Closing Remarks on Critical Theory

Now that it is the end of the semester, I feel much more capable about critical theory than I did before this class. All of the guest lecturers and discussions truly aided my overall understanding of specific theories and the way in which they are applied to a literary text. The blogs that I posted and maintained throughout the semester allowed me to personally engage and apply certain theories on my own outside of class. If I were to look back on all the theories we covered this semester, I would have to say that my favorite was Marxist criticism. I enjoyed Marxist criticism the most, because I felt as though it was genuinely useful in analyzing not only a literary text, but many components of life itself. Now that I have a better understanding of the ruling class' position over the working class, I feel as though I look at simple things differently than I had before. After reading Dr. Craig's post on Marxism, I came to realize that in many ways sports are used by the ruling class, in order to perpetrate the working class' condition, while at the same time increasing their own. Because sports are an outlet for the working class, they indulge in it heavily--buying tickets, T-shirts, etc--in which all the money goes directly to the ruling class. I was in the mall during Thanksgiving break and would take notice of advertisements that the ruling class constructed, in order to capture the working class' interest and money. Because we live in a capitalist society, where an emphasis is placed on the separation between the ruling class and the working class, it is easy to say that Marxism is faced on a daily basis for each and every one of us. As long as society exists, a separation between the ruling class and the working class will continue to exist, and in this sense, Marxism remains a timeless theory. Other theories such as Psychoanalysis are not as timeless, because their key ideas were pertinent at one point in time, but not so much anymore. When it comes to applying Marxist literary criticism to a particular text, I think that it serves a genuinely useful purpose. A writer's social class has a major bearing on the literary text he writes, whether he realizes it or not. A text contains certain aspects such as diction and sentence structure, which aid in further uncovering the social class of the writer. The social class of the writer proves important, because it serves as an influential force perpetrating particular ideas and beliefs that are singular to a given social class/culture. Therefore, if the writer's social class was identifiable through the text that he/she wrote, a reader may be able to better analyze and determine the origin from which the ideas came. The wealth of different theories that we learned in class truly aided my understanding and overall approach when analyzing a literary text. Although this is the last and final post for the critical theory blog, I plan on further developing my understanding of theory, and broadening my scope to learn other theories and interpretations beyond those we've learned in class. I really enjoyed this class, and feel much more theory-competent now than ever before. Thank-you!

Thoughts on Feminism

Tonya Krouse's post on Feminism proved to be very useful to my understanding of what it means to be a feminist. The way I always tended to define feminism in my own life typically always took a negative connotation. Today, through the media, feminists are viewed as dark, masculine, angry figures that lurk the streets with black combat boots on. I suppose the way I always pictured a feminist was in this light, because I thought that feminists, being against the feminine nature of women to be nurturing and docile as ingrained by society, could not be pretty or try to be pretty, for the sake of ruining their message. Because of this, a feminist must be masculine, in order to create any sense of equality between men and women. I always had a problem with this though, because I wondered why women tried their very hardest to be a man? Why couldn't a woman just indulge in the fact that she was a woman, different yet special, and be content with this? I understood the fact that feminists try to gain equal rights to men, but in the process of doing so, why must they become man-like themselves? In my own personal definition of a feminist, I always found the feminist's masculine approach to be degrading to femininity, at the very same time that it was trying to emancipate females lesser position in society. However, after reading Tonya Krouse's post about the many different feminist approaches there are, I feel as though my initial definition of feminism was very close-minded and media-fed. Krouse stated that in l'ecriture feminist theory, feminist theorists feel as though " 'writing the body' empowers female subjects." Therefore, females are allowed to indulge in their feminine sexuality and still hold a feminist stance that seeks to empower women. Before I always thought that to be a feminist meant giving away one's feminine sexuality and identity as a woman, in favor of a mans. But because feminist theory and criticism maintains such a broad perspective in relation to all the different types of feminism, a very close-minded interpretation of a feminist as merely masculine and angry is completely false. Now I feel as though a feminist can be pretty and nice and indulge in her femininity, while still holding true to the feminist cause. Thanks for the post Tonya!

