Bressler believes that “only after colonization occurs and the colonized people have had time to think and then to write about their oppression and loss of a cultural identity does Postcolonial theory comes into existence. It is born out of the colonized peoples’ frustrations; their fears, hopes, and dreams about the future and their own ideas (Bressler 238).” This occurs with Clara. Clara’s mother is a strict Jehovah Witness and tries her best to instill these values in her daughter even though they are in Britain. It differs though because instead of Clara being upset about people not accepting her religion, she was to be released of it herself. She is forced to hand out Bibles to people at her school and go door to door to spread the word of her religion to strangers. Clara, though wanting to be relieved or being a Jehovah Witness, still holds on to some of her previous beliefs. This is displayed on page 39 of White Teeth when she sates, “By February 1975, Clara had deserted the church and all its biblical literalism for Archibald Jones…Clara felt deep down that her mother would prefer her to marry and unsuitable man rather then live with him and sin.”

Who's to Blame?

In my opinion, the supplementary readings by Charles Bressler and Edward Said on Postcolonialism are the closest match with White Teeth as compared to the other texts and their supplements. The story is clearly a struggle between cultures, and as both essays make clear, also a matter of racism. We see innumerable amounts of examples where one character has an odd or uncomfortable feeling of another and some blatant instances of superiority of the British (especially in Archie's office) which cause what Postcolonialists would call the "alternity" of "Others", including Clara (Bressler, 236). An interesting point, as Said discusses, is on where to place the blame of such stereotypes. He suggests that it is within texts that people first learn these prejudices and because the "text [purports] to contain knowledge about something actual, [it] is not easily dismissed" (Said, 296). Perhaps then, would Said say, the only true way to know the reality of different races and cultures is through personal experience, an empiricist and scary (and perhaps incorrect) conclusion?

Reversed Roles?

Both of the works, Bressler’s “Postcolonialism: ‘The Empire Writes Back’”, and Said’s “Crisis [in orientalism]”, really convey an interesting method for addressing works in the postcolonial era. In particular I liked two things about the two articles as a whole. The first was Said’s metaphor about the study of lion’s and their fierceness. As he states and I paraphrase, “Understanding the lion in literature is a one-sided conversation until the lion writes back”. I think this idea is immensely powerful since it shows the neglect the other sided suffers when its voice is unheard. It also gives way to the clichéd, “you don’t know a man until you’ve spent a day in his shoes” which helps to try and put the perspective of the observer in the shoes of the “Other”. Also, Bressler’s addressing of Said in particular, providing the background information of Said, gave a more personal feel to what Said writes in his article. Now relating to the text there are infinite amounts of relationships that can be draw onto, the juxtaposition of Archie with religion, society, and personal relationships. In particular the Jehovah’s Witness theme throughout the work gives a sense of religious backlash as the Witness’s try to convert people in Britain, a thought often portray in the opposite manner with an international superpower converting the “Other”. On a side note, Microsoft Word detects Postcolonialism as a misspelling, does that imply that Bill Gates supports Post-colonialism instead, as Bressler suggests varies from Postcolonialism?

Ancillary Characters and Imperialism

Postcolonialism (or post-colonialism) deals with the study of people and cultures who have been the victims of oppression through imperialism. In White Teeth, we have characters from all different backgrounds who are juxtaposed with the plain, white man from London, Archie. Archie's wife, friends, and mere acquaintances all hail from countries that at one point or another were victim to the cultural conflict that results out of imperialism, namely: which culture is superior. Those in the inferior culture are then left to either assimilate into the dominant culture or live out their existence as a dying breed. Whereas the dominant culture can take things it likes about the other such as their food or customs (as is the case with the large number of Indian eateries in London), the inferior culture does not have the same opportunity. As a colony they must give the dominant culture what it wants of them simply because the dominant culture has more sophisticated weaponry behind it.

