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Chapter 18

Literary Devices, Ideas and Terms: Key concepts-II

Background In the earlier chapter on Key Concepts you learnt some important ideas and the major thinkers associated with those ideas. In this chapter we will continue our understanding of some more key issues in literature and the great intellectual minds behind those issues. Brico age Bricolage was popularized by the anthropologist Claude e!i"#trauss $%&'(")''&* in his work on myth in La Pensee Sauvage $the primiti!e mind+ %&,)*. -or e!i"#tauss+ myth is a supreme e.ample of bricolage+ since it is constructed out of whate!er limited material one has at hand+ in other words+ a bricoleur should know how to tinker. Bricolage has found /uite a currency in the production of 012 !ideos+ science fiction+ popular culture and subculture. 3ith e!ery successi!e generation+ artists use the best material possible for their products. -or e.ample+ 4.5. 3ells6 The War of the Worlds $ %(&7* was a speculation about the idea of attack by the 0artians on Britain $since Britain was the global superpower at that time*. #imilar idea is e.plored in 1im Burton6s film Mars Attacks $%&&,*+ which+ unlike 3ells6 no!el+ was self"referential+ a dark comedy+ and had an underlying irony. 8s an iconoclastic director+ Burton was less concerned with the sci"fi6s concern about aliens attacking the planet earth+ and was more interested in e.ploring the paranoia of a!erage 8mericans+ their arrogant posturing+ crude materialism+ fear of the unknown+ as well as the intrusi!e nature of the 8merican media.

De!ami iari"ation 1he term originates with the 9ussian formalists+ particularly with the theories of 2iktor #hklo!sky $%(&:" %&(;*+ who belie!ed that the function of art is to challenge habitualization+ and encourage things to the indi!idual perception. 4owe!er the notion of making familiar things strange by using poetry6s power was first presented by 8ristotle in Poetics in ::) BC. In Biographia Literaria $%(%<*+ Coleridge defends the concept of

=strangeness6 as a central effect in 9omantic poetry. Coleridge demonstrates this in his poem 1he 9ime of the 8ncient 0ariner $%(:;*>

4e holds him with his glittering eye? 1he 3edding"5uest stood still+ 8nd listens like a three years@ child> 1he 0ariner hath his will. 1he 3edding"5uest sat on a stone> 4e cannot choose but hearA 8nd thus spake on that ancient man+ 1he bright"eyed 0ariner. @1he ship was cheered+ the harbour cleared+ 0errily did we drop Below the kirk+ below the hill+ Below the lighthouse top.

1he idea of defamiliarization did not arise in a !acuum+ and gained especial currency in the earlyBmid )' th century. Cne of the elements of the Dazi doctrine was Gleichshaltung or to make e!eryone the same+ and to /uestion nothing. Brecht and his collaborators de!eloped the theory of alienation as a response to totalitarian tyranny. 3e ha!e already seen what Brecht means by his theory of alienation in Chapter %%+ where he uses the term verfremdung effekt. 0ar.ists+ such as Brecht belie!ed that the function of art is to pre!ent people from getting =carried away6 by the plot+ characterization+ sets + and other features. Cne should keep one6s distance+ that is+ remain =alienated6 and not identify with what is going on stage. 1he 9ussian theatre practitioner Konstantin #tanisla!ski $%(,:"%&:(* + howe!er+ held a complete opposite !iew from Brecht. Cne of the key features of his teachings is that an actor must completely immerse in the character+ and identify with it. 1he idea of creating =empathy6 with the characters was a formati!e influence on the acting styles of the great 0ethod 8ctors+ notably+ 0arlon Brando+ 0ontgomery Clift+ 8l Eacino+ and 9obert de Diro.

