Concluding thoughts and other things

This semester is definitely coming to a good end with our final discussion pieces.  While the new yorker article and Kissing Jessica Stein both playfully reflect the truth of the matter when it comes to our modern concept of dating  (and how it differs from the ancient concept of courtly love) the Kristeva piece is a much denser introspective journey through the overall themes that we have been exploring. Kissing Jessica Stein not only used comedy to breakdown the sexuality barriers that surround our concept of romantic dating but it was also successful in using a woman's perspective to portray this modern quest for love. While everyone around Jessica feels that they can give her the best information on how to find the love she desires in her life none of them are actually successful because the desire that fuels our quest for love and fulfillment ultimately comes from within therefore no one knows what we want in a partner better then ourselves. The same concept holds true in the new yorker article on the online dating services, the couples that found each other first in the real world and then tested their compatibility against the matching making programs found that while they did have an incredibly high level of computable compatibility they weren't being told anything they didn't know. Therefore is it completely necessary to listen to the rest of the world when you are undertaking a search for love? I don't believe so but I do see some promise behind meeting someone through friends after all we naturally base friendships on a different type of love and enduring compatibility which is found by straining out our social networks to find the few good deep connections. By going through friends to meet someone you are putting the odds of finding someone who you can tolerate more in your favor rather then randomly meeting them on a street. To go back to my earlier example from Kissing Jessica Stein she ends up blindly meeting Helen along with several men before her all of whom do not end up working out for her beyond brief dating, this can be chalked up to dating before personality and emotional compatibility. If you go on a blind date with someone the odds of success are somewhat akin to winning a prize on a scratch-off lottery ticket, to put it bluntly that means not in your favor. However if you are able to establish a friendship in which emotional and personality compatibility exist then the odds of being able to date that person are even greater because you are narrowing down the variables that must be taken into account for compatibility with them. Essentially this is what an online dating service does, it has a computer do the leg work for you as far as compatible likes and dislikes and possible differences in personality traits, as well as general attraction preference, and it spits out "matches" which are basically people who are least likely to disagree with you on which wine to order with dinner. As both the movie and the article comically illustrate dating is not that easy and when tied into the greater themes of love and desire it is the trial and error step to our end goal of fulfillment yet it is the most underrated step of the whole process. Dating is simply overlooked in the big picture, we talk about how people meet, how they solidified their union to one another, and how tragically it ended, yet we are bored to tears talking about the glacial pace at which they sifted through each others mountains of possible deal breakers and makers. In the New Yorker article there is a statement from one of the brains behind online dating schemes about how everybody desires their opposite and when they get what they want they love it but it also bring about an end to the love and bond that they form, such as in the case of the woman at the end of the article who enjoyed her passionate getaway with the man she was briefly dating between fighting with him horribly. That statement, similar to what Kristeva touched upon, was born of the real world gleaning of love and desire related experience that we have been studying in this course secondhand, that is to say that what we want out of other people ultimately does not exist and it never has outside of ourselves, what we desire is an image born of our own need for self completion that we project on the nearest available vessel and from this intense deception love is born. However love with too much desire will burn itself out and love with too little desire with fade away, it is a careful balance in which all human relationships are weighed upon the two element require each other yet at the same time oppose each other. These themes are what we have been building on for the entire semester by exploring every aspect from unrequited courtly love to the complex lover and beloved dynamic which can exist in many forms. This course has caused me to surprisingly have several breakthroughs which I never believed could take place being that I have the emotional sensitivity of a doughnut, but it is all for the better because I am beginning to be able to grow a deeper understanding for the human condition through an understanding of the force that drives us through life.

