Exploring Literary Theory

I say this every November and April, but I can’t believe that it is already the end of the semester! I learned a lot in this course – I have never done a “just theory” course and my favourite part was to learn about how theorists interact with each other; a lot of their work establishes a dialogue between each of their separate arguments, either by the way some expand on other’s work and include other perspectives, to moments of complete disagreement. The most interesting – and difficult – part for me was to develop my own critical stance as I read these discussions, either for the purposes of writing the two assignments of the course or when reading each week’s readings and trying to synthesize them in my notes or simply trying to state my own argument of the week’s theme in my own words. I think this is something that will always be the hardest part for me, and something to work on especially as I work on my thesis.

My favourite weeks were the ones that discusses film studies and cultural studies – I can’t tell for sure if I liked these most because they are the ones that are on my mind a lot as I’m writing my thesis (and these topics are very relevant for that purpose) or because it is that I find film and culture studies interesting that I chose to do my thesis in that area; this is a the-chicken-or-the-egg problem that I’m not too concerned about because at the end of the day it has led to me having more readings and perspectives to consider as I’m writing my thesis and in my books, that is a great thing. My research project analyzes the representation of the figure of the child and/or adolescent in works of literature and film that are set during the time of the Spanish Civil War literature but published or released between 1992 and 2013. I chose this time period as there are some very interesting discourses coming out of Spain in regards to how the Civil War should be examined and seen especially during and after the financial crisis of 2008 and I am very interested in these discussions. Thus, film studies as well as cultural studies represent an integral part of my project and I am very happy and grateful that I got the chance to deepen my knowledge of these topics, as well as many others of course, in this course. It was great to meet with  you all every week and go on this journey of exploring theoretical concepts together, and my thanks to all of you for the wonderful and stimulating discussions and to Prof. Beasley-Murray and Prof. Freilick for leading us through it all. A special thank-you to Prof. Beasley-Murray for the week on film, so interesting and useful!  

It was really interesting to consider the weight behind the term “culture” as I went through the readings this week. I think today, when someone employs the term in casual conversation, listeners definitely relate it to, as Rivkin and Ryan explain, “art, literature and […] music” (1233). However, I agree that a more profound and accurate definition definitely does include language and the arts, but also “the regularities, procedures, and rituals of human life in communities” (1233). To think of culture in this way, especially as we employ the term in speech, is more than to invoke associations with art; it really includes a lot more about the ways in which our societies are organized and structured. I also think it is very relevant to our studies to continue to keep in mind what we read and discussed last week in regards to language; language inherently carries a culture with it.

The excerpt that I found myself reflecting the most on this week was Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. I find this work very fascinating both because of how it jam-packs so many interesting concepts in a very succinct fashion, and also because of the historical context of this text is fascinating. I know that we are supposed to read text for text and not consider the historical context necessarily, but I think that in the case of Benjamin we simply cannot ignore what was happening in Europe at the time (of course, we should not let the historical context overshadow the text itself; I think it’s always just about maintaining a balance. Can we simply ignore the rise of fascism in Europe or the fact that Benjamin committed suicide in Portbou at the French-Spanish border, as he was being pursued by Nazi forces? I do think that we should take into account the context of the rise of fascism in Europe because there simply is no way that such an environment wouldn’t have an effect on society and on culture).

As I was reading the excerpt of Benjamin’s essay, I found myself thinking of different examples that I am familiar with and it really illuminated his arguments for me. For example, when he puts forth that “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownerships” (1235), I couldn’t help but think of Picasso’s Guernica and its journey from Paris to New York (MoMA) to Spain (its now permanent home is in its purpose-built gallery at the Museo Reina Sofia (Queen Sofia Museum) in Madrid). I think it is worth it to follow Benjamin’s train of thought as expressed in the above quotation and try to apply it to this specific case. Any reproduction of the Guernica will lack this unique existence of its changes in locality. (I’d love to be able to put up a photographic reproduction that I took myself when I was in Madrid this past summer, but you are not allowed to take photos of the Guernica, so I hope that an image off the Internet and my photos outside of the museum will have to do).

