Orphans, Home, Modernity

The orphan has become an incredibly common theme in modern literature. They're present in everything from Oliver Twist, Peter Pan, Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, and of course Great Expectations.
The orphan is a great modern character. The orphan is a self-contained, rootless person without familial constraints. The orphan also has the amazing ability of possessing both an introspective and totally selfish outlook (given his or her solitude) and also an untainted and innocent perspective on the rest of the world. Certainly Pip, with his constant self-examination and eager, innocent outlook on the outer world is no exception.
Why is the orphan so popular in modernity? And how come the orphan is so easy to relate to? After all, most of us are not orphans. I think the answer has to do with the modern "condition" we talked about in class last week, the condition that somehow finds us all unhappy at home, or the starting place of our lives. It seems that fewer and fewer modern people (or at least modern literary characters) can be happy at home in modern times without aspiring for bigger and better things, or having greater expectations. Can anyone imagine a 21st century character like Emma Woodhouse who is perfectly happy never to go more than a few miles from his or her home? I have trouble picturing that. There seems to be such a shift in the mood of literature (and really modern society) between Emma and Great Expectations, even though barely 40 years passed between their publications.

I found a eulogy (below) given by Victor Hugo at Balzac's funeral. It's interesting. Hugo was able to foresee Balzac's impact in the future. He also comments on Balzac's realist style. In reading Eugénie Grandet, I felt like it was the first really "modern" book we have read, with its realism and attention to detail. It read much more like a modern popular novel than Austen or Shelley.

http://www.gavroche.org/vhugo/balzaceulogy.shtml

Frankenstein

The fact that Frankenstein never gives the monster a name adds to the creature's lack of identity, or "self." So it's interesting that, over time, the creature itself has become known as Frankenstein. The monster has assumed the creator's identity in the public consciousness. The monster IS Frankenstein, and Victor is just the mad scientist. I wonder if this means that we associate Victor as being just as evil and nefarious as the monster, or if we simply want a quick way of identifying the monster?

I was frustrated with the lack of description in the monster's appearance. I wonder how we ever came to associate the bolts-in-neck green-faced Herman Munster with this thing when Shelley is so silent on what it looks like. Personally, I think not knowing makes it much more frightening. The hulking, lighting-flashed silhouette of the monster on the mountaintop is much more frightening, or "uncanny," because, as Freud would argue, it is both recognizable and strange at the same time.

Another thing I noticed was how much water there was in this book. They seem to constantly be at sea, or travelling on the Rhone, or Victor is out alone on a boat, alone. The water seemed to bring peace, or at least temporary calm, and solitude to both the monster and Frankenstein. Victor used his moments out in the boats to feel depressed and reflect on the horrible things that were happening to him, and the monster eventually comes to terms with the evil in his acts when he is at sea with dead Victor. I wonder if this was a conscious decision on Shelley's part.

Jane Austen Rennaissance

The other night I saw a special on ABC Nightline that asked the question "Why are we all of a sudden so Jane Austen crazed?"

How timely.

Along with the special there was a small documentary film about the annual Jane Austen festival in Bath, England. The participants talked a lot about their opinions as to why stories like EMMA appeal to modern romances. The prevailing argument was that Jane Austen's books depict a more charmed and mannerly time. Do they really? I'm not so sure. Some of those characters are not very mannerly at all!

Here is a link to the story on the ABC site.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3740964&page=1

Snobby but Endearing

Jane Austen

I have read other works by Austen, but this was my first go at EMMA. I have to admit, I found it tedious in many parts. That said, I was more interested in the outcomes of the characters than when I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE or MANSFIELD PARK. All of the upper-class snobbery and the manner in which Emma and company make mountains out of mole hills was the comic genius of this novel, for me. I know this book comes under a lot of heat for its lack of lower-class representation, but isn't that the point? Isn't Emma's whole perspective supposed to be so tethered to her upper-class society that she hardly knows of "the peasant's" existence? By making Emma so oblivious, Austen was making gentle pokes at the distorted reality of England's upper crust.
For me, the most enjoyable character to read was Mrs. Elton. She was truly over-the-top, and very Dursley-ish.
I enjoyed seeing Emma's transformation from beginning to end. The most telling evidence of her changes in character was the way she started thinking of Harriet's feelings over her own when Frank's engagement to Jane came to light. I also felt that Emma's final acceptance of the Harriet/Mr. Martin pairing was a clear sign that Emma is not some bratty snob, but merely constricted by the views on society that came "natural" to her, given her particular upbringing and circumstance.

Images

Lone Figure: Man vs. Nature


Sturm und Drang




I was interested to learn that this famous portrait of Napoleon was done by none other than Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, the artist who gave us dear Monsieur Bertin.