Simple Passion

Can I just begin with what a conundrum the title is? Lets think about this critically...does "simple passion" even exist? isn't Ernaux doing the whole concept of passion a major disservice by declaring it to be simple? I mean passion is what fuels lives, and ends them. Passion is the byproduct of desire and desire is our drive for life therefore can passion be simple? Conceptually no, it cannot be because it leads us to ask where does it come from, and why can we not control being over taken by this emotional wire puller? However physically it can be simple, its a feeling, a force beyond our control and for better or for worse we're just along for the ride, and this is what Ernaux cleanly demonstrates: the power and control of passion. Ernaux does not live her life in the present like most people do, she either lives it in the distant past or in the ominous future. She states "I would start expecting his phone call again, with all the more suffering and anxiety as the date of our last meeting receded." This passage encompasses her living in the past from when she last saw A and worrying about the future in which she may never see him again. To Ernaux time passing is a nuisance, if she is with A she wants to to go slower, if she is without him she needs it to go faster; to her the past is the only life that she would like to live and the future is where she wants to live. This mirrors the time she spends with A, her relationship with this man only exists in the past tense, she can dream about the possible future with him. but in the present he's a phantom. Ernaux has a unique writing style where she includes little autobiographical asides, but why include these? Not only do they help pushing along the story or provide vital background information but I felt they were included to develop herself more in her own anecdote. The way we are introduced to Ernaux is as the first hand perspective of being the other woman, and how dreary it is. She has nothing to gain from this situation except for being pawed at by a cheating drunk who will leave her hours later and yet this manages to be the only thing she desires for. While the asides flesh out Ernaux into being an actual human and not just some lifeless formless being, they also open up the readers to the possibility of a role change in the lover beloved dynamic. The lover wants to worship the image upon a pedestal, an untouchable icon of all the perfection their heart desires while the beloved wants to maintain that image and status, so is Ernaux the beloved or is A? In a way she is both, she desires A and worships him, she accepts all of his faults freely and still longs for him endlessly. However she can also be considered the beloved, after all she is the "other women" in the relationship, the one A is cheating on his wife to worship, the one He sees as an idol fair enough to return time and time again. This leads us to another question, can the beloved desire the affections of the lover as much as the lover desires to bestow their affections upon their beloved? Perhaps this is why they only spend limited time together, if not their mutual desire would surely collapse. Ernauxs portrayal of being the other woman is brutally honest and a bit gritty at times but I don't see it as a negative image on women as a whole, I see it as a negative portrayal of people in general. In this story both the man and the woman are seen in and unsavory light, she as an empty vessel of a woman only being able to feel desire for one thing in life, and he as a user with a single track mind in regards to women. The only thing people in this story are guilty of is being slaves to desire, Ernaux lives only for the moments that she is with A and A is only seen as alive in his past exploits with Ernaux. Yes, she lives through A solely but she is not the first and not the last person to love obsessively through their lover. While the story may not be representative of the entire population of lovers in the world it does represent a descent number of them, primarily the ones who suffer for their love because they live the most passionately through it. The depiction of the erotic film as related to Ernauxs writing is similar to the cathartic effect of theater. What she writes should not make you feel comfortable, or rather it should portray something so shocking that if you were to experience it in your own life either first or second hand that you would fear repercussions, guilt, anxiety, self loathing, etc. It should make the reader feels invited, unabashed to experience it through her. Like the erotica film watching two people have intercourse in detail while they know they are being watched is one thing, a curious guilty pleasure one can indulge in alone. Yet if you were one of the people engaging in the act and realized that it was later going to be publicized and watched by other the negative feelings flood into ones being.  This comparison invites us to experience through her what we would be too ashamed to admit or to experience on our own.

Love Song

"Oh, Maker"

I hear the drizzle of the rain
It's falling from my window
And in the corners of my mind
I hope that I'll get to see you again
La da die da die da die da die my friend

I hear the colors in the flowers
Just like the candle snuffed at dawn
You're here, you're near, you're there and then you're gone
La da die da die da die da die

Suffering in sinking sand
All the hurt
See I'm really lost baby
We suffered a rare, rare blue
So much hurt
On this earth
But you loved me
And I really dared to love you too
Perhaps what I mean to say is
Is that it's amazing that your love was mine

Oh, Maker tell me did you know
This love would burn so yellow
Becoming orange and in it's time
Explode from grey to black then bloody white
La da die da die da die da die

Oh, Maker have you ever loved?
Or known just what it was?
I can't imagine the bitter end
Of all the beauty that we're living in
Oh no

Suffering in sinking sand
All the hurt
See I'm pretty lost baby
We suffered a rare, rare blue
So much hurt
On this earth
But you loved me
And I really dared to love you too
Perhaps what I mean to say
Is that it's amazing that your love was mine

Lost inside a lonely world where lovers pay the price
Barely get the sound of music to love and go dance to
Now it's time for us to go and no one ever has to know
You're love's in my pocket and your eyes, eye's are in my
Eyes in my soul, no one will know it but me

The background story to this song is that it revolves around a forbidden love affair, one not sanctioned by the government, and upon threat of death the narrator has been forbidden from her lover. As she sits there without her beloved she reflects on the short time that they had together, and in the final verse she plans their escape.This is an all time favorite of mine which is actually fairly bittersweet when you think about it. "Oh,  Maker" is the song I want to be played at my wedding, and I'm not budging on that. To me having a song that is about this wonderful tumultuous love that was so great that you cant even regret it when breaking up represents exactly what I expect in a spouse, someone so amazing that even if the marriage were to fail I couldn't regret being with them for even a minute. In the lyrics she goes on about how painful it is to be without her beloved yet she cant regret it because the love was so incredible, and tying in with the title of the song she even carries on to question if God has ever experienced the highs and lows that she has felt. To me its a very powerful song and if you can convince yourself not to dwell on the fact that the relationship is over with you'll come to see that the song describes the greatest kind of love.

