Karthik A. ENG 348W F22
The Gernsback Continuum
Beloved
Severance
Blood Meridian
The Department of Truth
Real Women Have Bodies
The Trees
The concept of the semiotic phantoms, which in itself is a representation of deviation from reality, but in of itself is created by the manipulation of one's self by reality and how others interpret it and show that to others
A Manifested Truth
The essence of time
Instead of time itself determining the passage of time, time is rather determined by one's consciousness, and how they perceive what the past and present mean individually, as such the hallucination of a future interpretation from the past is vastly different than what the real "future" is
Conspiracy theories are rampant throughout the Gernsback Continuum, especially so with Merv Kihn, being interested in UFO sightings, the Lochness Monster, etc.
Alternatively, the concept of mass unconsciousness plays a big role in the narrator's story, which further emphasizes not just a truth being manifested, but rather the population collectively accepting it being the way a manifested truth turns into what we see as our reality, even with someone like Merv Kihn who is trying his best to get rid of a manifested truth from his consciousness
Changing Concept of Future
Nazi-inspired architecture and its "perfection"
Aryan-inspired style and look of human beings in the alternate reality
Our past hopes for a future
A future that never happened, seeing what people just like you, only just simply alive half a century ago instead, hoped they would see in America in 50 years. The difference is jarring, and even frightening
Nostalgia: How we look back on things - we try to do so fondly, but in doing so forget how certain aspects of society negatively affected us and those not in our traditional "groups"
Odd obsession and interest in gas stations, for example the ersatz model gas stations that were heavily used in the 80s
THE CHANGING IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE
Desensitization to Violence
Cyclical Nature of Life: What we do now is what we do for the rest of our lives
Blood Meridian is a far more realistic and less glamorous view of the tradition western, it makes the reader question nostalgia by showing the other sides of it and their negative impact
Influence of Religion
Description of violence in the story
Acceptance of Death
Racially Charged Violence
Dehumanizing People
Referring to Mexcians and tribes as inferior in many forms
Willingness and excitement with which the group kills
Casual murder descriptions
Scalping for money, taking away any value of life
The John Jackson dilemma within the group itself
(Page 46) Very casual descriptions of dead bodies and murders
The Judge's view on life as pointless and exaggerations of training Children to kill (Page 141)
Murders become decreasingly descriptive, and rather mundane as the story progresses, ending life becomes a formality
The Altars in Mexico, and them being looted by Glanton's Gang
Mexican obsession with the blood of Christ
The Judge
War is permanent
Godly representations
Despite some sympathy for children, he kills them regardless
"Joking" about mandatorily training kids from a young age to fight
God speaking through stones/trees
Hearing God's voice
God would have interfered if he did not agree with the degeneracy of war
The Judge describing war as "devine"
The people you hang around, and their loyalty and companionship to others
The kid: He ends up disagreeing fundamentally with The Judge but when given the choice to kill him, he decides to let him live
Predetermination of one's fate
The "Western"
A feeling of uniqueness for the landscape
The landscape feels consuming
Descriptions used for the sun (inescapable, white noon, sun showing the blood rushing inside the characters) to provide a sense of impact on that characters
The moon and the night: Moving, shaking, "wearing shapes"
The feeling of being "enslaved" by nature, having to alter every move and abide by nature's rules, and nature can be ruthless especially in the desert
Description of the desert as an alien type landscape
The different ruins they come across are always described in different manners
The descriptions of each tribe that is pillaged
His innate fear of change and the future: He is tied to war and violence and will do anything to maintain that lifestyle
Autonomy, But at what cost: Fear
The impact of one's history, and remembrance of such
Memory
Living in fear
Femininity and Independence
Community
The Past
Sethe
Beloved having control of Sethe in all manners
Sethe was conceived in an act of rape
The turning back in her bed on her husband - representing how she her past
The tree, and the treatment she faced by her teacher, and the trauma it has caused her
Sethe is really only able to "live" and be free when she disassociates her current self from her past self
The "animal characteristics" she is described with by her teacher
Sethe's view of herself as different from the other black people that she lives around
Stealing food from her restaurant where she works
Paul D
Paul D looking at Sethe's back when she sleeps, only seeing her for what she was and not what she is now
