Lights…..Camera………ACTION!!

 

Director: Cassandra Ferrell

 

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, and thank you for coming to this pre-production meeting of The Rachel Papers. Has everyone had a chance to get coffee and donuts?….No….sorry no yogurt, but there is fruit, I think.  I just wanted to give you an idea of which direction I wanted to go with this film, give you a chance to meet everyone who will be working on this project, get some input from you on how you see your characters and maybe go over several of the scenes I have in mind. You see, I feel that music underscores life. Music invokes emotion and allows the listener feel the pieces. That, along with the visual of a film, will give the audience a tactile experience allowing them to immerse themselves into a story. Since the character of Charles will be doing narration throughout the majority of the film, I decided that instrumental pieces would be appropriate to give an emotional undertone without competing with the narrations.

As you know this film will be based on a bildungsroman novel by Martin Amis set in the 1970’s; however, I wanted to …..um, yes? Bildungsroman? Bildungsroman is a “coming of age story”. Please, can we hold the questions until the end of the meeting? I wanted to take this story in a different direction. This story is going to be set in 18^th century England along the lines of The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling by Henry Fielding. The costume designers are already working on spectacular pieces and we have orders powdered wigs for everyone. The costumes will be grand and spectacular with well placed plummed feathered hats and incredible jewelry. There will be so much candy for the eye to feast upon! Here is an idea of the direction the costumes will go in:

 

Ok, so let me introduce who you will be working with. Our Charles Highway is going to be Jesse Eisenberg.

 

And his Rachel and the object of his desire is going to be Allison Williams.

 

Chris? Is Chris here yet? Ah! Chris, I’m a big fan. Ok, Deforest will be played by the dreamy Chris Hemsworth.

 

And Lily Cole will play Charles’ “friends with benefits” Gloria.

 

Scene 1:

Ok, so now that the main characters have been introduced and everyone is acquainted let me paint you picture. The film credits open on a black background. This piece is playing as the credits role and will softly underscore the opening monologue:

 

 

The film dissolves to show a pair of hands writing with a quill and parchment. Ink well to his right. Jesse, are you right or left handed?….Ok, inkwell to his left. The camera pulls back to show Jesse or Charles is the owner of the pair of hands. It is early evening and the writing desk is by a window with the final rays of the evening sun streaming in onto the desk as the camera pans around the room. Charles stares out the window and the opening monologue voice over begins. This will be the audience’s introduction to Charles and his thought processes:

Charles: My name is Charles Highway, though you wouldn’t think it to look at me. It’s such a rangy, well-travelled, big-cocked name and, to look at, I am none of these. (flash back begins with Charles looking into a mirror inspecting each feature as the voice-over describes them.) I wear glasses for a start, have done since I was nine. And my medium-length, arseless waistless figure, corrugated ribcage and bandy legs gang up to dispel any hint of aplomb. But I have got one of those fashionable reedy voices, the ones with the habitual ironic twang, excellent for the promotion of oldster unease. And I imagine there’s something oddly daunting about my face, too. It’s angular, yet delicate; thin long nose, wide thin mouth – and the eyes: richly lashed, dark ochre with a twinkle of singed auburn….ah, how inadequate these words seems. (Amis 1-2).

Ok, here’s where the music begins to fade out and the scene is brought back to the present day with Charles sitting writing at his desk.

Scene 2:

As the narration continues, Charles continues to work on his manuscript and at pivotal points of the monologue the story will flashback. For example, when the monologue says, ‘the result being a moist four-pound waif’ the scene will flashback to the audiences first time meeting of Charles’ mother in the throes of labor with midwife standing by. A flashback will occur for every member of the family being introduced and will always return to Charles writing at his desk staring at the setting sun for a moment, looks over at the mantel clock above his fireplace and writes: Seven twenty: London on the parchment. The scene flashes back to Charles riding in a bumpy and jostling carriage trying to sleep but can’t. The score is playing:

 

 

We see Charles arrive at his sister’s house in 18^th century London and retrieve his luggage as the narration continues from Charles about Jenny and Norman with this piece underscoring the flashback to Jenny and Norman’s wedding. Charles is brought out of that flashback when Norman says Gloria will be over and Jenny asks if Gloria will want dinner. When Charles say, ‘Oh no’, looks at the camera with a smirk. Scene cuts to Gloria and Charles in the middle of heated sex with the score continuing to play. A montage of varying animalistic positions of the two will continue the score. The end of the score marks the end of the sex scene. Narration begins about Gloria.

