At the beginning of this story, I thought the plot would be straightforward, but when I read it for the second time, I found different meanings in it. This short story gave me an impression I was reading a piece of prose, the style is concise, every phrase is a condensation of detailed plots but I can still feel it is poetic. The South also makes a lot of illusionary effects, as to me, the particularity of this story is the ambiguous boundary between the reality and the fiction.

It is quite common that a story being revised from real events, since Borges used to be injured on his forehead and got infection, he put his experience on the character, but what happened later in the story seems like a dream or the imagination of the character (or we can say the author). About this point, there exist some hints in the story:

Firstly, Dahlmann chose the romantic part from his ancestor, so it’s not strange for him to have some imaginary thoughts, and he bought The Arabian Nights, the context of which signifies the struggles with death endlessly. “To travel with this book so closely linked to the history of his torment was an affirmation that the torment was past, and was a joyous, secret challenge to the frustrated forces of evil.” His story originated from The Arabian Nights, and Dahlmann used The Arabian Nights to fight the real life (or his experience in the hospital). This book foreshadowed the choice of Dahlmann at the ending.

Secondly, there are several phrases signifying eternity. “While Dahlmann stroked the cat’s black fur, that this contact was illusory, that he and the cat were separated as though by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.” ”On the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polished by generations of humankind. He was small, dark, and dried up, and he seemed to be outside time, in a sort of eternity.” The spatiality and the temporality in this story are unconsciously expanded, eternity becomes the theme of this story.

Thirdly, the ending of the story is open. Beautiful scenery of the hometown brought Dahlmann the desire of starting a new life, but he would be face to face with danger again. He was not scared, he had experienced the most painful physical and mental sufferings during the treatmen. People are unable to get rid of real life, but real life can provide us the opportunities of experiencing eternal life. Dahlmann could be injured severely again, then he would get a new treatment, this means a circle was made and all start again from the beginning, he could never extricate himself from this predicament and encumbrance, but it’s his choice to determine the form of his own death (an eternal life), totally different from the last experience, it is a conscious choice; or he could be dead without any regrets, the death is a perfect way for him to maintain his dignity and have an extrication, he would be sent to an eternity.

Life is full of different experiences of death, agonies, horror and wonders. The South emphasizes on the choice of life. The old man is hence a representative figure of the South. When he saw Dahlmann, he knew what had happened to him and what he would continue to bear. He gave his dagger to Dahlmann and encouraged him with full of expectations to fight the bloody duel, Dahlman did not hesitate, the southern culture decided that Dahlman can only accept the challenge. This choice has reached the limits of the aesthetic, the pride of the human, is also a symbol of spiritual immortality. This is the principle of the South, it is cruel, but it is charming as well.

In this article, Spivak enumerated numerous fragmentary theories about cognition, humanism, consciousness and woman through the deconstruction of historiography and the Subaltern Studies. Derrida’s works had latent influence on her. The narrative of historiography represents the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This kind of knowledge reveals the inauguration of politicization for the colonized. All critical concept-metaphors would indicate force and power. Spivak thought Guha radicalized the historiography of colonial India, and she argued that to judge the failure and success in the terms of level of consciousness is too simple for the practice of the collective. For the elite historiography, the relation between manipulation and culture replaced the relation of consciousness and culture in the case of the subaltern. In acts of consciousness, the alienation is irreducible, thus, elite historiography, the bourgeois nationalist account and re-inscription by the Subaltern Studies group are all operated by alienation.

As a female critic, her theories have a distinct feminist flavor. The study of the subject-deprivation of the female and the female subaltern consciousness is important as a derived important question. Through the criticism and analysis of social change described in the historiography caused by economic and class relations, Spivak criticized the dual hegemony of imperialist discourse and male discourse which has marginalized female consciousness. There is an affinity between the Subaltern Studies group and subalternity, the perspective of historians and authors is underlined here. Despite of this affinity, Spivak believed “woman is the neglected syntagm of the semiosis of subalternity of insurgency”. Woman is the one who is always giving and sacrificing herself. Spivak suggested that the woman plays an important role in the “caste-solidarity” and consanguinal patrilineage. Especially the urban sub-proletarian female became the paradigmatic subject of the configuration of the International Division of Labor. Besides, Spivak also revealed the truth that the female subaltern is always silent in the historiography. Sexual difference is excluded from the Subaltern Studies, it seems the group don’t have to analyze the figure of woman. Authors of the historiography, the main part of the insurgence and ideological construction are male, the consciousness and subjectivity of female became a marginal issue. Under the gender discrimination and the oppression of class and race, the subordinate status and subaltern identity of the female were not being taken seriously, women are drained of their proper identity—they cannot represent themselves; they must be represented—like the epigraphs Said uses at the beginning of Orientalism. Moreover, Spivak also argued Orientalism of Said also remains in the perspective of a male author.

