I went to work
Marlow is repairing his ship. There is a number of people
waiting to go with him. Work is an important aspect of
civilization. Marlow doesnt condemn the whole culture. It
helps him preserve his integrity. Two images in the novel
symbolize the positive aspect of civilization- one is the ship
and the other is a book. When he talks about culture, Conrad
compares human efforts to dream. Its a human aspiration. It
could be seen there are two dreams that Kurt dreams. One is
arrogant, a dream of mastery typical for the WC. Marlows
dream is symbolized by the ship. He tries to wake up Kurtz.
His dream is not one of conquest. He has a positive aspiration
to work. He has an inquisitive mind but doesnt want to be a
master. Work generally keeps his integrity. People are waiting
for Marlow to repair the ship and they have long sticks in their
hands. They look like pilgrims but they are not. They are
going there for ivory. It looks like a pilgrimage but what they
worship is ivory. At the end of the passage he feels that the
whole wilderness, jungle is waiting patiently for the passing
away of this fantastic invasion. What they are doing is
irrational and meaningless and cant harm this wilderness. It is
a vague attempt to change it. Whatever he did is pointless. It
will always be there- it is some ancient entity. The wilderness
waits them to finish. It is fantastic invasion- you cant conquer
this pare of your being.
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D.H.Lawrence
St. Mawr
Lawrence belongs to those writers whose work can be
understood without earlier influences. He was born Eeastwood
and he saw the heavy contradiction. He enjoyed the beautiful
countryside but he was also angry because it was butted by
ugly works of industrialization (the small suffocated people).
The betrayal of life originated in his childhood observations.
He saw the consequences on the lives of the people. His father
was a miner. People were spontaneously and rapidly ruined
because they were just instruments of the other people. They
were subjected to too much hours of work, lost their
spontaneity and became very ugly. That was the case with his
father. His mother was a higher class. They quarreled a lot. He
had an ambitious mother and uneducated father depending on
alcohol. His gift was to do all things by hands. All that appears
in all his works. The theme is the opposition between the life
of the body and mind. He was his mothers favorite. She was
an ambitious woman who taught him to despise his father- the
body, sensuality, the values of his father. His early life was a
struggle to free himself of the possessive mothers life and
excessive, puritanical spirituality. She wanted to possess her
poor Lawrence, but he resisted her, then he broke the
engagement and cherished fathers qualities. In his book Sons
and Lovers we see the beginning of this process- his
dependence on his mother, then the engagement with Jacky
and his helping his mother to die. She was ill but she hadnt
given up to control her son. He gave her an overdose of
morphine. He sped up the whole process. Why? He did it to
get rid of this kind of possessive motherly love, to become a
232
complete man and lover, not merely a son. From this book you
have this theme: symbolic opposition which is enormous. The
life of the body and conscience conditioned his mother. The
women were responsible for this split (sensuality- the men).
The life of the mind is related to women. Here there is this
archetypal reversal- he was against women who allow
themselves to be seduced by the tradition. They allowed
themselves to assimilate this system of values. They are
responsible for the betrayal of life. He was not against the
feminine principle itself. The feminine principle- a quality of
being completely alive. This was represented by his father.
Later he asserted that his mother was a male and father
female. Although in Sons and Lovers he described one
phase of getting rid of his mother love; he remained
ambivalent towards his mother. When he found a woman to
marry, Frida, she represented another figure different from his
mother, yet the archetype of the mother- enormous, huge
woman, exceptional personality. The moment they met they
recognize the exceptional personality. Important theme is the
marriage is a proper place where hetero-sexual relationship
can be managed. She was powerful and creative and so was
he. They succeeded; she abandoned her husband and three
children. They lived in Germany and Italy where he wrote
beautiful poems. This was his 1st departure from London, the
break-out of the WWI. He called it an evil which was not a
mistake accidental that was invisible. It was there all the time.