Tendency to forget traumatic experiences, but having them linger and impact the characters
The mother daughter dynamic
Sethe killing Beloved and trying to kill her other children to save them
Baby Suggs and Sethe collectively shunned by their neighbors
Ignoring her trauma for the sake of her children, protecting them from anything she had ot endure
Sethe and Milk
Feeling tortured as she had her milk stolen from her, not caring about the abuse she faced
The mother-child relationship, breast-feeding, and how her dependence on milk represents her desire to protect her children from her past
Getting beat with the tree and cowhide while pregnant
Sethe and Denver: Sethe's necessity to feed Denver, her child: "All I knew is that I had to get my milk to my baby girl"
Being a woman and not having the ability to express one's identity or utilize any freedom or independence due to external factors
Sethe seems disconnected from her community: stealing food from her restaurant instead of standing line with the others
Paul D and his chain gang provided him a sense of familiarity
Sethe's community becomes her children: Especially the ghost apparition of her daughter, Beloved
Beloved consumes Sethe
Beloved and her control over Sethe
Denver: She turns into an entirely different person after being haunted by Beloved
Fear of loving something only to lose it, as with Sethe's children: she is haunted by this loss and as such is afraid to love again
Paul D as well: Having sex with Beloved and seeing a human heart
Paul D: Does not love all the way as much as he would like to, since he does not want to have to lose someone he loves so much
Sethe faces internal turmoil and confusion for killing her own daughter to prevent her from living life as a slave like she did
White Autonomy has created their innate fear of black people, doing this deliberately to further create hysteria
Paul D and Sethe's dependence on each other due to their shared trauma and experiences
Having no companionship within a Black community negatively affects Sethe, Denver, and Paul D: The hauntings of Beloved
Exchanging freedom and free will: Sethe is haunted by the actions she takes freely and loses her free will through haunting,
and Baby Suggs
Comparing freeing oneself and the actual free life: they are very different and create very different feelings
Sethe's decision to provide without any consideration of her own well being: she has no self-dependency or self-importance, and lives only to protect her children from her own past
Sethe wants her children to only understand freedom, and as such she is strained by this desire and forced to commit acts to protect them
The only way Beloved is even exorcised from 124 is through the collective community
"Under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood"
"In that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut." Paul D's memories prevent him from loving, and is also fearful that revealing too much about his past to Sethe will transport both of them back to the plantation
"She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them": Paul D reaction to finding out about Sethe and her murdering her daughter, since he feels a certain way towards Beloved
The Unrealistic Standards of Fashion
Post-Recession Frustration/Anger at Systems
The necessity for bodies to fit into the clothing, women's clothing and bodies only used to impress and satisfy men
"Do you ever wonder if the girls who come in here realize they're going to grow up exactly as fucked as we are?"
Lingering sense of apathy within the girls, seemingly don't care about much at all about their future because it seems like they won't have one
The desire for changing systems e.g., through voting and manipulation of elections by the women who are disappearing
Anger about the fact that they aren't able to use their art degrees, and instead are spending their days working in retail instead of having the chance to express themselves through art
The women who vanish end up gaining more autonomy and opportunity to do what they want and impact in a more tangible way than if they were just bodies to fit into clothing when they were visible
Femininity vs. Masculinity
Women who are not "feminine" enough are disappearing, fading from existence
Women who don't have "bodies" are seen as inferior to those who do, instead of judging on intrinsic character, women are instead solely judged on how they look, which they do not have control over: e.g., The "pretzels will make you fat" comment from mother to daughter
"Real Women" are more defined by the dresses and clothes that they are wearing: They are simply a body for the dress instead of seen for who they really are, and those women fade into obscurity, since they do not provide what women were intended to provide: a body to show off clothes
Deceptive Freedom of Capitalism
Horror of "Regularity"
Independence and Consciousness
Consequences of Rudimentary Actions
Candace's Hobbies
“Me, nothing really weighed on me, nothing unique. Me, I held down an office job and fiddled around with some photography when the moon hit the Gowanus right. Or something like that, the usual ways of justifying your life, of passing time” (11).