As for the function of female in the Subaltern Studies and the Insurgency, this “gendered subaltern” introduced by Spivak has a new female perspective, it brought a new direction for the research of post-colonization and the Subaltern Studies.

In view of the post-colonial elite ideology in the historiography and the absence of the subaltern masses in the historical narrative, the subaltern studies are in purpose of remodeling the historical image of the subaltern masses and restoring the sheltered history through the analysis of the overlook of subaltern history.

Guha believes the insurgency, in fact, is a motivated and conscious undertaking on the part of the rural masses. There is a blind spot in historical discourse, the historiography neglected the consciousness of the masses, that means the subjectivity of the reflex action are not reflected in historical narratives. The factors of economic and political deprivations are just external causes, these objective facts are not related to the rebellious peasants’ consciousness—their instinct for survival. However, on the one hand, indigenous elites denied that peasantry insurgence is a nationalist struggle; on the other hand, they have to admit that peasantry insurgence is part of national independence and liberation movements, this is the plight of nationalist discourse. Their solution to this problem is to admit their activities but deprive them of their subjectivity and conscious initiative. The Subaltern Studies group redefined the notion of “subalternity” and raised a strategy to reappear the consciousness and subjectivity of the masses.

Guha classified the historical discourses into three phrases according to chronology and their affinity with the official statements, dismantling elitist historical narrative and rereading historiography helped Guha formulate the strategy and keynote of the subaltern studies:

Primary discourse can be foreshortened and without a sequel. Compared to the primary discourse, the second discourse is more liberal but because of the identity of authors committed to colonialism, the neutrality is hard to be guaranteed. This genre of discourse concerned official interests and the beautified functions of colonization, it is a type of colonialist knowledge which gave service to the power of the regime of the Empire. It is noticeable that the perspective of the author of the instrument of national oppression is far from being impartial. As a datum which registered events of the Empire, these second discourses had nothing to do with the illumination of the consciousness of the insurgents. Neither the tertiary discourse indicated the importance of consciousness. The third one had another ideological orientation and it is of academic values and contemporary relevance from a viewpoint of understanding and supporting the rebels. Through the causes and motives of the uprising can help find out colonist solutions to suppress the insurgency. The tertiary discourse is more profound more the second discourse, it criticized the colonialism itself as the radical cause of insurgency, and took the India bourgeoisie as the real subject. However, the local administration is regarded by the second discourse as the main reason—a system of exploitation. They all avoid the status and the importance of consciousness.

How to define the function of religion is another important problem in the prose of counter-insurgency. Is the religion only a means to arouse enthusiasm of the backward masses and then manipulate them? Is the religion just a tool of propaganda? Did the leadership of insurgency who had the elite consciousness not believe in Messianism? Anyhow, the religion is still a great breakthrough point to illustrate the function of consciousness in the uprising that the historiography failed to comprehend. The combination of sectarianism and militancy always has a significant effect in the rural history.

At the preface of the book Orientalism, Said cited one phrase of Karl Marx :”They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.” This sentence is extremely sharp, it seems that we have been able to clearly foresee the sensitive contents in this article. We could not ignore the fact: when the power intervenes knowledge, knowledge is often used as a tool to reinforce the power, the power of knowledge is pushed into an impure situation, with an impure purpose. Thus, the mixture of power and knowledge is often controversial and questionable. This controversial topic – knowledge and power – is what Edward Said want to express and discuss in this book. Through the generation and development of the Oriental Studies, Said tried to give the reader a clear overview of Orientalism, but all the discussion is surrounded by the topic of knowledge and power. From the United States to Britain and France, the impurity of the Oriental Studies as a discipline is always obvious. Ideological analysis and the criticism of political power are the manifest characteristics of Said’s Orientalism.

