Black Mirror, Cause why not?

Ahhhh, the classics, Black mirror, a true master piece, has yet another connection to literature. In one of the  episodes from the latetest season, depicts a post apocalyptic waste land riddled with killer robots.  Its Your typical action thriller story, woman is all alone, woman is chased by robot, badda bing badda boom. So yes, its just a typical wasteland, but whats so special about this episode, well i'll tell you! Technology, the next step in human evoultion, or the beigin of the downward spiral to our exticntion. Th thing about this episode is that these robots were ceated by us, we created the things that created the wastland. Humans are the ones that will presumbly created the wast land, minus the posibilty of intense weather, I like this black mirror epsiode because it shows how our techonligy might lead us to the wasteland.

Im writting this blog post as I am landing in Atalanta, so if it seems rushed, sorry, I didnt want to get yelled at by the flight attendants.

the waste land from above

After taking off from MSY, I took a glance down at the city I called home. What I saw was a sea of shimmering lights in almost a grid-like form. Th beauty of seeing your city from an eagle eye pov is you get to see all angles, streets, lights, and buildings of your home. I find this sea of light beautiful, but some may not. We, for the most part, have all grown up in a city, we have adapted and fell in love with the city lifestyle, but other in the world have not. Some people in the world live in isolation, seclusion, away from our cities. You might be wondering, where is he going with this? well, the top down view that I so love of our city might be horrendous for someone else. Th lights and buildings might just appear as a maze of stress and crime, some may even call it a...wasteland. I'm using this situation as an example of the different ways the word wasteland can be used, in this context, I'm applying it to the city life. Something that is more common in cities than in farm-land is poverty and homeless people. Let's are realm there's a lot of impoverished citizens in our city. along with poverty, some parts of our city are run down or abandoned; the streets are probably the most wasted part of our city, when driving uptown it feels like you're in a wast land because of all of the craters and ditches that one has to traverse. A wasteland doesn't have to be some post-apocalyptic desert or a junkyard, it can be a bustling city, it just depends on whos using the word.

Do I Dare to Eat an Apple?

Alright, so as we know, T.S. Eliot, besides writing The Waste Land, also wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and one of the lines (also a personal favorite of mine) is, "Do I dare to eat a peach?"  Hence, the title of this post (which will become clearer in a moment).

For Senior Leadership Day, I helped teach part of Paradise Lost to the AP English III class.  Part of the lesson was looking at some art related to Paradise Lost, including some depictions of Adam and Eve eating the apple or getting expelled from the Garden of Eden.  While I was reading Paradise Lost, specifically the scene where they are banned from Paradise, I imagined them wandering out into a barren waste land.  So, in honor of that, here are some depictions of Adam and Eve and the apple/getting banned.  Some of these should be familiar styles since we looked at some of the artists for Dante.
Chagall's "Expulsion from the Garden"

Chagall stained glass window:

William Blake:

Dali's "Amorous Repose"

Michelangelo:

Hieronymus Bosch's "The Last Judgment":

Bosch's "The Hay Wagon"

Olympic Modernism

I've been closely following the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and I feel like the Games share a lot of goals that the modernists hoped to achieve. First of all, modernists were devastated and disillusioned by WWI, and the Olympics are not only sporting events, but they are moments when the world becomes one. At Pyeongchang, there was a unified Korean (South + North) women's hockey team. Also, there have been great advances in the relationship between the governments of North Korea and South Korea. Modernists hoped to rebuild bridges between people in a world in which communication had broken off. Similarly, the Olympics promote communication and peace.

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot's Reading Voice

I found a video on youtube of T.S. Eliot and other poets reading The Waste Land aloud and it’s quite interesting. Hearing the author’s voice kind of puts a different spin on the poem if one considers how each of us reads it aloud in class (which only a few of us had done, but you get the point). Anyway, the video’s 26 minutes long and as I said before, there are multiple voices reciting the poem, not just Eliot’s. 

Eliot and his Footnotes

Footnotes are an important part of reading The Waste Land for most people who don't have the works of Dante and Wagner memorized. While you can read through the poem and gain an important understanding just from the basic imagery and tone of the poem, the references to many of the most influential works of Western literature are key to understanding important parts of what Eliot was trying to convey about modern society. The importance of footnotes is even more notable because Eliot himself wrote many footnotes for the original publishing of the poem in book form, something that most poets would not do. Especially compared to earlier Romantic poets who would probably balk at the idea of annotating their spontaneous overflows of emotions with references to academic works, the inclusion of footnotes represents a fundamental shift in how Eliot felt poetry should be made and read.

This is made more interesting, however, by later commentary made by Eliot on his footnotes. In a 1956 essay "The Frontiers of Criticism," Eliot says:

"Here I must admit that I am, on one conspicuous occasion, not guiltless of having led critics into temptation. The notes to The Waste Land! I had at first intended only to put down all the references for my quotations, with a view to spiking the guns of critics of my earlier poems who had accused me of plagiarism. Then, when it came to print The Waste Land as a little book? for the poem on its first appearance in The Dial and in The Criterion had no notes whatever? it was discovered that the poem was inconveniently short, so I set to work to expand the notes, in order to provide a few more pages of printed matter, with the result that they became the remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship that is still on view today. I have sometimes thought of getting rid of these notes; but now they can never be unstuck. They have had almost greater popularity than the poem itself? anyone who bought my book of poems, and found that the notes to The Waste Land were not in it, would demand his money back. "

So basically he's saying the footnotes were added for publishing demands and shouldn't be artistically linked with the poem itself. This, however, has been disputed by academics who have found evidence that he included footnotes in earlier versions of the poem even before he began discussions with publishers. I think it's interesting that later on in life, he seemed to want to distance himself from the footnotes, which had perhaps come to represent a view of his work that he did not like. It's also remarkable just how inextricably linked The Waste Land and its footnotes would become, but maybe Eliot should have recognized that they might be necessary when he included quotes from 4 different foreign languages.

