ENG328Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 44: Homosexual Panic, Black Comedy, Heteroglossia
Theme of the unlived life
Beast in the Jungle
○
Daisy Miller
No feelings about Daisy
§
Focalizer and verbaliser
§
Daisy is more a construct of Winterbourne's imagination than a
character
§
○
•
Turn of the Screw as a gothic thriller
Typical gothic heroine trying to protect the children
○
•
Conventional desire narrative - would end with the marriage to the boss but
doesn't work out for governess
•
Beast in the Jungle through the gaze of male homosexual panic
Lots of the unlived life
○
Heteronormative
○
Defense against having to make any real choices
○
Inertia
○
Repressed sexuality argument
○
•
Heart of Darkness
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Keeps telling you it can't express it and then expresses it
○
•
Secret sharer motif
Kurtz and Marlowe as doppelgangers
○
•
Representation of the Other
•
The Secret Agent
Authorial control
•
Conservatism rather than anarchism
•
Ethan Frome
Role of naturalism
Heredity and environment determine personality
○
•
Narratological issues
Use of first person frame narrator
○
Third person narration at odds with narrator
○
"deeper meaning of the story in the gaps" - doesn't present the gaps
○
•
Theme of repression and imprisonment
Manifested in linguistic incapacity
○
Landscape bare and bleak - economic limitations
○
Rigid social values of community
○
Doesn’t have the money to escape
○
•
Not clear that there's a gap between the norms of the narrator and of the
story
•
The Good Soldier
Impressionist technique•
Time shifting•
Rhetoric of digressivity•
Not only can the narrator tell what is digression and story, but the reader
can't tell at all
•
Doesn’t deal with the nihilistic viewpoint
Grounds of knowledge and morality shaky
○
•
Portrait of an Artist
Naturalism and symbolism•
Woolf
Interior monologue•
Multiple perspectives•
No Heteroglossia in To the Lighthouse
All the characters speak Woolf-ese
○
•
Images of fluidity•
Narrative voice portrays conjectural uncertainty
As if the writer doesn’t know what's going on in the mind of the
character
○
•
As I Lay Dying
Memetic voice•
Three levels of language
Realistic (rural), formal (memetic consciousness, not voice),
expressionist/distorted language
○
Clear who's receiving but not who's speaking
○
Relationship between mimesis and diagesis
○
Composite narrative voice
○
•
Time is distorted and scrambled•
Miss Lonelyhearts
Deadpan style•
Episodic structure•
Second most demented of the books•
Nihilistic vision of pastoral escape•
Black comedy•
All sources of meaning seem to fail•
Desire for religious meaning even though it's not available•
Satire has to imply positives and moral order
There's no moral order in this book
○
•
O'Conner
Double negatives•
Grotesque style
Caricatures
○
Joycian novelist - ephemeral moments of clarity
Revelations are unsought and unwanted
§
○
•
Wise Blood works through image and motif rather than plot•
Gnostic revulsion towards flesh and matter•
Anti-sacramental view of the world and nature•
Twisted religiosity•
Hayes is a Christian in spite of himself•
The Bell
Bells interpreted differently by different characters•
Passage cited comes from one of the three sermons•
The Quiet American
Descent into the underworld•
Romance aspects•
Maternal symbolism - thanatoptic symbolism•
Theme of colonialism•
Wheel of fortune•
Monuments
Text is a monument to Jones
○
•
Miss Jean Brodie
Flash forward, flash back•
Narrative of predestination
We know everything will happen to the characters
○
Who dunnit aspect taken away
○
•
Theme of education
Imposes thoughts
○
Just as education fascist herself
○
•
The Clockwork Orange
Choice vs. compulsion•
Anarchistic mentality of the self monolithic mentality of the not-self•
Clockwork vs. orange•
It is more clockwork and orange rather than clockwork or orange•
ENG328-Lecture 15
James-
Flannery o’connor
These short stories are the only ones that are included
Daisy miller
Mental health issues
Europe versus America
Comedy of manners
Old money versus new money America and then international aspect
James’ use of double vision-narrators circle of consciousness has wider circumference than
that of the focal character
Theme of unlived life- winterbourne prone to formula and categorization- would rather see
daisy in one category that he can understand
Daisy for him is a mistake in interpretation only- he doesn’t have any feelings about her
death
Who is looking and who is talking always important for understanding
Can also argue daisy is more a construct of winterbourne’s mind than a character in her own
right
Turn of the screw
4 potential narratives
gothic thriller- decent woman thrown into terrifying situation- also in love with her boss and
wants to prove herself
also conventional desire narrative- that would end with her marriage to the boss but it
actually doesn’t work out well for the governess
narrative of repressed desire-quint is a condensation- a sexual beast in gentleman’s clothes
whereas ms jessel is a displacement of the governess’ own sexuality- miles has a connection
with his uncle and a stand-in for him- flora represents virginal innocence