Scene 3:

Now, we’re getting to point of the film where Charles meets Rachel. We see a very affluent manor house with carriages coming and going dropping off eager guests of the ball that can be heard going on inside. The dresses are stunning and the event regal. As the camera follows Geoff and Charles into the manor house the guests are dancing a waltz in its entire splendor. The room is softly lit with massive chandeliers and dancers are spinning while dresses are twirling. This piece is playing:

 

 

After conversation with Geoff, Charles looks around the room and suddenly sees Rachel. The camera pulls in on a close up of his face as he views her and then cuts to Rachel. The music of the waltz starts to fade and become replaced by this piece that can only be heard in Charles’ mind since the dancers are still dancing to the previous waltz as Rachel’s movements are slowed by slow motions almost like a dream.

 

 

Charles seems to move unconsciously towards Rachel like a magnet pulling him towards her in slow motion. Charles stand by for a moment and waits while Rachel finishes her conversation with a few of the party guests and when Charles says “Hello”, the Debussy piece ends abruptly as the music of the waltz continues the camera resumes at normal speed.

Scene 4 – The Snogging Scene:

Now, the scene is Rachel and Charles’ first kiss. Charles has worked hard to woe Rachel over the past several weeks. Unfortunately, he has received a letter from Gloria stating that she has probably given him some sort of sexually transmitted disease. Knowing this information, Charles knows that what happens now is only going to go so far until he can address this issue. So, as Rachel is in Charles’ room they kiss for the first time. Charles is solely intent on pleasing Rachel as they begin to make out with this song underscoring the make out session.

 

 

The movements are soft and tender and both Charles and Rachel are caught up in the moment. Their scene and the music are interrupted when they hear Norman bounding down the stairs. The readjust themselves and their clothing by the time Norman throws open the door. He announces that Charles’ father has arrived and well as “His tarts’ here too!” (Amis 127) This line is the cue for this next piece which underscores the entire next scene with Charles’ father, sister, Norman and the tart which happens like a bad dream. The lines of this scene are heard by the audience but compete with the score as Charles is trying get through this uncomfortable situation as quickly as possible however time will not cooperate:

 

 

Scene 5:

Rachel is spending the weekend with Charles’ family. The scene opens with a carriage wheel, the sounds of a team of horses and this piece.

 

 

As the camera pans back from the carriage wheel to reveal the carriage at a break neck speed, the camera swings into the open window with Deforest looking out of the other side window with a pensive look on his face. Deforest arrives at Charles’ families house as Deforest bursts in to find Rachel. The camera is following his point of view as he searches the rooms of the manor house opening the door to the sitting room to find Charles and Rachel snogging. The music ends on Rachel’s line, “Deforest, what is it?” (Amis 159)

Scene 6:

This is the sex scene between Rachel and Charles. Now, at this point in the film, the viewers are already familiar with Charles’ character (or lack thereof) through his narration of events up to now. This is going to play out like a romance novel of two people engaging in the act of making love for the first time after waiting for so long. It will be romantic and thoughtful. Tender and sensual. The lighting is cast by the fireplace of Charles’ room and a candle lit on the night stand table. The score will play this piece:

 

 

However, Charles’ crude and vulgar narration will be spoken over the scene as Charles describes it in his own words giving an insight to what he is actually thinking and providing a contrast to what is actually taking place. Thus destroying a perfectly good love scene. As the sex scene ends, the scene is cut back to present day with Charles writing at his writing desk. It is evening now and the moon is shining through the window. There is a candle illuminating the manuscript and a fire in the fireplace as Charles writes:

Charles: I feel steadier now. Perhaps The Rachel Papers aren’t in such a mess after all. With some interleaving of Conquests and Techniques: A Synthesis, and an index…? When I’m twenty this will be a thing of the past. The teenage boy is entitled to a certain amount of disorder, and anyway, I’ll mellow tomorrow. (Amis 192)

Scene 7:

As Charles is writing Letter to Rachel the score plays this:

 

 

This piece underscores the writing of the letter, Rachel receiving the letter and reading it, Deforest’s carriage pulling up in front of Charles’ manor house, the final conversation between Charles and Rachel and Charles watching the carriage pull away from the manor house. The viewers do not know if Charles is heartbroken by this revelation or if he is just uncomfortable by the situation. The scene after Rachel leaves is where the movie begins with Charles sitting down at his writing desk as the evening sun is setting.

The scene cuts back to present time. It is evening and Charles looks up from his manuscript at his writing desk and out the window at the moonlit landscape. He turns and looks at the mantle clock which indicates 12:00am midnight. He gathers up his manuscript blowing on the final paper to dry the ink so not to smudge it. He files the parchment into a leather binder and ties the ribbon and places the binder on the shelf behind his bed. He pulls out a new sheet of parchment onto his writing table, returns the quill to the ink well and blows out the candle. Fade to black as this piece plays for the final credits.

 

 

Ok, Folks, that’s how things are going to progress. We start filming in two weeks so please have the first 4 or 5 scenes memorized by then. I think that’s all I have for you and thank you for coming. Any questions? No? Ok, then……. That’s a wrap!

 

Amis, Martin. The Rachel Papers. New York: Harmony Books, 1988. Print.

