Travel

I'm a really big fan of "Questions of Travel." This poem asks questions about modernity veiled in the regretful musings of someone whose vacation has lasted a little too long. I like the question "Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?" (14). Modernist authors tend to be preoccupied with the idea of migration as a means to find inspiration. Bishop seems to struggle with that idea in this poem, and wonders if the road to inspiration is necessary to traverse. Bishop revels in the beauty around her though, even if there are "too many waterfalls," (1) and realizes that "Surely it would have been a pity / not to have seen the trees along this road, / really exaggerated in their beauty, / not to have seen them gesturing / like noble pantomimists, robed in pink" (30-34). But, Bishop still finds herself thinking of home, and, just like a modernist, she migrates to find her muse but ends up writing about home anyway.

Bishop's Diversity of Work

As I read through the variety of poems, and looked at the additional reading (Bishop in Europe) I noted the focus on aesthetics. I'm very picky about the poetry I read and enjoy, and Bishop seems (for me) to be hit and miss. Some of her (earlier/middle/war) poetry seems much more concrete and simple, and with exception of the poetry that has a lack of depth (and adhears to meter that doesn't quite fit the mood), that concrete writing is much more enjoyable than her more abstract poetry- addressing the more political and emotional. It's interesting that the artical argues that her later work- when she involved more politics, might be considered some of her better more grounded compositions.

Floral Imagery in "The Fish"

One thing I noticed as I read "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop is her unexpected use of floral imagery. Flowers tend to carry connotations of beauty--I am personally particularly fond of peonies, to which the speaker compares the fish's "swim-bladder" (32). Because the majority of the imagery of the poem centers on the somewhat repulsive, scaly, underwatery-ness of the fish, my mind gave a little jolt when I came across lines like "shapes like full-blown roses" (14) and "fine rosettes of lime" (17). This last is followed immediately by "and infested/with tiny white sea-lice" (18-19), a sharply contrasting image. The speaker seems to be struggling to simultaneously portray the fish as what it literally is (ugly) and what it metaphorically or symbolically represents (the beauty and strength of nature triumphing over insignificant human endeavors).

Synchronicity

This morning, two things happened in tandem that seemed fortuitous in this final week of "Transnational Modernism." I was reading the Bishop poems, enjoying their lovely associations and easy stretches of language while the radio, tuned to NPR, played in the background. Suddenly my ears abandoned the musicality of Bishop and tuned into the startling announcement that Merce Cunningham, the "worlds greatest choreographer" and "the last of the avant-garde" was dead at 90. I sat, stunned.

I became intrigued with Merce Cunningham years ago when I read that, as a dancer (and I must add a person) he never followed the beat--anyone's beat. He collaborated frequently with John Cage and together they questioned rhythm--they let chance dictate the flow of composition and choreography, sometimes throwing the I Ching to determine a piece. The most revelatory story I remember of Cunningham was an interview (which I still have) in the East/West Journal. He was talking about the movements of running, jumping, falling. He said how we are conditioned to see or execute those actions in that order. But he suggested the possibility of throwing a coin and having 'fall' came first--of how he would expect his dancers to execute the fall first, then maybe the jump, and finally the run. He said he always told his dancers if they met up with the impossible, they should master that then aim for at least one notch beyond it.

So this reminiscence about an artist who resides in my personal grotto of sorts got me to thinking about this class and the representative writers that we've studied--how they challenge the nature of what narrative has to be, of how they disconnect some of our assumed connections, of how they (as well as Merce) try to erase certain muscular memories so new and limitless ranges of motion can be given a chance.

I turned off the radio and returned to Bishop. I re-read "The Map." It makes its opening statement. Then the second line questions, "Shadows, or are they shallows..." and immediately after ending that question, leads to yet another possible interpretation of the view, "Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under?" And finally, Bishop ends the first stanza with yet another angle, "Is the land tugging at the sea from under?" Her modernist view allows all possibilities at once. Formed, as they are, by a query, she does not provide us with a tidy answer. It could just as well be the three movements of running, jumping, falling. She, nor the reader, has to begin with one over the other. She could reverse the order of her questioning. I would still have to sit at the table and construct the meaning for myself.

Ruth

Beauty

I agree with Jillian- this book had wonderfully beautiful scenes and description. I was blown away by the emotional beauty of it all too. Given I define beauty as a sort of intensity and thought provoking emotion, rather than just the prettiness of it all. The contrast in the dingy and the pure of society, as well as the grey area in between was just shocking at times.

Often I found I could identify with Bakha, when he turned his face into the sun and breathed in the untainted air. I knew what it was like to be confused about ones place when the signs all around pointed in many directions. I'd have to say that of all of the novels/books we read throughout the class- through description and detail Anand's was the best (though the story in L. Woolf's novel was my favorite). I know I'm repeating myself, but wow- the contrast and the depth in this was amazing.

Finding the Poet

"As the brief Indian twilight came and went, a sudden impulse shot through the transformations of space and time, and gathered all the elements that were dispersed in the stream of his soul into a tentative decision: 'I shall go and tell father all that Gandhi said about us,' he whispered to himself, 'and all that that poet said. Perhaps I can find the poet some day and ask him about his machine.' And he proceeded homewards" (Andand 157).

Wow! What a great ending. Anand paints for us a beautiful portrait of natural beauty, realization, and potential that leaves the reader fulfilled and hopeful, even at the end of a novel whose main character constantly wades through filth. Bakha's journey has only begun, and his destiny seems to be framed by Gandhi, the poet, and the toilet (you can substitute technology for toilet if it makes you more comfortable). Anand tells us in Conversations in Bloomsbury that "consciousness is about something other than itself, awareness of an object. Thus one is because of others" (132). Bakha's identity--his status as social outcast, his noble personality, and his egotistical naivete--are dependent upon culture and perception. Freedom from these things is impossible. Anand realizes that the best we can do is construct for ourselves an identity that we are proud of, much like Bakha does. Is Bakha perfect? No. But neither am I...neither is anyone. But, for better or worse, I am who I am because of my culture. Bakha is not like the other characters we've read this semester; he exists because of his culture, not in spite of it. And Anand seems to be okay with that.

Response to Ruth's Response

I too rather enjoyed both sections from the Conversations in Bloomsbury packets as well as the Berman piece. I especially appreciated the budding (if not fully formed) intimacy and mutual appreciation evident between Anand and his Western contemporaries. What becomes evident in the reading is Anand's place in a dynamic, ever-evolving culture of ideas which, coupled with his knowledge of Indian culture and myth constructs his unique brand of regional cosmopolitanism. Anand's time in England allowed him to observe social customs abroad which both coincided with and diverged from those of his homeland. Modernist thought became especially paramount in informing (and in some senses determining) his aesthetic choices, all while leaving his concern with India's socio-political climate definitively in tact.

As Berman states, dalit literature, "demonstrates the importance of conceiving modernism as a mode of writing that arises in many forms, guises, and locations in response to the social, political, and aesthetic developments of modernity. Writers in the colonies not only responded to local traditions and the writing they knew from abroad but also developed their own forms and modes, which in turn contributed to literary development both at home and abroad." Anand seemed fixed in these crosscurents, all the while focalizing India within this Modernist maelstrom. To again quote Berman, "Modernism does not move in one direction from Europe to the colonies, or even from the colonies straight back to Europe, but rather must be seen as part of a multidirectional flow of global literature and culture, with streams of discourse that also move around within a country and, as in the connection between Joyce and Anand, even from colony to metropolis to another colony and back again." In short, Anand's work seems to remain equally independent and inseparable from Western influence-a necessarily Modernist anomaly.

