November 26th 2012

I have a very rough idea of what I want to do for my final paper. Something along the lines of using the article "Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis" to make a literary argument about Persepolis....I don't really know if that counts as an alright secondary work for literary theory, but I suppose I'll find out.  My thesis will be something along the lines of: In Persepolis by Satrapi conventional notions of class are blurred when Satrapi depicts her life as addled by both east and west cultural clashes. It needs a lot of work and quite possibly to be changed, but this is all I have for a Monday night after my Thanksgiving comatose of a weekend....

November 19th 2012

Q1: "The narrator of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is what disability workers would call a 'high-functioning' narrator, capable of understanding a great deal about the narratives he's read and the narrative he's in," (574). 

"Disability and the Narrative" -Berube

Q2: "This is another reason why I don't like proper novels, because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared.And this is why everything I have written here is true," (203). 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -Mark Haddon


Question: How does Christopher as a "high-functioning" narrator aid in the understanding of the novel for a reader?



The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time positively promotes a narrator with a disability. Instead of making the text infinitely more complicated, like other horrendous disabled people (*cough* *cough* Benjy from The Sound and the Fury), the narrator's attention to the truth and a simple narrative make life pleasant. The novel is not as the narrator deems, "a proper novel" and this is something all the happy readers in the world are grateful for. Not only the former, but the simplistic approach the narrator takes isn't even so much simplistic as it is sheer brevity. And to quote Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit". And so this novel is A++. 

Monday November 12th, 2012

"Reviews frequently applaud Persepolis, especially through the figure of the winsome child at its center, for being a universal story-an approach to the book that uncomfortably subsumes the exotic "other" into the "us", erasing the ethic, cultural and class specificity of the book's narrative," (4).

From  Chute- "Graphic Narrative as Whiteness"

"I didn't like to smoke, but I did it out of solidarity. At the time, to me, grass and heroin were the same thing," (192). 

From  Persepolis by Satrapi 

Question: What is it about the universality of Persepolis that allows any reader, regardless of their geographical location, to appreciate it with full realization of the "other" becoming the "us"?

In Satrapi's Persepolis, the way in which events are explained allow any reader to immediately feel part of the text. Which is to say, the test itself appeals to a large majority of people. In the selection of Persepolis paired next to the quote from Chute's text, it is evident that Satrapi's ethnic, cultural and class boundaries are broken to meld together the "us" and "them". Satrapi talks about her experiences with dope (marijuana), which she perceives to be the same thing as dope (heroin) in her youth. This theme of drugs is universal that from hemisphere to hemisphere the universality is evident. Suddenly, Satrapi isn't just talking about her own childhood, she is talking about the reader's childhood, and through association the rest of the world's childhood. 

Monday: November, 5th 2012

"According to McCloud, there are two important effects of cartooning; the first enables a focus on specific details; the second is 'the universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe' (31). Cartooning, he argues, is a way of seeing, to just a way of drawing, so the simplification of characters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool: '[W]hen you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face-- you see it as the face of another but when you enter the world of the cartoon--you see yourself' (36).


Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis
Naghibi, Nima. 


"They insulted me. They said that women like me should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. ...And that if I didn't want that to happen, I should wear the veil..."
Persepolis, 74 

Question: What effect does the usage of cartooning have on the reader's perceptions of the novel?


In reading Persepolis the reader becomes immersed in a cartoon version of a young girl's story of her experiences pertaining to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Not only does the format enable the reader to have an easier time navigating through Satrapi's story, but it also enables the reader to feel a part of the story itself. McCloud argues that when looking at the image of a cartoon, you see yourself. In reading the portion of Persepolis during which Maryjane's mother is exposed to the mysogynistic nature of the Islamic regime the reader is exposed to the sadness. When reading this in cartoon version, it feels like it relates to all of the audiences. This imagery McCloud describes is entirely evident within Satrapi's Persepolis. 

October 29th, 2012

QI: Educational institutions have specialized in these environments, combining such resources as quiet with an assigned task that demands deep attention to complete successfully. So standard has deep attention become in educational settings that it is the de facto norm, with hyper attention regarded as defective behavior that scarcely qualifies as a cognitive mode at all. This situation would present no problem if no generational shift from deep to hyper attention were taking place. But with the shift, serious incompatibilities arise between the expectations of educators, who are trained in deep attention and saturated with assumptions about its inherent superiority, and the preferred cognitive mode of young people, who squirm in the procrustean beds outfitted for them by their elders. We would expect a crisis, which would necessitate a reevaluation of the relative merits of hyper versus deep attention, serious reflection about how a constructive synthesis of the two might be achieved, and a thoroughgoing revision of educational methods. 

Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes
N. KATHERINE HAYLES
 pg. 188 

Q2:"This was me when I was 10 years old. This was in 1980."
Persepolis 
Marjane Satrapi 
pg. 3

Question: What sort of revision of educational methods can help with the general shift of attention from deep to hyper and how does Persepolis tie into this? 

The novel Persepolis opens with the author telling the story of her childhood. When first viewing the beginning chapter the reader beings with the statement "This was me when I was ten years old. This was in 1980," (3). This in a single pane of comic strip and the reader is able to spend two seconds glimpsing at the first part of the story.The way in which the comic reads caters to that hyper attention younger audiences prefer to sustain when trying to get things done. On a personal level, I was able to slam through 100 pages in a little less than an hour because things went by very swiftly. The novel Persepolis is preferential to most of the long novels that must be read opposed to deep reading. 

