Greatness of Thought

One of the more intriguing notions discussed by Longinus in his text about sublimity is the "greatness of thought" topic, and I must say that I was a little thrown off by it. He says that when a person wishes to use sublimity, "the first source, natural greatness, is the most important (350)." The thought, story, idea in which a writer is trying to communicate must be initially "great." One cannot pour emotion and passion into a thought that isn't great in the first place. Something like that would most likely fall under the category of one of Longinus's faults in attempting to use sublimity. He writes while explaining this notion of greatness of thought that, "those whose thoughts and habits are trivial and servile all all their lives cannot possibly produce anything admirable or worthy of eternity (351)." He basically believes that in order for sublimity to work correctly and to its full potential, the base thought must be great to begin with. It is almost as if he is saying that only certain minds can generate a greatness of thought.

My initial question to this theory is what constitutes a thought being anointed "great" from that get go? Longinus seems to only categorize times of heavy action and emotion as thoughts of greatness, as he uses the Iliad as one of his main examples, and in particular the battle scenes. I can see what Longinus means when he refers to natural greatness, I am just not totally sure that I agree with him. What exactly constitutes as trivial? It would seem that this might be an idea that would vary from culture to culture and society to society. A group of people might not see a thought like love (Longinus uses Sappho's work as an example) as extremely great and worthy of sublimity, while another group does. It also seems like it could be a little reliant on situation as well and relatability. Not everyone thinks the same. While some thoughts resonate as great with most people, I am not sure how many are universal. If there are any universal naturally great thoughts, then their can't be that many of them.

I am also not sure how much I agree with the notion that some thought or habit that are for the most part trivial as something that cannot be enhanced with sublimity. I feel like sublimity is used with thoughts of everyday things all of the time, and I would not say that they are failures. That is pretty much what advertising is all about. Sublimity of trivial thoughts and habits. Sublimity can make a trivial thought more interesting and appealing. It can allow you to appreciate the everyday, and I really don't see a problem with that.

Sublime Subliminal Messages

After reading On the Sublime by Cassius Longinus, I couldn't help but make the connection in my mind of the sublime to the concept of subliminal messages. Longinus defines the concept of the sublime as he writes, "Sublimity is a kind of eminence or excellence of discourse. It is the source of the distinction of the very greatest poets and prose writers and the means by which they have eternal life to their own fame"(347). Although definable, as we can see here, an actual definition of sublimity is hard to grab onto, as it deals with ideas of eminence, excellence, and eternity.

Marking a piece of writing as sublime requires a great deal of authority and knowledge of the subject, but it also has a transcendent quality that Longinus hints at, which allows audiences to understand sublimity as more of a feeling, going beyond words into writing that has life of its own. The sublime therefore acts like a subliminal message, transporting a feeling, idea, or message to the reader that will inevitably produce a prescribed effect as the nature of the sublime is inherent. Longinus hints at this quality as he writes, "It is our nature to be elevated and exalted by true sublimity"(350). Sublimity in its raw and true form appeals to what already exists, catering to the subconscious just as a subliminal does.

Longinus continues, "Real sublimity contains much food for reflection, is difficult or rather impossible to resist, and makes a strong and ineffaceable impression on the memory. In a word, reckon those things which please everybody all the time as genuinely and finely sublime"(350). The universal quality of the sublime is also linked to subliminal messaging. The classic example of subliminal messaging was the use of videos before movies in the 1950's of dancing popcorn and coke cartoons. While I doubt Longius would mark this as sublime, there is a message to audiences that is undeniable: you are hungry an thirsty and you will be happy if you go buy our products. Writers are nothing if excellent product-pushers, only the product they are pushing is their own. They want audiences to be moved by their writing and persuade them to feel a certain way. Sublime writing does this without a question, almost without control. The author illustrates this as he writes, "I should myself have no hesitation in saying that there is nothing so productive of grandeur as noble emotion in the right place. It inspires and possesses our words with a kind of madness and divine spirit"(350). Like subliminal messaging, the truly sublime inspires action, though largely emotional. The connection is interesting to consider both linguistically and theoretically.