Anand's Use of Nature

One thing that I found particularly interesting when reading Untouchable was the beautifully scripted passages conveying the scene of the Indian countryside. In many of the scenes involving nature, Bakha is looking out over the open space and seems to be contemplating what it would mean to experience the freedom that nature allows. It is almost as if Bakha is looking for a way to define himself other than what his culture has provide for him. Almost to say that the only place where he can truly be himself is to seperate himself from the city he lives in and re-join nature.

This definitely adheres to the idea that Modernist texts are going 'back to nature'. It also provides somewhat of a Romantic idea about the unspoiled nature versus the tainted image of the urban area. It is also interesting to note that the positive things that do happen to Bakha over the course of this particular day, happen away from the city. For instance, the bliss that he feels while walking outside the city with his new hockey stick and when he witnesses Ghandi's speech. It as if life holds greater possiblity for him when he escapes the city; that by leaving the city he is also leaving religion and the caste system behind with the hope of starting a new life.

Response to Taryn (with grin on face)

Taryn, I energetically signed in all ready to continue my rhapsodic responses to Anand in these 'conversations' and lo and behold--there was your piece! I chuckled out loud in the library--not at WHAT you said, but at your vehemence (which I always feel myself--and yes, with that dose of guilt for feeling "unprofessional.") This is what I love about art and literature--we get to be subjective and educated at the same time, and realize that neither of our responses is more correct than the other--yet they are so delightfully opposite! So... to what I was going to add to my post from Tuesday (which precedes yours in this blog.)

I mentioned how much I enjoyed reading "Under the Chestnut Tree" AFTER reading "Untouchable" because it allowed me to hear/feel/understand Anand better having gotten a clue to what made him tick from his creative work. Well, after Michael's presentation Tuesday night and after reading "Toward a Regional Cosmopolitanism" today, I feel an even greater ability to understand Anand and relate to him on a personal level.

Something that I noticed with a touch of endearment, was the way that Anand, Forster, and Woolf tentatively circle each other in conversation like three people who are testing ground and recording data before committing verbally. Forster gives mild reproof re modes of address, Anand notices that Forster's answer was liberally sprinkled with "Hindustani words, obviously from a more intimate knowledge of India that most Britishers displayed,"(72) and later Woolf expresses surprise at Anand's comparison of a Shakespeare character (Caliban) to Gandhi by "looking from the corner of his eye" at Forster and saying, "I never thought of that equation"(78). Rather than being put off by all these minor details pertaining to movement, reactions,expressions, I am suddenly seeing "regional cosmopolitanism" exemplified in all three of these writers.

The first point I valued in "Toward a Regional Cosmopolitanism" was the statement, "The tension between the local and universal inhabits the history of the word 'cosmopolitan. . . ' "(144). I needed to read that, because I know that I bandy that word around a little to liberally. The conversation between these three highly intelligent men--culturally different in so many ways--is heartening if one buys into Appiah's pluralist version of cosmopolitanism, that being "we should learn about people in other places, take an interest in their civilizations, their arguments, their errors, their achievements, not because that will bring us to agreement but because it will help us get used to each other "(qtd in Berman 146). These three men in a garden, jockeying for position, are "getting used to each other" on equal terms. Anand as the "colonized" party does not seem lesser than Woolf and Forster who represent the colonizing party because their literary works earn them equal kudos for attempting to find commonality. Anand's name dropping and English word coinages do not bother me. He has been invited to the table, as it were, and he is talking the talk. Toward the end of Berman's article she upholds Anand in this by saying, "Anand is described as mimicking the language developing around him rather than employing language in an experimental way or using it to force recongnition...of Indian culture. . . .I would argue that reading Anand within the context of his regional cosmopolitanism, and his efforts to 'bridge' 'the Ganga and the Thames' makes clear the inadequacy of describing these quasi-Hindi, quasi-English moments purely in terms of linguistic verisimilitude"(158).

All-in-all, I look forward to discussion tonight!

Ruth

Issues with Conversations in Bloomsbury

I felt this way as I read the first excerpt of Anand's Conversations in Bloomsbury several weeks ago, and after reading the three excerpts for tonight I have only confirmed my feeling: reading this book is an odd and distracting experience. While it's interesting to be able to read about conversations that Anand had with such famous literary figures, his style at times completely detracts from the flow of the "story." I realize Anand is a subjective narrator by necessity, and I acknowledge that at times his subjectivity grants us an intimate look into the lives of these people we only know through secondary sources. However, what is the import of statements like, "Morrison offered shortbread biscuits" (126)? Some may read this narrative recollection as a quaint and enlightening look through one person's eyes into the community of Bloomsbury, but I find the form Anand has chosen to be irritating and cumbersome. I really don't care to read all of the insignificant details as to who ate and drank what, or what T. S. Eliot's handshake was like. These constant, jarring asides take away from the meat of the story and distract the reader from the heavier issues at hand. I'm interested to see if others felt the same way as they read, or if most of you saw these additions as adding something substantial to the text.

Another thing that grated on my nerves as I read was the obsequious tone Anand adopts, particularly in his conversation with Eliot. It makes sense that he would feel nervous and edgy around the talented poet, but it still made me hate him a little, much as his constant name-dropping did. I realize name-dropping is the whole point of the book, but...I want to say to Anand, "Yeah, we know, you met some really famous people and some of them even liked your book. Good for you. Fabulous. Yay. Now shut up." And now, since I appear to have completely lost any semblance of a professional tone here, I'm going to stop writing.

The Joy of Reading "Under the Chestnut Tree in Tavistock Square AFTER reading "Untouchable"

When we were first given "Under the Chestnut Tree in Tavistock Square" to read, I read it dutifully and, if the truth be told, found little to engage my interest. At that point, I had no clue who Mulk Raj Anand was, was not that acquainted with "Passage to India" nor the stance that Forster took toward India within the novel, and had only Leonard Woolf's rather magnanimous and even-handed voice in "The Village in the Jungle" to aid in understanding the tone of this three-way conversation. Re-reading the essay this week was a joy, for here, reincarnated in that tone, is Bakha from "Untouchable!" I remember mentioning that Leonard Woolf seemed to be very present within certain sections of "The Village in the Jungle." I feel the same way about Anand being present in "Untouchable" (of Hurston being present in "Their Eyes...") I know that in the visual and other artistic genres, modernism relaxed the formal need for withdrawal and objectivity and instead advocated a new sort of subjective immersion where art and artist (and sometimes audience) overlapped and even fused within the artistic process. Is this a trait of modernist literature as well? I find it plausible--even if based upon the limited titles we have read. I could not say that Sherwood Anderson was divorced from his characters and their stories--nor any of the others previously mentioned. In this account under the chestnut tree, Anand reflects the practiced obeisance that Bakha MUST reflect in "Untouchable" but there is that hint of rebellious irony in tone and language that Anand suffuses Bakha with that makes the reader grin at times in spite of the horrific situations presented in "Untouchable." During the whole calling-by-first-name scenario, we see Anand gradually asserting his right (just as Bakhi does)to the point of writing " 'Leonard,' I said gauchely." Is it that same self-reflexive awareness and tone(that author immersion within his own creation) which helps Bakha emerge as his own person in spite of his lot in life--to not seem such a victim of circumstance and caste? Within this essay, Leonard Woolf seems to acknowledge that cross-over of identity--author to creation--when he a speaks of Kipling. In the dialogue, Anand says, "I hear Kipling was bullied by the prefects in school?" Leonard answers, "I am sure quite a few of his young CHARACTERS (my emphasis) are cruel because he never matured." Interesting!

