Patriarchal forces- tying postcolonial criticism to feminist criticism through Cloud 9

For the last blog I thought I would tie together postcolonial criticism and feminist criticism through Cloud 9. All three deal with the idea of the patriarchal forces and what it is like to try and break free from that control.
Postcolonial criticism, as we read in Barry likes literature that deals with cultural, social, regional, and national differences (Barry 192). Could 9 definitely deals with these differences by moving the plot from a British colony in Africa in the Victorian times in ACT I to present day London in ACT II. Also postcolonial criticism deals with European colonizing powers and how they see pre-colonial eras as pre-civilized (Barry 193). Although Cloud 9 does not deal with pre colonized times it does point out the idea that the colonizer is the best and only thing of importance to the colonized. In the end of Cloud 9, Clive says how he “[…] used to be proud of the British. There was a high ideal” (111). He is saying that when the British had control over colonies in Africa things were run the way they were supposed to be and now that these colonies have freedom there is chaos. It just reiterates the idea that postcolonial criticism deals with. Another point of postcolonial criticism is about writers. They feel postcolonial writers evoke or create a pre-colonial version of their own nation, rejecting the modern which is tainted with colonial status of their countries (Barry 194). This could possible be why there are so many shocking sexual relations in Cloud 9. The play could be trying to prove a point and go against this idea of the colonial status and dominance. And simply they could be there to prove that times were changing and by making things so outrages it proves the point. It also provides a reason to see that yes times are changing but not always in a progressive linear way. Postcolonial writers express unstable societal changes and gender identity problems that post-structuralists deal with as well. Post-structuralism is “concerned to show the fluid and unstable nature of personal and gender identity, the shifting, ‘polyvalent’, contradictory currents of signification within texts, and the way literature itself is a site on which ideological struggles are acted out” (Barry 196). There is struggle where there is change and Cloud 9 and also feminist criticism deals a lot with this struggle with gender roles and sexuality.
The stages of postcolonial criticism, adopt, adapt, and adept, resemble the developing stages of feminist criticism (Barry 197). Postcolonial criticism took as its main subject matter the white representations of colonial countries and criticized them for their limitations and biasness. This is much like what feminists did when the subject was the representation of women by male’s novelists. Cloud 9 makes a direct remark to this problem with the character of Martin. He says, “I’m writing a novel about women from the women’s point of view” (83). He can not be writing it from a woman’s point of view because he is not a woman. It is showing how absolutely ridiculous this idea was.
Feminist criticism also saw how representations of women controlled their identities and behavior (Barry 121). In Cloud 9 you see a lot of the female characters struggling with their true identities and how to act because the way they want to act is against the typical female model that has been set up for them. We see Lin who is a lesbian struggle with her identity for herself and for her daughter. She lets her daughter be more ‘masculine’ but only to a certain point because she doesn’t want her to be picked on. Also, Betty struggles because she at first is the typical female wife and mother. She does everything that men want her to but in ACT II we see her leave her husband and try to gain independence. She introduces herself by saying, “I live or Clive. The whole aim of my life is to be what he looks for in a wife. I am a man’s creation as you see, and what men want is what I want to be” (4). She then later goes on to say that Clive is her society; she lets the patriarchy run her life (14). Then in ACT II you start to see her struggle with the patriarchy and wanting to be free of it. She does leave her husband and gets a job but she becomes a secretary for a doctor which is falling right back into the patriarchal dominance because a secretary is a typical female role (102). She gains liberation when she goes against the patriarchy and masturbates (105). She takes the man right out of the equation. In the end she embraces her younger self from ACT I, because she is finally free from dominance (111).
Another thing feminist criticism discusses is fiction in the nineteenth century. It focused on the male partner being the one who determines the female’s social position and the female’s main focus was on marriage. In Cloud 9, the introduction of Betty by Clive proves this point. “My wife is all I dreamt a wife should be, and everything she is she owes to me” (3). Then later on in the play we see Martin, Victoria’s husband, discussing work with her. He keeps saying she should go to work but not because he is forcing her to. By him having to repeatedly say he is not forcing her is actually saying the opposite. He wants her to become a working woman no matter if she really wants to be or not (81). One of the feminist theorists we read was Cixous and she discussed the question, “What does she want?” She is pointing out that there is no place for woman’s desire in society that she ends up not knowing what to do with it, no longer knowing where to put it, conceal it, or if it even exists (R&W 233). This is seen in Cloud 9 through Betty, Victoria, and Lin. Betty and Lin are discussing living without men and Betty says, “It’s strange not having a man in the house. You don’t know who to do things for.” Then Lin says, “Yourself.” And Betty replies, “Oh, that’s very selfish” (83). Betty doesn’t even know what she wants because she let herself be dominated all her life by men and now that she is gaining freedom she is completely lost.
All three, postcolonial criticism, feminist criticism, and Cloud 9 all deal with this idea of the patriarchal dominance. Cloud 9 has the character of Victoria be played by a doll in ACT I to show that as a female she has no voice and a male can speak for her better then she can for herself. In Feminist criticism women were gaining freedom at the time but they still needed to be liberated by a male. In Cloud 9, Martin points out that women have been liberated and then says, […] which I am totally in favour of […]” (81). By him saying this he is saying that it is ok for women to gain freedoms because men think it is ok. Lastly, postcolonial criticism deals with the dominance of the colonizer. It discusses, like in feminist criticism and Cloud 9 the female having no voice, the colonized has no voice or even history until the dominate colonizer takes over. All three are showing how there is always a dominate force that takes over and through Cloud 9 you can see the absurdity of this and how people think.

