Some Thoughts

One cannot help but wonder sometimes.

Winter 09′ is over. Finals were conquered, papers were forged in the dark of night, and books were pored over with belligerent fervor. It was a tough quarter overall, and I pray the next one fares well; not only for me but for others too. These struggles have past, but there are only more to come, so we must be prepared to face the upcoming challenges with strength and dignity. It is only natural that we forge onwards; never dwelling on the past for long.

But as we rest our tired souls, as we enjoy this temporary respite from the merciless pressure of the academic world, when even the strongest among us sharpen our minds and harden our resolve, I cannot help but take a brief, but meaningful sidelong glance back at what once was. I slip away from the camp for a moment and dive headlong into the night. I am Lot’s wife. I trip and stumble about blindly in the past and suddenly find myself standing upon this field once again. I look around this once barren landscape, now dotted with the strange silhouettes of the curious and multifarious constructs of our imagination.

I don’t know what to think of it all. I am not an English person. I don’t like writing formally, I don’t like literary analysis, and I am a terrible reader. Com 3 was not easy on me, and frankly, it wasn’t…fun. School is School, Life is Life. I don’t even want to know what atrocious grade I scraped out over the past few months. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say I thoroughly enjoyed this blogging exercise. A wise man once said, “Everything is fun until you have to do it.”

But I can’t say that I treated it just like another paper, because it wasn’t like most papers. I was allowed a little freedom with it; I was given permission to swim openly into the ocean of creative output. And unlike many others, I dove. I dove deep into the darkness; it was a new, terrifying experience. Sure, I had performed acts of madness of similar caliber in the past, but rarely if ever am I actively graded on my insolence. Many weeks and comments later, I still don’t know if I drowned. I don’t know how many of my peers admired my zeal and how many of them thought me a fool, but it is of little consequence now. All I know is that when I dragged my broken body back to shore I could not help but feel a sense of relief; a feeling that at least one infinitesimally small portion of my soul could rest for a moment. Never will I look back on this exercise and say “I shouldn’t have taken that one seriously,” because I didn’t.

So why am I doing this? Why do more…work? Surely none of you care what I think or say. Not that I inherently think you fellows are insensitive, it’s just that’ s the way people are. I have already said I don’t usually enjoy writing, and surely there are better things to do with my Spring Break. This post will be my worthless secret, the soapbox is set but no one arrived. Though is this action really any more or less significant then anything else I have done in my pathetic life? But reason or no reason, I come to this barren wasteland, this city which never really bustled with life. We passed through, did what had to be done, and left. It was a cold affair, few gave this business much thought. And now there is nothing more to be done. There is no reason to return to this spot on the internet. So what will come of this blog? This ghost town? Nothing. Nothing at all. No doubt WordPress will delete the whole mess for inactivity, or perhaps the creator will steal the life from this land as suddenly as is it was given. As time passes by, this area will be forgotten. No doubt many have already forgotten it.

This blog will die.

I am now standing before my own twisted contribution to this desolate junkyard. Good God, what was I thinking? Did I really write that? At what ungodly hour of the morning did I concoct this foul beast? I think it was like…2, maybe 3 am or something. Ha, that’s what time it is now. But a mother can never truly hate her child. I did put a lot into this piece. And it glowed for a couple days, a couple hours, and I was…I was almost proud of it. And now it shall be left behind with the rest of these estranged creations. That one Shakespeare quote comes to mind:

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player; that struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more; it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying Nothing.”

-Macbeth, somewhere in Act V

And I cannot help but feel a twang of…sadness. Sure, all papers end up like this, but now I notice it. All these finely crafted words, strung together into artistically composed ideas, formatted and reworked into fine examples of literature…given a number, a letter, then filed away. I cannot wonder if my life is as simple.

I don’t know what I’m saying here. I feel I’m making a fool of myself. No matter. I rest assured that no one will read this, and in the off chance someone does, it is highly unlikely I will ever meet him or her in the future. Nothing personal, I’ve always been a bit of an antisocial. My participation in class, or lack thereof, is surely solid proof of such. But again, the biting question: Why, why am I doing this? Maybe I actually like writing and just never knew. Maybe there’s a deeper message I am crying out that no one will find or understand, a message that only the open air and the uncomprehending birds will hear, one that I can only begin to grasp at. Maybe beneath all these overly flowery paragraphs, the truth is that I’m really bored at the moment.