For years, the political overtones in Orientalism is evident, Orientalism is actually an ideological science which involves economics, politics and sociology in its historical evolution. It comes from its intimacy between Britain and France, as a cultural and political fact, it reveals the distinction between the Orient and the Occident and expresses the way the Occident controls the Orient. Orientalism guarantees the superiority of western developed countries over eastern developing countries.

The Orient is an entity of real geography, history and culture, it is not imaginary. Orientalism studies not only the artificial consistency of concepts, but also the structure of power and forces. Cultural hegemony is an important element in the studies, Orientalism is established on the basis of Western consciousness, this kind of discourse is under the control of the transformation and evolution of political power, academic power, cultural power, ethnical power, etc.. Scholars or writers are westerners, their viewpoint is western, the Orientalism is inevitably westernized, Orientalism became a part of western civilization, in which the relationship between the imperialism and the culture is playing a dominant role. Due to political considerations and economic benefits, due to the understanding of the Orient, the Occident entrusted itself the right to interfere in Eastern affairs. So the center of power can transform the knowledge into more power through the control of the Orient, the colonization. The internal relations of colonial hegemony and colonial discourse and the connection between academic studies and political elements in Orientalism become more and more intense due to the superposition of the historical events.

Said thinks this kind of Orientalism is a failure, his Orientalism has a significance of enlightenment, he supports multiculturalism, as to him, the confidence and the subjectivity of the Orient should be established fairly, the Occident should rethink profoundly their colonial oppression of the East. Then the understanding between Eastern and Western people and their cultures will be enhanced and from this perspective, Orientalism will definitely contribute to the world peace.

Different from Death of The Author of Roland Barthes who believes the reader, not the author, creates the meaning of a text, the very idea of an author is a fiction invented by the reader, Foucault analyzed the notion and the function of an author from an entirely different viewpoint.

Foucault limited the subject of “author” in this article, he admitted that he would only talk about “author” in the domain of discourse, but this topic is still immense—more than the literature, a theory, discipline, or tradition could all be included. There always exist a certain number of signs referring to the author. The inevitable discussion about the relationship between the author and his work indicates the importance of the author should be emphasized. A work could be called as “work” because it is created by a person who is accepted as “author”, all the same time, a work should be distinguished clearly from other written records by the author, like his memo or shopping list.

Foucault started from this phrase “What does it matter who is speaking”, this indifference is an immanent characteristic of contemporary writing, which is nowadays not limited to the dimension of expressions. The rules and limits of writing are not that important, the space created by writing is the essence. As for the relationship between writing and death, this point reminds me of the debate between Derrida and Searle—writing is a means of perpetuating thoughts and signs in the absence of the receiver and the writer, the iterability and the permanence are inherent characteristics of writing. Writing could be immortal linked to sacrifice, then the author will be “killed”, the existence of author’s individuality will be effaced.

I take the function of the author’s name as a part of author-function. Foucault believes a proper name is not only a pure or simple reference as an indication of someone, it has other indicative functions—the equivalent of a description. I agree with this argument, the author should be the one of a series of descriptions, but name is not the only signifier to the identity of an author, there may exist other people who have the same name; or the author can use a penname instead of his real name. As to me, name is important but not without limitations. Sometimes, author’s name makes things complex. However, the connection between the work and the author—this particular person—is not negligible. The work and the author’s name have a mutual influence on each other: if a discourse has an author’s name, a certain status of this discourse is hence established, this discourse is differentiated from ordinary everyday speech; a popular work makes his author famous; the work of a famous author is more well-known than most of other anonymous writings. This reminds me another example: last month, a Chinese writer Mo Yan won Nobel Award in Literature, his dull works written years ago were dug out and become popular, even some commodities rushed on to the front to register “Mo Yan” as the trademark. The name’s social function enlarges because of the fame effect.

About one of the four characteristics of the author function which I think is the most important one—it does not affect all discourses in the same way at all times and in all types of civilization, the author function is not always constant or universal. The dependability of the existence of the work’s author is variable, people are used to accept a work with the inventor’s name, especially for the literary discourses, but it’s not that important in the scientific sphere, author’s name is just a demonstration of their authenticity.

