Question 1:
1. Describe how O’Brien talks about his experiences during the
Vietnam War in “How
to Tell a True War Story.” Why might he feel the need to represent those experiences the
way that he does and/or what point might he be trying to make here?
OR
2. Would you classify O’Brien’s text as fiction or nonfiction
(e.g. memoir)? Why and what are the implications of this?
Answer:
War, as O'Brien states several times throughout this excerpt, is
hell. And telling stories about experiences of war--well, that's a sort of hell
in its own right. It's not necessarily about convincing someone else that the
stories are true. Truth is subjective. "You can tell a war story," O'Brien
writes, "by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and
afterward you ask, "Is it True?" and if the answer matters, you've
got your answer. (p 79)" Perhaps what O'Brien is trying to explain is that
by telling stories these soldiers are trying to convince themselves that they
are true; that somehow they didn't imagine it all. Essentially, sometimes you
have to fill in the perceived blanks--to try to capture in words that which
cannot be described in our feeble languages--that unfathomable feeling just
beyond the reach of utterance.
I think that O'Brien wanted to explain how not only through the
stories themselves--whether or not parts of the stories are made up--but also
through the seemingly disjointed presentation of the stories that war will
completely twist your mind and make you question reality. This point is
captured wonderfully in the following: "For the common soldier, at least,
war has the feel--the spiritual texture--of a great ghostly fog, thick and
permanent. There is no clarity. Everything swirls. The old rules are no longer
binding, the old truths no longer true. Right spills over into wrong. Order
blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy,
civility into savagery. The vapors suck you in. You can't tell where you are,
or why you're there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity. (p
78)"
Question 2: In your opinion, does
D’Agata take too much artistic license in his essay, which will be read
by many as nonfiction or at least as referential (i.e., it refers to the world
outside the text rather than an imagined world)? Briefly explain your
reasoning.
-OR-
Do you agree with D’Agata that his essay escapes the
requirements of fact even if it claims to speak some kind of truth and will be
read by many as referential? Briefly explain your reasoning.
Answer 2:
The
question of whether or not John D'Agata takes too much artistic license in his
essay, of course, depends upon the accepted definitions of the terms 'essay'
and ‘nonfiction’. But before I get to that, a few things should be noted about
this fascinating power struggle. First, the whole fact-checking correspondence
kicks off with a rather awkward, immediate dismissal by John about the 'need'
for a fact-checker for his essay as well as a short-lived middle-man experience
for Jim's editor that is absolutely hilarious. Second, after several dozen
pages of tense, increasingly agitated responses from John, Jim makes a snide
remark about John's mother to which John replied, "Tread very carefully,
asshole. (p 42)" At this point, it's an all out wit-fest with no end in
sight--what wonderful entertainment! Third, reading this ongoing struggle, I
found myself tending to 'side', if you will, with Jim and enjoyed the logic in
his explanations. Fourth, I found out that 1997 was not a good year for reviews
of the Stratosphere (p 81). Fifth, John gets pissed off and briefly stops
responding but comes back into the conversation on page 107. From this point
on, the arguably philosophical discussion that ensues is one of the most
intriguing exchanges I've ever read.
What
is 'truth'? What is an 'essay'? What makes something 'nonfiction' and if there
is a line, where do we draw it? These and more are examined ultimately to be
thrown away and essentially labeled 'irrelevant' when, after examining the
timeframe of the official report that the coroner wrote and finding a large
discrepancy that called into question everyone's account of the timeframe,
including the parents and the coroner himself, Jim sort of throws his hands up
(figuratively, but probably actually as well), backs out of the rabbit hole,
and recognizes a truth that had been staring at him the entire time: "And
at this point, does it even matter?...I don't know. I'd have done my job. But
wouldn't he still be dead? (p 123)." Wow! Powerful.
But,
to fully answer the question, I think that if we use John's subjective
definitions of 'essay' and 'nonfiction', then, no. However, according to what
society generally accepts as 'nonfiction', which by the way is what is known by
John, Jim, the publisher, and everyone that will read this to be the genre of
the book that the essay will be contained in, what John has done several times
throughout the book--stretching facts, intentionally misquoting people, books,
articles, etc., and even blatantly making things up--cannot be considered
nonfiction. That's not to say that there aren't facts contained within the
essay; there are. Thus, we arrive at an ongoing enigma, of which I will spare
further analysis here: How do you examine others' questions of reality without
consequently examining several other manifest questions from the examination
itself?
Question 3: Why is it important
that we recognize the many different meanings applied to the word “fiction” and
how does the
variety of definitions that Dorrit Cohn discusses support your answer?
-OR-
What is the difference that Paul
Boghossian sets up between classically defined knowledge and socially
constructed knowledge? In your informed opinion, are both types of knowledge
equally real?
Answer:
As Cohn’s excerpt illustrates, human
history is replete with examples of the struggle to delineate exactly what
makes something ‘fiction’. Of course, whenever we speak to each other, we are
speaking from our own experiences in our own interpretations of the words we
use. (Something to ponder: Could our entire interactional experience in life
then be considered fiction to others we encounter and share stories of
ourselves with throughout it?) Consequently, this has led to a wonderfully
colorful variety of categories under which a work might fall if labeled fiction. These categories essentially
manifest from two adjectival variants of the Latin root fictio which have been vying for applicability to the written word
for centuries: fictional and fictitious.