The Bad Girl: Part 2

¡Aye Ricardito! My heartbreaks for this poor deluded idiot. Which I suppose, in retrospect, is a sign of very good literature simply for the fact that the characters could evoke such strong emotion from me which is no small feat. All of my feelings aside the bad girl part two did not fail to deliver, while reading through the first half of the book there was a small creeping fear in the back of my mind that the whole story was going to be this cat and mouse game of deception until it reached some sort of dramatic and ultimately fulfilling end. Oh how wrong I was! The maturation of the relationship between Ricardo and the bad girl surprised me, at first they share this infantile lover beloved dynamic where Ricardo makes his affections too known and the bad girl shuts him down at any hint of commitment unless he can provide her some useful service, which in that case she'll humor him. The bad girl does an amazing job of leaving him wanting for more, even for years at a time she leaves an image of her perfection with him so powerful that no one else can compare. As the saying goes time heals all wounds but Ricardo seemingly cannot quit this dangerous girl, even worse are the personal extremes that he is willing to go through just to please her. He puts himself in financial danger, emotional turmoil, physical danger, and in a place that is detrimental to his career all for a woman who refuses to even pretend like she loves him. If this were based on a true story I would use it as a case study for the love as a mental imbalance theory, Ricardo has more then enough symptoms to be diagnosed with a handful of well fitting psychiatric disorders. He attempts to woe the same girl over and over again in the exact same way and receives the same result every time, but does this make him crazy? No, according to society he is just a man in love. However at the turning point of their relationship we notice that the image of Ricardos desire has begun to crack and for the first time he finds her unattractive, what does this symbolize? and why isn't his obsession with the bad girl done after he finally sees her for what she is? I believe that in a sick way this is love blooming, yes the whole time he claims to love her over and over again but if the image of love that you desire is no longer perfect then you no longer have the image to desire. Just like Narcissus touching his reflection in the pool of water, the image was disturbed, and realized for what it truly was but in Ricardos case he didn't die from lack of desire in fact I believe that it was the banishment of that very image of his own creation that gave birth to a form of love for the bad girl. Yes, there are supposedly many forms of love and none of them should be like this but this was not meant to be a fairytale, unrequited love does exist and it can prove to be a very powerful force. Although Ricardo pretends to take care of the bad girl out of obligation, the extremes of care that he goes through for her betray him, he never gets over her and he never will. He's like a duckling that had the ill fate of imprinting itself on the wrong parent, he is forever vulnerable even when it comes to her even when the dichotomy of there love finally shifts into his favor he is powerless to her. The shift in Ricardo becoming the hunted and the bad girl being the hunter highlighted the Celestina-esque plot twist where although it is known that he loves her, she too will secretly love him. This play on human desire turns the enigma of the bad girl into something so much more, we come to realize that even this kind of love of the image and desire is a reciprocal relationship in which the object wishes to be worshiped as much as the worshiper wishes to desire the object.

Bad Girl Part 1

It appears as if I'm having flashbacks to Celestina! A young boy hopelessly in love with a distant girl? Who rejects his advances yet welcomes his presence? No, I guess that doesn't sound familiar at all. All joking aside poor Richardo has fallen in love with a pathological liar, but in his reality she is not a pathological liar she is the beautiful, seductive, goddess on a pedestal that he has dreamed of his whole life and she only lives down the street. Richardo  represent a wonderful case study for this class, while he is fully aware of the unraveling lies of Lily he still pines away for her even when the rest of the world condemns his affection he seemingly does not care.