governess’ worldview constructed on the basis of romance reading
real charming story- neice is deranged your nephew is dead and I’m insane
the beast in the jungle
male homo panic and unlived life
fantasy of beast leaping out of the jungle- functions as closet or defence against having to
make moral choices
rhetoric of inertia- able to justify romantic inertia through his figure of speech
same general things apply to daisy miller as do to the other stories
marcher doesn’t think he is being selfish
Jekyll and hyde
Male homo panic again- argument
Important-different narratives within the narratives-utterson, Lanyon, jekyll’s confession,
also letters and wills and other documents within it
Theme of dualism also there – Jekyll versus hyde, front versus back, good versus evil, ego
versus id, persona versus shadow etc.
Is it a transformation or does it simply change the percentage of hyde that is already a
residue in Jekyll
The quote is not from the confession… so don’t reread it
Another thing- gruesome subject matter written in this whiny luxurious style and part of the
effect is the incongruity between style and subject matter
Issue of representation of sexuality/ failure to represent sexuality- what do Jekyll and hyde
hide? Maybe product of male homo panic- community of bachelors with no significant
women
Narrative point of view-stories within stories
But also sexual and stylistic things
Intensification of interiority as well… at the end within the cabinet itself
Heart of darkness
Narrative stylistic archetypal and cultural levels to it
Impressionist style that Conrad uses..
Narrative machinery complex- Marlowe is first person narrator but giving it to a dramatized
audience consisting of the narrator
The naratees are different
Inconclusive experience verbal haze and visual failure
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Stylistic- interfusion of inner and outer landscape-difficult to tell whether a psychic terrain
being mapped or actual terrain
Lots of things u can say about the style- atmospheric projects emotion much more than it
tries to represent some sort of objective reality
Secret sharer motif- kurtz and marlow as doplegangers
Racism doesn’t come up much in the passage he chose- maybe just the representation of
the other could be done
Imperialism and whited sepulchre motif
Representation of women not covered in passage either
Can always do stylistic analysis of the passage in the test… this is an option (for Conrad
especially)
Secret agent
Total authorial control and irony so pervasive that it is a worldview not just a tactic
The professor may or may not have some of the authorial voce within his pronouncements
No complicated machinery or impression as opposed to Conrad-visual clarity rather than
failure- we get all the grimy details of the story
What is the place of the professor’s nihilistic vision within the novel? This issue will come up
in passage
Didn’t use passage with much humor- so don’t talk about that
But certainly conservatism rather than anarchism
Ethan frome
The role of naturalism-idea that heredity and environment determine human motivation
and behavior
Anything you extract from it will involve this idea
First person frame narrator and strange visionary third person omniscience- completely at
odds with what the narrator says that the deeper meaning of the story is in the gaps but
there is no indication of any gap
Along Idea of heredity and environment is theme of imprisonment
Linguistic incapacity to express himself is prison as well as the winter and landscape and
poverty also rigid social values of community and wife
Economic privation is his main hold-back
Dazed and imperceptive narrator-not really unreliable- no ironic gap between what
narrative is saying and what implied author behind the narrator is saying
No gaps between norms of narrator and norms of story as whole
Good soldier
Impressionist technique and time shifting
The rhetoric of diagressivity- digression…
Not only can the narrator not differentiate between the substantive and the digressive but
its almost impossible
Time shifting conceals certain facts from the reader and creates suspense
Portrait of the artist –joyce
Issues of naturalism and symbolism- naturalism is depressingly dreary documentation of the
various slices of life we get in story- same as in ethan frome
Poetically evocative language of the epiphany
Passage deals with issue of epiphany and sudden spiritual revelation that joyce talks
about…
The inner radiance of what is common place-joyce said this
Question of the epiphanies authenticity in the passage the choice…
Dedalus Icarus thing doesn’t get into it on test
Bildungsroman is involved in passage and book in general- this is specifically kunsterroman-
making of artist
Will need to attend to kind of language being used.. shows what point of growth Stephen is
at because of language he is using
To the lighthouse – woolf
Interior monologue and multiple perspective important
No heteroglossia- prof claims this-as opposed to as I lay dying
All characters speak woolfease and contrasted to each other by images of virginity fluidity
etc.
