When considering the book of Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, it is essential to remember that this is one of those works which raises far too many questions, rather than gives certain answers. Many people admit that the book “does not admit to easy categorization” (Smith 20). However, the majority of people still regard the book as a story for children (Zapata 65).
Admittedly, this is one of the most famous literary works worldwide which, naturally, inspired many people to make numerous versions of Gulliver’s story. Film versions of the story deserve special attention since cinematography is the most available source of learning anything. Notably, Hollywood created several stories which correspond to the existing stereotype concerning the book.
Gulliver’s Travels in literature.
One of the first commentators of the book, Lord Orrery, described Swift’s work as “a satire, an allegory, a series of voyages, a “moral political romance,” a “philosophical romance,” and an “irregular essay” (Smith 20). Nowadays the book
… has been described as a narrative satire, a picaresque tale, a novel, a political allegory, a travel book, a parody of the travel book, an imaginary voyage, a philosophic voyage, and as both utopian and antiutopian romance. (Smith 20)
Adult readers are sure that in Gulliver’s Travels Swift criticized many aspects of the contemporary society. However, the majority of readers have regarded the book as an adventure story and child or juvenile literature. Perhaps, Swift is responsible for such misunderstanding since in the Publisher to Reader the author hopes that the book will become “may be at least, for some time, a better entertainment to our young noblemen than the common scribbles of politics and party” (James et al. 294).
Nonetheless, people liked the story and the book was translated into many languages and, therefore, there are many versions of the same story. Admittedly, translator should be regarded as a writer which tells the story from his perspective, so any edition and translation of the book can be regarded as a bit different story which bears traces of the times when it was written (Real 59).
For instance, one of the versions of the book is “a free adaptation” of the first voyage of Gulliver “with many departures from the original” (Real 59). It goes without saying that many countries have Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels which are quite different when compared.
Screen versions of Gulliver’s Travels.
Admittedly, screen versions are characterized by even more “departures” from Swift’s story. It is necessary to point out that Hollywood versions largely focus on adventure rather than concentrate on eighteenth century’s society criticism. Notably, later versions picture modern concerns and ideas about contemporary western society.
In the first place, it is possible to consider two versions of the story. The first one is an animated film, Gulliver’s Travels (1939). This version can be regarded as a conventional approach to the story understanding. This is an animated film for children which focuses on adventure and funny dwarfs’ depiction. Admittedly, the first book of Gulliver’s Travels is the most famous and admired by children. This version tells a story of Gulliver omitting many details of the story but focusing on the major theme of friendship, love, and understanding.
The next famous Hollywood version of the story is the film Gulliver’s Travels (1978). It is similar to the animated film considered above. In fact, it is partly live-action and animated film. It also promulgates the ideas of love and friendship. It is also a good children film which is based on one of the most loved story.
The next screen adaptation of the story deserves much attention since it is not a mere story for children. The drama Gulliver’s Travels (1996) is quite close to the original version which focuses on concepts which are close to the contemporary viewers. Of course, the film is entertaining and even spectacular since this format is generally accepted by films producers and consumers.
However, the drama touches upon such issues as people’s ignorance, shortsightedness, pride, vanity, greed and meanness. Admittedly, the film is not concerned with criticizing eighteenth century English society, but it criticizes twentieth century western society.
One more screen adaptation of Swift’s most famous story to be considered is the film, Gulliver’s Travels (2010). This is one of those free adaptations which only take up basic points of the story and articulated their own ideas creating a brand-new story. The film depicts a story of the modern average man who has average problems at work and in his personal life.
Noteworthy, the film is quite overloaded with special effects which serve to created entertaining effect. The film producers also tried to convey their ideas and criticize certain aspects of the contemporary life. Thus, screen versions are also quite different from the original, though they have one thing in common. Apart from the fact that these versions use core points from Swift’s work, they reflect modern life and promulgate ideas which are valued in the times of the films’ production.
Modern society and the story of Gulliver.
It goes without saying that Gulliver’s Travels is known to the majority of children pertaining to western culture. People get acquainted with Gulliver in the brightest period of their lives, in their childhood, when everything is perceived through a joyful lens. Naturally, people tend to go back to happy memories and are eager to spend some more time with one of the most admired heroes from their childhood. Thus, many modern writers and film producers find their inspiration in Swift’s story.
These people often use the story about Gulliver to reflect the modern society. Notably, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels though written to criticize his contemporaries perfectly fits for criticizing modern societies. Basically, western culture did not change greatly since then, so many eternal issues concerning people’s behavior remain up-to-date now.
At present there are still many shortsighted people who are not ready or reluctant to except changes, just as in the times of Swift. Now writers and film producers want to promulgate ideas of good and draw people’s attention to their problems which are unworthy. The story about the traveler who acknowledged so many different worlds is the most suitable for this purpose.
Conclusion
On balance, it is possible to state that Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is mainly regarded as an adventure story for children and juvenile. Its popularity throughout times led to its long life in literature and cinematography. Modern writers and film producers use the famous story to reflect and criticize modern society which is characterized by many imperfections, just as the society was in the times of Swift.
Works Cited
Gulliver’s Travels. Dir. Dave Fleischer. Perf. Jessica Dragonette and Lanny Ross. Fleischer Studios, 1939.
Gulliver’s Travels. Dir. Peter R. Hunt. Perf. Richard Harris, Catherine Schell and Norman Shelley. Belvision, Valeness, 1978.
Gulliver’s Travels. Dir. Charles Sturridge. Perf. Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and James Fox. Hallmark Entertainment and Channel 4 Television Corporation, 1996.
Gulliver’s Travels. Dir. Rob Letterman. Perf. Jack Black, Emily Blunt and Jason Segel. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2010.
James, Heather, James Patterson, Thalmann Meyer (Eds.). The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, Vol. 2. New York, NY: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc, 2005.
Real, Hermann Josef. The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005.
Smith, Frederik N. The Genres of Gulliver’s Travels. Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 1990.
Zapata, Jesús Várela. “The Lens Reversed: Methodological Approaches for an Ethical and Political Analysis of Gulliver’s Travels.” Revista de Filología y su Didáctica 25 (2002): 65-84.
Faust by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe is not just the discussion of a simple story about a man who has decided to sell his soul to the devil and has managed to save at the end, it is the expression of the whole time period and the reflection of the attitude to life and people.
It is possible to consider Faust and his actions as the ideas and beliefs of some people of the whole epoch. “Let’s plunge ourselves into the torrents of time, into the whirl of eventful experience! There, as chance wills, let pain and pleasure, success and frustration, alternate; unceasing activity alone reveals our earth” (Goethe, 45). Thus, all the actions held by Faust are just the reflections of the actions which do the whole society. Considering the whole play, it is possible to remember the periods when Faust was in love and when he decided to go into profligacy.