Patriarchal Forces in Pop Culture

I thought this was an interesting blog to read because i had just attended Kyley Ann Caldwell's senior presentation which she titled, "A New Patriarchy: Bidding for Agency in 1980's Romantic Comedies." This blog, feminist allies, deals with women in media as well. It is written by a man and i thought it was great to see that he notices patriarchal issues in pop culture all the time now. It is true there are these issues prevelent in media stories, films, novels etc that a lot of us dont realize or chose to ignore. Kyley's presentation used three examples of films from the 1980's that i had seen but never really noticed ALL the patriarchal forces in them. I really enjoyed her presentation and as she concluded i realized that although there have been advances and freedoms for women we are still not anywhere near where we should be.
The blog discusses the movie '300' and how it doesnt address the issues of women and how they were viewed as wives and mothers first then people second. The author of this blog is upset by this because he says the film deals with issues of democracy but leaves out that women had any problems from society that they had to deal with at the time.
It is a very interesting blog to read and there are some other posts by him that are great too!

Cixous

I thought that feminism was very interesting to read. Cixous in particular interested me. She pointed out things that I had never thought about before but I completely see where she gets her thoughts from. She points out that society and philosophy is male dominated. When she simply discussed how things, words, are coupled she said like a marriage (R&W 229). I never realized but it is true. In a marriage the man’s name comes first and in coupling of ‘things’ the dominant ‘thing’ comes first as well. Her examples were father/mother…. head/heart…. intelligible/sensitive…. activity/passivity. All of these as one can notice, have the more dominate and mostly male associated ‘thing’ listed first in the coupling. Society has made all these words and ‘things’ become more dominate and labeled to the male.
Also when she discusses in philosophy how the female is passive she gives the example of, “a will to say something.” She then points out that a “will” is an active, authoritative desire equally male. She says that the world of being can function without the mother all it needs is a something maternal. She then says that a father who can act as a mother is just as good as the real mother in the world of being (R&W 230). This really shocked me when I read it. I do see her point though and where she is coming from. A lot of times the female is viewed as not needed or not needed as much. The copy of the original is just as sufficient as the original.
Another very interesting thing she discussed was when she said, “What does she want?” She explained that there is no place for a woman’s desire in the world. She ends up not knowing what to do with her desire, where to put it, if she should hide it, or if she even has any at all (R&W 233). I agree with this. We see it every day in society. A woman wants to go out and have a career before having a family and people think there is something wrong with her, that her priorities are mixed up. Should she really feel bad for wanting to be successful on her own? ...of course not. Also take a woman who does have a family but also has to juggle a career, people think she should stop trying to be “super mom” that the task of both is too much. Desire can be anything from wanting to be successful, wanting to have fun, wanting to do anything. In society a lot of women have to hide these wants though because they will be labeled with a negative name or looked at as being different. This is where the desire gets lost. You don’t know what to do with it because you don’t know what is right anymore. You want something that society says no to. I am sure there are instances when men feel this way too but it’s not as difficult for them. They are the “stronger”, more “stable” people who can make the correct choices. Yes it must be hard to always live up to that expectation but it makes it easier when society backs you up.