Here's a link to the JSTOR for Eliot's essay, "The Frontiers of Criticism," and another article discussing the essay and specifically his quotes about the footnotes:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27538564.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A0d39055d20bca73186b76db9384cb90f

https://books.google.com/books?id=tMHfQmqxEL0C&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=ts+eliot+bogus+scholarship&source=bl&ots=oqM3nJcXZw&sig=AwInFxn794vz50mGJlWnmEwISqA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtrIWfp8DZAhUQ24MKHWrhC5oQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=ts%20eliot%20bogus%20scholarship&f=false

Analogy between College and Les Demoiselles d”Avignon

So I wasn’t in class on Monday when Quinet and King provided some background on modernism but I opened Quinet’s email and saw the attachment of Les Demoiselles d”Avignon by Picasso. A friend of mine has a glossy mini poster of said oil painting pinned up next to an advertisement for kylighters (guess which picture caught my eye lol) on her room wall. This piece was groundbreaking in the development of modern art and I couldn’t help but draw parallels and dissimilarities between Picasso’s painting and my friend’s transformation and experiences in college. The figures in Picasso’s painting are exposed, unconventionally and confrontationally presented to the public; it’s the beginning of something new. When thinking of my friend, I remember she declared herself unconfrontational BUT as we kept talking, she and I both commented on how much bolder she was now; college and all it has to offer gave birth to a new side of my friend, socially and academically, just as the explosion of primitivism and liberation found in Les Demoiselles d”Avignon gave birth to an artistic revolution.

Tristan and Isolde (or Iseult or Yseult or...)

In what will probably be not the last blog post about one of the many works referenced by Eliot in The Waste Land, I did some research on Tristan and Isolde and thought I would share some of the information about the story that I found. Eliot directly quotes from Wagner's 1865 opera Tristan und Isolde, which is largely based on Gottfried von Strassburg's 12th century romance named Tristan. There are several different versions of the Tristan story, but there is a main story that most of the romances follow. The basic story is that Tristan kills Iseult's fiancee and plans to take her back to his lord, King Mark, but on the way back Tristan and Iseult accidentally ingest a love potion so fall deeply in love. When they get back to Mark's castle, Tristan and Iseult are caught having an affair. Tristan then fights Mark and is mortally wounded, but he escapes to Brittany. In the later versions that the Wagner opera is based upon, Tristan then waits for Iseult to come as she could heal him, but when he believes she has betrayed him, he dies of grief. Then, when Iseult reaches him, she dies of grief as well, so not exactly a happy story.

In Wagner's opera, several thematic elements of the story are emphasized including the tragic nature of their story that seems to be out of their own control. Wagner was heavily influenced by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, particularly his idea that people are driven by unachievable desires, which torment them when they can't be reached. The love between Tristan and Isolde is clearly an example of such a desire. Eliot includes two sets of lines from the opera in the first section of the Waste Land, and both are about looking out over the sea in longing. One describes the report heard by the dying Tristan that the sea is empty and that Isolde isn't coming to save him (which isn't true). Including such lines could refer to the theme in Tristan und Isolde that our deepest desires are unachievable in modern society and render live unsatisfying.

Below are some links to the Liebestod aria, from Isolde's death scene, one of the most famous arias in Wagner and opera in general. You might remember it being referenced in Kate Chopin's The Awakening from Sophomore year. Also I included a link to a full version of the opera if anyone wants to listen to the entire 4 hour work!

Jessie Weston and Gaston Paris

Jessie Weston, when traveling around Europe studying medieval literature, studied under the renown medieval literature specialist Gaston Paris. Paris began his teaching career as a grammar teacher at a private school. Later, after his father retired, he followed his father's footsteps and was a professor of medieval French literature at the College de France in 1872. He later was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions in 1876, and in 1896 he was admitted to Académie française. In 1895 he was named the director of the College de France. Here is where he gained his reputation as a great medieval literature specialist. Towards the later parts of his life, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 1902, and 1903 before dying in 1903. As you can see Gaston Paris was very accomplished, and if Weston learned from him she would surely have been well versed in medieval literature. Thus you can see how Weston could be frustrated for not getting the respect she may deserve because of her studies.

Surrealism: "the Avant-Garde of Modernism"

The Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte

Surrealism is an artistic movement that really interests me. Surrealist artworks are weird (and sometimes creepy), but they delve into the unconscious mind and make viewers to think.

Founded by the poet André Breton in Paris in 1924, Surrealism proposed that the Enlightenment—the influential 17th- and 18th-century intellectual movement that championed reason and individualism—had suppressed the superior qualities of the irrational, unconscious mind. Surrealism's goal was to liberate thought, language, and human experience from the oppressive boundaries of rationalism. The movement blurred boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious, joining the world of dream and fantasy to the rational world.

Surrealism was arguably the most extreme form of modernism.

Sleep (1937) by Salvador Dali

The Menaced Assassin (1927) by Magritte

The Persistence of Memory (1931) by Dali

Light in the Face of CATSastrophe

So.  I guess we can thank T.S. Eliot for one of Broadway’s most well-known musicals.  As one might guess, the vibe of Cats is just a bit lighter than that of The Waste Land, but still, I thought it was worth a mention, so I’m just going to mention some facts I wanted to share.

Cats is based on T.S. Eliot’s 1939 collection of poems (wow, this guy really lived through some stuff…World War I and now World War II) about “feline psychology and sociology,” Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.  The musical is about a group of cats, The Jellicles, and “the Jellicle choice.”  Of course, Cats has won a bunch of awards, being the fourth-longest running show on Broadway.