Masculine and feminine images- rigidity versus fluidity
Uncertainty- seems like writer doesn’t know whats going on in minds of characters
Hard to know who is speaking
As I lay dying – Faulkner
Novel all about mimetic voice-obvious issue
3 levels of language- realistic speech- formal language that is mimesis of consciousness but
not of their actual speak and language (sometimes given more language than they can
actually be expected to posess), also expressionist distorted language (poetic)
clear who is perceiving but not whi is speaking
relationship between character speech (mimesis) and author speech (diagesis)- no authorial
voice in as I lay dying
all these narrative elements kept within the consciousness of these different characters
disinterested-impartial and objective-some of the characters are disinterested
time-distorted and scrambled in novel- but passage doesn’t touch it
who is talking is the most important thing for this passage
Ms lonelyhearts –west
Deadpan style is part of what makes novel great and episodic structure
Second most demented of books we did
Nihilistic vision-abortive pastoral escape-black comedy
All sources of meaning seem to fail- alcohol violence god
But still desire for religious meaning even though its not available
Christ complex for miss lonelyhearts
Spiritual visionary or delusional narcissist- apply one of these
Satire- no implied moral positives so it cannot be satire according to Northrop frye-no moral
order in this book so nothing satirical
O’connor-brutal epiphanies-ephemeral- don’t last long before they die
Revelations are unsought and unwanted by characters- they are not striving for clarification
Issue of epiphany
O’connor uses a lot of double figures and grotesque style
A good man is hard to find
Everything that rises must converge – O’connor
The prime of miss jean brody –spark
Flach forwards and flashbacks very important
Way narrative uses predestination- we know everything that will happen to characters
I never did find out.. in mid novel we find out
Theme of education-ms. Brody
Wise- blood
Image and motif rather than convention and plot
Gnostic revoltion towards flesh and matter
Twisted religiousity- church without Christ
Haze is Christina in spite of himself
The bell
Bells important and interpreted differently by different characters
Passage cited comes from one of the 3 sermons
Quiet American
Wheel of fortune
Vision of great good place
Dualism with comic foreground and comic background
Centrality of monuments
Review Session
Monday, April 3, 2017
2:11 PM
Theme of the unlived life
Beast in the Jungle
○
Daisy Miller
No feelings about Daisy
§
Focalizer and verbaliser
§
Daisy is more a construct of Winterbourne's imagination than a
character
§
○
•
Turn of the Screw as a gothic thriller
Typical gothic heroine trying to protect the children
○
•
Conventional desire narrative - would end with the marriage to the boss but
doesn't work out for governess
•
Beast in the Jungle through the gaze of male homosexual panic
Lots of the unlived life
○
Heteronormative
○
Defense against having to make any real choices
○
Inertia
○
Repressed sexuality argument
○
•
Heart of Darkness
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Keeps telling you it can't express it and then expresses it
○
•
Secret sharer motif
Kurtz and Marlowe as doppelgangers
○
•
Representation of the Other•
The Secret Agent
Authorial control•
Conservatism rather than anarchism•
Ethan Frome
Role of naturalism
Heredity and environment determine personality
○
•
Narratological issues
Use of first person frame narrator
○
Third person narration at odds with narrator
○
"deeper meaning of the story in the gaps" - doesn't present the gaps
○
•
Theme of repression and imprisonment
Manifested in linguistic incapacity
○
Landscape bare and bleak - economic limitations
○
Rigid social values of community
○
Doesn’t have the money to escape
○
•
Not clear that there's a gap between the norms of the narrator and of the
story
•
The Good Soldier
Impressionist technique
•
Time shifting
•
Rhetoric of digressivity
•
Not only can the narrator tell what is digression and story, but the reader
can't tell at all
•
Doesn’t deal with the nihilistic viewpoint
