Final Essay: Feminism

Feminist Theory in Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers.



Susan Keating Glaspell’s short story, A Jury of Her Peers was highly influenced by her marriage, career, and literary influences. Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1876 to a semi-middle class family, Glaspell was able to finish school and receive hr B.A. from Drake University. “To be a woman graduate student in the 1960s was to hear recognizably male points of view, some of which were noticeably misogynist, declared to be ‘universal’” (Rivkin and Ryan, 766). After graduating in 1899 she quickly snatched a job at the Des Moines Daily News. By 1901, she felt she enough experience from the paper that she was able to quit her job and begin writing fiction. Glaspell has written over 50 short stories, nine novels, eleven plays, and one biography.



After Glaspell had established herself as a respected author, she met George “Jig” Cook, who was already married at the time. There affair together lead to an increasing scandal which pushed them out of Iowa to Greenwich Village, New York. Not only was Cook “a twice-divorced father of two; he had given up a promising university career to try his hand at truck farming and socialism.” (Ozieblo) Once married in 1914, Glaspell found Cook becoming harder and harder to deal with. Cook was a practioner of free love, an alcoholic, and extremely unfaithful. Along with his many affairs, the bulk of Glaspell’s marriage is reflected through her writing.

Once in New York, they “found other free thinking liberals and radicals in both politics and art; the ideal breeding ground for their experiments in theatre.” (Ozieblo). Together they formed The Provincetown Players, while spending their summers in Provincetown Massachusetts. They began putting on plays for amusement but soon became “a venue for American plays that were too experimental and controversial for Broadway…[It] gave her a forum and voice for her ideas and introduced her to new people and new thoughts” ( womans). The Provincetown Players were closed down in 1922 by Glaspell and Cook because of back-fighting and scheming between the players.

Glaspell lived in a time when female rights was just beginning to emerge. Although Glaspell might not have considered herself a “feminist,” her writings clearly spoke differently. Her main literary influences were Kate Chopin and Fanny Fern. One theme that Glaspell uses in A Jury of Her Peers, is the fight against the idea that women’s lives revolved around their husbands. This is a common theme that Chopin used in many of her texts. Fern commonly used the them that women’s opinions were ignored and suppressed, which is also very dominant in the Glaspell’s short story.

Although Chopin and Fern were great literary influences, it was mostly due to her marriage with Cook, and the experiences as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. Although her feminist philosophy and life with her husband helped sprout ideas for the story, “she credits [Cook’s] influence for challenging her to change her genre from fiction to drama, and to ‘overthrow convention’ in her form and content” (Maillakais).

While writing for the paper, fresh out of college, Glaspell investigated the murder of John Hossack from early 1900 to late April 1901. As a reporter, she wrote over twenty articles on the Hossack trial, in which the victim’s wife, Margaret, was charged and found guilty of his murder. Glaspell coined her “The Midnight Assassin,” in one of her articles and continued to visit the Hossack farmhouse, which made an impacting impression on her later work. “Glaspell’s evolving portrait of Mrs. Hossack sheds light on Glaspell’s thinking and sympathies--and the news articles foreshadow the themes she later developed in ‘Trifles’ and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’ ” (Bryan).

To read Susan Glaspell's articles on the Midnight Assassin: http://www.midnightassassin.com/SGarticles.html


In A Jury of Her Peers, there are three female characters: Mrs. Hale(county attorney's wife), Mrs. Peters (the sheriffs wife), and Mrs. Wright (who is being held in prison while her husband’s murder is being investigated). As the story unfolds, the time period that is portrayed and the location, is ambiguous, but the language of the women’s obedience toward domesticity allows the reader to realize that this is pre-feminism. “The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only angelic characteristics; in more worldly terms, they are the proper acts of a lady. ‘What shall I do to gratify myself or to be admired?’ is not the question a lady asks” (Gilbert and Gubar, 814). When Mrs. Hale is pulled away from her home to follow her husband to the murder scene, she is more concerned with how she is leaving her house, rather than the house she is going to. “But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsitfted. She hated to see things half done;” (Glaspell, 532).

The difference in gender roles is seen verbally and nonverbally. While the men storm into the house and begin walking around aggressively, heading straight to the stove, the women enter timidly and stay close together near the doorway. The men in A Jury of Her Peers are: Mr. Hale (county attorney), Mr. Peters (the sheriff), and Mr. Henderson (the witness). When they enter the house, they notice that is has not been kept up on, and they criticize Mrs. Wright, who is in custody. “The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel--whirled it for a cleaner place. ‘Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say ladies?’ He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink” (Glaspell, 536). Mrs. Hale, quiet offended to Mr. Henderson’s accusations, responds with a remark about how farms are a great deal of work and how men’s hand might now be as clean as they should be. Mr. Henderson then responds back, “Ah, loyal to your sex, I see” (Glaspell, 536). Mr. Henderson sees the women’s roles as they are, and when Mrs. Wright’s house is not clean, he sees this as laziness.