T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems was originally going to be about dogs.  But then Eliot decided that “dogs don’t seem to lend themselves to verse quite so well, collectively, as cats.”  Oh, well, who am I to question T.S. Eliot?
T.S. Eliot is “regarded as its primary lyricist” because a lot of songs in Cats are just lines from Eliot’s poems.  Therefore, Eliot was posthumously given the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical in 1983.  He also got a Tony Award for the Best Original Score, along (of course) with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Um…Grumpy Cat was temporarily in the 2014  revival on West End.  Hmmm.

Another strange fact: it used up a LOT of yak hair (for the wigs).

Here’s a quote from one website I read, pertaining to Dante (whom Eliot also references in The Date Land): “T. S. Eliot's greatest literary role model was Dante, and many of his major works strive to emulate Dante's Divine Comedy[…] The Waste Land and Prufrock dwell in Hell and Purgatory, but […] Cats presents an ascension to Paradise, here referred to rather cleverly as the "Heavyside Layer" (a pun upon a scientific term that appeared in Eliot's Family Reunion).  But anyone who knows their Dante knows that you can't climb to Heaven without first stepping through Hell, and the second act of Cats provides not only a descent but an entire tableau of a civilization in ruin -- a Waste Land of cats -- after Macavity kidnaps Old Deuteronomy and short-circuits the electrical power in the alley, casting the stage into darkness.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(musical)#Synopsis
http://mentalfloss.com/article/84660/11-memorable-facts-about-cats
http://www.oversixty.co.nz/entertainment/music/2016/12/7-facts-about-the-musical-cats/#
http://www.litkicks.com/EliotCats

Origin of Death Stories and Frazer

Frazer traveled throughout the British Empire and collected many stories of the origin of the death myth. He then devised four main classifications into which they could be grouped: the story of the two messengers, the storing of the waxing and waning moon, the story of the serpent and his cast skin, and the story of the banana. The most interesting one of these is the story of the banana and banana stalk. This story popular among the native of the Nias and Poso islands, two islands apart from Indonesia. The story is based on a banana and its stalk. The banana bears its fruit on a stalk which dies after bearing. This gave the people of the island that humans inherited the same properties of the banana. They live a short life and die shortly after giving birth. Their creation myth said that the creator would love a gift down on a rope every day. One day he lowered a stone, but the first humans refused the stone. So the creator lowered down a banana next. The first humans then ate the banana. After the creator told them that they would now inherit the properties of the banana. They will perish after giving birth instead of living eternally like other animals.

SInging a Different Tune: T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

As we mentioned in class already, most of us should be familiar with T.S. Eliot’s famous poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  I did a bit of research on this poem and (perhaps unsurprisingly) found a lot of parallels to Eliot’s later work The Wasteland.

First of all, the poem at first was considered sort of weird.  One bookseller wouldn’t accept it, calling the work “absolutely insane.”  Harsh, right?  Similarly, I think we can all agree that The Wasteland is certainly not conventional.  Just one example is the jarring shifts in voice.

Second, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock had a lot of famous influences.  One was Dante, to whom Eliot also makes reference in The Waste Land.  I thought it was cool that The Love Song also references Hamlet, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and Chaucer.

Third, Ezra Pound is the one who convinced Eliot to publish the poem in 1915.

Fourth, The Love Song has a sort of depressing collection of themes.  Of course, The Waste Land isn’t all that uplifting, either.  One common theme across these two works is a “sense of decay.”

Five.  Eliot originally used an epigraph at the beginning of The Love Song from Dante’s work The Divine Comedy.  He ended up not putting the quotation in, but he did decide to use it at one point in The Waste Land (the reference to Guido).

Six…This one is obvious, but both works were written during a very confusing, disruptive, and all-around awful period in world history - World War I. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock
https://interestingliterature.com/2015/10/13/five-fascinating-facts-about-the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock/

T.S. Eliot Fun Facts!

I always like when people do these posts because they let us know more about authors on a personal level. So, here it is, the T.S. Eliot Fun Facts post:

1) Eliot was related to three former presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Rutherford B. Hayes.

2) According to my sources, he was the first person to use the term "bullsh*t." It's from his 1910 poem The Triumph of Bullshit. 

3) Unlike many poets, Eliot held down steady jobs throughout his life. He was a banker, teacher, and editor. Eliot said: "I feel quite sure that if I’d started by having independent means, if I hadn’t had to bother about earning a living and could have given all my time to poetry, it would have had a deadening influence on me."

4) He gave himself a three hour limit on how long he could write in a day. He said that whatever he accomplished after three hours was usually not his best.

5) Whenever Eliot got stuck while writing, he would start writing in French. Then, he would get tired of the French, go back to English, and write more quality pieces.

6) Eliot was a prankster. He and his nephew allegedly bought several stink bombs and set them off in London.

Minimalism

While researching the modernist movement, I came across an important concept: minimalism. As a result of superficial and unnecessarily eloquent Victorian era, artists and musicians began to cut out all non-essential elements of their works. The idea was to still be able to convey emotion and essence with the fewest components. In general, when I think of modern art, I picture a lack of emphasis on detail and form and more stress placed on depicting something abstract. Some noteworthy proponents of this movement are Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, and Robert Morris. 
Untitled Combine (1963) by Robert Rauschenberg  

Untitled (1991) by Donald Judd

What is a Wasteland?

In class we were briefly sharing ideas of what we thought a wasteland was, and I thought the ideas brought up were really interesting. Personally, when I think of a wasteland, I think of a completely barren landscape, or abandoned industrial structures. To me, the latter has more of a feel of abandoned humanity, or disconnect. What do you guys think a wasteland is?

Fallingwater

Many of you have probably heard of Frank Lloyd Wright, and if so are probably most familiar with Fallingwater.