Grounds of knowledge and morality shaky
○
•
Portrait of an Artist
Naturalism and symbolism
•
Woolf
Interior monologue
•
Multiple perspectives
•
No Heteroglossia in To the Lighthouse
All the characters speak Woolf-ese
○
•
Images of fluidity
•
Narrative voice portrays conjectural uncertainty
As if the writer doesn’t know what's going on in the mind of the
character
○
•
As I Lay Dying
Memetic voice
•
Three levels of language
Realistic (rural), formal (memetic consciousness, not voice),
expressionist/distorted language
○
Clear who's receiving but not who's speaking
○
Relationship between mimesis and diagesis
○
Composite narrative voice
○
•
Time is distorted and scrambled•
Miss Lonelyhearts
Deadpan style•
Episodic structure•
Second most demented of the books•
Nihilistic vision of pastoral escape•
Black comedy•
All sources of meaning seem to fail•
Desire for religious meaning even though it's not available•
Satire has to imply positives and moral order
There's no moral order in this book
○
•
O'Conner
Double negatives•
Grotesque style
Caricatures
○
Joycian novelist - ephemeral moments of clarity
Revelations are unsought and unwanted
§
○
•
Wise Blood works through image and motif rather than plot•
Gnostic revulsion towards flesh and matter•
Anti-sacramental view of the world and nature•
Twisted religiosity•
Hayes is a Christian in spite of himself•
The Bell
Bells interpreted differently by different characters•
Passage cited comes from one of the three sermons•
The Quiet American
Descent into the underworld•
Romance aspects•
Maternal symbolism - thanatoptic symbolism•
Theme of colonialism•
Wheel of fortune•
Monuments
Text is a monument to Jones
○
•
Miss Jean Brodie
Flash forward, flash back•
Narrative of predestination
We know everything will happen to the characters
○
Who dunnit aspect taken away
○
•
Theme of education
Imposes thoughts
○
Just as education fascist herself
○
•
The Clockwork Orange
Choice vs. compulsion•
Anarchistic mentality of the self monolithic mentality of the not-self•
Clockwork vs. orange•
It is more clockwork and orange rather than clockwork or orange•
ENG328-Lecture 15
James-
Flannery o’connor
These short stories are the only ones that are included
Daisy miller
Mental health issues
Europe versus America
Comedy of manners
Old money versus new money America and then international aspect
James’ use of double vision-narrators circle of consciousness has wider circumference than
that of the focal character
Theme of unlived life- winterbourne prone to formula and categorization- would rather see
daisy in one category that he can understand
Daisy for him is a mistake in interpretation only- he doesn’t have any feelings about her
death
Who is looking and who is talking always important for understanding
Can also argue daisy is more a construct of winterbourne’s mind than a character in her own
right
Turn of the screw
4 potential narratives
gothic thriller- decent woman thrown into terrifying situation- also in love with her boss and
wants to prove herself
also conventional desire narrative- that would end with her marriage to the boss but it
actually doesn’t work out well for the governess
narrative of repressed desire-quint is a condensation- a sexual beast in gentleman’s clothes
whereas ms jessel is a displacement of the governess’ own sexuality- miles has a connection
with his uncle and a stand-in for him- flora represents virginal innocence
governess’ worldview constructed on the basis of romance reading
real charming story- neice is deranged your nephew is dead and I’m insane
the beast in the jungle
male homo panic and unlived life
fantasy of beast leaping out of the jungle- functions as closet or defence against having to
make moral choices
rhetoric of inertia- able to justify romantic inertia through his figure of speech
same general things apply to daisy miller as do to the other stories
marcher doesn’t think he is being selfish
Jekyll and hyde
Male homo panic again- argument
Important-different narratives within the narratives-utterson, Lanyon, jekyll’s confession,
also letters and wills and other documents within it
Theme of dualism also there – Jekyll versus hyde, front versus back, good versus evil, ego
versus id, persona versus shadow etc.