This is especially important taking into account Picasso’s insistence that the paining was not to be delivered to Spain (he painted it in Paris) until liberty and democracy would be established in the country. Today at the Museo Reina Sofia, you can buy anything and everything with the image of the Guernica on it (see some examples in the images below) , though I imagine one of the most well-known reproductions is the replica that is at the UN headquarters in New York.

Created by Picasso after the indiscriminate bombing of the Basque village of Guernika in Spain by the German Luftwaffe, this painting depicts the horrors of that bombing. Today it is largely seen on a broader scale as a painting depicting the horrors of war in general, which is why it is significant that the image was covered when Colin Powell had to make his declaration of war…otherwise he’d have delivered a speech on war with the image of the Guernica in the background. All of these changes in physical location of the painting are crucial to what it has come to stand for, and only the original work itself carries this aura, as Benjamin would term it.

Another example that came to my mind as I was reading this part of Benjamin’s article is the recent discovery (announced on November 5^th of this year!) in Munich of more than 1 400 pieces of art (including works by such artists as Otto Dix, Henri Matisse and Max Liebermann) that were confiscated by the Nazi for being “degenerate”. This history of disappearance for such a long time is now part of “the history to which [a work of art] was subject throughout the time of its existence”, as Benjamin explains it – and undoubtedly, the “various changes in its ownerships” is a story that is still unfolding as millions of claims are starting to pour in. As art professor Meike Hoffmann explained, this is an “emotional discovery” as many of the individuals who are putting forth claims are of an advanced age, some are very ill in their old age, and the German government is being criticized for not having revealed this discovery as soon as they made it last year – some of the rightful owners might have died in the time that the discovery was made public (and not by the government’s choice, but rather by being leaked in a German newspaper. When officials went to an art collector’s apartment to investigate some charges of tax fraud, they reportedly found the more than 1 400 pieces of art, and the German government now has to answer as to why it took them so long to make this discovery public so that the rightful possession process could have been started earlier. Please see this BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24818541 for more information).

I also think Benjamin’s concept of “situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic”, which he terms the “aestheticization of politics” is also very important. I think Benjamin was describing, at the time, what later historians’ studies have identified as one key ingredient of the Nazi regime in Germany – the way that art was employed in the mass rallies in order to create heightened frenzy; one of many examples would be the lighting techniques used at the rallies that really gave the impression of larger crowds than were actually in attendance. Similar in a way to Benjamin’s concept of the aura, I think that this is impossible to fully comprehend today, but I do think that Ottawa’s War Museum has the closet possible reproduction (in Benjamin’s terms) that I’ve come across in Canada. As Benjamin would highlight, this is impossible to reproduce in my blog post, but alas, I shall attempt it anyway. What the War Museum has is this one room that has nothing – and this is the important part – in it but a replica of one of Hitler’s cars of the era (Mercedes Benz limousine) in a solitary room; that is the only actual object in the room. What it does rather have on the walls is pictures of mass audiences at a Nazi rally and lights – the room is very dim and as you walk into the dark room and see the car, the manipulation of the lights really creates a feeling in the museum visitor of really being in the middle of a Nazi rally…really effectively demonstrating the way that, as Benjamin explains in his article, the regime aestheticized politics for their purposes.

Standing in that room creates one of the most eerie feelings that I’ve ever experienced in my life – my first instinct was to get out and do it right away, because I did not want to feel like an accomplice in that staged rally, as it can be conceptualized in one way – and I think that uncanny feeling is exactly what the exhibit wanted to create. It really powerfully demonstrates the aestheticization of politics that Benjamin talks about, and should you ever have a chance to visit the Museum of War in Ottawa, I definitely recommend it.

One of the things I found very interesting about all of this week’s readings was that they each presented a different focus and perspective on discussions of postcolonial and transnational studies. Loomba makes us reflect on what might be a use of terms that comes as second nature to us but that might also serve to propagate stereotypes (often without the intention or realization of doing so). Loomba also draws our attention to the very important distinction that not all counties that are technically in ‘post-colonial’ situations have the same experience of or relationship to the former colonizing nations, and that we must always remember that the meanings of terms such as colonialism and imperialism should be seen as fluctuating according to context and to situation.

