English 1022E Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Magic Realism, The Birth-Mark, Birthmark
9 Mar 2016
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Make sure to connect to large themes of the work. More than just your opinion, make sure to provide specific evidence from the text. He unaccountable, the experience of him cannot be narrated. Final paragraph: melville offering a way of alleviating our interpretive anxiety. The birthmark on her cheek doesn"t mean anything. Speaks to the disastrous consequences that interpretation can have. By the end, she absorbs and internalizes his own desires. The husband is shallow, he wants to perfect her. He fails to recognize what is truly meaningful. Magical realism: uncanny experience to us, perfectly real but at the same time perfectly strange. The wondrous has lost its ability to be wondrous. Text of pleasure vs. text of bliss. The spider-woman is known and poses no difficulty in understanding, she is text of pleasure. Old man imposes a state of loss, he is unfamiliar, and challenges the viewer. Taps into the human desire to be witnessed.
