Can
a movie truly bring about great social change? What was once viewed as pure
entertainment is now used to convey deep messages and emotionally move an audience.
Films like Schindler’s List and Gandhi allow audiences to re-live the
teachings of history while other films spin their own tales in order to express
different thoughts. This medium not only tells tales of history and grandeur,
but also acts as an active social commentary on modern times. This face of
social commentary is especially contorted when it comes from the villain rather
than the hero. In recent films originating from the 90’s, a trend has been emerging
of mysterious villains who are able to manipulate, criticize, and actively
destroy social boundaries. They show the more attractive attributes of being evil
as a form of freedom and try to spread their doctrine violently, ultimately
running up against a hero who fights for society whether it is the police or
even a masked vigilante.
A modern iteration of this villain is the
Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger in the film The Dark Knight. The Joker actively spreads messages of chaos and
anarchy while trying to test Gotham city’s people with moral conundrums and societal
ironies. Mystery surrounds both the character and events in real life. Actor
Heath Ledger was found dead by a drug overdose during the post-production of The Dark Knight, causing rumors that his
suicide was caused by playing such an evil role in the movie. Fellow actors
Morgan Freeman and Christian Bale have actively denied this rumor, but the
thought of a movie character pushing an actor to suicide in real life is very
striking (Celizic, 2008; "Morgan Freeman: Joker Role Didn't Kill Heath
Ledger", 2013) . A more serious crossover of the movies into real life occurred
at the premiere of the sequel to Ledger’s controversial performance, The Dark Knight Rises. In what was
dubbed as the “Aurora 2012 Shooting” by the media, a gunman named James Holmes
shot and killed 12 people while injuring 70 as well in a theater in Aurora,
Colorado. What made this tragic event even more scary was that the shooter dyed
his hair orange as a “homage to Batman’s Joker” and was initially reported to
be calling himself “The Joker” when arrested although this was later retracted
by the police (Pelisek, 2013; July 22: Tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, 2012). This
act of violence inspired by the movies and a controversial character has once
again sparked the debate of copycat crimes and such antagonists who may
influence real-life crimes. Despite this, movies are trying to emulate the
award-winning performance of Ledger’s Joker rather than avoiding the chaos it
brought off set. Movie villains like Raoul Silva from Skyfall, The Mandarin from Iron
Man 3, and Benedict Cumberbatch from Star
Trek: Into Darkness are all being compared to Ledger’s Joker as “a villain
with aggressive anti-establishment attitude who likes to discuss the ‘lie’ of
society” (Houvouras, 2013). This trend could spell a new type of villain that
revolutionizes movies and invokes social critique, or inspires more events like
the Aurora 2012 shooting.
ABC News Coverage of the Aftermath concerning the Aurora 2012 shooting (Follow Link to Youtube since video is not able to play on Blogger)
The revolutionary
villain is very well defined after seeing several examples throughout cinema
from the 90’s into the twenty-first century. These examples include Hannibal
Lecter from Silence of the Lambs,
John Doe from the movie Se7en, Tyler
Durden from Fight Club, and the previously
mentioned Joker from The Dark Knight.
These characters are very popular in cinema and are often considered even scarier
for their revolutionary tendencies. They are defined by their socially relevant
rebellion portrayed in each of their movies. Each character dislikes the
current societal order in different ways. For example, Tyler Durden rejects the
current societal “feminization” of men in society. He practically preaches this
doctrine in a speech to the men of the fight club saying:
What Makes a House
a Home?: The Changing State of the American Family through Marcuse,
Danielewski and Ware
By RJ Sepich
Narrative & Technology, Dr.
Johns, Spring 2013
The once-sacred and traditional American household has crumbled. The
statistics about what it means to be an average “family” living in a “house” or “home” in the
United States of America have greatly shifted in recent decades. According to
numbers from the United States census bureau, the average number of children an
American woman gives birth to in her lifetime has been cut in half since the
1950s, dropping from almost four kids per women to just less than two children
per women currently. Even more telling about the trend of domesticated America
are the numbers regarding the composition of families. In 1950, about
ninety-three percent of families with children under the age of eighteen were
taken care of by married couples. But over recent decades, that number has
slowly but surely plummeted, and in 2010 roughly only sixty-eight percent of
kids lived under roofs with married-couple parents. Households run by single mothers and single fathers
now make up the difference that has developed, with statistics showing that the
single mother raising her children is much more common than the single father
raising his.