The author function is not just limited to his work. Foucault indicated Max and Freud as the example in the following part of the article. They are the creator or initiator of a theory or a literary analysis, they bring a variety of possibilities. Here, I’d like to mention “intertextuality”, a typical case for this argument. Freud’s theory could be cited as reference in other author’s work; a number of critical approaches to literature draw inspiration from the social and economic theories of Karl Marx, Marxism is propagated and applied in many countries. From this reason they could be called “founders of discursivity”, because they produce the possibilities of differences and the rules for the formation of other texts and theories. The “return to the origin” of the discourse could avoid the subsequent formal or theoretical transformations, at the same time, this “return” reinforces the connection between the author and the work.

After all these arguments about author-function, at last, Foucault stated again “what difference does it make who is speaking?” to illustrate the possibility of anonymity, “it does not seem necessary that the author function remain constant in form, complexity and even in existence.” (119). It’s interesting to notice this point, it is not contradictory, as to me, it is a good way to corroborate his own argument: Foucault—the author of What Is an Author put forward other possibilities for relevant or even disputable opinions and arguments on his work.

How should we define a good man? A man who abides by the law and doesn’t commit any crimes? A man of regligion who believes in God sincerely? A man who has good manners and be responsible to his family? As a matter of fact, there does not exist a standard for us to define what the “good” is. The law and regulations are external constraints put on people’s social activities, to some extent, religion has the same function for people who have religious belief. Everyone has his hidden sins, A Good Man Is Hard to Find reveals that people are utterly ignorant of the nature of crime, at the same time, it really is a story of weird and darkness.

The grandmother tried to behave good-hearted and she thought herself of integrity and righteous with a sense of responsibility. In fact, she is a hypocritical and selfish person, a stupid grumbler. She hoped everything can lead to a result she wanted, to attain the goal, she even fabricated lies to bring her grandkids to the lure then forced her son to drive back to the old plantation which resulted directly in the tragedy. She reminded her son not drive too fast, she is law-abiding because she was afraid there were patrolmen hiding nearby. When she saw a little black boy standing in the door of a shack, she explained with a sense of superiority the reason that he had no pants and she had an aesthetic feeling that she would like to paint the miserable scene in a picture, the grandmother is actually a heatless person without the sympathy inside her. Her love for the life and her sincerity for God are just based on her benefit not being harmed.

The Misfit, the degenerate angel used to be a gospel singer, those unfair penalties on him made him disappointed with God and life. He looked well-mannered and soft-spoken, but he is cruel and he has a quick insight into character. He noticed the grandmother was indulged in her strong self-satisfaction and expansion that she needed some lesson at the cost of blood to sober her. “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”(page 133) He thought more deeply about the religion and God than grandmother, although the latter was the one who persuaded him to pray and do not harm to her. The Misfit give himself this name, he is the incarnation of Satan, he said God made everything off balance, so did he. As to him, killing people makes no difference with stealing a type, the reason he killed people or set fire to others’ house is he wanted to testify whether God can raise the dead, he has confusion about the significance of religious beliefs. At last, he said “there is no real pleasure in life”, he didn’t grandmother’s death as fun, he knew clearly the meaning of violence and death, this makes him look a little bit reasonable, he was not a psycho, he was trying to help people realize their own sins. That’s another bizarre and satirical part of this story.

Another important point in the story is different values of three generations. The grandmother is a person with old-fashioned values, she tried to educate her grandkids with the declining southern traditional values, apparently, that doesn’t work. She focuses on appearance and external politeness, her exquisite dress has another function, “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(page 118). Those values are hollow and somehow meaningless. As for her son and her daughter-in-law, they are apathetic to their life, there is a lack of communication between them and their family, in the society of high-speed industrialization, materialism causes people to forget spiritual values, to choose an silent, insensitive attitude to their life. John and June, the third generation, judge things by the standards of money amount, “She won’t stay at home for a millions bucks.”(page 118), ”I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!”(page121) and June said she would never marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday, etc.. Lacking of the sense of right and wrong, good and evil, they felt regretful there was nobody killed in the accident, material and adventurous desires are the biggest characteristic of this generation. The cohesion of family is destroyed quietly, the alienation and estrangement are obvious, the modern American society is in an ethical crisis, O’Connor tried to awake people’s consciousness from this crisis through the analysis of the essence of those abnormal phenomena and severe problems in her works.