Everybody was polite, but behind that there was the desire not
to spoil the game- to undermine their fellow creatures. What is
it that these people want? He saw a secret betrayal of life on
all levels- the principle of Judah. He was disgusted and wanted
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to leave Europe in 1918 and never come back. For very short
time visits voluntarily exile to escape culture, to join other
traditions. He lived in Italy, Australia, then went to a ranch in
New Mexico and that is where St. Mawr originated. Finally
he died of tuberculoses. He burnt by the flame of vitality, was
tremendously active. His unconventional marriage, his exile,
his writing- a passionate desire to escape deadly western
tradition which cuts sb off from the authentic life, from
himself. He wonders, explores what is wrong with this. He
found the answer in unnatural hierarchy. Our tradition is
based on a hierarchy- the opposite between the intuitive mind
and conscious will. They are turned into the intuitive mind.
Conrad called it the soul madness. Lawrence calls it in his
essays unnatural hierarchy- the beginning of catastrophe. In
this very book, The Spirit of the Place, we find statements
about personality. He calls it IT. This IT is the subconscious
mind, is the creative author of our lives. You see the difference
between Freuds ID. Lawrences psychology is different.
Freud discovered the subconscience but never endorsed it. it is
a place of all sorts of shameful aggressive impulses, the place
of horror. Indeed Freud wants to make this anti-social desires
conscious that ego can control them better. Quite different is
with Lawrence. The IT is not an obstacle to mans functioning
but the author of our creative life. We should move in
accordance with this deepest self, soul. We should obey the
dictates coming from the outside. If we oppose to it than the
disaster is bound to happen, which was he says what happens
to America. They were free, they had the dream of freedom.
The immigrants fled to America to get rid of external
restraints, political authority- to develop property but in
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knowing what the freedom was for. They never defined what
the freedom was for. The only way to use it is paradoxically to
use it to make one see, to be the master within IT. The
Americans fail to do so. The trend of people who fled from
Europe but also themselves. From now on we shall be
masterless. This is why Low who goes to live on ranch when
she meets the cowboys says 2 things: they were much better
than the upper class of Englishmen yet she was disappointed.
They were hollow. There is sth missing in them. They are twodimensional. They miss the deepest self. Unnatural hierarchy
in the book is described in the fact that they struck the reader
as having their all lives being in their heads- clean-shaven,
well-comb. They didnt need body to represent themselves.
The consequence in modern context England- this mobility
manifests itself in the kind of life which proceeds from the
head. since it comes through head those people are dangerous,
they want to undermine the other with the kiss. The origin of
this split in modern life he finds in Christianity. He goes on to
illustrate this idea. Compared to pagan tradition it is inferior.
What we witness in the icon is the body which is distorted. It
remains down and the soul goes up to live forever. The
misused of the pagan symbol- the intersection of the body and
soul.
Just as the cross is used to mean sth opposite in the same way
the apocalypse is the corruption of the pagan symbol. The
final promise. He says that the Christian apocalypse expresses
that this whole world will be annihilated; the second coming
of the Christ. As opposed to this destruction the pagan
apocalypse envisages the destruction but it happens
periodically- a moment when life becomes rigid. The world
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social role, the role of being Ricos wife now seems unreal.
She says this is not really we. It seems to her that the young
men she meets on those social occasions are wholly contained
in their heads. They all have these handsome, clean-shaven
faces and they keep on talking. They keep on exercising their
minds. They take pride in their minds and wit and they seem
to her completely bodiless. It is like they are all losing touch
with their bodies, with their natural instinctive portion of the
being. St. Mawr reminds her of this lost totality of being. He
symbolizes Pan, the God of all. He is a creature in whom Pan
is still alive. Here Lou fails to find a man in whom Pan is still
alive unlike Lady Chatterley. She leaves Rico and hopes to
find a mystical man, the kind of man who would have the
blood knowledge. Lawrence believes when we use our
intellect we are separated from the object of knowledge. When
we use our intuition we try to become one with the object of
knowledge. So, Lou leaves Rico, gets to America and buys a
ranch somewhere in wilderness. She says that living on that
ranch, working, struggling with that nature, she wants to get in
touch with the wild spirit. Again she says that living on the
ranch would not be a romantic unity with nature. It will be just
like in Conrad. Mrs. Witt- Lous mother is an interesting
character because she appreciates good mind in man, she
admires witty and intelligent men but at the same time she
beats men in the games. She seems to overpower them all the
time. She is ironical and cynical. Lawrence compares her to a
pillar of salt. He got to this image- the sea- feminine, sunmasculine element. In our civilization the masculine principle
becomes dominant so that the sea is dried up and what is left is
salt. The woman is now destructive, corrosive element and
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not creative. This is her destructive element over men, but she
is not in touch with vital source- she is also dried.
