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").