Response on Ashley Shelden's Post on Lacanian Psychoanalysis

First of all I would like to thank Ashley Sheldon for her incredibly helpful post on Lacanian psychoanalysis. After reading Ashley's post I understand it much more thoroughly. Many of the Lacanian concepts that were discussed in Ashley's post such as metonymy, signifier, symbolic, desire, and mirror image greatly affect the way in which I now view the "real world." According to Lacan, there is no signified (meaning), but only signifiers (words), which move from one to the other endlessly and constantly. Metonymy is understood as this signifier to signifier to signifier cycle, where there is no eventual signified established, or no meaning summoned. Because there are only signifiers, we exist through language or words. Without language, we would not exist. The symbolic represents the world of language, where we exist and cannot exist without. The idea of a signifier chain means that there will always be a piece missing from the puzzle. We will never be able to reach the signified, because the signifier chain persists on endlessly. Therefore, there is no stable meaning to anything, because "meaning" cannot be attained--we will never be able to reach a meaningful identity for ourselves as a result. Lacan's connection with language and desire emphasizes the fact that meaning can never be reached, because desire is used as a tool to fill the piece missing from the puzzle. Desire tries to fill the piece missing from the puzzle, or the void within us, but in a lot of ways desire can never be fully satisfied, because we can never fully obtain what we desire, or if we do, we soon become bored by it and move onto another object of desire. Therefore, desire too, keeps us running in this never-ending cycle, with no established destination. The "mirror stage" is the time when an infant sees his/her reflection in the mirror and is able to realize the fact that he/she is a solid and stable form. Therefore, the infant anticipates an identity, in response to seeing the solidity of their form in the mirror. However, the image that the infant observes in the mirror is merely an illusion, because it is only the idea of identity, and not truly identity. The mirror stage allows the infant to aspire to a sense of identity, even though identity can never be obtained. Therefore, the infant begins the endless cycle of trying to reach identity. Now that I have gained a better understanding of Lacanian psychoanalysis concepts, I feel as though my perception of the "real world" has changed. Before my understanding of Lacan, I always thought that each and every one of us has an inherent identity or uniqueness that separates one from everyone else. I thought that this identity could be obtained through friends and hobbies and activities that we enjoy as a person. However, after understanding Lacan's concepts, I now see that no one has a fixed identity, but everyone is in a constant cycle to attain an identity they will never have. I now understand the things that I once thought "identified" a person, such as friends and books and movies, not as helpful tools to reach identity, but rather as articles of desire. In this sense, the "desire" to be friends with a certain person, or the "desire" to own "Iron Man" the movie, all function as objects of desire that further thrust us into the never-ending symbolic cycle. These desirous objects will not help us find ourselves, but rather they fill a temporary void within us, and keep us bound in the cycle of always "wanting" (even though we will never fully gain anything). The things within our world serve as illusions of meaning. For instance, literature and film, do not establish a fixed meaning, but rather run around in circles spilling ideas. Everything within our "real world" is not truly real, but an illusion, because the "real" or meaning, can never be found. I really enjoyed Ashley's response, and like to think that I have a much better grasp on Lacan now than before.

Mantissa and the Psychoanalytic Theory

When I first started reading "Mantissa" I found it very representative of the psychoanalytic theory in many ways. When Dr. Delfie begins taking off her clothes and insisting that Mr. Green fondle her, in order to test his reflexes, it becomes obvious that Dr. Delfie is after much more in the attempt to reinstall Mr. Green's memory, while he suffers from amnesia. However, in the midst of Dr. Delfie's obscene behavior, Mr. Green can't help but panic and resist Dr. Delfie's perverse force over him. Mr. Green can't fully comprehend the sexual advances of Dr. Delfie, because it completely steps outside of his conscious and moral reality. Dr. Delfie states, "If you must know, Mr. Green, your memory-loss may well be partly caused by an unconscious desire to fondle unknown female bodies" (pg 21). In this sense, Dr. Delfie acknowledges the fact that the traumatic incident Mr. Green experienced before his onset of amnesia could have placed his unadmitted desires out of his consciousness and into his unconsciousness. As a result, certain desires or urges that Mr. Green once felt are repressed, and he cannot access them in his unconscious anymore. Mr. Green uses the tactic of sublimation, in which repressed information is disguised as something honorable. When Dr. Delfie makes sexual advances on Mr. Green, he completely dismisses all of it, and instead preaches that this is not correct behavior for a doctor, and what about his wife? Therefore, Mr. Green disguises his repressed sexual desires in the face of moral justice and faithfulness, even though he doesn't even remember his wife, and she is just as much a stranger to him as the doctor. Another particular quote that truly reflects the psychoanalytic theory is stated by Dr. Delfie "Now listen closely, Mr. Green. I will try to explain one last time. Memory is strongly attached to ego. Your ego has lost in a conflict with your superego, which has decided to repress it- to censor it. All Nurse and I wish to do is to enlist the aid of the third component in your psyche, the id. Your id is that flaccid member pressed against my posterior. It is potentially your best friend. And mine as your doctor. Do you understand what I am saying?" (pg 26). In light of what Dr. Delfie tells Mr. Green, she asserts that Mr. Green has lost his conscious memory or ego, because Mr. Green's conscience or superego has repressed his once conscious desires and urges, therefore, in order to restore Mr. Green's conscious desires they must get Mr. Green's id, or unconscious desires working, so that his ego restores itself and his memory comes back. Therefore, Dr. Delfie and the Nurse are trying to restore Mr. Green's unconscious sexual desires from his id by sexually provoking him. The concept of projection is also reflected here. Projection is when negative aspects of ourselves are not recognized by ourselves but projected onto another person. Mr. Green's repressed sexual desires are projected onto Dr. Delfie who fully exerts sexual desire and force. Projection acts as a defense mechanism for Mr. Green who does not want to face the painful realization that he has these sexual urges. In these particular ways, I feel as though the psychoanalytic theory can effectively evaluate this certain scene from Mantissa.