#i es De eu"e and $e i% #uattari -rench philosophers and theorists+ Feleuze and 5uattari engaged in debates on the primacy of hierarchy+ truth+ meaning+ subjecti!ity+ and representation. 8 major project of theirs has been to derail modernist+ linear thinking is their use of the metaphor of the rhizome $a botanical term+ referring to a horizontal stem+ usually underground+ that sends out roots and shoots from multiple nodes*. 3hat Feleuze and 5uattari suggest is that it is not possible to locate a rhizome6s source root. In A Thousand Plateaus $%&('* they contrast rhizomatic thinking with arborescent $like a tree* thinking that de!elops from root to trunk to branch to leaf. -or the two philosophers+ arborescent modes of thinking are the important aspects of the grand narrati!es of modernist+ capitalist thought+ and are hierarchical and hegemonic in nature $see the section on grand and petit narrati!es below*.

1he two theorists then make a case for the disruption of arborescent thought. 1he rhizome mode is a system of totalizing processes+ and fascism oppression is the conse/uence of rhizomatic processes. Glaborating upon these ideas+ the first !olume of Anti-Oedipus !apitalism and Schi"ophrenia $%&<)* tackles the political nature of desire. In their schizoanalytic understanding of -reud+ the critics eschew -reud6s negati!e notion of desire as lack that is e.plainable through the Cedipus comple.. #chizoanalysis is thus offered as a criti/ue of psychoanalysis. Feleuze and 5uattari speak of human beings as desiring machines. 8s they stri!e to liberate desire from its negati!e connotations+ Feleuze and 5uattari attempt to de!elop an understanding of desire as a flow. Fesire becomes territorialized through politicalBideological structures such as family+ religion+ school+ medicine+ nation+ sports and media. 1he theorists emphasize decentred systems and uninhibited flows in their approach to the arts as well as in their criti/ues of psychoanalysis and political thinking.

&emory 0arcel Eroust in his #emem$rance of Things Past $%&%:* is told as an allegorical search for truth. 1he no!el starts with the middle"aged narrator6s memories of his happy childhood. 0arcel tells the story of his life+ introducing along the way a series of memorable characters. In the darkest moment of his life+ the narrator feels that time is lost+ and his life has no beauty and meaning. 4owe!er+ once he realizes the power of unconscious memory+ he understands that the past is eternally ali!e. 1ime is regained+ and he sets to work+ and writes the no!el the reader has just e.perienced. Eroust makes a distinction between !oluntary and in!oluntary memory+ and it is left to an indi!idual to select+ fuse and transmute the facts so that their underlying unity and uni!ersal significance would be re!ealed. Interestingly+ the germ of the no!el harks back to Eroust6s own e.perience+ when in Hanuary %&'& he recalled a particular childhood memory when he tasted a rusk $madeleine in the no!el*+ dipped in tea. In Horge uis Borge6s =-unes the 0emorious6 + Irene -unes from Iruguay+ could recall e!ery detail of the past and could sense e!ery detail of the present moment. 4is mind is flooded with information+ from which he could not escape+ and it is left to us to decide if this memory is a blessing or a curse. 0emory is the biggest domain in philosophy+ and history connects with collecti!e memory. #cholars ha!e theorized it in different ways> -reud and Dietzsche necessitated the ability to forget in order to act in the present and the futureA Karl 0ar. underlined the importance of not to be dragged under by the pastA Bergson suggests

