Final Exam Review. A Modest Proposal

Transcription

1 Final Exam Review A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau Three Guineas Virginia Woolf Dispatches Michael Herr Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag Shake Hands with the Devil Roméo Dallaire The Corporation Joel Bakan, writer; Mark Achbar, producer; Jennifer Abbott, director A Modest Proposal Irish trapped by landlords who employ them at inadequate wage Irish typically portrayed as bestial, ignorant Fear of return of Catholic to throne of England (the Pretender) Period of skepticism, curiosity, emphasis on the rational Literature favours simplicity, clarity, wit; tends to be critical of society Satire and drama are popular forms of literature Swift an Anglo-Irishman living in Dublin; takes up plight of Irish poor and becomes national hero 1

2 A Modest Proposal The English are devouring the Irish through exploitation and mig ht as well eat their children. In order to remedy the situation, must treat the Irish as human beings rather than as livestock. Uses satire to ridicule treatment of Irish poor Parody of economic projector and use of logic, science and math as means of dealing with human problems Swift adopts persona of economic projector Occasional moments of slippage where mask slips and the reader sees the writer s true aims Use of taboo subject matter to shock reader into identifying with Irish Clear, accessible language Form: purchased pamphlet for English gentlemen of English descent (uses English currency) Audience: Well-off, educated, rational, humane, English and Anglo Irish landowners, the social projectors, the Irish who do not support Irish trade 2

3 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience American Revolution attitudes toward government and the role of the individual Manifest Destiny and westward expansion Mexican-American war Slavery Reverence for nature as untouched; agent of spiritual and moral transformation Uncharted frontier Imperative to resist slavery and participation in Mexican- American War Larger message of power of individual to affect change in peaceful and significant way The obligation and importance of peaceful resistance to government in response to injustice 3

4 Form - Originally lecture; later published as essay Style- Passionate and emotionally charged relies on analogy to earlier, idealistic time to demonstrate inadequacy of government Utilizes metaphor of government as machine requiring checks and control from humanity Use of rhetorical questions what if? to focus audience on possibility of change Audience originally neighbours of Concord Audience now global Three Guineas Post W.W.I Technological innovation Separate spheres from men and women; Angel of the House Modernism: Stream of consciousness Multiple perspectives Form = content Self-publishing Technical innovations in writing 4

5 Form letter within a letter Answers question: how to prevent (another) war Argues from feminist position The family is the patriarchy as dictators are to fascism $3 x 10 6 spent on arms vs. amount spent on women s education Women should be educated so that they can make a living and express their own opinions without the threat of financial repercussions Women must write what they think in their own words in their own way Structure of the argument undermines the patriarchal and dictatorial structures that Woolf critiques Disrupts the tyranny of patriarchy and fascism by refusing a uniformly linear narrative Her argument is often convoluted; backtracks as it reconsiders positions previously dismissed; digresses Reveals patriarchal structures to be arbitrary, rather than absolute Writing becomes a form of resistance against coercion and imposed order in an assertion of independence 5

6 Create an Outsider s Society and refuse to participate in patriarchy Work for liberty, equality and peace; endorse pacifism Reject nationalism and patriotism as evidence of patriarchal domination Dispatches Viet Nam war of 1960s Domino theory fear of spread of communism Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh, Tet Offensive New Journalistic account of American military experience mix of fact and fiction to effectively portray situation Oral history oral accounts conflicted with official, stateside accounts of media and bureaucrats; veterans account is oral, often obscene as means of insurrection against official account 6

7 Account is sometimes personal, often anecdotal See linking of sex and violence Killing portrayed as genetic imperative Means of establishing a masculine identity War fails to conform to expected paradigm experience contrasted with portrayal of movie war where no one dies or bleeds heroic trajectory shown to be flawed; goal cannot be achieved; lack of leadership, no heroic outcome Female figures linked to death Trauma narrative Herr suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Healing requires that survivor recounts full experience and is heard Vets couldn t acknowledge the trauma of the war until society could admit the war was wrong Writing becomes gift to readers; meaning of integrating experience into existing personal history 7