Fallingwater (designed 1935) is part of the latter half of the modernist movement. Wright was known for organic architecture, which emphasized the relationship of a structure to its environment, and also its relationship to people. To me, his buildings, including Fallingwater, are indicative of the modernist values of genuine connection. Fallingwater sits naturally in its space, not disrupting or imposing, and as such creates an authentic feeling of a balanced relationship between humanity and the earth. 

The Sistine Sibyl—Most Muscular Prophetess Ever

When we started reading The Waste Land, I was immediately excited by the reference to the Cumaean Sibyl since I read about her in Virgil's Aeneid.  

Just as quick side note, the Sibyl got her powers from Apollo specifically when he became attracted to her and said she could have anything if she just spent a night with him.  After making her wish (basically for eternal life), she went back on her promise and refused Apollo's advances, so he cursed her.  Nice guy, huh?

Anyway, one of my favorite depictions of the Sibyl is in the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo (who is referenced in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock).


Dr. Ramos has this depiction in his classroom if anyone is interested.  Since he first showed this to us, I always think of the Sibyl as a very big, muscular lady (even though there are plenty of renditions that show her as more typically "feminine").  I wonder where Michelangelo's Sibyl got her muscles from?  Ideas, anyone?  (The actual reason he painted her like this is probably that he was using a male model, just FYI.  But it's fun to theorize anyway.)

Where Life Begins

I ran into an interesting quote from Sartre earlier: "Life begins on the other side of despair." When I saw this quote, my mind immediately went to Estelle. The way I interpreted the quote was that one's existence can't truly be created unless a change is made. If you live your life continuing in whatever state you were born in, you aren't creating a life for yourself. You were given this life. Although Estelle claims she grew up poor, I don't buy into that. When she was talking about her parties and lifestyle, she was genuinely shocked that Inez, an actual member of the labor class, had never attended an extravagant event. Estelle clearly grew up somewhat affluent and was able to sustain her lavish lifestyle by marrying a wealthy man. Thus, her life, at least in the socioeconomic realm, was given to her. Her actions didn't create a new essence for herself. But maybe if Estelle was able to experience different lifestyles and people, she could have changed her fate. Maybe she could have learned the futility of her lavish events and clothing and could have formed a different outlook on herself.

Another aspect of the quote is the word despair. The "other side of despair" makes me think of the rainbow after the rain or some other cliche imagery of happiness after suffering. I think what Sartre is saying is that pain ultimately defines one's ability to create their own essence as well. If Estelle could experience the hardships of others and be able to push through them, her narrow perspective of the world would be widened and the depths of her essence would expand. In her own life, Estelle never dealt with pain or suffering because she escaped all of her problems. When her wealth was threatened, she married a rich man. When she gave birth to an illegitimate child, she killed the baby. When she began seeing a young lover, she withheld information of her past. She never exposed herself to pain and so she never got through it. 

"Hell is Other People"

If one line can sum up No Exit, it's this one. As Garcin, Inez, and Estelle soon realize, Hell is in fact not the stereotypical, fiery doom, and torturous device-y place we imagine it to be. There are no hot flames or pain, just people. It really doesn't seem that bad at first glance. You can learn to tolerate the people you're with and maybe even hope to befriend them. Regardless, you're not in total physical agony at all times. So what's the problem? The Gaze. 

Garcin, Inez, and Estelle can never be alone again. They can never try to forget their actions in life because they each serve as a constant reminder to the others. They can never attain closure, and their memories will haunt them eternally. Most importantly, they will never be able to finally shed their fabricated outward dispositions and be themselves. Everyone's different when they're alone; when you're under the speculation of anyone else, you change. For some, like Estelle, you want to look your best. For others, like Garcin, you want to appear stronger. But, when you're alone, you're comfortable with who you are underneath the lipstick and news articles. There's a sense of security and ease when you know what you are is all you need to be. But, Garcin, Estelle, and Inez will never be able to experience this feeling. They will always feel pressured to look and behave a certain way under the scrutiny of others. Moreover, they can never relish in a few hours of sleep or even a millisecond of blinking to escape reality. In this way, they will have the company of each other for eternity, but they will be forever alone, trapped in the existence they have created for themselves. Freedom cannot even be dreamed of. 

Sounds like hell to me. 

Mirrors and No Exit

In the play, Estelle constantly worries about finding a mirror to do her makeup or see if she is alive. This reminded me of an article and youtube video I saw about how mirrors really lie to us. The article talks about how a man named John Walter one day flipped the way his hair parted and realized that mirrors were lying to us this whole time. Mirrors flip the image that they reflect, so when you view yourself in the mirror you aren't seeing yourself how everyone else sees you. If you ever saw a picture of yourself and thought you looked off, it is probably because you are used to seeing the reflection of yourself in the mirror. One example that the article brought up was how Abraham Lincoln saw himself versus how the world saw him.



I'm sure we have all this very famous photo of Abraham Lincoln. When the world looks at Abe Lincoln, this is what they see.



Here is another photo of Abe.



Here is how Abe would have seen himself in the mirror. Now the difference isn't that big, but there is definitely a clear difference between the two photos. 

Is Estelle a Narcissist?

In class this week as we were discussing No Exit, we began to wonder if Estelle was a Narcissist. So I decided to take a quiz as Estelle to see if she was truly Narcissist. You can take the quiz for yourself too. It only takes a few minutes. Here is the link if you would like to take it: https://www.psycom.net/narcissistic-personality-disorder-test  There are only about 9 questions in the entire quiz, so it shouldn't take you too long.



Here are my results. It says Estelle has only a moderate indication of narcissistic personality disorder. I thought Estelle would have been more narcissistic especially when I was taking the quiz. I answered almost every question as often or very often. I only answered sometimes twice and didn't answer never or rarely one time. Maybe some of you guys should take the quiz and share your results!

