ENGL 325 (Spring 2006)

 

Relationships in “The Dead”- I may be wrong, but has anyone noticed that the only married couple in the story that is present, are Gabriel and Gretta? It may be reading too much into it, but I’m thinking there is some significance in that, but I can’t think of any right now. I feel a lot of empathy for Aunt Julia, especially after seeing the film clips. Its like, all these women seem to have is hanging onto the false praises–its like their lives are so empty.  Snow in “The Dead”- I noticed that snow has some significance in the story. In the musical, (I think it was Gretta, but I could be wrong), looks out the window and says, “There’s something so…forgiving about snow.” My guess would be that the snow represents in itself, purity, beauty, covering all things-so that even the most unsightly thing, or flaw, is covered in whiteness. Was the snow supposed to be “forgiving” for Gretta, because of what happened to Michael Furey?

The dead is both a story that is feminist and almost anti-feminist. The characters are painted in ways that show passive female submissiveness and the image of a strong woman. In the beginning of the short story, Gabriel and Miss Ivors careers are compared “their careers had been parallel, first at the university then as teachers.” This paints Miss Ivors as a strong woman, and suggests that the author thinks that men and women can in fact have “parallel” careers. In this part of the story, Miss Ivors actions also speak of her being a strong, opinionated woman, in that is her role in the story. The three women of the house, Miss Kate, Miss Julia, and Miss Mary Jane can be seen as strong women but also maybe more passive and less prominent as well. All of them have their own profession and do well, which is a positive sign in the story, but you see the netralization of outspokenness amongst them when Mary Jane quiets Miss Kate down when she speaks of the pope banning women from choirs. Mary Jane not only supresses her outspokenness, but also an important feminist commentary, which mixes the message of the story and doesn’t allow for feminist perspective to be privileged.

Gabriel and Gretta’s relationship is also an interesting subject that is different from the short story to the on-stage production. Gabriel in the story views Gretta as a painting, a lust object, most often he views her from afar. He remarks on her beauty and his love for her. The story sets it up so it looks like a one-sided thing, however, which in the production of the dead is more shared. They share duets in which they embrace eachother a few times and you see for yourself their love for eachother. Gabriel’s love for her and her love for him seem more real and genuine in the production. This counters the critique posited by Norris of the aethesticized version of Gretta, “whose function is to certify Gabriel’s posey, passion, and benign compassion.” The production shows a much more equal and mutual respect and love that the story does not show.

The epiphany. Gabriel Conroy is a superficial and egotistical character. His speech at dinner is pompous and pretentious and is reiterated at the wake of his late Aunt Julia, when he can’t find the words to console his grieving Aunt Kate. His marriage is anemic and the passion is not there. Gabriel is unaware. These are circumstances necessary for Joyce’s crescendo: Gabriel’s epiphany.
A recurring device in Joyce’s stories is the epiphany (a reference to his Catholic upbringing); the characters’ moment of clarity, of “awareness.” Gabriel is shaken to learn of his wife’s old love, which exposes the love and passion he does not have. This is Joyce’s argument, Gabriel being universal, exhibits Joyce’s criticism of Irish society. However, James Joyce’s epiphany “expected the reader to have her or his own revelatory moment of awareness that went beyond the character’s and to see the plight of the central character from a larger and often ironic perspective” (66), thus hoping to expand the allegory to the reader.
Personally, I think Joyce is being very cynical regarding love and relationships. Love is a thing for the dead, shown between Gretta and Michael Furey. That Gabriel cannot abandon his own pretensions for the sake of his late aunt is a pretty grim assessment of Dublin society. It’s a pretty grim assessment anywhere.

I really enjoyed Professor Scarlata’s presentation last night on point of view in film. The part that I most enjoyed was the clip from Christopher Columbus. I think a film like that shows not only a single person’s ability to shape an  event the way they want, but that other people expect to see the event played out the way that it is presented. The movie was made in the 1940’s, and I think the characters were presented that way to make the viewers comfortable with what they were watching. The reason a movie is called controversial is because it makes the viewers uncomfortable with either the subject, or the way they think about the subject. At the time, the comfortable movie may be hailed as a master piece, but it is only the later generation that will look at the same film and take it down from it’s pedestal. The controversial film will be banned, mother’s will cover their children’s eyes, and a later generation will see the movie as groundbreaking and a true testament to the times. I think it is the comfortable movies that tell a true testament to the time in which it is made, because it shows how the populace in general thinks and feels. The controversial movies are made by the “weirdo’s” and the people who don’t quite fit in. It is neat to see how literature does a similar thing. Works like The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo, made the people at the time uncomfortable about what was going on around them; they were happy about seeing what they wanted to see.

I found tonight’s recitation to be very intriguing. The contrast of how film and literature each exhibit a point of view was a very interesting concept to analyze.  I had never really considered the differences each struggle with until tonight.

I was disappointed that there was not a discussion about the adaptation of books to films. This seems like it should have been an integral part of the lecture. A juxtaposition of how a book like Fight Club – with such a complex point of view and ambiguous focalyzer – gets adapted to film would be interesting to analyze under the guise of tonight’s lecture. While a book may take four pages to explain the way a scene looks or a character feels, a film has the ability to do this instantaneously. The part of Fight Club, for instance, where Edward Norton realizes that he is Brad Pitt, (which takes several pages to explain) is done in seconds in the film.