The Catch-22 of New Criticism

In this class, we have read Barthes and Foucault and their views on the role (or lack thereof) of the author. Again, we have returned to this idea with Wimslatt and Beardsley. In "The Intentional Fallacy", they argue that the words on the page are all that matter, that anything outside the text (text being defined as the work itself) is a distraction and detraction. I had trouble swallowing this pill in the first weeks of the class, and it has become no easier.

These are self-fulfilling prophecies in the study of literature. One is the relation of the author to the episteme: authors are both influenced and influence the time, place and literary conventions in which they exist. They feed the cycle. With this in mind, the New Criticism tradition is a self-isolating trend in literature. The critics remove the author from the equation, and the author, with this in mind, composes a work in a corresponding mindset. To me, however, after having studied structuralism this seems logically impossible. "Judging a poem is like judging a pudding or a machine. One demands that it work." WHAT? One does not demand that a poem "work": it works, regardless of the New Critic's ascertainment of whether or not it does. I'll try to explain.

Language, according to structuralism, is a signifier of reality: just as Burke said, the letters b-i-r-d are not--together, in that order--a feathered, winged animal, but they do stand for the animal in a text. They represent something which exists in the real world. But why? Because we humans (specifically, we English-speaking humans) have said so. We have slapped a label on a thing with a beating heart, a pair of wings and a multitude of feathers so that we have something by which we can call it. This leads into my point: to judge from a New Criticism point of view is to judge the language as abstract, as something which simply exists, which was not made but came into being of its own accord. One can say that the stars, the planets or the empty aether of space simply exist because the elements of which they are composed have eternally been present and in existence, but language, civilization and other human inventions are just that: inventions.

Back to the poem. It exists because the world from whence it comes exists. The words which the author chooses to construct a poem are individual reflections of singular concepts or objects found within oneself (emotions, feelings, even something as banal as an internal organ) or without oneself (the sky, the trees, the ground). The manner in which the author uses words to depict a thing, whatever it may be, are indicative of the lens with which the poet views the world. If you ask a Romantic poet and a minimalist poet to write a poem about, say, love, you will get wildly different results. If a New Critic sits down to judge both, by his or her own convictions there will be no point of reference, no episteme into which the poems fall. They may both be about the same topic but they will be approached by the poets from wholly different perspectives, and thus the actual process of writing will be executed in totally differing manners.

So where is the line drawn? At what point does New Criticism stop interpreting and start dictating the course of literature? Again, going back to Burke, this is my qualm with criticism overshadowing literature itself as a field of study. Structuralism assigns signifiers to the world, which allows the author to combine them at will to shape a message, intent or simple portrayal. The attitude and approach of New Criticism shackles the author because it removes the human aspect of this invention, language, and eliminates the episteme as a factor of consideration. But if the author is disregarded, what is the point of origin of literature?

FGC and Locke's Language

I was recently reading an article about female genital cutting (FGC) in Sudan for another class, that reminded me of some of the problems of comprehension that Locke talks about in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." The author of the article about FGC, Ellen Gruenbaum, describes a group of mothers stating that they will practice "sunna" circumcision, a more moderate type of genital cutting which does not include infibulation (the suturing up of part or all of the labia). However, they state that they will still "close a little" when their daughters are circumcised. Gruenbaum states, "But by labeling it 'sunna' they seem to believe they are avoiding the sinful of forbidden (haram) form..." (416). This seems to be an instance where people are actually attempting to change the correctness of their actions by changing the definition of a word. If they label the type of circumcision they are planning to do "sunna" circumcision, they believe there is some "rightness" conferred by the name, even if the act is still one that is what others would call infibulation.

This seems to be an example of what Locke is talking about when he says that language doesn't work well "when any word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker" (817). The women who describe their more severe practices as "sunna" circumcision are using this disconnect to their advantage (even though this might be a somewhat unintentional molding of language to fit their practices), rather than doing it by accident as Locke seems to suggest is most common. Therefore, do words really fail in this situation? Certainly, they are used in a way that results from/causes a different idea in the mind of the speaker than that of the hearer, but this is because of a particular intent. Is language really failing when it fulfills its motive, then, even if this motive is to misuse language?

