Ariel's post: Massey/Wideman

In Doreen Massey’s “A Place Called Home?” there is a discussion on how we give concepts such as ‘home’ and ‘place’ a certain identity.

There is a significant relationship between identity and place that help to define “home.” Is home more than a geographical location in which a group of people relate? Is home a state of being where an individual finds comfort and security or a place where our identities are constructed?

Massey explains in detail the effects of globalization and sates “The link between culture and place, it is argued, is being ruptured.”(160) Do you agree with this statement on how a location’s culture is being defined by the products is exports? Do you believe these exports would be a strength or weakness to the overall representation of that culture?

Final essay questions

Choose one of the topics below and write a 6-8 page paper which analyzes any of the texts from O’Hara to the end of the semester. You should incorporate one secondary source (suggestions to come momentarily); please choose your topic, read the secondary source, and begin to think about how to incorporate it before next Thursday (Dec. 4). Since several of these topics touch on themes we have already discussed in class, so be sure to discuss passages and subjects other than/in addition to the ones we covered together.

1. Analyze the position of the observer and the observed in one or two of the “city” works we have read. (O’Hara, Crane, Poe, Hitchcock, James, Wideman, Scott). There are many possible perspectives to take on this topic, so narrow it down carefully. Possibilities include:
-Moments when the position of the observer becomes that of the observed (as in Rear Window, Blade Runner, Jolly Corner). What kind of power does an observer have, and what causes the shift between observer and observed? There are lots of paranoid characters; what dynamic produces this paranoia?
-In a film: discuss the use of close-ups, panoramic shots, unusual camera angles or camera movement, and their effect on the audience. How does the camera play the role of a “narrator” in Rear Window? What is the relationship between the director’s camera and the cameras (Jefferies’ still photography, the blimps in Rear Window) in the films themselves?
-Many of these characters position themselves high above “street level” at some point (including Rear Window, Jolly Corner, Hiding Place, Blade Runner). What relationship to the city do they achieve with this panoramic perspective? How does a “bird’s eye” view either grant or take away power?

2. Discuss the depiction of criminals and crime in one or more text. What kind of social interaction is a crime, and how does that relate to the larger set of social interactions in the city? How does crime arise (does it come from the sinful nature of humanity; social inequities; natural forces; somewhere else)? What does the depiction of criminals and criminal behavior tell us about how these texts view the city?

3. Several of the texts we have considered (Maggie, Rear Window, Hiding Place) depict urban life as something akin to small-town, village, or even rural life. Why do the texts invite this comparison and blur the lines between city and country? Is there an implied value judgment in either direction (small towns are better than cities, or the opposite)? If a city neighborhood seems to embody a village or rural setting, what does that imply about urban inhabitants and their interactions? You might wish to compare an urban example with the small-town life in Twin Peaks.

4. Trace images of machines and/or technology in one or more texts. How do people relate to technology, and how does it change the ordinary human relationship with the environment and with one another? Do characters resist the impact of the mechanical on their world—or conversely, do they invite it—and why? Look for figurative language as well as for literal examples of technology.

5. What is it like to live in an apartment? Examine one or two of the texts that depict apartment life or compare apartments to houses (Crane, Hitchcock, James, Scott) and analyze the impact of the apartment on ideas of personhood. What specific elements of apartment life are different from the experience of living in a house? How does the physical structure of apartment life impact one’s idea of oneself, one’s relationship to friends and family, one’s relationship to strangers, one’s relationship to the public? If a house typically represents the private, the personal, the domestic—and by extension, the inner self—what does an apartment represent? Use specific examples.

Anthony's question: James

In James' short story "The Jolly Corner," the readers are introduced to the fifty six year old Spencer Brydon. Brydon becomes engrossed with the search for his past life, or "alter ego" (176). However, Brydon soon realizes that his idea of his past life has a physical form. What is the function of giving this idea physical form, a ghostly one at that? At some points in the story, his pursuit is referred to as a challenge,

"he had tasted of no pleasure so fine as his actual tension, had been introduced to no sport that demanded at once the patience and the nerve of stalking a creature more subtle, yet at bay perhaps more formidable, that any beast in the jungle" (175).

Is this a healthy pursuit? Or does Brydon lose himself in the idea of attaining something he can't have? Where else in our readings have we seen characters attempting to attain something and how has that worked for them?

Stieglitz photographs

The Terminal (1892)

Winter on Fifth Avenue (1893)

Flatiron Building (1903)

The Steerage (1907)

From the Back Window, "291" (1915)

From the Sheldon (1935)

All images from Masters of Photography:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/stieglitz/stieglitz.html

Twin Peaks: cinematic allusions

Here is a short YouTube guide to a few of David Lynch and Mark Frost's influences and allusions. Please take a quick look at these before class (should take no more than 15 minutes). These are certainly not the only influences, but they should give you a little bit of insight into the show's unusual aesthetic and the somewhat artificial acting style that you have all noticed.