Thomas Pavel,
mentioned en passant by Cohn, “differentiates between the two adjectives, with fictional signifying “contained in a
work of fiction” and fictitious
signifying “inaccurate” (Cohn p 3).” In other words, if we are, say, creating a
narrative for a character in a novel we are writing then the work is said to be
fictional. However, if we are quoting
someone from a real-life event in which the quote is, for example, recorded on
video and we intentionally insert narrative that isn’t there or manipulate
context or really do anything to the person’s words while claiming that they
are in fact their words when they
aren’t, then we can call the work fictitious.
“The only reason,” Michael Riffaterre states, “that the phrase ‘fictional
truth’ is not an oxymoron, as ‘fictitious truth’ would be, is that fiction is a
genre whereas lies are not. (p 3)”
So, the question of
importance applies not just to the meaning of the word ‘fiction’ but also to
our entire language. For, out of this realization manifests a fascinating
examination of cultural relativism. Of course, this tends to lead down a
seemingly never-ending Mobius strip of self-referring circles of discourse
arguing furiously yet unresolvedly with such an inefficient,
sometimes-subjectively-interpreted language that no nuance or facet of any
society is safe from being exhumed by what appear to be scrying eyes—not even
this very response. Sparing this admittedly appealing--ultimately (probably)
fruitless--exercise here, it is safe to say that when trying to arrive at
mutual conclusions regarding topics that are mutually researched, a mutual
linguistic framework is quintessential because of the necessity to recognize
subtleties in written works that could and often do lead to ambiguities in
categorization.
Question
4:
Marie-Laure
Ryan proposes a taxonomy of different kinds of truth claims because, she
notes, “different types of assertions are true under different conditions”
(821). How is this approach helpful in relation to our understanding what is
real or what is fictional?
Answer:
In this essay, Ryan
offers a somewhat “different” perspective for investigating theories of truth
and validity. After touching on the topics of myth and science and how they
seem to be uniquely evaluated, she expands upon the view of postmodernists,
stating that, “…postmodernists hold that truth-value of the text is relative to
a language or conceptual scheme, and that all conceptual schemes are equally
valid and equally relative (p 3).” (What a way to be hand-wavy!) Then, Ryan
proposes an alternative: “Rather than subscribing to a uniform theory of truth
and validity, the members of a culture apply different standards to different
types of text (p 3).” This essentially establishes that truth and validity are
culturally relative and should be examined circumstantially within the context
and framework of the established “truths” of each particular culture.
As a result of such philosophical
exploration, several “conceptions of truth” (p 3) have arisen, including formal semantic theories, consensus theories, and theories regarding truth as a matter of
coherence (p 3). However, one in particular is belabored here:
correspondence theories. According to Ryan, “The spirit of the doctrine of
correspondence is captured by formulae such as “A sentence is true if it designates an existing state of affairs,” or
“To say of what is that is not, or of
what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of
what is not that it is not is true (p 3).”
While it may seem a
bit superfluous, and it may tend to become confusing and difficult to keep
track of them all, having several interpretations of truth (such as literary
truth and mythical truth, to name just two) and validity proves advantageous
because we can step outside our own constructions and indoctrinated views and
examine the world with different
perspectives but without the
hindrance of staunchly held preconceived notions disallowing such an empathetic
approach. In other words, this approach gives us perhaps the most objective
view of truth and validity since it forces us to step outside of our own
worldview to understand how and why others view the world as they do and accept
their versions of truth and validity as they do. “Neither entirely positivist
nor relativist,” Ryan claims, “the present attempt to pair discourse types with
truth conditions advocates a pluralism that legitimizes positivism within a
certain area but relativizes its pronouncements by acknowledging the validity
of other concepts of truth within other domains (p 14).”
Question
5:
Berger
and Luckmann talk about the “reality of everyday life” in this chapter.
What do they suggest about how and to what extent types (typification,
typificatory schemes) affect our daily experiences and routines? Do you agree?
-OR-
According to Berger and Luckmann, what role does the language of
everyday life play in allowing us to share our subjective experiences with
others?
Answer:
In this
chapter, Berger and Luckmann examine the idea of the social construction of
reality. “Compared to the reality of everyday life,” explain Berger and
Luckmann, “other realities appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves
within the paramount reality marked by circumscribed meanings and modes of
experience. The paramount reality envelops them on all sides, as it were, and
consciousness always returns to the paramount reality as from an excursion” (p
25). The paramount reality is our everyday reality—the reality experienced
mutually and objectively by all of us as we carry out our subjective
interpretations of it. Those interpretations are made both expressible and
apprehensible through what we call—using, by the way, that very same medium of
mutual interpretation—‘language’; a sort of constantly-updating, self-referring
morphology and syntax that is likely required as a medium of information
exchange by supposedly intelligent species striving for perpetuation and
perhaps growth (although nothing can or does grow forever). “Language,” Berger
and Luckmann write, “which may be defined here as a system of vocal signs, is
the most important sign system of human society” (p 36).