 

The Chime of “The Bell”

Cassandra Ferrell

            I’ve always had a fascination with bells. I believe this fascination stems from early childhood. Some of my earliest memories (even at my advancing age) are of Christmas time with my parents and older brothers. Christmas in our household was a magical season. I say season because it was a three day event that consisted of traveling to the Hill Country of Texas to visit our large expanse of relatives then back to D/FW to spend time with the other side of the expansive family and finally climaxing on Christmas morning with the long awaited arrival of Santa during the night and spending the morning with just Mom, Dad and my brothers. In 1958 during Momma and Daddy’s first Christmas as man and wife, Momma had purchased a set of 12 porcelain hand-painted bells in San Francisco where Daddy was stationed in the Army and theses bells nestled every Christmas in our Christmas tree. They were simply gorgeous. They were dainty and fragile and the little tinkle they made was just as dainty and fragile. Every once in a while, when one of us kids would get rambunctious as kids do, we would run into the tree or just nearly run into it causing all 12 bells to tinkle with all their little might at the same time. I loved hearing that sound. That sound was one of the many confirmations of sights, sounds and smells that I associated with the magic of the holidays. Thanks to It’s a Wonderful Life; I truly did believe bells had magical properties because there must have been a lot of angels who needed wings.

                As I grew older, my fascination with bells continued. My mother would have to drag myself and my brothers out of bed every Sunday morning to go to church. We would stagger into the kitchen for breakfast like we were destined to for a work camp resenting the idea of such an early hour existing on a weekend. However, once we got to church, I wouldn’t allow my mother to herd us into the chapel until I got to see the chapel bell ring to indicate the beginning of services below the steeple. I stood there as long as my mother’s patience held out watching the bell sway from side to side listening to the deep resonance of the tone as the clapper would strike one side, hesitate on the down swing and finally strike the other side. I was mesmerized by the sound and the motion. It was almost hypnotic like watching a pendulum on a grandfather clock.

                These are the thoughts that ran through my mind when I first looked at the cover of The Bell by Iris Murdoch. As I read the novel, I started to notice a pattern. Maybe it was my mindset as I prepared to read. However, I started to notice a swaying and motion that Murdoch used as the characters started to develop and the reader became familiar with the settings. A motion between settings and swaying between coupled characters that could be termed as a yin and yang reminiscent of the motion of a bell. While we read Mrs. Dalloway, we learned the term as doubling. I feel with The Bell it is more than that. There are opposites that pair good with evil, moral with immoral and idealism with realism.

                I first noticed this phenomenon in the opening chapter regarding Dora’s relationship with Paul and Noel. Dora’s father died when she was young. Subconsciously, Dora was looking for approval from a father figure. She found that father figure in Paul. However, her illusion slowly deteriorates as she begins to realize that she is unable to meet Paul’s almost unattainable standards. Dora feels dismissed by Paul’s friends and victimized by Paul’s abusive tactics to push her to grow up. “It seemed to her that Paul was urging her to grow up, and yet had left her no space to grow up into.” (Murdoch 17). In contrast, Noel was easy going and gentle. He exclaims to Dora, “I am the most frivolous man in the world”. (Murdoch 20) Noel was fun and free. Everything Paul wasn’t. Through the novel, Dora became the symbolic “clapper” running between Paul until he resonated and then she would hesitate on the down swing before striking Noel tolling the other side of her bell.

                Another opposite pairing that Murdoch uses is the setting between London and Imber Court. London is where Dora could live her “bohemian” lifestyle anonymously free of judgment. London is exciting and cosmopolitan. Dora’s actions were not questioned and she was never forced to reflect on her poor choices if she didn’t want to. London is modern and progressive always moving forward. Imber Court, however, is old fashioned resisting the move forward as symbolized by the debate of the cultivator. Imber Court is unyielding and judgmental expecting all of their inhabitants to fall in line. They are pious and believe in hard manual work. Dora was forced to face her transgressions head on and expected to be repentant of them. Once again, Dora is the symbolic “clapper” swinging from one place to the other.

                An obvious yin and yang pairing is Michael and James. Michael is the reluctant leader. He only feels obliged to lead because of his familial ties to Imber Court. Although Michael served in the army, he never went overseas nor did he see combat. Michael has spent his life hiding and suppressing his homosexual tendencies. James, on the other hand, is the natural born leader that has refused leadership. He is a “man’s man”. He served in the army as well yet he saw combat making him hard and rigid. For James, the world is simply black and white. This opposite pairing is obviously apparent in the addresses they both give on consecutive Sundays to the brotherhood. In the article “Iris Murdoch’s The Bell: Tragedy, Love, and Religion” by Kenneth Masong, Masong eloquently explains the addresses like this:

“In the two homilies, though James and Michael both spoke of the requirement of the good life, their view of it diverged; and though both utilized the imagery of the bell to tell a point, they were telling divergent points. For James the bell is an image of the marks of innocence to which we all need to cling, over that of the human desire to see experience….For Michael, also speaking of the requirement of the good life, one has to attain a certain degree of self-knowledge, ‘some conception of one’s capacities.’ As James speaks on the level of universals, on that which should be in all cases, Michael addresses himself in the plane of the particularities of human uniqueness and individuality.” (Masong  27)

Through the pairing of these opposite characters, Murdoch poses the question: Can a person be an individual and still be religious? This time it is the reader that swings back and forth methodically as the bell of morality is struck.

