Course Blog

In pages 135-141 of “Gender Trouble” by Judith Butler, she discusses how societal law is ingrained in society so deeply that individuals believe that these laws of society are inherently a part of them. She connects this to gender identity, exploring how the idea of gender is one of these societal laws. In this, she highlights that gender is something that is performed, rather than being something that people are, using drag as an example of how gender is a performance. However, in her text, Butler leaves gaps and silences that show the “unconscious” ideas that are left unsaid.

What Butler is not explicitly stating is the role of the Patriarchy. Butler explains how gender performance is a “strategy of survival” in society (139). When gender performance does not follow the roles that society has assigned to it, then the individuals are punished. Butler states, “Discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture, indeed, we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right” (139-140). By not following the societal laws of gender performance with masculinity and femininity, individuals are deemed less “human”. This then affects how they are treated, their rights, and just their quality of life in general.

In the text’s silence about patriarchy, it does not address the power imbalance between masculinity and femininity. In a patriarchal society, femininity is given less value, and in a sense, “dehumanized” anyway. It values men, and anyone else is inherently “the other”. By reading into these silences, we are pointed to the root causes that keep these gender roles in place.

What these silences also point to are the inescapable limitations on anyone who is not a man. Non-men benefit from performing gender according to societal laws (femininity) because it helps them avoid societal punishment. However, even if they conform to these laws, they are still devalued simply because they are not men.

However, men are also harmed by patriarchy. A patriarchal society requires men to fit hegemonic masculinity to be fully valued, which already harms any man who does not fit hegemonic standards– Men of color, queer men, disabled men etc. Even when men meet the standard of hegemonic masculinity, these standards can be isolating and damaging for the mental health of men. This is significant because it shows how gender performance, while not benefitting anyone, is still followed by everyone, so why is this the case?

The silences in Butler’s text that withhold discussing patriarchy and power dynamics between feminine and masculine point to how deeply ingrained these norms are. It suggests that gender performance is something we’re trapped in because it is something that society has drilled into us so deeply that it’s hard to imagine existing outside of it. It shows how there is a lack of free will because of “societal laws.” We are still motivated to act in ways society values, even if these ways hurt us.

What drew me to he text “The Nature of Horror” was the first sentence Noël Carroll writes, “–horror has flourished as a major source of mass aesthetic stimulation” (Carroll, 51). Even as I continued reading the text, I found several parts that caught my attention, including the fact that it was published in a journal called The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. I liked Carroll’s approach which goes beyond traditional literature to embrace horror in film, music videos, musicals, TV, and other artforms. The analysis highlighted horror as an aesthetic experience that captures both fascination and revulsion, a duality that made me rethink horror as not just a genre, but an art form capable of evoking deep and sometimes conflicting emotions. This resonated with my studies, particularly in film and gender, as it framed horror as a lens through which audiences confront and process fear, pleasure, and even societal anxieties. Carroll’s work helped cement my interest in analyzing horror, especially as I prepare my thesis on the connection of horror, gender, and generational shifts in the genre.

In horror, the characters’ reactions to monsters can serve as a blueprint for the audience’s own emotions. Carroll suggests that unlike in other genres, where viewer reactions may be ‘more ambivalent or open to interpretation’, horror provides clear emotional cues through the “positive human characters” who are often terrified, repulsed, or desperately trying to survive. This mirroring effect aligns audiences with the protagonists’ emotions, intensifying the fear and tension. One example being when a protagonist encounters a creature and recoils in horror, we, too, feel a visceral reaction, compelled by their fear to respond in kind. This connection between characters and audience establishes a direct and almost participatory relationship with the horror itself, as viewers are drawn into the narrative and prompted to experience the characters’ dread firsthand. This dynamic sets horror apart from other genres, where characters’ emotions may not always dictate audience response and t underscores the genre’s unique power to evoke empathy and psychological engagement through fear.

When I first read Jane Eyre I was in high school. I had been given permission to go through my father’s office and take any books I wanted, and I did so eagerly. Looking back, I think there was a desire to prove that I really was a reader, that I could take books that I thought were suitably grown up and understand them and enjoy them. Those books sat on a shelf in my room for a little while as I tried to get my nerve up to find them interesting. They were all old, and most of them hadn’t been read in years.

So I picked one that, after a few false starts, seemed the least intimidating. Jane Eyre. I could read about a woman named Jane – that wasn’t too bad at all. So, to prove that I was absolutely very grown up and reading a grown up book and was really very smart, I went downstairs to read in the living room, just in case anybody wanted to see what I was reading.