Consumer Culture: How everything around us is commoditized
"Killing is more an accumulative effect rather than the result of one definitive action" (28)
Killing someone over time: This regularity we seek is in fact killing us mentally
Candace pretty much feels dead as an individual, but she was not born that way
Someone killing and/or being killed is rarely just related to that moment, there is issues and other things leading up to it, that will cause these acts to occur
Candace's Bibles: They are just something to sell for her, no longer a valuable item
Gemstone Bibles production: No consideration of the consequences of health problems facing workers producing them
Candace's Work:
Losing herself in her work (23)
The Bible is the best "selling" book every year being Candace's praise of it rather than its history or impact
Candace talking about the Bible without referencing its content or its religious impact (67)
Perceptive Reality
Toe-ing the line between what is reality and what is not
Questioning American ideas
The Past and what can be learned from it: What we decide to change and what we continue to do
The Satanic Panic: Although it was based in manufactured fear, it affected our realities and what people wanted to believe what was true: We see how this affects someone like Cole being influenced by this idea from a young age
The Chinese Connection for Candace
Sending money earned from capitalist jobs and benefitting from the system back home to families
Bible Production: Having the map on the back of the Bible was their only concern, specifically in terms of sales and production
The Shenzen Hotel: In China but made specifically to represent western standards of architecture and design
The influence of Candace's parents on her life: Her values, relationships, ideas, willingness to work at her job, culminating into her daily routine: Even things such as skin care are done in the exact same way day in and day out for Candace
The Fever itself rids individuals of their consciousness: only those who aren't fevered remember what life was like, and have control over their intuition and body
Even in the most desperate of times, Capitalism has a hold over everyone, as the non-fevered individuals hide out in a mall
Candace depends on her routine: She acknowledges herself that she can't function without that structure in her life, her job, her skin care, etc.
Candace getting pregnant: It seems to be a natural procession of her life, becoming a mother
"You're under the impression that everyone gets to do what they want for a living" (275) - Candace isn't really passionate about what she does, but just does to to get by and pass the time
She still gets up everyday to go to work - even when there is an apocalypse going on - she is tied to her routine and system
Accepting Bible deals for Candace does not mean too much, but not considering the workers and their health issues
Climate Change: It is contributed to by all of us so slightly, but it is causing cities like Manhattan to start sinking and experience extreme weather such as hurricanes. Despite that, more people are moving there and exacerbating it, and seemingly so because it's something "different"
Fevered people are heavily impacted by old memories, and use nostalgia as a way to live "another life" pretty much (we see this especially in the group with Ashley, as she develops the Fever when she is trying to relive the past via wearing old dresses she wore long ago.
At the same time, Candace loses her "autonomy" to her child, even in the apocalypse, which plays into why she can't talk about her excitement with others, she is essentially now a servant for her child instead of a servant for herself (166)
Candace can't talk to anyone about her feelings or emotions in regard to becoming pregnant/a mother
Candace describing all of the various landmarks in Hong Kong as the Sun Rises, but encapsulating the sun rise simply as a representation of a new work day: her vision of beauty in Hong Kong is clouded by this "regularity" of going to work
Capitalist Structures commanding our lives
Candace has no sense of freedom in her day-to-day life, she is always bounded by something, either her routine that she depends on, her role as a mother, etc.
Candace aimlessly wanders many times throughout the book, even sometimes doing so rather than entering her own home and continuing on in her life (e.g. page 54)
Racial Undertones
During The Fever, those that have passed away are remembered through those that survive, although they have lost their consciousness, others remember them as independent individuals before that was taken away from them by a disease
Nostalgia-based longing for the past: Racist, sexist, homophobic undertones from those eras that are never brought up (Comic talks about longing for Trump and MAGA politics)
Conspiracy Theories all turning out to be true: Things that people manufactured into their own reality, (e.g., JFK assassination, flat earth, lizard people, etc.)
These different realities and theories are created specifically for individuals to feel more control over their surroundings. Otherwise they feel a part of the system, and essentially powerless
Interpretation of Media - how the media impacts individuals, like Cole and brings back things that haunted him during his childhood (like the demon that arose via the Satanic Panic in the 1980s, which has brought back to his memory due to media coverage)
Conspiracy theories can be turned into widely believed ideas if enough people will it to become accepted (e.g. bigfoot, flat earth concept in DoT)
Murder of JFK being fake: Is Lee Harvey Oswald a villain or an American hero for serving in the military?
JFK: Him and his family are going to now be seen in a completely different light after the theory is debunked, are they actually heroic or making America "great"?
Conspiracies were generally created to explain certain things that reality could not easily explain, and as such, these alternate realities were used to not have to think too much about certain phenomena that may be explained by our actual reality, just in a complicated manner
Reagan's era of presidency is looked back upon as something positive by many, and the DoT does everything they can to maintain his reputation
Reagan's scandals (E.g. Iran Contra Affair, AIDS Epidemic) are never brought up, and the DoT protects Reagan from this type of criticism
Are American Values really benefiting the people, or are they in place to mainly benefit others, like the elites and powerful people?