Source: "Honorable Mutilation? Changing Responses to Female Genital Cutting in Sudan," Ellen Gruenbaum

Objectification of Language

In reconsidering Bakhtin's essay, one particular quote stands out to me. He states that, "Language arises from man's need to express himself, to objectify himself" (67). It seems like he's saying that, through words, we create concrete evidence of our feelings/thoughts/experiences. Or perhaps these words are not even evidence, but somehow direct embodiments of what goes on in the human mind, since there is no other way to communicate it but through language of some sort or another.

Bakhtin's statement reminded me of when McCloud states that, "We humans are a self-centered race. We see ourselves in everything" (32-33). If people create language because they need to somehow see evidence of themselves in the physical or iconographic world, then this would to some extent explain why humans look for representations of themselves even where none exist. We identify with images like cartoons because they reflect our desire to communicate with others and therefore see expressions of ourselves. In direct speech, we can see the evidence of our communication on the face of the addressed. In text, we see evidence in the words that are written on the page, that can then be read and interpreted. And in cartoons, we see evidence in the images that reflect emotions and thoughts. Perhaps despite the many genres and styles of text/speech, language has a simple end, and one which it is hard for us to recognize because we are so used to seeking it...

Genre and Individuality

In "The Problem of Speech Genres," Bakhtin writes, "Any utterance--oral or written, primary or secondary, and in any sphere of communication--is individual and there can reflect the individuality of the speaker (or writer); that is, it possesses individual style. But not all genres are equally conducive to reflecting the individuality of the speaker in the language of the utterance, that is, to an individual style. The most conducive genres are those of artistic literature" (63).

Artistic literature is a marvelous platform for enunciating one's own views and ideas in the style of one's choosing. But how is someone to know what genre would be most conducive to (a) reflecting their individual style and (b) conveying their message successfully?

For Marjane Satrapi, two genres conducive. "Persepolis" is delivered through a visual/verbal narrative genre, both in the printed comic and in the French-produced animated film. These are two separate conveyances, relying on differing functions of communication, and yet both are capable of reflecting her personal style and her memories of the Iranian Revolution.

In thinking about conducive genres, my mind turns to adaptations. How often is it that someone doesn't say, "The book was better" after seeing a film adaptation of a novel or nonfiction account? Would someone say the same of "Persepolis," considering the easy transferability of a comic book to animated film? I have not seen the film, but I would bet that Satrapi's book was used as the storyboards during production so as to closely reproduce the original work on celluloid. Although not a literary genre, which Bakhtin argues as the best, would the film be any less conducive?

Even staying within artistic literature, how does a writer decide on the most conducive genre? Feature journalism, biographies, and stage plays each have the capacity for appropriately telling the same story. Novels and comics may convey the same themes.

Perhaps Bakhtin does not mean to say that certain genres within artistic literature are better than the other (although he seems certainly fond of the novel) so long as it is conducive to expressing individuality. Each writer must overcome the problem of speech genres on their own.

Style/Content Dichotomy

Longinus's idea of a necessary language "grandeur" within sublimity brought up an interesting dichotomy between "style" and "content" of language. The terms style and content denote very opposite things, while both being similar in that they are speech aids. The "style" of language (and speech, since, after reading Bahktin, they are obviously different) implies a certain high diction or fancy wording, the decorations to make your language/speech sparkle in a sense. Style attempts to be performative, or aids language in its performability. In contrast, content is the knowledge or truth being relayed, the meaning of attempted communication. Thus content is constative, stating its own meaning.

The interesting thing is that, although style and content are in a complete contrast, they do not oppose one another. Rather they are necessary differences, and their unity is vital to culminate performative speech. According to Longinus, they need each other to be sublime.

Style+Content=Sublime

Longinus explains this dependent dichotomy in "On the Sublime". "Grandeur is particularly dangerous when left on its own, unsteadied by knowledge" (347). Without a content or base of knowledge to decorate, the style would mean nothing, decoration for decoration's sake. There would be no base for meaning, nothing of substance to be polished. It may still evoke emotions in the reader but certainly not noble ones. And whatever emotions it can invoke will become "valueless on repeated inspection". Yet with the proper accompanying content, the style/grandeur can be sublime and make"a strong and ineffaceable impression on the memory" (350). It can leave a "great" and lasting impression, one that exceeds the life of the speaker.