that memory has its own laws connected with emotion and subjecti!ity+ and is essentially timeA and for 5regory Ilmer+ there is a distinction between =li!ed6 and =artificial6 memory. ike literature+ a!ant"garde cinema is deeply interested in the notion of memory+ such as %ight and &ogB%uit et Brouillard $%&77*+ 'iroshima( mon amour $%&7& *+ Last )ear at Marien$ad $%&,%*+ SunlessBSans soleil $%&()*+ Total #ecall $%&&'*+ Groundhog *a+ $%&&: *+ Memento $)'''*+ ,n the Mood for Love $)'''*+ ,rreversi$le $)'')*+ Old Bo+ $)'': *+ Pa+ !heck $ )'':*+ -ternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind $ )'';* + Pan.s La$+rinth $)'',*+ the list goes on. Case study The !o o'ing is an e%tract !rom &i an Kundera(s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting )1*+8, In JKafka6sK no!el+ Erague is a city without memory. 1he city has e!en forgotten its name. Do one there remembers or recalls anything+ and Hosef K. e!en seems not to know anything about his own life pre!iously. Do song can be heard there to e!oke for us the moment of its birth and link the present to the past. 1he time of Kafka6s no!el is the time of a humanity that has lost its continuity with humanity+ of a humanity that no longer knows anything and no longer remembers anything and li!es in cities without names where the streets are without names or with names different from those they had yesterday+ because a name is continuity with the past and people without a name. Erague+ as 0a. Brod said+ is the city of e!il. 3hen the Hesuits+ after the defeat of the Czech 9eformation in %,)%+ tried to reeducate the people in the true Catholic faith+ they swamped Erague with the splendor of Baro/ue cathedrals. 1he thousands of petrified saints gazing at you from all sides and threatening you+ spying on you+ hypnotizing you+ are the frenzied occupation army that in!aded Bohemia three hundred fifty years ago to tear the people6s faith and language out of its soulL. =Mou begin to li/uidate a people+6 4ubl Ja historianK said+ =by taking away its memory. Mou destroy its books+ its culture+ its history. 8nd then others write other books for it+ gi!e another culture to it+ in!ent another history for it. 1hen the people slowly begins to forget what it is and what it was. 1he world at large forgets it still faster.6 =8nd the languageN6

=3hy bother taking it awayN It will become a mere folklore and sooner or later die a natural death.6 $#ource> 4ar!ey 3ood+ 4arriet O Byatt+ 8.#. Memor+ An Antholog+. ondon> 2intage Books+ )''&+ pp. :<," :<(*. Discussion Fiscuss the relationship between cities+ culture + politics and memory as understood by you.

-astiche Hameson also distinguishes between parody and pastiche. Both rely on imitation of earlier te.ts or objects. In parody+ there is an impulse to ridicule by e.aggerating the distance of the original te.t from =normal6 discourse. 1he postmodern+ howe!er+ no longer aspects the notion of =normal6 language> pastiche is =blank6 parody in which there is no single model followed+ no single impulse such as ridicule and no sense of a distance from any norm $see Hameson %&&)+ %,,"<*. Eostmodern architecture+ for e.ample+ borrows elements from !arious earlier periods of architecture and puts them in ju.taposition where there is no single stable reference. -or postmodernists+ hybridization+ a radical interte.uality mi.ing genres+ con!entions+ media dissol!es boundaries between high and low art+ between the serious and the ludic. 5enre becomes e.plicitly unstable+ especially in such te.ts as 2ladimir Daboko!6s Pale &ire $%&,:*+ which mi.es up a poem with a literary"critical analysis and political thriller+ Hohn -owles6s The &rench Lieutenant.s Woman $%&,&*+ which uses history te.tbooks to tell a lo!e story+ which e.ploits the genres of poetry and psychoanalytic case"study+ 8# Byatt6s Possession> A #omance $%&&'*+ which mi.es history+ myth+ literature+ mystery+ romance and ad!enture+ or e!en Puentin 1arantino6s Pulp &iction $%&&;* + which dissol!es the borders between gangster drama+ black comedy+ bo.ing film+ and lo!e story.