Thiong’o puts forth a discussion that is extremely relevant to today’s academic practices, and one that rings a significant degree of similarity to discussions that sometimes surface in the country and at the university that we study at; I remember the Department of English discussion two to three years ago about making an Indigenous Studies course (either the Indigenous Foundations course, a First Nations studies course, or the 400-level English Lit course focused on First Nations literature) a requirement for an English major degree (I believe there was also a concurrent discussion about making a First Nations studies-focused course a requirement for the larger BA program as well). I’ve since graduated from the program, but taking a look at the UBC calendar, I can see that such requirements have not been implemented for either the BA or the English Lit major (the anthology’s introduction to this section is also very illuminating, and I am reminded of this as I type the name of the major).

What has been implemented, however, is an Aboriginal Rights and Treaties course at UBC’s Faculty of Law, as part of the students’ Constitutional Law training. While not related to our immediate study of literature or theory, I believe this example is important because the legal system is an integral – if not perhaps the most powerful – part of today’s society in Canada. It’s important to note that this change in the curriculum did not take place until 2012 (in the law school’s defense, it does a great reputation for its emphasis on teaching Aboriginal law and I think they should be praised for taking the lead on developing this requirement in order to make sure that the proper time is allotted for its study; my understanding is that studies of treaties were always included but different profs taught them at different points in the curriculum – this way everything is more solidified and the proper study time is guaranteed. Hopefully more law schools in Canada will follow UBC’s example as one can’t help but wonder how law students can learn about constitutional law and not discuss treaties). For a complete explanation of how and why the law school did this, please see the following article: http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/4315/UBC-making-aboriginal-law-course-mandatory.html.

I also found Bhaha’s discussion of the ambivalence and mimicry as part of the larger explanation of how colonialism works very interesting, and McClintock’s framing of her argument around Benjamin’s concept of the Angel of History was very fitting. However, the excerpt that I was interested in this week was Said’s “Jane Austen and Empire,” because of the way that he used Mansfield Park as an example that stretched forth his arguments. It was very interesting to read a discussion of one of Jane Austen’s works not in the usual realm where one can find her work discussed, such as the use of satire, the social novel, treaties on the role and position of women in English society, etc. – but within a discussion of colonialism. Of course, this has a lot to do with Said’s point – how Western discourse often underwrote colonial policy and licensed further imperial undertakings. I read Mansfield Park quite a few years ago and can remember almost nothing of the 1999 film production that I saw at the time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW1iLzHeG1s), but when recalling the basic plot of the novel when I saw Said’s mention of it, I did remember that Sir Thomas’ absence was explained as due to him having to ‘look after business affairs’ in Antigua.

Said’s mention of the fact that we never see Sir Thomas in Antigua – as in, there is never a moment of dialogue or any scene set there – is very interesting; I don’t remember this striking me as odd when reading the novel, as Austen’s works are so focused on the microcosm of the English estate and the furthest places from the estate that are ever depicted are the locations of seasonal stays. However, the fact that this didn’t strike me as odd really is indicative of how the entire apparatus works; both these affluent estates and other seasonal homes are sustained by the exploitation taking place in Antigua (in this case). The article’s tracing of how domestic and international authority are joined by Austen is well-established. The example of how when Sir Thomas returns to the estate, he immediately ‘fixes everything’ also presents an implication that he engaged in the same action in Antigua, and therefore, advances the view that ‘there’s nothing he can’t fix’ is very crucial (in my opinion) to Said’s article. It is for such reasons that Mansfield Park and perhaps others of Austen’s novels are so interesting to subject to Said’s analysis – precisely because they would not be the first example that comes to mind.

Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera” really made me think of the inseparable bond between language and identity. Perhaps this is not surprising as it is one of the main topics of the excerpt – and it is even reflected at the linguistic level of the text itself; English is interspersed with Spanish and concrete examples flood the pages (“The first time I heard two women, a Puerto Rican and a Cuban, say the word ‘nosotras,’ I was shocked. I had not known the word existed. Chicanas use ‘nosotros’ whether we’re male or female. We are robbed of our female being by the masculine plural” 1023).