St. Mawr (excerpts)
She never did..
This is the first time she cries. There is another side of psyche
which is suppressed. She identifies the horse with God. He is
the real embodiment of that world. Lawrence mentions Pan,
the God of everything. In this horse Pan is still alive.
Throughout the novel he mentions the eyes- some sort of
vision. The horse stares at her and he offers her a different
vision of reality. The question the horse asks is one of the
notion of the self. She has taken for granted this social
conception of what she is. Trilling also talks about the concept
of the self the society offers to us which is inadequate.
According to the social role she is Mrs. Carrington- the wife
of Rico. Rico is compared to horse. He is like a tamed horse.
The horse symbolizes the wild energy. In Rico it is suppressed.
He is self-controlled. She has the idea that everything around
her is false and unreal. People pretend, they are not their real
selves. The horse is real (Conrad- book and jungle). There is
the deepest self that she now begins to grasp. Rico is always
quick and sensitive to understand changes in here. He is
intelligent and perceptive. His eyes are blue. Dark eyes of the
horse are juxtaposed to his blue eyes. Blue eyes symbolize
intelligence. She compares him to the horse. He will be cold
and distant. There is something dangerous in him, like this
animal which is in him perverted. It is suppress animal. Rico is
not in touch with nature, so he is powerless. The only real
thing for Lou is the look in the horses eyes. There is sth
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lacking in her husband and the society she lives in. Everything
seems to be a bluff. Social life is not real.
Often
For her this is like a performance, sth not real. People enjoy
without questioning. Eating symbolizes physical aspect. This
life doesnt satisfy anybody. People take food because they
feel empty inside.
Isnt that
Mrs. Witt feels the primal power in Lewis while she is cutting
his hair. She is not in touch with the source. Like a human
cat. She doesnt see him as a human being. She thinks in
mythological terms. She has a strange sort of intelligence.
Lewis has an intuitive mind. She is fascinated by him but
doesnt respect him. He is like an animal. For her, intelligence
defines man- conceptual thinking. Lou opposes her conceptual
thinking- to unite the meaning by becoming one with the
object. The dark part of the psyche has to be recognized and
controlled for Conrad. For Lawrence we should be mastered
by this life force, IT. The hierarchy is not observed. People
like Lewis and Phoenix are alive and the strong ones in the
hierarchy of the society, they are at the bottom. Those weak
are at the top. The natural hierarchy has been destroyed. Their
intelligence is like a knitting pattern- the same phrases used
all the time; like brother Nigel in Look Back in Anger. A
good mind is an intuitive mind, creative. Mrs. Witt regards
Lewis only as a servant. She is under natural hierarchy.
I dont want
People are not in touch with creativity of nature. Still man has
that animal part. The animal in man is perverted. We have
moved away from the source of life and thats why we have
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The living and dead are united. They are more dead than the
dead. The book is about the gestation of the soul. Such
gestation is not interrupted by the wrong concept of life.
Stephen Dedalus in his effort to escape the various nets finds
the question in contrast to his name. Stephen and Dedalus- 2
alternatives. He finally realizes that he is going to be Dedalusa pagan craftsman who escapes culture. He also escapes the
Irish, the nets of his family by means of art. Each chapter ends
in epiphany- deconstructing false relationships based on
obedience. Dubliners- he changes his style. He began it by
using traditional conventions. In Ulysses there are interior
monologues. He started with the Dubliners with naturalistic
style which he calls the style of scrupulous meanace(?)- by
describing characters he pointed towards the end of the story
which seems to be a minor epiphany- revelation of the failure
and impassionate living. The boy heard the news and was
struck by the word paralysis- the freezing of life by the Church
and respectable piety which middle- class people choose to
live by- the denouncement of passionate life. When the soul is
born nets are flown over it to prevent it from flight. The word
paralysis becomes an opt description of the life of Dubliners.
The last story is called The Dead. The story is about
Gabriel Conray and Greta. They came to the house of three
spinsters. Its Christmas- the renewal of life should be
celebrated but it is under the influence of the Catholic Church.