The women who have been suppressed to this role, understand what it is like to try and please the patriarchal rules of society. By seeing the house out of line, they see this as a red flag. No woman, of this time, would break free from the masculine’s cultural error to follow their own desires. Doing things for herself instead of for the domestic life of being a mother and wife was seen as selfish. “[This] gender identity is no less a construction of patriarchal culture than the idea that men are somehow superior to women; both are born at the same time and with the same stroke of the pen” (Rivkin and Ryan, 768).

Glaspell’s characters are very stereotypical but it was too prove a point. Women are categorized and suppressed, their lives controlled and distorted, their voices sucked completely from them. In A Jury of Her Peers, Glaspell gives these female characters a very strong voice and a very important decision. Because of their roles in society, their methods of communication and power of observation gives them a silent voice, but a crucial voice. When the women are left alone downstairs they come across an empty birdcage with a broken door, and they begin to talk about Mrs. Wright when she use to be Minnie Foster, a young girl with a beautiful singing voice. Mrs. Hale then admits her guilt for not visiting her more. “ ‘I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful--and that’s why I ought to have come…I don’t know what it is, but it’s a lonesome place, and always was” (Glaspell, 542). She then describes the kind of man Mr. Wright was. By stirring these memories of him, and contemplating what Minnie Foster’s life must have been life, a sort of sympathy is unveiled because she, being a woman, understands the hard lifestyles and isolation of having a farm. “ ‘But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the day with him--.’ She stopped, shivered a little. ‘Like a raw wing that gets to the bone’ (Glaspell, 542).



When it comes to communication between the women and then men in the story, the thoughts and opinions of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are completely disregarded. Even though the women hint that Mr. Wright was not an easy man to live with, they do not take this as a motive, they instantly ignore and suppress their voices. Instead of listening to what Mrs. Hale has to say about Mr. Wright, they brush the subject off by saying he will get to it later. Therefore the men miss the big picture by over looking the real clues in the story. Glaspell does this intentionally, to show that you can try to suppress a woman’s voice, but you can never suppress her intelligence. “And if feminism, in its inspiration, is about the painful particularities of any one person’s experience, their right to be heard despite centuries of deafness and deliberate, systematic muting, then how can it especially name into silence voices that know no language with which to speak? Shouldn’t women especially know what it means to need to speak and be denied a language with which to speak? Yet isn’t to speak for other women, women outside the glow of the tent light of highly literary culture, even if it is to take up their cause and stand in for them a the podium of history, to do what men have always done to women?” (Rivkin and Ryan, 769).

Although the antagonist in Glaspell’s, A Jury of Her Peers, is a woman, she has gone beyond the constructs of “angel” or “monster” to create a victim in disguise. Glaspell transcends these prototypes that have been established by male writers, and creates a variation of the angel and monster role. “In the Middle Ages, of course, mankind’s great teacher of purity was the Virgin Mary, a mother goddess who perfectly fitted the female role [female anthropologist Sherry Ortner] defines as ‘merciful dispenser of salvation.’ For the more secular nineteenth century, however, the eternal type of female purity was represented not by a Madonna in heaven but by an angel in the house” (Glaspell 814).

Mrs. Wright, or Minnie Foster as she is used by the other women, has been subjected to the role of the domestic angel to the “Angel of Death;” therefore both angel and monster in one. On the other hand, Glaspell eliminates this image by embodying the possessive, patronizing, attitude of men toward women, and using that as Mrs. Wrights own motive for salvation. “Certainly, imprisoned in the coffin like shape of a death angel, a woman might long demonically for escape” (Gilbert and Gubar, 818). By eliminating Mr. Wright, she has freed herself from all constraints. “For to be selfless is not only to be noble, it is to be dead. A life that has no story, like the life of Goethe’s Makarie, is really a life of death, a death-in-life” (Gilbert and Gubar, 817). Because Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can remember other circumstances in their own lives where they have felt stillness in their homes and hearts, they are able to provide empathy for Mrs. Wright, and ultimately break down the constraints of law and what is considered justice to them. “ ‘I might ‘a’ known she needed help! I tell you it’s queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We go through the same things--it’s all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren’t--why do you and I understand. Why do we know--what we know this minute?’ ” (Glaspell, 544).