But this blog is dying. Maybe already dead. It depends on your perspective. But I say as long as people read it, it is still alive. Only we can save it, but there is no reason to, and I don’t think we should. Death is every bit as natural as life, after all. But it doesn’t make it any more familiar. There is a permanence to death; a quality that nothing else, not even life, possesses.

But I won’t let this blog die quite like this. No, though it may slip quietly into the void, though no one else will know or care, I will stand here for one last moment, to give it company in it’s last moments. I am no poet, but I do what I can. Farewell blog. This post shall be your headstone, a tribute I pay you not out of love, but out a strange sort of respect.

Safety and Peace.

Kane Chai

(Pause.) It’s like I can touch you!

In our class discussion of Waiting for Godot, somebody brought up the possible nature of Estragon’s memory issues throughout the play. It was never fully addressed in class, but I think, regardless of those who say Godot should not be analyzed but only appreciated for its nonsensicality, that this specific personality trait is something that we can read into – hopefully in a non-”pretentious artsy fellow” kind of way.

I understood Estragon’s horrible memory to be a device used by Beckett to further illustrate and emphasize the Absurdist nature of the play. Repeated throughout, Estragon’s inability to remember the details of his days mocks and undermines the value that society gives to any given moment and instance. In Mrs. Dalloway, for example, we discussed the implications of “leaden circles”, the idea that a moment can bear such weight and significance in a person’s life such that it leaves the person affected even once the moment has “dissolved” and passed. This “day-in-the-life-of”, stream of consciousness novel glorifies the importance of such an instance, of such a moment. So fixated on these singular instances, many of the characters in Woolfe’s novel become trapped in the confines of their memories: Clarissa always toying with the possibilities of past lovers Peter and Sally, Peter constantly frustrated with Clarissa’s decision to leave him and his choice to marry a woman he doesn’t love, and Septimus haunted by the memories of war.

Waiting for Godot is also a “day-in-the-life” story, but unlike Mrs. Dalloway, which takes a dense 194 pages to elaborate upon the thoughts and self-analysis of each character’s play by play on life, Godot cuts straight to the point. In Godot, Estragon can’t remember what he said a minute before in conversation; let alone what occurred 24 hours before. He is not burdened by his past like the characters of Mrs. Dalloway, instead focusing only on “the now” (since that’s all his memory can retain anyways). Beckett, unlike Woolfe, presents a situation to the audience and moves on. It reiterates the Absurdist emphasis on how fleeting and ephemeral time is; to try to create meaning in these moments would be pointless in an irrational world. 

While the idea of accepting of an irrational and meaningless universe can seem daunting, if not totally depressing, it also leaves room for excitement and play. To abandon all preconceived notions of what life is supposed to be and what we want our existences to mean brings a sort of liberation to the decisions we make. To simplistically see life as merely a string of choices to act and randomness presented by the external world, rather than molding it all into some fate-driven bigger picture, gives the individual more power to enjoy a moment as it happens. Furthermore, like the theater of the absurd tries to present, recognizing life’s randomness can replace the emotions of struggle and hopelessness which manifest from the search for order in the universe with feelings of lighthearted, comic playfulness which come when one tries to stop making sense and meaning out of every moment.

Having said that, I relate the ridiculous and nonsensical qualities of Absurdism and The Theater of the Absurd to cartoons created by Don Hertzfeldt. I’m posting a couple of his animations here, “Rejected” and pieces from “The Animation Show”. A study break, perhaps? They are related to the topic only in their absurd and foolish fun. So, like the philosophy states, don’t try to make sense out of the animations and you’ll be at peace with the universe (or at least these videos). Just sit back and enjoy the nonsense.

The didactic quality of nonsense

We can learn a lot from absolutely nothing. I can tell you that Seinfeld has taught me not to offend anyone that runs a food establishment like a nazi regime. A lot of people read Waiting for Godot in either one of three ways: as absolutely nothing, as an allusion to the growing lack of religious fervor, and as an existential text. I am one of the people that read it as purely an existential text. I guess it can be attributed to my atheistic stance on organized religion. Personally, I have never thought it was up to a higher power or being to regulate my life or what I’m meant to do with it. And unlike many people, I have never felt uncomfortable with the fact that life just might, possibly, in all likelihood, probably have no purposeful meaning to it whatsoever.