So the evening is usual, nothing happens but they are talking
about the music. We find the significance when they are all
preparing to leave and there is an epiphany. Its important that
Gabriel finds his wife is missing and sees her standing on the
staircases, listening to an old-fashioned melody. In his heart
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the table and Dante asks him to apologize or eagles will pull
his eyes- the sense of guilt. It demonstrates how the female, or
ISA, were to turn him into a subject and how he already
manipulates poetic ability- to combine impressions into sth
that has the meaning. It refigures his successful operation of
imagination. As a boy he writes I am SD on the leaf of
geography book. He tells us he wants to find his true position
in even larger concentric circle of the society. It will culminate
when he is carried by his class-mates. He is a hero. He will
have to do in even larger context until he achieves his major
epiphany- he will not serve what he doesnt believe in. his
biological father is not the same as his spiritual father. The
priest offers to join the Jesuits. He experiences an encounter
with a prostitute. He rejects his father who wants his son to be
a gentleman, to return to respectability, to family. He says no
to all false concepts of faith. He is then torn between 2
concepts that woman is either a prostitute or a virgin.
Throughout the novel he oscillates between passion and fear.
The House of Ivory- he doesnt understand that but later he
would realize that it is a feeling of womens hair, the house of
gold. He is put on the test- he goes to a prostitute in order to
find a dream-like girl and he finds himself in a labyrinth.
Stephen goes to meet his physical and erotic power. (His
experience is different from the experience of Lou when she
sees St. Mawar.). Dedalus- this is like a pagan ritual bringing
him to life. Once he kisses her he is strong in body and soul.
They mingle. With every epiphany the sense of power
strengthens. He sees sth real- the likeness of pagan institution.
He feels temporary reunion. In the next chapter, he is listening
about the hell- he feels the pressure of the bread (za pricest)254
when she was the happiest- it was when Sally kissed her in the
garden. Clarissa was perfectly happy at that moment. This
moment is like the treasure in which Clarissa had a sort of
epiphany realizing what means to be fully in love, to have
passionate love. However, she lost this treasure. She runs
away deliberately from the intensity of her relationships with
Sally and Peter. She was afraid because they invited her to live
an unconventional life. Instead, she married Richard Dalloway
with whom she had a very conventional life and marriage and
not too much emotional involvement. The moment the book
starts we learn they dont even share the same room. There is a
vague notion of female illness. Women suffer from some
disease usually with reproductive organs and symbolically this
indicates certain sterility and dull emotional life. When the
novel starts we learn that Clarissa is ill for a while, her hair
turns white. She loses her vitality she is getting from inside.
Doctors advised to live in a separated rooms. Rich and
Clarissa do not have much of their sexual life. The marriage is
sterile; the husband and wife are kind, they never quarrel but
there is a feeling of separation and detachment. One of the
motives in the novel is the deepest meaning of communication
between two people in love. Love is the most profound
communication. Septimus tries to compensate for his ability to
feel by marring an Italian girl Lukrezia. He is attracted by the
communication when he enters the house and by marring
Lukrezia he hopes to find the lost ability to communicate.
Septimuss profession- he is a clerk but he wants to become a
poet. He has wonderful ideas about becoming a poet. We have
the motive that poets are capable of communicating. Septimus
believes in certain ideas of English culture and when he goes
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The candle will burst. She reads memoirs- her present life is
dull so she goes back to the past. Napoleon occupying
Moscow- she is like Moscow, too cold, men cannot approach
her. She gets ill and the doctor advises her to have her own
room. She withdraws to this little room and suffers from
insomnia. She is not a virgin physically but emotionally she is.
She has never allowed herself to love intensely. (HelenLook back in anger). When she enters the room she feels
emptiness. She undresses taking off the social mask.
Lovely in girlhood how she laughed
Her relationship with Richard. She remains an emotional
virgin. She is not very much with him. He is conventional,
wants much less than Peter. She even fails him who has less
expectation in terms of emotions. She can feel it from time to
time- she couldnt really love him. Sth warm that breaks
surface- people getting beyond the surface. Clarissa has never
loved a man, but she felt some moment of emotional relation
with a woman. She had this chance for emotional
involvement. She describes that feeling. She has seen a kind of
illumination. It was brief. Most of the time she spent without
emotional involvement. When she feels sth it is usually
towards women.
But this question Papa said
She met Sally. She was sitting and smoking. She is not
conventional. Her parents were quarreling all the time.