Likewise content without style is not "great" but rather purely constative and not sublime. Two necessary "sources" of sublimity, according to Longinus, are "noble diction" and "dignified and elevated word-arrangment" (350). Without these stylistic devices one's content could not impress upon the listener/reader could not make the language/speech performative. A major part of the speaker (in terms of being able to communicate well and persuasively) is to create a "visualization" with words. This often implies using figurative speech to allow the reader/listener to see what the reader/writer is trying to say. Yet these figures involve a sort of trickery in that they aren't purely true or realistic language, and so to remain effectively persuasive they must be shrouded in grandeur, decorated with shiny style. Thus the trickery of language can be hidden and the speech can preform as intended, without a slip in communication.

In terms of Bahktin's speech genres problems, the sentence may be nothing without the utterance, in that a sentence needs a speaker to be given meaning, to be uttered. But an utterance is also nothing without the sentence, in that the sentence provides the content for communication. (This comparison isn't exact, but it's close enough) Thus is the dependent style/content dichotomy, both necessary in creating persuasive language/speech and creating sublimity.

From SCD #2

So in my SCD I talked about the difference between pictoral icons and non-pictoral icons lookkng at McCloud and also Adolf Hitler in Burke's text. One thing that came up I found really interesting and I was wondering what you guys all thought possibly.

I started finding that while McCloud used his icons to make the author less important and the message more so, Hitler's icons (the images his language creates such as the "Aryan" and the 'International Jew') did just the opposite. Those images were full of the author's influence and voice. I found this really interesting in the case of that Aryan because that is who Hitler's intended audience was. He builds an image that he thought the people of Germany should buy into and live out. I'm not sure if the word will completely apply, but it seems very heteroglossic because those people that did take Hitler's message to heart followed a construction of Aryan Character that Hitler created, and it would be very hard to seperate those peoples' opinions from Hitler's in their speech.

I just had never really thought that Heteroglossia could be applied to the audience in a way, and I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts.

Color in Persepolis

Persepolis can be applied in many ways to McCloud's ideas about the "self-identification" of comics. Satrapi drawing style in Persepolis is extremely simple, and after reading McCloud's essay I can really grasp the effectiveness of this style. Persepolis is set in later-twentieth century Iran, a place that most readers would have difficulty placing themselves in. But because Satrapi is so simplistic in the way she draws, her Iran involves mostly plain characters and plain settings we can relate to. Her characters have no race or denomination. Her settings have no specific location. We can fill theses simplicities in with our own conceptions; in other words, there is room for us as readers to fill ourselves and our own experiences into Persepolis. Satrapi's simplicity in this case is, as McCloud puts it, "to assist in reader self-identification" (44).

But, while reading Persepolis, I noticed another "self-identifiable" stylistic feature that is relatable in McCloud but never specifically discussed, Satrapi's exclusive use of black and white. Unlike a lot of color comics, Persepolis is drawn in completely black and white. Marjane's world is depicted always in these two contrasting tones. And in the same way that a simplistic drawing style opens up room for reader assertion, I believe the simple use of color allows for an easier found relatability.

Because Satrapi never determines color, she leaves more choices open to the reader, who is then able to insert his own ideas into the settings and the characters of the story. Because of a lack of color, the black and white Marjane is not an Iranian girl, but just a girl, like any girl in the world; she is outside the racial descriptors color would provide. In fact, every character in Persepolis could be characterized as a number of races (except for a few of the evil Iranian regimists with excessive beards, but this goes along with McCloud's concept of "objectifying" characters to emphasize their otherness" as well (44)). In this way, the story is not necessarily read as a story about Iranian war troubles, but can cross country issues and be pertinent in all countries, to all types of readers.

If Satrapi had chosen to include color she would have only worked to distance her readers from Marjane and her troubles. The lack of color is important to Persepolis, because it creates a world free from racial significations, a world in which the reader can place themselves and really understand Marjane. The lack of color acts as a means to blur the reader's "world of concepts" with their "realm of senses". When you simplify what is seen in comic discourse, the text becomes more subjective and therefore more relatable.