Baudrillard Response

First of all, I found Ken Rufo's post very helpful when it came to understanding Baudrillard and the concepts that he produced. When I initially started reading the post, I found Baudrillard's ideas entirely confusing and dense, ultimately feeling as though I had no way of comprehending their depth. However, Ken Rufo's examples proved to be my savior. I wanted to focus on one of Baudrillard's ideas in particular. I was especially interested in Baudrillard's third model stage of simulation, in which simulations of reality are produced so heavily that ultimately the relationship between reality and its copy are confused. Plato's idea of simulacrum (a copy without an original) is completely mind boggling. One example of simulacrum that I like to think of is Disney's "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" park. In this sense, a simulation was created according to the Disney movie that was produced, however, because it was a movie the shrunken location does not exist, and as a result the Disney park did not copy anything, but instead maintains the power of persuasion by making you believe that this simulation is like the real thing. Because simulations have increased tremendously and can be found in much of everything, reality has become lost and is hard to find. Because simulacrum starts making things perceptibly real, people start experiencing their own reality through simulations. Baudrillard called this previous idea the hyperreal. Therefore, to relate back to my previous example, if you were to one day become miraculously shrunken and placed in a yard, you would be apt to relate Disney's "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" park to the reality you would be experiencing (was Disney's interpretation accurate? not accurate?) As a result, reality actually becomes a copy of the simulation you had previously experienced. Overall I found Baudrillard's ideas very interesting, yet confusing. I think that Baudrillard's ideas about the simulated are very interesting, because they offer an alternative to reality, and make everything seem like an illusion. I have never seen the Matrix, but now that I have a slight grasp of Baudrillard's ideas, I am looking forward to watching it in class.

Part 2: Authorship explored by Amardeep Singh

While I was going through the different blogs looking for some type of reference to authorship I came across Amardeep Singh's post entitled, "Why I didn't like 'The White Tiger.'" In this particular blog post Amardeep Singh states the reasons why he did not like the novel, which was supposedly acclaimed by critics. Singh states that the novel was very unrealistic and fake in nature, because the main character who is supposedly "half baked" goes on long rants that would be quite impossible for someone of his mental state. In this way, the novel doesn't make much sense. Because Singh questioned the intentions of the author for creating a contradicting main character, Singh is acknowledging the fact that in his eyes the author of the book has little validity. If the author is not going to properly portray the main character of the novel, then he loses a sense of accountability to the readers. When I was reading Barthes' "The Death of the Author" he stated that writer's can only make imitations of other original works, and therefore the ability to express oneself declines, because originality ceases to exist. Because all that exists are imitations the text becomes "lost, infinitely deferred" (Rice and Waugh, 188). In relation to "The White Tiger" as Singh describes it, the novel did not make any sense, because of the contradictions and the politically incorrect topics explored. According to Barthes, perhaps the reason that the novel did not make much sense, was because of the multiple writings and imitations within the text. The imitations in the text made it completely unfocused, and as a result it lost its meaning. Barthes also stated that once the critic looks to the author, the text is explained. This could possibly account for the reason in which "The White Tiger" was positively acclaimed by critics, while at the same time, he did not understand it or like it. Barthes claimed that no one ever pays any attention to the reader, even though the reader plays a critical part in focusing the text. While "The White Tiger" was acclaimed and the author made important as the creator of the text, the reader's position remains insignificant and small. Although I've never read "The White Tiger" I think Singh made a very good point concerning the author's validity within the text. 

Part 1: Barthes' "The Death of the Author"

When I first read Barthes' "The Death of the Author" I was entirely confused, and must admit that it wasn't until the second reading that I started picking up specific ideas and concepts that he expressed. I am going to try my best to decipher a specific point that Barthes explicated in the article. I must say that one idea in particular stood out to me in the reading. Barthes' concept that writer originality is dead, because everything is just an imitation of everything preceding it, was very interesting to me. Because the art of writing has existed for so long, writers seek to establish a sense of uniqueness to their writing, but the ideas that they display are only elaborations of previous ideas that existed, and therefore, creativity cannot be attained. There was one particular quote that I thought truly epitomized Barthes' argument--he states, " Succeeding the Author, the scriptor no longer bears within him passions, humours, feelings, impressions, but rather this immense dictionary from which he draws a writing that can know no halt: life never does more than imitate the book, and the book itself is only a tissue of signs, an imitation that is lost, infinitely deferred (pg 188)." In this particular quote, I think that Barthes is emphasizing the fact that the death of the author, or creativity, has made the scriptor a bundle of inadequacy. Because the scriptor is unable to create an origin or original idea to his writing, he is forced to draw on previous ideas, and as a result his work of imitation bears no meaning. The fact that there are only imitations, reasserts Barthes' argument that the author is dead. Barthes acknowledges the fact that most people, especially critics, are prone to looking at the author for answers to the text. In contrast to this method, Barthes states that the reader holds the absolute power. Since each text is a mixture of reoccuring ideas, you cannot look to the author for the answer, but instead the reader, because the reader is the one who brings the "lost" ideas in the writing to life, by actively reading the text. I like the fact that Barthes believes that more credit should be given to the reader, as oppose to the author, because it is the reader's interpretation that truly brings the text to life.