There are so many opposite doublings throughout the novel The Bell that, for length’s sake, I cannot mention. I don’t know if Murdoch intentionally built her characters to reflect the pendulum motion of a bell taking the reader from one point of view to another or if it is just my own personal fascination with bells that have manifested.  However, this novel was the most existential and cerebral of the novels that we have read so far.  I haven’t yet decided whether I like The Bell. I can say, though, that I am completely in awe of Murdoch’s ability for subtly and intricate design of her novel.

On a final note, I can’t bring myself to post my blog without a Youtube clip. There is one other thing that was brought to mind every time I picked this novel up. It is a song from my childhood that I would occasionally hear when I would watch The Grand Ol’ Opera with my grandparents. I would literally start humming this as I would flip through the book to find where I had left off from my previous reading. What can I say? I’m a quirky person!

Murdoch, Iris. The Bell. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. Print.

Masong, Kenneth. “Iris Murdoch’s The Bell: Tragedy, Love, and Religion”. Kritike : An Online Journal of Philosophy, 2008, Vol.2(1), p.11 [Peer Reviewed Journal] Web. 31 July 2013

Horray for Hollywood!!!

We have two options for this blog assignment. We could compare our assigned novel Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis which is considered a campus novel with an academic film of our choosing or we could find three pictures that represent aspects of the novel. I wonder which option I’m going to choose?

Hmmmmm??

 

 

AHHHHH!!! The cinema! Prepare yourselves, folks! As wordy as I tend to have been in my last blogs, we are now on a subject that I adore. I could hold a week long seminar on films. HOLLYWOOD! The Magic Store! La-La Land! The Dream Factory! A long, long time ago…..in a galaxy far, far away….There lived a girl. This girl had a dream. Her dream was to take Hollywood by storm and become one of the most prolific character actresses that ever graced the silver screen. She would surpass Shelley Winters’ three Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress. She would make it onto AFI’s Top 100 list. This girl (who, for fun, built a database comparing AFI’s Top 100 Lists and the winners of the Academy Awards major awards to cross reference a trend of which films actually endured the test of time to be termed as “classics” versus the “trendy” tendencies of the Academy Awards during any specific year. True story!) dreamed of becoming immortalized on celluloid.

Meanwhile, back in reality, this girl is actually taking a literature class and this is only an assignment. Ok, I need to breathe for a moment and calm down. I have been informed that I have organization trouble with my blogs. So, I will try…really, really try to organize my ADD brain firing on 28 different levels so I can prepare a cohesive blog assignment. Oh look…a squirrel!  I will try to limit the length of my discussion to try to stay on topic (I sound like Dr. Bender here, don’t I?) and try not to pull in all of the juicy tidbits and asides about different actors, directors and films to keep this….well….academic. Wish me luck!

I want to address “academic film” first. My understanding of this assignment is that an academic film is one that is set in and the plot is forwarded by collegiate campus life. That’s a little difficult for me to swallow actually. You see, there are SO many great films that deal with academia. Most are on my all-time favorites list. Dead Poet’s Society (I always want to become a teacher after watching this one), To Sir, With Love (Sidney Poitier, I mean come on!), Rudy (one of the best sports films out there), Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, The Ron Clark Story and I could go on and on. All of these great films deal with the prejudices, traditions, stereotypes and learning process of academia. Why just limit it to the collegiate level? So, in a mild protest, the film I chose was not on our list. It is set in the collegiate life however. If you have never seen it, I encourage you to do so.

 

 

With Honors is a story about a Harvard graduate student Montgomery “Monty” Kessler.  Monty has arrived at Harvard through a different path than his three roommates. Monty comes from a single parent home of medium to low income. Monty is smart and works hard to “earn” his place at the esteemed university unlike his three roommates who, through the course of the film, we find out all come from privileged backgrounds. Monty’s entire life is consumed by completing his thesis in Government in the attempts to graduate Suma Cum Laude from Harvard University thus securing the rest of his life.