Face-to-face
interactions are first-degree sign systems while written languages correspond
to second-degree sign systems: “In the face-to-face situation language
possesses an inherent quality of reciprocity that distinguishes it from any
other sign system…. I speak as I think; so does my partner in the conversation”
(p 37). Things like snarls, hisses, and clicks appear to be inadequate for
describing our subjective experiences of our objective reality—the paramount
reality defined earlier. Rather, the accuracy and precision with which we
describe—or even can describe—those
experiences appear to only manifest as a result of the development of language
from utterance to lexical collections to lingua franca. As well, languages are
capable of creating entirely new realities in and of themselves: “Language is
capable not only of constructing symbols that are highly abstracted from
everyday experience, but also of “bringing back” these symbols and appresenting
them as objectively real elements in everyday life” (p 40).
Ultimately,
through social interaction and the sharing of experiences by use of languages,
a mutual knowledge-base develops and is accessible by anyone willing to at
least basically learn a particular, mutually-understandable language. (As an
aside, a few years ago, I discovered a rather fascinating, unique delving into
an imaginary world called Codex
Seraphinianus—the brainchild of Italian artist, architect, and industrial
designer Luigi Serafini. In this encyclopedia, Serafini created an entirely new
language, in which the Codex is written, as well as pictures of a fictional
world the new language describes. Indeed, this book is fascinating and I highly
recommend even a cursory glance at it.) As situational nuances organically
evolve, so do the vocabularies we use to describe those nuances. In other
words, we arrive at understandings about what we can or should talk about, with
whom we can talk about those things, when and where we can talk about those
things, and, of course, how we talk talk about those things (intonation).
Essentially, a hierarchy of relevance emerges, prompting Berger and Luckmann to
demonstrate, “Thus, I “know better” than to tell my doctor about my investment
problems, my lawyer about my ulcer pains, or my accountant about my quest for
religious truth. The basic relevance structures of referring to everyday life
are presented to me ready-made by the social stock of knowledge itself. (p 45)”
The relevance we ascribe to situational interactions dictates how we interact
with others. The gist of this idea is captured in the final sentence: “In
everyday life I know, at least roughly, what I can hide from whom, whom I can
turn to for information on what I do not know, and generally which types of
individuals may be expected to have which types of knowledge” (p 46).
Question
6:
According
to Malin, how does particle/wave duality change our typical understanding
of “subjective” and “objective”? (Your response can be brief, as long as you
directly address the question.)
Answer:
Quantum
mechanics is easily one of the most fascinating topics there is to study. Sure,
I may be a bit biased considering I’m a physics major, but even if we set aside
the exceedingly daunting mathematics required to understand the nature of nature—insofar as we are physiologically,
mentally, and technologically capable—the concepts can be comprehended sans differential equations. In fact, several authors,
such as Michio Kaku and Brian Greene, have done just that.
(As an aside, perhaps
you know about this: a few years ago I was on dictionary.com and one way or
another found myself looking up the word “know”. I found that there is a
hierarchy to the synonymous words know,
comprehend, and understand; and
it’s in that order. To know is to be aware of something as fact or truth; to
comprehend is to know something thoroughly and to perceive its relationships to
certain other ideas, facts, etc., and to understand is to be fully aware not
only of the meaning of something but also of its implications… These are the
kinds of weird tidbits of information I have stumbled upon along the way.)
Anyway, to actually
address and answer the question, Malin does a fantastic job of just landing on
the surface to begin scratching it. Classically speaking, our subjective
interpretation of the world was simply thought of as a subset of the objective
world; i.e. if we measured something in the physical world, we were confident
in “comprehending” that it existed irrespective of our existence and our
measurements. In other words, we exist within an already-existing reality. And
if we were to fire particles—either micro- or macroscopic—at anything, we were
likewise confident that we could reproduce the path that particle took to get
from A to B. But then Heisenberg came along and challenged the entire paradigm
with a simple thought: “when the electron is not measured—in the space between
the electron gun and the screen, for example—it does not exist at all as an actual “thing.” It exists merely as a
field of potentialities” (p 48). In terms of an objective reality, this
sort of implies there isn’t one. At
least, there isn’t one until we measure it. The implications of this are
philosophically vast and equally intriguing. Do we exist apart from reality or a part
of it? (It turns out he wasn’t quite correct. But, the can of worms he
opened up turned out to be, theoretically speaking, a wormhole.)
Question
7:
According
to Berger, how does technology’s ability to reproduce and recontextualize
images change how we see original paintings? (Briefly explain one element of
this change.) In your opinion, does the original still have an aura to it (one
that goes beyond just being able to see details that aren’t easily
reproducible, such as an original context, texture, reflection, etc.)? That is,
is the real experience somehow better in terms of the image and not just the
object itself?
Answer:
Art throughout
history has struggled with the idea of perspective. In the late Byzantine Era,
moving into the Renaissance, a paradigm shift occurred with regards to
perspective in paintings. Before this time, artists were constrained to
two-dimensional pictorial representations of the world, maintaining a flattened
sort of body composure—even in relief sculptures—reminiscence of the Egyptian
aesthetic, often featuring either profile views of the head and lower body
while showing a frontal view of only the upper torso or some combination
thereof. By the late 15th Century, artists such as Pietro Perugino
had mastered the newly developed idea of linear perspective (Christ Giving the
Keys to Saint Peter—1481-1482) opening the door to more realistic
representations of the world than ever before in human history. Perugino and
others were able to quite literally capture a new dimension of the world that
was absent in art for millennia prior. In other words, before this time,
artists could think of their work as islands of perspective existing
irrespective of the world around; since this time, artists have had to
critically think about every nuanced element of the world they are creating
with the strokes of a brush—background, foreground, gazes, movement, colors,
and so on. “The compositional unity of a painting,” writes Berger, “contributes
fundamentally to the power of its image” (p 13).
