Intertextuality at Its Finest

Since we will be discussing Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart next week, I wanted to update the blog design. This new picture is the cover art from the Roots' 1999 album, which takes its title from Achebe's novel. To add to the intertextuality, Achebe took his title from W.B. Yeats's poem, "The Second Coming," which I believe that you all read last year in Mrs. Klebba's class. I also found the following information about the Roots' album on Wikipedia: "For a limited time period, Things Fall Apart was made available with a choice of five different front covers. One such cover displays a photograph taken during a riot in the Civil Rights Movement era. In the stark black-and-white photo, riot police are seen chasing two black teenagers on the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant. In 2005, this cover was included in the book, The Greatest Album Covers Of All Time by Barry Miles, Grant Scott & Johnny Morgan, and published by Collins & Brown."

It's undoubtedly a powerful and disturbing image.

questions

I think it's intresting that Ros and Guil ask so many questions though few to none are actually answered. The game of questions was inresting, funny, and was kind of a reminder to me how frequently they misunderstand or miscommnicate. They sort of stumble through the play and to their deaths. Anyway, I found the game of question scene in the movie:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Sx4W2cKlU

Quote to Ponder

When I came across this, I dog-eared the page because I thought this dialogue was very interesting. 

Pages 66-67

Guil: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

Player: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?

I agree a lot with the Player in this case. I truly believe that everything is based on trust especially when it comes to relationships with others. I don't think I've ever seen it better said when Stoppard writes of trust, "It's the currency of living."

Interesting Scene

 One of the most interesting scenes from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern is when the two are watching the play The Murder of Gonzago. When the two see the two actors who are playing the spies in the play, they do not recognize them. Rosencrantz gets really close to them and notices that they are very peculiar and swears that he has seen their faces before. Although the two are playing out the exact roles of Ros & Guild and even wear the same clothes as them, the two are still unable to make the connection. The idea of identity is a huge theme and these two men cannot even remember their own names. It is very interesting indeed.

Butterfly Dreams (..what a cheesy title)

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but during one of his existentialist speculations, Guildenstern mentioned a short story about a Chinese philosopher that dreamed he was a butterfly, then was unsure that he wasn't actually a butterfly dreaming that he was a Chinese philosopher. I knew that I recognized that story from Mr. G's class in ninth grade. Actually I found it in my desk because I liked it so much that I kept it.....I'm lame. Anyway, the philosopher's name in Chuang Tzu (or that's one of the pronunciations). I've attached the story so y'all can all remember it too.

http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/butter.htm

Ros & Guil

I thought Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead was quite an intriguing play. I liked how I could remember certain bits of dialogue from the actual Hamlet, for example when Hamlet called Ros & Guil "sponges". I thought a lot of the witty banter was pretty funny too, but I think that it would have been even funnier to watch because that sort of thing translates better on the stage. I loved having a behind the scenes look at why Tom Stoppard supposedly believed that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern died. I think Hamlet being the culprit in that situation adds another dimension to his character. He had trouble bringing himself to kill Claudius, but very little when it came to indirectly executing his own friends.

Fight Club (á la Blaine Kern)

http://stmhumanities.blogspot.com/2011/02/fight-club.html

I looked back on the blog and found a really good post by Blaine last year. He compares Freud's system of the Id, Ego, and Superego with Fight Club. Tyler Durden is all 3 parts combined, just like all humans are. He says that Tyler Durden (Pitt) represents the Id, the pleasure seeking part of our brains. The unnamed narrator is the ego and superego, he tries to stop the Id from tearing his life apart. While the narrator falls asleep, Durden goes to work and since the narrator isn't conscious he cannot stop the Id from doing crazy things. In the end, the narrator essentially kills Durden by shooting himself. Blaine makes some excellent comparisons and if you haven't seen Fight Club, you really should....now....