Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Mantissa

For my close reading on Mantissa, I'm chose the passage on page 164 where Erato says, "'Everything must be 'real,' or it doesn't exist. You know perfectly well the real 'real' me is imaginary. I'm only being real in your sense because you want me to be.'" I read this as both postmodernism (more specifically Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality), and as Lacanian, concerning the real and the imaginary.
Lacan came to mind when I read this because Lacan says the imaginary is the split between the real self and the incoherent self, between self and other. While reading this book, I've been reading it in a few different ways. One of which being that Erato is Miles Green's feminine half, and full recovery would mean a merging of these two characters, which is shown through sexuality. However, Erato is also Miles Green's fantasy(ies), and Lacan says that the 'real' is the end of fantasies, but it would be traumatic for the individual if they ever did reach the 'real.' This could be seen as an outline of the relationship between the two throughout the story.
Lacan also says that one will journey through life judging through "the other" - Erato may also stand as "the other," and Miles is judging his life through her...also, the 'symbolic' comes into play because once one moves into the symbolic, one becomes a subject of language and representation, and how we experience ourselves is not through the 'real' - it is through the symbolic - and although this is not part of the passage I chose, at the end of the novel Miles and Erato are talking about how they want to enter a "text without words" - they want to be void of all dialogue. I see this as a desire to leave the symbolic and enter the real, no matter how traumatic and impossible it may be. They see that as the ultimate goal, as Lacan saw it, but something impossible to capture.
I thought of it in a hyperreality sense, too, especially when she says, "'You know perfectly well the real 'real' me is imaginary. I'm only being real in your sense because you want me to be.'" This made me think kind of the Matrix where Neo finally realizes that he can stop the bullets, that he can create his own reality, kind of like Miles at times in Mantissa, and Erato fits into this because Miles imagines her into his reality, even though she herself is imaginary in the 'real.'
The relationship between Erato and Miles is a very interesting one. Maybe the entire novel is a similacrum. Maybe its a play on the self and the other; they are split and its creating a repetitive "that's me, but not me" as Miles struggles to see himself as a coherent self, while trapped in his own mind, battling and loving this Erato character, who could be his feminine half, could be his ID, his subconscious, his "ideal image" of himself...I'm curious as to what others think. I feel as though I need to reread this book again, that it barely clicked the first time and maybe a second reading would bring things together more. Are we even supposed to arrive at answers?

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Essay Topic


I had a somewhat difficult time deciding on what I want to write my essay on. I narrowed it down to post structuralism, structuralism, and psychoanalytic theory...and I knew I wanted to write about either Faulkner or Kerouac's work because they are two of my favorite authors. Finally, after a lot of panic and stress, I finally decided upon a mix of psychoanaysis and new historicism, and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Now that I have actually decided upon this topic, I am still in somewhat of a panic mode, for I fear I have taken on a heavy challenge.
I chose Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying because it is one of my favorite novels, and I feel as though there are a variety of areas where the character's repressions, fears, and desires relate heavily to the culture of the time period. There is also a lot of symbolism that does that as well.
For those who have not read the novel, I will tell you a little about it. It is about the Bundren family, in a small town in Mississippi, who set off on a journey to Jefferson, Mississippi to bury their dead mother, Addid Bundren. The story takes place in the 1930's, and much of the novel reflects what life is like for the Bundren family during this time period living in America. The novel consists of 40-something interior monologues; each chapter is a character's thought process, so the reader gets to know each character through their reflections and insights concerning reality and how they feel about their mother's death. Even the dead mother has her own chapter (which is probably my favorite). The novel is insane - this adventure to Jefferson to bury her corpse turns into an epic journey through which the Bundren family easily has become my favorite Faulkner family. For those who have read it, maybe you agree.
So I plan on using the interior monologues to uncover repressions and fears in the text, presented by the characters, and relate this in a new historicism way, by writing about how these things relate to the time period and location. I think this was a constant goal of Faulkner's in his novels, so I hope I am successfully able to achieve my goal. Sound good? I hope so.