When his computer hard drive fails deleting his thesis, Monty travels to a copy center to make copies of his one and only manuscript. Monty slips on the snowy streets losing his thesis through a grate into the boiler room of the Harvard Library where a transient, Simon Wilder, happens to have discretely made his home.  Monty goes looking for his thesis and finds Simon stoking one of the boilers with the pages of his beloved thesis. Desperate, he makes a deal with Simon. Monty will get “things” for Simon and Simon will “pay” Monty with pages from own his thesis. Over the course of the academic year, Simon teaches Monty about love, life and the difference between the “have’s” and the “have not’s” opening up a whole new perspective for Monty to view the world.

This movie is campy and predictable. It was filmed, after all, in the early 1990’s. The acting is only adequate and there are no awe inspiring images from the cinematography. However, this movie is wonderful. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t require anything from you but to simply watch it. Brendan Fraiser (hubba hubba!) plays the straight man Monty to Joe Pesci’s Simon Wilder. This is an odd coupling that almost works.  I also love that Gore Vidal plays Monty’s arrogant, stuffy and demanding Faculty Advisor, Dr. Pitcannon. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Simon, the bum, matches wits with Vidal’s character during a class that Simon is sitting in on battling the experienced realistic self-learner with the pompous, aristocratic, pessimistic and heralded Government professor.

 

 

You know, once again, my ADD is my albatross. When I write one of these blogs, I usually don’t know how it will progress much less how they are going to end (I guess my disorganization reflects that). The fluidity of my writing is better when I just write I have found. For you see, it wasn’t until I sat and pondered the comparison of Lucky Jim to With Honors that I discovered how incredibly alike they are.  First and foremost is the idea of a paper that is the catalyst in which Jim Dixon and Monty Kessler hinge the success of their entire careers.  Jim needs to become a published scholar to influence his Department Chair, Professor Welch, to extend his contract. Monty must impress his Faculty Advisor, Dr. Pitcannon, with his intellectual and regurgitated graduate thesis turned in on time to receive honors for his degree. The entire length of both plots the characters have tunnel vision in achieving a goal in which both eventually find out that they don’t want. Jim detests teaching and his chosen subject. So why pursue it? He pursues it because it is expected of him. Monty tries so hard to be driven and focused to rise above his born social status eventually realizing that there is more to life than just the recognition of honors. They both become human by the end of their tales rather than being assimilated into the pomposity of academia. Another similarity is the prejudice of classes. For Lucky Jim, World War II allows for lower class students to enter prestigious universities. The staunch traditional views of the established faculty resent the “lowered standards” having to teach to the masses rather than the assumed elite. In With Honors, Simon Wilder is treated as subhuman because of his transient status not given credit for the mind he has and the love of knowledge that he hungers in him. He has to break through the stereotype to reveal the human being that he is just as Monty has had to break through the circumstances of his circumstances. It takes Monty a while to do that. A poignant phrase uttered by one of Monty’s roommates was said in jest with no malice; however, it is spot on! “Harvard doesn’t have any standards left! They’ll let in anyone who is bright!”. Satirically, this shows the mindset of old-fashioned views about academia. Finally, Jim Dixon sheds his shackle by giving his speech that Mr. Welch has baited him into giving. Granted, it was alcohol induced. However, he rages against everything that he has had to endure to try to keep a job that he loathes.  He refused to fall in line and points out the fallacies of the institution. It is not until he is true to himself that his “luck” ultimately changes. Jim is rid of Margaret. He is rid of the Welches and he, surprisingly, get the girl in Christine. For Monty, it is not until he decides to trash his beloved original thesis that spouted everything he assumed was expected by his advisor and write something that he believed in that he found release. Learning about Simon and from Simon showed Monty the world in all of its beauty and all of its despair. Monty learned about life and learned that it is a nobler thing to achieve honor within yourself than what is printed on your diploma. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lucky Jim which for me to say is something. The writing was witty and the characters sublimely flawed. I have often felt like many of Jim’s faces; however, my traditional Southern upbringing has prevented me from displaying.  It was a very easy read for me and probably one of the very few times in my life that I literally couldn’t put a book down (or in this case my phone).

Art Isn’t Easy!!

By Cassandra Ferrell

Way back in the sunrise of my youth, I lived and breathed theatre and musical theatre. I was a hopeless romantic with a cock-eyed optimistic view of the world. I would only remove my rose-colored glasses to clean them from time to time. I was moved by music, art, theatre and cinema. Unfortunately, I only had a proclivity for theatre. I was not blessed with musical or artistic talent much to my annoyance. However, even to this day, my love and appreciation for the Humanities still stirs my more aged and realistic soul from time to time. This assignment has caused such a stir.

Our assignment for this blog is, “find three pieces of modernist art (e.g., painting, sculpture) that, for you, represent some aspect of Woolf’s novel, such as themes, images, symbols, style, an entire scene, etc.” in reference to Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

By Georges Seurat

1884 oil on canvas

This painting is the masterpiece of artist Georges Seurat. “Seurat’s impressionistic style came to be known as Pointillism (from the French word “point,” or “dot”), but he preferred the term divisionism—the principle of separating color into small touches placed side-by-side and meant to blend in the eye of the viewer.” (metmuseum.org) In this painting, Seurat depicts a solitary moment of the Parisian bourgeoisie relaxing on a beautiful Sunday afternoon where they can see and be seen among their class. One of my many favorite musicals is Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Soundheim based on this painting and the song above is the opening number of this musical. I feel it represent perfectly the struggle of an artist, whatever medium, trying to release their art into the world.

