Telling stories is part of human nature. When trying to make sense of the world, it's easiest to take events and sequence them. By plotting these events, people are then able to give it a story. Stories exist in our beliefs, history, morals, and songs. Our need to hear and tell stories has never changed; in "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, characters suffer from painful memories of past tragedies, ultimately displaying the need for narration of the horrors they suffered.
In "Beloved," Sethe struggles with her thoughts of Sweet Home and tries repressing the trauma of her past. When Paul D shows up, Sethe slowly begins to talk more about her past with Beloved and shows that the act of story telling can be therapeutic. In a conversation with Denver, she asks, "What were you praying for, Ma'am?" "Not for anything. I don't pray anymore. I just talk," (Morrison 43). Sethe goes onto talk about rememory; something from the past a person can still bump into in the present. "If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--it stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world," (Morrison 43). Morrison's discussion of rememory is a term to describe something I never knew how to explain but understood--history is amongst us, so if people still experience things of the past, the need to narrate such events will remain as well. Sethe begins to try and say the once unspeakable circumstances of her life, and with that comes the painful act of revisiting the past and addressing it's stories.
Similarly, in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" three different narratives are given that display more examples of painful narratives being shared. Oskar's grandfather becomes unable to speak after losing the love of his life, Anna. Instead he resorts to daybooks and tattoos for his everyday communication. He then also writes letters to his son, whom he has never met. In these letters he tells a series of stories to his son; the fact that he never receives any of these still do not prove useless. For it is in the writing he finds a way to give narration to the pain he has suffered and is able to reconnect with his wife and grandson.
Repressing thoughts and feelings of pain, can only lead to innate suffering. The stories of the past can weigh a person down if not expressed. It's a burden no one should carry, but instead share. Narration provides a voice to what can seem unspeakable tragedy, therein providing a way for people to better understand themselves as well as others.
English L359: Radical Narratives
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Tragedy and the Late 20th Century Novel
The books we have discussed an analyzed
in this class in many different ways have explored the themes of man-made
tragedy in American Society that have scaled from the Cold War to the most
recent and still very much sensitive 9/11 tragedies. Although focusing on very
different aspects of American history and American society, the protagonists of
Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close’ have many differences but share a common ground: the fear of
death through extreme tragedy out of their control.
“The
airborne toxic event” that occurs in ‘White Noise’ soon turns into “the black
billowing cloud” the use of language within this passage highlights the
increase of fear amongst the general public in an event that they have no
control in that is manipulated by the media in order to create a reaction.
Throughout the passage the media produce symptoms of illness that are allegedly
caused by the “black billowing cloud” is this real or is this simply the media
creating a placebo effect? Within this
chapter Jack loses his sense of control, he believes that disaster does not
happen to people like him, he desperately desires his dark gown and glasses
that infuse his masculinity and make him feel protective, nor do things happen
in places such as Blacksmith; his small college town. DeLillo’s ‘White Noise’
conveys this idea of ‘the modern death’ the idea that as technology advances,
so does our chances for different forms of mortality, for instant toxic
pollution and terrorist attacks, however that also means there is are new ways
to prolong life.
However, Oskar portrays a very
different outlook towards tragedy and death, due to the loss of his father in
the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center he has developed many different
coping mechanisms that in many ways hold him back from living his life, these
including the rules. Rules such as not going into a large building past the
ninth floor and also the idea of being able to tell if a loved one is in
ambulance and if so how serious the incident is, the fear of tragedy repeating
in ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ haunts Oskar and his life for the
majority of the book. It is through his
coping mechanisms such as his book “Stuff That’s Happened To Me” and his engagement
with The Blacks that helps him overcome these fears of immediate tragedy and
the fear of losing another significant other and that allows him to communicate
his emotions that bring him closer to his mother and grandmother.
Overall, both authors comment upon
how our society now lives in a culture of fear due to the events and tragedies
of the 20th and 21st century.
Foer/Pynchon on Artificiality and the Authentic
Pynchon served as a great introduction to the postmodern problem of distinguishing between the authentic and the artificial. Pynchon playfully toyed with the concept in inventive ways, primarily by making the reader as lost in discerning authenticity as Oedipa Maas. For instance, Pierce Inverarity’s estate included a resort which contained an artificial lake that possessed the actual remains of dead sailors and sunken ships at its bottom. Later on, Oedipa finds an important clue for her investigation of the Trystero in the form of an inscription on the lake which made some reference to a battle that may have occurred there. Pynchon obviously does not remind us that it is an artificial lake, and the reader is left guessing as to which clues are valid and which are not. Jonathan Safran Foer also addresses this issue of authenticity versus artificiality, but he does so in a much more transparent manner. For instance, when Oskar’s father tells the Sixth Borough bed-time story, he is silent on the actual reality of the Sixth Borough, but mentions that “there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to (221).” At this moment and at other times, Oskar’s father essentially implies that the content is really not so important as long as the approach is conducted in an energetic, inquisitive manner. At one point he tells Oskar to “never stop looking.” While this would seem to contradict Pynchon’s postulation of general indeterminacy, The Crying of Lot 49 actually does provide a series of metaphors elaborating on how one must go about sorting through the chaotic mess that is modern civilization. Maxwell’s Demon, for instance, represents one such metaphor for active engagement with the world in order to parcel out its difficulties. It is interesting that this so neatly coincides with Thomas Schell’s advice. I wrote a lengthy portion of my Pynchon paper detailing the importance of “mental work” for Oedipa and her attempt to sift through the modern world/Inverarity’s estate. It is very surprising that Foer provides almost the same advice through the voice of his most sagacious character. Furthermore, it is important to note that Oskar embodies this advice to a far greater degree than Oedipa, and this may explain the closure he finds and that constantly eludes Oedipa.