All these features are inherent to those people who do not have faith in this world, who do not trust into the goodness and who are sure that there is nothing either in life or after its death, still, after some particular event happens, when people do not have an opportunity to change anything they appear in the situation when the hope arouses and people understand that life deserves living, that here are people who need our attention, but it is too late to change anything; however, there are some particular cases when people are given another chance and they are just to use it.
The story of Faust is simple and remembered by everyone, however, different interpretations of the story take place. Goethe’s Faust is saved at the end. Acting in accordance with the inner intentions, Faust understands that the surrounding world is not that cruel, he is sure that life deserves to be lived.
However, when Faust bet with Mephistopheles he is sure that here is nothing worthier than to live a long life without any goal. “If you should ever find me lolling on a bed of ease, let me done for on the spot! If you ever lure me with your lying flatteries, and I find satisfaction in myself, if you bamboozle me with pleasure, / then let this be my final day! This bet I offer you! (Goethe 313)” are the lines which reflect the most critical moment is the play, when Faust is sure that life is useless and nothing can be changed.
Another quote which appears almost at the end of the story is also important as is shows that the world deserves leaving, that people are given lives with some purposes and despair and other negative feelings are intruded into the life just to show people how great love and other feelings may be, “Fill your heart to overflowing, and when you feel profoundest bliss, then call it what you will: Good fortune! Heart! Love! or God! I have no name for it! Feeling is all; the name is sound and smoke, beclouding Heaven’s glow” (Goethe 311).
The understanding that feelings are important make Faust pity for the decision he has made. Having lad the life free from any prejudice and responsibilities, Faust falls in love and understand that life deserves leaving. At the end of the story Faust is given another chance. Right when the situation is about to finish, when the contract is about to end and Faust is to appear in the hell, he is given another chance.
The play may be considered as the moral one as it shows the inner world of many people who have lost faith in anything good in this life. Such situation usually considered as the most devastating, people lose faith and do not believe in God and other benefits of this life.
Trying to get rid of bad feelings and thoughts, people in despair act absolutely differently from what they got used to do. Reading Faust, it is impossible to disagree that people are ruled by feelings, not by reasoning. Most of the actions are based on human intentions, they are usually directed by the impulses and when people appear in the situations when they do not see the way out, they are not to use reasoning, they should be directed by their actions.
Faust and his life is the good example when the lack of interest brought him on the edge of life and death. Then, when he found the interest in life, when he understood that his existence might be purposeful, he also got to know that nothing could be changed. These feelings deepened the depression.
Still, the final safety from hell shows that only the true feelings and the sincere desire to life may help people if not to correct their mistakes, but to change their destiny, to change their future life and behavior. People deserve being forgiven if they really regret and if they are ready to make amendments for their sins.
Works Cited
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust I & II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Print.
This world is full of unknown and unexplainable objects and events that can be hard accurately interpreted or have a clear answer to the question. Still, it is undoubtedly that every person has had at least one dream in life. Everyone has big and small desires which are supposed to become a reality one day. Nevertheless, what eventually happens to a plan which was forgotten or ignored due to particular circumstances? The discussion about this question is perfectly portrayed in Hughes’s poem Harlem. The author questions the current faith in the aspirations that once were relevant and, for some reason, lost their priority to the people and became forgotten. Through the reflection on the fate of unrealized dreams, the author portrays other connected components: racial equality, emotional well-being, and the general concept of personal goals.
Hughes often makes the central theme of his works the experience of the black people who live in America and face numerous challenges every day due to systematic oppression. Harlem is no exception, and this poem demonstrates a perspective of the African-Americans who try to find their place in the world of white people and fight for their rights and freedom. One of the meanings is that all the activities and aspirations that the racial majority have are significantly harder to get for the black people and these emotions “just sags” as a tough burden (Hughes, 1951). The comparison of lost opportunities to “a heavy load” demonstrates the inner feeling of the oppressed people who no longer see sense in fighting and feel an emptiness inside (Hughes, 1951). Those challenges that, in the perfect world, they would not have to face are depicted in the poem and give an insight into the actual occasions in African – Americans’ inner feelings.
The general theme of the poem is the discussion of the goals and objectives. Although throughout the literary work, the author only asks the questions and makes assumptions about what could become with the aspirations, it stimulates to think about the outcomes. In the beginning, Hughes raises the critical question of the whole poem “What happens to a dream deferred?” (1951). Eventually, it represents an issue of how unrealized dreams affect the person, what are the costs of fear and hesitations “or does it explode?” (Hughes, 1951). Refusing to stick to the goals may cause more damage to the person than the struggles they have to overcome achieving them.
Eventually, it refers to the emotional state and psychological well-being of the people who have hardships with keeping an interest in the objective or even wholly rejecting the idea of fighting for it. The end author supposes what happens to the deferred dream “Or does it explode?” (Hughes, 1951). While when “it stinks like rotten meat” creates a sense of disappointment, the explosion is instead associated with anger (Hughes, 1951). The energy inevitably transfers when an individual ignores their desire and regularly can result in an unpleasant experience, anger, and melancholy.
In Harlem, Hughes speaks on behalf of those who struggle to maintain their place in the world and overcome different situations to get what they deserve. He discusses what could happen if people stopped fighting to achieve their aspirations and accepted their position as it is. “Does it stink like rotten meat?” refers to the anticipation of something pleasant and desirable but already spoiled because an individual waited too long to get it (Hughes, 1951). Another comparison with food, “Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?” gives a perception that could have given a sense of fulfillment, but instead, the pleasant emotions bring nothing except disappointment (Hughes, 1951). They can be referred to as black people who might get tired and desperate of the constant fight for their rights and equal opportunities.
It is also connected with the classical concept of the American dream. The definition of the term may vary, but generally, it implies the ability to use the opportunities, move towards a bright future, take a risk and build a great life. Usually, it includes having a household, family, children, and decent wage to provide the loved ones with all the necessary goods. The line “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” symbolizes missed opportunities (Hughes, 1951). It also signals that the best time to take action is now because it may “fester like a sore” at the end (Hughes, 1951). In the poem, the author seems to be trying to inspire the minority to continue pursuing their dreams and, despite all the difficulties that might come on the way, keep working. He sends a message that although it is hard, still possible, and they deserve to get what they want to lead a happy and fulfilled life.
In conclusion, through all the thoughts and discussion, Hughes portrayed how the lack of goal realization impacts psychological health, social equality, and self-fulfillment. Specifically, the author refers to the African – Americans, whose struggles reflect his battles with society. Otherwise, a dream of a beautiful opportunity for a promising future can turn into regrets and sorrow, which are hard to escape from if not follow the aspirations.
Langston Hughes was an African American poet of mixed ancestry, and one of the most celebrated writers of his time. He also had written several novels, plays, and short stories, but is best known for his contribution to the genre of poetry. Through his works, he had always tried to uphold the value of Black people and he vehemently fought against the social evils of racism and discrimination.
