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ENG45C, "Prufrock" - decides acting on desire would not have…
ENG45C
Inevitability and Doomed Fate
"Eurydice"
The Sound and the Fury
Things Fall Apart
"The Second Coming"
"Harlem [2]"
Loss of Free Will
- "We're not tied?"
Fear
Mrs. Dalloway
"The Dead"
Waiting for Godot
Desire + the Inability to Act
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Turn of the Screw
"Bartleby, the Scrivener"
Generational Trauma
The Sound and the Fury
Things Fall Apart
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Dissolution of Identity
- Things Fall Apart Literally
Loss of Self
- Individual Loss
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Mrs. Dalloway
"The Man of the Crowd"
"Easter, 1916"
"Tradition and the Individual Talent"
"A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste"
Loss of Culture
- Collective Loss
"To Elsie"
Things Fall Apart
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
"Let America Be America Again"
"The Dead"
"I, Too"
Escaping Modernity
Transcendentalism and Return to Nature
"Oread"
"Sailing to Byzantium"
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
"Spring and All"
Self-Alienation
The Sound and the Fury
"The Man of the Crowd"
"Sea Rose"
"Prufrock" - decides acting on desire would not have been worth it
Turn of the Screw
- believes ghosts are the threat to the children
"And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father's contemptible life and shameful death." (pg 18)
Okonkwo's fear of feminization dooms him as it is the catalyst for his inevitable downfall. Killing Ikemefuna out of fear of weakness causes the rift with Nwoye that causes him to convert. This same need for strength is what causes Okonkwo to kill the messenger - who has abused Okonkwo thus proving him "weak" - which leads to his suicide.
"While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, / I hear it in the deep heart's core." (stanza 3)
"hurl your green over us, / cover us with your pools of fir."
"Out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing," (stanza 4)
These 4 texts share the common theme of transcendentalism as they are all concerned with leaving modernity behind to find inner peace through the idyllic solitude of nature
"Soon, however, I descended to details, and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance." (pg 507)
"Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon--for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you--and pinched it in to such a little bit of thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her." (pg 89)
" 'Find the note,' she said. 'Quentin left a note when he did it.' " (pg 327)
"Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak." (pg 61)
"I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best." (pg 1)
"To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (stanza 4)
unable to act on desires due to more overwhelming desires
"It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if he
were
innocent what on earth was I?" (pg 123)
Rationalization - subconsciously put forward secondary motives to account for actions
"Bartleby" - lawyer sees inability to rid himself of Bartleby as his divine purpose
"She had tried to make him ridiculous before people, heckling him and staring at him with her rabbit's eyes." (pg 11)
"...somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other..." (pg 13)
" 'Well,' said Gabriel, 'if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language.' " (pg 10)
This poem focuses on the loss of culture through the degradation of society, showing how the absence of tradition has caused people to stray further from a collective culture.
"from imaginations which have no// peasant traditions to give them/ character" (stanzas 6-7)
loss of culture through perceived degradation - erasure of culture from the inside
"I ask you: Are all the sons of Umuofia with us here?" (pg 203)
"It was extraordinary how Peter put her into these states just by coming and standing in a corner. He made her see herself; exaggerate." (pg 179)
"She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them." (pg 72)
" "I seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin,' " (pg 344)
Eurydice is inevitably doomed to an eternity in the underworld as Orpheus is unable to resist looking back at her. Eurydice's fate was out of her control, and the poem expresses the anger at hurt she feels at Orpheus for her damnation.
The cyclical movement of time in
The Sound and the Fury
, characterized by the repetition of names and events, shows how the tragedies in the Compson family's past are bound to repeat themselves. The family's obsession with Caddy, which binds the characters to a past timeline, is what brings about the familial degradation and ruin, as they are unable to move forward with their lives until they acknowledge Caddy's departure.
Clarissa is a people pleaser. She loses her self-identity in attempt to be liked by everyone. Her identity is tied to her role as a party host and wife, hence the title of the book being
Mrs. Dalloway
and not
Clarissa
. The book also shows the struggle between an internal vs. external self, with Peter and Sally knowing the real Clarissa while the public only gets to see a facade. This idea of loss of self-identity is emphasized through Woolf's use of free indirect discourse, as Clarissa describes herself from the perspective of other characters more than how she sees herself.
Janie's sense of self slowly ebbs away as Jodie becomes more demanding and controlling over how she presents herself in the town. This is symbolized by the binding of Janie's hair, which is a way for Jodie to exhibit his control over her. Janie realizes this loss of self after Jodie hits her, as she discovers that she now has an internal and external self which are not to be mixed.
This poem describes the loss of culture through erasure and colonization. African-Americans were distanced from their African heritage through colonialism, resulting in a collective loss of culture for large groups of people.
"I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it" (stanza 3)
The culture of the Ibo people is desecrated with colonization. Religious missionaries disrespect the religion of the tribe and convince some tribe members to convert, resulting in the community fracturing. The converts assimilate with the colonizers and turn on their culture, which can be seen when one of the converts unmasks a Mbaino elder, erasing cultural tradition.
Gabriel casts off his Irish identity in an attempt to break away from the culture. He degrades Ireland and its customs which can be seen by the constant insinuation that his Irish family is unintellectual and trivial.
