This week's reading in Culler is about performative language. The basic concept is that the words are the acts themselves. I've never really thought about making promises as a performative act of language or an act at all. Usually, making promises were just words that described a future act. "I promise" usually precedes an act or action but, the phrase "I promise" can stand on its own, so it is an act.
The difference between constative and performative are not difficult to understand but more confusing to distinguish at times. From what I see, constative deals more with the past, and a declaration has already been stated. Performative seems to be more in the present moment since it is the active manifestation of the word. One of the problems Culler presents is that words aren't always the act themselves. For example, promising something is an act, but weather or not a person keeps the promise is something else. Perhaps it becomes constative then when the act of promising is over and the outcome of the promise comes to light.
Ideology is "the making natural of cultural phenomena." I really liked this definition, and I believe it is one of the easiest ways to understand the different aspects of ideology. Ideology is man made because like language, they don't exist in the natural world.
I think fairy tales are in general ideological. However, fairy tales may not be as pertinent to today's world. The common thought of today's young women is not to wait for their prince but to develop themselves.
Snow White, in that sense, is very ideological. She is proficient with household chores and she is the archetypal damsel in distress, at least in the Disney version. But even if fairy tales are ideological, I think they have something very valuable to offer. It's tradition and a sort of moral understanding almost. We learn things from fairy tales, weather they progress our culture or not. Most people understand that fairy tales aren't an accurate depiction of real life, but that is the purpose of literature I think. Literature gives us a way to construct an absurd situation that mirrors reality. Conflicts can more easily be written than acted out, so bringing up problems on the page is less detrimental. At least the conflict is brought to attention with minimal or not damage to the "real world."
I don't quite understand ideology as "common sense." I believe more in common knowledge than common sense. Common sense connotes more that we all live in the same kind of environment. I realize that there are natural laws of science that we can't ignore, but our social understanding is much different. I am not convinced that we can have a "common sense." The very dynamics of language makes it difficult for it to exist. "Common sense" is only a part of ideology. Ideology is partially just conjectures on how the world should be. I think, we as humans, make those sort of guesses everyday. We might be more ideological than we realize. Stereotypes, archetypes, patterns, tradition, and culture are ideological in their own ways too.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
link: addition to Snow White
I like how things we learn are so relevant to what goes on today and I found this little bit on Yahoo. I thought "what a coincidence."
There's a debate on multiculturalism. There isn't really an equality of culture I think. Subcultures and counterculture are more a part of some people's lives than others. As someone who passes between two cultures, I think its definitely possible to have part of both. Being totally in one culture is impossible anyways because one culture influences another.
Forcing the main culture on a person is wrong. We give individuals, in this country anyways, the right to choose what to absorb. Countercultures aren't bad things because I think they're a part of any culture. Like before, everything is relative and we can't have one without the other.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017/wl_afp/germanymuslimreligionimmigration
There's a debate on multiculturalism. There isn't really an equality of culture I think. Subcultures and counterculture are more a part of some people's lives than others. As someone who passes between two cultures, I think its definitely possible to have part of both. Being totally in one culture is impossible anyways because one culture influences another.
Forcing the main culture on a person is wrong. We give individuals, in this country anyways, the right to choose what to absorb. Countercultures aren't bad things because I think they're a part of any culture. Like before, everything is relative and we can't have one without the other.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017/wl_afp/germanymuslimreligionimmigration
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Snow White and Her Stepmother
This week's reading was again really interesting. I had never thought of the good mother and the witch as being metaphors for the two sides of motherhood. It was also interesting that the books says the witch is the one that is most admirable and that Snow White is actually a very boring and static character, especially in the Disney version. Now that I think about it, she is a bit boring. She's quite innocent, but in the original versions, she was very young, around 7-13 years of age. I was surprised at how young she was in all the versions. No wonder she's boring. She hasn't had enough time to develop, so who could blame her for being "boring." I don't think older women would be that jealous of such a young girl (and a pre-teen at that), especially if she is also beautiful. It felt like the stories were playing on the vanity of women; having them look in mirrors all the time and having them be jealous of such a young girl, which would play more into age then beauty. In most of the stories, the queen/ witch doesn't become malicious towards snow white until the mirror tells her that she is not the fairest. If the mirror or the husbands or the eachrais urlair hadn't introduced the problem in the first place, the queen wouldn't have hated Snow White so much.