Clarissa is shocked. It is unusual for her. It makes her feel that
her life is protected. She lives in the structure which functions
perfectly. She talks about her physical appearance and
ancestors. She is more passionate, open and spontaneous.
There is sth romantic in her. Sally is the first one to introduce
269
science is dangerous. Savage says that Gods are just and they
will punish everyone who does injustice- here they are even
more just; you can do what ever you want. There is no
punishment for this way of life in this society. They live
prescribed life and are designed as human beings. Their
human capacities are reduced to narrow range of things.
The savage nodded
Savage-John
A quote from Hamlet- whether to suffer or oppose. Here
people neither suffer nor enjoy. (line in Look Back in Anger).
Instead of getting some insights of experience, they just
abolish and get a trip.
Savage was in love with Lenina. He always idealized her,
compared her with heroines from Shakespeare, wanted to
perform some act of sacrifice, worship in order to show how
much he loves and adores her. They inject adrenaline to feet.
Sort of passion Othello has for Desdemona. It is just bodily,
physical reaction, biological need (divorce between biological
urgence(?) and their psychological justification, component).
Richards in Pseudo Statements- we cannot live in the
world of biological urgence(?)- bioloske potrebe. How to live
in the world that is demythologized? Blake- we should express
our sexuality; but he didnt have Brave New World in mind.
We cannot organize our life, world based on biological
urgence, but also some psychological needs. Thats why we
need Pseudo-statements. Savage says he doesnt want to
comfort civilization. He wants to feel the fullness of life even
if sadness is a part of it. Physical pains are abolished in Brave
New World.
278
G.Orwell- 1984
1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning
readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government.
Orwell was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and
oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to
have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in
enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their
citizens.
Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and
controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even
having a disloyal thought is against the law. As the novel
progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets out to
challenge the limits of the Partys power, only to discover that
its ability to control and enslave its subjects dwarfs even his
most paranoid conceptions of its reach. As the reader comes to
understand through Winstons eyes, The Party uses a number
of techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an
important theme of its own in the novel.
The Party barrages its subjects with psychological stimuli
designed to overwhelm the minds capacity for independent
thought. The giant telescreen in every citizens room blasts a
constant stream of propaganda designed to make the failures
and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant
successes. The telescreens also monitor behavioreverywhere
they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by
means of the omnipresent signs reading BIG BROTHER IS
WATCHING YOU, that the authorities are scrutinizing them.
The Party undermines family structure by inducting children
into an organization called the Junior Spies, which
brainwashes and encourages them to spy on their parents and
279
Chapter VIII- the conversation between OBrien and Winstonno it is realyou will understand byno! (Julia and
Winstons secret brotherhood to fight against party)
Machiavellian motto: the end justifies the means
Means are ends-in-the-making- if you want justifiable aim
you must have justified means. Winston is determined to go to
the end- to destroy the party. Party destroys humanity. But it
seems that he has lost his own humanity. His love for Julia is
his last part of humanity.
Part III, chapter III, p.227- Now I will tell you the answer to
any questionreality is inside the skull
Party in 1984 is similar to Nazism, but they openly admit what
they want- they are only interested in power. OBriens face
looks tired, pale, like he is going to die in a few years, alone.
Power is, according to him, collective- to submit oneself to
collective body. Any person, as long as he is individual, cannot
feel power. To overcome this feeling is to join some party.
What party control? In Brave New World there are technical
achievements, here they control what is in the mind.
The Age of Iron- J.M. Coetze
Violence in all his works is his greatest theme. Both The
Age and The White Hotel deal with archetypal source
for that violence. We live in a close space which some of us
try to escape. How to go beyond the culture (Joyce,
Lawrence)? Is the exit possible? There are 3 categories of
characters: 1. masters- the defenders of this history of
violence; 2. outsiders- Vietnamese, Hottentots, Blacks,
animals (barbarians vs. empire, garden vs. camp, cyclical vs.
linear time, silence vs. language); 3. want to reconcile the
283
288
p. 100
Doll life- post-structuralist (Derrida)- divided, never fully
present. Cant you see I am burning- Freuds case.
Father/child relationship in the patriarchal world: father is not
aware of how much wrong he had inflicted. Sth. is burning in
the soul of the child and the father cannot help him.