Orientalism is stereotypical

Orientalism in White Teeth by Zadie Smith, appears to have typical stereotypes. I have just started the book (I need to get my blog up early because I wont be near a computer!) and there are already references to a Indian boy who is being abused by the restaurant staff. “Get-your-fat-Ganesh-Hindu-backside-up-there-Elephant-boy”, what is that! Being Hindu myself, I have to say I was a tad offended at this. But again it accurately represents the Orientalism in that the “derogatory” terms used to speak to this boy are really what I feel most “Western Societies” associate with the Hindu culture. All this was missing was a reference to Gandhi. What I have gotten from the Said article is basically the views of “Americanized” cultures on basically any other culture to the East, seemingly leaving out European cultures.

Postcolonalism seems to be similar to Orientalism in that it is a division of cultures. When Clara meets Archie we learn that she has a past, as she give up her religion to be with Archie, she leaves behind much more. We can see a “postcolonalism” view from Smith’s character that Clara is changing and straying away from the “normal” way of her life. As she meets Archie she abandons much of her old ways.

In White Teeth, one can notice that writers show all the literary theories. Smith put down much of theoretical frame work of different theories and methodologies. One can notice psychoanalytic criticism and gender criticism (sexuality). According to Bressler, “Marxism, post structuralism, feminism, African-American cultural studies, and psychoanalytic criticism (usually of the Lacanian variety) are all identifiable influences on postcolonial theory” (Bressler, 241). For instance in the text, Archie Jones, the 47 year old guy, who is divorced and never enjoyed his married life at the fullest. He has a lot of desires, which shows that the writer himself somewhere has desires. In the text, when he entered Merlin’s house, he can suddenly notice all the atmosphere of the house. The first thing he notices is the body fluid which shows that some sexual and physical acts have taken place there in the corners. He has a highly desire to drink and feel the bare breasts of the girls there, all this shows that he too has a inner –conscious desire. The writer shows the above statement in the text
And it turned out Archie was the first man over forty ever invited to join the commune; it turned out there had been talk for some time of the need for an older sexual presence to satisfy come of the more adventurous women, “Great,” said Archie. “Fantastic. That’ll be me, then” (Smith, 18)

Week #9: White Teeth & postcolonialism.

You're reading White Teeth this week alongside postcolonialism.

I suggest that you read Bressler's article first, since it provides an overview of the field, and then move on to Said's piece, which is more complex, but worthwhile. I want your posts (and your journal) to work with both essays, not just the (easy) one. You may want to consider the relationship between postcolonialism and the umbrella-like nature of reader-response and cultural criticism. And, of course, please don't forget the other methodologies we've discussed all semester.

The last blog posts were the best of the semester. I like that there's more development and dialogue, less summary and agreement in your responses. More of that!

Have a great weekend.

Reader- Response Criticism
And
Cultural Criticism


When I was reading this two article I found they both talking about same issue (Heart of Darkness). In this paper I will explain this to article what are Cultural Criticism and Reader- Response Criticism?
The article Cultural Criticism writer tries to explain when we think about cultural what do we think? Cultural means dress, food, religion, and exc. Some young people wear jeans and T- shirts and some people also think to wear sixties dressed means cultural. In the article writer say’s “Cultural studies should abandon the goal of giving students access to that which represents a culture”. (P 260) In my own opinion Cultural critics have been especially critical of the departmental structure of universities, which help student to know about history, arts, films, television, advertising and journalism.
In the article Reader- Response Criticism writer try to explain when student read the same book but they all have different opinion. Some student they really enjoy the novel but some are not, such as “Casino Royal”. In my class now we are reading Casino Royal nobody likes this book. Last time when I had conversion with my classmate everybody said the movie was better than this novel. When reader read the novel if he or she doesn’t understand than how it will make them to continue the novel. Therefore, on page 115 writer say’s “in addition to posing provocative question, reader- response criticism provides us with models that aid our understanding of texts and the reading process.”

I am so sorry because I am late. I am very very sick that's why.

Ding dang, the bitch is dead!