Virgina Woolf sets the first half of Mrs. Dalloway within Regent’s Park. I kept visualizing Seurat’s painting above every time the setting switched back to the park. The park, I feel, played a significant role within the novel. Our class had several discussions about Woolf’s doubling within this novel that mainly focused on characters. However, I see a doubling of places as well between Regent’s Park being the place of socialization for the middle and lower classes and of Clarissa’s party being the place of socialization of high society. Septimus, Rezia and Peter meet a variety of people in the park. A nursemaid, Maisie Johnson, Mrs. Dempster, the nursemaid with a baby carriage and Elise Mitchell are all characters that Woolfe introduces the reader to through her stream-of-consciousness technique giving various impressions of the single day in which Mrs. Dalloway occurs as well as third party opinions of the major characters.

Big Ben

By Andre Derain

1906 oil on canvas

Big Ben is another example of Pointillism. Andre Derain was one of co-founders along with Henri Matisse of Fauvism. Fauvism is one of the first breaks from Impressionism though this painting is not an example. Fauvism is described as” often subjective response to nature was expressed in bold, undisguised brushstrokes and high-keyed, vibrant colors directly from the tube.” (metmuseum.org)

Virgina Woolf uses the London landmark of Big Ben throughout Mrs. Dalloway. The first instance of Big Ben chiming Clarissa notes, “…a suspense before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.” (Woolf 20). Irrevocable by definition means “not able to be changed; final”. Woolf is describing the finality of time, of a moment, that will never come again. I noticed during every chiming of Big Ben the character who the reader was following either faded into a flashback of an event experienced long ago or the chime brought the character back from a flashback into the presence acting like a time portal or time machine shifting the reader from one time period to another. Several instances Big Ben served as a death toll when Peter tries to imagine a world where Clarissa as died and when Clarissa finally comes to grips with Septimus’ death. Woolf also uses the same phrase, “The leaden circles dissolving in the air” over and over again throughout the novel portraying the sound of the chimes for Big Ben as having cohesion and texture.

Lost Boat

Silvia15

2011 photomanipulation

I found little to no information concerning the artist of this piece. I know her name is Silvia and she is from Spain. However, this portrait really hit home with me concerning Mrs. Dalloway. Silvia has incredible work if you want to see more of her pieces at http://silvia15.deviantart.com/. This piece is a representation of Surrealism. I took an Art History course last fall and discovered that I’m not a huge fan of 20th century art. My tastes range in the Romanticism and Impressionism genre. However, there was one movement of the 20th century that I was fascinated with and that is Surrealism. Surrealism is basically the dream state. It can be beautiful and it can be disturbing just like your dreams.

There are several themes within this piece that I can relate to Mrs. Dalloway. The sea and water are constant themes as well as birds. What struck me in particular with this piece, however, is the green dress reminiscent of Clarissa’s silver green “mermaid” dress and the lost boat. As Peter flashed back to Clarissa meeting Richard Dalloway for the first time, the group went on an evening boat ride. Peter was ecstatic that Clarissa came back to get him to go with the rest of the group. For Peter, it was a wonderful evening. As they climbed back into the boat to return home, Peter resigned himself to the fact that Clarissa “will marry that man”(Richard Dalloway). His love and passions were lost on that boat ride home and the course of his life irrevocably change. Peter would never be the same.

Works Cited:

“Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.p. 2010-2012. Web. 08 July 2013. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/51.112.6

“Fauvism”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.p. 2010-2012. Web. 08 July 2013. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fauv/hd_fauv.htm

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, Florida:

Harcourt, Inc, 1925. Print.

Erin Go Braugh!!

We have a specific model of which we are to adhere to with this assignment. I’ll get to the meat of this assignment in a moment. But first, I wanted to throw in an aside, if I could, that I contemplated while we read our novel. You could call it my own personal journey through the pages of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

 What does it mean to be Irish?