And I have to say the cast of Seinfeld echoes how I feel about this particular question about existence completely.

Those of you who have seen Seinfeld knows what the show is about. It’s a show about nothing. Really, it’s about nothing. The show is centered around four friends living in New York who are superficially connected to one another and is completely self-centered. Their lives are always somehow entangled in one another’s and somehow something always goes wrong… yet through the grand adventure that is meant to teach them some sort of a life lesson they glean nothing from it in the end. They all still remain the same egocentric and quirky people they are in the beginning. The creators of the show described the cast of characters as “thirty-something singles … with no roots, vague identities, and conscious indifference to morals.” Sound familiar? *cough, Didi and Gogo, cough*

Both Vladimir and Estragon are vague characters with no background, no senses, and no idea about what it is that they are even waiting for. The most personal thing we know is that Vladimir has the clap (which, while highly amusing, is quite serious, children). Through two acts and several banters later, the reader still does not know why it is that Didi and Gogo wait for this Godot person. I think Beckett wrote it with the intention of leaving the audience and readers with the echoic feeling of a lack of purpose. Beckett meant for the readers to feel the immensity of nothingness, amplified by the minimal setting and miniscule time frame that seems to stretch into eternity.

I’m sure through all of this you guys are wondering how is it possible to learn something if there is a complete lack of epiphany or self-realization? Well, lemme break it down for you. Seinfeld teaches all of us that we don’t need to learn anything, because we are fine the way we are. Selfish, greedy, and narcissistic. We are fine without a definite answer. We have no one and nothing to be better for if there isn’t a purpose in life. So, if that’s the case, why not just live life the way you want to live it. With all the unholy sins and nonsensicality intact? Like Seinfeld says, “No hugging, no learning.”

With Waiting for Godot the reader gets the sense that all that waiting and all the wondering on Didi and Gogo’s part will never amount to anything. And they are correct. In the end there is nothing but this bleak, hopelessness that permeates throughout the barren landscape, a landscape that reflects a lack of purpose. In the end both Didi and Gogo still wait for the coming of Godot, despite the fact that they say:

“Well? Shall we go?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

Unlike Didi and Gogo, I say it’s better to just forge forward, because we’re not going to get an answer any time soon. Or at all. Why waste time wondering what the meaning of existence is? Why can’t we simply exist for the sake of existing? There is a line of Beckett’s Comment C’est (1961) that particularly struck with me and reminded me of Waiting for Godot. It says: “you are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it’s over you are there no more alive no more then again you are there again alive again it wasn’t over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in the dark”

You are alive. And that is all I have to say about Waiting for Godot.

Waiting for Hamlet.

Ok, so Waiting for Godot. I didn’t like reading it in an analytical light because I harbor the childish fantasy that Beckett had no symbolism or any of that nonsense in mind when he wrote it but made it all surreal and absurd to screw with all the pretentious artsy fellows who overanalyze things. That’s why I like the play, it’s a perfectly entertaining read even if you let it just wash over you.

So anyways, I realized while reading Waiting for Godot again that it was a whole lot like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. So right now, half of you are thinking “Rosencrantz and what?” and the other half of you are thinking “Seriously? Could you have possibly picked a more obvious comparison to make?” Well, if you didn’t know already, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a play by Tom Stoppard centered around (surprise!) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (hereafter Ros and Guil), two bit parts from Shakespeare’s infamous Hamlet.

I think the two guys on the right are Ros and Guil. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

It’s a good play, and luckily the language isn’t Shakespearean, except when it has to be. But anyways, yes, the two plays really are quite similar. It is altogether likely that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was influenced partly by the surreal stylings of Waiting for Godot. So don’t bother commenting telling me how clever this comparison is, because this is seriously as easy as comparing a Jackson Pollock painting to the inside of your microwave when your burrito detonates from overcooking.

High Art, or something you'll have to clean up later?