So I have to admit I'm very disappointed with the ending of Casino Royale. I expected a car chase, a murder scene, bodies everywhere, or a bomb scene of some sort. The ending really leaves you hanging and lets Ian Fleming produce more Bond novels. If I ever meet Ian Fleming in an after life, I'd probably hit him with his own book. I really do hate the way male authors portray women in their novels. Why is it that most women authors will write love stories while male authors bash women? Reader-response critics argue that some authors tend to write towards a certain response from an audience. In my eyes, this novel was intended for men only. It also was intended for the upper class society. I think cultural critics would argue that one though. I'm not too sure. I really don't understand why anyone would say women want Bond between their bed sheets. I have to admit, I'm a bit appalled after finishing this novel.

Personal Interpretation

Reader-response criticism is the way in which a person interprets a work. The interesting thing about reader-response criticism is that it is different for every person. Every persons own situations and experience effect how they interpret something that is read. Casino Royale is a very detailed book. Though we all do not have experience being spies it draws you into Bonds world and does not leave too many gaps. This is good in this particular novel because we all do not have experiences such as those that Bond has. Unfortunately this also persuades our reader response because we can truly only go on the information we have been given, because of this there is no struggle to understand or make sense of the work.
Also, because there are no "gaps" the reader is not as active as we would like to be. According to Wolfgang Iser, "the 'unwritten aspects' of a story draw the reader into the action...the reader's imagination in turn influences the way in which 'the written part of the text" is read.

Reader Response Criticism and the Feminist Perspective

I think the reader response criticism according to the feminist perspective very interesting. According to reader oriented feminists like Patrocinio Schwickart who argue, " that literature written by men tends to immasculate women" , some authors can immasculate women by not giving them a voice by having only male characters in their stories. I correlated this thought to James Bond, where our main character, Bond, is obviously male, as well as most of the major characters. Vesper is not given a significant voice and is condescended to by James Bond. It is evident that the book has a male, slightly chauvanistic perspective. This is illustrated in the scene in which he hears that his new partner will be a woman in the lines: "Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings..." (Flemming, P. 55) Obviously, Bond does not hold women in high regard in a professional sense.

Reader-Response Criticism is up to the Reader!

Reader-Response Criticism allows the reader to not only interpret a work in their own way but read it that way. There are so many factors that will affect a persons reading of a novel, and their interpretation of it. In Casino Royale many of us (in class) disliked the novel Casino Royale, but found the film much more amusing. This does not pertain to only this book, however normally you do find the opposite (where people prefer the book over the novel). But, I think that it depends on the person to read into the novel and decide what the are more interested in. In the novel, we are use the excitement and intrigue of 007 from films, and not the novels. In this case we will find the novel boring. But with the right perspective it will find different responses to it.

By the way, sorry if this is late, I got home pretty late this evening!!!

"[T]he reader-response critic once again locates meaning in time"

In the essay about Reader Response Criticism, the author gives us this: "By redefining meaning as an event rather than as something inherent in the text, the reader-response critic once again locates meaning in time: the reader's time. A text exists and signifies while it is being read, and what it signifies or means will depend, to no small extent, on when it is read" (119).

The example given with this is that a 17th century Puritan and a 20th century atheist would both read Paradise Lost differently (119). In relation to the Bond novel, there are definite things that we read differently today than how they were read when it was first published. The most obvious and probably the most meaningful difference that today's reader of the Bond novels has that past generations didn't have is the library of Bond movies that have shaped our perceptions of what Bond is and/or should be. Although I've never seen the movies myself, I feel like I understood the character Bond from hearing other people talk about him, from seeing pictures and from playing GoldenEye on N64 with friends back in Middle School. Without the movies and without Bond as a cultural phenomenon, I have a feeling that the book was read in a completely different manner in the past. Bond seems more human and more fallible in the book then he is portrayed to be otherwise. He's often emotional, he bleeds, and his thoughts on women are misogynistic to say the least. Feel free to respond - are there any specific passages or ideas that you think would be read differently today then they were when the book was first published?