Every Letter Is A Fiction

Inspired by the essays of Barthes and Ong, I used my first short critical discussion as an attempt to prove the fictionality of the; every text is a fiction. I built off Ong's idea of a "fictional audience" and compared it with Barthe's concept of "every text is eternally written here and now" to prove that, because every text is a product of its time (and subjectively judged by the time it was read in), the meaning of a text can't be factional and must be fictional.

After reading Locke I expanded this "fictionality" thesis to include "every word as a fiction" (Barthes, 870). Locke's statements about the arbitrary meaning given to words (and thus the varied meanings among humans) made me realize that each word within a text can contribute to the whole subjectivity of textual significance. Because words are arbitrary signs, they can't possibly always possess a fixed meaning.

And then Derrida came along and pushed my thesis one step further, in a way I had only previously joked to myself about. But it makes sense; every letter is a fiction. There are so many words (especially in the English language) that mean very different things while only differing by one letter. For example, desert is a dry, hot, and sandy landscape (not the place you'd quite want to be), while dessert is a rich, wonderful treat. The extra s holds extreme difference and drastically changes the meaning of the word. (This brings up ideas that words have very little meaning by themselves. Only in context, supported by other words around them, do they really have meaning.)

Homonyms, when spoken are another great example of the "fiction" problems through spoken language. When relaying things like "to", "too", and "two" you physically can't tell the difference between the way the words sound. The same goes for Derrida's "difference" and "differance". Both words mean very different things and only because of one letter; "this graphic difference...is written or read but not heard" (Derrida, 280). If every word has arbitrary fictional significance, then every letter (especially in cases like Derrida's) is just as arbitrary, just as fictional. Every single letter of a text can drastically change the meaning or significance of the text as a whole.

Too Much Pink

If I asked you to name the cause represented by these colors, could you do that?

Red
Pink
Yellow
Extra Credit: Puzzle Pattern

It is quite likely that you are able to do so. Here are the answers: Red is for HIV/AIDS or heart disease, pink is for breast cancer, and yellow is for (among other things) solidarity with the armed forces. (If you know the fourth one, leave a comment!) In our society, we have come to equate certain colors with certain causes, that is, certain colors signify certain causes.

In a recent NPR interview on Breast Cancer Awareness Month, author Barbara Ehrenreich (author of Nickel and Dimed), stated that, as a person who has been treated for breast cancer, she really can’t get behind all the pink and all the awareness. “There was an ad for a pink breast cancer teddy bear…That was kind of an existential turning point for me because I realized I'm not afraid of dying, but I am terrified of dying with a pink teddy bear tucked under my arm,” Ehrenreich said in the interview. Ehrenreich said that she feels that all the pink oversimplifies things: people become “aware” of breast cancer without really being “aware” of what it means to live with and be treated for breast cancer.

McCloud’s concept of “icon” can be helpful in explaining this situation. A pink ribbon, pink tshirt, pink socks, and a pink teddy bear can all be icons representing breast cancer awareness, and by extension, to represent breast cancer. Consider the common icon of the pink ribbon. McCloud states that it is the universality of cartoon icons – the focusing on specific details to amplify meaning, or to amplify a concept. Icons represent concepts (26-28, 41). “The more cartoony a face is, the more people it could be said to describe” (31). If this is applied to the pink ribbon, it might be said that the symbol is simple and somewhat generic so that it might be universal, or it might represent the experiences of many. However, the icon doesn’t hold for Ehrenreich. That is, it doesn’t represent her experience with breast cancer. It is too simple, too nice, too uncomplicated. The icon hasn’t been successful in representing people who have breast cancer. It represents “awareness,” perhaps, but it fails in that it doesn’t represent a particularly complex understanding.

McCloud and Ehrenreich have caused me to question, what do those ‘awareness’ ribbons really mean? Why is it that to be “aware” of something has become such a strong statement? “Awareness” itself only means to realize that something exists. It doesn’t call to mind strong action. Why bother proclaiming that I am “aware” of something? It may be that the cultural trend of assigning difficult topics colors, months, and special times to be “aware” is a way to help people talk about and deal with tough situations and topics. I do not contest the importance of doing this. However, I think that as a result of all this ‘awareness’ the concept or the signification of being ‘aware’ has changed, and more broadly a discourse of awareness has been created.