The poem, Ku Klux describes an episode where some members of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that stands for the cause of White supremacy, catch a Black man and manhandle him. Through this poem, the author portrays the themes of White supremacy, racial discrimination, and the chaos that existed in American society. Hughes further shows how the Whites mistreat the Black for establishing their racial superiority.
The most significant theme that Hughes used in this poem is the thirst of the Whites for racial supremacy. The author makes no pretensions about it and comes straight to the point when the Klan members ask,” Do you believe in the great White race?” (Hughes) Incidentally, one needs to remember that the Ku Klux Klan, which has its origin in the Southern states, subsequently spread into the whole nation, is a group of extreme activists who advocates White supremacy. They had no hesitation or remorse in inflicting large-scale violence on the Black people. The savage nature of the gang becomes evident in the manner in which the White men treat the Black man. They unleash this violence to establish their racial superiority by making the Negro admit that he believes “in the great White race.”(Hughes)
Another important theme that emerges from the poem is the evils of racism and discrimination that prevailed in American society during that time. Black people, in general, were mistreated and the Whites did not even consider them as humans. They did not have any rights even to voice their problems. The feeling of helplessness and despair in the Black man who clearly understands that he can do nothing to save his honor becomes most evident when he says,” Mister, to tell you the truth, I’d believe anything if you’d just turn me loose.” (Hughes). The fact that the man doesn’t resist, but offers to believe in anything they want, in itself is proof of the pathetic plight of the Black people.
One more important theme that emerges from the poem, ”Ku Klux” is the violence and chaos that was rampant in American society. Though there existed several laws and other regulations for the protection of the Black people, the Klan members often flouted these and they got away with it because the authorities also wanted to close their eyes due to their bias and prejudices towards the Black people. As it becomes obvious from the poem, the gang members pick on one man, inflict violence on him, but no one comes to question this.
From the author’s silence about why no one intervenes, it transpires that the authorities allowed violence when it is directed towards the Blacks, thereby making the readers feel the full impact of the social injustice of discrimination.
Thus, like most of his other works, the poem Ku Klux also is a staunch protest against the White supremacy, racial discrimination, and violence that prevailed in American society. By depicting the mistreatment meted out by the Whites on the Black, the author successfully illustrates the impact such evils can have on a civilized society like America, where these kinds of menace create chaos, wreaking havoc on the peaceful coexistence of humans.
Literary works are essential sources of information that can help in building values and determining what is really important in a person’s life. “The mill on the floss” by George Eliot is a novel that presents the story of the main character’s development, her suffering, and the events of her life that built her as a person. The narration in work is conducted in the third person, which significantly helps to get into the atmosphere and understand all the feelings and experiences of the protagonists. Thus, this scientific paper aims to analyze the novel “The mill on the floss” and determine the primary meaning that the author wanted to convey.
As already mentioned, the genre of the analyzed work is a novel, which largely determines some of its characteristics. One of the main ones is its duration, which at the same time does not complicate its reading and understanding. On the contrary, with its help, the reader gets the opportunity to understand better the events taking place and the motivation of the characters in making a decision. Moreover, readers can trace the process of growing up and becoming the main protagonist Maggie as a person, which also has a unique value.
One of the central themes at the beginning of the novel is the relationship between siblings, Tom and Maggie. Hence, the author says that the elder brother constantly took care of his younger sister and did everything to keep her in her place. However, from a feminist point of view, this novel is a pure representation of how men in those days neglected the mind and abilities of a person just because they were women.
Moreover, the author points out how much the young girl hung up on her family. However, having found romantic feelings for a young man, she could not even talk about them because the object of her love was the son of an enemy of the family. The situation is aggravated by the fact that after confessing her feelings to her brother, Maggie does not meet with a positive reaction since even he resists the meetings of lovers (Elliott, 2019). This situation is also an example of how women’s rights and desires were ignored. At the same time, it is possible to expand this problem by emphasizing that any person was deprived of the ability to choose thoroughly since much depended on what decision the parents would make.
When reading the work under analysis, the passage made a memorable impression at the very end of the work. For some readers, the events taking place in it can cause more feelings and emotions than the whole work as a whole. Moreover, with the help of this passage, people can interpret the whole essence of the work. Consequently, one of the opinions on the ending is that it shows that the family remains above all and represents the principal value of life. The last words made an exceptional contribution to the author “brother and sister had gone down… never to be parted; in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little hands in love and roamed the daisied fields together” (Elliott, 2019, p. 535). Although many researchers consider this work feminist, we can say that the theme of family is also quite vivid and essential in the novel. It is also worth noting that the language of the narrative is quite simple to understand, which significantly expands the range of possible readers of the work. With the help of this factor, the author can gain the attention of a larger audience to focus on a particular problem.
Returning to the close reading of the specific passage, I find the ending more interesting than the central part of the work. At the same time, the novel is characterized by an exciting love story, which deserves attention. A passage was chosen for support, beginning with the words “nothing else was said: a new danger was being carried towards them by the river” and up to the end of the narrative (Elliott, 2019, p. 534). First of all, it is worth paying attention to the previously mentioned information that the work belongs to the genre of the novel, which is characterized by a large amount of information and the ability to elaborate on the events occurring with the characters. At the same time, the ending of a literary work may seem somewhat crumpled and illogical, which definitely causes confusion.
There are several explanations for this circumstance, one of which is the allegorical nature of the last passage. Thus, it is noted that it conveys the importance of finding harmony among people, not only with the outside world but also with oneself. Therefore, the author shows that until the last moment of her life, the main character Maggie is torn between her desires and duty to her family and society. Henceforth, having fallen in love with the son of her father’s enemy, she opposed the family. Having found mutual feelings with Stephen, the protagonist could betray a relationship not only with a potential fiance but also with her cousin (Elliott, 2019). Being entangled in the interweaving of opinions and responsibilities, the only thing that could save the heroine from a difficult decision was death.
One of the main elements of the plot, which is mentioned in the title of the novel, is the Floss River. She is mentioned throughout the narrative of the literary work and plays a significant role in maintaining the family mill of the protagonists. However, at one point, it is the river that becomes the reason that will ruin the Tulliver family in the future. A brother and sister drown in the same river, and a declaration of love and a request for marriage take place on this river. Thus, the river is the aspect that gave rise to written history and became its end.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the social aspect of the work plays a unique role in shaping the ending. Maggie has become the subject of multiple gossip and condemnation because of her love story. Therefore, the author shows that this kind of negative social reputation and humiliation is the most difficult to find a solution for the main protagonist. The deep imprint that these events left on Maggie could be the reason that the author saw death by drowning as the only way out for her.