I was offended when she talked about Freud (who I’m not sure I’m much of a fan of) and he said “‘fatality’ of feminine situations is a result of anatomical ‘defectiveness’” (R&W 232). I’m sorry I had no idea being a woman was a defect. Also when he talks about how both the young boy and girl desire the mother, he feels that since the boy is loving the opposite sex his love is the ‘natural’ one (R&W 232). Not only does that offend females but also homosexual relations. How does Freud explain those? I felt that Freud is very narrow-minded in his thinking and in many instances is completely wrong. He makes assumptions about things that he has no experience with. I do not think a male can speak for a female’s feelings or desires. One person should not think for another person or even try to explain their thoughts the way Freud does. Freud really aggravates me and I am doing a Freudian and Lacanian reading on a movie for my final paper so we will see how that goes and if my views on him change at all…..

feminism

I know that this blog is to deal with stories currently in the news but there is one that happened at the beginning of the year that did not get as much as play as the story now about Don Imus and his awful remarks about the Rutgers girls basketball players.

http://wbztv.com/local/local_story_059081604.html
A Boston Celtics radio analyst, Cedric Maxwell made some very rude and sexist comments about one of the few female referees in the NBA when he disagreed with one of her calls. It is said that he was doing an impression of Tommy Heinsohn (who is a commentator on the Celtics' television broadcasts on Fox Sports New England) who used to yell out inappropriate things. Some feel that since he was only doing an impersonation he should not be so harshly punished, let me see how you feel…. He said, “Go back to the kitchen” and then if that wasn’t enough he followed that remark with, “Go in there and make me some bacon and eggs, would you?” I guess he thought that was a funny impersonation. Strange how he decided to impersonate him when a female referee made a bad call. If a male referee were to make a call he disagreed with he would not insult his manhood but simply state that he disagreed and it was an awful call in his opinion.
He later issued an apology, if that’s what you can call it, where he said, “If I said anything that might have been insensitive or sexist in any way, then I apologize because she worked extremely hard to get where she is now […].” First of all he starts off by saying IF I said anything insensitive or sexist…please…IF…obviously it was. He then goes on to say how she has worked so hard to get where she is which in my opinion is just saying that to get her job as a women is something that is not an everyday thing, it is primarily a male job even though women are obviously capable of it. He did not make his initial comments any better by apologizing. In my opinion he made them worse by making her out to be some poor female who he should not have said anything about because it upset her. This comment fits right into feminism and how they tried to pull women out of the housewife role and Cedric Maxwell is putting her right back. As we read in Barry, feminists pointed out that in nineteenth century fiction, very few women worked unless they absolutely had to (Barry 122). Eventually as the years went on feminism expanded its issues to more then just literature but this was a huge problem they saw. Even today women are still sometimes viewed to put a husband and kids before a career. Cedric Maxwell’s comments proved that some people are still stuck in this mindset today.
Going back to the comments that Don Imus made on his morning show, I think that he should be punished. He called COLLEGE ATHLETES nappy headed hoes. He also said that these girls looked roughed because they had tattoos on them. Has he ever seen any male basketball games? They all have tattoos as well does that make them rough looking pimps? ....I didn’t think so. The problem I have here is what I have with the story I wrote about before. Both these men claimed to apologize for what they said but neither apology was actually an apology. They say they are sorry but follow it with another more subtle sexist remark about how females have worked so hard to get where they are and how their remarks were insensitive to them. Please! They are totally saying that women either shouldn’t be where they are, in so-called male roles, and they are calling us the typical female by saying they were insensitive to our feelings.
I think all these men need a refresher in apologies and also need to learn what a woman really is. Their view of feminine is the typical socially constructed one that limits what we actually are.