Being aware has changed from a rather passive cognitive recognition that something exists to an active statement that a particular cause matters. In general, if I say that I am aware that something has happened, that is a fairly neutral statement. However, to participate in an “awareness” month or to intentionally wear an “awareness” color is not at all neutral: it to state that a particular cause is important. Icons are a particularly important part of the discourse of awareness. To use an icon that represents awareness is to express much more than awareness – it is to state support or solidarity.

However, to use the icons of the issue is one thing; to have a complex understanding of the issue is much more difficult. To be aware is not necessarily to understand, and sometimes this discourse of awareness inhibits discourse that might cause understanding. Sometimes we get so into being aware and making others aware, and promoting awareness through events and such that we forget to actually understand. While awareness may be a good place to start, the discourse of awareness is a poor substitute for the discourse of understanding. Like Ehrenriech, I question whether selling lots of pink stuff and putting the pink ribbon icon on things like yogurt is actually effective at combating breast cancer. It also seems like an oversimplification, a substitution an icon for actual human experiences. Perhaps the discourse surrounding difficult issues might be better off for a little less awareness and a little more understanding.

Here is the link to the interview: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/16/141402115/breast-cancer-when-awareness-simply-isnt-enough

Pictures and Words in Persepolis

We've talked about the images that make up cartoons, but I find myself wondering a little bit about the text that they used. Does the way that the words signify ideas/things change because they are coupled with images and icons? I'm not sure I really know the answer, but it seems that the way that words are used is certainly different. For one thing, they don't have to describe everything that's going on, because images are used to do part of that work. For example, in Persepolis, Satrapi describes the beginning of violence in Iran. The narrator states, "For the first time in my life, I saw violence with my own eyes" (76). Below the text is an image of an angry-looking bearded man stabbing a woman in the leg. In the foreground is the narrator looking horrified and yelling, "Dad!" The text in this instance is fairly vague, not pointing at any specific instance. It is the picture that does the work of describing here, which allows us, the readers, to see things as they happen, rather than reading a report of events after the fact.

It seems like the words in cartoons are used mostly as narration and dialogue, and that events and people are described in pictures. Both words and images work together to create a cohesive idea of the story. This goes back to something I was talking about in my SCD, that language is not only made up of words, but that images are language too. Pictorial icons are just a different type of word; less abstract, and perhaps more active and immediate. Perhaps it's not the way that words signify that's different in cartoons, but the way that they are placed in time. There is a level of remove between the word and the mental image it calls up that there is not with an image. Therefore, images are more present, more "in the now" than words are. This would explain why having images is so effective in a story; because they can show events that seem all the more real to an audience.

Cartoons and Specific Meaning

One thing that I found interesting while reading Persepolis was Satrapi's occasional depiction of sayings or common phrases in images. For example, the narrator talks about the idea that "To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society" (115). Beneath this quote there is an image of a man screaming in pain, blood flowing from holes in his arms. Satrapi has created an image for words that, even if they are meant to evoke a certain image, are not necessarily as powerful or as specific as the picture. Hearing this quote, we might come up with a vague mental image of tubes of blood flowing into a great shadowy arm (at least I do...), but with her illustration, Satrapi makes this idea personal on a level that the text does not. She is depicting a specific man and a specific pain, even while the simplified image of the cartoon allows her audience to put themselves in the place of the man. The textual statement allows us to think generally of martyrs, but the picture forces us to consider ourselves as potential martyrs. And that is a much more frightening idea, when the image is one of fear and pain. It seems like the special power of cartoons is to specify by generalizing, if that makes sense. They create images that are simple and relatable (general), and therefore render certain ideas more specific to the reader.