7 Fun Facts About Simone de Beauvoir

1. Her dad claimed that she “thought like a man.”  (High praise from…a man.)
2. When she took the agregation in philosophy at age 21 (a test to rank students in a subject), she was the youngest person ever to pass and only the 9th woman.  And the only person to beat her was Jean-Paul Sartre.
3. Although at first very devout, when she was 14 she turned to atheism.
4. She had an “open relationship” with Jean-Paul Sartre.
5. If you’ve ever heard the quote, “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman,” that’s her.
6. Her book The Second Sex got put on the Index of Prohibited Books!  (Bet she was excited about that.)
7. Upon her death, the newspaper headlines read, “Women, you owe her everything.”

http://www.realclear.com/history/2014/01/09/things_to_know_about_simone_de_beauvoir_5054.html
http://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/161057765652/5-facts-about-simone-de-beauvoir

No Exit From the Subjection of Women

John Stuart Mill got me thinking in terms of the situations of the women in No Exit, especially about the institution of marriage.  So here are some of my thoughts:

First, Garcin’s wife.  She’s really sort of trapped with this awful man who disrespects her entirely.   Garcin continually refers to plucking her out of the sewage, so perhaps she feels the need to stay with him out of a sense of obligation.  Garcin claims that she admires him, and maybe that’s true, but can we really totally trust Garcin?  This guy has a huge ego, after all.  Perhaps Garcin’s wife is actually staying because she feels a sense of duty to this guy who married her—which just shows how many women were shoved into marriage, or else had to face consequences such as maybe being thrown out of the house.  Who knows what really happened with Garcin’s wife?  I guess I’m just speculating, but it seems to me that she’s actually trapped by the institution of marriage.

Then there’s Inez.  Inez, because she is a lesbian, doesn’t have the option of marrying for love.  Inez is despicable, but she’s also trapped by her circumstances.  I’m not making excuses for this woman, but her life seems pretty bleak.  She has all this hatred and rage bottled up inside of her; that’s got to be fuel for the ways she acts, the way she tries to control people and get under other people’s skin.  She’s very spiteful—another similarity to the Underground Man (whom I mentioned in my previous post).  Women were expected to marry—and to marry men, but that part goes without saying.  So Inez, just like Garcin’s wife, is trapped by the expectation of marriage.

And finally, Estelle.  Again, as I said in my previous post, Estelle reminds me a lot of Edna Pontellier.  Both women were definitely trapped.  I really don’t think Estelle sees a way out of her situation, that is, having this child who is born from an affair.  Edna, likewise, doesn’t see a way out of her unhappy marriage.  I think Estelle, like the previous two women I mentioned, is again trapped by the institution of marriage.  She didn’t marry for love; she married for money, because as a woman, she probably didn’t have any other way to support her brother.  She’s trapped by this marriage, has an affair, and produces an unwanted child whom she has to keep secret from her husband and the rest of society.  I guess we could reproach Estelle for not following her heart and marrying for love, but that would be sort of an empty comment, in my opinion.  Ideals are nice and everything, but sometimes people have to do what’s just practical to survive, and for Estelle, saving her brother could very well have meant marrying a rich guy she didn’t truly love, sacrificing her own happiness for her sibling’s.

The Trio in Hell

So the number three is significant in many of the works we’ve read so far (The Inferno, The Metamorphosis, et cetera).  Of course, it’s also significant in No Exit, primarily in the form of the three sinners in Hell.  We also see the number three in the number of victims of Estelle (two women, one man) and Inez (husband, lover, child).

Interesting how all three of these characters share at least one sin - adultery.  I think they all have different motives, though.  Garcin cheats because he’s tied up in his own lust, Estelle because she wants to feel wanted, and Inez because…well, she’s a bit complicated as well, but I’d say she sleeps with her cousin’s wife partly because she just wants to feel like she owns someone else.  A bit creepy, kind of like the Underground Man.

All three of these characters are also despicable in their own ways.  Garcin at some points seems like the most redeemable of the bunch, until you remember he beat his wife and made her serve drinks to him and another woman in bed.  Now that’s just disgusting.  I can’t believe he even has the nerve to say he doesn’t regret his actions.  I think he truly does feel guilty, but doesn’t want to face his guilt.  Well, too bad, Garcin!  Have fun spending the rest of eternity trying to avoid your sins!  I just have very little sympathy for this horrible person.  He tries to act all high and mighty (“I saved my wife from the gutter, you see”) but in reality he’s just as bad as everyone else.  This guy seriously needs to own up to his actions and feel some remorse for what he’s done to his wife.  Honestly, I’m kind of relieved he’s dead so he can’t abuse his wife anymore.

Then there’s Inez.  Inez is a little bit weird.  She just kind of creeps me out.  Who sleeps with their cousin’s spouse?!?  It’s like she feels some sort of need to own other people.  Again, I can see some similarities to the Underground Man, because her concept of love is very twisted—then again, so is everyone else’s in the room.

Finally, Estelle.  I get that she didn’t want to have the baby, but I don’t get how she could bring herself to kill a child.  She kind of reminds me of Edna from The Awakening, maybe because of the scene with the ocean and death.  Then again, Edna didn’t kill a baby. 

Those were just some of the thoughts running around in my head about No Exit.  What do y’all think of the characters?

Black Mirror...Yet Again

Weve seen elemnts of the piecs we read in diffrent episode of black mirror. On eepisode, White Chritsmas, is a modern, or future, version of no exit. I am going to do my best not to spoil the episode, but the premise fo this installment is that two men, who really dont knwo eachother, wake up in a cabin in the middle of an unknown location. The two men sit at the table and ask "why are you her" on dosent know and the other says hes here to get away, the the two porcede to tell their "stories"  that unveal the sins the commited. Right off the bat, the most obvious connection would be the characters telling their sins, but what really stands out to me, what I really just notices, is that the charcaters in No Exit and White christmas are rather calm until the end when their sins have been revealed. When youre trapped in an unfamilar location, and have no idea of getting out, you'd assume that you wuld try to find evry way to get out, but both groups of cjaracters in each story remain calm. This just another example on how the show Black Mirror is a brilliant show.