I found the interaction between subjectivity and point of view to be extremely provocative. In the philosophical sense, subjectivity is of supreme importance in understanding different perspectives (ontological subjectivity, axiological subjectivity etc.). Likewise, in literature and film, only through acknowledging a character’s outlook – done through the visual or mental understanding of their sense of being – can their role be interpreted purely.

Additionally, I feel compelled to comment on the Columbus clip that was shown. Did anyone else notice how when he first reached land, Columbus knew he had discovered the “new world”? Didn’t Chris think he was in India (hence, Indians)?

I read the short story the dead by James Joyce and also saw the musical of it performed at George Mason University. There were many small additions that the director chose to include in their version of the dead. And a striking difference is that Miss. Ivory stayed through dinner rather than leaving before dinner as seen in James Joyce the dead short story text version. It was also interesting to see how the director chose to have Aunt Julia die as opposed to the text version. With the musical portraying the death of Aunt Julie, it makes it seem that both Gabrielle and Gretta bears a lost of losing a love one.

 Here is Gretta who suffers the lost of a childhood friend who dies for her sake in the short story and musical and here’s Aunt Julia who dies of old age and joy from Gabrielle’s speech. With both of these deaths, there is a sense of equilibrium. While reading the text version, one recalls that Gabrielle states that he does not know how to love someone that much to cause that person to die for his sake.

I could not help but feel sympathy towards Gabrielle. Here is a faithful husband who desires nothing more than to make love to his wife in the concluding scene and is faced with a dreadful truth that his wife’s heart belongs to a childhood lover. It is not surprising that Gabrielle’s mother opposed his marriage to Gretta, because she felt “Gretta as being country cute and that was not true of Gretta at all.”(Joyce, the dead, 30) I believe that it is true, mothers do know best. Gabrielle’s mother could sense before her tragic death of an illness that Gretta heart does not truly belong to her son Gabrielle.

Before our class period this afternoon, I believed that the wife of “The Yellow Wall Paper” was insane from the moment the reader is introduced to her.  Not only does she write in a kind of scattered way, but her obsession with the room she was living in, as well as her hallucinations about people, objects, and colors on her wall made me think something was seriously wrong with her.  However, after our discussion today, I realized that perhaps she was almost forced into insanity because she was treated as if she already was insane, which is exactly what I was doing to her as a reader.  

It seems to me that such simple issues, even like the one that this woman had – a “temporary nervous depression” is what she calls it –  can be blown out of proportion to such extremes that the individual that might suffer from such an issue begins to believe that their case is way more serious than it actually is.  To be honest with oneself about a problem, habit, or attitude is beneficial and is probably a step in the right direction towards solving such a minute problem.  However, to give a clinical name to something as common as a tendency in attitude or mood, or a reoccuring situation that makes one feel more depressed, or a naturally human habit such as a lack of paying full attention is to further the degree of seriousness regarding that common habit.  Furthermore, the person who “suffers” from something like this then believes that something is actually completely wrong with them physically and mentaly and they soon come to believe that in order to “cure” this they must see a doctor, have a prescription, maybe even visit a psychologist just to get rid of this problem.  Had they not known that their simple attitude was such big deal, they might not have needed to see any specialist or start taking drugs at all; but, now that they believe this is the only thing that will heal them, they become dependent on whatever methods are given them. 

I believe that this is what happened with the woman in the story.  She might have had, as was mentioned, slight depression after giving birth, which is not uncommon to women considering all of the detailed processes and hormones that are in them from being pregnant for so long.  It was when John decided that she needed to rest, to not work, to be shut up in order to fully be healed that her condition worsened.  Not only did he start treating her as a mental patient – calling her “little girl”, reading to her, not letting her go anywhere, not allowing her to write – but she started acting in response to this, as if she really did have a mental problem.  As was mentioned, the fact that she asks herself whether she really is crazy proves that she in fact was not. 

This story proves then, the danger in labeling people and their behavior as if they were somehow ill mentally or physically.  I have no real background on mental and behavior disorders and I know that there are actual cases of people who really do need help because of their behavioral tendencies.  However, I do see a danger in our society of automatically labeling people as clinical cases because it seems to defeat the hope of them getting over the thing that is causing their behavior to continue in this manner.

After Professor Clark’s discussion on point of view at the recitation, I decided to look at point of view in the story we were assigned to read for Thursday’s class, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” My initial reaction was that this woman was crazy and had some form of post-partum depression. We read an account of a summer at an “ancestral hall” (513) through her eyes, or rather her words, since this story is what she writes while her keepers are away.

Throughout the short story, the reader knows only what the narrator writes down. Everything we see is through her eyes and what she decides to keep record of. Several times she speaks of writing this specific account and of how her husband “hates to have [her] write a word” (515). Thus, whatever occurs outside of the furtive writing is known only to the reader by how she relates it. It’s a skewed situation. Her husband appears to be very doting and caring, but at the same time a little obsessive about her rest and condition, probably because he is a doctor.

In the lecture, Prof. Clark discussed the paradox of narration, that a narrator may be unable to interpret his or her own reality. I think this is definitely the case in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” No where does the narrator mention her exact condition – she seems oblivious to most medicine and care. She is also unable to see that her hallucinations of women behind the hall and around the house are absurd. Because she is afflicted with an illness and because she is telling her own story, the narrator does not understand the apparent severity of her condition.

This leads me to wonder what “The Yellow Wallpaper” would be like if the narrator’s husband John narrated the story. Would it be methodological, like a doctor’s notes? Would it be about a husband’s despair as he watches his wife fall apart? Clearly, point of view plays a huge part in how we read and interpret a story.