Film Noir:

Trailer for "Double Indemnity"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wjJcuGsVE

Trailer for "Laura"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6f8jRplej8&feature=related

TV detective show "Dragnet"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxhuUdZzGYw

Iconic 1950s rebellious-teenager movies:

West Side Story (two of the main Twin Peaks actors, Leland Palmer [Laura's father] and Dr. Jacoby, were also lead actors in West Side Story as young men)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exGJsv6ZNlo

Rebel Without a Cause
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3EJuGAke5E&feature=related

Sean's post: Twin Peaks

First off, sorry for the late post everybody hope you have enough time to get your comments in. After getting over the bad acting that so many early 90's tv shows seem to have I noticed a few things to consider about the episode. The first is Agent Cooper's similarity to Dupin and the "Rue Morgue" story. He is an outsider coming in to a "shaken up" community; his quarky personality seperates him from the culture but also allows him to interact somewhat normally. Truman is obviously the sidekick/narrator and is always just a little behind Cooper. He also picks up on the most minor details (fingernail) which the crime depends on. What is so significant about Cooper's role in the crime/town? Do you think that his outside perspective will truly help them to solve the murder, or do you think the fact that Truman knows the characters of the town so well he will be able to unmask the killer by examining their personalities and actions.
Another big theme that I found was the anti-feminist nature of the show. This might not have relevance to solving the crime, and it might just be the time in which it was made, but Twin Peaks is absurdly overcharged with masculinity. It is almost comical how Bobby and Mike treat women. Mike screams at Donna to get down to the police station to support Bobby when her friend was just murdered. Also the physical abuse in the bar is somewhat distrubing considering a teenage girl had just been murdered and another raped and abused. The men that show emotion in the film are also portrayed in a weak or in an insecure way. The photographer who cries after seeing Laura's body is scolded, and told not to do it again. Also the gas station attendant, who seems to be the only nice guy (besides Cooper) in the episode is both verbally abused (by his pirate wife) and physically abused (by bobby when he tries to save Donna). James is barked at not sure why) in the jail cell and seems to be near a head cracking simply for caring about Bobby's girlfriend more than he ever did. Do you think that this is a major theme of the show, seeing as three girls were raped and murdered by a mysterious (most likely male) killer. Do you think the writers are purposely addressing this theme or is it all relative to the time in which the show was made? Lastly, what do you make of the moral values of almost every character in the shows? It seems every other person is cheating, going behind their significant other's back, or having a secret affair of some sort. Is this just to add another more sexual dimension to the show and turn it into a soap opera, or do you think it will have some significance in the end?

Claire's post: Rear Window

The setting of the movie Rear Window is surprisingly reminiscent of the tenements found in Maggie. Buildings facing each other, windows wide open; there is a strong sense that the individuals who live there ought to have some impact on the lives of those around them. We see, however, in their varied social routines, from the impassioned cries of the lady with the murdered dog, in the sad plight of ‘Miss Lonelyheart’, that the people only affect each other in a peripheral manner- the film really introduces the concept of a personal space, where individuals interact in private. Of course, the premise of the movie follows the life of one man who spies into all of these hidden moments. What does Hitcock mean to say about the nature of the private space, or the nature of public space? It is clear that nearly all the tenants suffered from a sense of disconnection or estrangement. Could Mrs. Thorwald have been saved in anyone in the building thought to ask after her? Was the invasion of privacy worth the cost if it brought a murderer to justice? Are the private and public spaces really as separate as they first appear?

Hitchcock also observes quite a bit about human nature and its wish to perform. Lisa is purported never to wear the same dress twice, but Jefferies is most entertained by people in their unstudied state, how they act when they feel they can stop putting on a show. Similarly Lisa and Stella are immediately drawn in to the drama. What fascination exists in viewing other people’s intimate moments that would cause Jefferies to cease his romanticisms with Lisa for-- put all their lives in danger for? Does this drive exist in all of us? How does Hitchcock present the ethics of window-peeping?

Close reading assignment

Due Friday, November 21 at 4 p.m.

Choose a paragraph/passage from "The Bear," Cane, Ceremony, or "Brokeback Mountain" and write a 2-3 page close reading. In your analysis, focus on how and why the author (or narrator) uses specific words, images, and metaphors. Look up vocabulary and allusions that you're not certain of. Although your primary task is to examine and analyze this passage in detail, you should give some sense of the context of this passage in the larger work and connect the themes of this passage to the larger set of themes that we have discussed in class. Before you begin, you should go back and re-read the section surrounding your passage. You do not need to include a traditional introduction and conclusion for this paper.

Below are some suggested passages. Please feel free to use these or choose your own. If you select your own, please print it out and include it with your essay. Don't choose a passage that we've already discussed at length in class.