German philosopher
Herbert Marcuse noticed this shifting attitude that was already leading to a
different household atmosphere when he wrote his book One-Dimensional Man in
1964. “It has often been noted that advanced industrial civilization operates
with a greater degree of sexual freedom,” Marcuse explained before discussing
how the marketability of sexualized businessmen and businesswomen permeated the
American lifestyle of the 1960s, which led to more sexuality throughout culture
and, in turn, less privacy and stability at home. “The corrosion of privacy in
massive apartment houses and suburban homes breaks the barrier which formerly
separated the individual from the public existence and exposes more easily the
attractive qualities of other wives and other husbands” (Marcuse Chapter 3). As Marcuse pointed out almost 40
years ago, husbands and wives are not afraid to express their sexuality and
personalities in public like they were back in the 1950s and further back in
time, and the numbers validate his observation of a definitely changing landscape
with regards to the “family” and “the home” in American culture. As a result of
this constantly expanding sexuality and numerous other factors, it’s pretty
well known that about fifty percent of marriages in this country culminate in
divorce, and when the former husband and wife produce offspring together,
oftentimes the children are the ones affected the most by the divorce. But what
does this really say about America?
Why is it important? Well, it is important to me because I am one of the increasing
number of kids who grew up with divorced parents, living with one parent for a
few days at a time and then living with the other parent for another couple
days before repeating the endless cycle. (At least I wasn’t one of the kids
completely shut off from one of his or her parents.) It matters because millions
of American children are growing up with two homes and two families, which actually means they don’t really have
anywhere to call “home”. And it matters because if the trend continues at its alarmingly
swelling pace for another couple decades, eventually there will be no traditional
homes as we knew them, no traditional families as we knew them, and no economic
or social stability in our once-great country. The destruction of the trademark
American family that used to lay the groundwork for our nation’s future but now
has become borderline nonexistent is finally beginning to become an issue
discussed more and more throughout media and literature, and two of the best
modern storytellers, Mark Z. Danielewski and Chris Ware, both referenced and
rhetorically commented on the deteriorating American home in their recent
works.
Although Danielewski’s book House of Leaves and Ware’s graphic
novel Jimmy Corrigan differ significantly in the amount of
traditional writing used to tell each respective story, both books frequently
utilize complex visual elements that delve into this growing national problem.
One of the main themes in both of Danielewski’s and Ware’s comprehensive and
brilliant works is the abstract concept of what exactly defines a “house”. Danielewski always
writes the word in blue to further emphasize its importance—and he even uses it
in the title of his book—while Ware’s work with the complicated idea deals more
with what exists on a day-to-day basis within the usual house: the family. There is one particular
section in each respective work that I believe presents the reader with a
similar image of a house
gradually deteriorating into nothing.
Beginning on page 119 of House of Leaves,
Danielewski introduces a seemingly random blue box on the page that is filled
with a list of items used in the construction of a house. Considering his use of blue when typing
the word “house”
throughout the book, it is fair to say that this blue box should be viewed as a
emblematic representation of a home, especially given the lengthy written list
within it that includes just about everything that could ever be used to add to
the foundation of a house.
For the next twenty pages, the “house”
remains filled with this ridiculously long list of objects. During this time,
the “house” is always
safely protected by a slightly changing, but fairly consistent block of text
surrounding it. But on page 141, Danielewski’s “house” suddenly begins to deteriorate. Only
about half of the blue box is filled with text, and even the block of words
around it isn’t as stable. However, the main passage of words on the page near
the box, which is quoted from a 1990 New
York Times article by Andy Grundberg about photography, hugely represents Mark
Z. Danielewski’s view of the “house”
in a very indirect form:
“In the future, readers of newspapers and magazines will
probably view news pictures more as illustrations than as reportage, since they
will be well aware that they can no longer distinguish between a genuine image
and one that has been manipulated. Even if news photographers and editors
resist the temptations of electronic manipulation, as they are likely to do,
the credibility of all reproduced images will be diminished by a climate of
reduced expectations. In short, photographs will not seem as real as they once
did” (Danielewski 141).
Danielewski
creates fake sources for a lot of his footnoted information in House of Leaves, but this is not one of those instances,
and I believe that this fact is vitally important to notice at this particular
moment of the book. What is also imperative to notice is that beyond writing
about photography and art, Andy Grundberg also wrote numerous obituaries for the
New York Times. I don’t believe that
it is a coincidence that on the same page the blue-block “house” begins to deteriorate,
Danielewski quotes a real-life obituary journalist from one of the planet’s
most recognizable newspapers. The message of this crucial page is very clear to
me: Grundberg’s rumination about the future of newspaper photography stands as
a metaphor for the decline of the American home. Seemingly perfect households no longer get
the benefit of the doubt in this country as less and less homes abide by social
norms; everyone always views happy families with skepticism, knowing there must
be some dirt or gossip just waiting to be uncovered. Essentially, page 141 of House of Leaves hints at Danielewski’s belief that the
American house is not
as real as it once was; it has transformed into a photograph constantly being
photoshopped.