First, from the example of Althusser’s interpellation,we know subjects could be attained a certain order of social existence because of the force of the law, an indifferent being could be transferred to the discursive or social domain. Butler argues there persists a relation of misrecognition between the law and the subject it compels and the distance or slippage between discursive command and appropriated effect. Butler believes every subject is kind of ambivalent, so there exists a possibility of subversion. That’s why Butler believes there are possibilities for the resignification of sex.

Butler analyzed Is Paris Burning of hooks on the basis of the documentary film. Butler thought a sense of defeat and a sense of insurrection coexist in the drag pageantry in. hooks raised the question whether the cultural location of the filmmaker is absent from the film, Butler thinks neither Livingston nor hooks considers the place and force of ethnicity in the articulation of kinship relations. Camera is empowered as phallic instrument to help arise transsexualization and transubstantiation, Livingston is the one who controls the camera, she has the power and ability to help those balck gay men become women. Butler said hooks questioned the validity of this film, because we don’t even know the real life of those queer people in the film, they seem no connection to the world out of drag houses. Anyway, this is a film shaped from a perspective and standpoint specific to Livingston, she decided what scenes to be filmed. Butler agrees with hooks that there is always a unmarked white gaze in the film. Butler found hooks neglected those light-skinned people in the film, not only those black gay people have an aspiration of transubstantiation into an idealized femininity and the status of whiteness.

Butler thought Paris Is Burning expressed a cultural reelaboration of kinship, the ball and the houses are a set of kinship relations, a social and discursive building of community. The resignification of the family by the reiterations of those terms “mother” and ”house” and an appropriation of dominant norms represents and realizes the kinship relations between those people in the “marginalized cultural” background in Paris Is Burning.

Butler deemed there is no necessary relation between drag and subversion, even though drag ball seems like a way of subversive behavior, the drag itself is a site of a certain ambivalence, a site of idealized identification as well. In the film, the denaturalization of gender and race has been realized, the differentiation between different genders and races has disappeared. Heterosexuality still plays a dominant role in their inner center, it’s the “cause” of lesbian desire, their expressions and behaviors of homosexuality come from the abjection and failure—a mask of heterosexuality, which is ambivalent itself. Different from the viewpoint of hooks, Butler places emphasis on the authenticity and possibility of the transsexualization of those people in the film. As to Butler, their identity is not determined by their physiological attributes, there are norms governing the intelligibility of sex, their conscious, the drag all give us the hint their gender is not easy to be defined. The drag has a force of symbolic reiterations, like the example of “name” or the “I”, it seems they change the way we see ourselves. But I have reservations about this opinion, I believe the objective fact–the body is undoubtably the determinant of who we are, our gender won’t be materialized by the dress nor the temperament, and the gender is always stable.

As one of the most influential cultural works, Paris Is Burning chronicles the ball culture of New York City at the time – the flamboyant gay and trans-gendered party scene peopled largely by young, poor and dispossessed blacks and Latinos. In the pursuit of fun and escapism, it seems like every race or minority group has its ethnicity and a sense of pride. Indeed, this film also involves serious issues and pressures about race, class, gender and poverty in contemporary America, they are both progressive and reactionary, it is also the topic we should notice today.

Sexism should be the first step to deal with racism. The proposition of feminism has a wide range, it’s comprehensive—not only genders, but also race, religion, ethnics, etc. After thousands years of patriarchy, people are afraid that matriarchy would replace patriarchy, they criticize and hold opposite opinions on feminism, that’s because they do not understand feminism at all. Feminism does not mean a gender dominate the other, the ultimate goal of the feminist is peaceful gender coexistence. The reason why a lot of people consider themselves as “feminists” is nothing more than the anger of gender discrimination, or for reasons of their own gender, their interests are jeopardized, this is quite a natural thing, because anger is an instinctive reaction, but the anger does not mean that you are a feminist. In my opinion, because of certain physiological vulnerability, it is difficult for female to overcome male in many areas, female leaders are always in the minority. What I’ve said is a longstanding phenomenon, on this basis, we’d better make a change. Feminists advocate women should have economic independence, substantial mind, sexual autonomy, etc., gender and right equality is the main purpose. As to bell hooks, that’s not enough. We can find bell hooks is a special feminist because she doesn’t even want any capitals in her name, it’s a way to express her essential connection with female ancestors.