Where they really in hell?

The constant question was asked throughout the play, where are the torture devices? At the end of the play, we find out that the room they are trapped in is their hell and the people in it are the torture devices. While this is an interesting interpretation of hell, what if the reason for this "hell' for being so different is because our trio is not hell but actually in limbo. I asked this because of their setting, they're trapped in a room. From what I know about  Limbo is that those who are trapped there an in a sort of waiting room kind of place, their reason for being in this place is to sever for their sins, but eventually, they will reach heaven. Limbo also does not seem to have the typical torture devices, most depictions in movies and novels show the inhabitants dealing with a mental type of torture. What really led me to ask this question was at the moment in the play when the door opened, what if the opening of the door signified that they had served their torture and the moved on to the next level of their spiritual life?

More About Simone de Beauvoir

Regarding de Beauvoir's background, I thought I might share a few things: her father Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a legal secretary who aspired to be an actor, would boast about his daughter, "Simone thinks like a man." He was very encouraging of her. (although maybe later in life, she wouldn't appreciate the comparison her father made...maybe that's just me). I find it sad that, like her family lost their fortune after WW1, she lost her faith in her once-Catholic beliefs (which we briefly touched on in class). I also thought it was cool that she was only the ninth woman to receive a degree from the Sorbonne (where she studied philosophy) since French women had only recently been allowed to join higher education.

Garcin and Tomas

Looking back in my class notes the other day, I found that I had made comparisons between Tereza (TULoB) and Garcin’s wife. Garcin says on page 24 or 25 of the play No Exit that “[He’d] picked her up out of the gutter.” Likewise, Tomas imagines Tereza as “a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with pitch and sent down-stream for Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed.” While this is certainly a mouthful compared to what Garcin thought of, it still kind of has the same idea; both men viewed their wives as helpless. 

Double Gaze in No Exit

In No Exit Garcin, Inez, and Estelle are tortured by the presence of each other as they feel that they are being watched constantly. The absence of mirrors in the room causes the three characters—especially Estelle—to be anxious as they cannot see themselves as the others do. The gaze terrifies the characters, who see themselves as objects from the view of each other.

Besides the gaze of the play's characters, I think that there's another gaze that is involved in the play: the gaze of the play's spectators. The construction of No Exit as a play seems significant to me because while the three characters try to escape from the gaze of each other, they are constantly in the gaze of the audience. This double gaze—one within the play and another on the stage—proves that there is really no exit.

Arguing Forever

At the end of No Exit it is implied that the three go on to have the same, painful arguments for an eternity. In this process, I'm assuming, they drive each other crazy with the constant fighting over their dooming mistakes, driving each other crazy in the process.

Don't you think they would ever stop? I feel like if you were to talk about the same collection of things forever, eventually you might become apathetic. Or would it be just the opposite? In talking about the same things forever, would you become so dead-set on your ideas that you would stop at nothing to convert the others to your ideas?

Maybe the latter is part of the reason this group of people is in hell. I think part of their punishment might be that they are forever subject to their own stubbornness, a character flaw that led them all, in one way or another, to commit terrible wrongdoings when they had a choice to do right.

The He(art)lessness of the Samsas

I think that Kafka's writing really evokes a sense of pity in the readers for poor, unappreciated, selfless Gregor.  Not only is he transformed into a beetle that can't even communicate properly, his entire family grows to hate him, and his beloved sister performs the ultimate act of betrayal by saying they must get rid of "it."  Obviously they haven't tried to empathize with Gregor and his predicament, and turn out to be rather nasty people while Gregor, though becoming bitter at some points in the story, remains dutiful and loving towards his family.  This situation provokes a sense that, as Nabokov said, Gregor is a human in a bug's body, while the other Samsas, who show themselves to be quite heartless, are bugs in human bodies.

I found a few pieces of art that speak to Gregor's predicament that I like.

It's sad that you can see Gregor's human shadow (perhaps he even continues to view himself as somewhat human after his change; after all, I certainly felt like he was human just from reading his thoughts) but he obviously looks like a somewhat terrifying bug.

Also, I thought this piece was pretty emotional:

This picture clearly speaks to Gregor's horrible situation, as a hunched-over, despondent human (Gregor) is trapped in a cage formed from a monstrous beetle's spindly legs.  I don't know about y'all, but it looks pretty disturbing to me.

Forcing Tears

In No Exit there are a number of instances where the characters ask for those on earth to cry for them. While watching her own funeral, Estelle says, "[My sister is] trying her best to cry. Come, dear! Make another effort. That's better. Two tears, two little tears [...] [Olga is] not crying, and I don't blame her, tears always mess one's face up, don't they?" (11). Garcin wants his wife to shed tears for him even though he had abused her for five years: "Now, can't you shed a tear, my love! Surely you'll squeeze one out—at last? No? You can't manage it?" (24).

These quotes remind me of a line in Baudelaire's "To the Reader": "We pray for tears to wash our filthiness, / importantly pissing hogwash through our styes."

I think this line relates to the No Exit quotes mentioned above because I feel like Estelle and Garcin want people on earth to feel sympathy for them. Although they know that they are covered with filth for what they did in life, maybe those tears of sympathy can help wash their feelings of regret and fear.