What I’m getting at here is that this post is going to be kind of boring, so I won’t tell anyone if you don’t read it. But it could have been worse. I had half a mind to compare Waiting for Godot to a video game, just to challenge myself. I could have, too, so you guys got off lucky.

Is this what you wanted? I DIDN'T THINK SO.

So, for those of you who haven’t read both plays, I’m going to lay down some of the basic similarities. Both plays concern the wacky absurdist hijinks of two central characters. The main characters of both plays are friends and are not terribly different from one another. Sure, there are a couple of personality quirks here and there but it’s not like the plays are about the poor artist showing the cold hearted businessman how to love. And remember that “operate as one mind” stuff when the dialogue just flows and ownership of sentences is being transferred left and right? Yeah, that happens in this play, too. Also, all the main characters have long, unreasonable, three syllable names.

The settings of both plays are minimal and undefined. The time of Waiting for Godot is “evening,” and while it assumed that Ros and Guil occurs during the Elizabethan era nothing in the play really supports it. Additionally, all the central characters have difficulty remembering their past. We even see occasional parallels between the characters, Didi and Guil both try and remember their pasts, more or less unsuccessfully, whereas Ros and Gogo don’t even bother trying. The place of both plays are also rather bland, and purposefully so. The set of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is described as “a place without any visible character,” a description which can put a smile on any set designer’s face because it means they can get away with doing nothing.

“But all that stuff is trivial!” You say. Well, there are some deeper connections between these two plays, too. There is a theme of futility in both. Didi and Gogo are incapable of changing their circumstances. Ros and Guil are both summoned by King Claudius to figure out what the devil is wrong with Hamlet, but don’t have any idea what’s going on or how to accomplish their job. They too, accomplish little, even when they do eventually meet with Hamlet they are unable to do anything worth noting. In the end, all they really do is wait for things to happen to them, much like Didi and Gogo. While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead does cover a lot of other themes as well and has a more farcical feel (as opposed to straight surrealism) then Waiting for Godot, the two plays to share themes of helplessness.

If you comment with a question, I will try to comment back in haiku, just for the hell of it. This whole post is an experiment to see what I can get away with, anyways. And yes, my title is misleading, I came up with it last.

Good luck with your finals.

Step Up 3? Mrs. Dalloway in the Modern World.

After reading Mrs. Dalloway, I kept having this sense of depression. I would hear modern songs that would depict certain situations within the book. However, I came across a Youtube clip where a few suburban kids created a film clip where they interpreted Mrs. Dalloway. It’s called “Step up 3: Mrs. Dalloway.” This is a play on the movies Step up 1 and Step Up 2, where the main characters involved dancers who seek out to find themselves, but they find a connection or a significant other in the process.
The clip is of mediocre quality and a bit amateur, but I found it interesting that the director enforced the line, “They only had ONE DAY to..” for each character. Mrs. Dalloway had one day to plan the perfect party. This was her job at this time of her life. It didn’t appear that she worked or had any other responsibilities. Because the entire novel based the entire plot into only one day, it is illustrating an entire lifetime into one day. If it is within this one day that Mrs. Dalloway decides to plan a huge party, this tells us a lot about her. Her life is very simple and not meaningful. She is almost the tragic hero in her own story.
For Peter Walsh, the director said “Peter had ONE DAY to get her back..” This cliched line has been used in so many novels and movies before, but it really is true in Mrs. Dalloway. As far as Peter’s story goes in the novel, one almost forgets that the entire time frame is only in one day. Peter is in town and he makes plenty of visits to old friends, including Clarissa. He considers his old love back in India and he decides to move forward with her, but he cannot stop thinking about Clarissa. He goes back and forth about wanting her and not wanting her, but all of these movements are all in one day. Peter mocks and in a sense, pities Clarissa’s simple life with Richard, but he still loves her. He literally had one day to get her back, but Clarissa is in love with someone else.
The Lucrezia character was a bit silly, but for Septimus, he “had one day to die.” Septimus went through a lot of torturous pain throughout the war. However, he went through so much ridicule from the doctors and from society that he was left with not choice. It is remarkable because if we could relate Septimus to a close friend or sibling that we knew, we may see it the same way. If one were in shellshock and society kept pushing unwanted doctors and therapists onto him or her, that is a lot of agony in and of itself. However, when one pushes the idea of solitary confinement onto him, that was the last straw. Septimus did not want any of society’s help. Although he appeared to be needing help, his healing doesn’t work if he doesn’t trust his doctors and if he doesn’t want their help. He has to want it on his own. This is why Septimus “had only one day to die”; Septimus needed to liberate himself from the crooked ideas of society and also to set Lucrezia free. Lucrezia was empathetic to Septimus for so long, but she was going through pain too.
This classic novel, Mrs. Dalloway has older themes but it can be applied to a modern society. I wouldn’t be waiting in line to see Mrs. Dalloway as a dance movie, but it would be interesting to see it in a modern setting, similarly to Clarissa Vaughn’s storyline in The Hours.

