Literary Theory: Weekly Response 13

"Disability is not a static condition; it is a fluid and labile fact of embodiment, and as such it has complex relations to the condition of narrative, because it compels us to understand embodiment in relation to temporality." 
- Disability and Narrative, Michael Berube

In what ways does Mark Haddon prevent The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time from being solely about disability?

Though the main character of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is Autistic and often voices the ways in which his mind works differently than the average person's, Haddon's story revolves more around the plot of the story. It's risky to have a narrator with a disability, because he could be perceived as an unreliable narrator, but Haddon drops numerous hints that prove the narrator's credibility, enhancing the impact of the plot. He subtly brings the narrator's disability into the story by inserting tidbits of his thought process and introducing his quirks, but he does it in a way that makes the character relatable, not someone you'd pity or render disabled -- just a character with his own set of traits.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 12

"Its only apparent visual simplicity coupled with emotional and political complexity--and insisting on the connectivity of aesthetics and politics--Persepolis has earned the most international attention of any graphic narrative in the past ten years." 
- Graphic Narrative as Witness, Chute

Would Persepolis be less effective if it was not a graphic novel?

Persepolis has such a deep impact because of the way it is written, but also because of its layout. Because it is a graphic novel, everything flows nicely, is easy to follow, and is also entertaining, which is the best way to capture attention. Persepolis is a very unique novel and that is why it has been such a success. There is something portrayed by the comic book feel of the novel that could not otherwise be shown. For people that haven't experienced the Iranian Revolution first hand, the fact that Persepolis is a graphic novel is helpful to their understanding, because it offers the making for an easy to understand novel, making it effective.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 11

"Persepolis is a disruptive text on many levels. It delivers, for example, comfortable liberal notions of our common humanity in its representation of the universal desire for personal freedom. At the same time, it demonstrates liberalism's need for an abject or menacing other that is excluded from the common humanity by allowing the reader to reconfirm stereotypes of, for example, subjugated, veiled Muslim women and of post-revolutionary Iran as a threatening and alien place."

- Estranging the Familiar, Naghibi

“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: 
Are my trousers long enough?'
Is my veil in place?' 
Can my make-up be seen?' 
Are they going to whip me?' 

No longer asks herself: 

Where is my freedom of thought?' 
Where is my freedom of speech?' 
My life, is it livable?'
What's going on in the political prisons?” 

- The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

What makes Persepolis such a profound and disruptive text?

Persepolis is disruptive for me because it uncovers a world I was previously ignorant about. Because I didn't know anything about the Iranian revolution and little about the treatment of Muslim women, reading about it in Persepolis was shocking. In the novel, I got to see first hand the kinds of thoughts that run through the minds of Muslim women on a daily basis. It's shocking enough to hear about the way Muslim women are treating, but through Persepolis, I got to see the perspective of someone that can actually go into vast detail about not only what happens, but the emotional and psychological impact it causes, which, for me, leaves me with a personal connection to the character, and in turn, the point of the story.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 10

"In an evolutionary context, hyper attention no doubt developed first; deep attention is a relative luxury requiring group cooperation to create a secure environment in which one does not have to be constantly alert to danger."
- Hyper and Deep Attention, Page 188, N. Katherine Hayles

“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.” 
- The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi


Is evoking fear in readers beneficial when trying to get a point across effectively?

When suspense is present in a novel, more often than not, I, as a reader, find myself on the edge of my seat waiting impatiently to see what is going to happen next. Fear really does enable a loss of consciousness, but at the same time, it captivates attention. When fear is present, sometimes sensibility gets lost in the shuffle, which could be seen as a hindrance to a reader's understanding, but if fear evokes deep attention because the reader cannot regain a calm demeanor until the suspense is settled, the point of the novel can come across very clearly, because the reader will be so alert from fear and deep attention that they will not miss a single point the author is trying to make.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 9

"What I thought I was doing was acquiring the language and repertoire of analytic techniques called for implicitly by the inherent features of self-evidently great works of literary art. But I was troubled by my clumsiness. This was not a language I felt very comfortable with or wielded naturally with any sort of grace or independence."