Is it a transformation or does it simply change the percentage of hyde that is already a
residue in Jekyll
The quote is not from the confession… so don’t reread it
Another thing- gruesome subject matter written in this whiny luxurious style and part of the
effect is the incongruity between style and subject matter
Issue of representation of sexuality/ failure to represent sexuality- what do Jekyll and hyde
hide? Maybe product of male homo panic- community of bachelors with no significant
women
Narrative point of view-stories within stories
But also sexual and stylistic things
Intensification of interiority as well… at the end within the cabinet itself
Heart of darkness
Narrative stylistic archetypal and cultural levels to it
Impressionist style that Conrad uses..
Narrative machinery complex- Marlowe is first person narrator but giving it to a dramatized
audience consisting of the narrator
The naratees are different
Inconclusive experience verbal haze and visual failure
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Stylistic- interfusion of inner and outer landscape-difficult to tell whether a psychic terrain
being mapped or actual terrain
Lots of things u can say about the style- atmospheric projects emotion much more than it
tries to represent some sort of objective reality
Secret sharer motif- kurtz and marlow as doplegangers
Racism doesn’t come up much in the passage he chose- maybe just the representation of
the other could be done
Imperialism and whited sepulchre motif
Representation of women not covered in passage either
Can always do stylistic analysis of the passage in the test… this is an option (for Conrad
especially)
Secret agent
Total authorial control and irony so pervasive that it is a worldview not just a tactic
The professor may or may not have some of the authorial voce within his pronouncements
No complicated machinery or impression as opposed to Conrad-visual clarity rather than
failure- we get all the grimy details of the story
What is the place of the professor’s nihilistic vision within the novel? This issue will come up
in passage
Didn’t use passage with much humor- so don’t talk about that
But certainly conservatism rather than anarchism
Ethan frome
The role of naturalism-idea that heredity and environment determine human motivation
and behavior
Anything you extract from it will involve this idea
First person frame narrator and strange visionary third person omniscience- completely at
odds with what the narrator says that the deeper meaning of the story is in the gaps but
there is no indication of any gap
Along Idea of heredity and environment is theme of imprisonment
Linguistic incapacity to express himself is prison as well as the winter and landscape and
poverty also rigid social values of community and wife
Economic privation is his main hold-back
Dazed and imperceptive narrator-not really unreliable- no ironic gap between what
narrative is saying and what implied author behind the narrator is saying
No gaps between norms of narrator and norms of story as whole
Good soldier
Impressionist technique and time shifting
The rhetoric of diagressivity- digression…
Not only can the narrator not differentiate between the substantive and the digressive but
its almost impossible
Time shifting conceals certain facts from the reader and creates suspense
Portrait of the artist –joyce
Issues of naturalism and symbolism- naturalism is depressingly dreary documentation of the
various slices of life we get in story- same as in ethan frome
Poetically evocative language of the epiphany
Passage deals with issue of epiphany and sudden spiritual revelation that joyce talks
about…
The inner radiance of what is common place-joyce said this
Question of the epiphanies authenticity in the passage the choice…
Dedalus Icarus thing doesn’t get into it on test
Bildungsroman is involved in passage and book in general- this is specifically kunsterroman-
making of artist
Will need to attend to kind of language being used.. shows what point of growth Stephen is
at because of language he is using
To the lighthouse – woolf
Interior monologue and multiple perspective important
No heteroglossia- prof claims this-as opposed to as I lay dying
All characters speak woolfease and contrasted to each other by images of virginity fluidity
etc.