Response as a reader

Reader-response criticism allows the reader to approach literary works on a different level. We are to look deeper into what the author is saying on the page and view their work as “an incomplete work of sculpture: to see it fully, we must complete it imaginatively [taking] into account what [already] exists” (Reader-Response Criticism, 115) on the page. As readers, we are entitled to respond to what we have read, in many ways and it’s our “struggle to make sense of a…work (Reader-Response Criticism, 118). We are allowed to become detectives and decipher the writer’s work and voice our opinions because “a work can have as many meanings as we have responses to it” (Reader-Response Criticism, 115). Reader-response allows us each reader to have different a reaction and opinion about the text they have read. For example, one reaction I have to Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale is that as a writer he seems to be a sexist, who tries to live his life through his main character- James Bond.

Halarious ending? I think so. you think (........)?

This week both the two styles of criticism, Reader-Response and Cultural criticisms portray very compelling arguments for their relation to Casino Royale. In particular though, Reader-Response criticism really struck a chord with me when reflecting back on the book. With the stress of Reader-Response being, as Murfin states, “on what pages do to the minds (and what minds do in response)” (118), an interaction between the reader and the writer becomes established. In particular I felt drawn to this critique because it allows for an emotional interaction when reading the text. For example the final passage of Casino Royale states, “Yes, dammit, I said “was”. The bitch is dead now” (213). Within the boundaries of Reader-Response critique I’m allowed to find this statement absolutely hilarious in both its literal sense, (forgive me fore being juvenile and finding humor in curses still), and the ironic sense with Bond’s life coming to an abrupt change. Simultaneously, someone could argue their hatred for Bond, Vesper, or even Global warming if such a response is invoked. I pose this question then, what effect did the final lines of Casino Royale have on you as you read them?

Casino Royale & Cultural Criticism

In Casino Royale, one can notice many situations which can be read culturally and also can be connected with the reader criticism. In Murfin's 'Cultural Criticism', "Foucault refused to see power as something exercised by a dominant class over a subservient class. Indeed, he emphasized that power is not just repressive power, that is, a tool of conspiracy by one individual or institution against another"(263). We can see the dominating power in the Casino Royale. SMERSH is one Major dominating organisation in the text. Smersh forces its employees to fulfill the jobs assigned to them in a very disciplined and strict manner. Disciplined and strict manner mean that if their employees fails to accomplish the goals of the organization or if they cheat their organization in some way and make any mistake then the employee will be killed. Smersh will find that employee from anywhere and shoot him/her without asking or listening to any kind of explanation.

A Different Approach

It is great to finally learn of a new theoretical perspective that looks at narratives from a different angle. When looking at any theory we have learned thus far, we have tried to understand the biases which caused the author to describe things in a certain way or even pick apart the underlying structure upon which the text is built. Reader-reponse criticism on the other hand "turns the tables", whereby we analyze how the author wrote specifically with his reader in mind and how the audience might respond. What makes this fascinating, is that when we look back at Dracula or Casino Royale, and suggest (and even criticize!) an author for their sexist, old-fashioned, and closed-minded remarks of situations and characters, we may have missed the main point and must question, which, perhaps, should be a prerequisite to premature judgment: Does the author really have an unfair viewpoint of the subject in question or rather, did the author purposely inject the narrative with this seemingly controversial instance for a specific purpose and response?

The Mystery Novel and Lowbrow Culture

Cultural critics seek to dispel the myth that culture is something static and all things can be classified as a part of a given culture, or not. They would argue that institutions like Queens College have been accomplices in that mission, claiming, "For that is where the old definitions of culture as high culture have been most vigorously preserved, defended, and reinforced" (Murfin, 261). When making the distinction between what is culture or art, and what is not, the university has time and again set the genre of the mystery novel as not a part of culture. The only reason that we are reading an Ian Fleming novel in a university setting is because the films have become a part of American culture. Had the movies not created the franchise that exists today, Fleming's novel would be written off as another somewhat well-written, mystery/spy novel and would not be on any syllabus across the country. Hopefully the cultural critics will be able to finally break down the man made barriers between highbrow and lowbrow culture and we'll get to read a lot more mystery novels in college.

Week #8: Casino Royale & cultural studies & reader-response theory.