That’s a fair question, I think. I was born and raised in Texas being told of ancestors long ago traveling to the New World from Ireland to escape the Irish potato famine. With my maiden name as Dunn (I feel I might have been the only one of my classmates to notice the name of the butcher shop, Dunn’s of D’Olier Street, that Stephen’s father went to pick up the turkey for Christmas dinner ((Joyce 29))) and my mother’s surname is of Irish descent as well, I can remember, as a child, images of our family crests on the wall and tartan plaid blankets to honor our “clan”. On St. Patrick’s Day, I raise my pint of green beer and toast “Slainte” to the wonderment of my non-Irish companions. I giggle with pride over jokes like “Why did God invent whisky? ….So that the Irish wouldn’t rule the world.” With my blue eyes, auburn hair and pasty, almost transparent, skin, I paint a glossing fake Kelly green glaze over myself and claim to be Irish. However, upon reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I had several epiphanic realizations worthy of Joyce himself. One is I have no more understanding what it is to be Irish than the Texan sitting next to me.  My concept of Ireland and being Irish stems from watching movies as a child such as Darby O’Gill and the Little People and Finian’s Rainbow (The latter is a 1968 musical directed by, of all people, Francis Ford Coppola. Crazy, right?).  I thought all Irishmen spoke with the same accent as the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms commercial and I truly did believe, for the longest time, that there really were leprechauns.  I have a Disney-esque view of what the Emerald Isle is supposed to represent and, boy, was I wrong!

As I researched for this assignment, what I discovered in Irish history during Joyce’s writing of this novel was not flowing fields of clovers and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I viewed videos and pictures from the Irish War of Independence that occurred between 1913 and 1923 of bombed out buildings reminiscent of similar photos I’ve seen of Berlin after the end of World War II.  I labored over websites that were entitled “Women of the Easter Uprising of 1916” and viewed knickered-clad children playing in the streets with wooden guns behind sandbag barricades reenacting what they had witnessed.  This was definitely no musical.

Also, during the reading of this novel, I developed a sort of kinship with the main character Stephen Dedalus. I saw a lot of me in him (and perhaps Joyce as well). A lot of the conscience journey that Stephen traveled; I have experienced myself as an amateur writer. Several, though not all, of his views about the world, life and religion correspond to my own. And dare I say it? I tend to reflect his narcissism from time to time as well (as my classmates might have realized in our Discussion Board posts). That’s a difficult pill to swallow. Do I consider myself an “artist” as the title suggests?  I have never nor will I ever be comfortable being called an artist. Artists, in my mind’s eye, are stereotyped as tormented idealists that never can grasp the concept of reality or learn the adult responsibility of being able to move on from tragedy. They let it fester filling and consuming their lives and hearts with poisoned blood. Out of this inner turmoil, they release a beauty into the cold cruel world that it is lacking. With their small contribution, they feel it makes a better world to live in. However, for some artists, their work is not enough to sustain their own existence. The majority of elite master artists teetered between the brink of sanity and downright bat-ass crazy. Most had addictions that would help them escape from the reality that they loathed so much yet fueled their inner turmoil and their own self-loathing causing a paradox that no mere mortal or reasonably sane person could endure. So, please, never refer to me as an artist. Though I’ve seen flashes and echoes of what I’ve described in this paragraph within my own life, I’ve always been able to rationalize to myself the lunacy of it all and pull myself back to center. So, I must, after all, not be a “true artist”.

Now then, back to the assignment. Per our instructions we were to “Research four historical, political and/or cultural events pertinent to the period in which Joyce published his novel.”

Dublin

The first documented history of Dublin begins with the Viking raids in the 8th and 9th century. These led to the establishment of a settlement on the southside of the mouth of the Liffey, named Dubh Linn (Black Pool) after the lake where the Danes first moored their boats.  (dublin.info). By the  opening years of the 19th century, Dublin was home to over 150,000 people. Conditions for the poor who lived here were often appalling. It wasn’t until sewers were laid out throughout the city in the late 19th century that conditions improved for rich and poor alike. (word-guides.com) Today, Dublin is home to 1,273,069 people and accounts for 39% of the country’s population. (dubchamber.ie)

In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dublin marks a turning point in Stephen Dedalus’ life. It is the beginning of the end for Stephen. All of the wonderment and beauty of the world for Stephen seems to slip away when the Dedalus family is required to move from their comfortable home in the country to Dublin where Joyce would describe, “His sensitive nature was still smarting under the lashes of an undivined and squalid way of life. His soul was still disquieted and cast down by the dull phenomenon of Dublin.” (Joyce 74) Stephen would take note of “scum yellow waters” and “dark slimy streets” as his resentment to his family’s circumstances grew. He definitely is not the spokesperson for the Dublin Tourism Board.

I find it interesting that, as Joyce describes Stephen’s disdain for Dublin, Dublin is the setting for most of Joyce’s major works. Joyce lived in Trieste, Italy for 10 years and in Paris for 20 years. Why, then, does his literary work revolve around Dublin given his apparent resentment towards the capital city? To put it simplistically, it is home. You don’t have to like something to love it. Joyce never loses his sense of nationality displaying, although obscurely, a sense of pride concerning his homeland.