Questioning a Feminist approach to Hurston

I was gone last week and could not access a computer to post my rather opinionated view on this--the rather automatic application of a feminist lens to Their Eyes Were Watching God. I found myself nodding assent ato many of the points which Michael and Taryn made, but overall, I have a hard time scrutinizing the narrative as a whole as a "woman's' story. Yes, Janie is a woman. The novel opens with us being told "so the beginning of this was a woman." Beyond that, gender ceases to be an issue with me (and I wrote my paper this week defending that stance.) There is an androgynous sort of power in Janie. She wrests her identity from what she is given in life. She is supple, curious, filled with wonderment. She is also tough, stubborn, sassy, and determined.Never do I see her as a victim.True, men abuse her, but I see her dishing it back. Never do I see her survival and self-identification as linked to gender. She is simply a SURVIVOR and one who continues to see her horizon as a "great fish net" and who uses verbs like "pull" and "drape" to define her continued presence within it "meshes" (not its chains.) I was so bold as to assert that if a gaggle of feminists came to offer their united support and advise re Teacake she would say the same thing to them that she did to her front porch detractors..."People like dem wastes up too much time puttin' they mouf on things they don't know nothin' about. Now they got to look into me loving Tea Cake and see whether it was done right or not! The don't know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt." With a personality such as hers, the character of Janie is fiercely real--female or male.

Ruth

I'm going to go with something that doesn't necessarily talk about Janie in the story...sorry to be the odd one out. There were a few places that the definition of race and differences really stuck out to me. Towards the end (when Janie was in Palm Beach County?) there was a lot of race factors brought up, and I find it intriguing that this part of the story (with the more equal standing between Janie and the world, as a few of you have mentioned) it's a prominent subject.

Not only is the black/white race divide (and the grey area) brought up, but some of the racist comments made about the Indians were surprising in the context. It brings up the complexity of racial divisions when one "minority" looks down on other minorities... The lighter folks (occasionally) look down on the darker ones-like Mrs. Turner, or one people who have fought for equality in the eyes of another who look down on another people with the same battle in their hands- "Indians are dumb anyhow, always were"(155). I always though making stereotypes based on race were stupid, though I almost found it ironically fitting that one like the aforementioned quote was in the text.

Janie's Fault

I agree with your assessment of their marriage Taryn. Theirs certainly wasn't the love story I expected when I read about Tea Cake first walking into Janie's store. But, I'm not sure Hurston wanted to portray their relationship as perfect. In fact, I would argue that, despite the obvious tendency for the reader to side with Janie because she is the protagonist, Hurston lays as much blame on her leading lady as she does on the men in her life.

Janie's conception of marriage was built on a feeling, one some might call romantic, that she experienced after observing nature. Her construction of a good marriage was not based on a logical or reasonable reaction to another successful relationship she saw around her; it was constructed on the cornerstone of an irrational expectation based on butterflies (or bees) in her tummy. Maybe the reason many critics tend to read Janie's relationship with Tea Cake as they do is exactly what you said: they are deluded by the feelings Janie felt for Tea Cake. Despite how healthy we perceive their relationship to be, the fact remains that Janie absolutely loved Tea Cake. Most people interpret that feeling of Janie's as the only evidence necessary to prove the equality of their relationship. I think, as you pointed out, that Hurston expects us not to fall into that trap. Janie may have found happiness in some way, but it may not have been true happiness. Instead, Janie may have only found the feeling she equated with love and happiness with Tea Cake, but I think Hurston leaves it up to the reader to determine for themselves whether or not they think it truly was love. I'm not so convinced.

A Connection between Janie and George Willard

There are many similarities between Janie and George Willard when we begin to think about Culture and the Individual. In both cases, these individuals are dependent on their relationships with others in order to define themselves when searching for their own identity. Janie looks to her grandmother for advice, looks to her first husband Logan to teach her about love, and looks to her second husband Joe to give her direction (although she grows to resent him for it). George looks to his relationships with other women to help him develop his own identity; particularly women such as Helen White. Both individuals are attempting to come of age in their respective novels, but are being held back by their culture.

George is being held back by the rural town of Winesburg, Ohio. In order to grow, he must leave the town for the city, or the urban, at the end of the novel to ultimately gain his own identity. He is so influenced by the thoughts and ideas of those in his small-town that it has become almost impossible to develop his own ideas. For Janie she is stifled by both her race and her gender. She is caught between what is expected of her as an African-American woman, and the "great tree" (Hurston 8) that she strives to become. Both individuals seem to be attempting to change the expectations for themselves within their culture, but struggle to change the traditional values and ideals.

Janie and Tea Cake: An Example of Egalitarian Marriage?

In reading various articles on feminist readings of Their Eyes, I have noticed that, at least originally, the prevailing interpretation seemed to be that Janie fights her way through two controlling men, but eventually finds herself in a truly egalitarian marriage with Tea Cake. These readings attempt to neatly describe Janie's journey as one that ends with some kind of growth and transformation. While this might be a convenient way to read the novel, I find that the text doesn't bear it out. One article I read suggested that Tea Cake was at least partly in favor of feminine advancement, and cited instances in which he takes Janie fishing and teaches her to play checkers. It's true that these are activities neither Logan Killicks nor Joe Starks allowed her to try, but I would argue that giving a woman a couple of hobbies doesn't really qualify as standing her on equal footing with men. In fact, Tea Cake's first encounter with Janie is a didactic one, with him in the position as teacher and her below, as his student. This is where she remains throughout their relationship. Just a few examples: he takes her money without her permission and spends it all on a party to which he doesn't even invite her, asks her to work in the fields alongside him (something she absolutely refused to do for her previous husbands), and beats her to maintain his "possession" of her. The aforementioned article argued that since Janie had already beaten him due to his interest in Nunkie, his physical violence towards her was not an element of a patriarchal relationship. To that I roll my eyes and say....right. Yep, sounds like a super-egalitarian marriage to me. Actually, it sounds like verse three of the same song Janie has been singing since she first was forced to marry Logan Killicks; the only reason we are tempted to read it differently is because Janie does. She is in love with Tea Cake, and so in her mind, he can do no wrong. We as readers, though, should know better.

Janie as Social Deviant

In Benedict's definition, although the deviant is a constant in society their respective treatment differs from one culture to the next. Using the American rural South as a backdrop for the alternating spaces and social customs contained in the novel, Hurston, by focusing on the varieties of black experience within these contexts (as well as Janie's failed assimilation therein), seems to dispell any myths of essentialized racial categorization along cultural lines.

Sure, Janie is unwittingly part of various cultures within the novel-whether they be along historical, familial, or civic lines. What remains consistent in the novel, however, is Janie's continued resistance to each respective set of cultural norms. The type of culture Janie seems to favor is one that fosters choice and a tolerance of individuality rather than strict compliance to social norms.

Janie, through her willingness to alter her physical space, to recognize her unconscious self and its awakening of desire at the expense of duty (both to Nanny and Joe), and her willful resistance to cultural impositions fits her into the category of deviant as defined by Benedict.

A Contemporary Situation Which Calls Into Question a Statement of Benedicts?