Barbedienne's Bronze Statues

In No Exit, Garcin compares the mysterious bronze ornament in the room to a Barbedienne statue, and as we discussed in class, Sartre is referring to a French metalworker who produced many miniature metal statues. Barbedienne lived from 1810 to 1892 and founded the Barbedienne Foundry in 1838. Working with Achille Collas, they developed methods to produce bronze miniature versions of famous larger statues, which were then sold as ornaments or decorations. They also produced a wide variety of other metal products in their foundry, which grew relatively large, and started to make reproductions of statues made by contemporary sculptors like Auguste Rodin. By the 1860's, the foundry was successful and employed about 300 workers. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, production of statues was interrupted by metal shortages, but Barbedienne produced cannons for the French army. Below are some pictures of Barbedienne statues that I found online. Also, I found sites where statues produced by Barbedienne's foundry can be purchased. Some of them are pretty expensive, but others aren't too bad, so for just a couple of hundred dollars you could own a piece of French metalworking history.

Some Context for Existentialism is a Humanism

I was researching a few things about Sartre while searching for things to blog about, and I discovered some interesting stuff about the excerpt we read from Existentialism is a Humanism. The excerpt is taken from a lecture Sartre gave in a Paris club in 1945 in which he attempted to defend and clarify his ideas. Later, the lecture was made into a short novel and was published to wide success. As it is relatively understandable and nontechnical, it has been seen as a good introduction to Sartre's existentialism. However, there has been some criticism of the work as it has some flaws especially as a literary work. The whole work is about 70 pages, but since it was based on a lecture that Sartre gave without notes or much preparation, it doesn't flow perfectly. Also, some philosophers including Sartre himself later on criticized some of the ideas that were based in Sartre's preliminary theories of existentialism. As many of these ideas were later refined and better expressed in his later works, Sartre even came to regret publishing the lecture as is considering that it became such a representative work of his philosophy to many. I think considering the context of the work helps add understanding to how it represents Sartre's early philosophical ideas. Here's a link to an article that discusses Sartre's lecture and work in some more depth: https://philosophynow.org/issues/53/Was_Existentialism_a_Humanism

Whitefriars Lane by Rhys Davies

Whitefriars Lane by Rhys Davies

I found this enjoyable song on SoundCloud. It's about the Whitefriars Lane song that Inez sings on page 18. It's not such a surprise that Inez sings about the joy of watching public executions as we know that she is a sadist.

What a crowd in Whitefriars Lane!

They've set trestles in a row,

With a scaffold and the knife,

And a pail of bran below.

Come, good folks, to Whitefriars Lane,

Come to see the merry show!

The headsman rose at crack of dawn,

he'd a long day's work in hand,

Chopping heads off generals,

Priests and peers and admirals,

All the highest in the land,

What a crowd in Whitefriars Lane!

See them standing in a line,

Ladies all dressed up so fine.

But their heads have got to go,

Heads and hats roll down below.

Come, good folks, to Whitefriars Lane,

Come to see the merry show!

Hotel Hell

The ominous hotel, a common setting for classic horror stories. When reading no exit I was instantly reminded of one of the seasons of American horror story. Each season of AHS is completely different than the other. So the story goes like this: A hotel, built as a death trap (referencing devil in the white city), is a host for the people (who are now "ghosts")  murdered at the hotel, but the ghost, can kill living people. I thought of this hotel as hell because the ghost is trapped in the building, thus the building itself could be interpreted as hell. After thinking of this Amercian Horror story season, I thought about the troupe of the haunted hotel. Hotels just seem to be a great place to be scary, for example, the iconic tower of terror is, itself a hotel. So why am I bringing this up? well, what if Sartes No exit was the original "scary" Hotel? Was the hell he portrayed the first time hotels were portrayed as devilish rather than welcoming?

The Bronze Sculpture

The bronze sculpture honestly bothers me a bit. I feel like No Exit is such an intentional play with very direct symbols, such as the couches and the bell, but the sculpture just kind of sits there.

The one thing that makes sense for me is for it to represent that weight of finality. Nobody can can change their ending or move their sculpture, they must go on existing in their hell just as the bronze sculpture must go on existing in their room, meaningless and inconsequential.

But that's just a theory.

The Guild of Railway Artists

When researching trains and their depictions in art, I stumbled across a British-based art guild whose members solely depict trains and railway subjects. The group has over 150 members and has held exhibitions annually as of 2013. Membership is open to anyone who believes they are accomplished railway artists. If you don't see yourself as a good enough railway themed artist, you can still be seen as a friend of the guild by supporting their works and members. The guild has some pretty notable patrons too. Sir William McAlpine is a British billionaire who became rich off his construction company. Along with Sir William McAlpine. Pete Waterman is also a patron of the guild. Pete is British producer, songwriter, DJ, and current president of the Coventry Bears rugby team. There have been five leaders of the guild including John Austin, Malcolm Root, and David Shepard. Trains are still clearly a very important part of the culture in the modern world.

Gardner Museum Heist

The Gardner Museum Heist is one of the most infamous art heist ever. In 1990 a group of masked robbers stole 13 pieces of work worth around 500 million dollars in total. The robbers stole only 13 pieces of art but left some of the most expensive pieces in the museum. Out of the 13 they took, however, 5 of them were paintings by Degas and one was a Manet. The most valuable piece stolen was a Vermeer. There are only 34 known paintings by Vermeer in the world, so this was especially valuable.

 
The Concert by Vermeer



La Sortie de Pesage by Degas



Chez Tortoni by Manet

The robbers are still yet to be found to this day. The museum was offering 10 million dollars for their return, but this offer expired on December 31, 2017. However, Arthur Brand, an expert on stolen art pieces, believes he will return the stolen pieces within a year. Brand has previously recovered over 25 million dollars worth of stolen art already. He believes that small criminals stole the pieces then sold them to the mafia who sold them to high ranking Irish Republican Army Commanders.