Differences among readers within texts

As I was finishing up my SCD #2, I came to the realization that we put ourselves into texts. Now, I know we talked about this is class, but it never truly resonated with me until a bit ago. An epiphany struck. The reason two people cannot seem to read a text with the same quality of understanding is simple: they aren't the same person. We can both understand an idea, but we'll inevitably see it in at least one different way, and as Derrida claimed, that one difference is what makes language so convoluted. Each word represents something, which represents something else. If each reader originally interprets that specific word differently, then the rest of their signifiers will signify completely different concepts. This seems so simple to me now when last week it just wasn't resonating whatsoever.

World of Concepts Within the Real World

Cartoons, as McCloud states, are in a "world of concepts" (41). They stress ideas instead of physical realisms. Thus cartoon movies allow for a conceptualization from the viewer more so than real life movies. But what happens when movies, like Space Jam, conflate this "world of concepts" with the real world? How does this affect how we view comics in contrast with real human characters?

In Space Jam specifically Michael Jordan is taken within the conceptual world of the Looney Tunes. We are forced to view Michael Jordan's real problems and real emotions alongside the cartoons problems and emotions. Yet, who do we relate to more? The movie attempts to force us to relate to both in the same way by making their problems the same.

As I child a found myself relating to the Looney Tunes. Maybe this was just because they were humorous and human-like-animals (which brings up notions of ecoporn, but we wont get into that). And yet because Michael was in a fake world, I felt I could relate to his problems more than if he were playing a ball game in the NBA.

Regardless of reader self-imposition, I still think the dichotomy brought up by movies like Space Jam is very interesting. How are we supposed to view real humans interacting with ideas of forms? As the viewer, how are we supposed to place ourselves within a conflation of conceptual forms and real ones? How do we relate to these different characters differently?

Faces of Culture

I've been thinking about what we discussed in class about seeing human faces in objects around us. When Professor Graban asked if this was the case for every culture around the world, I thought, No. Then I thought... Wait. Yes. Then, what does that mean about culture? And are there more similarities between cultures than we thought, thanks to the bonds of humanity?

I feel like McCloud was trying to say that our minds are wired to see ourselves in everything we see. But I'm not sure we're born this way; our culture leads us to do this. That seems to conflict with my earlier statement, but it seems to me that all cultures would do the same. All cultures have the same ideas about a human face, after all. Two eyes. A nose. A mouth. There is no culture or race on this planet that sees a face as anything other than two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. So then, would it be so far a stretch as to say that every culture on the planet has fallen into the same pattern?

That being said, I wonder if the simplest forms of faces in other cultures differ. In America, for example, I know that the simplest form of a smiley face is a circle, two dots, and a line. A head, two eyes, and a mouth. Actually, throw out the circle. I often see just two eyes and a mouth. Perhaps there are cultures in which a smiley face is a nose and a mouth, or perhaps ears and two eyes. Or what about cheeks? Eyebrows? Teeth? My first thought is to say that, no, all cultures must draw the same smiley faces since I have only seen eyes and mouth smiley faces. However, I have not been everywhere, nor have I seen everything.

Masking in Puella Magi Madoka Magica

The concept of masking is definitely a valuable one; as Scott McCloud notes, it "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world" (43), often combining "very iconic characters with unusually realistic backgrounds" (42).

In one of my top five anime series of all time, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, masking is used to a slightly different end. In Madoka, magical girls fight against witches in a sort of alternative witch world- which you can see here. As this clip shows, the witch world is pretty insane- there are magical creatures, perspective and line are thoroughly experimented with, etc. Masking is used in that the iconic central characters, Miki and Madoka, remain the same, which makes it easier for the viewer to follow them into this totally nonsensical alternate reality. So, the masking is a bit different in that the backgrounds are far from realistic, but the main goal of masking is accomplished in that masking allows the 'reader' (audience) to 'safely enter a sensually stimulating world.'

I think that the most successful masking I've seen has been for this purpose- the bridge the gap between two different realities the author has created. Anyone agree?

Evidence and role of social classes in both “Persepolis” and “In Search of America”

Society is constantly being broken down into various social classes that tend to be based on economic status. In “In Search of America” by Nathan Asch and “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, evidence of social classes can easily be found in both pieces, despite the difference in time periods and geographic locations.