Baudrillard

I thought that Ken Rufo’s lecture was great. I liked how he used real world examples to explain the ideas he was discussing, it made me understand him so much more. I also like learning about Baudrillard because I had known very little about him. I thought it was interesting to see how he started out criticizing structural Marxism only a little bit and as his ideas progressed he started to criticize him even more.
I understood the four simulation stages that Baudrillard wrote about. When Ken talked about them I understood them because of his great examples. I got that the first stage is standing in for reality When he talked about the cow and the hay and how eventually if you replace their value for money you don’t need to trade you can just buy what you need but then stage two comes in and the value you assigned is not always going to be the same all the time. Here simulation hides the absence of reality. His example of the stock market was also a good one even though I usually don’t understand the stock market I did grasp what he was saying! The third stage then produces its own reality. Here he got into simulacrum, which he said means a copy without an original, which is what we had been discussing in class recently. His examples here of the ET ride or Epcot not only made me laugh but it made me understand exactly what this means. You are made to believe that what you are seeing in these places is the real thing when in fact it is just a copy of nothing that’s actually real. The hyperreal that Baudrillard talks about made perfect sense as well. It’s when, “the real you discover will always be an effect of the simulation, a copy or non-copy of it,” because you will always see the simulation as really correct. Baudrillard then adds a fourth stage he calls “integral reality.” It is where simulation is everywhere without models and means everything and nothing all at once. Ken explains it using credit and virtual banking. He says you can buy something on a credit card and the money is automatically taken out of your account. You never see this actually happen though so you don’t realize what you are spending. The fact he put about how much debt Americans are in really shocked me. But it totally made sense to his point about capitalism being about the consumption and not the production.
At the beginning of his lecture he talks about how Baudrillard added sign value to structural Marxism. Structural Marxism talks about things in terms of its use-value and what the object does or its exchange value. Baudrillard felt that this was a too limited way to look at things. He wants to look at what the object represents and make this more important then the above mentioned ways structural Marxism looks at objects. I thought it interesting as well how Baudrillard feels that theorists say they discovered something new when in fact they invented or created the model for which this so called discovery has come from. I agree with him here I feel that a lot of theorists want to complicate matters and do so by saying they discovered a loop hole in someone else’s work when they just made up the whole basis in the first place.
I thought this was a great lecture as I said in the beginning. I really liked his examples and I thought Baudrillard was a different kind of theorist. He was not trying to say he knew it all like I get from some of the others we have read. He is relating things to life and attacking things that just don’t make sense to him and gives reason to back it up. I thought it was a refreshing read!

branching out in the blogging world- author function

I found this blog about the new movie “300” and the idea of the author function. I found it interesting because it tied into my personal life. My father wanted to see this movie very badly but my mother refused because she heard that it had had the same director who did Dawn of the Dead in 2004, which my father watched as well. She immediately thought both films were too violent for her and did not go see it. She is doing what we talked about, associating the piece art with the author. She can not get away from tying the author to their work. And in the other sense neither can my dad because his reasons for wanting to see “300” were the fact that it had the reputation to be violent and action packed.
This blog also discusses Foucault and Barthes. He writes, “As Barthes wrote, “the author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as, emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism, French rationalism, and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, of, as it is more nobly put, the ‘human person’”(DA 143). Basically, modern society ties text to the author.” I feel that this is true. We as a society strive to know who wrote anything that we read and consider work. We even need to know the author in things outside of text such as music, paintings etc. As we read in Foucault and the blogger points out that in earlier times if a piece of work had an anonymous author we did not view it as true. We even then needed to tie the author with their work to make it have any meaning.
He then discusses what Barthes says about what happens once the author is gone; “ […]the single meaning of the text attributed to the Author (what Barthes called the theological meaning, since it is unitary and absolute), is replaced by a multiplicity of meanings, which depends on the reading. In another essay in Image-Music-Text, From Work to Text, Barthes claims that the reader gives the text its meaning, not the Author.” He talks about this in relation to critics. He uses critic’s comments on the movie “300” in the beginning of his blog and then talks about how irrelevant they are based on this idea. Since the reader is giving the meaning there are multiple meanings that one can come to. If there are multiple meanings the blogger says that there is nothing to criticize because it is a decentered text. I have a question about this though….is not a critic a reader as well? I feel that the critic can come up with an opinion because they are a reader who gives meaning to the text.