The innovation
of a device by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 that could capture the world
without a single brush stroke has since changed nearly every facet of our
society. “The invention of the camera,” says Berger, “changed the way men saw.
The visible came to mean something different. This was immediately reflected in
painting” (p 18). Particularly, in terms
of art, cameras removed the necessity to travel great distances in order to see
one-of-a-kind works: “Originally paintings were an integral part of the
building for which they were designed” (p 19). So it was not only
time-consuming, the journeys were likely very expensive. Centuries ago, works
of art were typically reserved for the elites in society; art was commissioned
by, for, and usually was of those in the highest echelons of authority. Then,
the camera came along and shook up the entire industry. Berger explains, “When
the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image. As a
result, its meaning changes. Or, more accurately, its meaning multiplies and
fragments into many meanings” (p 19).
Berger gives
the example of Virgin On the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, explaining the
contrast of the original, located at the National Gallery, and the
reproduction, in the Louvre. Essentially, the argument is that reproductions
are now often seen by people before the originals, leading to a false sense of
referent. That is, originals are now seen in relation to the reproductions; not
the other way around as it should be. On this point, Berger tells us, “the
uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image
shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in
what it says, but in what it is” (p 21). As well, Berger states that, “When a
painting is reproduced by a film camera it inevitably becomes material for the
film-maker’s argument…. In a film the way one image follows another, their
succession, constructs an argument which becomes irreversible. In a painting
all its elements are there to be seen simultaneously…. The painting maintains
its own authority” (p 26).
Having
experienced many things in my travels, including exploring both the Louvre and
the Palace of Versailles in France and seeing La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona,
I can tell you that nothing compares to being in-person. Granted, it was 11
years ago when I was a naïve senior in high school, and I wish I would have
given more of a shit about these finer aspects of our global culture, but I can
distinctly remember feeling the
history—not just seeing it. Surprisingly, I walked right past the ridiculously
long line for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. That’s right, I only saw it from
about 25 feet away and its much smaller than what one might expect; so I didn’t
see any detail. Instead, I moved on to the Ancient Egyptian section in which
the smells and the darker atmosphere seemingly transported me to the excavation
sites. In the Palace of Versailles, something I will never forget is the gold (so
much gold) woven into velvet walls in at least one of the rooms (Louis XIV
nearly bankrupted France to build it). In Barcelona, Gaudi’s gothic cathedral
is one of the most spectacular, breathtaking sites in the world. Pictures and
videos simply do no justice. It is similar to the feeling of standing at the
Grand Canyon (the ultimate form of “original production”) after decades of only
seeing it in pictures and on video: There is no comparison. And its strange
because the contrast is, at least in that moment, indescribable in our feeble
languages. Yet, we are constantly trying to put into words that which cannot. That is the power of witnessing
originals instead of reproductions.
Question 8:
What figural (or fictional) truths does Proust
communicate regarding how we interact with others OR how we perceive the world
around us? Describe one such truth (with specific reference to the text).
Answer:
(Added
2018: This book was torture and… I honestly chose not to read it or do the
related assignments. J)
Question 9:
Consider one
example of a metaphor (i.e. metaphorical concept) that we commonly use in our
daily lives and briefly explain how it supports Lakoff and Johnson’s argument.
For example, to what extent does it shape how we think, behave, and speak?
Answer:
Lakoff
and Johnson explain, "We have found...that metaphor is pervasive in
everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary
conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally
metaphorical in nature" (p 3). In other words, everything we think, do,
and perceive (our conceptual system) is metaphorical and plays "a central
role in defining our everyday realities" (p 3). Alluding to the notion
that most of our nuanced routines are done automatically, and hence beyond our
awareness, Layoff and Johnson suggest a way to examine the conceptual system:
"Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in
thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that
system is like" (p 3).
There are numerous fascinating phenomena that occur in languages
which highlight the versatility of human cognition—metaphors being one of the
most pervasive. I'd like to point out one in particular (although several come
to mind): "The Man". I’ve personally heard this hugely popular saying
countless times throughout my life but I had never actually thought, until
recently, about the strange variation in meaning that arises contextually. What
I mean is that this expression (among many, many others) can take on either a
positive or a negative connotation. In other words, if someone says, “You’re the man!”, we typify that as a good
thing; if someone else says, “Just when you thought everything was going swell,
the man came along and… [insert some Alex
Jones-eque, conspiracy-laden mental disgorge]”, then it is typified as a bad
thing—kind of like my bracketed insult implies here. (There are so many
different sayings regarding this phrase, such as “be a man”, “be one’s own
man”, “man’s world”, “man’s man”, and so on, that I would be here for days
going through all of them. So, I’ll just stick with this very particular case
here.)