In conclusion, the work “The mill on the floss” by George Eliot is a relatively simple and inconspicuous name hides a tragic and soul-touching story of the formation of personality, love, and complex family relationships. The last passage of the novel makes a deep, indelible impression, despite the initial crumpling. Consequently, it may seem that it was written in a hurry, but with more detailed analysis, it makes enough sense. First of all, he shows the value of complex family relationships, describing the death of a brother and sister. In addition, in the end, the author shows the importance of the river’s participation in the entire literary work and how it plays a role both in its beginning and in the finale.
Reference
Elliott, G. (2019). The mill on the floss. Amazon Digital Services LLC – KDP Print US.
Robert Frost is well known as the author of poems that address the world of nature and human feelings. The author expresses the emotions and hesitations of his heroes through vivid images of nature and metaphors, as well as using the poems’ structure.
Thus, the main particularity of his works is that they can be interpreted in different ways. One of the best examples of the author’s techniques is the poem “Acquainted with the Night”. As it has already been mentioned, the poem can be interpreted in different ways.
One of the interpretations, that we are going to provide in this paper, deals with the explanation of the subject and theme of the poem. The poem is about a lonely person who feels isolation from the society. Thus, the protagonist of the poem experiences depression. The unwillingness to express emotions and feeling of loneliness and depression are the main issues addressed in the poem which present its theme.
The subject of the poem is the loneliness that every person can feel from time to time. The protagonist of the poem wonders around the town unwilling to talk to somebody and express his thoughts and feelings: “I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain” (Frost 5, 6).
Indeed, it is a feeling that every individual can experience when it is impossible to say what you want as nobody around can understand you. This makes him feel an outsider in the community he lives in. He knows that nobody thinks about him and nobody will call him: “When far away an interrupted cry / Came over houses from another street, /
But not to call me back or say good-bye” (Frost 9-11). Hears the sounds of human voices and understanding that they are not addressing him, the protagonist’s feeling of loneliness and isolations becomes bigger.
As the protagonist is wondering aimlessly around the town, he understands that his life is senseless. This idea can be heard in the first stanza of the poem: “I have walked out in rain — and back in rain. /I have out walked the furthest city light” (Frost 2, 3). His soul is filled with despair and nonchalance. Nothing bothers him and nothing is interesting to him, neither “the city lane,” and “the city lights,” nor “the watchman on his beat” nor “the sound of feet” (Frost).
The main point about the subject is the theme of isolation, depression and despair. Every line of the poem is filled with this feeling. The author makes use of various literary details to develop the theme of the poem. The poem as a whole sounds metaphorically. Thus, we can conclude that the main literary means used in the poem is metaphor.
With the very first line, the author introduces the reader into the “lonely world” of the protagonist: “I have been one acquainted with the night” (Frost 1). Night has “many faces” in can be fun, mysteries, friendly and hostile. However, it can be lonely as well. The lonely night is the only companion of the narrator. In this poem, night is a metaphor for loneliness and isolation. The narrator is well acquainted with it.
He knows that walking “out in rain — and back in rain” (Frost 2) will have no result and he will never reach the “furthers city light”. In their turn, the lights are the metaphor for the deliverance from loneliness that is unattainable for the narrator at the moment. The protagonist’s experience of loneliness is also expressed by means of such metaphoric images as “furthest city light”, “saddest city lane”, and “an unearthly height”.
The author makes use of nature imagery of moon that, “at an unearthly height, / O luminary clock against the sky / Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right” (Frost 11-13). First of all, he is as lonely as the moon in the sky, and as far from his community as the moon far from the Earth.
However, the imagery of moon is also used to show the meaningless of time for the narrator which “was neither wrong nor right” (Frost 13). It is one more manifestation of the author’s isolation. He is unable to sense the time as other citizens of the town. The moon is the only “clock” for him that still proves the narrator’s presence.
As we can see, the author “plays with the time” using it to develop the theme of the poem. However, there is one more usage of the time. We can observe that Frost uses Present Perfect “I have been…” to show that his loneliness and depression are not short-term emotions, but accompany him for all his life.
Thus, “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost deals with the theme of loneliness, despair and depression. The author makes use different details, such as metaphors and imagery in order to develop the theme. Frost makes use of images of nature in order to express feeling and emotions of the narrator.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Acquainted with the Night.” The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems. Ed. Edward Connery Lathem. New York: Henry Holt, 2002.
According to Venkatachalam, what is the main thesis of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Support your claim.
Throughout the history of humankind, people have noticed that certain civilizations have their specific patterns of development; hence, the need to analyze and explain those differences appeared. In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond offers his explanation of why the existing civilizations ended up where they are now. Venkatachalam interprets Jared’s findings, offering an intriguing and peculiar interpretation of Jared’s ideas. Taking a closer look at Venkatachalam’s work, one can see, however, that some of Venkatachalam’s interpretations of Diamond’s ideas are quite unexpected, to say the least.
According to Venkatachalam, the key point that the author is making in his book is that the specifics of the development in the European civilization regarding political, economical, cultural, and other aspects, stand in sharp contrast to the development of other civilizations, not because of the biological differences between the races, but because of the specifics of historical development. As Venkatachalam himself explains, the proximate causes have nothing to do with how civilizations develop and serve only as a foil for people’s interactions (Venkatachalam 85).
In your own words, summarize Venkatachalam’s main thesis. Support your claim.
Venkatachalam summarizes the key ideas of Guns, germs, and steel in a nutshell. The reviewer must focus on the proximity theory, contrasting it with the one provided by Jared Diamond. According to Venkatachalam, the theory of proximity fails to explain several issues that Diamond’s book sheds some light on.
Thus, Venkatachalam makes it clear that the idea of proximity is no longer of any use and that Diamond’s “causes theory” can be used as a substitute for the former. Venkatachalam states that with the help of Diamond’s ideas, one can see the theory of civilizations’ development through a different lens and adopt an unbiased idea of why European culture has advanced differently compared to the rest of the world cultures. Besides, it is essential to add that Venkatachalam considers the ultimate causes of the key reasons for the existence of inequality within present-day society.
Evaluate Venkatachalam’s book review, making explicit its strengths and/or weaknesses. (at least 300 words). Use the readings given above and/or the final project’s grading scheme to help you
When it comes to analyzing Venkatachalam’s review, one must admit that it has its strengths, yet several details make the review look not that strong. Starting with the positive issues, it is necessary to mention that the review offers a very detailed analysis of Diamond’s book. It is worth mentioning that Venkatachalam’s interpretation of Diamond’s ideas is rather original, yet the reviewer still follows the source text quite closely. Moreover, Venkatachalam analyzes the text, allowing the reader to instantly jump to the conclusion that Diamond leads the readers to throughout an entire chapter: “Despite the invention of the wheel, writing and cereal cultivation in parts of America these innovations did not spread on this continent tanks to insurmountable barriers in the form of deserts and the Panama isthmus” (Venkatachalam 85). With the help of his manner of summarizing Diamond’s ideas and offering them to the readers, Venkatachalam manages to create a cohesive and clear work that sheds some light on Diamond’s key ideas without going too deep into the science-related details.
