Yes, we can.

During the past week, we had been discussing the American modernist writer William Faulkner’s pieces of writing. Somehow, we ended up talking about the former President of the USA, Barack Obama, and that was the moment in which something caught my eye.
 Many years have to pass as well as social changes, as to let an African American man sit on the presidential chair of one of the most powerful nations of the world. Our society claims to wave the flag of rights equality, and flatly reject any kind of racial discrimination. However, social segregation is still taking place in daily life experiences. 
My question is up to what extent we (society) have overcome this racial segregation issue? (If we have overcome it already…)

Despite the fact that our society is supposed to be a vociferous opponent of ethnic segregation, it took a life-time to finally get rid of it.

It comes as a surprise to me that even though the world was aware of the rights violation that both wars made, situations which violated dignity and democracy continued thriving

For instance, what is a turning point in history was the parliamentary election in South Africa in 1948, in which apartheid was introduced as an official policy that classified citizens in racial groups.  What is more surprising is that it wasn’t until 1994 that there was an attempt to broker the end of this policy when Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last president of the apartheid-era in South Africa, introduced a new policy that made this country a multi-racial democracy.  In the same year, the politician Nelson Mandela became President chosen in a democratic election.  He had to overcome different shortcoming, but they are nothing compared to the magnificent goal that he could achieve at the end of his fight , as he could finally dismantle what he was always adamantly opposed to. And we are getting almost to the 21th century…

Another situation that caught my eye is the election of the first African-American President in the United States. He was chosen in a full democratic election and won by an overwhelming majority. This is the moment in which we can realize how society has changed. But I insist, why did it take so long? 21th century…Really?

In the following video we can see the impact of the President Barack Obama being chosen, as he represents an array of cultural implications.

Find attached the Barack Obama’s speech when he was elected President.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/

It seems that ethnic prejudices have been left behind.

 Up to what extent?

In the video, we can see society making fun of themselves, they make jokes regarding the racial differences between black and white people.
Have we overcome the racial segregation issue as to make fun of it and not be serious about it? Or do we keep on making differences regarding skin color?
What is your point of view?

The Real Hemingway

The Ernest Hemingway we read about in biographies has very distinctive characteristics that set him apart from his contemporary fellow writers. He kept his writing style minimalistic, his themes modernist and his protagonist full of bravado. All these qualities can be transferred to him as a person. He is known for being quite broody, depressed, and even melancholic. But the biographies fall flat.

As of 2011, much of Hemingway´s private correspondence has come to light. In these letters we get to see a whole new side of the author. He is funny, witty, caring, and happy. Of course he is an accomplished writer, so the many letters he wrote during his lifetime are nothing short of amazing and a valuable piece of the puzzle to discover the real Ernest.

I´d like to focus on one particular letter he wrote to Marlene Dietrich, an actress, in 1955.

The text is full of dark humor. One particular line that caught my attention was: “Marlene, darling, I write stories, but I have no grace for fucking them up for other mediums. It was hard enough for me to learn to write to be read by the human eye. I do not know how nor do I care to know how to write to be read by parrots, monkeys, apes, baboons, nor actors.”

Make no mistake, this IS a friendly letter. It was just his humor.

His letters are very wordy, in contrast to his novels. Also, notice the type-os. Where they made on purpose as part of his personal style? Or since this letter was never meant to be made public, perhaps he didn´t mind?

In the last paragraph he refers to a photo-shoot he must do, but doesn´t want to since he has a bad back. When you read this letter he is no longer the distant, moody icon. Instead, he becomes human. He becomes “Papa”.

Why choosing a Greek myth?

Jerzy Hulewicz - Leda and the Swan

Throughout all the contents seen in class about modernism and all its views and its ideologies aftermath, I was thinking about Leda and the Swan and why we could see some features or representation of capitalism in it. Leda was abused by Zeus in the shape of a swan, representing Leda as the working class, the common “helpless” people, and Zeus representing the powerful ones who are on top of the pyramid and looking the rest as their marionettes but needing them to achieve their goals.

 

The fact that W.B Yeats chose this myth to write its poem is interesting. He could have picked any myth or ancient culture to write a poem but he chose a greek one. Greek gods were more human-like than the gods of other cultures. These gods fight with each other, feel jealous and anger among other human emotions which make them closer to humans, in fact they kind of look for interaction with people. It is like they need them. Capitalism reflects these features of greek gods because the god “money” of capitalism, needs people in disadvantage who will follow this god’s desires. The violent abuse of power is as much violent as the raping of Leda. Because in the eyes of modernism cold machinery led to individualism and loneliness, and after a raping the state of mind tends to be isolation and loneliness also.