While the men are upstairs, the women have unintentionally solved the murder of Mr. Wright. Because their voices have been suppressed, the women both agree with a glance to use their silenced voices against the men, and allow Minnie Foster, to go free. “There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff’s wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen” (Glaspell, 546). Martha Hale quickly makes this decision, under her husband’s nose as well as the laws. “In order to ensure the well-being of those entrusted to her care reveals that she can manipulate; she can scheme; she can plot--stories as well as strategies” (Gilbert and Gubar, 818). Both Martha Hale as a character, and Susan Glaspell as a female writer, take the influence of the masculine society, and turn it upside down, by both tricking and this hegemonic structure. Martha Hale does this by using her silenced voice against the men, while Glaspell takes the stereotypical female gender and uses it to break down misogynistic constraints.





Bryan, Patricia L. "Susal Glaspell." Midnight Assassin. Univeristy of Iowa Press. Web. 14 May 2010. .

Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. "The Madwoman in the Attic." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 812-825. Print.

Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Fiction 100: an Anthology of Short Fiction. Twelfth ed. James H. Pickering. New York: Longman, 2010. 532-46. Print

Irigaray, Luce. "The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 795-798. Print.

Maillakais, Mikes. "A Woman's Place: Literary Background for Susan Glaspell's Trifles." American Literature: Research and Analysis Web Site. University of South Florida, 30 July 1996. Web. 14 May 2010. .

Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. "Introduction: Feminist Paradigms." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 765-769. Print.

Ozieblo, Barbara. "About Susan Glaspell." Susan Glaspell Society, 2010. Web.

Analysis Four: Ethnic Studies

Mulan's Chinese Female deconstructed by her Shadow-Beast

In the 1998 Disney rendition of the Chinese poem The Ballad of Mulan, portrays a young girl whose father is called to fight with the Chinese army in order to defeat the invading Huns. Mulan’s father is old and weak, and in order to keep him safe she takes his place. The poem was first written in the 6th century but was written into a novel in the 12th century. It is the first poem to show gender equality. Mulan as portrayed in the cartoon movie fights the struggles of the Chinese culture and its gender constructions of a woman. As she transforms herself into a warrior, she breaks down those gender constructions and has to learn how to play by the rules of the Chinese male culture.

In the United States, women have progressed through the years as they fought and struggled for equality. Women have the same jobs as men, wear the same clothes, have the same rights, can join the military, and ultimately has a choice in whether they want to be a housewife or a working wife. Women have a fouth choice to be self-autonomous by entering the world of education and careers. In China, especially in the days of dynasties, there was no choice for a woman. Even in today’s society in China, there are parts that have stayed native to their beliefs, and kept the culture of ancient China.

Even in the days of Mulan culture formed their beliefs. Males made the rules and women were subservient. They were expected to be virgins until marriage and had no other choice but to be a mother. If they don’t marry and have offspring there is no use of them and they are seen as failures. “The culture expects women to show greater acceptance of, and commitment to the value system than men. The culture and the Church insist that women are subservient to males” (Anzaldua, 1018). Because religion and culture go hand in hand, the women feel guilt and shame if they don’t follow the rules of the male hierarchy. Mulan doesn't meet this standard from the beginning. She is very androgonous which is a dishonor in the Chinese society.



As Mulan gets ready to battle, and begins to transform herself in the identity of a man, the Gods of her family send a small and incompetent dragon to deter her from her mission. When Mushu, the dragon meets Mulan, he also meets her Shadow-Beast, and instead of stop her, he helps her. The term Shadow-Beast was termed by Gloria Anzaluda, Chicana American writer, who bases her writings on ethnic studies.

“There is a rebel in me--the Shadow-Beast. It is part of me that refuses to take orders from outside authorities. It refuses to take orders from my conscious will, it threatens the sovereignty of my rulership. It is the part of me that hates constraints of any kind, even those self-imposed, At the least hint of limitations on my time or space by others, it kicks out with both feet. Bolts” (Anzaldua 1018).

When Mushu sees the fire and determination within Mulan, he understands nothing can stop her Shadow-Beast, and therefore the roles in the relationship switch. Mulan, the female, is not making the rules to which the dragon must follow. Mulan then joins the army and goes with the Chinese to fight off the invasion of the Huns. This story is so spectacular not just because she is a woman, but because she is a woman in a sacred culture where this type of female behavior is unacceptable. Mulan goes from this young beautiful child who is made up in bright red lipstick and pale white powder that is applied heavily to her face. Her feet are small and dainty and the gowns that hang from her body are heavy and extravagant. This is the ultimate ideal of the Chinese female, and Mulan deconstructs this ethnic perception of their culture and proves that just because she is a woman, does not mean she is capable of being a man.