"You're like a calf Slim, You're turning blue, Slim, that crush is melting you, Slim"(7)
Everyone outside besides Richardo is fully aware of the ridiculous state that he's worked himself into over a girl he barely knows. A sane person does not ask out the same person more then 3 times in a lifetime, that should be a red flag indicating one of two things, the first being that perhaps the person that your asking out just is not that into you and the second being that you may have a chemical imbalance in your brain which is causing you to be irrational. In that passage his friends are displaying somewhat of a teasing indifference to his emotional state, they realize that he is too far gone to help but being the good friends they are they still gently try and warn the poor fellow. As we have discussed the first stages "love" can also be confused with the high of a drug, its not love at first sight its more of a chemically induced euphoria at the first or second sighting. Richardo has built up Lily in his eyes so much that he is blind to the fact that the rest of society thinks that she is worthless. Let it be known that I am not saying that I think the negative views of society should impact a persons love life but most of the time they serve to caution you against bad people, a lesson that Richardo should have heeded sooner then later.

With society looking down their noses at Lily and Richardo looking up at her Lily's only option is to preserve the image of her that Richardo idolizes to stay in some form of favor. Although we do not really hear her perspective of the whole thing the idea of her keeping the image for Richardo is echoed when she comes to  him as Comrade Arlette in Paris she knowingly half resigns herself to letting him chase her down for the rest of her life. "She hesitated a moment and, with a sigh, made a concession: "I might even end up falling in love with you.""(27). While she isn't happy and she still holds Richardo at a distance Lily is gently basking in his attention for her, she likes having him on the back burner because he offers her security and things she could never have on her own yet she knows the importance of preserving the false image for him. Even when kissing or making love she still makes herself emotionally unavailable to him. As was the case in Celestina the moment that Melibea gave herself over to Calisto his love for her cooled, I believe that the same will be for poor Richardo once he realizes that he holds all of the cards and his illusion is shattered.

Thoughts on Solaris

Soderbergh’s film really brought the concept to light of when we realize that we love only an image and that our worshiped beloved is not real, what happens? The plot of the film utilized the modern science fiction setting to its advantage by making this hypothetical situation become a reality in a sense. To put things in perspective realize that the apparitions of loved ones who had passed on were a product mostly of the crews mind, yes some other worldly force made it possible for these people to appear in a tangible form but they were built from memories. That fact is scrutinized when the reincarnated wife of Chris tells him that she’s suicidal because that’s how he remembered her. Yes, the film does confront other issues like what would most people do in that situation? Would they kill the reincarnated loved one like Dr. Gordon because once they realized that it was just an image the illusion was shattered? Or would they try and cling to the lifeless image like Chris to Rheya despite the nagging better judgment that he should just let her go.  This film was loosely a modern representation of the myth of Narcissus, in which Chris at first basks in the joy of having the image of his love back in his life but is then he is brought to a startling realization by Dr. Gordon that the Rheya on the ship is literally just an image of his past love made by something potentially dangerous. Just like Narcissus once the image is shattered Chris meets his demise, something that is echoed in the beginning of the film by Gibarian who also loses his life to an image of his own creation. Oddly enough every main character in the film dies due to an image of their own creation in one way or another except for Dr. Gordon who was the only character to realize the truth of the matter and took it into her own hands a way of dispelling the image from her life. Perhaps this is background commentary that alludes to the fact that we need to free ourselves from the false image of love that we create within ourselves in order to truly love and be loved.

The Tale of Two Emma’s

Now as often as you’ve heard me voice my distaste for Emma Bovary, I can see she’s a popular character.  While watching I Am Love I felt like I saw a modern portrayal of the very woman, only this time I could feel for her when she came across in the form of Emma Recchi. Let me elaborate why, Tancredi was no Charles Bovary, he was not earnest in his affections towards Emma instead he took her for granted and let her fall to the way side in a marriage where she lacked desire for anything because she was given everything. Her children being out on their own didn’t need her rearing or protection, her husband being busy with business didn’t have time to talk about anything besides the family, money, work, fame, ect and poor Emma Recchi was simply a doll. She was lifeless, bland, without any feeling, and she didn’t do anything for herself until she finally felt that spark of desire with Antonio then all hell broke loose.  Even when a person has no need for anything they should want for something, and if they want for nothing, then they have no drive for life much like in the case of Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary had everything she would need: a house, devoted husband, a well formed child, good looks, and a developed skill set of any woman of that era. Yet she desired for more and went out of her way to fill that desire, Emma Recchi does the exact same thing. She too has the perfect life on paper but she desired a spark to ignite some feeling which was absent from her life, although Emma Bovary voiced her opinions more fluidly, Emma Recchi had no trouble voicing hers once she realized what was lacking all along. This is a common theme that is being repeated and yet we never learn our lesson, Why is that? I think because we are inevitably drawn to this fate, it’s like a train wreck only we are in the conductors’ seat and while we can see it all happening time and time again we never stop, we never bail out, we just stay put, and enjoy the ride until it’s over. The whole enjoying the ride until it’s over thing is great until we realize the “over” part tends to be accompanied by painful heartbreak, depression, severed relationships that had been built up for years, broken families, and of course the possibility of death whether inflicted by yourself or the enraged lover. The Lover and Beloved dynamic will never die out and as much as we try to play the foreboding prophet to our own friends and loved ones much like Cassandra we will only be met with deaf ears and frustration.