Constant and Modernity

I found this interesting speech given by Constant about modern perceptions of liberty vs. the ancients'. It was interesting to read his thoughts on modernity in light of "Adolphe." This may be going out on a limb, but after hearing what Constant has to say on the private vs. politcal, I can almost make an assumption that Adolphe represents the "political" and Ellenore the "individual" in this context.
The article is a bit lengthy and wordy, (and, frankly, boring most of the time) so I've picked out two highlights. But if you're interested in the whole thing, the link can be found below (though my computer still seems to refuse to successfully hyper-link).

"Individual liberty, I repeat, is the true modern liberty. Political liberty is its guarantee, consequently political liberty is indispensable. But to ask the peoples of our day to sacrifice, like those of the past, the whole of their individual liberty to political liberty, is the surest means of detaching them from the former and, once this result has been achieved, it would be only too easy to deprive them of the latter."

"The danger of modern liberty is that, absorbed in the enjoyment of our private independence, and in the pursuit of our particular interests, we should surrender our right to share in political power too easily."


http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html

Poor Werther

Werther Holding Woodcut of Lotte
and
Werther at the Computer...


Although Werther was irrational, unstable, and had many "sturm und drang" qualities, I felt that Goethe made his situation and troubled mindset easy to understand. Logically I was thinking "Come on Werther, get over the girl and move on," but Goethe made Werther's irrational thoughts rational, in some way. How does Goethe make the reader so easily sympathize with such an instable character as Werther? I think it all connects back to Rousseau, and perhaps even the inherent human quality of sympathy. In the first few pages, Goethe immediately puts the reader in Werther's perspective by showing the social position and the inequality that plays such an large role in Werther's unhappiness:

"...people of a certain rank will always keep a cool distance from common people..." (p. 8)
I found that this quote particularly reflected a lot of Rousseau's thought. It also seems to be the root cause of Werther's suffering throughout the letters. Werther's extreme insecurities, depression, "broken dreams" and his obsessive and tragic love for Lotte all seem to stem from his social inequality. But would Rousseau agree with Goethe/Werther on the following quote?

"...all human activity is directed toward procuring satisfaction for needs that have no other purpose than prolonging our miserable existence..." (p. 11)

This quote bothered me. It was harsh, depressing, and it rather glosses over a lot of common human activities: recreation, the arts, education, and sports are some that spring to mind. These human activities are not simply neccessities for prolonging our "miserable existence." So it seems to me that Goethe's own social jabs are represented by the first quote, while the more fictitious Werther's personal misery in the second.

Being vs. Appearance: Two-Faced Moderns

Rousseau argues throughout Part Two that rivalries and the evils of nascent inequality arise from the ideas of property, "the first fence," and unnatural divisions amongst men. Eventually, after showing the development of memory, imagination, and pride, Rousseau begins to explain how these qualities are neccessary to modern man in large quantities. Therefore, humans have to have skills, talent, beauty, strength, etc. or at least PRETEND to.... I felt this was an interesting twist to everything he had said before, because this brought in an element of duplicity or deceit:

"It was necessary in one's own interest to be other than one was in reality. Being and appearance became two entirely different things."

He goes on to show how the two-faced aspect of modern human beings is the epicenter of so many problems-----"deceitful cunning" and "ostentation". Finally I felt like Rousseau was getting to the heart of some modern problems! For once he was pointing out a problem that I could actually believe nascent man would not have had. As Rousseau points out, these dual personalities tend to sprout a dangerous jealousy amongst people that is "masked in benevolence."

But to take this argument a step further, I began thinking of it in the modern world and our celebrity crazed society. Isn't there a lot of false duality there? Celebrities strive to come across to be something they are not, perfect in every way. Fans attempt to emulate them (denying their true free will, Rousseau might say). And at the same time that our society seems to follow strict guidelines (what to wear? how to eat? what political views?) and crave common understanding and equality, we all are striving to be "individuals" and win back that free will. I remember we touched on some of this in class last week and talked about how phenomena like Myspace are perfect examples of this dance between the individual/truth and the public/false. I think Rousseau's points here about the negative aspects of the private face and the public face are truly at the heart of this modern problem, and what makes modern life so confusing!

Modernity?

(Rousseau)


After the discussion last week, I looked up some general information on the termionology of "modernity" and the debate of "what is modern?" A lot of what I found on the web was quite vague, but the wikipedia article had some very basic descriptions and lots of links to other sites in the same vein of "modernism." Here is the main page, which is good to use as a jumping-off point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity

I liked the "Paradox of Modernity" section particularly. It reflected a lot of what Rousseau was saying. I feel he could have predicted what would happen as humans continued to compete against one another in an unnatural habitat.

I also found two interesting articles about Rousseau, one that calls him an "idiot," and one that defends him. They both show how Rousseau's philosophies have been used in the modern world, from the founding American fathers, to the modern Ukraine.

http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/225/954

http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/226/969

Welcome

Welcome to Sam Mitchell's personal blog for the "Inventing Modernity" course.