In the clip below, Mulan mocks what it is like to be a man, as she struggles to fit in with the other men in the army. It isn't until she proves herself physically that she is seen as one of the men in the Chinese army.



“She hid her feelings; she hid her truths; she concealed her fire; but she kept stroking the inner flame. She remained faceless and voiceless, but a light shone through her veil of silence. And though she was unable to spread her limbs and though for her right now the sun has sunk under the earth and there is no moon, she continues to tend the flame. The spirit of the fire spurs her to fight for her own skin and a piece of ground to stand on, a ground from which to view the world” (Anzaldua, 1022).

In the end, Mulan falls in love and her identity is revealed. Although she proved herself to be a hero, the society is still so consumed in their religious and cultural beliefs that she is seen as a disappointment for going against the ways of the Chinese identity and the male hierarchy.


Anzaldua, Gloria. "Borderlands/La Frontera." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 1017-1030. Print.

"Hua Mulan." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 10 May 2010. .

Mulan-Bring Honor to Us All [English].Littleosaka. 28 April 2007. YouTube. Web. 10 May 2010.

Mulan Female Dub-What's Your Name? FemaleDubber. 19 Jan 2009. YouTube. Web. 10 May 2010.

Mulan-I'll Make a Man Out of You. xFliiy. 27 Nov 2006. YouTube. Web. 10 May 2010.

Discipline and Punish

This week in class we talked about Foucault's "Discipline and Punish," and applied it to two videos withing Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story. In West Side Story one of the gangs sings a song about being shove around from psychiatrists to social workers to penetentaries so that they can be fixed of their "bad" ways. The song is a mockery of this system, but it was when they call their delinquincies a "social disease," is when they play into Foucault's power of knowledge. I think that the following clip of Life is Beautiful, clearly illustrates how these powerful positions can influence citizens just by saying what they think is true. In the clip, Guido, a Jewish man pretends to be an inspector from Rome, sent to teach the children in Italy that Jews are a less superior race. Guido goes to the school to impress a girl he likes and finds himself mistaken for the inspector. Guido then has no choice but to follow along and makes a mockery of the lies.



"Where can you find someone more handsome than me?...I am an original 'superior race' pure Aryan...The ear. Look at the perfection of this ear...They dream about these in France." During the holocaust, this superiority in races was taught and people on both sides were convinced because they were TOLD so.


Another movie I feel really reflects Foucault's theories of the Panopticism and universalizing versus individualizing is the movie, Law Abiding Citizen. I feel like this movie breaks down this idea of the Panopticism because Foucault says if you have guards at the center of the cells, the inmates will behave because there is a possibility of being watched. Below is the trailer to the movie. In Law Abiding Citizen, Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter are brutally murdered. One of the murderers is let out after three years and one sent to the death penalty. Ten years pass, and Clyde reemerges with a plan for Justice. He brutally kills both men, and then once arrested and inside the prison, he kills everyone who touched the case ten years ago and let the murderers walk free. Clyde is in solitary confinement, but still manages to "misbehave" while in the watch of the prison guards. Foucault would say that inmates would be less likely to misbehave for fear of being watched. Clyde has everything planned to a T, and completely breaks down the Panopticon. Clyde punishes those that did not give his family justise. He also tries to make deals with the D.A. so that other lives will be saved. But when they don't agree to the bargain he presents and they don't keep to their word, they are punished and the consequences are fatal.






Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and Punish." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 549-565. Print.

Law Abiding Citizen [HD]. Clevvermovies. 31 Aug 2009. YouTube. Web. 22 April 2010.

Life is Beautiful for Roberto Benigni. Vlequang. 13 July 2007. YouTube. Web. 22 April 2010.

Analysis Three: Psychoanalysis on the Twilight Saga

The first and second book of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga: Twilight and New Moon, have many aspects of Freud's theories of psychoanalysis, as well as other theorists. In Twilight, the first book of the saga, the character of Bella, moves to Forks, Washington where she comes to live with her father. When she was a child, her mother divorced her father, taking her away with her to live in Arizona. Now that Bella is in high school and her mother has remarried, she has chosen to move back to Forks to start over with her father. Bella calls her father by name, which is Charlie, but only through her narration and not dialogue. Charlie is a creature of habit and very attached to routine that pushed Bella's mother away years before. Giving her mother and her new husband a chance to be alone and travel is what ultimately leads her to a town that has more than meets the eye.