Forgot to mention yesterday: if you don't have White Teeth already, you'd better get on it, since we're reading it right after this.

But for this week, we're finishing up Casino Royale. Both of the discussions on Foucault will still be relevant here; the panopticon has obvious and subtle influences on the second half and his notion of authorship is something to keep in mind when looking at reader-response criticism.

To remind you: you must post a first response by Monday and two comments to your classmates by Wednesday. As always, feel free to post beyond that and really create a discussion that's not just "I agree" and "Yeah, me too." I was really pleased with the quality of your posts last week--let's keep it up.

And the Turnitin box is already up for this week--I checked twice!

Have a good holiday and I'll see you next week.

PANOPTICISM AND CASINO ROYALE

In this novel until mid chapters one can understand that James bond is an agent working under British Secret Service. He is asked to ruin Le Chiffre, who is a member of secret organization called SMERSH. They both have a thing in common which is the Game Poker. Bond is expert in Poker game whereas Le Chiffre lost a lot of money of his organization in the game and is coming back in the summer to gain back all the money that belongs to SMERSH. In this novel of fiction, one can see that it is kind of a detective and hero type novel. It does have the rules of the law and the top organization keeping an eye on their people’s work, to make sure nothing goes wrong. Bond and Le Chiffre works for a Secret organization. The word Secret resembles top secret thing and whenever some work is handed to the workers of the Secret organization, there are some people who are watching on the others person’s work and reporting back to the organization.

Focault

I really loved Focaults essay on the author. He makes great points on why close reading is very important to readers. It is more about the written work than trying to find those relationships between the work and the author. The reason that I find close reading important is because of this statement Focault makes "Writing unfolds like a game that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits". This pertains mostly to fiction work. A novel is a fantasy world that is created. In a fantasy world, certain things just are not meant to make sense. Trying to find reality in a fantasy is almost impossible. Focault almost makes great points in his essay about the author and the validity of the word "work". Is an authors published work just his only work we should consider? Is that giving the author too much authority over literature?

Bond and Fleming

As an author Fleming draws the reader into his novel. He causes us to pay attention with his many uses of details, details and more details. Fleming brings about a sort of discipline in his writing as Foucault points out “a type of power, a modality for [his] exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures [and] levels of application” (Panopticism, 206).” Fleming gives James Bond a sense of individuality in the sense that James Bond as mostly anything to his disposal like money and is not necessarily bound by law as he somewhat represents the law as due to his regulation as a government agent. On one level Fleming uses Bond to represent the government and the people in the sense that Bond “constitute[s] the same type of law on a different scale” (Panopticism, 212), as a regular person without judicial power by taking the law in there own hands but on another level he (Bond) as the right to because he is backed by the power of the law and his own desires.

An Authors Functions

The author function is a the characteristics of which an author is known for or as Foucault states “[the] characteristic of the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within society.” (p108) Text always has signs that would remind us of the author and relate the text to the author while still being able to separate themselves from the writing itself. Though I have no read much of Casino Royal yet (I’m only on chapter 3) I have read the authors biography and I can see “signs” that can relate the Fleming to the text without him actually being in the novel himself. When he describes information about his missions he shows his experience as a commander in the Navel Intelligence unit at Admiralty. Another way this is demonstrated is not through the text of this particular book but by the fact that Fleming was able to have the same character (James Bond) as the base for ten books.
This is demonstrated in Dracula once we discovered that his mother was a feminist we understood why Bram Stoker portrayed Mina as such a strong women. He understood this from his life and personal relationship with his mother.

Casino Royal
By: Ian Fleming
Chapter 1 – 13


The book Casino Royale is writer Ian Fleming’s first James Bond Novel. Which was first published in 1953. The plot of the book is based on a Casino called Casino Royale in Royale-Les-Eaux, France.

The main character of Casino Royale is James Bond. Who is an agent working for British Secret service, under code name 007. In this book James bond is shown as an expert poker player. Bond has experience from an early assignment. He took down a team of Roumanian who cheated using invisible ink in a casino in Monte Carlo. In Royale-Les Eaux bond is disguising as a millionaire business man from Port Maria Jamaica who is in Casino Royale to gamble with his family’s money. In this book James Bond’s main mission is to stop Le Chiffre from winning a poker tournament.