Because “Persepolis” is set in Iran during the late 1900’s, in the midst of the Islamic Revolution, social classes are a vital part of the culture and political standing of the country. The story is told through the eyes of a rather intelligent young girl, Marji, who does not fully understand the emphasis placed on one’s standing in society. This is made clear when her family’s maid cannot be with the man she loves due to his superior reputation. A confused Marji asks her father for an explanation to which he simply states that, “in this country you must stay within your own social class” (Satrapi 37). Not only does this confuse the young girl about the relationship she should have with her maid, but also about her father’s political opinions.

In “Persepolis”, the social classes are clearly stated and accepted due to the culture of the country and the revolutionary environment, which was slowing being exposed to Communist ideas. However, similar divisions of society are present in “In Search of America” as well. They are not as apparent as the above mentioned, for Asch’s piece is set in the United States during the 1930’s, but they are most definitely present.

When Asch’s narrator ventures to various poverty-stricken areas, mainly places that employ great numbers of people at once, he hopes to find the truth about America’s working class. While he does uncover the struggles that face millions of people daily, he also finds how those working view their employers. One angry lumberjack went as far to say that if “the purchasing agent ever comes to camp 2, [he’ll] cut him into pieces and make him over again” (Asch 301). This depicts the angst and hatred felt by the workers towards those in higher standing.

Through the work of Satrapi and Asch, it is evident that social classes play major roles in society and are present in various time periods regardless of location and politics. Although the clear distinction and acceptance of superior standings had a much stronger existence in revolutionary Iran, they were still very much present within America as well.

Lost Meanings in Oversimplification

After reading McCloud's chapter from Understanding Comics, I was stuck with the idea of amplification through simplification. The whole piece focuses on the way cartoons cut down images or ideas in order to make the audience more receptive. McCloud writes, "When we abstract an image through cartooning, we're not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning," an artist can amplify that meaning in way that realistic art can't"(30). While I agree that simplification helps to put the reader in a mindset that is unbiased and open, there is an aspect to simplification that might leave too much room for interpretation, which might skew the meaning and tamper with effective communication.

If comics represent simplification in the visual world, poetry can stand to represent simplification in the literary world. In poetry, major themes are stripped down often to only a few words; yet it is poetry that takes the longest to interpret and draw out the meaning. Bakhtin speaks about this and the flaws of poetry in Discourse in the Novel. Bakhtin writes, "the trajectory of the poetic word toward its own object and toward the unity of language is a path along which the poetic word is continually encountering someone else's word, and each takes new bearings from the other, the records of the passage remain in the slag of the creative process"(331). This is to say that the power of one word in poetry is so loaded that the original meaning often gets lost in the interpretive process. I wonder then if this can be said about comics, as there is for one image a thousand ways to interpret it; or possible McCloud is only saying that simplification of characters in comics is useful in order to appeal to the largest possible audience. If anyone has any comments or thoughts or answers, I would love to hear them!

The extension of Persepolis's body

In Scott McCloud's "The Vocabulary of Comics," he explains that when we drive, "The vehicle becomes an extension of our body. It absorbs our sense of identity. We become the car" (McCloud 39). However, it can be argued that this effect affects more than just the driver of the vehicle. Such is the case for Persepolis, a child who places emphasis on who she is based on objects, such as her father's Cadillac. Whenever the car is brought up, it is done so with a negative regard. It is one of the reasons Persepolis wishes to become a prophet (McCloud 6). It is when she reads the stories of Ali Ashraf Darvishian, learning of children her age and younger having to work for survival, that she comes to understand why she despises the car so much. She sees the car as an extension of who she is, a representation of her status, despite the fact that it really is not her car, but her father's. This realization also leads her to another, when she starts reflecting on the divide between social classes and has a moment of clarity when it dawns on her that her family has a maid. Like the car, having Mehri reflects negatively on Persepolis's idea of how it contrasts with social classes and how it also reflects negatively on her. So, when Mehri identifies Persepolis as her sister for the purpose of attracting a potential lover, it is not surprising that Persepolis goes along with the ruse willingly (McCloud 35). Even after Mehri's trickery is revealed and Persepolis is chastised for the part she played, the two seem to maintain the close bond, as seen when Persepolis says in reflection, "We were not in the same social class but at least we were in the same bed" (McCloud 37).