To protect myself, I lie

The story of Mrs. Dalloway is that of repression, both economically and sexually. Her life story is based around her decision to marry Mr. Dalloway rather than pursuing a life with Peter or Sally, her two previous love interests. She marries Mr. Dalloway becasue he makes her feel safe. She refers to Richard as being the foundation of her life signaling the declining importance of her own presence. The sad affairs of Mrs. Dalloway’s life are reflective of her decision to marry Richard. At the age of 52, after spending more than half her life with Richard, Mrs Dalloway wonders whether she made the right decision to marry him. This question in and of itself sets the depressive and disconsolate tone for the novel. Mrs. Dalloway states several times in the book that she has lived her life in a way that fulfills the expectations of other people, not necessarily the expectations that she had for herself as a young woman. She could have chosen to pursue a life with Sally and perhaps would have been much more happier, but instead she chose a life of security and dependability, which does not automatically equate to happiness. Mrs. Dalloway lives a depressing and meaningless life as is clearly visible in her discontent over her age, her lack of communication with her husband, and her false sense of what happiness is. Mrs. Dalloway looks for happiness by surrounding herself with flowers and organizing trivial parties, however true happiness is not something that one looks for. It is always present within our relationships with our relatives, loved ones, friends and other human beings.

In order to share with you all my understanding of Mrs. Dalloway’s character, I have decided to write a poem reflecting my judgement of her life. The poem is written in Mrs. Dalloway’s voice, but it reflects my opinion. This is what i think Mrs. Dalloway thinks of herself and her life with Richard. In the poem, I have portrayed the character of Richard as that of a heartless and cruel man because to me he signifies the presence of patriarchy and male domination. Mrs. Dalloway is not happy because she married Richard who was supposedly going to keep her happy and safe. But we see that, as Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway’s relationship ages, it loses the communication aspect found in most other healthy relationships. Richard is a traitor for not giving Mrs. Dalloway the true happiness that she is entitled to from their relationship together. If he had loved and cared for her to the fullest, she would not be putting herself on trial everyday wondering whether she made the right decision to marry him. We see in the novel that Mrs. Dalloway even begins to blame herself for their failing relationship. She fears that she has failed Richard. For Mrs. Dalloway, her marriage is her primary responsibility, but for Richard, it is just a side factor, secondary to his other very important life that he leads as a politician.

Often, in my moment of loneliness, I contemplate
Of the days gone by, the price so high
Why??? I continuously ask myself

Often, in my moment of loneliness, I try to relate
To a callous…heartless…cruel creature.
To protect myself, I lie
Mournful at my very own existence
Or shall I say the existence of it in me.

For years I have detested the mere sight of myself
But every thing is so convenient for you….Is it not?
And it gets even better as time loses its significance
If I could only re live that moment in time.
If time would just spry backwards
At least I would be alert to your honest character

Youth, how I long for you to return
My ears plead to experience again
The sound of my blaring laughter

Day after day, I put myself on trial
I plead not guilty, your honor
To the charges I have brought against my own self.
I am the exclusive witness, the one and only
The prosecution’s questions pierce my soul
Such as an arrow pierces through a pigeon’s heart.
These questions are my own creation that I attend to everyday
Why are they so complex, so difficult to answer?
I yell for defense….why don’t you object.
Defense replies with a soft, mocking utter
I have nothing to say your honor
The judge pronounces me guilty of the crime
And sentences me to a life of pretence
Day after day, I must deceit myself