From "The Bear" (pp. 142-43)
His day came at last. In the surrey with his cousin and Major de Spain and General Compson he saw the wilderness through a slow drizzle of November rain just above the ice point as it seemed to him later he always saw it or at least always remembered it--the tall and endless wall of dense November woods under the dissolving afternoon and the year's death, sombre, impenetrable (he could not even discern yet how, at what point they could possibly hope to enter it even though he knew that Sam Fathers was waiting there with the wagon), the surrey moving through the skeleton stalks of cotton and corn in the last of open country, the last trace of man's puny gnawing into the immemorial flank, until, dwarfed by that perspective into an almost ridiculous diminishment, the surrey itself seemed to have ceased to move (this too to be completed later, years later, after he had grown to a man and seen the sea) as a solitary small boat hangs in lonely immobility, merely tossing up and down, in the infinite waste of the ocean while the water and then the apparently impenetrable land which it nears without appreciable progress, swings slowly and opens the widening inlet which is the anchorage. He entered it. Sam was waiting, wrapped in a quilt on the wagon seat behind the patient and steaming mules. He entered his novitiate to the true wilderness with Sam beside him as he had begun his apprenticeship in miniature to manhood after the rabbits and such with Sam beside him....

From "Fern," in Cane (p. 17)
Like her face, the whole countryside seemed to flow into her eyes. Flowed into them with the soft listless cadence of Georgia's South. A young Negro, once, was looking at her, spellbound, from the road. A white man passing in a buggy had to flick him with his whip if he was going to get by without running him over. I first saw her on her porch. I was passing with a fellow whose crusty numbness (I was from the North and suspected of being prejudiced and stuck-up) was melting as he found me warm. I asked him who she was. "That's Fern," was all that I could get from him. Some folks already thought that I was given to nosing around; I let it go at that, so far as questions were concerned. But at first sight of her I felt as if I heard a Jewish cantor sing. As if his singing rose above the unheard chorus of a folk-song. And I felt bound to her. I too had my dreams: something I would do for her. I have knocked about from town to town too much not to know the futility of mere change of place. Besides, picture if you can, this cream-colored solitary girl sitting at a tenement window looking down on the indifferent throngs of Harlem. Better that she listen to folk-songs at dusk in Georgia, you would sawy, and so would I.

From "Brokeback Mountain" (p. 278)
Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and now unsayable--admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears--rose around them. Ennis stood as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees.
"Jesus," said Jack. "Ennis?" But before he was out of the truck, trying to guess if it was heart attack or the overflow of incendiary rage, Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.

From Ceremony (p. 226 in my version)
The yellow bull grazed in open view, but the speckled cows stayed in the juniper, listening like deer to Tayo's approach, their spotted hides blending into the sandy talus of the big mesa. Gradually they appeared, cautiously joining the yellow bull. Tayo sat motionless with his back against the small cottonwood tree growing in the wash. The cows kept their bodies between him and the new calves, but occasionally a calf bolted away, bucking and leaping in a wide arc, returning finally to its mother when it was tired of playing. Tayo's heart beat fast; he could see Josiah's vision emerging, he could see the story taking form in bone and muscle.

Ashley's post: Poe

In Poe’s "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the ideas of observation, analysis, and perception are explored. Poe begins his tale with an explanation of the term analysis, pointing out that “to calculate is not in itself to analyse” (397). He later writes “the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis” (399). What exactly does Poe mean by this? Do you agree with the statement?
Also, the character Dupin is described as having “analytical ability,” (401) (clearly evident when he solves the mystery of the murders in the Rue Morgue). While the entire Parisian police are unable to see the answer, Dupin is able to objectively view the crime and effectively solve the case. He comments on the police’s inability to do this, specifically noting what Vidocq was doing wrong. He states “He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always in a well” (412). What does Poe mean by this statement? How does it connect to the explanation of analysis offered in the opening of the story? Furthermore, how does this relate to what we were talking about in class regarding observation and display?

Jacob Riis photographs

From the Introduction to Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890):
"Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. ....What are you going to do about it? is the question of to-day."

Jacob Riis, a journalist and photographer, published many photographs of New York City life. He was a pioneer of documentary photography and was one of the first photographers to use a flash, allowing him to show the interiors of dark, windowless tenements. Some of his photographs were journalistic; others were staged or artfully arranged (though using real inhabitants of the neighborhoods). Click here for a slideshow of more of Riis's photographs.
Jacob Riis Slideshow


Five Cents' Lodging


Bandits' Roost

Erin's post: Maggie

In the novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets the two main characters, Jim and Maggie, seem to feel a loss of identity within their own homes. Throughout the novel Crane’s description of the tenement homes, is not a flattering one. For example in the opening he describes the building saying it “quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stepping about in its bowels”(7). When Jim is within his own home, the story becomes more and more blurred. For example his father becomes “the father,” “the husband” and even “the man." The same goes for his mother who becomes “the wife” and “the woman.” Jim himself becomes “the urchin”(15) within his own home. What is Crane's reason for doing this in the story? Is it to show that Jim’s real comfort lies in the outside world rather than in his own home? When describing Jim Crane states that, “On the corners he was in life and of life. The world was going on and he was there to perceive it?”(18). What can we make of this statement as readers?