The negative connotation of “the man” essentially undermines any
semblance of critical thinking by chalking up a very real-world concept
(government and our interaction with it) to a figment—an intangible,
seemingly-esoteric yet ultimately nothing thing. It is similar to the “they”
syndrome so many suffer from: “They will never let it happen!” and “I’m sure
They are working on it!” and “I wish They would…” and so on. I have a question:
Who are “they”? The term “they” is defined as “people in general”. So, there is
no “they”! At least, there is no “they” that we all automatically know by mere
announcement of the term. And we especially cannot claim to know what those
“people in general” think about nuanced issues; nor what their thoughts are
either collectively or individually without speaking to them. So, whenever
someone uses “they”, that person usually has to define the term anyway. It
means nothing. Just like the negative connotation of “the man”—meaningless; an
empty gesture we all can smile and laugh at agreeably without rumination. Thus,
language acts as both the means of cataloging, as well as the bane of, our
existence. The former, a hallmark of our desire to explore ourselves and the
universe; the latter, a manifestation of the stagnation (and possible
declination) of critical thinking skills necessary to avoid using ridiculous,
moronic-sounding “words” like “bae” and never-ending acronyms and initialisms.
These are the things that make me truly wonder what everyone does with all of
the time they save by typing “u” instead of “you”.
Question 10:
According to
Stoppard in The
Real Thing, how real are human relationships? What factors are involved
in determining whether, for example, love is real or not?
-OR-
According to the
play, what role does language seem to play in determining whether something is
real or not? For example, does language make something more or less real?
Answer:
This is an
extremely long quote but it’s a great summation of at least Henry’s take on the
matter: “There is, I suppose, a world of objects which have a certain form,
like this coffee mug. I turn it, and it has no handle. I tilt it, and it has no
cavity. But there is something real here which is always a mug with a handle. I
suppose. But politics, justice, patriotism—they aren’t even like coffee mugs.
There’s nothing real there separate from our perception of them. So if you try
to change them as though there were something there to change, you’ll get
frustrated, and frustration will finally make you violent. If you know this and
proceed with humility, you may perhaps alter people’s perceptions so that they
behave a little differently at that axis of behaviour where we locate politics
or justice; but if you don’t know this, then you’re acting on a mistake.
Prejudice is the expression of this mistake” (p 52).
Later on, when
speaking with his daughter, Debbie, about sex, she was using what he considered
“propagandized” speech. Pointing out the dangers of such rhetoric, Henry
explains, “Persuasive nonsense. Sophistry in a phrase so neat you can’t see the
loose end that would unravel it. It’s flawless but wrong. A perfect dud. You
can do that with words, bless ‘em. How about ‘What free love is free of, is
love’? Another little gem. You could put ‘what’ on the end of it like Bertie
Wooster, ‘What free love is free of is love, what?’—and the words would go on
replicating themselves like a spiral of DNA…’What love is free of love?—free love is what love, what?—‘” (p 62).
Finally, in the
conversation between Henry and Annie from pages 67-72, Henry is sort of
implying that Annie has been cheating—possibly with Billy (since, you know, the
reason that Henry and Annie are together is because she cheated on Max with
Henry. And such is the reason I don’t trust ANYONE.)—after catching her telling
what appears to be a lie about where she was the night before. After he
corrects her, she claims, “I don’t know why I said I came down this morning. It
just seemed easier. I wasn’t there last night because I caught the train
straight from the theatre” (p 68).
Essentially,
what I think Stoppard is getting at in this play is that language tends to
bolster our perception of reality. As well, we can use language to distort
others’ perception of reality; for example, by lying to them—however subtle or
seemingly innocuous that lie is. Our modern perception of trust is fundamentally
based upon communication. Through the use of language, we can create entire universes
to feed to others that, at least while they are unaware of the ruse, placate
them perfectly well—and as the adage goes, we’ll just “leave well enough
alone.” I personally feel this is a pretty disgusting worldview that has led to
my view which is pretty simple: We’re such an immature, arrogant,
self-privileged, destructive species that, quite frankly, we deserve whatever
we get for not utilizing language in a way to inspire the world to unify in our
digital age.
Question
11:
Review
the idea of language games as well as the distinction between seeing and seeing as (as related to the relationship between sensory
perception and intellectual interpretation). How do both language games and seeing as play a role in defining
reality?
Answer:
From the
outset, this excerpt poses an enthralling question: “But how many kinds of
sentence are there?” (p 14). There appear to be infinite possibilities given
the rapidly evolving nature of human-created language. That is, there are
myriad fun and interesting games one
can play with language. Let’s take the following sentence:
For example, I can
write this sentence in any number of ways.
Indeed, by merely moving the phrase ‘For example’ to various
positions in that sentence, it would, at least in English, retain readability
and grammatical correctness. Of course, ‘For example’ would clearly seem out of
place after the words ‘this’, ‘any’, ‘number’, and, ‘of’. As well, I can rephrase
the sentence from assertive to inquisitive: Can I, for example, write this
sentence in any number of ways? Continuing the endeavor, the sentence can be
‘synonymized’ to a point beyond recognition yet retain its core message: This
sentence proves that sentence structures are innumerable. Or, does it?
Another aspect
of the excerpt examines not only the interplay between language, visual
perception, and intellectual perception but also real-time changes in
perception. Wittgenstein writes, “I observe a face, and then suddenly notice
its likeness to another. I see that
it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience
“noticing an aspect”” (p xi).
As Wittgenstein
points out, these ideas of seeing and
seeing as are linked: “The concept of
a representation of what is seen, like that of a copy, is very elastic, and so together with it is the concept of what
is seen. The two are intimately connected. (Which is not to say that they are alike.)” (p 208). So, while distinct, the
concepts appear complementary. Seeing
is ultimately the physiological act of light entering the human eyeball and
being interpreted as electrical impulses by the brain. Seeing as is the intellectual process of categorizing, associating,
and acting (or not acting) upon that visual information.