I stubbornly struggled my way through the introduction, and eventually I got to the good part. I remember the exact moment that it clicked for me. I was sitting next to a window, I could hear the rain pouring outside, but I was dry and warm with a pillow on my lap, and I was reading about Jane Eyre. Except actually, I was standing in Gateshead Hall, reading about birds with Jane. I was standing at the top of the stairs confronting Mrs. Reed. I was sitting in the middle of the stream with Jane as she got to explore the outdoors of Lowood. I was walking away from Thornfield Hall with her and sleeping in the moors under the stars. And all of those moments coalesced into a beautiful feeling of nostalgia for all of the imagined scenes I created as a child, for every moment I had dreamed that I was experiencing these moments of exploration and nature that Jane was. I was absolutely transported. Although I didn’t understand the nuances of the novel, I enjoyed it and every moment of Jane’s journey took me along with her.

It was one of the first moments where I felt like I really related to people when they said that they were transported into a novel, where I was really present to that experience. And I had chosen it for myself, without any prompting. Of course I fell in love with it. Since that first reading I have read it a good many more times, and every time I have learned more either through class discussions and readings, or on my own through my own reflections. I have never not gotten something out of reading Jane Eyre, and I think that’s really special. Even as my understanding of the inner mechanics of the text have changed, I still find myself utterly fascinated by all the questions reading it inspires. I initially picked up Jane Eyre for reasons entirely beyond the text itself, but every reading beyond that first choice has been driven by a curiosity to learn more about everything within it.

On a call with a friend, discussing material culture within Jane Eyre, we both brought up specific structures in the text that indicate the importance of objects throughout the text, in different iterations, using different contexts. Because this concept was addressed in conversation, we each had different “first thoughts” about ways in which materials were significant in Brontë works. I brought up a more expansive thought, coming from the perspective of my thesis, wanting to connect this idea across Brontë works: the combination of the material manifested through the architecture in Jane Eyre, and how that in turn connects to the very omnipresent Gothic. The other Brontë novel I have currently read is Wuthering Heights, which, like Jane Eyre, has several buildings that connect to greater themes, like belonging, internal conflict, and larger Gothic motifs like ghosts and spirituality, across novels. This thought process makes me curious the ways in which this connection could be found in other Brontë novels. Another idea of material culture is that many objects indicate deeper cultural meanings – for example, as my friend mentioned, mahogany furniture and clothing are both materials that indicate a deeper cultural significance outside of Jane’s personal world, perhaps leading into Charlotte Brontë’s lived experience.

Although a specific occasion that can assist my analysis into material culture across Brontë novels is not immediately obvious, there are many moments I can think of – historical, narratively in films or novels, etc. – that use material objects to indicate a greater cultural significance than one might immediately assume. For example, I’m sure many of us have heard the well-worn joke that English teachers, especially in high school, will prescribe too much significance on some blue drapes; after all, those must indicate sadness and devastation for the characters – meanwhile, all the students are thinking that the truth about those blue drapes are that they’re really just what they are, and nothing deeper. But the fascinating thing about this example is that it actually indicates, on both sides of the joke, a greater cultural meaning. Sure, the blue drapes could indicate sadness for the characters – the color blue having an American cultural association with sadness, and drapes could have a deeper meaning of shutting out light and staying in darkness. On the other hand, the dismissal of that deeper meaning and acknowledging that maybe those blue drapes exist just because the author likes the color blue and wanted to spice up a room description, also show a greater cultural awareness necessary for a time when a lot of objects are ascribed over-significance, especially given the oversaturation of visual stimuli and entertainment. So, looking deeper into a joke about current material cultural, I am able to wonder at how authorial descriptions of objects in entertainment could be, subconsciously or consciously, indicative of greater cultural meaning on several levels. And if all that is possible with a joke about high school English teachers and blue drapes, what could be observed with a deep dive into Victorian material culture and Brontë novels?

Pinning down the exact year and context in which I first watched Avatar: The Last Airbender is near impossible. Given that I was two years old when it first began airing, I don’t think my first experience with it was watching it as it aired. I likely caught the last season, which finished in 2008, but it’s more likely that I came across it as Nickelodeon continued reruns for years after the show finished. I remember watching it with my brother, and I know that at some point, I had more or less seen every episode because when I rewatched it in 2020, everything felt familiar. 