When watching the film 《Paris is burning》 in the cinema, she could always feel the sorrow and pain in dramatic scenes which seemed “entertaining”, while white folks in the audience take pride in their way of life of ruling-class patriarchal white culture. She argues Livingston does not have a universal and profound recognition about black gay subculture in the white supremacist, or she would rather not demonstrate her cultural standpoint or talk about her real opinion on this phenomenon, her comments and interview do not convey any serious thought about either the political or aesthetic implications of her film. hooks deems appearing black gay men in drag or transsexualism is a symbol of powerlessness, black men are not allowed full access to patriarchal power, so they show their misogynist masculinity through the contempt for the black female and black gay men, they even help sustain sexism and racism in the society, the ritual and pageant of the entertaining dramatic display show their willingness to approach white culture, although in the cultural backdrop of sexual equality, she takes it as an experience as retrograde. She also thinks this movie implies black people have a sense of worship at the throne of whiteness, the obsession of black men with an idealized vision of femininity is totally personified by whiteness.

Is the femininity most adored should be the exclusive property of white womanhood? Then what should black female do? Meekly accept and bear humiliations? bell hooks thinks the feminist movement is radical, “consciousness-raising” is the first step towards feminism, we must have a profound reflection on “sexism”, even if some consciousness, the lack of criticism of patriarchy makes it still very difficult to talk about substantial progress. Everyone should break through illusions, confront reality and enhance his capacity to live more fully in a world beyond fantasy.

Technological reproducibility has brought a serious of changes in the domain of art, the transformation of art is, in a large extent, promoted by the development of technology, modern artworks are now endowed with new modes, features and values along with the destruction of traditional specificities.

I noticed that “aura” is a keyword in this article, it plays an important role in Benjamin’s theories. The aura of traditional artworks has three characteristics:

1.Authenticity: the here and now. No matter in which way technological reproduction being accomplished, technological reproduction does not have the authenticity of the original. It is not the one and only object in that specific circumstance.

On one hand, the independence of technological reproduction jeopardizes and devalues the here and now of artwork; on the other hand, its independence seems superior to the nature of authenticity, it detaches the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition, it also helps the original to reach recipients in their won situation. Anyway, authenticity of artwork is irreplaceable, it’s the essential reason and the most important aspect to the aura of the original.

2. The value of cult. The earliest artworks have their basis in ritual, magical or religious function of artworks is always a part of the aura. Because of this traditional artistic concept, repetition or similarity have always been seen as a despised artistic creation, pastiche is often contemplated as a mediocre performance and creativity recession, suffered taunts. With the development of the history and art, this function of worship gradually reduces, but it has always been associated with the production and appreciation of the work of art, just become unconscious from consciousness. Technological reproducibility separates artworks from its parasitic obedience to ritual and its basis in cult, the mystique of artwork is dispelled by numerous reproductions. It is an important driving force behind the destruction of the aura. The artistic function revealed at last, the social function of art is revolutionized.

Besides, the shift of two poles in the artwork itself—cult value and exhibition value—one increases while the other one weakens is a getting increasingly distinct with the development of technological reproducibility.

3. A strange tissue of space and time. The third characteristic is linked closely to the two above characteristics, the distance of space and time comes from the uniqueness and the value of cult of artworks, the distance from the present-day to “the here and now” underlines the uniqueness and permanence of the original. There always exists inaccessibility to the work of art because of this distance.

With the passage of time, the annihilation of the aura is inevitable, Williams cherished regret for the disappearance of the aura, but he has taken a more positive perspective on an inevitable historical change—the renewal of original.