.imu ation

It was Elato who argued that painters+ actors+ dramatists+ and so on+ all produce representations or =imitations6 of the real world. 1his way of thinking has gi!en rise to a hierarchical opposition between the real and the copy. 1he postmodern+ howe!er+ challenges such hierarchies and shows how the set of !alues associated with these oppositions can be /uestioned. G!en nature+ in this postmodern re!ersal+ is subject to change+ and the representation can be more real than the real. $ The Truman Sho/+ %&&(A and The Matri0 + $%&&(*+ demonstrating a postmodern fascination with the technologies of !irtual reality. In the first a man unwittingly li!es his life in the simulated world of a );"hour"a"day reality show+ while in the Matri0 + mankind has been ensla!ed by robots who feed off their energy+ keeping then subser!ient by plugging them into a !irtual world+ the matri.. 8nother way of thinking about this phenomenon is to use Hean Baudillard6s term =simulation6 $or the =simulacrum6*. #aturated by images> on the internet+ 12+ ad!ertising hoardings+ magazines+ newspapers and so on+ the =real6 becomes unthinkable without the copy. In other words+ simulation in!ol!es the disturbing idea that the copy is not a copy of something realA the real is ine.tricable from the significance and effects of the copy. 1his supports what Hean Baudrillard calls the hyperreal+ in which reality is created by technology. -etit and grand narratives Cne of the most famous distinctions in the postmodern thought is Hean"-rancois yotard6s concept of =grand6 narrati!es and =petit6 narrati!es. =5rand narrati!es6 such as Christainity+ 0ar.ism+ the Gnlightenment attempt to pro!ide a framework for e!erything. #uch narrati!es follow a mo!ement towards a time of e/uality and justice> after the last judgement+ the re!olution+ or the scientific con/uest of nature+ injustice+ unreason and e!il will end. yotard6s position is that the contemporary =world"!iew6+ is go!erned by =littleBpetit narrati!es6. Contemporary 3estern discourse is characteristically unstable+ fragmented+ dispersed and does not appropriate a /orld-vie/ at all. = ittle narrati!es6 present local e.planations of indi!idual e!ents or phenomena but do not claim to e.plain e!erything. ittle narrati!es are fragmentary+ non"totalizing and non"teological. yotard argues that+ in the

3est+ grand narrati!es ha!e lost their efficacy+ that their legitimacy and their powers of legitimation ha!e been dispersed. egitimation is now plural+ local and contingent because there is no supreme authority $for instance+ 0ar.+ 4egel or 5od* which can sit in judgement. /0I1

1. 2ns'er the !o o'ing in 3rie!:

i. Fefine bricolage. ii. 3rite a short note on pastiche. iii. 5i!e two e.amples of =5rand6 narrati!es.

2. &atch the co umns>

1heorist i ii ii i yotard Hameson 5iles Feleuze and -eli. 5uattari

ConceptBIdea a 9hizome theory b 5rand narrati!es c #imulation

i! Baudrillard

d Eastiche

2ns'er key ). i" bAii" dA iii"a A i!"c

.e ected readings: %. Certeau+ 0ichel de. =0aking Fo6> Ises and 1actics. The Practice of -ver+da+ Life. Berkeley> Ini!ersity of California+ %&(;. )&";). ). Ferrida+ Hac/ues. #tructure+ #ign+ and Elay in the Fiscourse of the 4uman #ciences. 3riting and Fifference. 1rans. 8lan Bass. ondon> 9outledge+ )<(")&; Qhttp>BBhydra.humanities.uci.eduBderridaBsign" play.htmlR :. 4ar!ey 3ood+ 4arriet O Byatt+ 8.#. Memor+ An Antholog+. ondon> 2intage Books+ )''&. ;. 3olfrey+ Hulians et al. 1e+ !oncepts in Literar+ Theor+. IBC> Ini!ersity of British Columbia Eress+ )''%.

.e ected 'e3sites:

http>BBwww.oikos.orgBbatallegory.htm http>BBlibrary.think/uest.orgB;%77B5enre.html http>BBen.wikipedia.orgBwikiBBricolage http>BBwww.library.utoronto.caButelBglossaryBheaderinde..html http>BBwww.webpages.uidaho.eduBSsfloresBtheory.html http>BBen.wikipedia.orgBwikiBFeterritorialization http>BBwww.dhbricolage.netB

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