I really think that Anzaldua’s argument about language as a foundational tenet of identity is spot-on; and her discussion of the colonial past in North and Latin America immediately made me think of Orwell’s famous point that if one really wants to oppress a people, then you oppress their language. There are many examples of this in history, in all parts of the world – although obviously no two situations are the same and cannot be compared at face value, but some of the ones that immediately come to my mind is the censure of euskera under the Franco dictatorship in Spain, (1939 to 1965) the banning (and subsequent corporal punishment if it was spoken) of First Nations languages in the Canadian Residential System, the prohibition of speaking the Welsh language in schools in Wales, etc. To this end, the portion of Anzaldua’s text that most stands out to me as I’m thinking about the intrinsic connection between language and identity is the following:

Chicanos did not know we were a people until 1965 when Ceasar Chavez and the farmworkers united and I Am Joaquin was published and la Raza Unida party was formed in Texas. With that recognition, we became a distinct people. Something happened to the Chicano soul – we became aware of our reality and acquired a name and a language (Chicano Spanish) that reflected that reality. (1029)

I find this section of the essay to be very important because it nicely sums up the connection between a lot of the cultural elements that Anzaldua discusses at other points in her essay, namely literature and music and the way that language is such an integral part of identity; following Anzaldua’s writing in this section, it can be inferred that once this consciousness of the distinct Chicano identity developed, what was crucial in cementing it was to acquire a name and a language that reflected the reality of the people (and the concept of a name is, of course, inherently dependent on the concept of language, underscoring the significance of language once again).

Maybe I still have last week on my mind, but as I was reading this article, I kept thinking back to one of the best movies that I have seen recently on the question of Latino identities in the United States; in this case the movie touches on the specific issues of immigration. Rather than give the plotline away, I instead leave you with the trailer and highly recommend that you watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaLSBdL-zCY

I’ve always been fascinated by the world of film and the film industry, and I think this is in largely in part to the ways in which it overlaps with literature and storytelling. The one thing I believe more than anything about the process of filmmaking (and I am by no means no type of authority on this, I am only speaking from modest experience being around filmmakers) is that a captivating, masterpiece type of movie needs one thing at its core – a necessary and arguably also sufficient condition: a good story. The tenacity with which I believe this is probably what attracted me most to Sarris’ article on auteur theory as the reading to focus on for this blog entry. I think that in a lot of people’s minds a good story is equated with a good director i.e. a director who is capable of putting forth a good story – and in the rarest of cases a director who is also the writer of the story. Those people (and it’s often a matter of counting them on one hand, really, because I think directing and writing are pretty separate skills and when someone does possess them both…I find that truly amazing in a wonder-filled way). Sarris points out that “Marlon Brando has shown us that a film can be made without a director,” a statement from a point of view that I understand and to a certain extent agree with (Kubrick missed out), but One-Eyed Jacks also features an action-packed story that lends itself very well to Brando’s on-screen persona.

Essentially, Sarris lays out three premises of auteur theory:

(1)   The technical competence of a director

(2)   The distinguishable personality of the director

(3)   The interior meaning – “the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art”

He explains that these three premises may be visualized as three concentric circles: the outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the inner circle, interior meaning. He also specifies that the corresponding roles of the director may be designated as a technician, a stylist, and an auteur, and that there is no prescribed course by which a director passes through the three circles. I believe that the third circle is the one that resonates on the most concrete level with audiences. I thought Sarris’ argument that auteur theory itself “is a pattern theory in constant flux” (453) was particularly insightful, because as several of the readings for this week highlighted, one of the characteristics that sets film apart is its rapid pace – this allows it to connect to audiences in a unique and defining way. This pace, existing within the universe of rapid technological development, will undoubtedly affect the ways in which stories are told. I can see the connections between the directors on Sarris’ list of auteurs (Ophuls, Renoir, Mizoguchi, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Ford, Welles, Dreyer, Rossellini, Murnau, Griffith, Sternberg, Eisenstein, von Stroheim, Buñuel, Bresson, Hawks, Lang, Flaherty, and Vido) and I’d add Spielberg to it as well! I think his technical competence, personality, creation of interior meaning and flare for storytelling is a great example of ways in which the carrying out of auteur theory strikes a chord with audiences.