Le Chiffre is a member of a secret organization called SMERSH baser in USSR. The name is a conjunction of two Russian words, Smyert and Shpionam which means Death to Spies. And he is controlled by SMERSH’s Leningrad Section III, which is based in Paris. While working for SMERSH Le Chiffre used organizations money for person use. In times he lost a big sum of money on his expensive bad habits and also in a failed brothel business. Now that his bosses want the money back, his plan is to recoup his losses at the casino on a poker tournament. He is a very dangerous man who carries three razor blades and two armed body guard with him all the time. He is also a very skilled poker player. He is running a baccarat game in the casino at Royale-Les-Eaux, France, in order to recover SMERSH’s money he lost

In this mission James Bond is facilitate by another agent named Rene Mathis. Mathis job is to protect James Bond and to supply him with all necessities. British Secret agency also assigned Vesper Lynd to accompany James Bond. Felix Leiter is a CIA agent working for US government, based in Fontainebleau. Who also lend a helping hand to James Bond to complete this mission.

In his first game in the tournament against Le Chiffre Bond looses all his money. He almost came close to fail his mission. Felix Leiter the CIA agent managed to give thirty-two million francs to Bond in order to continue his involvement in the tournament. At the end Bond manage to win all his money back and have Le Chiffre loose the tournament and cause his opponent’s financial ruin.

Double 0 Fleming

Well seeing how you've made it clear that "seeing the movies" isn't sticking with the novels I guess i find myself fortunate enough to say this is the one Bond movie I haven't seen yet (I had a thing against Bond being blond). With that said I am a huge fan of the Bond movies. Now ironically unlike my normal tradition I started reading the book first, prior to the blurbs and critiques that usually shower the covers and book jackets. In finding myself at completion of the reading I decided to read the inside cover page with the comment on the life of Ian Fleming. As the "What is an Author?" article addresses, "What does it matter who is speaking", the quite obvious answer in this regards is Fleming's personal history. Regarding in particular his time as, "Personal Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty", to which he rose, "to the rank of Commander", the suave, heroic, debonair characteristics produced by Bond build upon the seemingly factual, "that could really happen" events obviously suggest a large chunk of Fleming's life married to the character of Bond. Questions I've been pondering, though no real answers can truly come about, regard if such events actually have some factual basis, and even more equally important, is the character of Bond a projected version of what Fleming wished his life had been or is it truly an actual portray of Fleming in his earlier years?

Richness in Description

Throughout the text so far, Fleming has filled a lot of pages with specific descriptions. The narrator, expressing Bond's thoughts and feelings to the reader, uses a lot of very specific description of characters, settings and events. As a secret agent, the reader is to understand that Bond must be incredibly perceptive and must be able to pick up on even the smallest of details, and that mindset comes through strongly as almost every situation is described down to minutia. There are paragraphs upon paragraphs describing Lynd (38-9), Leiter (55-6), and Bond himself (58-9). A similar attention to detail was to be noticed in Dracula as well, as Stoker includes detailed and repeated descriptions as to enrich the text, as well as put the reader as close to the action as possible. This technique makes for more interesting reading and helps the author to share his vision through text as faithfully as possible.

Fleming the Founder

In his essay, "What is an author," Foucault states that, "[In] the course of the nineteenth century, there appeared...[a] kind of author...we shall call..."founders of discursivity," which he explains as a work which serves as the framework which in future authors and artists base there work (Foucault, 114-115). I think it would be fair to categorize Fleming as one of these "founders" because of the clear impact his works have had on others that came after him. A simple online search of "James Bond" (specifically) will show results (movies, TV shows, comics, and other books based on Fleming's) which far outnumber the original work.
As a side point, I found it interesting that the panopticon can explain the situation Bond is in. He does not know where his enemies are and must always be ready for someone who is trying to kill him. This seems to resemble the panopticon which is based on the idea that the prisoner will be disciplined because he does not know if and when someone is watching.