8 Regarding the Pain of Others In midst of media onslaught, how do we respond to pictures of the suffering of others? Interrogation and homage of Woolf s Three Guineas Attempt to create an ethics of spectatorship Our response to photos can be manipulated Photos are staged, enhanced, constrained by varieties of censorship, lack of captions Images are powerful, but words give context, meaning, understanding, articulation Just as Woolf destabilized the pronoun we in her essay, questioning gender, Sontag is also trying to destabilize the pronoun, we, but from a different perspective Her concern is not the ways in which we elides gender, but rather the ways in which we elides the various positions involved in looking at the photographs 8

9 In looking at a photo of suffering, we, the viewers, may see ourselves as the subject, looking at the victim, as object, as someone to be seen, not someone, (like us) who also sees (73) we may forget the humanity of the victim We may take the role of passive observers who see, but who are not, could not be involved; create an identity for ourselves in which we are safely exempt from such suffering We may forget or elide our own ability to participate in the suffering of another; tendency in Western countries to imagine that we would never commit atrocities or acts of barbarism; our identity is partially constituted through belief that we save others from such injustices, yet commit no such injustices ourselves Sontag troubles these roles and our relationships to them through her writing style By considering what it is to be the victim and the perpetrator as well as the observer, she forces us to abandon our privileged position in the centre as observer who feels immune to suffering and the creation of suffering Her digressions, elaborate considerations of multiple points of view work just as Woolf s did, to undermine traditional ways of thinking. 9

10 Sontag avoids systematic analysis She defers resolution Destabilizes a central position as means of interrogating the we assumed by Woolf s barrister, by Woolf, and by ourselves in our looking and reading Destabilizes the distinctions between observer, victim and perpetrator essay shows us, through the use of language, both how to move from our passive stance and to enact a selfawareness about our own potential to enact suffering. Recognizing our potential to cause suffering may open the way for reconciliation, rather than judgment, retribution, revenge Acknowledging the subjectivity of the victim in the photo, it may remind us to move out of our passivity into compassion and awareness, and possibly action 10

11 Audience Willingness To consider difficult subject matter: graphic discussions of suffering To tackle complex and abstract ideas To tackle complex sentences and vocabulary To consider the fallibility of institutions To critique the government Familiarity with literary and philosophical sources Familiarity with visual art, historical and political events Intellectuals, policy makers Shake Hands With the Devil Epitaph for dead Also personal journey Memoir, justification, confession Trauma narrative with impulse to reveal and repress Provides account of Rwanda genocide and death of 800,000 people, 300,000 of whom were children Also provides account of long term effects Reveals that cost of initial intervention would have been cheap compared to economic, political, social costs that have ensued 11

12 Conventional, linear narrative attempt to provide factual and objective account Story telling takes back seat to desire to provide all the details Dispassionate account with few colloquialisms Language is formal The genocide could have been avoided Without change, it will happen again; poverty and despair lead to desperation and rage Everyone is responsible Are all humans human, or are some humans more human than others? Audience is humanity 12

13 The Corporation Corporation is the dominant institution of our time Defined as legal person to avoid personal liability Objective is to maximize profits for shareholders Has no interest in the common good Exhibits signs of psychotic behaviour Creates wealth, yet causes great harm Controlled largely by white, middle-aged men in the West and Europe Movements to privatize resources such as air, water Control of media We ll tell you what the news is Indifference to democracy; support of fascist regimes to get at resources Style Use of humour, hyperbole Montage of images paired with narrative Use of retro film footage, stills, advertising, interviews with experts pro and con Entertaining, moves fast, uses pop culture fragmentary Builds credibility among a particular target audience that feels comfortable with contemporary communication strategies Mixture of styles Post modernism 13

14 You can have an effect Advocate for sustainability, rather than plunder Democratic regulation force corporations to be good citizens; human values as well as profit Recalls Swift s satire on economic projector who ignores human component Book audience likely quite different than film audience Left leaning, young adults familiar with film s style Critique Slick, propaganda-like presentation very effective in advocating for social change, but viewer may feel manipulated and reject message Difficult to verify position statements since there is no text and no documentation Message is more effective in portions that use logic, direct reporting, documentary style (Fox s control of the news, Bechtel s privatization of water in Bolivia) 14