"What is an Author?"

According to Foucault an author is very important and differs from a writer. An author is given a name and the name means something, it has importance. You can link a piece of work to an author through the way it’s written, the style, phrases used, ideas and also the timeline like if historical dates are mentioned do they coincide with the life span of the author. He also says that the name of an author is a description which I understand. Once you have the name of an author it is not only their name but it describes who they are and their thoughts. He used the example of Aristotle. When one hears that name you automatically think a great thinker and philosopher and it determines what kind of work you will be reading.
Foucault then discusses the word, ‘work’ and what it actually means. When we call something a work it is because it is written by someone and that someone is an ‘author’ (p 1262). He is saying that for something to have credit as being a work of literature or a work of art it needs a name, an author to go with it. He also says, “[…] if some have found it convenient to bypass the individuality of the writer or his status as an author to concentrate on a work, they have failed to appreciate […] the word ‘work’ and the unity it designates” (1262). Again he is saying that for a work to be a work it needs the author to be recognized.
He also discusses the idea of ecriture which indicates writing as the interaction of presence and absence. I didn’t quit understand him until he said that you see references to the author in his absence. I do understand what he is trying to say. It goes back to being able to link different works to the same author through using the language, ideas, and phrases used. Even if a text’s author is unknown you could link it through clues that the author would use even though his/her name is absent.
I thought it was interesting to read about how works were only called scientific once they had the name of the author to go along with them (1264). By giving the name of the author it “marks a proven discourse” (1264). It is true because when we see an anonymous author we immediately want to know who it is that wrote what we just read so that we can think it to be more believable and real. I don’t know if this is the best example but it is all I can thin of at the moment. When the Harry Potter books first came out and you found out that the author was J.K. Rowling, yes you had a name but you had also found out that it was a pseudonym. Immediately I know I wanted to know who it really was and I had originally thought is was a male author but later found out it was a female who picked an ambiguous alias because she thought it might help the sale of the book. I think in our society we always want to know everything and we won’t stop until we do or we will not believe something until we get the answer.
I also thought how Foucault talked about more then literary texts having authors. It is true that art, music even theories have authors. Homer and Aristotle as he uses as examples are authors of theories. He feels that to be a “great” author one needs to not only write their own text but also make it possible for others to write about the subject and write about differences they see. I agree with him on this I feel that a great author needs to influence others and create controversy as well.