The Artistry of the Portrait

In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism. The term “impressionism” was first coined to describe works that appeared sketchy and unfinished. Impressionists rejected the highly finished surfaces of academic painting of the time to create a visual language of bright, rapidly applied color to capture light and atmosphere. Impressionist painters developed a way of applying pigment that has been called “broken color” or “broken brushstrokes.” The paint is applied in mosaic-like patches which creates a rough irregular surface texture. Impressionists broke with the notion of academic finish by which paintings appear to have a flat or smooth surface. In an Impressionist canvas, paint is applied in thick a raised stroke which is called impasto. Through using thick brushwork an artist can create a roughened uneven texture that often mimics the texture of the subjects as well as captures and reflects light. (florencegriswoldmuseum.org)

James Joyce uses the technique of “stream of consciousness” in writing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man almost as a painter would use his brush to dab pigments of paint onto a canvas. I find the title rather prophetic, as well, to the reader as what to expect within the pages. The start of the novel is jerky and unclear with no clear sharp outline as to the characters or the setting. Joyce doesn’t go into great detail describing the characters giving a “sketchy and unfinished” feel to the reader. He provides “broken brushstrokes” to the reader to visualize, impressionistically, the scenes he writes about. He provides one stroke at a time for the reader and before the reader can realize it, has painted a picture of the world through Steven Dedalus’ eyes.

The Lost Generation

The term “the lost generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein who is rumored to have heard her auto-mechanic while in France to have said that his young workers were, “une generation perdue”. This refered to the young workers’ poor auto-mechanic repair skills. Gertrude Stein would take this phrase and use it to describe the people of the 1920’s who rejected American post World War I values. The three best known writers among The Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Others among the list are: Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford, Zelda Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Ernest Hemingway, perhaps the leading literary figure of the decade, would take Stein’s phrase, and use it as an epigraph for his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Because of this novel’s popularity, the term, “The Lost Generation” is the enduring term that has stayed associated with writers of the 1920’s. (montgomerycollege.edu).

Some characteristics of “the lost generation” artists are youthful idealism, they sought the meaning of life, they reject spirituality, they drank a lot, they rejected American materialism in search for a more “bohemian” lifestyle and they, mostly, lived in Paris. This sounds remarkably like our resident artist, James Joyce. The only difference is that Joyce, perhaps, inspired his contemporaries and he was Irish, not American.

It was these young Modernists that, through their work, brought the world kicking and screaming through the constraints of moralist values and the devastation and shock of WWI. They presented new ideas and values that appealed to younger generation that were questioning the traditions of their parents. The Lost Generation showed them that it was ok to question the norm. It reminds me a lot of social change that occurred during the 1960’s during and after the Vietnam Conflict when societal view, once again, changed course.

The War to End All Wars

In June of 1914 when an Austrian Archduke was assassinated, the world would change forever. It was called “The War to End All Wars” and “The Great War”. Never in history had there been such a mass of military movement that involved so many countries. By the time World War I ended in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded.

However, with World War I raging, Ireland was fighting for its freedom as well. Three Irish divisions for a total of 210,000 men enlisted for the British army. They were the unionist 36^th Ulster Division and two nationalists 10^th Irish and 16^th Irish Divisions. 35,000 Irishmen died in the conflict. I am curious as to why Joyce failed to mention such a significant world event within his novel or at least Stephen’s views on the subject.

After the Easter Rebellion of 1916 and 16 of the Nationalist leaders were executed, the attitudes of the Irish people seemed to change. In a more definitively nationalist Ireland, where many hearts had been thrilled by the valor of the men of 1916, there was no triumphant welcome home. It was as Tom Kettle, a former nationalist MP who was killed on the Somme serving with the 16th Division, had predicted. ‘These men’ (the 1916 leaders), he wrote, ‘will go down in history as heroes and martyrs; and I will go down – if I go down at all – as a bloody British officer.’ (bbc.co.uk)

Works cited:

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. eBook.

“A Brief History of Dublin, Ireland.” dublin.org. N.P. Web 19 Jun 2013. <http://www.dublin.info/history/>

“Dublin History Facts and Timelines.” world-guides.com. TravelSmart Ltd: World Guides Web. 22 Jun 2013. <http://www.world-guides.com/europe/ireland/county-dublin/dublin/dublin_history.html>

“Summary of the Greater Dublin Region.” dubchamber.ie. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce (Incorporated). Web 22 June 2013. <http://www.dubchamber.ie/policy/summary-of-the-greater-dublin-region>

“Characteristics of American Impressionism”. florencegriswoldmuseum.org. N.p. Web 22 Jun 2013. <http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/learning/foxchase/html/about_impressionism.php>

“The Lost Generation: The American Writers of the ‘20’s.” montgomerycollege.edu. N.p. Web. 21 June 2013. <http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/jbolhofer.html>

Jeffery, Professor Keith. “Ireland and World War One.” bbc.co.uk. 2011 Mar 10. Web. 19 June 2003. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/ireland_wwone_01.shtml#four>