Then, I’d like to talk about film, the seventh art—the integration of other six arts—literature, drama, music, sculpture, painting and architecture. It’s unsurprising that Benjamin takes film as the representative of technological reproducibility, the first art form whose artistic character is entirely determined by its reproducibility, the artwork most capable of improvement. Film is closely associated with technological advancements—after the Industrial Revolution, technologies have made astonishing progress—photography, montage, lighting, synchronism, dubbing, even the apparition of 3D. As the most interpenetration of reality with equipment, filmmaking is highly significant in the realm of artworks and the relation between the masses and the art.

However, progressive factors of technological reproduction have not caused sufficient attention; on contrary, it often lead to people’s misunderstanding, and even some degree of hostility. Benjamin’s close friend, the famous scholar of the Frankfurt School, Adorno, thinks that the cultural industry of technology-based replication always meets the needs of consumers, it is prescribed by the community, the consumer is always just the object of the cultural industry. Adorno argues that film inhibits the subjective creativity and imagination of the audience, technological reproduction will hinder people from understanding the world. In my opinion, that sort of criticism is biased. They completely oppose reproduction to creation. In fact, in today’s society, reproduction and creation are not inconsistent or contradictory. Nowadays, cinematography has become mature, an increasing number of excellent films are appreciated by the audience. Technological reproducibility of films leads to profound changes in the way we think about this world and our life, it has a tremendous influence on our apperception of the relation between reality and fiction, the masses and the art are now closely connected by the film.

Culture is ordinary, in the society and individual mind. Williams summarized the nature of culture: both traditional and creative; it’s both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. Culture has two senses: a whole way of life; the arts and learning, and Williams insisted on the significance of their conjunctions.

Williams raised his arguments by objecting to Marxists and Leavis：The Marxists indicated that culture is class-dominated, it is restricted to a small class and being passively accepted by the masses. Williams gave strong backing to working people, he argued that the culture in the great working-class political and industrial institutions is the best basis for English society. Leavis thought through education, we can maintain the finest individual values to resist the new vulgarity brought by Industrial Revolution. However, Williams emphasized that Industrial Revolution changed certain social and political modes and values, we can’t deny its satisfactory results and its influence on the working people.

The art and learning should be available to everyone in the society, everyone can have an interest in learning or the arts, culture is the product of a man’s whole committed personal and social experience. At the same time, Williams distinguished the ordinary people and the masses (mob, sometimes ignorant, low in taste and habit). The way of saying of “popular culture” replaces “mass culture”.

The content conveyed by the mass media is always the representation of culture? Williams held a rejection on this opinion. What influence will it bring to the public? The equation between popular education and commercial culture is always changeable in different historical periods, it’s not a true guide to the present state of mind.

Actually, Williams wants to establish “a democratic common culture”, a working- class culture, which contains the fundamental and common social process and practical significance, it stands for the interest and social status of working class. The hierarchy of culture has been removed and the distance between culture and people’s life has been reduced, the sphere of culture will be enlarged, culture represents the various elements of the entire lifestyle. Values and creativity of the ordinary people will be acknowledged, not only those so-called cultivated people or scholars. Then Williams drew a conclusion that the culture is expanding, “common culture” reflects the diversification of culture, the pluralism.

I remember a phrase: “A child should be exposed to culture at an early age.” From a traditional standpoint, it means children should read earlier, get the hang of art, go to museums or a concert as early as possible. Does this phrase still make sense to Williams? First, educational opportunity can be taken equally by everyone in every social stratum; if culture is ordinary, We can find culture everywhere, a child will notice and deliberate every detail in his living environment and his way of life, culture is indispensable to his everyday life, or we can say, culture is life, it’s not an independent art or learning, then children can experience its modes of change, there doesn’t exist anymore the way of saying: ”Children should be exposed to culture as early as possible.” Bring the children to a concert or a museum at an early age can be seemed as just a part of culture infiltration.

The definition of “culture” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary has different classifications, the first one is “way of life”, then “art/ music/ literature”, then “beliefs/ attitudes”. I’ve been thinking about a question about culture and civilization, to distinguish their literal notion, I looked up “civilization”–a society, its culture and its way of life during a particular period of time or in a particular part of the world. Does this mean the sphere of civilization is larger than culture? They both need specific social circumstance to develop, to change, since the definition of culture has changed, will it bring any literal or practical changes to civilization?