Here is a scene from E.T. (the infamous ‘ride in the sky’) that I think functions well when considered in conjunction with auteur theory: you can see the technical competence, Spielberg’s distinguishable personality (probably most notably through his characteristic use of the trope of childhood in telling a story; it’s not only the boys and the little girl who are kids, but E.T. is also a child, albeit an extraterrestrial one) and the “glory of the cinema as an art” as it’s not just bikes soaring at this point in the movie, but usually the audience’s smiles too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1-UFrcZ0k

And a bonus that I think also works as a good illustration:

Landing Scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The article that I found most interesting this week was Judith Halberstam’s “Female Masculinity,” maybe because I had never read this text before, and also I like that it comes from a 1998 book (relatively recent). I found her argument that “what we understand as heroic masculinity has been produced by and across both male and female bodies” to be very interesting, and when coupled with the pop culture examples she gave, also very convincing. I had never thought about the construction of masculinity as a phenomenon that is so intrinsically linked with alternative masculinities; as Halberstam explains, “masculinity becomes legible as masculinity where and when it leaves the while male middle-class body” (936) and “the shapes and forms of modern masculinity are best showcased within female masculinity” (936). What I also found very interesting was her assertion that “although we seem to have a difficult time defining masculinity, as a society we have little trouble in recognizing it” (935) – as I read this, I found myself nodding along.

What I would have liked from the article, however (and maybe this is not a valid criticism as it is important to keep in mind that what we read are excerpts and not the entire text) is a closer definition of what exactly we do identify as masculinity, because after reading the excerpt, I still don’t feel as if this question is clear in my mind. I thought the examples of Don Juan and James Bond in Goldeneye (1995) were indeed helpful, especially the more fleshed-out example of James Bond. I found it effective that Halberstam not only pointed out that without his ‘toys’ and equipment a lot of Bond’s masculine flair, if you will, vanishes, but that M, Moneypenny and Agent Q really represent more convincing models of masculinity – and it’s interesting to think of the latest Bond movie, Skyfall (2012) within this paradigm as well, because I think the argument in M’s case especially very much stands. This example was very effective to me as I was reading Halberstam’s argument, especially when she succinctly says that “the masculinity of the white male, what we might call ‘epic masculinity’, depends absolutely […] on a vast subterranean network of secret government groups, well-funded scientists, the army, and an endless supply of both beautiful bad babes and beautiful good babes, and finally it relies heavily on an immediately recognizable ‘bad guy’” (937). This explanation was very helpful as it related to the immediate context of Goldeneye, and as Halberstam pointed out, essentially all other Bond movies, but I would have also benefited from the article providing a broad definition of what exactly it identifies as ‘epic masculinity’ – what the article identified as something that we all have a hard time describing but something that we do quickly recognize. I look forward to furthering this discussion in class if we have time!

It seems especially fitting that our feminism week of readings falls at a time when some of the main news headlines are the one year anniversary of sixteen year old Malala Yousafzai’s shooting at the hands of the Taliban in Swat Valley in Pakistan (She was targeted for going to school, something the Taliban does not believe girls should do and also because of her family’s outspoken opinions on the importance of girls’ education – her dad was the head of the school that she attended. Just this week, the Taliban issued a new threat saying they will kill her. More information and different links can be found on her Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai) and Alice Munro being the first Canadian woman to win a Nobel prize in literature (she is the first Canadian citizen and only the 13^th woman to win the award; here is a link to her first post-award interview:  http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nobel-prize-win-was-totally-unexpected-alice-munro-says/article14850233/?service=mobile#!/

The line most pertinent of our readings this week is also my personal favourite line in the whole article: “[The local paper] called [Munro] a “shy housewife,” [her husband] recalled, and “boy was she ever mad”. It was also interesting that Mr. James Munro identified her as a “feminist before feminism was invented”).