This belief exposes itself further in the ensuing pages of
the book. Flipping House of Leaves to page
143, the blue box is now all of a sudden completely empty with no protective chunk
of writing surrounding it. Flipping again to page 145, and the box is gone
altogether, replaced by white space surrounded by some new text. On page 147,
some text begins to fill in the area where the blue box originally was, but
there are no remaining remnants of the box shape. Flip over to page 149, and
there are more words where the box used to be just a few pages ago. And by the
end of chapter nine on page 151, the entire area where the box stood is filled
with a block of text, which perhaps could be understood to be a new box-like
figure beginning to form in its place as a replacement.
Danielewski’s interpretation of what the “house” truly means in
modern American culture can be extracted from this brief section of an
incredibly dense book, and, as Natalie Hamilton points out in her scholarly
journal article “The A-Mazing House:
The Labyrinth as Theme and Form in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves”, by later ending
the story with its two main characters—Navidson and Karen—escaping the haunted house that seems hell-bent
on killing them together, “the novel implies that their love for each other
brings them safely out of their individual labyrinths” (Hamilton 7). With his
negative opinion about the ongoing destruction of the house in society declared
earlier in the novel in the passage I just pointed out, here we have a moment
where Danielewski suggests with positive insinuations that love can indeed
repair or escape any broken household,
even when it is stretched well beyond its limits (pun intended).
A similar extremely visual series occurs early in Chris Ware’s Jimmy
Corrigan. All on the same page at the beginning of the graphic novel
about a protagonist with a problematic relationship with his sketchy father,
Ware creates four main panels of the same place at different moments in time.
In the top left, the panel is sideways with a nice new house in the late winter/early spring,
presumably waiting for a family to begin living in it. In the top right panel,
the house is right-side-up
in the summer with two cars out front, showing that a family now lives there,
with the nice weather suggesting that the family is likely happy and
comfortable. Over time though, as the panel in the bottom left depicts, the house begins to show age and
only one car is parked outside in the fall, representing a diminishing of the
family living there. And in the bottom right panel of the page, the house is suddenly gone
completely in the winter, leaving behind only the tree that stood beside it for
so many years to show that this is indeed the same area where the house stood. A small red
bird, which appears throughout the graphic novel, is in the middle two frames,
representing a significant change in time and letting readers know that the house didn’t just dissolve in
thin air over night, but instead it eroded over a period of years (Ware).
Matt Godbey, an English professor at the University of Kentucky, noticed
several of these moments where Ware pays great attention to detail when drawing
several pictures of buildings over time throughout Jimmy Corrigan, and Godbey believes that, “Ware thus offers a new perspective
on the dwellings where we live and, more importantly, shows their importance in
preserving the social and public life of our cities”, suggesting that Ware wants
his readers to know that how we take care of our architecture—everything from homes
to business, both figuratively and literally—could determine where we are
headed as a society in the future (Godbey 124).
As I mentioned from the very beginning
of this essay, the styles of these two authors differ greatly in numerous
facets, but their end result reaches a similar ending point. Danielewski gives
a more abstract metaphor of a declining house before offering a sliver of hope, while Ware often shows
a concrete (sometimes literally) representation of an aging building to display
his more pessimistic outlook on homes and families, which could be possibly interpreted
as ending with his main character, Jimmy Corrigan, committing suicide in rather
saddening fashion by jumping off a building with his favorite childhood
superhero, Super Man. But regardless of their separation in methods of attack,
there’s no denying that these two men both want their readers to ponder a
similar question by the time they are finished with the book: What exactly makes
a house a home? And
as Marcuse and these more modern storytellers all reference, it’s glaringly
obvious from the inclination of the statistics and the overall American culture
that keeping a family together just isn’t as valued as it once was many decades
ago. There’s a popular cliché that I’ve heard far too many times in my life that
says “home is where the heart is”, but Marcuse pointed out long ago that the heart
of Americans seems to be so caught up in sexuality, success, politics and
numerous other materialistic and possessive ideals that many people have forgotten
about something that used to be more important than anything else: their home
lives with their family:
“This liberation of sexuality (and of aggressiveness) frees the
instinctual drives from much of the unhappiness and discontent that elucidate
the repressive power of the established universe of satisfaction. To be sure,
there is pervasive unhappiness, and the happy consciousness is shaky enough-a
thin surface over fear, frustration, and disgust. This unhappiness lends itself
easily to political mobilization; without room for conscious development, it
may become the instinctual reservoir for a new fascist way of life and death.