In May of 2020, Avatar was put on Netflix. I watched it as I got ready for work at a new job, and when the open-air restaurant closed the following day due to bad weather, I spent the day in bed rewatching what I now remembered loving as a child. I didn’t have many memories of Avatar beyond the characters and basic plot, but when I began watching it all came back to me. The only major difference was that this time around, I was 17, and better understood a lot of the themes and lessons at play that went over my head when I was in elementary school.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is often praised by fans and critics for its deft handling of extremely difficult, more “adult” topics like genocide, colonialism, war, etc. and explaining those concepts in a way that could be understood by all ages. A seven year old might not know what the word genocide means, but they can understand the weight of Aang’s entire people being wiped out and know at the very least that it is a bad thing. But I had learned so much in the decade since I had last watched Avatar, and I could read into the nuances of the show. That, in part, is what has kept Avatar interesting to me over the years. I have fond memories of watching it, and it generally brings me joy, but it also sparks a lot of questions and analysis for me. In more recent years, when I began reading the comics that follow the series, I began to realize how the franchise was elucidating the complexities of decolonization. 

In the first installment, called The Promise, there’s a former Fire Nation colony whose governance is being returned to the Earth Kingdom now that the war is over and Zuko, an ally and friend to Aang, is the new and much more level-headed Fire Lord. I won’t lie—the writing and characterization in the comics is subpar, but what’s most interesting is the conflict that arises from trying to right the wrongs of colonial violence and occupation. Aang, Zuko, and the others soon realize that it’s not so simple as sending Fire Nation citizens away and handing the colony back over to the Earth Kingdom—the two communities have been intertwined for a century, with intermarriage and fully blended communities. It’s a very realistic reminder that there is often no such thing as a “return to normal” when such a long and violent occupation comes to an end. Every time I rewatch Avatar or read a new installment of the comics, I find new instances like this one to zero in on and analyze.

Before focusing on Wordsworth and rereading his works in preparation for my thesis, before recently, I had not read Wordsworth for a couple of years. One of the pioneers of the Romantic Era of poetry, his romanticist poetry was filled with emotion and sensuality, along with a deep level of sensibility that distinguished itself from former eras of poetry.

Recently, I had reread one of my favorite Wordsworth pieces, “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.” As the name states, this poem takes the form of an elegy- a form of poetry that expresses or represents grief or sadness, particularly lament of grief of the passing of a loved one. Interestingly, though the poem defines itself as an elegy, the tone and mood of the poem are unique to most elegiac poems. Rather than coming off as mournful and sad, the poem is more nostalgic. “How perfect was the calm”, the author claims, as they state that “So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day!” Here, the narrator reminisces on the beautiful landscapes that hold certain memories of the past, memories of both joy and pain.

When I had originally read the poem, I had really only noticed this bittersweet nostalgia outlined by the narrator. The admiration of nature and the use of words such as “perfect” and “calm” work to distract the reader, as in my case, myself, from the real sadness and grief the narrator is feeling during the poem. This situation is fitting for Romantic poetry and makes sense once you think of the tropes and concepts that make up the genre. Poets such as Wordsworth were encapsulated by the natural world, but not in a way that escapes from our reality. Rather, Romantic poets such as Wordsworth used nature as a commentary on our own reality, and were focused on how nature impacted our understanding of humanity. Thus, the only way our romantic narrator can truly express himself is through interactions with nature. For the narrator, when the person they lost was in their life, they served as a sort of stability. Now, this is gone, and they are left with reminiscing on the safe feeling around them. They state, “Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.” For the narrator, the person they lost could make ‘pure’ the sky and make the air ‘quiet’. The narrator also describes this stability as “A Picture had it been of lasting ease.” Though, in this case of ekphrasis, where the ‘image’ in question is George Beaumont’s “Peele Castle in a Storm”, the picture is ultimately not real. Perhaps the land that inspired the painting was real, but the geography in the painting is not literal. This possibly adds another layer of grief that the narrator is working with as the narrator is simply left with memories of the person he loves and struggles with a saddening question: which of our memories our truly real, and which do we frame in a picture that we’d like to remember?

As a poetic device, ekphrasis constantly interacts with this question, but does not necessarily provide a definitive answer. This concept is something that I will continue with and expand upon in my thesis.

 

 

Works Cited:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “elegy”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Oct. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/elegy. Accessed 29 October 2024.

Wordsworth, William. “VI Elegiac Stanzas: suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont.” Poetry Foundation, Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of… | The Poetry Foundation

 

 

 

While browsing Mythlore’s Spring/Summer 2024 issue, I came across an article discussing The Princess Bride and the state of scholarly research on William Goldman’s work. As G. Connor Salter confirms in his article “Whatever Happened to The Princess Bride?: Thoughts for Further William Goldman Research,” there are very few scholarly sources on both Goldman and the novel, so when I found the article, I knew I had to take a closer look. The article itself is only a few pages long, but it was filled with information on both existing research on Goldman and ideas for more exploration. 