“My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a spasm of panic ass I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?” (Meyer, 4).

In Nancy Chodorow’s Pre-Oedipal Gender Configurations, she talks about Freud’s theory on femininity and a young girl’s attachment to their mother. Father’s are secondary sources, and in the feminine Oedipus complex, the affection transfers from mother to father. In Bella’s case, it happens much later in her life.

Freud says “We knew, of course, that there had been a preliminary stage of attachment to the mother but we did not know that it could be so rich in context and so long-lasting, and could leave behind so many opportunities or fixations and dispositions. During this time the girl’s father is only a troublesome rival; in some cases the attachment to her mother lasts beyond the fourth year of life. Almost everything that we find later in her relation to her father was already present in this earlier attachment and has been transferred subsequently on to her father. In short, we get an impression that we cannot understand women unless we appreciate this phase of their pre-Oedipus attachment to their mother” (Chodorow, 470.)

After Bella finally breaks free from her mother, it has been such a long separation between her and her father, that it takes a while to relinquish the child-father relationship they had when she was young. “But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn’t know what there was to say regardless. I knew he was a little confused by my decision- like my mother before me, I hadn’t made a secret of my distance for Forks” (Meyer, 5).

In New Moon, Bella finds herself in a deep depression after her boyfriend, who is also a vampire, leaves town and swears never to return. Edward, Bella's boyfriend does this only in means of protecting her from his harsh world. Bella is so distraught that she suffers from constant nightmares and night tremors.

“I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare….There was nothing, really. Only nothing. Just the endless maze of moss-covered trees, so quiet that the silence was an uncomfortable pressure against my eardrums. It was dark, like dusk n a cloudy day, with only enough light to see that there was nothing to see. I hurried through the gloom without a path, always searching, searching, searching, getting more frantic as the time stretched on, trying to move faster, through the speed made me clumsy…When I realized there never had been anything more than just this empty, dreary wood, and there never would be anything more fore me…nothing but nothing” (Meyer,123).

In Freud’s, The Interpretation of Dream, he says that desires and wishes are suppressed through the unconscious. These dreams consist of condensed images that eventually turn out to be translations of this unconscious material

It isn’t until Bella does something dangerous that she is able to see Edward’s face and hear his voice. “This had to be it, the recipe for a hallucination-adrenaline plus danger plus stupidity” (Meyer, 188). Bella becomes a narcissist, doing anything that risks her life, just so she can see Edward and hear him go against her actions. In Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis, the idea of narcissism according to Freud is discussed.

“[Neurotic symptoms] frequently displace desires, or anxieties, or drive energies that are unconscious onto expressive activities or compulsive thoughts. Such symptoms perform a variety of translative procedures on unconscious material, from compromise formation to inversion” (Rivkin, 390).

Twilight, and especially New Moon, contain many aspects of psychoanaylsis. From Bella's unconsious desires that relive in her nightmares, to her narcissistic behavior in order to achieve a sense of peace. Bella's character also falls victim to the Oedipis Complex with her complicated relationship involving her father Charlie.




Chodorow, Nancy. "Pre-Oedipal Gender Configurations." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 470-486. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 397-414. Print.

Meyer, Stephenie. New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and, 2006. Print.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and, 2005. Print.

Rivkin, J. and Ryan, M. "Introduction:Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanaylsis." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 389-396. Print.

The Mirror Stage

"The child, at an early age when he is for a time, however short, outdone by the chimpanzee in instrumental inteliigence, can nevertheless recognize as such his own image in a mirror" (Lacan 441).


(my son Tyler in the mirror after a bath)

Ever since my son could focus his eyes on an object, he was able to identify himself. The mirror seemed like a magical place where the being on the other side of the glass was their best friend. At nine months he was waving to himself when we would pass any reflective object in the house. It was like seeing an old friend. There was excitement and joy across his face. At one year he began to walk, and give big sloppy open mouth kisses. It wasn't long before we found him laying a wet one on the bedroom mirror. "Give yourself a kiss," we would say, and with both hands on the glass, he would lean in for a kiss. Now, he is 17 months, and each night when he is pulled from his bubble bath and wrapped in a towel, we spend a few minutes reflecting in the bathroom mirror. He loves seeing his hair wet and his eye lashes clumped together. He laughs and giggles at himself, and is overcome with pure joy.

Jacques Lacan's phenomenon "The Mirror Stage," is not just a step in development. "it illistrates the conflictional nature of the dual relationship." This dual that Lacan implies, is one between the Ego and the body, the real vs. the imaginary. The baby, as early as six months, is able to recognize himself through his own uncontrollable body movements.