Freud and Lacan

I thought Freud and Lacan were very interesting to read and I definitely understand the material more and more as the semester goes on. I think I have trained my mind to be more open and less rigid when reading this type of material. I do think that some of Freud’s thoughts are a little bizarre but he makes good points. When he talks about dreams being an outlet for our repressed desires or fears that want to make their way into our conscious mind I agree (Barry 99). I feel that dreams always have meaning whether it is blatantly obvious or disguised; there is a reason behind it. I thought the way in which he tied the unconscious to literature was interesting as well. He says, the unconscious is like a play, poem or novel. They all can not speak directly and explicitly but they do so through images, symbols, emblems, or metaphors. Literature as well expresses and shows experience in these same ways. (Barry 102).
Where I started to think he went a little of-the-wall with his ideas was when he discussed Dora. I do not feel she wanted what happened to her to happen. I feel Freud is male oriented in his thoughts and a sexist especially in this case. It just aggravated me that he would say it was her fault that an older man came on to her, because she obviously suffered from this experience and his so called help was definitely no help to her at all. I did however see where he was coming from when he said that Hamlet had the Oedipus complex. I mean I have read the story before and he does hesitate to kill his uncle to avenge his father’s death. I do not know if he did in fact hesitate because he wanted to sleep with his mother but I can see why Freud may think this and I feel his thoughts are more justified here then in Dora’s story.
Lacan was very interesting as well. His thoughts made me think just like Freud’s did. When he changed Descartes’ famous saying of, “I think, therefore I am” to “I am where I think not,” I thought that was very clever of him. I agree with it too. I do believe that our true selves lie in our unconscious and we let those thoughts and feelings out every day in some way whether we are aware of it or not. Our unconscious affects our conscious life.
Lacan feels that language is a system that is already complete before we enter into it. He says that characterization (which needs to be rejected) must be viewed as assemblages (a collection of people or things) of signifiers. When the story by Edgar Allen Poe is discussed I understood what Lacan was getting at. The letter in the story is a symbolic object of the unconscious self because we never find out what the letter says just that is very important and effects all the actions of the story. Just like the letter’s contents being unknown so is our unconscious contents. Our unconscious effects our behavior just as the letter affected the characters behavior in the story. Psychoanalysis which deals with repetition and substitution is represented in the story by the investigation of the crime by Dupin. It is repetitive because Dupin steals the letter from the Minister who stole the letter from the Queen. His theft is achieved by substituting the real letter with a fake one.
When he says that all words are put away letters I understood the idea of the signifier having no simple connection to the signified. The signified is always lost he says. In this story we see the significance of the letter but not what is signified within it. The analogy he uses with the envelopes being the signifiers that can not be opened leaving the signified to remain hidden I thought was a good way to explain this idea.
I really enjoyed reading Poe’s story through Lacan’s ideas. It helped me understand Lacan better and I thought it was interesting. It also made me realize what I want to do for the essay!

Derrida the movie

I feel that by watching Derrida the movie I understand Jacques Derrida’s ideas much more. It was easier to understand his views through watching him. I thought it was probably easier to understand because this movie was not made just for an academic audience but was made for all to view so it was put on a less complex level then some of the readings we have had. I thought that it was interesting to see how resistant Derrida was towards the whole interview process and how he did not directly answer any of the questions that were asked of him. He did say many things that like his readings made me really think. He has a way of thinking that really impresses me and at the same time boggles my mind. When his brother said he doesn’t know how he thinks the way in which he does because we all have brains but Derrida’s works so differently I agreed. I enjoyed seeing his brother and also getting a little background on him like when he discussed being a Jew and being not only isolated from other children but from his own religion. He felt anti-Semitism and a feeling of unhappiness in his own community all at once. Knowing this put him on a more human level to me. Before when I had only read what he was saying it was hard for me to relate, but by seeing him and knowing something personal it almost made his thoughts easier to grasp and understand.
I thought the scene where the camera shows Derrida watching himself on the television was great because it is just like what Derrida thinks. He thinks that everything is a copy of itself and he questions reality. I felt that the film makers were very considerate when filming and editing this film because they made it the way Derrida would want it.
He said many things that made me think, like when he asked do we forgive someone or someone for something? I feel I usually forgive the act that someone does and still feel a sort of animosity towards the person. It takes time to forgive the person I think, much more time then forgiving what they did. He says that one can only forgive the unforgivable. I think that that is something to think about. Does he mean that forgiveness of something small and minute is not forgiveness or not worthy of forgiveness because it doesn’t really matter? I feel like forgiving something that is unforgivable takes a lot more effort so maybe this effort is what he sees as forgiveness. He also said that pure forgiveness is impossible which I agree with because one never really forgets something that deserved their forgiveness and as I said before I feel it is easier to forgive an act then to forgive the person who did the act.
I thought it was funny when Derrida said if there was a documentary about another philosopher he would like to hear about their sex and love life. He said this because it is something that they don’t talk about and that they don’t bring into their work. He thinks that this aspect of one’s life influences their thoughts which I agree with. I also thought that it was funny that he would want to hear about something they don’t talk about because that is exactly what some viewers of this film would want but would not get because he is so resistant to the interview process.
I did not know that Derrida refused to have his picture published for awhile but I understood why once he explained. It would have completely contradicted his work at the time that was discussing taking the author out of the text. He didn’t want that fetish-ization of the author that would have come with his photos. Also when he said he feels photos are the death of someone I understood what he meant. Once that photo is taken the moment is gone. That part of someone’s life is over with.
Overall I enjoyed the movie much more then I thought I would and I am glad we watched it because it made me understand Derrida’s thinking much more then when I just read about it.