On page 271 of Patterns of Culture, Benedict claims that "No society has yet attempted a self-conscious direction of the process by which its new normalities are created in the next generation." Immediately upon reading this an exception came to mind that is glaring because I have witnessed it happen with a great degree of amazement in my own lifetime--that is the "new normality" associated with NOT smoking. After reading Benedict's (in my opinion) highly objective and egalitarian cultural treatise, I do not doubt at the moment of her writing that there existed no such obviously concerted effort by a culture to eradicate an activity deeply embedded within its accepted cultural standards. Our generation's complete reversal of attitudes and practices regarding tobacco usage has tampered with some very deep-seated aspects of our current cultural make-up--our fierce belief in the freedom of personal choice, our easy brand of hedonism, our individualism, our self-image as free-agents of our own destiny. Yet in twenty-five years (and I speak from personal history) I have evolved from being an accepted (even admired) chain-smoking, 3-pack a day professional woman to being a social pariah(if I indeed still smoked.) When I started smoking in my mid-teens in the sixties, I was cool and bohemian--smoking was an accepted rite-of-passage. In the mid-eighties, I could walk down the street or into a restaurant in my dress attire with a cigarette in my hand and exemplify the norm, not the exception. As for now?--just admitting this personal example as a case study causes me to view myself in negative light and my daughters (for whom I quit smoking) are almost belligerently anti-smoking. The woman--worse yet,the mother--I described above would be an anathema to them. While our culture still values personal choice, individualism, a healthy dose of hedonism--we HAVE created a new normality (one that involves plasticity, one that embraces new and evolving priorities in our cultural array)which centers on personal health as a desired construct and consciousness of an individual's affect on the health and comfort of others. Maybe I simplify, but so it seems to me!

Ruth

Philosophical connections

I find it interesting that Benedict refers to Nietzsche multiple times when speaking of the Zuni and the Pueblos in general. She mentions the concept of the over/superman, as well as a few other Nietzschian parallels, but I can't help but notice that the collective nature, and the almost calm/neutral outlook on life is a bit too unindividualistic to be of the Nietzschian persuasion. It's almost as if the Pueblos emphasize the individual just strongly enough to be unique in the emphasis, but they emphasize the whole, the family, the spouse, and the culture enough that the individual could sometimes be lost. It also seems to be a contradiction how the individual may be frowned upon when he strives for better material office in the village. The mental uprising is much more important than the material, and it's quite a feat of human nature to have something so different. It's hard to grasp especially looking at today's society, as well (as Benedict mentions) as other Native groups.

Their Apollonian tendencies are quite amazing, and Benedicts comparison to the ancient societies and cults is impeccable. I don't know if I would have been able to draw the same conclusions myself, but the similarities are very clear, and I'm glad I have had the opportunity to know of such a parallel.

Culture and Modernism

What I find interesting about the Benedict and the modernist authors we've read so far this term is their willingness to understand, and resist, the premise that identity, both cultural and personal, are constructs of society. The opening lines of Benedict's book say, "Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition" (1). The modernists seem to have understood this anthropological truth. What makes their stories interesting to us as readers is that they resist this truth; they fight against it in their texts. In each of the texts we've read so far the characters have been products of their culture, but the interesting ones--the protagonists like Silindu, George Willard, and Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus Smith--were all at odds with the communities they lived in. The "Patterns of Culture" that formed each of these protagonists were deeply ingrained, whether it be in the lonely atmosphere of Winesburg, Ohio, the threatening Jungles of Sri Lanka, or the busy streets of London; but, the link, to make a tired point, is their resistance to the cultural conditions that created them.

The necessity of that resistance was no more apparent at any time in Western history than in the early 20th Century and especially in the post-WWI period. Patterns of Culture was written at a time when nationalism and cultural imperialism were simultaneously exalted and endangered. Benedict argues that "There has never been a time when civilization stood more in need of individuals who [like herself] are genuinely culture-conscious, who can see objectively the socially conditioned behaviour of other peoples without fear of recrimination" (11). She was right, and the modernists, it would seem, were exactly the types of people she was looking for. The modernists, who were obsessed with personal identity in relation to culture, were doing exactly what Benedict proposed and demonstrated, but on a different scale. By focusing on the identity of the individual, as opposed to the culture of a society, the modernists created characters whose humanity was found in their will, not their national or cultural identity. Culture, then, became secondary to choice, and an influence, instead of determining factor, on identity. By examining the individual the modernists embraced cultural influence as a truth, but rejected the finality of its formulation on the psyche. In this way the modernists fought against fascism, nationalism, socialism, and any other -ism that restricted the identity of the individual, and rested firmly on the premise that culture, when it is both understood an resisted, can breed understanding and not discord.

Benedict/Passage to India Connection

I cannot help but see the ways in which "Patterns of Culture" provides timely ethnographic background to understand the disconnection between British and Indian culture in the sections of "Passage to India" that we watched the other evening. One scene of the film, however, fascinates me more than the others for I have long felt that our unctuous export of a Christian belief system is the most damaging and detrimental cultural aspect we've foisted on any other people. There were many references to religion in the movie bits we saw, but the scene that keeps coming to mind was the one where Adela is in the train being shuttled to the 'trial'--the point at which the rather demonic devil-like creature in painted black-face presses his face against the window next to hers (only to be bludgeoned down). I was intrigued enough to buy the novel (which I do want to read) so I could find out if that scene was included in the text. It was not (at least not at that moment in the narrative). So I wonder about Lean's insertion of it into the film. One could view it as tacit acknowledgment of some of the shamanistic/mystic/devil-worshiping aspects of Indian religion, therefore an open-minded nod to another culture's belief system. Yet the scene was fraught with negative connotations. The face was sudden, monstrous in size, black, unrelenting, unsettling. It was definitely 'other' to a Western viewer and presented in the manner that it was, it was diabolical and scary. So when I read Ruth Benedict's statement regarding religion, "No ideas or institutions that held in the one were valid in the other. . . on the one side it was a question of Divine Truth and the true believer, of revelation and of God; on the other it was a matter of mortal error, of fables, of the damned and of devils," the inclusion of the scene appears to be a graphic act of ethnocentrism. By tapping into a Westerner's stereotype of a dark and primitive religion, Lean created a metaphor for the dark side of Adela's psyche in that moment--her brooding, anst-ridden state of mind. The group of people sequestered within the safety of the bus were veiled in light, the teaming horde of humanity on the outside were cast as a fecund sort of dark evil that could invade the safety of the "true believers." Maybe I exaggerate, but the sheer intensity of the scene makes me wonder. Was anyone else strongly affected by these frames? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Ruth

How is culture like an individual?

In reading Benedict's Patterns of Culture, one can see how the author draws several parallels between cultures and individuals. From the ideas of war in Chapter I to the discussions of puberty in Chapter II, it is clear that many seemingly different cultures share more than meets the eye. However, one of her most interesting points that draws similarities between culture and the individual are her ideas on change. Benedict states:

"Changes may be very disquieting, and involve great losses, but this is due to the difficulty of change itself, not to the fact that our age and country has hit upon the one possible motivation under which human life can be conducted. Change, we must remember with all its difficulties, is inescapable" (Benedict 36).

Changes in culture and changes in individuals as they come of age are very similar. The struggle and emotional turmoil that accompany both a changing civilization and an individual have been seen in every text we have encountered up to this point in class. One example in Winesburg, Ohio comes as George Willard attempts to come of age in a small town, but must ultimately leave that town in order to grow, while Winesburg itself struggles through a time of change as industrialization takes over America. This idea is also seen in The Village and the Jungle, the village is being encroached upon by British rule, while the individual Silindu is affected by his own changing family dynamic as he must let go of his daughters. (In the novel we also witnesses the changing role of women in both the family and the society.) Finally, it is seen in Mrs. Dalloway with the impending notion of war that pervades the novel, as well as in the character of Peter Walsh as he contemplates the passage of time and his own mortality.