Madame Bovary: Part 2

Is it odd that I still have little to no sympathy for Emma? Blame my upbringing, blame my personality type, but I still could careless for her as a character.  In all seriousness  even after the surgical blunder I still favor Charles, I mean these kind of medical accidents were commonplace and he just so happened to give my future field of occupation a little push in the right direction. Yes he attempted the procedure with the wrong intentions but many factors could be to blame, I mean Madame Bovary was finished around 1856, however aseptic technique only came into the eyes of the medical system around the late 1860's, before that discovery nearly 80% of people who underwent surgery contracted gangrene. Therefore I was surprised that Hippolyte just lost the leg and not his life, but I digress! That is just my opinion based on my background. I really found no sympathy for Emma except that I felt for her being trapped in the time period she was in. She made poor financial decisions with her innocent husbands money, had affairs on his dime while he stayed at home worrying, became a hysterical mess to her own delusions, and ultimately ruined their household and daughters future. Yes, its a lot to blame on one woman but she really didn't experience the consequences of any of her actions except for the fear of being found out when the debt collectors came knocking. I was less impressed by her affair with Rodolphe, she pines over a man who is just using her and cares so little about her that he wont even cry on her dear john letter and pretends to go on a trip. Great life choices Emma. While Rodolphe is a tool and uses her, shes not the first and we learn about this in the letter box scene. The box of letters and trinkets symbolizes a trophy case for Rodolphe, sure he doesn't even remember some of his conquests but he darn well has proof of all of them. Like any good misogynist women are objects to Rodolphe and they simply exist to entertain him and when he grows bored of them he'll throw them in a box and carry on. Now reflecting on the events that led up to Emma's suicide its interesting that this was one of the few times I felt sympathy for her, she ran out of resources and saw no solutions to her situation. I should have been able to predict her suicide but instead I was banking on her simply being so overcome by the situation that her heart gave out, or perhaps paying some homage to Melibea by jumping off the roof. Everything that lead up to her suicide including the ending of two affairs and her mad dash for money all made sense, it was as if her illusion had finally been shattered and the cold harsh reality was slowing seeping into her. When Emma was finally woken up out of her delusional life she came to the realization that the desire that fueled her was being cooled by the reality of her situation, she couldn't afford her borrowed life style that made her existence bearable, her suitors couldn't whisk her away from all her troubles and for the most part they didn't care about her. When all of this came crashing down upon her head Emma could only see one escape from the life in which she would have to face the reality of her decisions and in which she had nothing left to desire. Her choice of poisoning would have been my third guess at how she was going to off herself, women are prone to such a thing because generally speaking we don't like to die unattractive deaths if we can help it. Overall I'll still declare myself a Charles fan, I felt like the poor fellow was constantly getting walked upon and bowled over, whereas Emma in her defiant pseudo-feminism went about things in entirely the wrong way and as a result everybody suffered including herself.