I thought the readings that we were assigned provided a great overview of a complex and fluid phenomenon. As all of our readings underlined, ‘feminism’ is cannot be wholly encapsulated by a single definition or categorization. Hélène Cixous describes gender representation as an oppositional tradition in which women are portrayed as secondary to male rationalist principles and she argues that both men and women can take up the practice of what she calls ‘feminine writing’,  while Gayle Rubin provides what I find to be an extremely helpful explanation of the points of both connection and dissonance to the principles outlined by Marx, Engels and psychoanalytic theory, all the while arguing for us to push these theories further, define them more precisely, and pick up where they left off. Luce Irigaray focuses on the subordination of the feminine within the discourse of power by discussing the masculine idealizing tendency “that uses the feminine as a mirror for its own narcissistic speculations” (795), while Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar focus specifically on taking a look at the literary canon and argue that the majority of images of women in literature are really reflections of “negative energies and desires on the part of male writers” (812). Audre Lorde challenges the often cited homogeneity of women’s experience by stating the necessity of also taking into account “differences of race, sexual preferences, class and age” (855). She explains that it is not only a room of one’s own (in Virginia Woolf’s defense, financial independence for women and having the means to support yourself was a huge part of her argument as well) that a woman needs in order to produce fiction, but also “reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time” (855). Lorde also keenly underscores that differences between African-American women are being misnamed and used to separate the members of the community for one another, a practice that she identifies as a danger that must stop. Geraldine Heng provides a focus on the movement of liberation of women in Third World contexts, and she makes the poignant argument that feminist movements in the Third World have “almost always grown out of the same historical soil, and at a similar historical movement, as nationalism” (862). Heng also specifies that it is “a truism that nationalist movements have historically supported women’s issues as part of a process of social inclusion, in order to yoke the mass energy of as many community groups as possible to the nationalism cause (as cited in Anderson 1983). This wide variation speaks to me of the fluidity of the movement and of the need that it constantly has to adapt to political and social circumstances – and I don’t believe that this is a need that belongs only to feminism; I rather believe that this is the principal technique that a movement manages to stay relevant and useful; this grassroots connection to the ones it aims to empower is absolutely crucial in my opinion.

As someone who has always found the link between literature and politics fascinating, I really enjoyed the variety in this week’s readings and after completing them I find myself thinking the most about the arguments Žižek puts forward in his discussion of “Fantasy as a Support of Reality”. This short section is not only very relevant to how we confront and approach texts as human beings that function in a larger world with many active political pressures, but also how we approach political discourse – which in my opinion, largely affects our world. I liked that Žižek opened the discussion with a clarification of the fact that when Lacan states that the last support of what we identify as “reality” is a fantasy, we should not understand this in the sense of life being “just a dream” or of the opinion that “what we call reality is just an illusion” (722) – he rather carefully identifies that it is only in the dream that we “come close to the real awakening – that is, to the Real of our desire” (722). Žižek then draws a parallel between this type of dream if it can be termed that, and how it is that only in the dream do we approach the fantasy framework which determines our activity, and the ideological dream.

I think the crux of his thesis is best expressed in his explanation of “the determination of ideology as a dreamlike construction hindering us from seeing the real state of things, reality as such”. What I find to be his biggest contribution to this discussion is, however, when he takes a rather different stance than the “free your mind” one that I think invades so many discourses in the present-day; it is easy enough to utter these saying convincingly, but concrete measures for that purpose seem to be much harder to articulate by their proponents. This is where I find Žižek’s explanation (and his use of manifestations of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s in Germany) most useful, productive, and a very significant contribution to this type of discussion. He explains that:

“In vain do we try to break out of the ideological dream by ‘opening our eyes and trying to see reality as it is,’ by throwing away the ideological spectacles as the subjects of such a post-ideological, objective, sober look, free of so-called ideological prejudices, as the subjects of a look which views the facts as they are, we remain throughout ‘the consciousness of our ideological dream”

(722)

I think it is precisely this point that often gets forgotten or neglected in this type of discourse, and that might have something to do with the fact that it is by no means an easy issue to tackle – just how can we go about truly “breaking out” then? I am hoping that maybe talking this over with some other members of the class later on today when we meet might make for some interesting discussion on this very complex and germane topic!

