ENG328Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Lonelyhearts, Metonymy, American Literature
Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust
Old man is a metonymic device of frustration in the face of what cannot be
redeemed
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Stunted dreams
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American centres of opportunity and delusion
Celluloid phantasies of Hollywood
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Central figures include cowboys, dwarves, misogynistic newspaper men, etc.
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Faults and inner character are mercilessly exposed
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Characters are utterly embedded in their surroundings
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Novels remain odd and ugly foster children of American literature
Work was barely known in his life
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•
Ran a stop sign on the way to F. Scott Fitzgerald's funeral
•
Originally from NY
Moved to LA to write for B movies
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Grapes of Wrath overshadowed release of The Day of the Locust
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Devastatingly concise novel
Tries and fails to find meaning
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Too deeply engaged in lust to find purpose
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West disease - destructive refusal to be what you are
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West's writing is not satirical
No one to root for and no rooters to root
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As he tries to find meaning he destroys all possible outlets
Drugs, sex, God, alcohol, pastoral retreat, etc.
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•
Much more selfish desire to find meaning
Nothing very Christ-like about his behaviour
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Seeks recourse from the meaninglessness and contempt
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Emasculates the protagonist by withholding his real name
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Likening the novel to a comic strip
Kinetic comic strip
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Rendered in static terms
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Chapters like children's books
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Apparently used real advice letters
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Rhetorical brilliance of the opening with their grammatical errors are in
radical contrast to the smooth metaphors that dominate the rest of the novel
and the new-age advice
He cannot explain the letters away let alone solve the problems
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No humanitarian afterthought whatsoever
Doesn’t try to sugarcoat anything
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Shrike vs Christ
Shrike as an Antichrist figure
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Only Logos comes from Shrike rather than Miss Lonelyhearts•
Residual belief in "the first Church of Christ's dentist"•
Shrike's cynicism feeds his rage like Betty's optimism done
Her wide-eyed optimism fuels him
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His confusion trumps her shallow understanding
Refers to her as "the party dress" - most demeaning of all
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Struggles with even more futility to climb up the cliff of despair
Sacrificial martyrdom?
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The Day of the Locust proves to be even more nihilistic
Absurdity is even more poignant
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Religion isn't yearned for
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Pagan needs
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Novel expands outward from Tod Hackett
Tod means death in German
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Becomes a Hack artist designing sets
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Fantasy of lust impaling those that dream•
Gets to enact his fantasy of the burning of Los Angeles but not how he
imagined it
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Shrikes are predatory birds that impale their victims
Harsh call
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Principle of nihilism in Shrike•
War between Noses (knowledge) and nihilism
Yearns for and is terrified of Noses
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Nosticism sees evil as a cosmic force in the universe
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Idea of the Demiurge botching the creation of the universe
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Theodicy - vindication of divine goodness in the view of evil
How can God exist when there is so much bad?
§
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Power of mind over the universe of death
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Heideggerian existential philosophy
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Creator of the universe is an incompetent and imperfect being
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Ascetic nosticism - withdrawal from the world
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Yearns for Noses but maybe even achieves it by the end
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•
Shrike has no need for Noses•
Letters are trite, illiterate and sentimental but the misery they convey is
genuine
Stamped from the dough of suffering with a heart shaped cookie knife
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Induces in us a moral frustration equivalent to that of Miss
Lonelyhearts
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Distinctly different writing from the proletariat literature of the 30s
Eliot and Joyce think that art through the mythic method of juxtaposing
the order of the past to the order of the present can give shape to the
vast panorama of anarchy and futility that is contemporary history
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Whereas West doesn’t try to impose any meaning to anything
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•
Foresaw the therapeutic culture of today•
Deadpan style of the book•
Dream of mercy killing of lamb
Only violence can make him subtle
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He takes his rage out on Betty
"what a kind bitch you are"
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His friends are misogynist assholes
Gang-rape fantasies
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“ If he could only believe in Christ, then adultery would be a sin, then
everything would be simple and the letters extremely easy to answer.”
Tropism - turning in response to stimuli•
Entropy - tendency towards discord•
“The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy. Man against
Nature . . . the battle of the centuries. Keys yearn to mix with change.
Mandolins strive to get out of tune. Every order has within it the germ of
destruction. All order is doomed, yet the battle is worth while.”
He is the butt of a joke•
Only Christ-like thing that he does
Goes to see the Doyle's and hits Mrs. Doyle when she advances on him
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Betty as a naïve foil to his existential crisis
Thinks an advertising job will solve his problems
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She acts according to movie conventions
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Religious awakening where he thinks he's talking to God
And is then "martyred"
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But it's not a self conscious sacrifice
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Christian allegory????•
Shrike as Anti-Christ
Judas betrayal with letter
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Mocks Miss L's obsession with Christ
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But Miss L causes chaos and Shrike's philosophies keep the peace and provide
a perverted logos (the world is but the excrement of God)
Only available messiah
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Auden - sattire presupposes the just and unjust
Humanity itself may be improved
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West presents no moral positives, no possibility of recourse or redemption•
Lecture 28
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
1:11 PM
Document Summary
Miss lonelyhearts and the day of the locust. Old man is a metonymic device of frustration in the face of what cannot be redeemed. Central figures include cowboys, dwarves, misogynistic newspaper men, etc. Novels remain odd and ugly foster children of american literature. Ran a stop sign on the way to f. scott fitzgerald"s funeral. Moved to la to write for b movies. Grapes of wrath overshadowed release of the day of the locust. Too deeply engaged in lust to find purpose. West disease - destructive refusal to be what you are. No one to root for and no rooters to root. As he tries to find meaning he destroys all possible outlets. Emasculates the protagonist by withholding his real name. Rhetorical brilliance of the opening with their grammatical errors are in radical contrast to the smooth metaphors that dominate the rest of the novel and the new-age advice and the new-age advice.