Madame Bovary: Part 1

To begin I would be lying to myself horribly if I said that this text did not alienate me, Therefore in all efforts to be an honest person I'll put it out there bluntly: I could not relate to a majority of this text at all. However that being said it does not mean that I did not find Madame Bovary to be interesting. Personally I derived a unique form of entertainment from this first half of the book because I found myself so far removed from Emma that she became a novelty to me. Now Charles on the other hand I could find more to relate with from the mild frustration and distraction during his professional studies, to his almost naive approach to relationships. To put it simply Charles does not have an original bone in his body, and if he did he would not have the chutzpah to do anything with it. As a boy he is described as being ordinary with very few defining features except for one of his possessions: His hat, which to put it gently is something that I imagine to look like Parisian runway fashion crossed with a monster of Dr. Frankensteins, but to each his own. From the narrators point of view the hat seems to represent a misfit, something that was put together with the best of intentions but falls flat when it comes to a cohesive execution, somewhat like Emma herself. Even if it is a stretch of the imagination I saw a connection from that hideous hat to the staring attraction herself, consider the fact that her father sent her to be well schooled in a convent and that she was taught all of the skills a lady needed to possess in those times: reading, singing, playing the piano, painting, sewing, ect. However when the time came for all of those skills to be executed in such a manner that it might make her husband happy she falls short due to her own personal disinterest in Charles and eventual disdain for his presence. Emma is a complicated creature for the majority of the time she is incapacitated from doing much of anything useful due to her self invented boredom. By dreaming up lives of grandeur she progressively grows discontent with her normal lifestyle and fails to find anything of valuable interest unless it is a newly attentive male party. Her discontentment with normal life comes to a climax of sorts at the La Vaubyésssard ball, where she experiences her first real taste of "the good life".  The experience at the ball while told through her Vaseline lens whets her appetite and fuels her desire for an upper class existence that she may very well never obtain (I guess we'll just have to see how the second half goes). Although Emma feels as if she was born to live in that sect of high society I felt that while she has a certain stateliness about her she tries too hard, after all most high society ladies probably wouldn't dance with the same man twice in a row lest anyone start an unsavory rumor about the pair. A nice growing theme throughout the first half of this story is the excitement that she derives from new men in her life, in the beginning she got a certain amount of pleasure out of Charles but soon grew bored of him because he wasn't rich, good looking, or very interesting. Then she moved on to the Vicomte, a dashingly handsome fellow of high society but his attention only lasted an evening which she would fondly look back upon as if it were a pleasant dream. After the ball her attention becomes focused on the young Leon, who is also handsome but more importantly has the talent of engaging her attention for long periods of time which for Emma is something that can make her days go faster and her step feel lighter. However perhaps the most aggressive of all is Rodolphe, the new bachelor in town who refuses to take no for an answer, and maybe that is what irritated me the most? The fact that shes willing to ignore her husband for most of their marriage and to all together hate his presence for no good reason but when a man she barely knows forces his company on her she just takes it. 

Celestina: Part 2

The second half of Celestina was in a way just as dramatic as I was hoping it would be, the whole plot charged through to the end in quite the Shakespearean fashion providing both closure for the audience as well as a cathartic tragedy all in one. In act 11 the "small chain" as Calisto puts it is one of the most obvious symbols in the whole story, on many levels it represents a binding. To Calisto the chain represents him relinquishing his enslavement to his own misery and heartache that originated from his love of Melibea which he has been freed from upon learning that his affections are returned, it also represents what he might have believed to be his last tie to Celestina herself being that their "contract" was finally fulfilled. However that being said to Celestina the chain represents Calisto being bound to her in favor for presumably an indefinite period of time. A woman like Celestina is respected for two reasons, the first being for her age, talent in her trade, and wisdom, the second being out of fear. Celestina has power over people because she knows their most intimate secrets such as clergy violating vows of chastity, brides who did not maintain their true maidenheads for their husbands to take, and husbands who sought woman besides the wives they took in sanctity. The moment that Calisto enlisted the help of Celestina she knew he would be indebted to her and the payment to Celestina in the form of a chain represented that to her. For Parmeno and Sempronio the chain bound them to Celestina, in the text it literally was the payment they wanted and their desire for their share of it drove them to kill her and ultimately to their own deaths, but on a deeper level it represents the desire that all people experience. It is the powerful force that binds us to destiny and drives us to our fates much like in the case of Parmeno and Sempronio they were powerless to their own selfish desires as was Celestina. In act 14 Calisto finally is able to experience Melibea the way he yearned for the entire story up until that point, while I had assumed his happiness would be apparent that was not the case. Calisto is disappointed by the encounter for its brief timing and the shame that he has brought upon his household. He claims his passion is cooled and now he only feels the pain from where fate has left him at the early hour. His two closest servants were killed ultimately because of his tie to Melibea and he spent relatively little time mourning them, he also feels the shame of giving into his desires and the deep dishonor he has brought upon his ancestors. The theme of these darkened desires is also played up in the interactions between Calisto and Melibea in the way that the only meet in the twilight hours. By society's standards what the two lovers are doing is engaging in immoral behavior, things that could only occur by the dark of night, but the way it is portrayed absolves their passion of sin. The lovers only bathed in reflective moonlight seem pure and entitled to give into their desires, and Melibea being a source of this light in Calistos life is almost a validation of his desires, he is powerless to her and subsequently to his desires like a moth drawn to a flame.