While the article didn’t provide any deep analysis on The Princess Bride, it did shed some light on both Goldman’s history and some popular themes in his works. One of the themes Salter mentions in connection with The Princess Bride, however, is escapism. This stood out to me because I discussed escapism in my previous blog post while analyzing a December 1973 New York Times issue. When the novel came out in 1973, the US was in the midst of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, so it makes sense that people wanted an escape from reality. Salter references Richard Anderson’s 1979 book William Goldman, connecting this idea of escapism, which Anderson claims is apparent in all of Goldman’s work, to mythopoeia and the grandson’s interactions with the text in the film adaptation (185-186). 

Salter’s introduction to mythopoeia also stood out to me while reading the article, initially because of its unfamiliarity. The OED defines “mythopoeia” as “the creation of a myth or myths” (“Mythopoeia, N.”). I think connecting The Princess Bride to mythopoeia is interesting given that Goldman spends so much time trying to convince his audience that the entire story is true, along with the existence of S. Morgenstern. Furthermore, myths tend to explain something or feature some sort of lesson. If The Princess Bride is supposed to be read as a myth, what is the lesson it’s teaching and how does Goldman communicate it? As I continue my research on The Princess Bride, I hope to explore its potential connection between mythopoeia and paratext.

 

“Mythopoeia, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2378832276. 

Salter, G. Connor. “Whatever Happened to The Princess Bride?: Thoughts for Further William Goldman Research.” Mythlore, vol. 42, no. 2 (144), 2024, pp. 181–87. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48771997. Accessed 27 Oct. 2024. 

My first experience with Bram Stoker’s Dracula was in middle school, watching the 1992 Dracula film with my mom. Despite not being a fan of spooky movies, my mom likes Dracula, both the book and the media inspired by it. Considering I have, since my youth, been a total fan of the macabre and ghastly, I fell in love with the film and aspired to read the book, which I promptly found a copy of. Since then, I have read the physical copy twice, and listened to a full audiobook once. Once in a while, my mother and I will rewatch the 1992 film.

Dracula intrigues me for a number of reasons, one of which I share with my younger self. It had significant influence on the development of the general trope of the “vampire” and its popularity—shaped in Europe “by an intersection of Enlightenment misunderstandings and misinterpretations from the Romantic period” (Bohn 1). I possessed a deep interest in knowing why vampires might act, think, or exist the way they do in Dracula and other vampire media. The idea of the vampire as a form of violent, undead creature originated in Eastern Europe in Bulgaria. Lots of creatures actually predate the notion of the vampire in wider western culture, as it was an exclusively Slavic myth. Additionally, early vampires did not drink blood; the connection between vampires and the “vampire bat,” as well, are complex, and there is much debate on when, exactly, the separate fear surrounding bloodsucking bats and the myth of the vampire merged (Dodd 110-111).

And now that I’ve aged, I have a more detailed understanding of the progression of the vampire into wider western myth. Tales of vampires were often built from a number of inspirations, including the Slavic folk legends—however, other influences were misinterpretations, whether by pure mistake or more sinister cultural assumptions (Bohn 2-3). By this misinterpreted point, non-Slavic peoples considered the vampire to be basically this: an undead being that sucks the life out of others. It further transformed over the Romantic period into a “Slavophobe cliche” (Bohn 3), indicating a strong fear of ‘the other’—an unsurprising development after having always been somewhat intertwined with stereotyping. This history is especially prevalent in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, racial and ethnic stereotyping intertwining with its fantastical version of real-life. 

Stereotyping, culturally fearful and ignorant origins are not uncommon for many of today’s popular spooky monsters. Also common is an intersectionality within this fear of ‘the other,’ in which ethnic and racial lenses intertwine with feminist and queer theory. This is what intrigues me most about the text and its related literature currently. I am now able to put a finger on the relationship between my complex feelings about women, ‘foreignness,’ and sexuality in Dracula, and marry it with my appreciation of its format. 