M. Atwood- Surfacing
Margaret Atwood's novel 'Surfacing' demonstrates the
complex question of identity for an English-speaking
Canadian female. Identity, for the protagonist has become
problematic because of her role as a victim of colonial forces.
She has been colonized by men in the patriarchal society in
which she grew up, by Americans and their cultural
imperialism. What is presented by Atwood's 'Surfacing' is the
analogous nature of patriarchy, cultural imperialism and
geographical colonisation and how this combined colonial
experience has left the victim with feelings of displacement
and disconnectedness from their language, history and culture,
which in turn has led to a fractured sense of self and a
desperate need to regain and reclaim identity. Throughout the
novel there is a definite condemnation of this Americanisation
of people and places but it is most poignantly and
symbolically demonstrated with the narrator's final rejection of
her 'friends', her clothes and any food that is not natural. She
rejects neo-colonialism in every form and travels to a
precolonial space that she must visit in order to return with an
understanding of herself and her identity as a Canadian and as
a woman. Through the struggle to reclaim her identity and
roots, the Surfacer begins a psychological journey that leads
290
her directly into the natural world. Like the journey itself, the
language, events, and characters in Atwood's novel reflect a
world that oppresses and dominates both femininity and
nature. Strong and unmistakable in Surfacing, the ecofeminist
theory establishes itself in three specific ways: through the
references to patriarchal reasoned dualities between the
masculine and feminine world; through the domination and
oppression of the feminine and natural world, and through the
Surfacer's own internal struggle and re-embracement of
nature.
In Surfacing- a female narrators stream of consciousness.
Both women are (?)(un)damaged. The disturbances are
similar. In Surfacing the heroine complains on numbness. We
live in civilization we separate body and soul. We posses neck,
a barrier (fish dont)- shallowness, abuse of language (as in
Pinter) causes refusal to speak. The other woman- a patient, a
Freudist. She tries to cover what she can remember. The
narration and the technique changes. A quarrel between Freud
and Jung.
(there is a connection between this book, The White Hotel
and The Iron Age). (Freuds report of the dream- he was
burning while his father was sleeping- Coetzee).
These women live in that age, the age of iron. The first cannot
feel, the second is anorexic (Lisa). A flood, avalanchehallucination that prevented her from marring and having
career as a singer. Her ovary and left breast hurt. Why are they
suffering? Neurosis comes from suppression. They are
searching for the truths to recover. They are both weak to
realize what it is about. They both invent lies to cover the
truth. They both renounced the maternal function. One of them
291
had an abortion and invented the lie about damaged body and
throughout the book she says her story of divorced marriage.
She actually had a lover who was a married man and proposed
abortion. Death is implanted in me like a tumor from then.
(Like Lisa in The White Hotel. She got pregnant with
Russian officer and had miscarriage because she fell from the
stairs. She refused to have child because it would be halfJewish (not because of her opera singer career, as Freud says).
She has a fantasy about the hotel and that helps her.)
Shes going back to the farm of her childhood (Canada). She
is traveling north together with her friends David and Ana who
are a couple. Ecology- trees are dying (traveling north). The
disease threats from the south (moral disaster is spreading
from the south). A dead heron- a beautiful bird was killed and
she thought that Americans done that. Why? Its not edible.
Then she finds out that two Canadians and not Americans
killed the bird. They look like Americans- friendly, shallow,
ignorant, expressing what Americans look like- friendly
American killers. Affected by American virus. Dirty capital
pigs. He speaks as American (phrases from cartoons). His
pretensions- along the way he has a plan to make a film.
Random samples- you take a shot of this and that. Never mind,
he says, the main idea is flow. Hes a post modernist. Not
anything deep. His superficiality is seen on all levels. His
marriage with Ana is a mental friction- Ana losing the battle of
the power because she is not attempted enough. He keeps her
down by threatening with adultery. The only thing that can
save the relationship is suspense. She must live up to his
standards. She is obsessed with her make-up. He is interested
in surface only. The only transformation of Ana is her make292
up to make her skin to look young. Unlike Ana and David, the
heroine is going to search for her identity. She reaches the
farm. Her mother died, her father wasnt there (probably died
too). She figured they were her guides- rural, not urban one.
They must have left her sth. her father made some drawings,
and there were maps leading her to old drawings of Indians.