Celestina: Part 1

The opening to Celestina was a wonderful parallel to Adam and Eve but more so it set the tone for a personal intrusion. In literature gardens are often seen as somewhat tamed forms of nature, both beautiful and revered yet private, and by having Calisto stumble into the garden of Meliba is represents the unapproved intrusion of a man into the private sector of her life. While it is not the most subtle of imagery it matches the characters and their attitudes on sex, love and desire which are often frankly put and brutally honest. I do not read Meliba as being totally offended by Calistos intrusion, more so she is disillusioned to his lovestruck manner, and having had a preview to the end she is better for this attitude. While the dialogue between Sempronio and Calisto is comical and biting at the dynamic between the master and conniving servant I can still see him as being a long suffering friend, otherwise I assume he would have just robbed him outright. As a reader I am amazed at the quick onset of Calistos love sickness, normally while love sickness is a well documented phenomenon both in medicine and in creative works the onset is generally post heartbreak but it seems poor Calisto has a weak constitution when it comes to his love for the unattainable image of Meliba, which thankfully is put to good use fueling the plot line. Enter Celestina, the war-profiteer when it comes to human desire, or as she is portrayed by Parmeno "Who could tell you what the old crone did? And all of it was mockery and lies." (26).  She is a woman who earns her living by manipulating people using their desires to breed fear, longing, anguish, and desperation. She draws out this process, as we will see in the case of poor Calisto, for her own benefit.  From a literary point of view Celestina represents the control that desire has over our lives, she is the dark side of love and she knows just how to use it. At first she comes across as a harmless quack who makes a living off of poor saps but soon proves to be the puppeteer of the various human desires that the audience sees coming into play. Parmenos dramatic monologues on Celestina serve to foreshadow, he acts as logic which is always extremely under-voiced in dealing with love, and therefore he will remain hopelessly unheard by Calistos heart yet on occasion as logic will he can validate certain actions of his master unwittingly. The dynamics of the first 10 acts tie in beautifully to the readings on sex regulation. Not only did that provide historical insight and background to Parmenos views of Celestina and her various "professions" both past and present but it also aided in reinforcing just how seriously Celestina could offend the sensibilities of that time (and yet Calisto hopelessly pursues her for "knowledge").

"The Obscure Object of Desire" Continued.

"The Obscure Object of Desire"
On a personal note I loved the complexity of this film from the passion emanating from Matthieu to the mirrored disdain from Conchita. The obscure object was not just desire, nor was it everything Conchita represented to Matthieu but it was something much more subtle represented throughout the undertone of the film, much more akin to the need of self completion through an imaginary source. Conchita was as much of an unattainable mirage to Matthieu as the reflection to Narcissus and yet in the end they both knew better but ultimately met their demise due to being constantly drawn back to this thing that had them both so caught up. Lacan also noted strongly on the false sense of self we can obtain through the illusion of control of things outside of ourselves, and this is exactly the trap that Matthieu fell into. He was enraptured by Conchita a woman outside of his reach, whom he could never control yet he was determined to try anyways, because he was driven by a force that was so beyond his own control yet he was totally unaware of it. Conchita being played by two different actresses was perfect, the first representing the "good girl" and the second representing the "bad girl", throughout the movie it was almost exciting to predict based on the mood of the scene who was going to appear, such as in the scene where they are at the country house, The bad Conchita arrives and is playful, flirtatious, and demanding but once it comes time for the demands of Matthieu to be met in comes the good Conchita who is noble and often frigid to his advances. Yet this act only drives Matthieu further down the rabbit hole of his own undoing. The constant use of terrorism in the background of the film was intriguing, based on the timing it often seemed to be a way to practically emasculate Matthieu rendering him helpless many times and showing that he was "too noble" to admit the he was scared and taken advantage of by men often younger and rowdier then himself. The ending of the film was a nice modern line drawn between to "tragic" love stories, yes it pays homage to Tristan and Isolde but to me more importantly it is playing on the tragic faults of Matthieu and his insatiable need for Conchita. Even after he has forsake her he still comes back for more, which perhaps puts him in the right place and the right time for a terrorist attack, a sign that Matthieu is not the one in control of his life.  