Derrida.....the supplement and play issues

One thing I was unsure about was the center. After going over it though I feel I have a much better understanding of it and how Derrida discusses the center. The center is the source of truth, the origin. According to Derrida you have to rethink the center. The center is absent so you must rethink it to understand it. He is not saying there is no center he is saying it is something “within the structure and outside it. The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality, the totality has its center elsewhere” (R&W p.196). Strauss’ idea on ethnology is, you believe in something (the center) prior to (outside of) the system to validate it. The center stabilizes the system. This gives understanding to Derrida’s quote on how the center is both within and outside the totality at the same time.
Another part of the center is the metaphysics of presence. This is the study of nature of reality. The study of nature of reality as something that’s present to us. Heidegger feels philosophers do not question what gives a being presence they just assume, to be is to be present. Derrida attacks the center of knowledge as presence. Derrida feels that western society views speech as more privileged over writing. He disagrees and feels both are equal. He is deconstructing the idea of knowledge as presence. His idea of play is a disruption of presence. I liked how in class play was described as a way to understand revolution, it makes you understand it and not the world has just gone crazy. Play to Derrida resists the stabilizing force. The stabilizing force is the center.
Another point that we discussed was the supplement. I am not as sure about this as the other points though. I understand that the supplement is a surplus and is a substitute for something lacking. The supplement substitutes for a lost center. Derrida claims that to account for an absent center one replaces it. You mask the absence of the center to ensure presence. I don’t understand though how Derrida talks about play as disrupting the presence when then he talks about ensuring the presence with the supplement. So his two ideas are to both disrupt and ensure presence????

adding 'post'

According to Barry, post-structuralists believe that structuralists do not follow through in their views on language. I believe that by adding ‘post’ in front of structuralism it is implying that it has connections to the structuralist idea but has modified it in some way. It is a criticism of structuralism and is implying a end to those beliefs and a new, reformed idea in post-structuralism.
Both try to understand texts through language and view language as a system but what each view is based on and what they look for differs from each other. Structuralism is a more scientific based idea that derives from linguistics. It wants to make logical deductions and reach reliable conclusions. Post-structuralism on the other hand is a more philosophical idea. It feels you can not know everything for certain and it calls into questions things that we usually take for granted. There is also an argument about a fixed point or a center. I believe if I am correct, that post-structuralism believes that without a fixed point you have no certain standard to measurer things by. They believe there is no fixed point and that’s why they can question things more. Also on page 72 in Barry I found the compare list he gave very helpful in seeing the differences between the two ideas:
Structuralism vs. Post-structuralism
-Parallels/echoes -Contradictions/paradoxes
-Balances -Shifts/breaks in:
-Reflections/repetitions tone, time, person,
-Symmetry attitude, viewpoint, tense
-Contrasts -Conflicts
-Patterns -Absences/omissions
-Linguistic quirks

The effects of each are different as well. Structuralism’s effect is to show textual unity and coherence where post-structuralism’s effect is to show textual disunity. Since post-structuralism is a philosophy based idea I feel that is obviously the influence for it to look for ‘disunity’ in a text.
As said in class, deconstruction is post-structuralism put to practice. It is reading a text against itself. In Barry it says, “a deconstructive reading uncovers the unconscious rather then the conscious dimension of the text […]” (71) which is a very philosophical approach. It looks to complicate and question the text. So obviously post-structuralism has a direct effect on deconstruction and without structuralism there would be no post-structuralism.
Another issue I found interesting was addressed on pg 63 in Barry where it talked about the distinctions between structuralism and post-structuralism within attitude and language. It said that structuralism believes the world is constructed through language. We get our ideas of reality through language. Post-structuralism doesn’t really buy this. They feel that “the verbal sign is constantly floating free of the concept it is supposed to designate.” You need opposites to make meaning of a word. They give the example of night. Without referencing to day you would not know night. I agree with this because yes you would know that it gets darker outside at a certain time and you can attach the word ‘night’ to this but without experiencing day and light, night would have no real meaning to you.