There are a few drawbacks in Venkatachalam’s interpretation of Diamond’s book as well, however. To start with, the uncompromising and straightforward tone of the paper brings the work down a few notches. Even though Diamond’s ideas hardly seem to have any double meaning, Venkatachalam’s certainty in his conclusions seems a bit far-fetched. The given element affects the tone of the paper, making it more persuasive and, therefore, more memorable. Another issue that might seem somewhat ambiguous in Venkatachalam’s review of the book is the fact that the reviewer offers a rather one-sided argument. While he does provide a detailed account of the book, its topic, and key ideas, it still seems that Venkatachalam’s review lacks objectivity. If the reviewer had incorporated at least one more interpretation, offering it as a counterpoint to his one the review would have been complete.
In retrospect, one must admit that the technological development of humankind cannot be considered linear. Though progress can hardly be avoided, there can be no denying that people have seen the times of decay and the times of technological progress. Speaking of the latter, the XIX-XX centuries must be mentioned. The late XIX century was the time when humankind jumped into a pool of opportunities that the numerous technological discoveries offered. One of the most ingenious inventions of the time, the typewriter was bound to become the symbol of the XIX-century progress. In his book, Todd Timmons claims that the change that occurred in the XIX century to the lives of the American citizens is truly unprecedented since the technological advances offered to humankind changed the world. According to Todd, the late XIX century is a unique period in the history of the civilization, because there has never been such a rise in technological development like this before: “Most Americans in 1900 lived a life so fundamentally different than it would have been unimaginable to people only a few generations earlier – and advances in science and technology-fueled these changes” (Timmons, 2005, 1). Along with the idea that the technological development in the XIX century went beyond people’s most daring expectations, Timmons also made it obvious that in the 1900s, the technological development of the USA made an unexpected turn, since the parallels between science and technology were finally drawn. The latter allowed for several possibilities since technological advances finally obtained a theoretical basis; according to Timmons, the given event served as the tipping point for the technological breakthrough and led people to even more fantastic discoveries.
Reference List
Timmons, T. (2005). Science and technology in nineteenth-century America. Westport, CN: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Venkatachalam, R. (2001). Guns, germs and steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. Web.
A narrative poem is supposed to be a narration of a definite story in the form of a poem; it is a piece of literature where a plot of the story is more important than the form. The impact of an awareness of narrative theory helps us to clarify the meaning of images, scenes, and events displayed in the narrative poem.
The process of reading and interpreting a narrative poem can take more time than the interpretation of meaning of a verse because it is necessary to consider the relationship between story and narrative discourse, a narrator, a narratee, an embedded narrative, focalization, an implied or intended reader and an actual audience, an implied author, and a gap or crux. A narrative poem The Kid written by Al can be considered a bright example of relations between the narrative discourse, the story, and the narrative.
The Narrative Poem the Kid Written by Al
The narrative discourse should be considered in terms of an agent and a story (events). The main features of a narrative discourse are usage of the forms of first or third person pronouns, a definite agent is the center of the story, and the events are chronologically structured. We can observe all these features in the poem The Kid written by Al. This narrative poem contains description of events that took place in the past, though all verbs are used in the form of the present tense; this method helps to keep the reader in suspense till the end of the poem.
The beginning of the poem lets the reader know about an agent, his sister, mother, and an old man who can possibly be his grandfather. After this, the agent hits an old man with an iron rod; when his mother comes to help the old man, he takes the rifle. It is not clear whether he wanted to shot them before or was trying to conceal consequences of his actions. He makes short work of all witnesses including his sister. When everything is over, he packs some things reminding him of the dead relatives and walks away.
As we learn from the poem, the main character (agent) is a boy aged fourteen, he wants to imitate his father’s actions, and he seems to be proud of his father and of who he is: “I’m Jack, Hogarth’s son. I’m nimble, I’m quick” (Al 193). So, he acts cruelly, he does not realize that he is too young to do such things as shown in the poem.
Jack, the main agent of the poem, states that “one bullet [is] for the black horse, two for the brown” (Al 193); in this way the reader comes to know that the boy has shot his mother, the old man, and then his sister who was trying to escape from the truck. He is cruel, though self-seeking and consistent in his actions. He does not feel sorry for what he has done; he continues his way.
Conclusion
The narrative poem is a poem which focuses on events and the agent rather than the patient or descriptions. The narrative poem The Kid written by Al demonstrates all distinctive features of a narrative poem: it is chronologically organized, the events are focused on the agent, the narration is performed from the first person (it can be also be the third person). The events that take place in the poem refer to the past, though it is presented in the form of the present tense. The discourse and the story are tightly connected; the discourse facilitates understanding of the story.
Works Cited
Al, “The Kid.” Story Hour: Contemporary American Narrative Poems. Ed. Sonny Williams. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004.
One of the most important issues about reading stories and writing them, the readers’ responses can vary in numerous ways. By only analyzing the ideas which emerge after reading a novel or a short story, one can feel the value of the reading. Despite the versatility of opinions and the clash of ideas, the readers of Clarice Lispector’s “The Fifth Story” came to the quite logical and original interpretation of the short story.
Killing Cockroaches
Considering the responses of the readers, one can notice that there were considerable differences in their ideas of the story. Discussing the plot, analyzing the ideas of the author, and trying to interpret them, the group has shown a great divergence of opinions.
It is quite peculiar that the group of students considered the Fifth Story from both the viewpoint of a reader and the position of a character. Describing the character in the most different and peculiar ways, the group both focused on the general idea of the story and its interpretation, as well as on their vision of the character and the plot.
It seems that some members of the group were focused exclusively on their impressions about the text, not on the novel itself. Considering the main character from different points of view, the group managed to draw a portrait of the leading character in the way they saw it and understood her actions.
Speaking of the group’s suggestions concerning the leading character, it would be reasonable to enumerate the most peculiar and outstanding ones. What strikes most when reading the responses to the story is the fact that each reader applied the story and its participant to the real-life, which means that the group perceived the short novel as a piece of reality.
Concerning the character of the plot, the readers depicted her in many ways; yet the most impressive interpretation of her actions and motivations was the idea of her intention to kill. Applying the story to the real world with the realities of everyday life, the group managed to create a truly psychological approach; yet it seems that the group focused rather on their impressions concerning the character rather than the text and its specific features.
Another idea that is worth mentioning is the fact that the character of the novel does not have a name. It must be noted that such an approach has an additional sense which the group unlocked as well, suspecting that the character is not important – these were rather her actions that mattered.
With help of these thorough considerations and well-thought analysis, the members of the group also approached the text itself. With help of their interpretations of the piece, the group suggested that the novel depicted a childish and immature person. It can be considered that the group viewed the lead character as a child and the novel as the attempts to grow up.
