It was quite unnerving to read Baudrillard I found, especially his notion of the “hyperreal” (366) which would lend itself well to explorations of films such as The Matrix. Baudrillard claims that symbols and signs have come to replace reality and meaning within our current society, and that human experience is now a ‘simulation’ of reality. I find his claims resonate entirely with a film I saw by Chris Marker entitled Sans Soleil. The film addresses issues concerning memory and what our memories actually consist of and whether the death of ‘real’ memory has come about because of the invention of new technologies such as film and the photograph. In the film, the narrator recounts:

“Brooding at the end of the world on my island of Sal in the company of my prancing dogs I remember that month of January in Tokyo, or rather I remember the images I filmed of the month of January in Tokyo. They have substituted themselves for my memory. They are my memory. I wonder how people remember things who don’t film, don’t photograph, don’t tape. How has mankind managed to remember? I know: it wrote the Bible. The new Bible will be an eternal magnetic tape of a time that will have to reread itself constantly just to know it existed.”

I think Baudrillard’s ideas relate entirely to the reader of the twenty-first century as we live in a society where so much emphasis is placed upon the importance of the aesthetic, and we tend to live so vicariously through film or image that our perception of the boundaries of our own reality can often become blurred and we find ourselves living a sort ‘simulation’ of ‘real’ life via a montage of borrowed realities from the media. We “consume signs of status” (365) such as cars and the latest technologies. Baudrillard’s idea of the automobile as the single gadget of solitude (360) also reminds me of another film; Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard, which is about a road trip undertaken by a couple who, on the way experience never ending traffic jams and car accidents. The road is often strewn with wreckages and bodies which they merely pass by, unnoticed and unfazed by the sight.  At one point one of the protagonists asks another driver if this is a film or real life, and when he replies that it is a film, he doesn’t believe him. This illuminates the idea that the media of the twenty first century has constructed a perceived reality and distorted the consumer’s perception of it.

I would like to finish with another line from Sans Soleil, which also always chills me as I think it reflects how intrusive and powerful the media has become, perhaps even without society realizing. The narrator is talking of the comic book heroes painted on the walls in Japan: “And the giant faces with eyes that weigh down on the comic book readers, pictures bigger than people, voyeurizing the voyeurs.”

I found this week’s reading to be challenging, mainly as I disagree heavily with Barthes’ idea of ‘’The death of the Author’’. I do agree that the meaning of a text depends on the reader as we will probably all take away something different from our reading experience, perhaps due to Bourdieu’s idea of different ‘’tastes’’ which relate to one’s social position.

I disagree however that writing and its creator and unrelated. The author has created the work; therefore the author has formulated the words, the dialogue and the narrative according to his or her own tastes.

The reader is ‘born’ to interpret the writing. Yet this seems a rather unfair relationship as it is not reciprocated as Barthes does not permit the author to interpret the reader. Barthes implies that the reader will judge the text and respond to it, thus themselves becoming a critic, yet in reality the writer also passes judgement on the reader. A piece of writing exists because the author had a specific intent, and likely taken into consideration when writing would be the reader’s response. An artist cannot surely be disconnected from his masterpiece? Spectators may choose view and interpret a work of art separately and out of context of the artist who produced it, yet the artist is still omniscient within the work.

Talking about the death of the author also implies a previous existence; therefore there has been historically an author. The suggestion that writing is now dispossessed implies that it was ‘’possessed’’ in the first place. Yet it seems as if Barthes is implying that there has never been an authorial presence.

On a separate point I found the reading on Bourdieu to be very interesting where he talks about the fact that language is used as a mechanism of power. Also that the way in which we choose to present our social space to the world demonstrates our perceived notion of our place in society is highly intriguing. Bourdieu talks about ‘’the practical ‘attributive judgement’ whereby one puts someone in a class by speaking to him in a certain way (thereby putting oneself in a class at the same time)’’ (242) which demonstrates the ‘’power’’ of language and how it can be used positively or negatively. The idea that we are all ‘’potential object[s] of categorization’’ (245) I think is rather dangerous as one will either consider oneself inferior to or greater than the person or group to which one compares oneself.

It has been very interesting to read about the Formalist approach to literature as ‘art’. The idea that literature is an art in its own right and merits its very own study I find appealing. I read about the defamiliarizing nature of literature I was reminded of the Dadaist approach to art which I have always found fascinating. In Dadaism reason and logic are evacuated from the scene and the viewer is left to choose whether to interpret the piece in whichever way appeals to them, or to flounder and guard this sense of defamiliarization and remain on the outside of the work.

I actually agree that “literature changes when the world changes” (4), whereas the Formalist approach does not bow to this idea. Literature for the Formalists is independent and free from the influences of the evolving world, it seems to me. According to the Formalist approach, “for literature to be literature, it must constantly defamiliarize the familiar” (5), yet the ‘familiar’ is the world which is evolving and changing around us. It is the stimulus which provokes the reaction, therefore with no provocation to action what is there for literature to ‘defamiliarize’? Again, I refer back to the Dadaist movement which came as a reaction to the horror and needlessness of World War I, yet had there never been a war who is to say whether the movement would have ever been instigated or even endured? I feel that it is the same with literature. For one to react against something there must be a basis from which to start. Similarly the writer must have some concept of what a certain culture’s readers consider familiar in order to defamiliarize them. It seems there is a similarity here with Structuralism, which asserts that “if human actions or productions have a meaning, there must be an underlying system of distinctions and conventions which makes this meaning possible” (56).

I definitely agree with Culler’s notion that language and culture are intricately linked. The meaning that one assigns to actions or words comes about because of the culture that one has grown up in. Sometimes I even experience differences between the North American culture and my own English one, in that some things that are said or done do not have the same significance and therefore the meaning is not reciprocated in one or other of the cultures, and consequently actions or words are inferred differently. I find it fascinating nonetheless.

Hello everyone

My name is Sinead and I am very excited to be sharing my first blog with you all!

I am in my second semester of the first year of my masters in French here at UBC. I studied at The University of Birmingham in the UK where I completed my BA in French Studies.

My background in literary theory is fairly limited, which is the reason for me taking this course.  I am somewhat familiar with Vladimir Propp’s theory on the structure and sequence of fairy tales. I am also interested to learn more about psychoanalytic literary theories and have touched briefly upon Freud in some courses, though not in any great depth.

I am intrigued to discover new insights and different approaches to literary criticism and to share ideas with everyone. I am excited about the blogging component of the course as often so many things are left unsaid in class just due to time restraints. It will be enlightening I’m sure to continue debates and discussions outside the walls of the classroom. I hope that by the end of the course I will have gained access to a deeper understanding of theories and critics which in turn will hopefully help me enrich and further my own studies and interpretations.