Question
12:
Do a close reading of a short passage from one of Retallack’s
poems or from Stein’s Tender
Buttons in order to analyze what the passage illustrates about language
and meaning.
-OR-
How can
experimentation with language attempt to address the power language has to
shape thought (rather than simply express it)? Reference a small portion of one
of the poems by Retallack or a passage from Stein’s Tender Buttons as
you answer this question.
Answer:
These passages played tricks on my mind.
I don’t really know how to explain this but here it goes: I actually read
through both of these the other day. I thought, “What the hell am I reading?
Why does this make no sense?” I quickly realized that was the point. So, I
forced my way through them and I honestly didn’t really process any of it. It
wasn’t until I sat down and tried to read them over again to write this
response that I recognized the truly frustrating nature of both of these
passages. The fascinating part is that I had been trying to extract some sort
of meaning while sitting in my room and failed to do so. For some reason, I
just haven’t been able to focus on these particular readings; i.e. every time I
would read, the words were entering my brain but nothing was clicking…until I
put on Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement”. I read the first
line of Retallack and the inner me said, “DUDE! How did you not get this
before?!” Weird, right?
According to
the me within me, although Retallack is a wonderful wordsmith, she is terrible
with punctuation (and I’m even worse with comedy). But, all kidding aside, the
lack of routine punctuation appears to be the point. The sentence I’m focusing
on is this: “how will one ever get any rest on this restless dangerous earth
far beyond the bounds of deeply held convictions or questions of making sense”
(p 36). This certainly shapes my thinking in a number of ways. First, the lack
of punctuation sends me into a sort of inner cringe meltdown despite knowing it
was arguably intentional. Perhaps this was the most distracting thing for me.
Second, you have to stand in awe at the beauty of a language in which almost
every combination of words in a sentence retain grammatical correctness. Even without punctuation, it is easy to see
how rearranging the thoughts in this sentence help it to, coincidently, “make
sense”. Lastly, the rhetorical question that is asked without a question mark,
read in its entirety without pause and understood, opens an endless stream of
practically all of my views at once in my mind; i.e. deeply held convictions,
boundaries, earth, sense; all of it.
It’s strange how the simplest things are.
Question
13:
After
finishing the text, consider the following passage from the acknowledgments
section. “While all these names may give an air of authenticity, I must confess
that the book is not a history but a portrait or ‘gesture.’ And if those listed
above disapprove of the fictional air I apologize and can only say that in Sri
Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts” (206). If we consider the text
in light of this statement, is any amount of license allowable here or do we
need to draw the line somewhere? And what are the consequences (good or bad) of
this approach?
Answer:
Ondaatje uses
the terms ‘portrait’ and ‘gesture’ to describe his work here. A portrait is
simply a “verbal picture or description, usually of a person” while a gesture
is “something said or done as a formality or as an indication of intent”—both
according to dictionary.com. That’s a bit ambiguous and perhaps that was his
point. Considering the fact that on one edition the book is labeled as
“memoir/literature” and on the other “fiction/literature”, it is easy to see
how this has been the subject of debate within the publishing company since Ondaatje
wrote it.
This was a
fascinating read; I’m still processing it. A far cry from Proust, this book
still shows a great deal of disjointedness but it is much easier to follow
along. However, there were elements that really made me feel like I was where
he was. For example, in the section labeled “MONSOON NOTEBOOK (iii)”, I
couldn’t help but be reminded about living on my parents’ farm in Ohio on a
dead-end road. This description is so vivid; so spot on! I’ve sat on the porch
back there—no lights for miles around save perhaps a nightlight in the dining
room that bursts out into the night like a supernova—to witness this very same
“white downpour” he talks about.
The artistic license
that Ondaatje has taken here is sort of painted and glossed over as acceptable
based upon the quoted lines. It’s almost as if he is admitting—after the fact,
might I add—that of course he inflated the stories! But, for the most part they
are true. So, apparently that’s okay. After all, it’s up to the publisher to
flesh out the details of categorical distinctions, right? Well, it might not be
so simple because we are talking about a book composed of second-hand stories
collected over two different excursions from multiple people. I’m not implying
that the information was recorded by Ondaatje incorrectly. I’m simply saying
that I don’t even trust people to tell me their favorite color or what they did
last week let alone accurate stories from several decades ago! He obviously
exaggerated much like D’Agata. As such, I feel the same way here—if Ondaatje is
defining license a certain way to fit his narrative (a sort of Procrustean
argument) then he is perfectly within his rights to call it a memoir. But, here
in the world where publishers have to maintain a reputation of correct labeling
and distinction between facts and fiction, it is safe to call this work fiction
based upon this statement.
Question
14:
Hayden
White talks about the role of form in the writing of history. In history
proper, he points out that where the story (or history) begins, develops, and
ends; what events are included or excluded; and what the central subject or
authority is all shape the events or perception of reality described. Briefly,
how might the three chronologies from Julian
Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot exhibit this?
