October 30, 2008
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 244-291 and Jorge Luis Borges

From the Jorge Luis Borges' short story we read: "The Library [the universe] is unlimited and cyclical. If an eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same volumes were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is gladdened by this elegant hope” (5).

The idea of an infinite universe is supported in One Hundred Years of Solitude Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano "learned that dominant obsessions can prevail against death and they were happy again with the certainty that they would go on loving each other in their shape as apparitions" (378). The implication here seems to be that death is not an end. Although bodies die, the obsessions people have in life, such as Jose Arcadio Buendia's obsession with the truth of great inventions, continue living. The obsessions, the ideals we carry, transcend death. The apparitions or ghosts throughout the novel support this idea—these characters have died, yet their living family members still see and hear them. One of the questions on the magical realism handout asks, “Is there a metamorphosis in the text? Is it treated as something mundane?” The answer to both is yes. Death, rather than being an end, is a metamorphosis. We morph from physical entities to intangible ideas—the ideas we carried during our physical existence. The ideas books contain, as well as the ideas people possess, transcend physical existence and are thus immortal.

In his short story, Borges says that the cyclical nature of the universe has gladdened his solitude. I wonder then, if the characters in One Hundred Years of Solitude acknowledged their own immortality through their ideas, (as Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula realize their own immortality through their love for one another), would this ease their solitude, or rather, whatever pain they feel because of their solitude?

Colonel Aureliano Buendias seemed to experience a solitude more intense than most of the other characters: he “locked himself up inside himself and the family finally thought of him as if he were dead” (246). If he viewed himself as a solitary individual, isolated in time, this would exacerbate the solitude he experienced. He thinks his feelings are locked up inside of him, as though he were holding them in captivity, and they would consequently die with him. But if he were to view his obsessions as possessing him, he might be able to realize that they extend beyond him, do not belong to him alone. And they will continue living and thus keep him alive after his physical death, so that he transcends time as well and is actually connected to each of his ancestors and those born after he dies. A cyclical universe connotes a simultaneity of time. Acknowledging this, perhaps Aureliano, his family, and we can transcend solitude.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I began to think of the Macondo people as subalterns, and Latin Americans as subalterns as well. In writing this novel, Garcia Marquez is giving the subalterns a voice. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Garcia Marquez says that the "rational talents" of the world, (which I take to be "The West," namely, the US and Europe), "insist on measuring us [Latin America] with the yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for all...the interpretation of reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown" (2-3). I began to think that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a novel Garcia Marquez (GM) wrote as example of a Latin American "pattern,"--a yardstick by which we could measure the region. If we approach it with open minds, this novel could be a way for us to understand the Latin American experience.
GM's assertion that rational countries don't interpret Latin America through a Latin American perspective resembles Spivak's argument that even well-intentioned intellectuals who speak on behalf of subalterns are serving actually to silence them; the problem is that, like rational countries, these intellectuals are not actually expressing the views of the subaltern. Spivak opposes essentialism, and essentializing the subaltern in particular. Yet, it seems that to even utilize the term subaltern and apply it to certain people is a form of essentialism. When you call a group of people subalterns, you imply that all of these people stand "in an ambiguous relation to power--subordinate to it but never fully consenting to its rule" (Spivak handout). The way I understand it, and the way we have been discussing it in class, it seems "subaltern" is generally applied to entire nations that are subordinate to other nations--often to colonial powers. Yet, there may be individuals within the colonized nation that fully embrace the colonizing power--Baby Kochomma in The God of Small Things seemed to whole heartedly revere English customs.
In relation to this, Garcia Marquez's statement that "the ravages of life are not the same for all" seems ironic, because, if I'm correct, he's speaking about Latin America in relation to the West. Because he's speaking about Latin America as a whole, or even if he is only speaking about Columbia, then his statement seems to imply that "the ravages of life" are the same for all Latin Americans. But Latin America, and any country or region, including "the West," is composed of myriad individuals, and those individuals "belonging" to the same place do not all think and feel the same way. Nationalism or a national identity seems to be just another form of essentialism, negating the diverse individuals that live in a given country. And this form of essentialism is especially problematic because it is leads to political chaos (often alongside violence) and war. To overcome essentialism, we would need to see each person as an individual, apart from the myriad groups with which we typically associate these individuals.

