Sheet of the Week 11/30

Hi all,
Hope you enjoyed some tasty thanksgivings.  After those pies of Anais's, I'm not sure I needed more, but I hope you all ate and rested and relaxed as much as possible.

Now for the week to come:  By Wednesday, you should read scenes 2 and 3 of Streetcar.  (Finish the last few pages of scene 1 first, obviously!)  As usual, there seemed to be strong reactions to Blanche from the very first; I'll be interested to see what you think as you move further into the play.

Remember also that your Medea synthesis questions are due on Wednesday, if you haven't turned them in already.  If you're revising your Free Choice essays, I'll give you a bit more time -- the following Thursday (Dec. 9) makes sense to me... (see why it's useful to check the blog!)

On December 8, we'll have another DST, the second for this year.  We'll talk more about it in class, but mark it on your calendars now!

Class discussion: Medea vs. Jason

Following the class discussion we have had today in class, notably pertaining to the comparison between Jason and Medea, and which of the two characters deserved our sympathy (catharsis), I would like to further give prominence to the point I was attempting to make. First of all, it is primordial to draw attention to the fact that neither Medea, nor Jason have all the faculties needed, in order for us to be able to, without refutation of any sort, to characterize them as tragic heroes. Indeed, as was previously illustrated by fellow classmates on this wonderful blog, Aristotle defines the tragic hero as an individual who is: a character of noble stature and has greatness; pre-eminently great but he/she is not perfect; the hero's downfall is partially her/his own fault and the result of free choice; the hero's mis-fortunate is not wholly deserved, the punishment exceeding the crime; increase in awareness, some gain in self-knowledge. Though noble (considering temperament, and human nature) as well as moral aptitudes, can also be taken into consideration, they do not appear in Aristotle's definition, therefore this concept needs not to be applied to our two main characters, nonetheless it is essential to note that Medea, having brutality killed her brother, in order to save Jason, but also because the act would, in the future benefit her, cannot be considered as such. However the fundamental aspect of the clash between Medea and Jason, is, that within the context of the myth, Medea was not only influenced by Aphrodite to come to Jason's aid, but, as we can see throughout the play, a subject to her passions: "it was infatuation, sheer shooting passion, that drove you to save my life" - Jason responding to Medea, during their first confrontation. This theory, therefore in some sort, renders insignificant the acts Medea undertook for Jason. Nonetheless, though she sacrificed elements of her life in order to aid Jason, her naivety has lead her to believe that Jason's actions, respectable in their society, was a complete betrayal considering what she had done for him, without regarding the fact that she too was given fame, prosperity, and security, notably from her father's wrath, for ten years. Considering she is a corrupt and disastrous witch, it was said, today in class, that Jason should have known the lengths to which Medea would have taken her anger, indeed in that case, the Princess's death is inevitable, however, the killing of Jason's sons, are a simple affirmation of her pride not wanting to accept possible defeat, but also of her emotions, or rather sudden whims, integrally reprobating her consciousness, and sense of logic. On the other hand, this analysis goes both ways, Medea should have known that, Jason being a greedy and superficial individual, would always seek for more fame, through any means necessary. After all, women were not considered as citizens of society at that time, at least not lowly ranked woman within society, though this is not a concept I agree with, it seems only natural for Medea to serve and obey her husband and accept the decisions he makes for her. However this does not pardon Jason's depth-less acts, but he is forgiven because he simply acts according to his society, this poor man, who has lost everything is clearly not at fault. Indeed, adhering to a logical analysis of the literary context, one can affirm that Medea is simply making the same mistakes as she has done previously: entering a knew environment as a refugee, a foreigner, and mysterious individual, a clash between her and her host is inevitable. However, it seems as though Medea's abilities to manipulate individuals, as seen with Creon or the Chorus, has transfered itself with the audience. In conclusion Medea is a fool, and Jason is as well, that is the correlation that exists between these two characters, nonetheless Jason is a pardoned fool, only acting like he is intended to do. In order to fully understand my point of view, one must distance himself from our contemporary views of society, but also of ones bias interpretations of the play, indeed I have observed that most female individuals in our class have sided with Medea simply because she is a woman, without clearly analyzing the obvious facts. Finally, though Medea's actions seem respectable, they are only a perfect representation of the violent, brutal, barbarian, and somewhat primitive ideologies she is influenced by. Indeed, as she herself indicates, she is controlled by her emotions, however furthering her for her reason.

Sheet of the Week 11/22

Hi all,
Just a quick note to say I've been enjoying all your posts.  What a sudden burst of activity.  Could it possibly mean.. grades are due?!

A few quick notes for the short week to come:

On Monday, we'll finish the last Medea oral and our discussion of the play.  Thanks to all for your hard work on the presentations.

On Wednesday, we'll start our next book, A Streetcar Named Desire, in class.  Please bring books with you so we can read aloud.  It's a great, strange, amazing play -- I think you'll like it and can't wait to hear you yelling, "Stelllllaaaaa!"

Modern Medea

Hola Ms. Hollow's class!

I found this oil painting by Bernard Safran when searching for different representations of Medea through time, and this one really struck me. Safran wanted to represent famous biblical or mythological figures in a time that was other than their own, to demonstrate their timeless-ness. In this case he chose Medea, and gave her the likeness of an elegant and well-off middle-aged woman of the early sixties, clutching her two fair-haired boys, plain and nonchalant in their innocence. You could picture the three living in a dark mansion somewhere in the New England countryside, seeing they're obviously wealthy, Medea wearing pearls and a somber velvet dress.