Now, it is clear that there is a lot of symbolisms in this poem and covering them all in one post might be a difficult task - if not impossible - for example, the fact that Zeus transforms himself into a bird and no other animal is one of them. However, what really called my attention was the choice of this particular greek story to tell something else. Clearly the poet is not retelling in fancy words the myth all over again but he is trying, I presume, to show that no matter if we resist or not (we as Leda), there will always be a “god” and “idol” or anything or anyone possessing the power that will present itself in maybe in a beautiful way (a swan) that in the end – having selfish intentions – will abuse the others (the working class in this case). What capitalism/money does is similar to what greek gods did: to control and direct people’s destiny to its wishes.

 So whether it is in a Greek myth or in our society, there have always been someone in the "mountain top" in a way pushing down the weak ones taking advantage of them  something that have always caused some kind of "troubles" and I believe that is one of the many things the author in his modernist view tried to depict.

What do you think?...

Modernism and a shallow society

We have seen that Modernism began as a criticism against the effects of the Industrial Revolution and bourgeois values. Modernism breaks with tradition, rejecting the certainty of Enlightenment (Age of Reason) thinking, and religious beliefs. Basically, Modernism is a criticism of society.

This idea is present in Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

To my mind, this fragment from the poem represents the part of society which is fond of following trends and discussing superficial and meaningless matters, in the sense that the allusion of Michelangelo symbolizes when people know just the basic information related to an artist (or any topic) but they talk about it anyway.

While I was studying for the test and this concept of criticism of society came up, I could not stop thinking about 2 movies that deal with the same idea.

The first movie is Fight Club. I'm not really good describing plots, so here is the trailer:

The movie's point of view regarding society is presented by one of Tyler's sort of speeches. It says:

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it! An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Though this movie is from 1999 and the novel (in which is based) from 1996, its message still makes sense within our society nowadays:

We just have to log in on Facebook to see how stupid people can be.

Most Twitter-users, who consider themselves as "intellectuals", spend the whole day discussing about all the crappy programs from TV.

Materialism is out of control; malls are replete with people who keep trying to have more stuff they don't even need.

The "thesis" of the movie regarding society is that it lacks purpose. That reflexion that I took is just one part of the movie; its main theme is a psychological drama, which is quite interesting and becomes a plot twist. If you haven't seen this movie, I believe you should definitely watch it someday. It will not disappoint you, I guarantee it.

The second movie is God bless America, which is a dark comedy that deals with human ignorance and stupidity.

The movie is about Frank Murdock. He is a salesman, tired of the influence that mass media and pop culture have on society. As you can see in the trailer, he tries to end up with his life, but then he decides to kill everyone he considers don't deserve to live.

At the beginning of the movie, it is presented the decay of television while Frank is zapping: Frank changes channels and the TV keeps showing crappy programs and reality shows. The next day, at his work place, Frank notices how his co-workers talk about the last night's program, expressing the same opinion and using the same arguments employed by some TV presenters.

This happens quite often in our society, and the worst part is that people also talk about this through social media, treating these topics like important issues. 

What is your opinion? Are you proud of the society you live in?

The Hours: Virginia Wolf and T. S. Eliot Connection.

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"The Hours" is definetly one of my favourite movies of all times because I always discover new things when I see it. It is based on the book "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham ("The Hours" was the original working title of Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway"). The story follows three women living in three different   periods of time, whose lives are connected through time by Woolf's novel, "Mrs. Dalloway."

The scene I selected is when Laura Brown, a model housewife who struggles with the idea that her life has no use other than taking care of her young son and doting her husband, because of this, she feels desperate and invaded with suicidal thoughts. As she reads the novel written by Virginia Wolf, “Mrs. Dolloway,” she somehow connects with its main character, the more she reads, the more she is prompted to a devastating decision. After leaving her son at a neighbor’s house, she goes into a hotel room with the intention of committing suicide. She felt trapped in her role of a suburban housewife and sees suicide as a possible solution or escape from wearing this mask. The scene in the picture depicts when she was dreaming that the water starts coming into the room, but she does not wake up to the water and just drowns. Then she wakes up from this nightmare, with a plan. It was time to take off the mask.  

This made me think of the poem by T.S Eliot called “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock” when he says: “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake us, and we drown." (Eliot, 1920)

The character, Laura Brown had been sleeping under the chambers of the sea, hypnotized by the singing of the mermaids like Eliot would say, but when she realized that her mask had taken over her; she drowned and felt the need to put an end to her life. The twist here is that she did not commit suicide, like I said before; she woke up with a plan which was to abandon her family and live the life she was supposed to. 

There are two interesting coincidences between Wolf and Eliot here, both of them were modernist’s writers so there are some similar elements among their motives, for example, both Mrs. Dalloway and Prufrock hide behind masks. Another weird and maybe bizarre connection here is the fact that Virginia Wolf killed herself by drowning in the river. As she could not deal with the mask, she drowned, but literally.