October 16, 2008
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez, &
Gabriel Garcia Marquez Nobel Prize Lecture

In in his Nobel Prize Lecture, Garcia Marquez refers to "all the peoples that assume the illusion of having a life of their own in the distribution of the world." I'm trying to figure out what he meant by this. Are our lives not our own? And if not, to whom do our lives belong? Perhaps each of our lives belongs to everyone, or everyone we encounter. This seems to make sense, since our culture so heavily influences us. We adopt certain beliefs and practices of that culture that we take for granted. Considering that we cannot help the culture into which we were born, nor the family, city, and numerous other circumstances, and all of these circumstances shape our attitudes, beliefs, demeanor, etc., it seems as though we cannot even help who we are. We owe a large part of our identity to the circumstances of our life, and the people involved in those circumstances. So in a way, our lives do seem to belong to other people, and even to the environment and earth itself. Perhaps our lives belong also to the time period into which we are born--the people we study in our history classes, and any person we study in the academic setting, or any setting really, is tied to the time period they came from, and the way we talk about it, such as referring to "the eighteenth century," "the 60s," etc, the time period seems to be the dominant force that holds all the people involved in it.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, I also see this at play with the repetition of behavior patterns between generations. Ursula noted that all the "Jose Arcadios" seemed to be alike--something along the lines of bawdy and aggressive, and all the "Aurelianos" seemed alike as well, more contemplative and withdrawn, if I remember correctly. This lends support to Garcia Marquez's statement that believing you have a life of your own is an illusion. If each Jose Arcadio and each Aureliano repeats the actions and mimics the demeanor, behavior, and even physical appearance of those before them, then they're not really unique individuals acting freely. Its a bit fatalistic, in that it seems they can't help who they become. Our lives belong to our ancestors and the overriding force of fate. However, I feel at some point, with the twins Aureliano and Jose Arcadio, they may have disproved Ursula's observation. I know she was speculating that they might be contradicting her observation, but I can't remember the conclusion of this situation. It was confusing, because Ursula wasn't sure if each twin was really the twin they said they were.
Reading over the quote I started the blog with and the context, I think Garcia Marquez may have been referring to people in Latin America. He says many European leaders act as though "it were impossible to find another destiny than to live at the mercy of the two great masters of the world," which I think are Europe and the US. Latin America is not granted sovereignty: they're denied originality in their "difficult attempts at social change" and "the social justice sought by progressive Europeans...cannot also be a goal for Latin America." Garcia Marquez may be saying that Latin Americans live under the illusion that their lives are their own, when in fact their not because the ruling countries deny them autonomy.

Blog Midterm Paper

Melissa Brooks

Dr. Paul Gleason

English 303

October 9, 2008

Thinking Critically

Before the semester began, my independent reading responses tended to be at the first level of reading development. When I read John Kennedy O’Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces, my response was limited to the various aspects I enjoyed. The main things I remember about this novel are its strangeness and humor, particularly in the character Ignatius Reilly. I thought about A Confederacy of Dunces primarily as a world in itself, without connecting it to the cultural context in which O’Toole wrote it. Similarly, when I began reading Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, I absorbed the information without really processing its relation to social discourse. Discussing Rushdie in our Nonwestern Literature class, however, helped me analyze the text on the third level. Learning about the basic features of Islam as well as the fatwa against Rushdie, I could place The Satanic Verses in its cultural context. For instance, Islamic belief contends that no one should disparage Muhammad. In The Satanic Verses, Mahound proclaims that a former statement he claimed came from God actually came from Satan. As Mahound represents Muhammad, the idea that he could make such a grave mistake, and the idea that God and Satan could so easily be confused with one another, offends many Muslims. Because I did not know much about Islam or Muhammad before we discussed them in class, I was not able to make this connection.

Currently, I think exhibit all three stages of reading development. In some respects, I seem to fit into the first stage of Text-Self. Most if not all of my responses include the personal pronouns “I” and “we.” While I never discuss whether I like a text or if it is good or bad, I incorporate my personal biases. Some of my blog entries were in part rebuttals fueled by class discussion. When we were reading A Wild Sheep Chase, I perceived a negative response to the novel’s strange elements from my classmates. This offended me because I love reading, especially books that seem to stray for normality. My blog response, then, was a way of defending both literature and my predilection for it. In my first blog entry on Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, I assert that we need to be more accepting of abnormal phenomenon: “The dream world of the bizarre is preferable to the mediocre reality we’ve created that excludes all that is illogical. If we (and the narrator) allow the illogical into our reality, we’d be more content living in it.” This remark contains overt bias, as I portray my personal preference for the bizarre as a social fact: acceptance of the bizarre would bring everyone a higher level of satisfaction. I also project my personal dissatisfaction with normalcy as a universal dissatisfaction, although many people are content with normalcy and prefer it. This response is rooted in the first level of reading development because it revolves around my personal feelings. At the same time, I think it pertains to the third level. I utilize a sociological perspective, implying that our societal norms uphold the logical and reject the bizarre. Yet, things are only bizarre because we define them as such. It may be beneficial then, to view them with a more open mind to broaden our perspectives.