Answer:
White states that “[T]he doxa of the modern historiographical
establishment has it that there are three basic kinds of historical
representation—the annals, the chronicle, and the history proper—the imperfect
“historicality” of two of which is evidenced in their failure to attain to full
narrativity of the events of which they treat” (p 4). The degree to which
narrativity intervenes is among several criteria he claims solidify the
veracity of historical accounts—another criterion being chronology. “The
events,” White explains, “must be not only registered within the chronological
framework of their original occurrence but narrated as well, that is to say,
revealed as possessing a structure, an order of meaning, that they do not
possess as mere sequence” (p 5).
Averting an
unnecessary departure from the question at hand, Flaubert’s Parrot demonstrates
a sort of flirting with this careful
balance of narrativity, chronology, and other elements. That is, in section I,
Barnes maintains an air of objectivity in that, while there is certainly
narration, there is no first person narration.
As well, this section represents the minimal injection of seeming-opinion—overt
in only a single section pertaining to 1846: “Should we regret the end of their
affair? Only because it means the end of Gustave’s resplendent letters to her”
(p 25). This section appears to be a chronicle that mixes a bit of genealogy
in. “It does not so much conclude as simply terminate” (p 5).
Section II
presents no quarrels with the idea of pre-Internet trolling: “He proves a slow
child, content to sit for hours with his finger in his mouth and an ‘almost
stupid’ expression on his face. For Sartre, he is ‘the family idiot’.” (p 27). This
section is also far more descriptive offering nuanced storylines and projects
deeper insights into Gustave’s interrelations throughout his life. It certainly
reads like “history proper”—or at least some loose version of it.
Finally,
section III clearly demonstrates autobiographical and journal-like attributes,
presenting the information in an outright first person narrative. Not only are
certain events catalogued, random thoughts and self-justifications are also
interspersed throughout. His “People are like food” (p 33) analogies are just
strange but something that perhaps many people can definitely relate with is this:
“I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating
at its walls, threatening to undermine it” (p 36).
Question
15:
Discuss one advantage and
one disadvantage of Spiegelman’s
choice to use either the comic form or anthropomorphized animals to represent
his father's experience. (Use specific details from the text in your answer.)
Answer:
Combining the
comic form and a subject as difficult as the Holocaust is no small feat. In
fact, Spiegelman even addresses this complex issue at the beginning of Chapter
One of Maus II in a conversation he is having with his wife while on their way
to visit his father, Vladek. After setting the tone of the rest of the story
with a fake heart attack scare—one that perhaps exemplifies at least part of
the reason he decided on the comic format—Art explains, “I feel so inadequate
trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams. And
trying to do it as a comic strip!... There’s so much I’ll never be able to
understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics… So much has
to be left out or distorted” (p 176). His wife tells him, “Just keep it honest,
honey” (p 176). Alluding to the fact that this conversation is knowingly
portrayed as one that definitely happened but probably not exactly as relayed
in the comic, Art tells her, “See what I mean… In real life you’d never have
let me talk this long without interrupting” (p 176).
Answering the
prompt, one advantage to using the comic form is that you can construct at
least half of the story with the images alone. And using anthropomorphized
characters allows virtually everyone to relate with the story as these
characters become more identifiable by doing so. As well, there are certain
points in the story with nuances conveyed in the comic strip that simply could
not have been through text alone. For example, the ‘Framed photo of pet cat’ at
his therapist’s place just couldn’t have been the same without this single
frame on page 203.
One
disadvantage has more to do with writing the book itself—time. Figuring out
exactly which frames to leave in the story—since there are several stories
going on at once in the book—and which to leave out would certainly have been a
monumentally time-consuming task. Another disadvantage—to be sure I’m actually
answering this side of the question—is that the story can easily be mistaken as
fictional since that’s what comic strips are typically categorized as.
Question
16:
In your opinion, is this film a work of historical
fiction—about a girl who uses her imagination to escape her circumstances
(mentally)—or is it a fantasy in which reality and what seems like fantasy
co-exist? Explain briefly.
Answer:
To
me, there is such a subtle difference between these two descriptions, work of
historical fiction and fantasy (as described in this prompt), that it’s
tempting to say that this film is a wonderful blend of both. However, it’s not
so simple. After a few quick searches (to be sure that when I said this that it
was accurate), I realized that none of this story actually took place. The
location and the names in the movie were so vague, it seemed to lack historical
accuracy. So, this is definitely a dark fantasy that was the creation of
writer/director Guillermo del Toro—one that I enjoyed very much.
Throughout
the movie, we’re sort of led to believe that this might really be happening to
Ofelia. However, no scene is more revealing than when she reaches the faun with
her little brother and Captain Vidal walks in. For the briefest of moments, we
see from the Captain’s perspective that Ofelia is having a conversation with
the air. That is, there is nothing and no one there. The Captain even stops for
a second to scope her immediate surroundings only to realize that she is, in
fact, talking to no one. Then, he takes her brother and shoots her.
In
her dying moments, Ofelia becomes the immortal princess and meets her
father…just like the faun had explained all along. All it took was the blood of
an innocent.
Question 17:
How does Joe
Sacco deal with the journalistic requirements of accuracy and objectivity
in his work?
-OR-
In Tim
Sullivan’s National Geographic article about North Korea, we can see how
limited access to knowledge makes us speculate about the reality of the
situation. Based on the what the article shows us, is the real North Korea
knowable by anyone outside of it? Is it knowable by anyone inside the country?