Often in my moment of loneliness, I try to comprehend
The days gone by, the price so high
Why??? I continuously ask myself

Art and Flowers

As I was reading Mrs. Dalloway the image, or the symbol, that I kept thinking of, whenever Mrs. Dalloway was mentioned in the book, was flowers. Mrs. Dalloway is so surrounded by the minute and mundane details of her life that she ceases to be or have a definition of life anymore. She has a routine but the element of humanity and survival that is surprise and the presence of the unusual is gone for her. She turns to flowers then, to describe life. The passage in the flower shop really set the tone of the novel for me. Mrs. Dalloway is soft like a flower, pale, still, and most solely ornamental. “…and all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale—as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after a superb summer’s day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its carnations, its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven when every flower—roses, carnations, irises, lilac—glows; white, violet, red, deep orange; every flower seems to burn by itself” (13). Her entire life is defined by the life that flowers have, their own and the lives of those that pick them. She yearns for the life that she had, or felt she had when she was young with Sally and Peter. They were her connection to life. She said that she would never have gotten on with Peter Walsh had she married him, but it would have been more interesting to her, if she had. She loves him still, and she knows this. She feels the life that is bound within him that is released when he is near her. “So Peter Walsh and Clarissa, sitting side by side on the blue sofa, challenged each other. His powers chafed and tossed in him. He assembled from different quarters all sorts of things; praise; his career at Oxford; his marriage, which she knew nothing whatever about; how he had loved; and altogether done his job” (44). Clarissa has lost her connection to people. She has absolutely no connection with her daughter, who she does not understand at all, and her husband, whom she loves, but she has not the connection with him that she had with Peter long ago. When Peter returns, Clarissa suddenly has emotions and connection and vitality and choice. She is no longer simply a flower bound to live vicariously through others, in vases. Clarissa with her flowers reminded me of a painting I had seen once called Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears painted by John Singer Sargent. The woman in the portrait is wearing a white dress and holding flowers. She has a small pink face that matches the flowers, which are also pink. Of the entire painting, all the colors, which are characterized predominantly by a contrast of light and dark, the only true color in the painting is pink, defining the flowers and the face of the woman. The flowers define her life, and even the color of the flowers is pale. The flowers are her accent, the reason for her appearance in the painting and her interface with the world. Like Clarissa, her connection to the world is her flowers and therefore her parties. Clarissa chose sweet peas to take with her, pale flowers again. The lightness of the color and therefore the definition of life in the flowers suggests a calmness, a disconnectedness as though Clarissa is lived by life always in the proper manner, instead of life lived by the Clarissa with mistakes and bad choices.

Tyler Durden, a grown up Hobbes

The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, follows the childhood adventures of a young boy Calvin, and his stuffed animal tiger, Hobbes. The comic is set in modern suburbia of the United States, as follows Calvin as he finds ways to have fun and deal with the problems that children have to deal with, with the help of his imaginary friend Hobbes. The strip uses Calvin’s interactions with parents, classmates, and teachers to express an outlook on political and cultural issues. Some of the issues covered include public education, and environmentalism. Calvin creates Hobbes when the stresses of his life weigh down upon him too hard, and he needs that perfect companion to get him through it all.
The main character of Fight Club, unnamed but commonly referred to as “Jack”, is completely consumed by the commercialism of society. He is so overpowered by the standards of society that he begins to define himself by the furnishings of his home, and by a job that he absolutely hates. In a subconscious effort to escape from the weight of society, Jack creates an imaginary friend, Tyler Durden. This is Jack’s perfect companion.
In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is an thoughtful young boy who is pushed around at school and feels constricted by his parents rules. Jack has a lot of potential and finds creative solutions to his insomnia, by going to support groups. Both of these characters however, aspire to be seemingly unattainable versions of themselves. A connection can be made also in the oppressive forces in each character’s life. A bully at Calvin’s school, named Moe frequently pushes Calvin around, as Jack’s boss is a jerk and frequently brings Jack down even further from his depressing existence.
Hobbes is an imaginary friend that can get away with anything, just like Tyler Durden. While the law and society in Calvin and Hobbes, is that of the rules of the house and parents, Calvin often blames Hobbes for different incidents that occur in the house that he gets in trouble for such as a lamp getting knocked over. Jack does the same self consciously with Tyler, setting up fight club franchises across the country, and enacting “Project Mayhem”. Both sets of characters often engage in physical confrontations. Tyler beats Jack up in a parking lot, and in a parking garage, while Hobbes pounces on Calvin everyday afterschool, leaving him with scrapes and bruises.
Hobbes and Tyler also both feel more comfortable interacting with the women in Jack/Calvin’s life. For Calvin, who thinks girls are gross, specifically Susie Derkins, Hobbes is quite fond of her. For Jack who despises Marla, Tyler sleeps with her and provokes Jack about how much he envies him.
In both works it is clearly evident that the author is trying to express that many times there are things that someone clearly wishes to be able to do but some barrier of society bars him from doing so. To get around this issue, people make excuses to fool themselves into believing someone else is doing it and they have no control over it. This allows Calvin to go on crazy adventures, and for Jack to carry out Project Mayhem. Fight Club, is just Calvin and Hobbes, but more direct, as it focuses directly on society instead of the home life.