- A Feeling for Books, Page 2, Radway

"Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances."

- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

When the language she uses is sometimes complex and confusing to readers, how is Jane Austen still able to get her point across effectively?

Jane Austen tends to use a lot of excess words when she writes, adding in more complex words in both the dialogue and in her narrations. Though parts of Pride and Prejudice can seem to be too wordy to understand clearly, she does a good job of pulling in explanations every so often, summarizing what is going on at that point in the novel. When Darcy proposes to Elizabeth and she accepts, there is a lot of length to the dialogue as well as the explanation, but the reader is still able to get a sense of how the characters are thinking and feeling and what is happening at that point in the story.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 8

"Class difference was of course a fact of life for Austen, and an acute observation of the fine distinctions between one social level and another was a necessary part of her business as a writer of realistic fiction."
- "Class" from The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, page 115, Julie McMaster

"Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger.  I know we dine with four-and-twenty families."  - Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 9, Jane Austen In what way does Mrs. Bennet exemplify class distinction? In Pride and Prejudice, each character's social level is apparent. Jane Austen uses this as an opportunity to display class distinctions through each character's personality. Mrs. Bennet is a a prime example of this. Being of a higher class, she is more haughty than those of a lower class in the novel. She, in turn, is portrayed as being obnoxious, setting the scene for readers that people of a higher class are often times stuck up and un-likable as people.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 7

"It almost seems that Pride and Prejudice is too good a novel, partly because our awareness of its ingenious construction dilutes our engagement with the fictional universe that is depicted, producing a strange mixture of suspense and certainty."
- The One vs. The Many, page 45, Alex Woloch

“My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”eli
- Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57, Jane Austen

What does Jane Austen do to give Pride and Prejudice a fairy tale ending?

Throughout Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy had a very tumultuous relationship. They were at first very put off by one another. Then, there was a reluctance present when it came to admitting their feelings for each other. Elizabeth is portrayed as a very strong willed, headstrong woman that does not really believe in the sanction of marriage, so when she accepts Darcy's proposal and professes her love for him, while fumbling over her words, showing her excitement about marrying the love of her life and giving readers what they had been waiting for the entire novel: the confirmation of the love story that is Darcy and Elizabeth -- a happy ending for them.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 6

"The guiding presumption of this volume is that love between women is a topic of serious and abiding human significance -- bound up in as yet unfathomed ways with our deepest beliefs nature and culture, sexuality and desire, femininity and masculinity, women and men."

- Introduction and Excerpts from The Literature of Lesbianism, edited by Castle, page 1

"A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved."

- Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8, Jane Austen

How does Jane Austen portray the relationship between men and women?

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen blatantly displays the relationship between men and women as one of vast inequality, which is not out of character for the time period the novel was written in. In Austen's story, women are seen as beings that were created for the purpose of being the ideal person to dote upon a man. Mrs. Bingley goes on a tangent about what the perfect woman should be and what she should do for the man she is involved with. Women, in this aspect, are not seen as the partner of a man, or the other half of a man, as many love stories would convey a relationship. Instead, they are cast as the servant of a man -- they are simply there to please.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 5

"Othello, like the culture that produced it, exhibits a conflation of various tropes of conversion -- transformations from Christian to Turk, from virgin to whore, from good to evil, and from gracious virtue to black damnation."
- Daniel J. Vitkus, Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor, page 145

"If virtue no delighted beauty lack, / Your son-in-law is far more fair than black."
- William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1 Scene 3

What is the most significant parallel (mentioned in Vitkus' work) exemplified in the above quote from Othello?