Masculine and feminine images- rigidity versus fluidity
Uncertainty- seems like writer doesn’t know whats going on in minds of characters
Hard to know who is speaking
As I lay dying – Faulkner
Novel all about mimetic voice-obvious issue
3 levels of language- realistic speech- formal language that is mimesis of consciousness but
not of their actual speak and language (sometimes given more language than they can
actually be expected to posess), also expressionist distorted language (poetic)
clear who is perceiving but not whi is speaking
relationship between character speech (mimesis) and author speech (diagesis)- no authorial
voice in as I lay dying
all these narrative elements kept within the consciousness of these different characters
disinterested-impartial and objective-some of the characters are disinterested
time-distorted and scrambled in novel- but passage doesn’t touch it
who is talking is the most important thing for this passage
Ms lonelyhearts –west
Deadpan style is part of what makes novel great and episodic structure
Second most demented of books we did
Nihilistic vision-abortive pastoral escape-black comedy
All sources of meaning seem to fail- alcohol violence god
But still desire for religious meaning even though its not available
Christ complex for miss lonelyhearts
Spiritual visionary or delusional narcissist- apply one of these
Satire- no implied moral positives so it cannot be satire according to Northrop frye-no moral
order in this book so nothing satirical
O’connor-brutal epiphanies-ephemeral- don’t last long before they die
Revelations are unsought and unwanted by characters- they are not striving for clarification
Issue of epiphany
O’connor uses a lot of double figures and grotesque style
A good man is hard to find
Everything that rises must converge – O’connor
The prime of miss jean brody –spark
Flach forwards and flashbacks very important
Way narrative uses predestination- we know everything that will happen to characters
I never did find out.. in mid novel we find out
Theme of education-ms. Brody
Wise- blood
Image and motif rather than convention and plot
Gnostic revoltion towards flesh and matter
Twisted religiousity- church without Christ
Haze is Christina in spite of himself
The bell
Bells important and interpreted differently by different characters
Passage cited comes from one of the 3 sermons
Quiet American
Wheel of fortune
Vision of great good place
Dualism with comic foreground and comic background
Centrality of monuments
Review Session
Monday, April 3, 2017 2:11 PM
Theme of the unlived life
Beast in the Jungle
○
Daisy Miller
No feelings about Daisy
§
Focalizer and verbaliser
§
Daisy is more a construct of Winterbourne's imagination than a
character
§
○
•
Turn of the Screw as a gothic thriller
Typical gothic heroine trying to protect the children
○
•
Conventional desire narrative - would end with the marriage to the boss but
doesn't work out for governess
•
Beast in the Jungle through the gaze of male homosexual panic
Lots of the unlived life
○
Heteronormative
○
Defense against having to make any real choices
○
Inertia
○
Repressed sexuality argument
○
•
Heart of Darkness
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Keeps telling you it can't express it and then expresses it
○
•
Secret sharer motif
Kurtz and Marlowe as doppelgangers
○
•
Representation of the Other•
The Secret Agent
Authorial control•
Conservatism rather than anarchism•
Ethan Frome
Role of naturalism
Heredity and environment determine personality
○
•
Narratological issues
Use of first person frame narrator
○
Third person narration at odds with narrator
○
"deeper meaning of the story in the gaps" - doesn't present the gaps
○
•
Theme of repression and imprisonment
Manifested in linguistic incapacity
○
Landscape bare and bleak - economic limitations
○
Rigid social values of community
○
Doesn’t have the money to escape
○
•
Not clear that there's a gap between the norms of the narrator and of the
story
•
The Good Soldier
Impressionist technique•
Time shifting•
Rhetoric of digressivity•
Not only can the narrator tell what is digression and story, but the reader
can't tell at all
•
Doesn’t deal with the nihilistic viewpoint
Grounds of knowledge and morality shaky
○
•
Portrait of an Artist
Naturalism and symbolism•
Woolf
Interior monologue•
Multiple perspectives•
No Heteroglossia in To the Lighthouse
All the characters speak Woolf-ese
○
•
Images of fluidity•
Narrative voice portrays conjectural uncertainty
As if the writer doesn’t know what's going on in the mind of the
character
○
•
As I Lay Dying
Memetic voice•
Three levels of language