October 22, 2012

QUOTE 1:"So: Zombies are anti-characters, but they do make for good allegories, their very flatness propelling us into speculation about what they might mean “on another level.” Since one thing they mean on that other level would seem to be “flatness” itself, it will not do to criticize zombies for being stiff and uninteresting, as allegorical characters have been for at least a few hundred years. "
Zombie Renaissance by Mark McGurl

QUOTE 2: "I am considering them, silly woman! I would much prefer their minds be engaged in the deadly arts than clouded with dreams of marriage and fortune, as your own so clearly is! Go and see this Bingley if you must, though I warn you that none of our girls has much to recommend them; they are all silly and ignorant like their mother, the exception being Lizzy, who has something more of the killer instinct than her sisters."Pride and Prejudice and Zombies By Seth Smith

QUESTION: How does Pride and Prejudice and Zombies provide the reader with a good allegory for getting the best out of the novel?The depictions evoked in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that promote efficient use of allegorical characters of zombies give the reader incentive to make more useful insinuations as to where the text is heading in the novel. The quote selected highlights Mr. Bennet and the severity of his character. With the use of zombies as opposed to humans it is more likely for the reader to develop their perceptions on the characters they represent within Jane Austen's novel. The reader is forced to think more about Mr. Bennet's perceptions about marriage, Elizabeth's character and also about his wife. The use of a popular figure in culture to help people understand the reading provides everyone with a remarkable allegory. 

October 15th, 2012

"In Jane Austen's world, human worth is to be judged by standards better and more enduring than social status; but social status is always relevant," (129). 

Juliet McMaster, “Class,” Cambridge Comp. to Austen

"In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere.  He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal," (162). 

Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"


How does Jane Austen exemplify the notion that human worth is judged by more than social status with her character Elizabeth?

Not only does Elizabeth justify her choice in marrying William Darcy by telling Lady Catherine that she is a gentleman's daughter, but the reader by the end of the novel already receives the sense that Elizabeth's demeanor is much above that of her social status. Here, we see Elizabeth still caught between a rock and a hard place per her social situation in the eyes of Lady Catherine. However, despite her higher class level, Lady Catherine is easily portrayed as the most detestable character in the novel with her relentless attention to class. Throughout Pride and Prejudice, however, Elizabeth Bennet is painted as of high human worth by the way she expresses herself throughout. She is prized by the reader for her sharp wit and disregard for marriage for positon as opposed to marriage for true love. Austen's portrayal of Elizabeth as a strong female protagonist who seeks love outside of social class is truly meaningful. In the selected quote, we can tell that Lady Catherine's opinion of Elizabeth is due to her perceptions that Elizabeth is unworthy. However, in Elizabeth's response to Lady Catherine she speaks, "He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal," and at that point the reader can tell that Austen wants the reader to view Elizabeth as possessing a higher moral character of sorts. 





 

Monday October 8th, 2012

"The process of interior character development--embodied in the titles Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice--is essentially a via negativa, a dialectical process rejecting different extremes (too much pride, too much sensibility, etc.) to find a middle ground."

("The One v.s. the Many" by Woloch, page 55)

"It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world."

"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern — and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn."

(Pride and Prejudice,Volume III, page 359)

Question: According to Woloch, what does it mean for a character to be fully developed in a text? 

In the selected passage from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the reader is exposed to Lady Catherine's overwhelming negative perceptions towards the idea of Elizabeth Bennet's marrying of Mr. Darcy. The interaction between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth promote the development of both characters. In the text of Pride and Prejudice it is evident the character s do push each other's extremes towards a middle ground. It would seem that Lady Catherine has too much pride, as she does throughout the novel. The juxtaposition with Elizabeth's defense of herself contrasts this nicely. The contrast of the two characters through dialogue effectively promotes the development of each one respectively. Essentially via negativa the two characters' characters are strengthened. 

October 1st 2012

"The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only angelic characteristics; in more worldly terms, they are the proper acts of a lady" (816, Gilbert & Gubar).

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" (43, Austen).

How does gender impact the way in which authors write about men and women?


     In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice opening sentence, the author concludes that all people are aware that a single man in good fortune is looking to get hitched. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar state that it is only proper for women to please men. The implications of these two texts seem to imply that each sex is dependent upon the other. It would seem that a man in possession of a good fortune would want a lady who can properly please him. It is interesting to see women writing that pleasing men is amongst the proper things any women must do. 

September 24th 2012

Revised Thesis:

In the poem “When I have fears that I may cease to be” by John Keats, the speaker expresses his fears pertaining the limitations of mortality through emphasis of the self,  juxtaposition of concrete ideas to abstract emotions as the poem progresses, repetition of specific sounds and letters to provide extra meaning, distinct quatrain order, and symbolism coated in rich words to depict immensity. In unison, these elements support Keat’s theme of limitations and eventual conclusion about the solitude nature of mankind. 

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Paragraph to work on:

Keats utilizes the repetitions of letters and sounds in his first quatrain to place further emphasis on his key expressions of those lines. He does so with the long “i” sound prevalent in  “high” (3), “piled” (3), and “ripened”(4) to describe the immense amount of books he has not yet written. The extended "i" forces the reader to sustain a focus on those key words.  Keats does a similar thing with the “r” sound in “charact’ry” (4), “rich” (4), and “ripened” (4). Repition gives the words more of a standing in the reader's mind. Lastly, Keats places emphasis with the letter g in using the words “gleaned” (2), “garners” (3), and “grain” (3). All of these promote the importance of lines 1,2, and 3 and force the reader to recognize the vastness of the potential the author fears will go to waste with his ultimate demise.