Answer:
North
Korea is, to America, one of those “pesky little countries” run by a ruthless
dictator committing numerous human rights violations that is hell-bent on world
domination and the destruction of the United States. We’ve been hearing this
rhetoric for several generations of the family of current “Supreme Leader” Kim
Jong Un (or as I like to call him, Jim Kong Douche). However, Americans sadly
can never get any semblance of accuracy regarding ANYTHING since our media more
closely resemble a series of circus attractions—lion tamers, jugglers, sideshow
freaks, etc—than some ensemble of reputable journalists. The few American
journalists granted the “privilege” to tour the country generally ring the same
bells in articles, reporting a sort of surrealist, culturally stunted, almost
scripted response of the people with whom they interacted. Sullivan writes, “How
to make sense of a country where the leader embraces basketball bad boy Dennis
Rodman and a week later threatens to let loose an atomic firestorm on the
United States? This is a country where the reality of everyday life is kept
hidden behind carefully created facades, and most visitors see nothing but a
few perfectly paved roads and a handful of monuments to the family—father, son,
and now grandson—that has controlled life in North Korea for 65 years” (p 1).
Essentially,
nothing seems real within OR without North Korea. That is, the citizens of the
country either willfully subject themselves to famine, poverty, and
dictatorship or they are forced to accept those circumstances. Both
possibilities are equally terrifying. As for anyone outside of the country
knowing the “real” North Korea, it appears at this point that modern
industrialized nations around the world view North Korea in the same light; and
it’s something to the affect of: “Aww, how cute. Little Kim (not the rapper)
has a little rocket he thinks will scare us. BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (As the
finger is resting near the button that would wipe North Korea off the map.) So,
even if it somehow is knowable, I don’t think anyone actually cares to know
North Korea because it’s just become the laughing stock of modern culture.
Indeed, it’s a sad situation.
Question 18:
Ignoring
extreme digital manipulation for the moment, why do we tend to see
photographs (or video) as closer to reality than other forms of representation?
What is one problem with this confidence in photography? (Refer to specific
details from either the Weschler/Morris
or Sontag
reading in your answer.)
Answer:
Every
single person alive today has lived in a world of photography whether or not
they have been directly exposed to it. Those of us in modern, industrialized
nations are perfectly content with the expectation that little, handheld
devices should, of course (!), come prepackaged with every innovative piece of
hardware and software to enhance our lives, including the latest, greatest
cameras. And just like that—with the touch of a piece of glass—the world around
us is frozen as 1s and 0s in a matrix of constantly-moving electrons and updating
algorithms. It’s much different than 20 years ago when we had to take canisters
of film to be developed—not that we can’t still do that. Physical photographs
will probably continue to exist for centuries to come despite the
digitalization of our world. But, it’s just so easy nowadays to simply click a
button to take a picture and click another button to delete that picture which
existed in a realm that can be argued to both be real and not real—the quantum
realm. But I’m going to resist going further off topic here…
When
we look at a photograph and hold it in our hands, we sort of accept as given
that the photograph is a slice of reality; something that someone, somewhere
saw, had the device to capture reality at that moment, and then captured reality
at that moment. It seems “automatically real”. We also gloss over the notion
that art might be thought of as some kind of distortion of reality regardless
of the form; i.e. painting, sculpture, song, movie, etc. Concisely, photographs
capture reality while art distorts reality. But, what happens when distorted
reality is photographed? Or when art shows reality as it is and then reality
suddenly seems distorted?
Sontag
argues, “Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by
photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted.
Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most
irresistible form of mental pollution.” (p 24). Image-junkies indeed! Today, we
are supersaturated with endless streams of ridiculous camera angles capturing,
not something that can rightly be considered tasteful; No. Instead, they
capture self-absorbed, cringeworthy, duck-faced, narcissistic selfies that
certainly can be considered “mental pollution.” And I suppose that is one
problem with this type of confidence in photography: Some of us will find it
supremely annoying and fake.
Question 19:
Saunders
depicts a future or alternate world in which powerful pharmaceuticals take
us beyond our biological limitations. In this context, what, if anything,
remains that is human (in a traditional sense) and how does the story suggest
this?
Answer:
This
was such a fascinating story! But, let’s be honest: In order to answer this
question, we need to understand what it means to be “traditionally human”. Sparing
an extraordinarily long tangent (which would be fun but, as of this sentence,
I’m at 8,663 words for responses in this class this semester), I assume that
this means a human that has no sort of enhancements—biomechanoid or chemical.
If this is true, then the framework of humanity (most of the organs and all of
the chemical and physical POTENTIAL) remains. For example, the trademarked
drugs that they are dripping into the machines connected to their lower backs
appear to modulate the endocannabanoid system present in every mammalian
species on the planet. As well, the speech centers and the hippocampus are directly
affected. So, the reactions of modulating serotonin and dopamine production
seem to have similar effects between humans and “enhanced” humans
(metahumans?).
I’d
like to address something else in this story that stood out to me especially. I
read this story last night and there is a line that won’t stop repeating in my
head. The reason? I dated someone for around 8 years—from high school into my
mid-20s. I spent over a quarter of my life with her! And just like that, it was
over. I’m just going to change one thing in the quote and then it is directly
applicable to me. Saunders writes, “I guess I was sad that love was not real?
Or not all that real, anyway? I guess I was sad that love could feel so real
and the next minute be gone, and all because of something [someone else] was
doing” (p 55).
I
can’t get this out of my mind…