Realistic (rural), formal (memetic consciousness, not voice),
expressionist/distorted language
○
Clear who's receiving but not who's speaking
○
Relationship between mimesis and diagesis
○
Composite narrative voice
○
•
Time is distorted and scrambled
•
Miss Lonelyhearts
Deadpan style
•
Episodic structure
•
Second most demented of the books
•
Nihilistic vision of pastoral escape
•
Black comedy
•
All sources of meaning seem to fail
•
Desire for religious meaning even though it's not available
•
Satire has to imply positives and moral order
There's no moral order in this book
○
•
O'Conner
Double negatives
•
Grotesque style
Caricatures
○
Joycian novelist - ephemeral moments of clarity
Revelations are unsought and unwanted
§
○
•
Wise Blood works through image and motif rather than plot
•
Gnostic revulsion towards flesh and matter
•
Anti-sacramental view of the world and nature
•
Twisted religiosity
•
Hayes is a Christian in spite of himself
•
The Bell
Bells interpreted differently by different characters
•
Passage cited comes from one of the three sermons
•
The Quiet American
Descent into the underworld
•
Romance aspects
•
Maternal symbolism - thanatoptic symbolism
•
Theme of colonialism
•
Wheel of fortune
•
Monuments
Text is a monument to Jones
○
•
Miss Jean Brodie
Flash forward, flash back•
Narrative of predestination
We know everything will happen to the characters
○
Who dunnit aspect taken away
○
•
Theme of education
Imposes thoughts
○
Just as education fascist herself
○
•
The Clockwork Orange
Choice vs. compulsion•
Anarchistic mentality of the self monolithic mentality of the not-self•
Clockwork vs. orange•
It is more clockwork and orange rather than clockwork or orange•
ENG328-Lecture 15
James-
Flannery o’connor
These short stories are the only ones that are included
Daisy miller
Mental health issues
Europe versus America
Comedy of manners
Old money versus new money America and then international aspect
James’ use of double vision-narrators circle of consciousness has wider circumference than
that of the focal character
Theme of unlived life- winterbourne prone to formula and categorization- would rather see
daisy in one category that he can understand
Daisy for him is a mistake in interpretation only- he doesn’t have any feelings about her
death
Who is looking and who is talking always important for understanding
Can also argue daisy is more a construct of winterbourne’s mind than a character in her own
right
Turn of the screw
4 potential narratives
gothic thriller- decent woman thrown into terrifying situation- also in love with her boss and
wants to prove herself
also conventional desire narrative- that would end with her marriage to the boss but it
actually doesn’t work out well for the governess
narrative of repressed desire-quint is a condensation- a sexual beast in gentleman’s clothes
whereas ms jessel is a displacement of the governess’ own sexuality- miles has a connection
with his uncle and a stand-in for him- flora represents virginal innocence
governess’ worldview constructed on the basis of romance reading
real charming story- neice is deranged your nephew is dead and I’m insane
the beast in the jungle
male homo panic and unlived life
fantasy of beast leaping out of the jungle- functions as closet or defence against having to
make moral choices
rhetoric of inertia- able to justify romantic inertia through his figure of speech
same general things apply to daisy miller as do to the other stories
marcher doesn’t think he is being selfish
Jekyll and hyde
Male homo panic again- argument
Important-different narratives within the narratives-utterson, Lanyon, jekyll’s confession,
also letters and wills and other documents within it
Theme of dualism also there – Jekyll versus hyde, front versus back, good versus evil, ego
versus id, persona versus shadow etc.
Is it a transformation or does it simply change the percentage of hyde that is already a
residue in Jekyll
The quote is not from the confession… so don’t reread it
Another thing- gruesome subject matter written in this whiny luxurious style and part of the
effect is the incongruity between style and subject matter
Issue of representation of sexuality/ failure to represent sexuality- what do Jekyll and hyde
hide? Maybe product of male homo panic- community of bachelors with no significant
women
Narrative point of view-stories within stories
But also sexual and stylistic things
Intensification of interiority as well… at the end within the cabinet itself
Heart of darkness
Narrative stylistic archetypal and cultural levels to it
Impressionist style that Conrad uses..