Speaking of the plot of the story, most of the group members considered it weird and tangled. Some raised the question of whether it was logical to start the novel from the very end. This added a certain air of irreality to the novel, the group concluded. Therefore, it can be suggested that the group considered the novel both from the position of a reader and from the position of the lead character and the writer.
It seems that the interpretations suggested produce an effect of a thorough analysis of both the story and their feelings concerning the character, the plot, and the inner sense which the story is filled with. Thus, it can be suggested that the readers managed to keep the balance between the story interpretation and the interpretation of their feelings and ideas.
However, analyzing the students’ interpretation of the novel, one might think whether this practice diminishes the value of the novel or helps to discover new ideas in it. Indeed, splitting a book into words and sentences will affect its meaning and idea greatly. Since a novel is a pure art which is designed to raise ideas, not to convey them, excessive discussion of the peculiarities of the plot and the leading character can harm the story to a certain extent. As long as the story remains the whole, it produces the most incredible effect; but when it is split into parts with a careless analysis, only the wrecks of its beauty remain.
Conclusion
Still, one has to remember that art is something that is filled with sense only as one considers it. Thus, the novel analysis obtains a certain sense and serves to emphasize the key ideas of the novel. Moreover, a thorough consideration of the story can also help to reveal the issues which the author hinted at. To sum up, group evaluation can produce positive results and serve to develop the readers’ critical thinking and imagination.
The interpretive community helps to understand the idea of the story better. With help of collective thinking, one can reach the ideas which have never occurred to him/her. In the search for the truth, this is one of the most effective methods.
The semantic dichotomy between Carroll’s novel and Burton/Woolverton’s movie
Nowadays, it became a common trend among Hollywood producers to preoccupy themselves with cinematographic reinterpreting of classical works of European literature that had already been put to films in earlier years. Nevertheless, while pursuing such their agenda, many of these producers often realize a simple fact that, in order for their movies to be able to win favor with viewing audiences, they would have to go as far as representing these literary works in an entirely different light from what it has been originally invented by its authors. The reason for this is simple – the multicultural realities of today’s Western living are being quite inconsistent with the metaphysical values, upon which Western civilization remained firmly based, throughout the course of centuries. Whereas; as recent as fifty years ago, it would never occur to an average Westerner to even doubt the validity of rationale-based social and political theories, nowadays, more and more citizens in Western countries strive for nothing less than undermining the validity of very concepts of scientific empiricism and technological progress as being essentially ‘wicked’. One would only have to watch James Cameron’s most recent blockbuster “Avatar” to realize the full soundness of such our suggestion.
Apparently, the ongoing process of Western societies’ intellectual marginalization had created objective preconditions for people to be increasingly preoccupied with seeking ‘emotional content’ in just about anything, as the only legitimate form of entertainment. It is important to understand that; whereas throughout the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Western concept of entertainment was essentially synonymous with the notion of intellectual exaltation, nowadays it is being synonymous with the notion of emotional intensity. This is exactly the reason why, unlike what was the case with Lewis Carroll’s original novel, Tim Burton & Linda Woolverton’s movie “Alice in Wonderland” is not being concerned with stimulating viewers’ brain cells, but rather with allowing audiences to get cheap thrills out of being exposed to 3D graphics, which provide emotional appeal to movie’s rather banal (good vs. evil) storyline. In our paper, we will aim to substantiate this thesis even to a further extent, by exposing an utter semantic dichotomy between Carroll’s novel and Burton/Woolverton’s movie as being objectively predetermined by what many today’s neo-Conservative political scientists refer to as the ‘decline of the West.
Hidden meanings in the plot of Lewis Carroll
As we have suggested earlier, many people in Western countries have now grown to despise the notion of scientific progress as such that contradicts the notion of political correctness and as such that, during the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, has been closely associated with the process of Europe’s colonial expansion into the Third World. However, it was named the fact that Carroll’s original novel did promote rationalistic civilization vs. ritualistic savagery discourse, which made it very popular with contemporaries – by reading “Alice in Wonderland”, imperialistically minded Europeans were able to confirm the full validity of a notion of so-called ‘white man’s burden’ in their own eyes. As it has been rightly pointed out in Daniel Bivona’s article Alice the Child-Imperialist and the Games of Wonderland: “Alice’s ‘imperialism’, such as it is, is a semiotic imperialism: she is incapable of constructing, on a model radically different from her own, the ‘system’ of ‘systems’ that give meaning to creatures” (1986, 150). Apparently, the fact Carroll’s Alice was striving to expose Wonderland’s ‘creatures’ as being only formally affiliated with the principles of logical reasoning, had provided readers with the insight into why Europe’s colonial presence in the Third World was not only economically feasible but also highly moral – without this presence, it was only the matter of time before ritualistically minded ‘savages’ would turn Western rationalism into the mockery of itself.
Nowadays, many critics point out the fact that in his novel, Carroll actually strived to promote an idea that there was no single reason to think of ‘distorted logic’, on the part of Wonderland’s creatures, as being inferior to the ‘proper logic’ of Alice. For example, in his article Dodgson’s Dark Conceit: Evoking the Allegorical Lineage of Alice, Andrew Wheat suggest that in Carroll’s novel, the character of Alice is being presented as the challenger of ‘undeniable truths’, as opposed to such truths’ enforcer: “Innovative, inconclusive allegorical qualities of the Alice books to a large extent overtake the more traditional and affirmative ones, the path to this conclusion lies not in ignoring the traditional, nor in over-stressing the innovative, but in pinpointing exactly where and how Carroll first evokes the generic traditions and conventions of the allegorical quest” (2009, 104). Yet, the validity of these types of suggestions appears to be only partial – while probing the legitimacy of conventional categories of logic, Carroll acted like a typical intellectually advanced Westerner.
The close reading of both Carroll’s novels reveals that the author was well aware of the fact that the validity of logic-based notions could only be discussed in regards to the system of coordinates, within which these notions exist. Moreover, once a particular system of coordinates loses all links with another system of coordinates, the flow of time in both systems ceases to remain interconnected (after having woken up, Alice realized that her trip to Wonderland lasted only for a few seconds). What it means is that in “Alice in Wonderland”, Lewis Carroll had foreseen the foremost theoretical tenets, upon which Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is being based. In its turn, this explains why Carroll’s novel can only be formally referred to as such that belongs to children’s literature, in the contemporary sense of this word.