Identity in Contemporary American Novels
One thing that I enjoyed about the literature we’ve read throughout the course is the treatment of identity. Contemporary American literature has taken on issues of race and multiculturalism and drawn attention to whiteness in a way that hadn’t been addressed before and still need addressing today. This can be seen in Tropic of Orange which looked at the complex connections between several individuals in Los Angeles and Mexico. Each person was a composite of various stereotypes but with their own individuality emerging through. Tropic of Orange draws attention to a struggle which sees people have difficulty reconciling their personal identity with the identity that is applied to them by others. This can be seen in again in Woman Warrior while the narrator attempts to find her identity in both a Chinese and American context. These novels are significant because they don’t treat race as a simplistic issue. Race is presented as part of a person’s identity, particularly in the way that others perceive them but not as the only way in which the character can be understood. Race is portrayed as an inregal part of the way a person is shaped though defining a person only by their ethnicity is can be at conflict with the individuality of the character. This can be seen in the character of Emi in Tropic of Orange who frequently says outrageous things that mock multiculturalism in spite of the fact that she is a part of it. The girl in Woman Warrior’s identity is driven by her rejection of her mother’s values despite the profound influence that they have on her. These narratives are important to the American landscape because they represent the uniqueness of the American people. Yamashita and Kingston both portray race’s complexity rather than simply understanding white as a neutral quality while ethnicity as completely in control of a person’s sense of self. These authors demonstrate this issue through the construction of their characters who represent these problems of identity which are increasingly relevant to contemporary Americans. This is especially true of women who did not have as many opportunities to have their voices heard before the feminist movement in the 1970’s. I enjoyed reading novels in which the subject matter seems even more relevant to cultural identity today than it was when the authors wrote were writing.
The Confusing Distortion of Imitations and Originals in DeLillo's White Noise and Morrison's Beloved
One intriguing aspect of the late
twentieth-century American novel is the strong emphasis on the imitation, often
more so than on the original. In Don
DeLillo’s White Noise and in Toni
Morrison’s Beloved, there is a particularly
pronounced postmodern confusion between what is original and what is imitation,
and this indistinctness creates chaos for the characters as they struggle to
understand who their authority figures are.
In White Noise, for instance, the Blacksmith
SIMUVAC crew is in charge of simulating evacuation in case of a real
emergency. When there is a real
emergency, though, in the form of the “black billowing cloud” (DeLillo 115),
SIMUVAC “use[s] the real event in order to rehearse the simulation” (DeLillo
139). This blurs the lines between
what is real and what is simulation, because as long as the SIMUVAC people are
actually evacuating people from a dangerous situation, they are not performing
a simulation, but rather executing the actual evacuation. By naming the evacuation as a rehearsal
for the upcoming simulation, however, SIMUVAC privileges the simulation over
the authentic emergency, creating a disorienting tension between the SIMUVAC
team and the actual evacuation team as the primary authority figures.
A
similarly disorienting blurring of the real and the imitation occurs in Beloved, but on a more personal level,
between Sethe and Beloved. As Beloved
spends more time with Sethe, Beloved becomes more and more like Sethe,
imitating the way she talks, laughs, walks, gestures, and sighs (Morrison
241). This imitation becomes so
intense that it becomes “difficult for Denver to tell who [is] who” between the
women (Morrison 241). These
similarities are not troubling as long as it remains clear that Sethe is the
mother – the original face and personality – and Beloved is the imitation. As soon as Sethe becomes compliant to
Beloved, however, and allows Beloved to bully her into submission whenever she
tries to assert herself (Morrison 242), the clear distinction between Sethe’s
original actions and Beloved’s imitative ones becomes muddled. It is at this point that the fusion of
the two women’s identities becomes chaotic and upsetting because no one in 124
knows who holds authority in the house anymore. Denver becomes confused and upset to see the mother who has
been her primary authority figure her whole life serving the young woman
Beloved (Morrison 242), but although she is familiar and comfortable with
having Sethe as her main boss, she soon acknowledges that Sethe is no longer a
responsible mother. At the same
time, though, Denver refuses to behave as a subordinate to “a girl not much
older than herself” (Morrison 242), so she rejects taking orders from Beloved,
either. As a result, with Sethe
and Beloved locked in an indistinct relationship in which neither is entirely
leader nor entirely follower, Denver becomes disoriented and unsure of who to
turn to for guidance.