Structuralism

#2- “The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.”

Saussure feels that there is no meaning between a word and what it designates (Barry p40). He feels all words are arbitrary. This helps explains structuralism because structuralism is, “the belief that things can not be understood in isolation- they have to be seen in the context of the larger structures they are part of” (Barry p39). This makes sense to me because when you think of words you think of them in categories. You say dog to someone and it means nothing on it’s on, the concept you have of a dog is based on other words and larger categories such as animal, pet, furry. You have an idea of dog based on other words. No word on its own means anything. Barry used the example of hut. Hut means nothing until you put it into a category with such things as house, shed, mansion etc. then you can grasp the idea of it.

Saussure looks at patterns and functions of language. Language constitutes our world. By calling someone a terrorist or freedom fighter as Barry uses as examples, you have constructed them in a certain way. Language is powerful because of words but words mean nothing alone, they need each other to give meaning to each other.

I understand structuralism much more then I do the previous theories or so I feel. I understand that words alone mean nothing. Take it back to before language. If you said the word tree to someone, it would have absolutely no meaning. Since we have language though, you can say tree and use other words to describe it and give it an actual meaning.

Structuralism focuses on structures that are usually abstract and puts literary works into them. It looks at the bigger picture rather then the work of art as an individual.

The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary because it’s just a word. It means nothing alone. “Meanings are attributed to things by the human mind, not contained within them” (Barry 39). We give the meanings; the word has no meaning until we label it with one. I like the example of the hut; it gives me a better understanding of a complex idea. This theory almost scares me in a way to think that words as individuals mean nothing until they are put into larger structures together. I never thought in such a complex way about words and language I just always assumed every word had its own meaning but now I realize in fact it needs other words to do so.

trying to make sense of it all

I think the trouble I am having with these beginning theories is that I can not understand how to take the author out of the text since in every English class I have always been taught to analyze the authors life and how it influenced his/her writing. I have had to look at their schooling, family, wealth, mental health etc and relate it in some way to their work. I feel now these beginning theories are telling me to focus in the language itself not the author or the individual. I also am having a problem with how these theories, liberal humanism in particular, seem to contradict themselves. In my understanding, liberal humanists feel that good art is independent from economic factors BUT they also feel authors are formed by their social classes. I may be wrong here but I don’t understand how they can feel social classes form the author because then all work would have some economic influence, so is any art good?

I just feel there is a lot of “flip-flopping” going on. Marxists believe that texts are products of class struggle but Engels who is a Marxist feels the author’s opinions should be hidden. Well if texts are products of social class then the authors opinion is bound to influence his work because that what he is stuck in.

I may be getting all this confused, I’m not sure which is why I’m writing about it. I feel like I have a better grasp on structuralism though so we’ll see :)

marxist criticism

marxist criticism feels that texts are influenced by the social and political circumstances at the time. in relation to the ten tenets of liberal humanism i think you could relate it to the first one, that good literature is timeless. in order to be timeless it has to speak of human nature which comes from what is going on in social and political settings. even if the social and political circumstances are not identical year to year there are always similarites that help us learn our mistakes and accomplishments from these previous experiences. when texts are influenced by such events they can be interpreted in all situations and all moments, making them relevent and timeless.

first blog!! THEORY

im catherine a junior at emmanuel college, studying engish literature. ive never blogged before so this is all new to me!

my idea of thoery is based off the definition of a set of facts and analyzing their relationship to one another. theory dealing with literature i feel tries to explain how it works. i also feel however that theory can be a undefinable thing, theory may explain literature but it can also be disputed which is why it is able to be studied.