Vitkus, in my opinion, makes an impeccable point about Othello in that there are numerous transformations, or parallels in the play. In this part particularly, the main parallel being made is between gracious virtue and black damnation. It is explained that despite the good qualities, bad triumphs. Much like in the other transformations, everything in the story that transforms is going from a light, positive end of the spectrum to the negative side of things.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 4

"In the peculiarly concrete vividness with which those two naked bodies on the bed are made to flash out of the darkness of uncertainty onto the screen of Othello's fantasy, this becomes a moment of rhetorical discovery -- a counterpart to the physical discovery of 5.2."
- Michael Neill, Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery, and the Hideous in Othello, page 401


"Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil.
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven."
- William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 4 Scene 1

What discovery (mentioned by Neill) is made because of this scene?

This scene is basically saying that to lie naked in bed together without doing anything would be like tricking the Devil into thinking they were going to sin, but then not following through with it, ultimately tricking God too. This, along with the reappearance of the handkerchief, unravels the discovery that Desdemona has a hidden part of her symbolizing impurity and lies.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 3

"Abuses, curses, profanities, and improprieties are the unofficial elements...such speech forms, liberated from norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions of established idiom, become themselves, a peculiar argot, and create a special collectivity, a group of people initiated in familiar intercourse who are frank and free in expressing themselves verbally."
- Stallybrass and White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, page 28

"'That is all very proper and civil I am sure'," said Mrs. Bennet, "'and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?'"
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 14

Because Pride and Prejudice exemplifies the importance of propriety as opposed to the liberated speech forms mentioned by Stallybrass and White, is its overall meaning, like the writing itself, restrained?

When the dialogue in a story is more "liberated", as Stallybrass and White discuss, the story itself is more lax and easy to read, for the most part. For many people, the easier a story is to read, the more consumed they become and the deeper the connection they ultimately make with the story is. In a story such as Pride and Prejudice, where propriety and norms are greatly emphasized, limiting the free reign of the text, readers have to strain a little harder in order to comprehend what the author is trying to convey. While curses, profanities, and improprieties liberate the text and help the reader connect to the way the story is being written, I'm not so sure an impact is really made from one extreme to the other as far as understanding the point of the story goes. For me, though the prose of Pride and Prejudice is restrained, the meaning of the story is still very clear. Despite the conviction of the composition, it is still possible (and not even extremely difficultly so) to analyze the text and form an understanding of what Jane Austen is trying to express in her story. I think that the biggest difference between writing with improprieties present and writing with a lack of them is simply the way the reader connects to the story, not the way the reader understands it.

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 2

"The purpose of such close reading was not, however, the analysis of literary devices  or motifs considered as an end in itself. It was instead the elucidation of the way literature embodies or concretely enacts universal truth, what the New Critics called, "concrete universals."
- Rivkin and Ryan, "Formalisms", page 6 

In writing my paper for Othello, I have found the above quote to be true. When doing a close reading, it is obviously important that you analyze literary devices or motifs. In my paper, I touch on symbolism through dialogue in Othello, but I hit a speed bump when it came to diving in a little deeper. To compose an effective close reading paper it is important to not only analyze, but to explain how you came up with that analysis. Rivkin and Ryan point out that it is vital when doing a close reading that the reader notices the overall deeper meaning of what the point they are making contributes to the piece of literature as a whole.

- Rachel Mann

Literary Theory: Weekly Response 1

* "In the analysis of poetry, the Formalist focus was on the qualities of poetic language that distinguish it from ordinary practical language, the distinction between the literary and non-literary being more pronounced in this genre."
- Ryan and Rivkin, "Formalisms"

The poem "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" proves the above statement to be true. A line in the poem reads, "In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground" -- which literally means that when the speaker of this poem is in a bad mood, writing Sonnets cheers him up. Because it is written poetically, instead of practically, it contains rhyme as well as a "rougher" way of saying something simply. The difference between poetic language and ordinary practical language is apparent here -- poetic language utilizes devices such as rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and alliteration to say things in a more elegant way.



- Rachel Mann