Google Arts and Culture

As I was researching for our in-class presentations this week in class. Google Arts and Culture website provided some very valuable information. It also reminded me of the Google Arts and Culture app. A few weeks ago, this app added a feature which allowed the user to upload or take a photo and it would match the photo with people depicted in art. It was pretty interesting and actually accurate. It, unfortunately, doesn't work with my phone for some reason, but I was able to use a friend's and it was pretty accurate for me. The app is called Google Arts and Culture. Along with this face match feature, it also has some pretty cool 360 views of some artworks and museums. The app also has information on many of the most famous artists and pieces. The most popular artists on the app are Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt. If you happen to check out the app be sure to let us know which art pieces you look like.

Don't Do This At The Musée d'Orsay, Kids (or at like, any museum)

Manet’s Olympia is controversial even to this day. And I mean really, actually to this day…as recent as January 2016. Luxembourg artist Deborah de Robertis was arrested for posing nude next to the very painting in Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. De Robertis’s lawyer Tewfik Bouzenoune (cool name) said she “was wearing a portable camera to film the public’s reaction. It was an artistic performance.” Security guards responded by closing the room and asking her to to get dressed. She refused and the police were called to remove her. I honestly wonder what possessed her to do this, and in public nonetheless. I understand people, especially artists, today drawing inspiration from classic works but not to the point where a person or an artist would want attention for indecent exposure in a museum. Oh well. 

Salon des Refusés ("exhibition of rejects")

When I was researching Gustave Courbet's The Painter's Studio, I learned that the painting was rejected by the 1855 Paris World Fair's jury for the Exposition Universelle. Courbet wasn't the only painter whose works were denied for official exhibition.

The Salon des Refusés was an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, which was sponsored by the French government and the Academy of Fine Arts. The jury was very conservative; near-photographic but idealized realism was expected. In 1851, Courbet managed to get one painting into the Salon, A Burial at Ornans, and in 1852 his The Bathers was accepted, scandalizing critics and the public, who expected romanticized nudes in classical settings.

In the famous Salon des Refusés of 1863, its jury refused 2/3 of the paintings presented, including the works of Courbet, Manet, and Pissarro. The rejected artists and their friends protested, and the protests reached Emperor Napoleon III. The Emperor's tastes in art were traditional, but he was also sensitive to public opinion. As a result, he decided to arrange a separate part of the Palace of Industry for rejected art to be displayed. The refusés included now-famous paintings such as Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe and James McNeill Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl.

Viva la Vida

So I don't know if anybody in class realized this or if many of y'all listen to Coldplay, but said band used Eugene Delacroix's 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People as the cover art of their album Viva La Vida (: When Chloe, Ally and I were studying Manet in class and I came across this painting in Fleming's book, I internally freaked because I love Coldplay. Political revolution is a major theme on their album and particularly on the title track. In the song lyrics of "Viva la Vida," Coldplay recounts the revolution from the opposite perspective as Delacroix, singing on behalf of the overthrown king: "Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!" Instead of characterizing the deposed king as a one dimensional evil tyrant, Coldplay paints a picture of an ultimately regretful king. Once a revolutionary fighting for justice himself, in this song, the king (retrospectively) realizes that along the way he lost track of how to rightfully lead his people and eventually turned into the very despot that he originally fought to overthrow: "One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me. I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand." Kinda sad, if you ask me. But the song's chorus is hopeful, much like the meaning behind Frida Kahlo's 1954 painting Viva La Vida (Chris Martin said he was indeed inspired by Frida Kahlo's painting as well) and the album cover art by Delacroix.

"[...] one of the earliest depictions of absinthe in art"

We talked about a few of Manet’s paintings in class on Friday, but I don’t think we talked about what was considered to be his first major painting: The Absinthe Drinker. It’s a full body portrait of an alcoholic rag-and-bone man (dude who collects unwanted household items and sells them to merchants) named Collardet who was frequently seen around the Louvre in Paris. The painting was apparently influenced by the realism of Gustave Courbet and MAY have been inspired by the poem Le Vin de chiffonniers (“The rag-picker’s wine”) from Charles Baudelaire’s collection Les Fleurs du mal! His former master Thomas Couture had this to say about the painting: "An absinthe drinker! And they paint abominations like that! My poor friend, you are the absinthe drinker. It is you who has lost your moral sense.” The Absinthe Drinker was the first major work that Manet submitted to the Paris Salon in 1859, with Eugène Delacroix being the only one who voted in its favor. Manet’s works evidently sparked much controversy, and this painting was no exception. The Absinthe Drinker may have been rejected because absinthe was an addictive drink; “morally degenerate.” Also, it’s said that the painting is uneven, with the legs joined awkwardly to Collardet’s body. I don’t know why, but I wish Manet had submitted this painting to the Salon de Refusés (“exhibition of rejects”…lol) like he did with Luncheon on the Grass.

Daniel Caesar’s “Freudian”

So I meant to post this last week when we were discussing Freud, but I forgot so here goes. I’m really into R&B, and one of my favorite albums in the past few months is the debut album of the Canadian artist Daniel Caesar called (wait for it...) Freudian. When the term “freudian” is used, it typically refers to Freud’s work regarding the importance of sexuality in human behavior. At first, I was slightly confused why Caesar picked this phrase to name his album because his music is designed to resemble a gospel sound. Moreover, his lyrics, although sometimes provocative, are not overtly sexual. If anything, they emphasize love and passion over casual sex. However, with a little bit deeper look into his lyrics, his choice of album name becomes more clear. The album is all about love , and more specifically, how sex has contributed and deepened the bond of love. Yes, Caesar doesn’t sing about sexual abuse, but in a way, his music is similar to Freud’s research because both emphasize how sex can alter relationships (although Caesar’s interpretation is slightly more positive).  Ultimately, this album just goes to further attest the lasting impact of Freud’s studies on modern society. I also strongly suggest you guys to check this album out.