"This moment in which the mirror stage comes to an end inaugurates, by the identification wiht the imago of the counterpart and the drama of primoedial jealousy. The dialectic that will henceforth link the I to socially elaborated situations" (Lacan 444). Lacan's term meconnaissances (misrecognitions)means a false recognition of the baby's image.



Thursday, April 22, 2010
Discipline and Punish

This week in class we talked about Foucault's "Discipline and Punish," and applied it to two videos withing Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story. In West Side Story one of the gangs sings a song about being shove around from psychiatrists to social workers to penetentaries so that they can be fixed of their "bad" ways. The song is a mockery of this system, but it was when they call their delinquincies a "social disease," is when they play into Foucault's power of knowledge. I think that the following clip of Life is Beautiful, clearly illustrates how these powerful positions can influence citizens just by saying what they think is true. In the clip, Guido, a Jewish man pretends to be an inspector from Rome, sent to teach the children in Italy that Jews are a less superior race. Guido goes to the school to impress a girl he likes and finds himself mistaken for the inspector. Guido then has no choice but to follow along and makes a mockery of the lies.



"Where can you find someone more handsome than me?...I am an original 'superior race' pure Aryan...The ear. Look at the perfection of this ear...They dream about these in France." During the holocaust, this superiority in races was taught and people on both sides were convinced because they were TOLD so.


Another movie I feel really reflects Foucault's theories of the Panopticism and universalizing versus individualizing is the movie, Law Abiding Citizen. I feel like this movie breaks down this idea of the Panopticism because Foucault says if you have guards at the center of the cells, the inmates will behave because there is a possibility of being watched. Below is the trailer to the movie. In Law Abiding Citizen, Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter are brutally murdered. One of the murderers is let out after three years and one sent to the death penalty. Ten years pass, and Clyde reemerges with a plan for Justice. He brutally kills both men, and then once arrested and inside the prison, he kills everyone who touched the case ten years ago and let the murderers walk free. Clyde is in solitary confinement, but still manages to "misbehave" while in the watch of the prison guards. Foucault would say that inmates would be less likely to misbehave for fear of being watched. Clyde has everything planned to a T, and completely breaks down the Panopticon. Clyde punishes those that did not give his family justise. He also tries to make deals with the D.A. so that other lives will be saved. But when they don't agree to the bargain he presents and they don't keep to their word, they are punished and the consequences are fatal.






Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 441-446. Print.

My Structuralism Group

As a contributor to my group, I emailed everyone videos and web links that I thought really helped to show the concept of the sign, signifier, signified, as well as the history of the concept. In the email i inserted youtube videos of a Baby Einstein video clip and a "Your Baby Can Read," clip. These shows children a word, the narrator says the word, and then there is a series of images related to the word in able to teach babies and toddlers the two part sign system. We all met as a group the day class was cancelled and spit out ideas for the presentation. I contributed a number of historical context, cultural import, and theoretical practice ideas and facts to Francesca to integrate into the powerpoint presentation. I also collected examples of signifiers with multiple possible signified images creating multiple examples of signs and then emailed them to Amy. Our group was very vocal and very open to listening to eachother's ideas.

Photo Story

The Old Woman Who Lived By the Sea



The old woman lived by the sea and no one knew her name. The town of Astoria, Oregon, was small and quiet, but that only made the old woman more mysterious. With a town so enclosed, there wasn’t a move you could make without your neighbor knowing. So this old woman made sure she had no neighbors, and settled in a house at the very tip of a cliff. The dark waves broke onto the cliff splashing upward like clawing arms. The sheer force must have rattled her house with every approach.

The sun never visited the old woman who lived by the sea, and some say that this slowly drove her mad. She only emerged from her weathered home when the rain spit so hard from the sky, that her emergence was invisible. She hid behind the raindrops, letting each one wash her away.

With a copper teapot in hand, she scuffled down the cliff, towards the rushing sea. On a washed up log she sat, alone and hidden, sipping chamomile tea with rose petals. On some days she lingered on the edge of her ceramic tea cups with spearmint and lemongrass or vanilla rooibus with apple slices.

Once the rain subsided, all that would be left on the old weathered log, was her empty, washed out tea cups. It would be the only sign to all the Astorians, that the woman who lived by the sea was still living on.

Semiotic Analysis

This photograph has four signifiers: “log,” “teacup,” “ocean” and “rain.” All of the signifiers have a common signified. Meaning that the internal image that comes to mind when we see or hear these words, is the same concept that everyone else sees. This is also arbitrary due to different cultures ideas of the signifier.