Benedict goes on to say that "Civilizations might change far more radically than any human authority has ever had the will or the imagination to change them, and still be completely workable" (36). This idea of a balance between change and tradition is one that never seems to be struck in the novels we have covered thus far. To accept the new without rejecting the old seems to be a difficult task to accomplish in any civilization.

What is Innately Human?

Reading Benedict has brought up, for me, the above question. I was particularly interested in her discussion of the Zuni's aversion to violence and warfare (around page 107). She writes that even in situations that in many cultures would lead to violence, like infidelity and property disputes, the Zunis choose other methods of expressing anger and dissatisfaction. She states further that Zuni culture's design specifically aids in the avoidance of such rancor. I was fascinated to read about such a peaceful culture, especially considering the constant violence and conflict the majority of our world seems immersed in (the Palestinian-Israeli conflict comes to mind). However, my cynical side felt doubt as I read--it seemed too good to be true. A husband doesn't like his wife's female relations, so he just packs his stuff and goes back to his mom? And no one really fights over this, and Benedict claims it doesn't create too much tension? Perhaps my vision is clouded by our society's considerable focus on relationships, drama, and subsequent divorce (Jon and Kate Gosselin, who transformed from media darlings to media victims in record time, come to mind here). Culture in 2009 in the United States seems to assume that conflict and occasional violence are innate human traits--not nice ones, but sometimes necessary (former President G. W. Bush's justification for the "War on Terror" comes to mind). It truly hadn't occurred to me that violence might not be innately human, but ingrained through particular cultures. Therefore, the idea that a culture might exist free from (what I see, at least, as) the chains of violence and aggression was appealing but also one I met with great skepticism. I find it hard to release my long-held belief that humans are naturally territorial, jealous, and vengeful creatures. I also wonder if Zuni culture only maintains its relative peace because of its relatively small number of members, and if such a cultural structure would crumble on a global scale.

Interesting, tangentially related sidebar: tomorrow's Oprah (yeah, I know, sorry) features a girl who was somehow raised in a closet or something with no human interaction. She was found at age 6 and had never learned to speak. Similar story to the "wild children" to which Benedict refers, and might be an enlightening test case into what is innate and what is not. Or, since it's Oprah, it might just be a Kleenex-filled tearjerker for the 40-something moms in the audience. Like I said, it's on tomorrow, so time will tell.

Parameters of Western Culture

I'm curious to see how others would attempt to encapsulate such an immense project as defining Western Culture. I find it very interesting that Benedict chooses to focus on the more minute, centralized, yet varied primitive cultures. These groups rely on distinctive cultural characteristics to carry on daily life, one closely linked to the land, spirituality, and creativity. Where does the West reach for its sense of dailiness, spirituality, artistic merit in a constantly changing world? Obviously the moderns tapped into the primitive culturescapes and in some instances the influence is reciprocated. With that said, I believe a series of questions is in order.

Do the moderns affiliate with the primitive as a neatly articulated culture, as people, and/or subjects (not exclusively in the imperial sense) and does their assimilation of otherness distort or disrupt the utility of primitive culture as it adheres in its own element? Is primitivism a cultural grab-bag used to revitalize moments of sterility in Western artistic tradition?

Furthermore, how do we define Western Culture, Americanness, Nationhood? Is being American simply sharing a land mass with other people or are there cultural demarcations setting us apart? What is homogenous about Americanness or Westernness? How about flags, tanks, spaceships, fences, planes, dogs, wives, kids, pies, hunting, honky-tonk, suburbia, malts, McDonalds, baseball football basketball, cowboy hats, personal freedom, models, beer, celebrities, reality shows, and the list could, but needn't, go on. These terms are all very arbitrary and, I know, cliched, but I think people still associate with this crap on some level. So, is there anything authentic about the experience of being in and of America? Are these the emblems comprising the Modern American totem?

Maybe culture is more suited to families or small groups, which may or may not reflect any type of idealized, national cultural consciousness. Maybe it's more suitable for culture to exist in the local rather than on a national level, especially in a place as diverse and (un)consciously fragmented as America.

I'm very interested in contemporary pop music and its endless permutations. Today, many American bands are resorting to a revitalized folk tradition which incorporates many of the technological advancements of the age (loop stations, recorders, samplers etc.). This creates a multi-layered sound which, paired with elements such as spiky, West-African guitar riffs, hand-claps and multi-part harmonies, begs for a revisitation of music as a communal experience while also consolidating sound as community property. This conflux of influences fixes the music in the ahistorical.

Sometimes I wonder if this is a new way to initiate what one critic calls an "unrooted internationalism," or what Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors humorously refers to as "ethnomusicological folk music." In some ways I think of it as the purest use of technology for pleasure in shared experience.

On the flipside, I'm not sure what any of this music has to do with the styles it incorporates from around the world. And finally, what does it mean for American artists to revert back to a "folk" culture--especially one where the music or art perhaps doesn't carry the same utility as it did in its natural environment or historical context? I don't want to stray any further so I'll end with something tangible. Enjoy the links.

http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/221-yeasayer/1
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/247-dirty-projectors/1
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/1984-vampire-weekend-at-pitchfork-music-festival-08/3
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/17-pitchfork-music-festival-07/16
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/17-pitchfork-music-festival-07/5
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/7-pitchfork-music-festival-08/19
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/1989-animal-collective-at-pitchfork-music-festival-08/3

Reading Questions for Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture (1934):

1. Consider Nischik's "characteristics of contemporary understanding of culture" (on handout and in article) in relation to Benedict's concept of "culture."
2. What does Benedict consider "a desperate need in present Western civilization"?
3. Why do anthropologists turn to "primitive" cultures? What do the social sciences of Western civilization ignore?
4. How is a culture like an individual?
5. What is wrong with Spengler's picture of world civilizations?

Characterization: Continued Musing on Montage Aspect of Mrs. Dalloway

While reading Mrs. Dalloway, I only gradually became immersed in characterization for the features and personalities of both major and minor characters come to light in a novel way. The players in the story emerge gradually--a mention here, an enlargement there, with surprising juxtapositions overall. Characterization relies on an accrual of detail over time. Individual portraits are layered--sometimes one over the other and, at other times, positioned in close proximity to each other. The connections are often indistinct, even blurred. What appears to be a random reference to a bystander on one page pops up again later, only this time that minor character somehow augments a moment of a major character in a way that defines them both.

I cannot help but to enlarge upon this aspect of characterization in Mrs. Dalloway and associate her presentation of characters to other forms of creative expression labeled as modern. Last week, I related completely to both Mike's and Brandon's posts about setting, because they too mention "multiple perspectives," and the word "interplay" is threaded throughout their comments. If "setting" was portrayed in that fashion, it follows that Virginia Woolf might present her characters in the same interconnected, montaged way upon the substrate of setting, for what is characterization but the placement and delineation of personalities against the backdrop of time and place?