Fleming and Bond: One in the Same?

Michel Foucault's essay, "What Is an Author?" deals with the question of how we as readers should handle the issue of how present the author is in any of their works. This then led me to think about the relationship between Ian Fleming as the author of the novel and James Bond as its debonair protagonist. In our analysis of Dracula it was commonplace on the blog to claim it was the ideas of Stoker that were bleeding into the work when analyzed by gender critics. The same connection is true between Fleming and Bond. While I am sure that the author and his greatest creation are very different in some regards, I think that Bond mirrors some of the anxieties of Fleming in his actions. Bond's world is preoccupied with the fear of Communism much the same as Fleming's is. However, since Fleming is no secret agent all he can do to allay his fears of the reds is to create a fictional Englishman who was a member of her Majesty's secret service will save the day and get the girl every time.

An author is remembered in their works...

Death plays a large role in Casino Royale; the prospect of death is constantly looming over James Bonds' head. So far there have been two instances which he has come close to death, the explosion, and the shot to the back (which was a little unclear if he did get shot or not to me!) But it also seems that’s why he is a “secret agent” There is a reason that James Bond is such a popular character, besides the sexual appeal. I think that Fleming is aware of what readers want, and the idea of the main character dying is thrilling. Death is an important aspect to look at in a novel as well as “within” (does that make sense?) I think that it is important to that an author is not only writing a book just for the sake of writing a book. He has something to say, even thought it may not be evident immediately, it is still there. Realistically everyone knows that they will not live forever, this makes the work of literature much more meaningful if you really think about it then, this is a way of the author to preserve his legacy, so to speak. In these words that he/she writes people will view them as what they have written.

Week #7: Casino Royale & Foucault.

This week, you're reading Casino Royale alongside two pieces by the critic Michel Foucault. I've included an image of the panopticon, a disciplinary innovation in architecture proposed by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, for your reference.

Please don't forget the other methodologies we've discussed with Dracula. Consider how they, as well as Foucault's ideas, might work in conjunction with Casino Royale. Also, as tempting as it is, please discuss Fleming's novel rather than the 20+ Bond films that have been made.

As I mentioned last class, your first original posts need to be in by Monday at midnight. And replies to your classmates' posts need to be in by Wednesday at midnight.

Have a great weekend.

Question

Hey everyone. I am trying to zero in on a clear and concise definition of "Deconstruction". Does anyone have any ideas of how to sum it up?

It seems from the readings (the first actually seems to be the technical and historical aspects of the theory) to be the process where the contradictory and multiple meanings of words, phrases, statements, and even characteristics/relationships of the characters are analyzed (I picked this up mostly from context and application of the theory in Riquelme's essay, rather than the first). Does this make sense?

This seems to be the most difficult and in depth theory of them all so far? Agree?

Thanks for all your help in advance.
Barry

The Unconscious

The Unconscious

What is unconscious? Psychoanalytic criticism is a form of applied psychoanalysis, a science concerned with the interaction between conscious and unconscious processes and with the laws of mental functioning. It should not be confused with psychotherapy, which is concerned with treating mental illness and behavioral problems. The reason I am talking about this topic because now I will explain how this topic related with In Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In the story, I noticed that there were times when writer mentioned about an incident where a character was in unconsciousness and dreaming of imaginary things, which can be compared to the psychoanalytic criticism.

In the book, Freud’s directly or indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. He had believed that writer wrote out their unconscious thoughts onto paper as a way of coping with the thoughts. I agree with Freud when he talk’s about unconscious mind. Also, I think this topic is very interesting and it’s related to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the part where Mina Harked was not being able to sleep and was dreaming in state of an unconscious mind, which I guess was happening in reality.

In the middle chapter’s I found something exactly like this situation was faced by Lucy, when she was afraid that she would get weak if she fall asleep, which proves that in the novel, many times we noticed the unconscious mind situation of the characters, which shows that somewhere Stoker is closely in relation to this characteristics of mind.