I find it amusing how many times Snow White can die and still come back alive. The authors really give the protagonists a chance to win, which is a little unfair for the villains who has to concoct a mater plan that will eventually be foiled anyways. She seems to have a bit of magic all on her own. She's a bit enchanted even without the aid of fairies and such.
Also, on a side note that I learned in another class. The suffix "agonist" refers to someone participating in a struggle or a contest. So the antagonist and protagonist are struggling for the same thing essentially. The antagonist is preventing the protagonist from reaching a goal, so in that sense, Snow White might be the Witch's antagonist. But that wouldn't really work... Snow White has to win because she's the "heroine." A story where evil and vanity win against innocence doesn't really hold well. Although, I believe in equal opportunity, a more equal distribution of the enchantment would be nice. The queen does have a her own magic though, but she doesn't have magic enough to bring her back to life.
"The Young Slave" was one of the more violent ones, in my opinion. The stepmother beat her and starved her, and she also threatened to kill herself, which any 7 year old girl who woke up from a coffin shouldn't want. "Lasair Gheug" was the most violent one, though, and very strange. The ending was a bit shocking and a little too sudden. She ends up with very little and she doesn't seem to care. However she's still very young, so it might not matter. She wouldn't know what she lost.
Anne Sexton's version is much more circular. It links or foreshadows that Snow White could become her stepmother. Although, I didn't like the poem version. It seemed sparse and rushed. The narrative versions give a much better picture and allow for more character development.
The apple, according to Dan Brown, represents the original sin of Eve. She was curious and ate the apple and she paid for it. The apple could also allude to Greek mythology where Juno, Aphrodite, and Athena ( the goddesses of marriage, love, and wisdom) compete for one golden apple. I just wanted to tie this random piece of information into the blog.
I find it amusing how many times Snow White can die and still come back alive. The authors really give the protagonists a chance to win, which is a little unfair for the villains who has to concoct a mater plan that will eventually be foiled anyways. She seems to have a bit of magic all on her own. She's a bit enchanted even without the aid of fairies and such.
Also, on a side note that I learned in another class. The suffix "agonist" refers to someone participating in a struggle or a contest. So the antagonist and protagonist are struggling for the same thing essentially. The antagonist is preventing the protagonist from reaching a goal, so in that sense, Snow White might be the Witch's antagonist. But that wouldn't really work... Snow White has to win because she's the "heroine." A story where evil and vanity win against innocence doesn't really hold well. Although, I believe in equal opportunity, a more equal distribution of the enchantment would be nice. The queen does have a her own magic though, but she doesn't have magic enough to bring her back to life.
"The Young Slave" was one of the more violent ones, in my opinion. The stepmother beat her and starved her, and she also threatened to kill herself, which any 7 year old girl who woke up from a coffin shouldn't want. "Lasair Gheug" was the most violent one, though, and very strange. The ending was a bit shocking and a little too sudden. She ends up with very little and she doesn't seem to care. However she's still very young, so it might not matter. She wouldn't know what she lost.
Anne Sexton's version is much more circular. It links or foreshadows that Snow White could become her stepmother. Although, I didn't like the poem version. It seemed sparse and rushed. The narrative versions give a much better picture and allow for more character development.
The apple, according to Dan Brown, represents the original sin of Eve. She was curious and ate the apple and she paid for it. The apple could also allude to Greek mythology where Juno, Aphrodite, and Athena ( the goddesses of marriage, love, and wisdom) compete for one golden apple. I just wanted to tie this random piece of information into the blog.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Lyric and self vs. subject
This week's reading was quite insightful. Culler presented how poetry and lyric achieve its effect as literature and how it evokes emotion and meaning. Poetry is elegant and it usually achieves the effect of a whole novel in a few lines, usually. When reading poetry, I find the first few times to be extremely difficult because of the uniqueness in language and the many devices it uses. Poetry has a certain brevity and diction about it. Novels and short stories have to build more of the setting and the mood, while poetry does it in one or two words. I think it focuses on the details that matter rather than elaborating, and the overly dramatic language it uses it times makes up for not elaborating. It's a trade off between the length of the piece and the weight of one image. Poetry can do amazing things if we can understand to read them right. I've known many poems that made me stop and rethink things. Literature isn't very clear any ways. It's definition is ambiguous. I think what make poetry is also ambiguous because there are new genres like prose poetry that incorporate elements of both poetry and narrative. Sometimes, it's really hard to tell which genre it belongs to. Personification and apostrophe isn't exclusive to poetry nor are any of the other devices. There's this fluidity to all the genres so I guess we could interpret many things as poetry. I think what sets poetry apart, though is that it can very closely imitate human emotion: the paradoxes and the periodic rhythm and even the unclear expression or statement.