The two main characters are ruled by their existentialist fear of a life without meaning. This fear chains them to an eternity of waiting for Godot despite their desires to leave.
"I don't seem to be able...to depart." (pg 38).
Gabriel is controlled by his fear of making the wrong impression on people. This fear causes constant overthinking that ultimately alienates him despite his desire to be well liked. This can be seen when he is talking to Lily, and he offends her while trying to be friendly.
Clarrisa, similarly to Gabriel, is also controlled by her fear of making the wrong impression. This fear causes her to do nothing that she desires to do, only what will make a good impression on people. This can be seen with her refusal of Peter's proposal, as she believes he would not be considered the "proper" husband for her despite her feelings for him.
Janie's sexual awakening makes her aware of her desire for an intimate connection with another person, which is then thwarted by her grandmother's fear of Janie being taken advantage of. To "protect" Janie, Nanny persuades Janie to give up on love and marry Logan, an older man who will be able to take care of Janie for Nanny.
The tragedies of the past repeat themselves as the Compson's obsession with Caddy stop them from having a future outside of the Compson house. Caddy is the only sibling not bound - the only sibling with free will - so she is the only one who breaks free from the house and accomplishes a future. Jason - who cannot see past the job he feels Caddy cheated him of - takes out his anger on Caddy's daughter, causing her to run away with all of his money.
Okonkwo's fear of becoming like his father causes him to kill Ikemefuna, who is some aspects resembles Okonkwo's father. The killing of Ikemefuna drives away Nwoye and causes him to convert. This repulsion to feminine behavior also holds Okonkwo back from his desire to show familial affection, which creates a larger rift in the family.
Double consciousness - (W. E. B. Du Bois) looking at one's self through the eyes of others
loss of culture through colonization and racism - erasure of culture from the outside
hubris - the fatal flaw that brings about the inevitable tragedy
The lawyer desires to turn Bartleby out but is unable to due to his stronger desire to avoid conflict
Prufrock desires connection and intimacy but is unable to act on these desires due to the need of being favorable perceived
Governess desires to protect her charges but is unable to do so due to her repression of sexual desires which cause the apparitions of ghosts to appear, making her unable to see that she is the threat to the children
Jason is repelled by the idea of modernity and the future which can be seen by his constant villainization of change. His obsession and glorification of the past makes alienates him, and it blocks him from participating in the cultural changes the larger society is undergoing.
"I reckon you'll know now that you cant beat me out of a job and get away with it." (pg 236)
Narrator "escapes" modernity through alienation from the larger society. Alienation is self-imposed as narrator considers himself an observer - a part from the crowd
Narrator yearns for immortalization through nature - desires to transcend into divinity through nature and art
Narrator has such a strong desire for nature to return to modern society that they imagine being buried under nature
Narrator yearns for the solitude of nature and can even imagine the quietness while still in the modern city
This poem describes how African-Americans have been subjected to racism and colonization to help build an "American Dream" that they are then denied.
This poem suggests that Irish rebellion was inevitable due to the poor treatment they received from Great Britain
"Whatever flames upon the night / Man's own resinous heart has fed." (stanza 2)
This poem shows how ordinary people shed their identity to join the Irish rebellion. Those who had regular lives left them behind to fight.
"He, too, has been changed in his turn, / Transformed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born." (stanza 3)
The title-character has no real identity of his own. His sense of self is only in connection with the crowd, as he is unable to be apart from it. A foil to the narrator who feels alienated from modern society, the man of the crowd does not exist outside of society.
"I saw the old man gasp as if for breath while he threw himself amid the crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of his countenance had, in some measure, abated." (pg 514)
Loss of self through blending into the crowd
This essay suggests that writers are only viewed in context of the other writers that came before them, with the best part of a writer's work being the influence of those who came before. This kind of limits the writer's identity as an individual as they will always be compared to other people.
"You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead." (pg 2171)
This poem describes how African-Americans have been treated as lesser than in America, stripping them of rights and refusing to see them as equal people who had their culture and customs stolen from them.
"I am the darker brother, / They send me to eat in the kitchen/ When company comes," (stanza 2)
"And torn from Black Africa's strand I came / To build a "homeland of the free." (stanza 12)
This poem suggests that people can only be trampled on for so long before they inevitably take action.
"
Or does it explode?"
(stanza 4)
Narrator describes life before arrival of spring (nature) as dull and ugly (modernity). Nature arrives and brings beauty, clarity, and liveliness to modernity.
"Lifeless in appearance, sluggish / dazed spring approaches--" (stanza 4)
"so for your arrogance / and your ruthlessness / I am swept back" (stanza 2)
This essay suggests that artists should be influenced by as many great artists as possible, but either acknowledge or conceal this in their work. However, too much influence can lead to a loss of self-identity and writing and simply make your writing a parody of someone else's.
"Use either no ornament or good ornament" (pg 202)
Okonkwo - need to show strength
Orpheus - mistrust of Eurydice
Jason - obsession with the past
Double consciousness introduces this concept of the internal vs. the external which both Janie and Clarissa struggle with
Narrator escapes from the crowd through imperfections that make them stand out in modern society
"single on a stem-- / you are caught in the drift." (stanza 2)