The creative narrative based on this photograph above was written by looking at the elements of the picture, without listing the images, but by defamiliarizing it. Subconsciously I wrote a story using the signified concepts I received mentally when I looked at the four signifiers. I didn’t do this on purpose because I was not familiar with the idea of Saussure’s semiology.

From a semiotic analysis the image of rain can symbolize doom, tragedy, or sorrow. The teacups are in pastel, feminine, and floral colors and patters. They have gold handles and are clean and in perfect condition. This gives the idea of someone from an older generation, most likely a woman. The ocean is blurred in the background and even though it is not the center of the attention of the photograph it still plays on the meaning behind the teacups. When you think of the beach, you don’t think of rain automatically, unless you think of Oregon or Washington. Those two states are the most wet places in America, and both have a coast facing the pacific ocean. So with those keys we piece together a sorrowful, elderly woman, drinking tea, in Oregon, by the ocean. The viewer may also guess that the woman is wealthy, because to live by the sea, especially with an ocean view, would mean someone of higher status and money.

The log gives us a place, where the woman and the teacups meet. It is the center setting of the photograph. The log is of pine or red wood which can be found in a conifer forest. This provides more evidence for the fact that this scene takes place up north. Southern California beaches are more common with palm trees rather than pine. All these elements play together to provide a deeper meaning of the picture to the viewer.


Rivkin, Julie & Michael Ryan. “Introduction: Formalism.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 4-6

Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Technique.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 14-21.

Heteroglossia

In Mikhail Bahktin’s essay “Discourse in the Novel,” he coins the term heteroglossia. So we start by breaking this term down. Hetero means “other” or “different, where the combining word gloss- can mean “word” or “speech,” like the term glossary. Heteroglossia: Other speech.

This is pretty much what Bahktin gets to in his essay. Heteroglossia refers to use of different languages, where languages can be the point of view of the narrator and the different dialogue of the characters. By creating a novel with heteroglossia, the text is able to be readable to many people and not just one particular group.

“Authorial speech, the speeches of narrators, inserted genres, the speech of characters are merely those fundamental compositional unities with whose help heteroglossia can enter the novel; each of them permit’s a multiplicity of social voices and a wide variety of their links and interrelationships between utterances and languages, this movement of the theme through different (always more or less dialogized.)…-this is the basic distinguishing feature of the stylistics of the novel (Bahktin 263).

For example I use heteroglossia in my own life. As a Starbucks barista, I use one language with my customers, "Hello! How are you? What can I get for you today? Would you like anything to eat with your latte today Jim?" Then I switch to a different mode of language more suitable (and less fake) when talking to my coworkers: "Spencer can you check the bathrooms? Tuck in your shirt." My language becomes more choppy and I change my tone as if I was talking to one of my friends. The language I use with my mother is COMPLETELY different than the language I use around my father, and the language I use around my friends is EXTREMELY different than the language I use around my one year old son. We change our speech so that listener better understands us.


Living Without Heteroglossia:


In the comic, the platypus and the woman have nothing in common, and are using two differnt modes of language, both speaking on different subjects. This would be an example of a world without heteroglossia.


Bahktin's idea of heteroglossia is a mode of formalism that we can use to interpret the text. "The Russian Formalists were interested both in describing the genreal characteristics of literary language and in analyzing the specific devices or modes of operation of such language" (Rivkin 3).







Bahktin, Mikhail. “Discourse in the Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004.

Battle at Kruger

Battle at Kruger

The “Battle at Kruger” is said to be the creator of youtube.com’s favorite video, and has become an icon in the geographic world. It is a video of survival and a story of hope and justice. It is what takes me to my elevated state of consciousness. The Battle at Kruger is my sublime. In Longinus' On the Sublime, he says that "although nature is for the most part subject only to her own laws where matters of emotion and elevation are concerned, she is not given to acting at random and wholly without system. Nature is the first cause and the fundamental creative principle in all activities" (Murray 115).
In this almost eight and a half minute long video, every second of it will leave you breathless For eight minutes I guarantee you will be silent and still. Your heart will race and you will feel emotions that may have been deeply suppressed. This is the "Battle at Kruger":