Modernist artistic expression was often abstract and ambiguous. It resulted in music that was disharmonious--the tone and not-the-tone presented in awkwardly close proximity. Clippings, advertising, packaging, and photographs appeared in art works alongside traditional media. Just as Woolf mixed and mingled random characters at random moments, interweaving and interconnecting at the same time that she sundered and scattered bears witness to the fact that modernist aesthetics seemed to blur distinctions between high and low culture, between the new and the old, between the avant-garde and the expected. The result in Mrs. Dalloway is that one grows to apprehend, bit by bit, how each character interrelates in isolated moments when each touches upon the other--but yet remain quite isolated and alone--separate and distict pieces in the large collage.

I don't know why I was so surprised at the differences in Virginia and Leonard's writing styles. It does make sense that the different experiences and travelling they had done in life might have made a big impact on said styles. In all honesty, I like Leonard's writing much more, and I have had a hard time getting into "Mrs. Dalloway". Virginia tends to let her narrative rely on social norms and customs that are local, and periodized (not to mention the writing is jumpy and slightly disconnects). Though I don't mind reading unreliable narratives, this one has just kind of rubbed at me wrong from the beginning- even though it's becoming progressively clearer.

I can easily picture many of the characters in this novel as fitting the definition of grotesque by Anderson's standards, though they seem to hide their loneliness a little better, since their misery in their social situation is sort of expected.

At this point in the novel, I can't help wanting to learn more about the characters, especially Peter, since he just came back from India, and might well be a character loosely based on Woolf's husband?

Setting

I'm not sure how Virginia Woolf feels about setting quite yet; I haven't read enough of her book. What I can see from the assigned reading is that she approaches the form of her writing as it relates to the setting of her story in a much different way than Leonard Woolf and Sherwood Anderson.

In the opening scene on the busy streets of London, Woolf shifts perspective quickly and without warning. The narrator allows the reader to both gaze at the action in the streets and to hear the thoughts of the individuals within view. The free indirect discourse mirrors the chaos of the city street, and what seems like a random shifting of perspective may actually be something like a stream of consciousness, but one that is passed between characters with time being relative to each voice. Brandon is right to say that in Mrs. Dalloway "we have an uninhibited access to mind as setting, where mood, memory, and space all interact within the subconscious, evoking interplay between past and present, time and place." However, the interplay between these elements of "past and present, time and place" seem to be more intimate. It seems that with her sentences Woolf is demonstrating a union and inseparability between these traditionally separate elements in literature. Woolf seems to be constructing her sentences, her paragraphs, and her plot in such a way that time and space, and form and content, cannot exist separately.

The setting of the busy street is much different, then, than the scene in Clarissa's bedroom. The intimacy and quiet of the room make it possible for the reader to more clearly understand Clarissa's thoughts. The setting of her home is calm and peaceful, and so Woolf's prose is calm and peaceful. When Peter enters the room the prose shifts again and reflects the interplay between Clarissa and Peter on a verbal, and almost telepathic, level. As the discussion intensifies so does the prose, thus demonstrating that mood affects form as much as setting.

Place in V. Woolf vs. L. Woolf

To me, place in Mrs. Dalloway is much more dynamic and as readers we experience the more visceral act of living, of being in the moment of place and time as the characters experience it. I really enjoy the multiple perspectives which lend to the fullness of both personal and communal experience. In Mrs. Woolf we have uninhibited access to mind as setting, where mood, memory, and physical space all interact within the sub-conscious, evoking interplay between past and present, time and place.

In The Village in the Jungle place is more fixed, more static and thus less sensational. Nature seems to elicit physical and emotional responses from the characters without the resultant glimpses into the psyche which lend such immediacy to Mrs. Dalloway. In Leonard Woolf's novel the characters' struggle for survival leaves little time for canvassing the sub-conscious, as both nature and village serve as points of congestion and discordance for the Sinhalese, leaving them with a relatively vague apprehension of their personal turmoil.

A Virginia Woolf/Gertrude Stein Connection

From the very beginning of Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf presents an out-of-the-ordinary approach to diction and grammatical construction. Punctuation is also askew (rampant and questionable semi-colon use) and very uncertain antecedents in many lengthy sections. As with “The Mark on the Wall,” one could describe much of it as stream-of-consciousness where the raw material of the mind spills out onto the page in the same way as happenstance thoughts flood the brain and run their course unedited. In the instances where this is pronounced in Mrs Dalloway, her writing becomes a lot like that of Gertrude Stein in her middle period. Everyone is familiar with “a rose is a rose is a rose.” Researching the time when the poem “Sacred Emily” (of which it is a part) appeared, I find that, while written in 1913, it did not appear in a book until 1922. Mrs. Dalloway appeared in 1925. Can one safely assume that Woolf read Stein? While there is enough of a plot line to contain Mrs. Dalloway’s circuitous meanderings in and out and through the thoughts of its characters, individual pages break free of any sort of narrative continuity to give an almost three-dimensional view of a scene, an object, a person. The first, and most pronounced place where this happens in the early section f the novel is where Clarissa goes to Mulberry’s (the florist.) The paragraph that begins with “There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac . . . .” For a full, long paragraph we wind in an out among the repeated names of flowers as if we too are looking and retracing our steps to make our selection, to experience them all—each side and center and stem, savoring each name again and again. This section certainly mirrors cubism as well (but that is another paper!)

The Wants of Mrs. Dalloway

It seems that Clarissa Dalloway struggles to realize what she truly wants out of life. It seems as though she has never really been sure what it is that she wanted. This is clear in the case of her husband Richard and her old friend Peter Walsh. She realizes that she compromised by marrying Richard, but is not sure that she would have been any better off marrying Peter.

Her conflicting wants can also be seen in her views of sexuality. She is aware of the lack of sexuality in her relationship with her husband. In fact, the time where she felt the most sexual was during a relationship she shared with a friend Sally Seton as a young woman. A kiss that was shared between the two of them is even described by Clarissa as being a "religious feeling" (35). However, with her reference to herself as Othello and Sally as Desdemona, is seems that she blames herself for the break in the relationship; maybe because she was re-evaluating her own feelings of sexuality and what was viewed as acceptable by those around her and by society.

Mrs. Dalloway also teeters between the want for solitude and the want for a high energy, glittering lifefstyle. She has slept alone since the time when she was ill and has continued to sleep alone because she enjoys reading in solitude. However, she also feels a need to be recognized in society and to be liked and accepted by others. For this reason, she has decided to throw the party.

These and other instances show that throughout her entire life, Mrs. Dalloway has been searching for something, although we as readers might not yet understand what that thing is.

Dr. Mary Klages summarizes Lacan's 3 stages of development (Real, Imaginary, Symbolic):

"So, to summarize. Lacan's theory starts with the idea of the Real; this is the union with the mother's body, which is a state of nature, and must be broken up in order to build culture. Once you move out of the Real, you can never get back, but you always want to. This is the first idea of an irretrievable loss or lack.

Next comes the Mirror stage, which constitutes the Imaginary. Here you grasp the idea of others, and begin to understand Otherness as a concept or a structuring principle, and thus begin to formulate a notion of "self". This "self" (as seen in the mirror) is in fact an other, but you misrecognize it as you, and call it "self." (Or, in non-theory language, you look in the mirror and say "hey, that's me." But it's not--it's just an image).

This sense of self, and its relation to others and to Other, sets you up to take up a position in the Symbolic order, in language. Such a position allows you to say "I", to be a speaking subject. "I" (and all other words) have a stable meaning because they are fixed, or anchored, by the Other/Phallus/Name-of-the-Father/Law, which is the center of the Symbolic, the center of language.