It's difficult to read poetry objectively since most poetry comes from experience. Someone who forgot everything they ever knew couldn't possibly read poetry. Memory serves as that background for subjectivity, for opinions. Reading and dissecting the words will only get the reader so far, so that's where the subjective comes into play.
Reading, any form of reading involves subjectivity. The toolbox distinguishes the "self" and the "subject." It reminds me of the scientific form of "nature vs. nurture, " which argues basically the same thing only on a different plane. We are a product of our surroundings, but we have somethings that come naturally to us. As infants, we cry when we need something. To learn language we mimic others, then we comprehend, and produce. As we grow older, we continue to internalize our surroundings. This is experience, and I think it could be possible to be unique in the sense that there are so many combination of experiences that it's difficult to have two the same. I find it sad when I think that we aren't unique human beings, and I realize that our experiences aren't unique. Other people experience happiness, poverty, or love. Because we're all humans, there is a collective experience. I guess it's not very possible to be that individual or even original.
Anyways, the "subject" interests me very much. It involves interpellation, which reminds me of when someone says "hey loser" or "hey stupid" in a crowd of people, and many of them will turn. For whatever reason, people respond. Maybe because they've done something stupid in their lives or don't feel like a winner. I guess in a way, we have to accept things because changing context is near impossible. We live, experience, and internalize it everyday. It's impossible to avoid.
The story about the gatekeeper reminded me of "Allegory to the Cave." There are three doorkeepers of the law like the three branches of government who keeps the countryman or the citizen from the law. He can't reach the law because of the doorkeepers, so he's a subject. In the cave, three prisoners are chained to a wall, like the similar barrier of the gates. One man ventures into the light and comes back and they kill him. There's something the three gatekeepers and prisoners want to keep out of reach. I think what both of these teach us is that the law is unavoidable. We are somehow always prisoners of thoughts or a higher power, and we are taught to obey or be punished.
It's difficult to read poetry objectively since most poetry comes from experience. Someone who forgot everything they ever knew couldn't possibly read poetry. Memory serves as that background for subjectivity, for opinions. Reading and dissecting the words will only get the reader so far, so that's where the subjective comes into play.
Reading, any form of reading involves subjectivity. The toolbox distinguishes the "self" and the "subject." It reminds me of the scientific form of "nature vs. nurture, " which argues basically the same thing only on a different plane. We are a product of our surroundings, but we have somethings that come naturally to us. As infants, we cry when we need something. To learn language we mimic others, then we comprehend, and produce. As we grow older, we continue to internalize our surroundings. This is experience, and I think it could be possible to be unique in the sense that there are so many combination of experiences that it's difficult to have two the same. I find it sad when I think that we aren't unique human beings, and I realize that our experiences aren't unique. Other people experience happiness, poverty, or love. Because we're all humans, there is a collective experience. I guess it's not very possible to be that individual or even original.
Anyways, the "subject" interests me very much. It involves interpellation, which reminds me of when someone says "hey loser" or "hey stupid" in a crowd of people, and many of them will turn. For whatever reason, people respond. Maybe because they've done something stupid in their lives or don't feel like a winner. I guess in a way, we have to accept things because changing context is near impossible. We live, experience, and internalize it everyday. It's impossible to avoid.
The story about the gatekeeper reminded me of "Allegory to the Cave." There are three doorkeepers of the law like the three branches of government who keeps the countryman or the citizen from the law. He can't reach the law because of the doorkeepers, so he's a subject. In the cave, three prisoners are chained to a wall, like the similar barrier of the gates. One man ventures into the light and comes back and they kill him. There's something the three gatekeepers and prisoners want to keep out of reach. I think what both of these teach us is that the law is unavoidable. We are somehow always prisoners of thoughts or a higher power, and we are taught to obey or be punished.
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