The reading that I found most interesting from this week’s set was Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’”. This is undoubtedly because I really enjoy literature and Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favourite American authors; it had been years since I read “The Purloined Letter” so I grabbed a copy of it from the library to re-fresh my memory, and what I enjoyed the most was getting to read Lacan’s seminar on it after reading it, as I had never been exposed to it before. Significantly, to me, this seminar is such an excellent example of what I am always struggling to do when writing a paper in grad school; establishing this sound link between the work of literature and whatever it is that we call theory  (when I was completing my undergraduate degree, the framework of my literature papers, both for Spanish and English courses, always consisted of my thesis, the corresponding supporting arguments, and the integration of outside secondary sources, but these were articles on the texts that themselves incorporated theory, but the application was never initiated by me; however, I do believe that while I was writing these papers, I was obviously putting together my own implied “theory”; I just didn’t always pause to think about school of thought it belonged to).

However, having read Lacan’s seminar, I feel like I have a good model of what I should at some point be able to do; it is very well-integrated with Poe’s story and Lacan carries out a thought-provoking analysis that he lays out in a manner that to me seemed reminiscent of a litigator’s argument in court; he pretty much walked us through the plot of the story and pulled out instances and examples that he essentially used as evidence to advance his arguments. I also thought that what the introduction highlighted was also very key and very interesting, especially the discussion on how the crux of the problem lies in the ambiguity of the term “letter” in Lacan’s analysis, because I believe that this notion is absolutely central to the way one reads Lacan’s work. Is a typographical character or is it an epistle? I also don’t think that that we should view it simply as a rationalization that the story is told to us as a police mystery; I believe that this is rather indicative of the overarching idea that messages belong to the fluid dimension of language and they cannot always be taken at face value. Just as Lacan explains, the dialogue between the police prefect and Dupin, being played out as between a deaf man and one who hears, demonstrates that an act of communication may “give the impression at which theorists too often stop: of allowing in its transmission but a single meaning, as though the highly significant commentary into which he who understands integrates it, could, because unperceived by him who does not understand, be considered dull” (47). I think that while obviously the type of analysis that Lacan lays out here lends itself very well to an author like Poe whose prose always contains a type of mysterious play and boundary-blurring, this is a valuable perspective to employ when reading several other types of works of literature as well.

One of the main reasons that I find reading Derrida’s work useful is that I find it to be a useful tool/way of thinking in navigating the many messages that we are confronted with in today’s world on a daily basis. At no previous time have we had the capacity to be bombarded with so many messages as we do today; just as I am writing this blog post I can hear CNN’s Outfront program in the background; the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen succinctly summarizes complex news stories from all around the world in phrases of just a few words; and I am just a few computer mouse clicks from a myriad of Internet sources should I want to find out about pretty much anything in the world (albeit the quality of such potential sources is also of a very varying spectrum). This is why I think the practice of deconstruction is very valuable in today’s world as well; listening to a president’s speech or any other text for that matter is an exercise that is greatly enhanced if you are able to deconstruct it and identify the implications of signification that exist in speech (especially speech that is of a political nature).

I also find Derrida’s notion of ‘difference’ both interesting and useful; I like the clarification on page 258 of  ‘difference’ as the “simultaneous movement of temporal deferment and spatial difference” and the explanation that “ideas and things are like signs in language; there are no identities, only differences”. I also agree with the view that truth will always be incomplete as if all things are produced as identities by their differences from other things, then a complete determination of identity would require an endless inventory of relations to other terms in a potentially infinite network of differences. A little discouraging, perhaps, to think of truth as always incomplete, but I also think that it’s important to keep in mind that just because it may be incomplete, this does not equate truth to never existing – it cannot be simply something that we discard because it can never be completely captured. Perhaps it would be best to think of something that we have to strive to approximate as best as possible, while knowing that it does function as always incomplete. This is also a notion that I believe to be very important to keep in mind as we approach the many discourses that we are exposed to on a daily basis.