The Superego and the Id at work…?

I thought I’d post another media reference that we looked at in class on our first day of discussion on Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents–from Stephen Frears’ film High Fidelity (2000).

To situate the clip a little bit…Rob Gordon (played by John Cusack) is about to meet his ex-girlfriend, Laura’s, new boyfriend, Ian (played by Tim Robbins), as Ian enters Rob’s record store to discuss Rob’s frequent phone calls to Laura. Co-stars here are Jack Black and Todd Louiso, who are the loyal employees of Rob’s record store.

high_fidelity

►

We discussed in class the ways in which we can see pretty clear illustrations of the id, the primal response, and the superego, that which is a societal patrol on our beings to stop us from doing unthinkable things, on display here.

Freud and … Orlando Bloom?

“Troy,” the movie starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, and Orlando Bloom, does not seem like a particularly good fit when comparing to Freud’s Civilization and it’s Discontents.  The truth is, though, there are many aspects that Freud covers in his book that are shown in the movie.  Although the showing might be subtle, as opposed to an extravagant and obvious telling, many themes are indeed covered in the movie.

            If you aren’t familiar with the “Troy,” the story is really not that difficult to understand.  Paris is the Trojan prince, and his naivety in convincing Helen of Troy to leave her Spartan King Menelaus is the cause of the clash between the two great cities.  Paris’s father had worked very hard at maintaining a civil and peaceful relationship with the Spartan’s.  In just one move, Paris undoes it all.  Menelaus acts on his instincts by wanting revenge on the Trojans.  By rallying his brother Agamemnon and his star fighter Achilles, the Greeks engage in a violent and bloody battle against their Trojan counterparts.  All this happens at a time of building; civilizations and empires emerge and do their best to engage in peaceful communication and existence.  So now that you are covered on the “Troy” summary, you are probably thinking to yourself how this has anything at all to do with Freud’s book.  Well, I will do my best to show you.

            Freud very specifically states that the primal instinct of man is to be aggressive.  He believes that man continues to prove how he will torture, kill, and exploit other men.  Paris, his brother Hector, Menelaus, and Agamemnon had been forced into an uneasy and tense peace agreement by the King of Troy, and it took everything in their power to resist the silent urges they had to kill each other and take over.  The only thing holding them back was the Treaty, although it took great energy to restrain their instincts.  As Freud states, the aggressive instinct is not preventable, though, so all it took was one wrong move for the true primal feelings of Menelaus to come through.  Because Paris was willing enough to embarrass him and put him down, Menelaus responded in the only way he knew possible – with violence and aggression.  His feelings had been repressed for quite a while in order to make his civilization work, but Freud would argue that the aggression seen in all the characters was to such an extent because society had done its best to restrain any form of the emotion.  Characterized as the single greatest problem facing civilization, the instinct for aggression and self-destruction does indeed result in the destruction of a civilization in “Troy.”  The violence is unavoidable, and while the Greeks do emerge victorious over the Trojans, both societies suffer severe losses and are basically reduced to nothing.  The aggression displayed when it could no longer be held back resulted in the demise of all civilizations