Men have gender too

After Antigone’s Claim this is a subject I’ve been (re)thinking of lately. For a period in the summer, I suppose it could be said I had a masculine identity crisis for a number of reasons, given that I am perhaps not the best exemplar of the (cultural) male archetype.

For my money, I find that the concepts of ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’ are often determined in opposition to one another; that is that ‘manhood’ is the opposite of ‘womanhood’ and vice versa. I prefer to think of it as the opposite of childhood, but that’s just me.

Anyway, I’m boring, so here are interesting media links on this topic instead:

What does it mean to be man, explored through hands.

Trailer for a film exploring Western ideals of masculinity, and why they are poisonous.

Go gentle into that good night

One thing that was on my mind all through Doctor Faustus was how Meph and Faustus act like they’re in love. From the oath:

“I, John Faustus of Wittenberg, Doctor, by these presents do give both body and soul to Lucifer, Price of the East, and his minister Mephastophilis…”

(Act II, Scene i, lines 105-107)

(Minor point: how can you give your body and soul to two different entities?)

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Goldilocks

Whenever I read I’m often struck by similarities to other things I’ve seen/heard and sometimes I laugh a little bit at these moments. The people around me are usually pretty used to the sight/sound of me laughing randomly and sometimes they ask me what’s up. In the absence of people being around me while I’m at home and insist on reading quietly, here are some random thoughts I had on Antigone and Antigone’s Claim.

1. RECENT: Taylor.

“Indeed, consciousness seeks a retrieval of itself, only to recognize that there is no return from alterity to a former self but only a transfiguration premised on the impossibility of return.” (Butler 14)

On that page of Antigone’s Claim, I have a sticky note reading “TS: ‘I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it’”. The quote is a line from a song, “All Too Well”,  which she wrote about a relationship which, to my best knowledge, lasted about three months. With that in mind, the song sounds very serious and very sad. Under the lyric is an arrow and my own note: “you can never really go back”. This whole discussion in Antigone’s Claim about trying to go back comes out of one of Butler’s commentaries on Hegel’s work, which are always confusing because like a lot of other people (I would think), I’ve never read Hegel’s analysis of Antigone. Sometimes I find myself in situations where I’m reading a critique of something that I never even knew existed.

A little bit of what I remember from our last seminar which reminded me of this note is Miranda talked about splitting and seeing past versions of ourselves as permanent, with reference to post-structuralism. Naturally, having a brain stuffed full of irrelevant bits and bobs, I brought up Horcruxes.

Naturally, since this post is supposed to be about Antigone, how does she relate to all this? Honestly, I don’t know. The idea of going back is the only thing that jumped out to me in a passage that was otherwise bamboozling and more than a little reminiscent of something else that came up during the seminar: the feeling that at points in Antigone’s Claim, Butler (figuratively) pulls aside a group of people with deeper knowledge and goes, “by the way, here’s this little offshoot of interesting stuff”.

So, I guess, a little tip for Taylor (in case that she hasn’t already figured this out for herself, which I doubt): It’s okay. You can’t go back. Things don’t un-happen.

 

2. ANCIENT: Elizabeth.

Also on page 14 of Antigone’s claim is a sticky note reading “EB Browning poem”. Rather, this poem. This is in reference to the mentions of Lacan’s idea of “pure Being” (Butler 14, 48). Going back to #1, I think the first time I ever saw this poem was in a commentary about how weird the concept of loving someone for no reason is. How do you do that? I guess it’s one of those ideas that I’ve dismissed with, “Give it some time. I’ll understand it when I’m older”. I’ve dismissed a lot of ideas like this. It’s worked before. Still waiting on this poem, though. Maybe I should go outside more often.

Of course, any thoughts about Elizabeth Barrett Browning are probably accompanied with some nod to this poem. I remember reading this for English 10. This poem makes more sense to me now. I also remember our English 10 teacher talking about how every time you go back to this poem, it has some new or deeper meaning. She was right about many things.

 

3. NEITHER TOO RECENT NOR TOO ANCIENT: Joni.

The opening of the second chapter discusses the importance of making Kreon’s declaration heard (Butler 27). I thought about this for a bit before adding a note on page 29, in comparatively cramped writing, about something I read once on Joni Mitchell’s Wikipedia page about her writing and giving up her daughter for adoption. I’m not going to quote it, because it doesn’t seem to be cited, but I did just spend some time digging this relevant bit up from one of her interviews:

“When my daughter returned to me, the gift kind of went with it. The songwriting was almost like something I did while I was waiting for my daughter to come back.” (from here)

I think it helped me interpret Antigone’s rash behaviour a little better: she doesn’t have her family to talk to, so she doesn’t mind if everyone knows what she’s doing.

 

In closing, here’s a music video I like, which is also sort of related to what we’ve been reading lately. Thanks for reading, everyone.

 

For Antigone

The Replacements – Androgynous

Here come Dick, he’s wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y’know she’s sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who’s gonna fuss

And they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous

Don’t get him wrong and don’t get him mad
He might be a father, but he sure ain’t a dad
And she don’t need advice that’ll center her
She’s happy with the way she looks
She’s happy with her gender

Mirror image, see no damage
See no evil at all
Kewpie dolls and urine stalls
Will be laughed at
The way you’re laughed at now

Now, something meets Boy, and something meets Girl
They both look the same
They’re overjoyed in this world
Same hair, revolution
Unisex, evolution
Tomorrow who’s gonna fuss
And tomorrow Dick is wearing pants
And tomorrow Janie’s wearing a dress
Future outcasts and they don’t last
And today, the people dress the way that they please
The way they tried to do in the last centuries 

Who is Antigone?

Antigone’s Claim was a really interesting read for me – I got the impression it might be a bit dry but I actually loved it! Although I didn’t entirely agree with all of Butler’s arguments, Antigone’s Claim raised some interesting questions/ideas for me, so here they are (in some kind of order …)

1. Did she or did she not have an incestuous thing for Polyneices? Butler strongly implies that she did, and Jill suggested in lecture yesterday that she did, but I’m still not 100% sure. I feel like maybe she just wanted all her brothers to be equal in death? This also brings up the question of whether she regarded Oedipus as something like a brother as well, which ties into my next idea.

2. What was her relationship like with Jocasta? She didn’t really have a ‘mother’ figure after she discovered the curse in the same way she didn’t have a ‘father’ figure. (In Antigone’s Claim, Butler says that Antigone means anti-generation, which relates to her having no clear parental figures.)

3. Ethics is discussed heavily here and I know it ties into Antigone’s whole decision making process and even more into that of Ismene. Having said that, I feel like it’s a bit of a different issue than the one we’re dealing with here – I think the term ‘ethics’ is very general and the problem here is more to do with morals. Then again, aren’t ethics and morals more or less the same thing?

4. I liked the idea of Antigone being ‘dead’ in life – it’s interesting. Just because she lived a life free of love and motherhood, does that mean she lived a life in which she was symbolically dead? I would argue that by defying Kreon and burying Polyneices, she made a name for herself and therefore will never truly be ‘dead’.

5. Homosexuality is discussed in the last chapter and I don’t know what it’s doing in this book. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

 

That’s all for now – I’m looking forward to discussing some of these things (among others) in seminar tomorrow and Friday!

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