An intermingling of multiple levels of reading development also occurs in my blog response for Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Like the previously mentioned blog on Murakami, this entry was also a rebuttal to a classmate’s comment, thereby applying to the Text-Self category. This particular classmate did not find the racism in the film offensive but humorous because (from his point of view) the racism was intended to be ironic. This comment upset me for a number of reasons, one of which is that my brother carries a similar attitude and at times overtly expresses racial prejudices. “Claiming that he does not really adhere to racist attitudes, he thinks making these jokes is okay…Even if we do not truly believe stereotypes, stating them ironically on a continual basis (as well as hearing them) begins to affect our attitudes.” Once again, my response was a defense of my personal opinions. Yet in this same entry, I also incorporate the second stage of reading, as I relate my belief that ironic racism is a slippery slope to Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy. Tristram says that entertaining opinions even in jest eventually causes us to internalize them. This entry also incorporates a bit of the third level, as racism and stereotypes pertain to sociological discourse. Sociology purports that racism is something we learn, and by continuously hearing racist jokes or remarks, and even by stating them ironically, we internalize these values.

As the semester has progressed I feel I have increasingly incorporated all three levels of reading development. One reason for this is that in general, discussing novels stimulates responses that are more critical. My independent reading responses have often been at the first level of reading development because I do not have anyone with whom to discuss the text. Usually, no one I know is reading in conjunction with me. Without an outlet for discussion, it is difficult to respond analytically; it often seems that when I read independently, stories sit in a vacuum within my mind, whirling around apart from culture and social discourses. Discussing texts in class, however, makes me think critically about the novels we read and helps me make connections with other texts and discourses outside literature. The handouts we receive in class have also helped me progress in my reading development because they introduce me to new theorists and familiarize me somewhat with existing social discourses. In my last entry on Roy, for example I discuss Spivak’s discourse on the fallacy of essentialism, which I would not have been able to do without the Spivak handout. I cite examples of essentialism in films like Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pan’s Labyrinth, which portray villains as the epitome of evil. I think class discussions and continuously receiving and reading handouts on social discourses will continue to help me progress in my reading development. In terms of my independent reading, I have found that when I write responses to novels, or write comments in the margins, it helps me process the book and respond at the second and third levels. The blog entries themselves have helped me to process the novels we read. If I continue writing responses to the books I read, it will help me to continue thinking about them critically.

October 2, 2008
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, pgs. 1-130; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

In the Spivak handout, it seems Spivak’s contention with essentialism is that it ignores the many differences between individual people. When we “romanticize the oppressed” by viewing them as pure and innocent victims, we turn them into a single static entity. Consequently, we’re not really acknowledging them as human beings, since people are dynamic. Every person varies from the next, and each person changes throughout his or her lifetime. When we villainize a particular group, we’re doing the same thing—we dehumanize them. While we ignore the flaws of the oppressed by romanticizing them, we ignore the redeeming qualities of those we villainize.
Essentialism can also cause us to stereotype people as individuals. By creating a “villain” category, for instance, we come to see people who do things associated with “villainess” as purely evil. This seems to happen often in books and films. Pretty much any Disney movie demonstrates this. For instance, I cannot remember a single time in Aladin that we see any redeeming qualities in Jafar; nor does Scar in The Lion King ever portray qualities that would allow us as viewers to sympathize with him. The film Pan’s Labrynth demonstrates this excellently, as Captain Vidal is probably the most awful sadistic villain I’ve ever seen, torturing and killing just about anyone that contradicts him. He is never portrayed in a positive light. This bothers me because I think it is a fallacy to purport that anyone is “worthless,” so to speak, and because it exacerbates hatred.
In Roy’s novel Comrade Pillai attempts to villainize Chako to labor workers: “Whenever he referred to him in his speeches he was careful to strip him of any human attributes and present him as an abstract functionary in some larger scheme. ..A theoretical construct…He never referred to him by name, but always as “the Management” (Roy 115). Dehumanizing Chako offers a Pillai a convenient means turn the workers against Chako, who Pillai believed was undermining him. It is much easier turning them against Chako when Chako is a nameless idea of corruption, stripped of his any good qualities they could sympathize with or relate to.