If we start the video at 1:04, we can see the lions, crouched and waiting, pawing their claws on the ground, preparing their moment of attack. The video pans left and three buffalo are walking along the embankment. Two adults and one baby are walking literally into a lion’s den. As we are able to immediately point out is that all five lions are female, and in this type of feline pack, the lioness is the hunter. The buffalo approaching are not a game, they are food. They are lusting for the buffalo with the appetitive part of their being.
Nearly a minute the chase begins and quickly ends, one lion lands on the baby buffalo, rolling the both of them off the embankment and down to the edge of the water. All five females crowd the baby, teeth and dagger sharp claws embedded into the helpless baby. As the baby submerges deeper and deeper in the African river, another visitor comes in for the attack. A crocodile snatches the baby’s thigh and thus begins a tug of war between the lions and the crocodile. The five carnivorous cats prove stronger than the croc, and almost drag the croc out of the water with the baby. The buffalo is free from the water but not the jaws of the surrounding lioness. Almost immediately the herd moves in. Whether guided by instinct or rage, the herd tramples in closer and closer to the large cats. The buffalo move as one, and now have the advantage. They are much larger than the pack of lions, an therefore are given the upper hand. Plato’s theory was that justice was a worthwhile action. The herd had no idea if they would find the baby dead or alive, but they had the advantage and they took it.
The herd never stops. They inch closer and closer to the pinned down baby. Soon they begin prodding and swatting at the lions, bucking and kicking at them, chasing them away one by one.




The herd works as individuals and as one. They separate the lions, and push them as far down the embankment as possible. One buffalo even bucks one of the cats into the air sending her flying. Once the lions let go, the baby gets up on it’s own, and runs back into the safety of the herd.
According to Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy, this video fits in perfectly. The “Battle at Kruger” is ultimately performed as a tragedy. "In tragedy it is action that is imitated, and this action is brought about by agents who necessarily display certain distinctive qualities both of character and of thought, according to which we also define the nature of the actions; and it is on their actions that all men depend for success or failure. The representation of the action is the plot of the tragedy" (Murray 64). The video is serious, and tells a story that is performed rather than narrated, which are all elements that Aristotle points out to be part of a tragedy. The video arouses feelings of pity and fear. When the struggle of the baby locked in the jaws of the crocodile and the lions takes place, I fear for the baby buffalo and I endure pity on it.




Like humans, animals endure pain and suffering, and for the buffalo being so young, it resonates with the viewer. This is a story about an epic hero that takes back what rightfully belonged to his herd. In the beginning of the video, the baby and two adult buffalo are walking ahead of the rest, unaware of the crouching lions before them. This is where the hero, the adult buffalo, makes it’s fatal mistake. The baby is left open and unguarded. The tragedy continues, and the hero brings the herd in together and takes the lions head on.
The “Battle at Kruger” transcends limits, and stirs emotions. It is a tragedy and an epic poem in one. It is my sublime, and hopefully will now be yours too.




For more information on this video check out the link below
http://www.battleatkruger.com.



Battle at Kruger [video]. (2007) Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

Murray, Penelope. Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin Books: New York, 2004

Plato's Use of Direct Quotes Help Prove His Theories

In Plato’s Ion, Socrates questions Ion’s knowledge of Homer. Socrates analyzes Homer’s text along with Ion’s statement that he is the most knowledgeable when it comes to the work of Homer. What Socrates is trying to prove is that if you can announce who is a good speaker, you should be able to announce who is a bad speaker, and therefore you should be knowledgeable about both bad and good speakers. Where Ion only knows of Homer and nothing else, Socrates uses analysis and theories to prove his points. With every theory and point that Socrates makes, he backs it up with direct quotes, making Ion a very philosophical piece.

"And you’re right too, Ion. So come now and do as I did for you when I picked out from the odyssey and the Iliad the sorts of things that concern the seer and the doctor and the fisherman;you now pick out for me, since you are much more knowledgeable about the works of Homer than I am, the sorts of things that concern the rhapsode’s skills, Ion- things which it’s appropriate for the rhapsode to consider and judge better than other people" (Murray 11).

After Socrates had proved his point that other skilled people could interpret and understand Homer’s text better than Ion, he allows Ion to debate back and give his own examples from Homer’s text to prove that he is the most knowledgeable. Ion returns by stating that he is better at everything. Ion does not give proof or examples, he is unclear and vague making his argument less affective and believable than Socrates.

I really liked Ion and the Republics 2,3, and 10, because Plato’s philosophy and structure of his writing is so clear and organized with examples from the text backing up every idea that he has. In Republic 2, the argument is that...

"a child cannot distinguish between what is allegorical and what is not, and opinions formed at the age tend to become permanent and indelible. For these reasons everything must be done to ensure that the first stories they hear are as suitable as possible for the encouragement of virtue" (Murray 17).

He argues that stories about the Gods, including myths, are unsuitable for children and only give them wrong ideas because they are too young to interpret the underlying message.




Murray, Penelope. Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin Books: New York, 2004.