In taking up a position in the Symbolic, you enter through a gender-marked doorway; the position for girls is different than the position for boys. Boys are closer to the Phallus than girls, but no one is or has the Phallus--it's the center. Your position in the Symbolic, like the position of all other signifying elements (signifiers) is fixed by the Phallus; unlike the unconscious, the chains of signifiers in the Symbolic don't circulate and slide endlessly because the Phallus limits play.

Paradoxically--as if all this wasn't bad enough!--the Phallus and the Real are pretty similar. Both are places where things are whole, complete, full, unified, where there's no lack, or Lack. Both are places that are inaccessible to the human subject-in-language. But they are also opposite: the Real is the maternal, the ground from which we spring, the nature we have to separate from in order to have culture; the Phallus is the idea of the Father, the patriarchal order of culture, the ultimate idea of culture, the position which rules everything in the world."

Woolf v. Woolf

One question to keep in mind as you read the opening pages of Mrs. Dalloway (to the point at which Mrs. D. ask Peter to remember her party as he is leaving):

How would you compare or contrast Leonard and Virginia Woolf?

You might consider concepts like self and place as you try to answer this question. Does Virginia Woolf represent place or describe places in the same way as Leonard does? Does Leonard Woolf handle the confrontation between cultures in the same way as Virginia Woolf? Is there a difference between the urban modernism and the colonial/village modernism? Do they each deal with the figure of the outsider in the same way? Do they both seem to be worried about individual identity or self-consciousness--or not?

Not my 'real' post--just some info

I was listening to a news story on NPR about the present day situation of the Tamil's in Sri Lanka and decided to research some history about that conflict. These excerpts I am posting are incomplete and the reporting somewhat one-sided, but I like that the demographics revealed in this 'collage' of info I'm posting coincides with what Woolf mentions in the story (in Chapter 5):

(sorry--the Word Document I pasted together will not post here once again--just gibberish. If you are interested in the material, send me an e-mail me at:

ideaimages@yahoo.com

and I will attach the document.)

I would like to add my two-cent's worth to the Jillian/Nam chain of comments. I agree with Nam that the village is an entity that rests UPON the jungle and that the village and jungle are two separate entities. I am not sure that I agree with the suggestion, however, that the jungle somehow represents "chaos." Rather it seems to represent an ultimate order because of its impermeability--the scratching, digging, clearing, and conniving of man on its surface is miniscule in comparison to its primordial fecundity and ability to survive. It deals with the village the same way that any organism deals with an intruder--it gathers its potency around the alien entity and forces it out. It is described as "a living wall about the village, a wall which, if the axe were spared, would creep in and smother and blot out the village itself(3)" Even the animals within it are at it's mercy. Of all the characters thus far, only Silindu seems to have an understanding of this. The fact that he is not a cultivator but a hunter places him within the natural order of the jungle to a greater degree than the rest who clear their chenas and succumb to a man-made hierarchy. He is aware of the rhythms of deprivation and plenty, the rules of hunter and hunted, the mystery of something greater than himself. He becomes one with it-- "when he started for the jungle, he became a different man...he glided through the impentrable scrub with a long, slinking stride...."(10) Yet he fears it--not the animals and other attendant dangers but the immensity of the "thing" itself. While Leonard Woolf may or may not have intended the jungle to become symbolic, it certainly seems so at this point, and Silindu crosses back and forth over the line of demarcation between the two forces of nature and man.

A caste system.

Caste systems have always fascinated me, especially those in India, and the surrounding region...I find it really interesting, that even though Beddagamma seems so far from "civilization" there is still something like caste adhered to so strongly. It may have been just me, but there seemed to be so little difference between the classes in the village, that it's difficult to distinguish (though living in the culture would make it clearer, as I'm sure it was to Woolf). Though the caste system lends order to the village in a way, it also is what created all of the disharmony and discomfort. It's one of the reasons that capitalism, and harsh caste/class systems have always had an un-mendable flaw.

I'd also have to agree that the story, so far, has a classic love story emerging reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet- which kind of enforces the pre-/Victorian influence on the transnational modernist writers. It's a trait that I'm glad has yet to die out even in post-modernist composition.

Law of the Jungle

The image of the two stags fighting over a doe on page 34 is very interesting. Punchi Menika seems to forget the first rule of the jungle: fear. The doe has not forgotten it, and even as two stags fight for the right to posses her she is aware of the danger in the jungle. Punchi Menika, on the other hand, distracted and dreamlike from the momentary "stirring of life around her" (35), for, perhaps the first time in her life, feels safe in the jungle. It is almost immediately after that that Babun "pounces" on her and leads her deeper into the jungle. Babun is then characterized as a "devil," as Jillian keenly pointed out.

What is intersting to me is that Babun's possession of Punchi Menika is neither attacked nor defended by the text. It is as if the novelist, or narrator, himself lives by the law of the jungle. The weak, or those unafraid of the danger lurking in the shadows of the jungle, are free game. It is both unforgiving and fair. It is not, however, evil. The first chapter of this novel disagrees with me, saying, "All jungles are evil, but no jungle is more evil than that which lay about the village of Beddagama" (10). Perhaps the wording is misleading, though. The natural world of the jungle is one which is later described as a place driven by fear, hunger, and thirst. Those creatures that fear the jungle must still face it to survive, and all creatures fear the jungle, even the leopard. Punchi Menika makes the mistake of forgetting her fear, and though she is wild and strong, she becomes vulnerable.

Silindu's later refusal of forfeiting his daughter is in vain. She has already given herself to Babun and it is no longer her, or her father's, place to refuse what Babun has claimed by natural law. Human desire and morality, then, are secondary to the law of the jungle.

I'm not sure this makes sense to anyone else, but you might be able to make something out of it.

Winesburg, Woolf, and Women

I see some striking similarities between the two texts in terms of setting. In both cases civilization implies order, an order which often isn't roomy enough for the individual who stands alone. Silindhu and his family are outcasts, in large part, because they/he refuse to adhere to the social customs of the village. Their intimacy with the jungle, specifically his daughters', casts the family as savages and Hinnihami and Punchi Menikha are seen as betrayers of the villages codes of womanhood.

If the village offers order and safety in numbers it also relegates women to cooks, childbearers, and perhaps even less flattering, gossips. A failure to comply with social norms leads to a virtual banishment and subjectification by other villagers.

The jungle, on the other hand, serves as the unkown and offers opportunity for experience beyond the toil of daily chores and links woman/man to the mysteries surrounding the village while teaching survival in and respect for the natural world.

In this novel it seems as if Mankind's laws are much more susceptible to corruption than those of nature, as the opportunity to hunt or be hunted seems more democratic than the constant levying of interest by the headsman upon fellow villagers. Furthermore, the jungle provides much of the mythological sustenance of this community and as readers we witness a gradual dissipation of such as modernity begins to infiltrate the region.

Do I Detect a Hint of...Shakespeare?

I am probably going way out on a limb here, but does the story of Babun and Punchi Menika remind anyone else of Romeo and Juliet? We have two families that don't see eye to eye, a balcony scene that happens to take place in the jungle, and a father, Silindu, who says his daughter is too young to be given to a man.

First of all, the two families in Village in the Jungle share striking similarities with their Shakespearean counterparts. Nanchohami berates Babun, saying, "'Twill be a fine thing in the village to hear that the headman has given his wife and daughters to Rodiyas, leopards, jackals!" (42). Her scorn for Silindu and his family brings to mind the invectives tossed between the Capulets and Montagues during the fight scene of Act I, scene i.