I love this representation because the more you look at it, and what it symbolizes, the more it makes you shiver. An unknowing or self-absorbed businessman could buy this work on a whim without batting an eye or researching its origin, and hang it above his tacky fireplace (stereotypes hehe) thinking it to be an elegant and retro family portrait of a respectable family. It would never occur to him that the painting he can now brag about at his dinner parties is in fact that of a jilted woman turned psychopath and about to murder her own children, and an ancient figure of death and destruction. The reason why this painting is so successful is its ambiguity. If one was unaware of the myth, it might even be charming. One could so easily imagine this woman and her children in the flesh, carrying about their seemingly ordinary lives! But there is something strangely and intensely ominous in the fiery livid sky above their heads, and the looming stare Medea holds on the viewer. She seems both proud and unsettled, fixing her stare on the viewer as though she were wordlessly holding him as a witness to her future crime. The colors are also grim, with Medea's black dress signifying impeding death and mourning, contrasted with the celestial and unearthly (divine?) light that outlines the figures.

To add to the creepiness of the piece, Safran used two local boys from his neighborhood to model, and his close friend to portray Medea. Another dark thought: infanticide is grimly still present in the world today. As this painting shows, cunning Medea could perfectly still be living among us, undetected.

The thought of a modern Medea also reminded me of the film Shutter Island, by Martin Scorsese, where Teddy Daniels' (or is it Andrew Laeddis? ;) ) wife murders their three children, turned crazy out of her husbands' neglect.

Last Post (Closing Words)

As I was reading through the posts there is one thing that i feel is quite important and has not really been touched upon enough: madness. In the dictionary, one definition of madness is the following: a state of frenzied or chaotic activity. Throughout the entire OIB program all the books, the characters and plots were all linked to madness. In general all the madness that we have seen has lead the the catastrophic downfall of the character. What I think would be interesting is to make to find a link or a pattern between all these different types of madness.
The books that come to mind when we think about madness are Frankenstein, Macbeth and Medea. If we look at these books we realize that madness is never a self inflicted condition. In fact the madness that is relevant in these books always due to an outside source. This is interesting because we think of madness as a creation of the subjects conscience.
In Macbeth the madness is clearly provoked by the witches. As they say, the seed is planted but he will decide how it will grow. Without the witches offer Macbeth would have never had any motive to become rogue and go against his own king. Frankenstein seems like a more difficult madness to determine. At first it seems that the madness is self inflicted from the start of his undertaking. Only after he completes his work do we realize that his true madness is due to Creature. His activity becomes completely incoherent with his state of mind and to a certain degree creature pushes the limits of his "hell on earth." Finally in Medea we have another interesting situation where we know that Medea's character is already a little bit chaotic. However i think that her actions before Jason were never really proof of madness but more a very strong character. He see hints of this during his confrontation with Jason but killing her children and Jason's wife a proof a chaotic activity without reason, only to return to another power thriving husband in Athens.
So we see that the madness in all of these books is not really the object of a subconscious creation but in fact of product of their own environments. This allows to show that these characters are in fact tragic heros, subject to their environments. Since madness is not controlled by the subject, it can only be additional proof the the characters tragic state.

Pecola's Subconscious and Medea

Having written a close reading of a passage of The Bluest Eye, I wanted to share my thoughts. In fact, I close read the passage where Pecola and her "other voice" talk. This passage was really interesting because it revealed a lot of different things that I had never thought about before. First of all, this passage is interesting in the way that it is not obvious which character is Pecola and which character is her subconscious. By looking at it closely, we can see that it presents both sides of Pecola herself. On one side her "new" personality that her "blue eyes" brought and on the other a more sane side. This sane side tries to bring back Pecola to the reality but in doing so, her mind is corrupted by Pecola. She finally agrees with Pecola in the sense that her blue eyes are beautiful and "bluer" than anyone else's blue eyes. This second side of her finally convinces and reassures Pecola that her actions are right and agrees with Pecola's wrong ideas she has about the world. In our close reading of Medea with Camille, we found the interesting relation with Medea in the sense that Medea too needs someone to tell her she is right. It is interesting how these two characters as they are starting to loose their mind because of a strong desire look for someone who can tell them they are right. Since they both remain alone and left out from society, they look towards themselves for this "someone". Finally I can see that as a vicious cycle in the way that when they start loosing their mind both create someone to help them reach their goals. While doing so, both characters loose grip of the real world more and more. This continues on as a vicious cycle.

The forms of otherness in Medea and Bluest Eye

Hi, I havent posted anything to the blog yet, but I thought it would be interesting, in this point in the year, to make a comparison between the different "types" of "otherness" we find in the books we read, and more explicitly, compare Pecola's otherness to Medea's otherness. Indeed, otherness doesn't need to follow certain norms, like a tragic hero. For me, Medea and Pecola's otherness is completely different. In my opinion, Pecola's otherness is much more severe and important. She is ostracized from the beginning of her life, and she is an other in her own home. Medea, on the other hand, follows much more conventional forms of otherness. She is an other because she has left her home, and lives in a foreign land.

Pecola has never known what its like to feel accepted in society. She was born an outsider not only to the white people, but to her "own" black society, to which she is supposed to inherently belong. Medea, on the other hand, is ostracized directly stemming from her actions. Let's face it, she a freak. She murders in cold blood and she's a total which. She is ostracized because she is frightening while Pecola is ostracized because she is weak: she is a woman, she is a child, and she is black.

While I do feel their forms of otherness are completely different, in my opinion, there still exists some similarities. They both wish they could be accepted and they both desire to leave their current home. In the end of the Bluest Eye, Pecola tries to "fly away", flapping her arms in a maddening desire to possess wings to leave this "foreign" place which she calls home. Medea, on the other hand, has the tools and the means by which to, literally, fly away from the scene of the murder of her children. This sort of elevation is what both characters desire to possess.

While Medea successfully manages to travel onwards to try to find a different home, Pecola is forever prisoner of her society.