Conspiracies can allow for the elites to be protected from any ridicule in this way, which is why it seems that the DoT even exists, to make sure that the ideas that protect the elites are the ideas that are most widely believed, to keep the general population unaware of what is really going on
The concept of the "tulpas" that are brought up, as things that describe the impossible things that are brought to life through belief - as long as the elites benefit from the tulpas, the DoT and other government powers are okay with them existing
Cole's demon: The fact that it is still alive and haunting only means that the Satanic Panic has been dormant, rather than having gone away. Ideas and conspiracies never really die, and with any provocation, can be brought out in full force to haunt those that were negatively affected the most in the past
Interpretations of the past: Conspiracies such as the flat earth and bigfoot conspiracies have been around for a long time, and in some sense were Americanized over time - and now present completely different meanings than their origins
Hawk Harrison and Controlling the Media Narratives to Control the thoughts and beliefs of the common individuals
Inaccurate view of the past created by nostalgia
The Humor of Dark Realities
The Past and Vengeance
Police Brutality and its Racialization
Emmett Till's Lynching: Granny C the Character
Damon the Professor and his list: Is the list the cause of all of these vengeful deaths?
The names of characters that act in these horrific situations are humorous and somewhat "immature" - chose by Everett to create a ridiculous nature to their actions on many levels
The extremely accomplished black professor Damon not believed to have published his own work by peers and defaulted to the department of ethnic studies, essentially forced to waste a part of his academic career away due to perceptions of him, and not his work or skills
The juxtaposition of black characters and white characters killing each other. Black people are killing out of vengeance and anger for a wrong, while white people are killing black people for fun, without any actual reasoning other than the fact that the person they are killing is black
The police in the book mainly focus on white victims and black perpetrators, entrenched stereotypes within us create these racist systems of policing
When the white ancestors of lynchers are murdered, their families first reaction is anger at their relatives for not killing more black people when they could - and they entirely miss the point of these vengeance killings
Lynchings are commonplace - and as such no one really cares about them happening, and the impact they have on black people, no real emotional attachment to lynching or killing another human
Even then, the vengeance killings done give the white families the opportunity to say that they were simply right all along, and that the true villains are black people
The Black MBI Cops
Being a black cop is a complicated role: We can see their inner dilemma when they are investigating the double homicide
Cop stating that black men all look alike (14)
Granny C and her family display heavily racist values: heavy use of the n-word, being the woman that got Emmett Till lynched, etc.
Cops also don't learn much from the murders: Continue to treat black people as inferior, and even refer to them in racist language, like the n-word (109)
The KKK meeting and its absurdity, it almost feels as if it's not even real - the stuff they are talking about, how they talk about people of color, their names, etc. (108)
These deaths are a huge cause of concern for the town population, but unfortunately act as a mechanism to plant deeper rooted racist values
Cadaver company and their severed bodies - presented in a Looney Tunes type of commercial way with absurd slogans similar to something like a local car dealership commercial
The bar for becoming a cop - for white people it's very easy - Jim and Ed make this claim: indicating that unqualified people are being given the power to enforce the law however they like on those they may or may not like
"I wronged the little pickaninny. Like it say in the good book, what goes around come around" (13)
"You should know I consider police killings to be lynchings."
"You think whites are just afraid of Black men? I think it's sport"
"I seen him, seen him close up, scarred up by Satan himself" (108)
Calling themselves "Whites for Social Justice" is incredibly ironic considering the time, and what social justice means now: instead they are banding together to avenge for dead white people who are ancestors of lynchers
"He found it all depressing, not that lynching could be anything but. However, the crime, the practice, the religion of it, was becoming more pernicious as he realized that the similarity of their deaths had caused these men and women to be at once erased and coalesced like one piece, like one body. They were all number and no number at all, many and one, a symptom, a sign." (189)
The ability for Everett to create these arguments within a detective story: making it insanely ridiculous with its dialogue
"Chief, is clusterfuck one word or two?" (31)
MAGA and Trump-impacted communities
"Charlene thumbed through the Popular Mechanics magazines and tried to eavesdrop. She looked at the science magazine instead of People. She hated them intellectual elites in People." (79)
Money, Mississippi as a stereotyping of the rural south:
"Well, it's chock-full of know-nothing peckerwoods stuck in the prewar nineteenth century and living proof that inbreeding does not lead to extinction." (120) - Jim and Ed's description of Money, Mississippi reflects the common idea about a rural town in the South, known for hosting KKK meetings, lynchings in the past, and being the most racist places in America
How much do we let the past impact us: And under what circumstances is it ok (e.g., oppression, racism, targeted violence, and the trauma resulting from these things