Thoughts on Zizek, Bernard, and "The Obscure Object of Desire"

While reading "Courtly Love or Woman as Thing" I was intrigued by the writers prospective of women having the upper hand in love, however this was not unwelcome. In the passage on page 90 Zizek notes that "the Lady functions as a mirror on to which the subject projects his narcissistic ideal" this only reinforces the ideas we discussed in the Mirror stage about about how we desire completion of self that can only exist outside of ones self. Prior to that Zizek noted that "the Lady in courtly love loses concrete features and is addressed as an abstract ideal, so that 'writers have noted that all the poets seem to be addressing the same person'"  this feelings ring true to the idea that we carried away from the myth of narcissus that perfection that can only be desired and found outside of ones self is merely a tantalizing  mirage that we all can experience the same sorrow of never being able to obtain it because this object of desire does not exist. Now while Zizeks essay presented the reality of love I enjoyed the parallel I saw between that and the troubadour poems by Bernard. Bernard stated that "A man is really dead when he does not feel some sweet taste of love in his heart" (127) The new human perspective that Bernard is writing from shines a light on the ideas stated above, to put it bluntly we desire what does not exist in hopes of achieving completion of self that comes from outside of ourselves but we still need that desire to fuel us no matter how bleak the outlook is in terms of successful completion. To further expose this consider the differences in Bernards own writing, specifically between the first quote on 127 and this quote from 133 "I bear more pain from love then Tristan the lover who suffered many sorrows for Isolt the blonde", In this Bernard himself is exposing both sides of the story to the reader, Love as the life drive for all men, and Love as the eternal tormentor.

Thoughts on Narcissus, Song of Songs, and Lacan...

Song of Songs:

This poem strongly plays on the control of ones desire for completion through another yet it parallels these images with that of wild uninhibited nature. Strong comparisons are made between sensory stimulation such as the intoxication of wine(2), the scent of perfume(3), or the beauty of flower blossoms(14) and the somewhat opposing controlling actions such as her ardent requests(4), the herding of a flock(7), and the lavishing of gifts(10-11). To further expand those ideas look to the location of the poem itself, within the Old Testament, which I often regard as the “rule book” of the bible. Although seemingly out of its element the placement is quite deliberate in the way that it produces a parallel between the power of raw human desire and governing body of religion. While one element tries to overpower the other, it ultimately fails to do so completely, yet the two can coexist. Powerful human emotions like desire have a need to be addressed in our lives, even in biblical texts, because they have existed longer than the religious institutions themselves.

The Myth of Narcissus:

Like any etiological myth the story of Narcissus delves into how an echo came about but it also serves to personify a once unexplainable phenomenon. Echo is able to manipulate the open ended questions of Narcissus to enable the reflection of her true feelings towards him; however her presence also serves to foreshadow the demise of Narcissus much like the prophecy of Tiresias. Echo is a complex representation of what is to come but also of the impossible goal of total self-completion.  Narcissus is confronted by the love echo harbors for him and rejects it, yet he comes to be “rejected” by his love for himself. Both the lover and the beloved in this story have unattainable goals and face their own tragic demise in a curse of incompleteness. I believe that Narcissus falls in love with the idea of self-wholeness, meaning that while many people who fall in love or enter relationships are inherently searching out a sense of wholeness that they believe they can only find through another Narcissus was doomed or perhaps enlightened enough to realize that the form of completion we desire comes from lacking something in ourselves. Therefore when falling in love Narcissus could only see that within himself yet had no way of accessing that, quite similar to Echo seeing her completion within Narcissus. Both sides were driven by powerful desire yet were never able to achieve the end goal. “The thing you are seeing does not exist: only turn aside and you will lose what you love. What you see is but the shadow cast by your own reflection; in itself it is nothing.”(85).That passage from the myth spells out that desire is the ultimate trickster, yet it powerfully compels us to create our own illusions and then to pursue them endlessly.

Lacan:

In a sense it appears as if Lacan is suggesting that by only entering the “Mirror Stage” that a developing child can have its first confrontation with its comprehension of “self” and “I”. By having this encounter the child feels falsely completed upon the realization of its own reflection, and derives pleasure from this discovery of newfound self-awareness. While it is true that stimulation of all the senses is key to a child developing its true sense of desire the idea of self-awareness is a strong combination of previously separate events such as motor manipulation, touch/feeling, and sight. Therefore it is a defining experience. While I do see parallels between Narcissus and Lacan’s theoretical Mirror stage, it is important to point out that this is not a complete theory in my eyes.  Developmental theory is normally concluded with possible negative results of not completing the experience, and while Lacan alludes to those possibly unfortunate end results the theory becomes quite gray in that respect. Both the Mirror Stage and the myth of narcissus illustrate the desire of self-image completion and false fulfillment found outside of ones self.