She goes and finds those drawings of saint things. The last
drawing she thought is the last man. She died into the lakesymbolic. She died in self-consciousness and experienced
hallucination. There was no drawing on the bottom of the lake,
but this is a place for hallucination. A fetus of her aborted
child- she is facing the truth. It is the amputated part of her
personality. When she comes down she realizes she had
reconnected herself with her real past and regained the lost
part. She gets the real knowledge and at the same moment
experiences the real sensation- she begins to feel again and her
numbness has gone out. My father taught me how to see but I
must know how to act. Her father was rationalist, Pacifist,
botanizer, yet logic. He experienced vision, hallucination,
came to the end of logic and gained visionary knowledge as
Indians had. It was not just rational knowledge, but also
knowledge gained through hallucinations. She learned how to
see not just through logic but also visionary optic. Mother- the
daughter= a designer, creating fairy-tales. Pre-arranged,
sweetened illustrations. Children should encounter the thing
they are afraid of and realize that it is not that scary. Indian
God with a tail (The Death of Pan- Lawrence), and
opposite to him a pregnant woman. Secret bond: motherfather-the urban child. The next thing she does is conceive. I
dont seek pleasure anymore. Conceives her child with Joe and
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find no base for sympathy. Kurten is for them the only evil.
Lisa is capable for feeling sympathy even for him. Lisa has
this motherly love which is not excusive. She identifies herself
with Kurtens victim, Maria. She thinks that it was by chance.
She sympathizes deeply with this case because it could happen
to her. She feels deeply connected with other people- the sense
of humanity. Suffering of other people is also mine. Now
Kurten was executed. But Lisa is worried- the fact that he is
executed doesnt solve the problem. Destructiveness remains.
There are massive appearances of people like Kurten with the
same destructive impulse. He is just the symptom. Hitler was
just a symptom of evil, not a case. When a soldier rapes Lisa
with a bayonet, everybody talks whether Kurten should be
killed. Its a projection of Thanatos. Kurten was a molested
child, his sister abused him, his father was a drunkard. He had
a horrible childhood. Lisa feels compassion for him. She feels
related to all human beings in the world. The killing of the
heroine and the swan. If you kill a part of nature you kill a part
of yourself.
She had the feeling that (p190)
Tree as the symbol of wholeness; pine tree as the symbol of
eternity. It comes to the level of collective unconscious.
Mystical experience related to the scene of a pine tree. Tree
symbolizes life, immortality. Lisa is with Kolja. He is her
adopted son, a son of her husband. Lisas attitude to childrenshe marries Victor and becomes a mother to Kolja. The first
time she accepts responsibility of being a mother to a child.
The world is still destructive but she becomes a mother and
decides to protect her son. She becomes a victim willingly.
Her experience- returning to blissful one, joins Anima Mundi,
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joins the soul of the world. She is totally separated from the
time. She was disconnected from past but the concept changes
and she remembers herself as a child. She doesnt feel death as
the end. She gets the sense of immortality by joining the spirit
of the world.
What was really amazing
Pagan heaven (paradise)- after she sacrificed herself for Kolja,
she went to heaven which is connected with natural cycles.
The vintage of grapes. The cat survived everything- the
symbol of Eros, of sth that lasts forever- positive life energy.
Paradise- different from the Christian concept of paradise. It is
a transitory period. When she comes she participates in
vintage in the cycles of nature. The place is not removed from
cycles of nature. In Christianity- paradise beyond change and
nature. It is a sort of pagan paradise. Kurten also appears herea hope of improvement, change. He is now good. We are born
to become lovers. There is a potential for good even in Kurten.
Thats why Lisa feels compassion for him.
They satto (p.235)
Lisa and her mother- sucking each other. Returning to the
oceanic state- recovery of the mother principle- the whole part
of the psyche. She blames her of an incestual incident. For
Lisa it is sinful. Lisa fell in love and she loves the young
English lieutenant. She wants to give him both erotic and
motherly love. Structures in patriarchal tradition- corselet.