The validity of this thesis is being particularly self-evident in regards to Carroll’s second novel about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland “Through the Looking-glass”, which many literary critics refer to as being nothing short of a highly philosophical treatise on logic. In his article Looking Glass: A Treatise on Logic, William Sacksteder had made a perfectly good point while emphasizing this novel’s non-engagement with the issues of morality as ‘thing in itself’: “Alice experiences no incongruities of size, but rather intellectual and verbal incongruities. Her encounters do not issue moral instruction, but rather an explanation and debate… The prevailing disproportion and occasion for humor are between verbalization and reality” (1967, 340). In order for people to enjoy reading Carroll’s novels, they must be endowed with a certain degree of intellectual sophistication, regardless of what these readers’ age might be. The fact that, during the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-glass” has gained almost immediate popularity with adolescent readers simply indicates that, despite these readers’ young age, they were fully capable of operating with rather abstract categories.
And, even a brief inquiry into the subject matter, provides us with insight into this phenomenon – in the first part of the 20th century, children’s (boys’) hobbies were primarily concerned with a variety of technical pursuits (model plane building, radios’ assembling, motorcycles’ maintaining, etc.). By indulging in these activities, children were developing their ability to operate with highly abstract categories of formal logic, which is why they were able to derive an intellectual pleasure out of reading Carroll’s novels. Nowadays, due to the fact that enforcers of political correctness have largely succeeded in taking over the domain of public education, and due to the fact that multiculturalization (barbarization) of Western societies continues to gain an exponential momentum, which results in a continuous lowering of educational standards (affirmative action), children as well as adults, are no longer being encouraged to expand their intellectual horizons, but to be solely preoccupied with ‘celebration of diversity’. In its turn, this created a situation when, despite many students’ inability to point at the U.S. on the world’s map, they nevertheless know just about everything they can about sexual positions and about different kinds of drugs. And, as it has always been the case, throughout the course of history, the lower is the rate of people’s IQ, the stronger is their affiliation with morality, ritualistic (new age) spirituality and emotional sensuality.
Apparently, Tim Burton and Linda Woolverton were well aware of this fact, which is why their cinematographic interpretation of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-glass” appears to have been made in exact accordance with the dogmas of political correctness – it is intellectually shallow, highly moralistic, pretentiously ‘rebellious’ and artificially ‘sophisticate’. By providing their movie with a linear storyline, by instilling it with clearly defined feministic overtones, and by depriving it of Carroll’s original spirit of logical riddlism, Burton and Woolverton simply strived to appease marginalized aesthetic tastes of American moviegoers. In the next part of our paper, we will explore this suggestion at length.
Difference in the rationale of the storyline of development
The most obvious difference between Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice in Wonderland” by Burton and Woolverton is the fact that, unlike what is the case with Carroll’s novel, the movie features a clearly defined developmental storyline. From the time when Alice fell down the rabbit hole until the time she came out of there, every part of her journey never ceased being consequential, in regards to the previous ones; whereas, in the original novel, there are no strong logical links between places and situations, Alice would find herself in. In its turn, this can be explained by the fact that Carroll viewed his novel as an exercise in logic – by placing Alice in seemingly unrelated situations, Carroll was prompting readers to utilize their own sense of rationale while figuring out how the novel’s scenes, themes, and motifs defined its storyline.
In the preface to his book The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze had come up with a perfectly legitimate suggestion, while stating: “The privileged place assigned to Lewis Carroll is due to his having provided the first great account, the first great mise en scene of the paradoxes of sense – sometimes collecting, sometimes renewing, sometimes inventing and sometimes preparing them” (2004, IX). Just as it is being the case with many contemporary commercials, the connection between the novel’s scenes only exists in the minds of readers.
In Burton and Woolverton’s movie, however, scenes progress from one to another in rather a linear manner, which undermines the storyline’s plausibility – only a few adult viewers would find the story 19 years old girl’s adventures in Wonderland (as the ultimate consequence of her unwillingness to marry Hamish), as being very credible. It appears that producers’ preoccupation with trying to provide viewers with insight onto motivations, behind Alice’s every move, had played a bad trick on them – instead of endowing the movie with credibility, it resulted in creating an entirely opposite effect. The fact that Burton and Woolverton’s interpretation is cinematographic, cannot serve as justification for the fact that the movie appears to be deprived of Carroll’s novel’s original spirit. For example, the 1981 Russian animation “Alice in Wonderland” does not feature a linear plot, just as it is the case in Carroll’s novel, and yet – it is highly watchable.
Nevertheless, it is not the fact that the movie’s structure does not quite correlate with that of a novel, which makes it anything but Carrollian, but the fact that Burton and Woolverton’s interpretation of Carroll’s novel is highly moralistic. Unlike what is the case in the novel, the movie’s characters are being clearly divided into ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Apparently, the movie’s producers were not concerned with stimulating viewers’ brain cells, as much as they were concerned with instilling them with ‘positive values’. One would only need to compare qualitative subtleties of Alice’s dialogues in the novels and film, in order to realize the full legitimacy of this statement. Here is what Alice’s dialogue with a Pigeon sounded like in Carroll’s original novel:
‘I have tasted eggs, certainly,’ said Alice, who was a very truthful child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.’ ‘I don’t believe it,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but if they do, why, then they’re a kind of serpent: that’s all I can say.’ ‘You’re looking for eggs, I know that well enough; and what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?’ (1876, 30).
The context of this dialogue implies emotional impartiality – Alice and Pigeon are simply exercising their ability to indulge in logical reasoning – nothing else. And, here is how Alice’s dialogue with Mad Hatter sounded like in Burton and Woolverton’s movie:
Hatter: ‘I’m frightened, Alice. I don’t like it in here, it’s terribly crowded. Have I gone mad?’. Alice: ‘Afraid so, you’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret – all the best people are!’ (00.56.33).
In this dialogue, Alice sounded like a typical middle-aged White housewife, whose post-climaxes urges and whose bellyful idling makes her believe that she is a great expert on tolerance. It is not only that Alice did not try to actively confront Hatter’s madness, as is being the case in Carroll’s original novel, but she actually encouraged him to expose others to his madness as something absolutely natural. By doing so, Alice acted as today’s enforcers of political correctness, who often go as far as denying the validity of scientifically proven facts, simply because these facts do not sound ‘tolerant’ enough to their ears. For example, in 2009, the officials from American Psychological Association have openly proclaimed that homosexuality can no longer be discussed in terms of pathology, even though that such their suggestion is being utterly unscientific – as recent as 5 years ago, the officials from the same Association used to suggest something entirely opposite. Nowadays, it is not only that mentally deviated people are being assumed normal, but particularly ‘special’ – the fact that in Burton and Woolverton’s movie, Alice never ceases being fascinated with different emanations of behavioral inadequateness, on the part of ‘creatures’, simply reflects film creators’ strong affiliation with left-wing political agenda.