In
both White Noise and Beloved, the confusing inversions and
distortions of originals and imitations leave characters disoriented and unsure
of whom to turn to for guidance.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Is this the real life, or is it just fantasy?
Surrealism is a major theme in late 20th century literature. All of the novels we read and discussed in class this semester have some aspect where reality is skewed. Perhaps the two most prominent examples of this are Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Morrison's Beloved.
In Pynchon's novel Oedipa goes through several scenes that sound as though they are described by a drug induced high (which is slightly in keeping with the post-war time period in which the book was set). These scenes make the audience, as well as the characters themselves, question reality. In the book Oedipa climbs a ruin at a lagoon after stealing a boat--this could be interpreted as something fantastical that can happen in a fiction novel but as Oedipa herself has said, it could simply be one of her hallucinations. The fact that these things happen and it is left ambiguous as to the reality of the situation is an example of surrealism as a theme. Even when Oedipa is having her hallucinations one could argue as to whether even these are real. The audience and Oedipa seem to have no idea.
Morrison's novel offers even more fantastical characters and situations. The idea that Beloved is in fact Sethe's baby daughter (grown up and turned into an emotional succubus no less) is an example of surrealism. The ambiguity as to who or what Beloved really is fits the theme I've been discussing. Even Denver's going deaf after hearing a simple question could be questioned as real or unreal. The book builds off these surreal scenes and characters and even the ending, Beloved possibly being pregnant and disappearing, leaves the audience as well as characters questioning the reality of the events. The fact that at the end of the novel everyone in the town seems to forget about the events involving Beloved also seem to speak to the surreal aspect of the book. It seems to make one question whether Beloved ever existed at all or was only a metaphor or figment of imagination.
The theme of surrealism and defining what is real and what is not is something that we covered in all of the novels we read this semester. The ambiguity as to what is happening helps to keep the reader and characters guessing.
Letters: Pynchon and Foer
Letters and the act of
physical written communication that they represent have been a concern
of several of the texts we have read this semester. In the
contemporary world, letters have become relics, antiquated remnants in an age of
communication that is largely electronic, immaterial. Letters are physical, and
the letter exists in a liminal space between author and recipient; in fact, it seems to contain a piece of the person who has written it, and we might
all acknowledge the humanity inherent to the form. Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Jonathan Safran
Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly
Close each present different treatments of the letter, Pynchon’s postal
service identified with esoteric conspiracy, Foer’s with the unspoken words at
the core of the individual.
Stamps become a mark
of the absurd, arbitrary conundrum that is the postmodern condition in The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon’s novel
was, however, published in 1965, a time when the letter was still a major mode
of communication between individuals. Conspiracy, or allegations of conspiracy,
surround postal systems, paranoia attached to the most benign, the
everyday—which may have something to do with historical context: the Cold War,
McCarthyism, the Reds, an unknown enemy hiding behind every corner, in the most
simple form of the everyday: the letter, the mail, the post. Are papers carried
around by a man who appears to be homeless really a subversive act of postal
sedition, a manifestation of the W.A.S.T.E. system or the nefarious Trystero?
The novel is particularly concerned with control of communication,
eavesdropping in said communication, and the dissemination and exchange of
information between individuals. What does it all mean—something? Nothing? A
third of the way through the novel, this quote appears, in the context of a
farcical play: “It is about this point…that things really get peculiar, and…ambiguity
begins to creep in among the words” (Pynchon, 55). Ultimately, no answers will
be provided.
Foer provides a divergent
characterization of letters; Pynchon is unrecognizable. In Foer’s novel,
letters fill coffins—letters constitute the individual, and allow him or her to
express things impossible in speech. Within a letter, Oskar’s grandmother
recalls a letter her own grandmother wrote, at a time when Oskar’s grandmother
was accumulating such letters: “The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages
long. It was the story of her life” (Foer, 79). The memory of this letter is embedded in the letter Oskar’s grandmother has written to Oskar, which is
the story of her own life. Oskar’s grandfather writes letters he is unable to
send, and, in one letter, confesses (it is a confession) the trauma which has
destroyed his life: he is a survivor of the Allied Forces’ Bombing of Dresden,
one of the great atrocities of World War II. This experience has cost him his voice. Letters, somehow, seem to bridge
the gap between something and nothing. These letters are far more than an
object for literary delight, and the form of the letter is embedded into the narrative
itself. Letters, for Pynchon, are absurd, arbitrary instances of communication
in a world the substance of which is disappearing; for Foer, letters are far
different: an instance of something amidst a sea of nothingness.
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