The book is told through letters and journals, enabling a wide range of character perspectives and a few unique lenses from which to piece the story together. This stylistic choice is not only effective from a horror or gothic perspective, but also deeply laced with the intricacies of the ‘otherness’ I’ve been speaking of. The form of letters and journal accounts plainly mirrors early misinterpreted and stereotype-based western Enlightenment writings inspired by the original vampire myths. Additionally, whose writings have been curated and collected from the fictional world of Dracula raises important questions of who has been denied a personal point-of-view, or even of the included writers, whose points of view hold the most merit and importance. What is left out of letters or journals within the book, or how the more disturbing encounters with vampires are described, also points to questions of sex and sexuality. The stylistic chapter formatting of the book that first intrigued me is intricately woven with the origins of the western vampire that interest me and its strategic cultural usage, punctuated by consistent fears regarding gender and sexuality. In other words: my interest in deconstructing Dracula has only increased since my childhood, and the deeper I go, the more complicated (and therefore, perhaps, scary?) it gets. 

 

Works Cited

Bohn, Thomas M. “Introduction: The Vampire as an Imperial Category.” The Vampire : Origins of a European Myth. Translated by Francis Ipgrave, Berghahn, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781789202939.

Dodd, Kevin. “Blood Suckers Most Cruel: The Vampire and the Bat In and Before Dracula.” Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts 6.2 (2019): 107-132.

Works Referenced

Popa, Ileana F. “Cultural Stereotypes: From Dracula’s Myth to Contemporary Diasporic Productions.” VCU Scholar’s Compass, 2006, scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2344&context=etd. 

Domínguez-Rué, Emma. “Sins of the Flesh: Anorexia, Eroticism and the Female Vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 2010, pp. 297–308, https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2010.494346.

            Currently the two texts which will be the center of my Senior Thesis are Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and Koolaids: The Art of War by Rabih Alameddine. I first encountered Koolaids my first semester of college in my English 101 course about American Postmodernism. This was the first book that I had read that truly refused to be confined by any standards of the novel format. That is, the story is composed of vignettes, most of which are less than a page, but some can be up to 3 pages long. The whole time I was reading Koolaids I could not help but wonder, “Okay, why is this like this?” I think, also, I just really enjoy weird books and stories that open entirely new avenues of looking at the world. I certainly never would have thought that the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and the Lebanese civil war had anything in common, or that writing about them in tandem could be so beautiful. Koolaids is a book that is both weird and beautiful, and I would argue, it is beautiful because of its weirdness.

            I encountered Giovanni’s Room for the first time last February. I had read Going to Meet the Man and Go Tell It On the Mountain over winter break and was absolutely enthralled by Baldwin’s prose. As such I found myself in Whistlestop one afternoon looking for something interesting to read for fun and happened to look at the shelf with Baldwin’s works on it and thought, “It would be cool to read some more Baldwin,” so I grabbed Giovanni’s Room by chance. Mostly because I was certain I would enjoy anything that he had written. I was of course correct. Baldwin’s prose, storytelling, and characters are all stunning.

            The goal, or rather the question then, becomes how these seemingly very different texts come together. I was reading Koolaids again over Fall Pause, and realized, that at the center of both of these novels is the simple fact that the openly gay, or queer, main characters of these books die at the end. So, the center of these novels in the question of the future, and what a life looks likes when one is left without the possibility of ever truly being oneself or is confronted with the slow and painfully death of all of your closest friends. Indeed, while these stories address different generations of queer men the ending, or rather the conclusion is the same: to be gay is to die.

When I first encountered The Lord of the Rings, I was about 7 or 8 and laying on my sofa while my brother and I were homesick. My mom started with reading to us The Hobbit and then eventually moved to The Lord of the Rings. We never finished the trilogy, but I remember the pure joy that I had when listening to the journey of the Fellowship. Because of how old I was, I did not understand or remember much of anything but those days where my brother and I were homesick were what sparked my love for the world Tolkein had created.

Since that time over a decade ago, my understanding of the trilogy has changed greatly. For starters, I actually fully understand what is going on. As well, I have learned through my time at Dickinson how to read the novel through different lenses. The story has become less of a fantastical world and more of a commentary on the real world in my mind. I am able to see connections to current events. I believe that allows me to enjoy the novel more as I now have a more well-rounded understanding of the world of Middle-Earth. 

One scene in particular in The Return of the King that has really stuck out to me is the scene where the riders of Rohan encounter the Wild People. The Wild People are men just like the Rohirrim, but they live in the woods rather than in large cities. After helping King Theoden, he asks the Wild People what he can give to them in return for their kindness. They respond by saying “But if you live after the Darkness, then leave Wild Men alone in the woods and do not hunt them [the Wild Men] like beasts any more” (Tolkien 104). I am able to understand now that the Wild People are a metaphor for indigenous people and the Rohirrim were colonizers. I now understand that not only did Tolkein create a new world, but he created one that was just as complicated as ours, something I never would have been able to understand at 8 years old.

Works Cited:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.