Thus, it comes as no surprise why it was namely Mad Hatter, who assumed a highly moral posture of a rebel against oppressive authority and who rallied others to support his cause – the parallels between Mad Hatter and often mentally inadequate promoters of left-wing agenda, who call for an abandonment of euro-centric terms of ‘authority’ and ‘discipline’ as ‘intolerant’ and ‘chauvinistic’, are quite obvious not to be noticed. And yet, the original sounding of Carroll’s original novels can be referred to as anything but progressive, in the politically correct sense of this word. As it has been rightly pointed out in Calvin Petersen’s article Time and Stress: Alice in Wonderland: “Carroll obviously felt this secret of irony, whether or not he ever fully admitted it to himself. The ‘Era of Progress’ had brought neither the millennium nor utopia, but an ‘all-devouring, all-destroying,’ ‘dark resistless stream.’ It may be that the stream and the conception of time which it carries that bring on the stress of modern existence – life ever rushing from its own perplexity, progress as a thin veneer against a darker truth” (1985, 432). The fact that Burton and Woolverton’s movie is being instilled with a variety of positivist ideas is what sets it apart from Carroll’s novels more than anything else does.
In its turn, this also explains why the movie’s imagery appears fantasy-like – Burton and Woolverton’s Wonderland reminds John Tolkien’s Middle Earth: Red Queen’s soldiers look like orks, the members of White Queen’s entourage look like elves, the castle of White Queen looks like Tolkien’s Rivendale, etc. Also, just as is the case with Tolkien’s novels, the movie’s storyline revolves around the never-ending struggle of good against evil. Yet, it is important to understand that the charm of Carroll’s novels consisted in the author’s ability to provide readers with an opportunity to mentally construct their own Wonderland.
As Douglas Nickel had rightly suggested in his book Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll: “Carroll’s pictures operated in a world where migration from one classification to the other was not as unmanageable as it would later become, where real and unreal as yet coexist equally as a set of potential pictures available to the artistic imagination” (2002, 53). By being taken to Carroll’s Wonderland, readers felt as if they were inside of one’s dream. However, the scenery of Burton and Woolverton’s movie is being just too realistic to be referred to as dream-like, and the appearance of Wonderland ‘creatures’ is being spared of any symbolic undertones whatsoever, unlike what is the case in Carroll’s original novels.
Apparently, it never occurred to Burton and Woolverton that ‘creatures’ physical appearance was meant to provide readers/viewers with insight into the workings of their minds. For example, in the article from which we have already quoted, Daniel Bivona points out the fact that Blue Caterpillar’s hookah is actually an item, closely associated with the East: “The hookah, itself a stock ‘orientalizing’ feature, highlights the Caterpillar’s foreignness; and the tautological turn that their conversation takes demonstrates, not that the Caterpillar is incorrigibly illogical, but rather that he refuses to be comprehended by Alice’s categories of meaning” (1986, 151). By depicting Caterpillar with hookah, Carroll wanted to emphasize that the rationale of this ‘creature’ worked along different lines, as compared to what is the case with the rationale of Whites. In his article Cultures of Reason, Bruce Bower states: “In a variety of reasoning tasks, East Asians take a “holistic” approach. They make little use of categories and formal logic and instead focus on relations among objects and the context in which they interact” (2000, 57). Nevertheless, it is highly doubtful whether the film’s creators were even aware of what was the actual reason for Carroll to depict Caterpillar with a hookah in its mouth, in the first place, otherwise, whey would make Caterpillar’s eyes appear slanted; just it was the case with the character of Yoda from George Lukas’ “Star Wars”.
Instead, Burton and Woolverton made Caterpillar look like Winston Churchill. Apparently, it has now become taboo for producers to even think of portraying representatives of ethnic minorities in a somewhat unfavourable light. The same does not apply to ‘wicked’ Whites, of course, which explains why Burton and Woolverton had made a point in ridiculing the character of Hamish – in the eyes of producers, this character was supposed to emanate psychological qualities that are now being ridiculed by Medias and by especially ‘progressive’ social scientists as euro-centric, and therefore ‘evil’ – emotional coldness, perceptional rationalism and the ability to plan things ahead of time.
Thus, it will not be an exaggeration to say that Burton and Woolverton’s movie subtly promotes an idea that, with the exclusion of mentally abnormal individuals (‘the best people’), such as the character of Mad Hatter and White Queen, all Whites can be divided on ice-cold imperialists (the characters of Red Knave, Hamish and Red Queen), and on saliva-drooling imbeciles (the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee). This suggestion is consistent with our paper’s main thesis, which is being concerned with the exposal of Burton and Woolverton’s “Alice in Wonderland” as another cinematographic vehicle of pushing forward the neo-Liberal agenda. The fact that, besides aiming to instill viewers with a sense of historical guilt, the movie also promotes a feminist cause, can serve as yet additional proof as to the full validity of this paper’s initial thesis.
In his critical review of Burton and Woolverton’s movie, Ethan Alter states: “At its core, Burton’s take on the material recasts Carroll’s odd little children’s story as a tale of female empowerment. His Alice stands on the precipice of adulthood, torn between becoming the woman 19th-century society expects her to be—namely a dutiful wife and mother—and the woman she wants to be, a free-spirited dreamer” (2010, 138). There are many scenes, throughout the course of a movie, when Alice beats impossible odds, by simply exposing these odds to her female charms (the scene of Alice escaping on Bandersnatch, for example). Without even having to mention that these scenes are being inconsistent with the spirit of Carroll’s original novels, they also do not add to the movie’s overall plausibility, as Alice’s feminist posture does not make much of a sense, within the context of the Victorian era’s socio-political realities.
Thus, we can say that Burton and Woolverton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is more related to the “Lord of the Rings” movie, than to Carroll’s novels, out of which Burton and Woolverton supposedly drew inspiration. Just as it was the case with Frodo single-handedly saving Middle Earth, Alice was given the mission of ‘saving Wonderland’, which she initially rejects. Just as Middle Earth, Burton’s Wonderland appears romantically realistic. Just as Sauron, from “Lord of the Rings”, Red Queen is being presented as the ultimate villain, who wants to destroy Wonderland. In other words – Burton and Woolverton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is essentially a politically motivated fairy-tale under the disguise of a politically disengaged intellectual mind-opener.
Conclusion
This paper’s ultimate conclusion can be articulated as follows:
Whereas; the themes and motifs in Burton and Woolverton’s “Alice in Wonderland” appear to be formally related to those from Lewis Carroll’s original novels, the very essence of these themes and motifs points out their incompatibility with Carroll novels’ original sounding. Whereas; Carroll had written his novels with the purpose of helping children and adolescents to expand their intellectual horizons, Burton and Woolverton had produced their movie to instill viewers with the sense of politically correct morality, as the ultimate mean of preventing them from being able to expand their intellectual horizons. However, both producers cannot be solely blamed for the fact that their “Alice in Wonderland” appears to be a mockery of Lewis Carroll’s original novels. It is namely due to the process of Western societies’ continuous intellectual marginalization, that producers had no choice but to proceed with endowing their movie with a high degree of emotional intensity, at the expense of depriving it of its intellectual integrity.
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