Secondly, what I'm calling the balcony scene: in the Shakespearean version, Romeo and Juliet don't actually consummate their relationship, they just poetically swoon and make promises of their love. While Babun and Punchi Menika appear to have consummated their relationship, the scenes are still similar--apparently, we find out later, Punchi Menika has made some promises of her own: "Appochchi! it is true: I said I would go with him...I gave my word: what can I do?" (47). So we also have a scene where the young lovers make the exciting discovery of their love for each other, and vow to be together forever.

Finally, we have the Sinhalese Lord Capulet, whose main argument when Babun requests his daughter's hand is that she is too young to be married. He says to Babun, "The girl is too young. I cannot give her to you, or evil will come of it" (45). This is the very same argument Lord Capulet makes to Paris when he requested the hand of Juliet.

Obviously, there are differences between the two stories; I'm not arguing for complete congruence here. I just thought it was interesting to note the similarities, as it leads me to wonder if the ending for Babun and Punchi Menika will be the same tragic, suicidal end Shakespeare's lovers meet.

Order vs. Chaos in The Villiage in the Jungle

In Leonard Woolf's text The Village in the Jungle there seems to be a distinct struggle between order and chaos as they are associated with the village and the jungle respectively. From the beginning in Chapter 1, the jungle represents a sense of chaos and disorder as it is described as a living, breathing object that can swallow up the village at any given moment. It is almost as if the villagers must carefully "tame" the jungle if they hope to survive. On pages 4-5, the jungle is described as providing the villagers with a distinct sense of fear and terror; as if it possesses some innate sense of evil.

In Chapter 3, the sisters Punchi Menika and Hinnihami are described as possessing "the same strangeness and wildness as the jungle"(34). As the girls and their father spend more time in the jungle they seem to develop the same unpredictable characteristics of the jungle and in a sense, are viewed by the other villagers with the same fear and distaste as they view the jungle.

Finally, the culminating point of chaos as it is associated with the jungle in Chapters 1-4, is when Babun seizes Punchi Menika in the jungle. It is as if he is a "devil" emerging from the trees to take her (37-38). Much like in the stories that her father has shared with she and her sister. Punchi Menika experiences feelings of both desire and fear as she moves further into the jungle with Babun. This ultimately makes Punchi Menika as wild as the jungle that surrounds her.

Reading Questions for Village in the Jungle

•What is the relationship between characters (esp. Punchi Menika) and setting at the end of Ch. III.
•How would you describe Woolf’s style or what other writers does he remind you of?
•What image of Sri Lanka/Ceylon emerges at the beginning of this novel? You might consider religion, sexuality, family, politics, etc.
•What is the symbolism of the jungle?

Narrator

Anderson often shifts between the psyche of his characters and the narrator's perceptions of them. He always seems to be searching for the correct way to describe his characters' feelings and temptations, often deferring to a necessary yet absent poet that might be able to to his job better. In a way, Anderson's narrator, telling the tales of these "grotesque" figures, operates from the perspective of the town's gaze. We see the actions of the townspeople and their constant attempts to live in a world with no privacy, no secrets.

The narrator sees more than what they do, however. He sees into their minds and souls. Often temptation and sin are at the forefront of these tales, but, unlike the judgemental gaze of the town, the narrator looks past his initial perceptions and finds humanity, and even beauty, in their imperfections.

By laying bare their psyche and their souls, however, the narrator ironically strips the townspeople of their one remaining refuge in this small corner of the world. This is not an intrusion, however. The narrator sees what the townspeople cannot, and demonstrates for the reader that the imperfection and moral difficulty that plague one member of Winesburg plague them all. There is equality and understanding in the imperfection of the human soul.

Adventure

Last night while I was reading I came across the passage "Adventure" and it stood out more than the others. Though I've been able to identify to a point, with most of the featured citizens of Winesburg, Alice Hindman was one that sort of struck home. I made a note in the margins of my book, so I'd specifically remember her, and what she's gone through. I noticed, that the word "ferment" was used almost immediately to describe her, while the others in town had been compared to something that has decayed. Though fermentation is a type of decay, it's one that births something sweet and hopeful, and though Alice is a grotesque, this seems to mean that the narrator might hold out a small hope for her. It's almost as if she's pre-grotesque, and still has the ability to prevent the loneliness and ostrasization that the other's we've read about have experienced.

That's all...though I could probably ramble a bit more.

The Front

I consider many of these stories depicting the search for identity from a society of "dull clods" (Mother pg. 18). Most of these people display a unique quality that makes their story interesting but the overall sense is that they are stuck in their place by the ineptitude of their character characterized by an outward manifestation (Biddlebaum's hands, Ned Currie, God). Throughout the book there is a general sense of a "front" put on by most of these characters where the appearance they show each other hide their truthful self as they try desperately to escape the inevitable fate of becoming a "dull clod."

I also found it ironic the descriptions of Biddlebaum's and William's hands contradicting the nature of their "crimes."

Anderson's Women

Sherwood Anderson seems curiously sympathetic to women. I say "curiously" probably only because in past readings his narrator struck me more forcibly. George Willard is the perpetual outsider, celebrated by the author and by several characters for his uniqueness of vision. George Willard sees. George Willard listens. George Willard takes on the ancient task of the storyteller, to carry culture through narrative. George tells the stories that are told to him. He tells the stories that the other characters cannot tell. On this reading, however, I am more impressed by the way in which the narrator/author seems to understand the frustrated passions of the female characters. I stopped with the story of Louise Hardy-and here I am thinking of the other post about reading Anderson from a feminist perspective-and wondered what preoccupied Sherwood Anderson in this story. Certainly he focuses on the reawakening that David Hardy makes possible. Yet, he involves the reader more intensely in the life of Louise. To what end? What effect does it create to spend so much time on individual frustration? Do the women have a particular kind of frustration?

Loneliness in Winesburg, Ohio

In terms of character struggles in Winesburg, Ohio, loneliness is the major factor in the unhappiness of the town's inhabitants. All of the characters that are presented express some feelings of alienation in their individual relationships, as well as a disconnect from the world around them.

This is particularly evident in the depiction of the Willard family. There is a decay happening among both Tom and Elizabeth Willard who appear to be defeated by the lack of communication and lack of happiness in their marriage. They have become cynical of others and their placement in society. At this point it appears that the parents are in an attempt to live vicariously through their son to ease the loneliness and unhappiness that they feel in their own lives.

The mood of Winesburg

Suppressed and/or repressed desire seems to ail most of the characters in these stories. The psychic suffering is only compounded by the spatial limitations of small-town life. There is little room/opportunity for catharsis. They very often suffer silently--especially the women.

The characterization is very interesting, as the narrator often describes these figures in terms of their occupation and/or physical deformities, both outward projections of identity.

Those characters preoccupied with metaphysical or philosophical concerns seem to suffer doubly. First, from a struggle with expression and secondly from the resultant alienation from their peers.

Questions to consider as you read Winesburg, Ohio

–What elements of Modernism do you find in Anderson’s stories? (Consider Raymond Williams and Peter Singal--from the lecture notes posted to Blackboard under "Course Documents.")

–What is one of the main conflicts portrayed in these stories? With what conflict or conflicts do the characters struggle?

–What do these stories tell readers about small town America?

–Who is the most interesting or sympathetic character and why?

More specific questions:

•“Hands” : Of what is Wing Biddlebaum guilty?

•“Godliness, Part Three”: Is Louise Hardy a moral character?

•“The Strength of God”: What does the title of this story mean?