Here there is the return to the mother. Drinking each others
milk is a symbol of love, mixing of maternal and sexual loveboth unified the fact that she and her mother drink each others
milk- points to the fact they have reconciled. Lisa at first
thought that
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POETRY
W.B.YEATS
Sailing to Byzantium
A quest to find some way to transcend the necessity of dying
(comic and tragic). Here, we deal with a comic mode. It is not
Christian way- it has to do with creative imagination. He
writes this poem from the position of an old man. He was in
love with Byzantium which is a model of artistic beauty. The
first thing he says- he no longer feels at home with natural
cycles. There are images of sensual love. All those people and
animals are born and would die. They enjoy sensual pleasure,
but there is something more important-works of creativity in
general. Trees, seas, falls- the symbol of youth. They are very
young but he calls them dying generations, because here just
observes this sensual biological life. We know they are all
going to grow and die. It is a part of biological cycle. Works
of art transcend aging and mortality. An old man reminds him
of scare crow- old and funny. But he can be redeemed if he
can become creative artist. Then he talks about himself. There
is one way to make this shell alive. This is through art. This is
how life can be given to this spirit. This is the singing schoolyou have to study your own art. He wants to sail to
Byzantium to study the works of art created there.
Then he addresses sages and the images painted on the wall
of the church. He asks the old artists of Byzantium to teach
him how to create, how to be an artist. Even emotions for
Yeats are smth that has to be transcended. There is sensual
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big, large stories of the past. No myths that helped man impose
meaning upon the world, and without this myth of integration
human beings feel lost. The major fear is the fear of
meaninglessness and death.
D.THOMAS
Fern Hill
This can be compare to Larkin. The great difference is that
Thomas has every significant memories from his childhood.
The idea is that the boy feels forever separated from the bliss
of childhood. He can not recover what he had then. The only
part of life which is blissful is childhood. When they grow up
that cannot be recovered. Poem is mostly concerned with the
experience of time. He talks about the differences. We have
different concepts of time. We can not escape from the trap of
time. As opposed to linear time there are some other cultures
which have cyclical concept of time-the notion of natural
cycles. Those individuals who reconcile the cycles of nature
do not consider time a trap but they creatively connect
themselves with nature and its renewal. This feeling of eternity
was only possible in his childhood. The boy in the poem feels
eternal, forever young because he experiences complete
harmony with nature. Time is not experienced oppressive that
threatens. The recurrent images are apples, referring to
Paradise. It is a state of Eden. You feel complete bliss; the
colors mentioned throughout the poem are green as grass and
golden. Green is the color of youth, childhood, juvenile
period- golden is the symbol of eternity, smth that stays the
same, never changes. The Green can also be the symbol of his
innocence and naivety. You have also images which suggest
320
that the boy has the feeling that he is the master of the natural
world. Various images when he imagines the animals obeying
him. Again, in the 30th line he is in Paradise. Then, in the next
stanza he suggests that this is going to change. When he grows
up, this ego, the consciousness will interfere between the boy
and the environment and he will no longer be able to feel
eternal. There will be just a few morning songs. Eventually,
you fall out of grace, out of time. The end of the poem is the
moment which resembles waking up- the farm is forever fled.
(the place of unity) this link with a childhood experiences is
severed. Now you have a change. He no longer says green and
golden, but green and dying. He is now aware of this. At this
time, he was not aware that he is in chains he did not
consider time a person.
P.LARKIN
Church Going
A modern motorcyclist who stops near the church and enters
the church. This one regrets the loss of the tradition. Here we
have a youngster who knows nothing about the church. He just
looks around and then he enters. Complete silence. Nobody
around. Then he describes the interior. Although he is not a
believer he says- I take of my cycle-clips. It is an act of
respect. Although he does not believe in this institution, he
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343
W.B.YEATS
Sailing to Byzantium
The Second Coming
Lapis Lazuli
The Magi
Among School Children
Leda and the Swan
T.S.ELIOT
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
Journey of the Magi
La Figlia
Marina
WALLACE STEVENS
On modern poetry
The Idea of Order in Key West
SYLVIA PLATH
The Moon and the Jew Tree
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
D.THOMAS
Fern Hill
P.LARKIN
Church Going
I remember, I remember
THOM GUNN
On the Move
Tamer and Hawk
TED HUGHES
A Childish Prank
Song
ROBERT GRAVES
349
Mrs. Dalloway
A.Huxley
Brave New World
G.Orwell- 1984
The Age of Iron- J.M. Coetze
M. Atwood- Surfacing
The White Hotel (excerpts)
351