Narrative machinery complex- Marlowe is first person narrator but giving it to a dramatized
audience consisting of the narrator
The naratees are different
Inconclusive experience verbal haze and visual failure
Rhetoric of the ineffable
Stylistic- interfusion of inner and outer landscape-difficult to tell whether a psychic terrain
being mapped or actual terrain
Lots of things u can say about the style- atmospheric projects emotion much more than it
tries to represent some sort of objective reality
Secret sharer motif- kurtz and marlow as doplegangers
Racism doesn’t come up much in the passage he chose- maybe just the representation of
the other could be done
Imperialism and whited sepulchre motif
Representation of women not covered in passage either
Can always do stylistic analysis of the passage in the test… this is an option (for Conrad
especially)
Secret agent
Total authorial control and irony so pervasive that it is a worldview not just a tactic
The professor may or may not have some of the authorial voce within his pronouncements
No complicated machinery or impression as opposed to Conrad-visual clarity rather than
failure- we get all the grimy details of the story
What is the place of the professor’s nihilistic vision within the novel? This issue will come up
in passage
Didn’t use passage with much humor- so don’t talk about that
But certainly conservatism rather than anarchism
Ethan frome
The role of naturalism-idea that heredity and environment determine human motivation
and behavior
Anything you extract from it will involve this idea
First person frame narrator and strange visionary third person omniscience- completely at
odds with what the narrator says that the deeper meaning of the story is in the gaps but
there is no indication of any gap
Along Idea of heredity and environment is theme of imprisonment
Linguistic incapacity to express himself is prison as well as the winter and landscape and
poverty also rigid social values of community and wife
Economic privation is his main hold-back
Dazed and imperceptive narrator-not really unreliable- no ironic gap between what
narrative is saying and what implied author behind the narrator is saying
No gaps between norms of narrator and norms of story as whole
Good soldier
Impressionist technique and time shifting
The rhetoric of diagressivity- digression…
Not only can the narrator not differentiate between the substantive and the digressive but
its almost impossible
Time shifting conceals certain facts from the reader and creates suspense
Portrait of the artist –joyce
Issues of naturalism and symbolism- naturalism is depressingly dreary documentation of the
various slices of life we get in story- same as in ethan frome
Poetically evocative language of the epiphany
Passage deals with issue of epiphany and sudden spiritual revelation that joyce talks
about…
The inner radiance of what is common place-joyce said this
Question of the epiphanies authenticity in the passage the choice…
Dedalus Icarus thing doesn’t get into it on test
Bildungsroman is involved in passage and book in general- this is specifically kunsterroman-
making of artist
Will need to attend to kind of language being used.. shows what point of growth Stephen is
at because of language he is using
To the lighthouse – woolf
Interior monologue and multiple perspective important
No heteroglossia- prof claims this-as opposed to as I lay dying
All characters speak woolfease and contrasted to each other by images of virginity fluidity
etc.
Masculine and feminine images- rigidity versus fluidity
Uncertainty- seems like writer doesn’t know whats going on in minds of characters
Hard to know who is speaking
As I lay dying – Faulkner
Novel all about mimetic voice-obvious issue
3 levels of language- realistic speech- formal language that is mimesis of consciousness but
not of their actual speak and language (sometimes given more language than they can
actually be expected to posess), also expressionist distorted language (poetic)
clear who is perceiving but not whi is speaking
relationship between character speech (mimesis) and author speech (diagesis)- no authorial
voice in as I lay dying
all these narrative elements kept within the consciousness of these different characters
disinterested-impartial and objective-some of the characters are disinterested
time-distorted and scrambled in novel- but passage doesn’t touch it
who is talking is the most important thing for this passage
Ms lonelyhearts –west
Deadpan style is part of what makes novel great and episodic structure
Second most demented of books we did
Nihilistic vision-abortive pastoral escape-black comedy
All sources of meaning seem to fail- alcohol violence god
But still desire for religious meaning even though its not available
Christ complex for miss lonelyhearts
Spiritual visionary or delusional narcissist- apply one of these
Satire- no implied moral positives so it cannot be satire according to Northrop frye-no moral
order in this book so nothing satirical
O’connor-brutal epiphanies-ephemeral- don’t last long before they die
Revelations are unsought and unwanted by characters- they are not striving for clarification
Issue of epiphany
O’connor uses a lot of double figures and grotesque style
A good man is hard to find
Everything that rises must converge – O’connor
The prime of miss jean brody –spark
Flach forwards and flashbacks very important
Way narrative uses predestination- we know everything that will happen to characters
I never did find out.. in mid novel we find out
Theme of education-ms. Brody
Wise- blood
Image and motif rather than convention and plot
Gnostic revoltion towards flesh and matter
Twisted religiousity- church without Christ
Haze is Christina in spite of himself
The bell
Bells important and interpreted differently by different characters
Passage cited comes from one of the 3 sermons
Quiet American
Wheel of fortune
Vision of great good place
Dualism with comic foreground and comic background
Centrality of monuments
Review Session
Monday, April 3, 2017 2:11 PM