But there are many ways in which the unhappiness beneath the happy
consciousness may be turned into a source of strength and cohesion for the
social order” (Marcuse Chapter 3).
This passage from One-Dimensional
Man can be read numerous different ways. But to me, it seems that Marcuse
approves of the “liberation of sexuality” that he claims allows the mind to
free itself from repression of home life and “the established universe” because
it leads to more political awareness, ensuring that fascist regimes don’t take
over. As he appears to support the twentieth-century trend of increased
sexuality and individualism, despite its obvious downgrading of the priority of
home life, it is important to remember that Marcuse is a Marxist—he is often
referred to as “Father of the New Left”—and that his political and social
beliefs drive this thought process. But his recognition of this transformation
in American society is still very important to notice, even for my argument’s
sake.
In conclusion, I firmly disagree with what Marcuse would argue about the
positives of a world filled with sexuality, extreme amounts of expression and
revolution because of the potential further harm it would cause to an already
increasing amount of American households that
are losing stability and cohesiveness, as referenced throughout House of Leaves and Jimmy Corrigan by Mark Z. Danielewski
and Chris Ware, respectively. It personally saddens
me to think that while people enjoy exclaiming that “home is where the heart is”,
it is becoming increasingly apparent to me and many, many other writers and
journalists that the heart of the American people certainly isn’t at home
anymore. About a half century ago, Herbert Marcuse noticed this worrying (or
not worrying, depending on who you are and what you believe) change in society.
And it certainly remains true today. As Mark Z. Danielewski suggests in the
index of House of Leaves, the blue house appears everywhere,
but the house written
in black DNE.
Does Not Exist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Census
Bureau Homepage." Census Bureau Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr.
2013.
Danielewski,
Mark Z. Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. New York: Pantheon, 2000. Print.
Godbey, Matt.
"Chris Ware's "Building Stories", Gentrification, and the Lives
Of/in Houses." The
Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking. Ed. David M. Ball and
Martha B. Kuhlman. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2010. 121-30. Print.
Hamilton,
Natalie. "The a-mazing house:
the labyrinth as theme and form in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of
Leaves." CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 50.1
(2008): 3+. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Apr.
2013.
Marcuse,
Herbert. One Dimensional Man. London: Sphere, 1968. Print.
Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. New York:
Pantheon, 2000. Print.
Movie Antagonists:
Paper and/or Visual Representation
Overview
I intend to analyze
socially-destructive and idealistic antagonists in film and their impacts on
society. Characters like Hannibal Lecter, John Doe from Se7en, Tyler Durden, and villains from the
Christopher Nolan Batman movies stick with audiences with their social
commentary and manipulation of American culture. They embody either anarchistic
or highly individualistic ideals that show the more appealing side of being
bad. I will specifically examine these characters origin, portrayal, and impact
in both film and reality. Included in this subject are “copycat” crimes that
came from these movies or even crimes that inspired these movies.
Argument
These characters, despite being anarchistic and
individualistic, do not impact society on a large scale. Casting the characters
as villains and having the system triumph over them perpetuates societal
control rather than refutes it. The fact that they are in the medium of movies
also helps reject their message since it is incorporated into the system rather
than outside of it.
Possible Counter-Argument
The trend of using villains to communicate social commentary
is causing acts of terror in an attempt to replicate these antagonists. “Copycat”
crimes such as a bombing of a Starbucks, the Aurora Dark Knight Rises shooting, and other smaller crimes are the result
of these violent portrayals on-screen.
Connection
to Marcuse
I will use Marcuse’s concept of the Great Refusal as well as
the absorption of antagonistic elements into our society in my project. The antagonists
attempt to participate in the Great Refusal and certainly bring up a discussion
on societal issues, but ultimately fail in this respect. These characters are
absorbed into society and used as icons and fads rather than actually inciting
change.
Medium of
Project/ Notes on Project
Here is where I am still deciding how to best present my
project. This project is essentially a broadening of my Tyler Durden analyses
and the Batman movie discussion in class. I am very interested in movies and
have always been interested in these antagonists that really stick with you
rather than just being threatening or crazy for no reason. Heath Ledger’s
portrayal of the Joker seems to have inspired several new and similar
characters in upcoming movies like the second J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie and
even supposed The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. However, it seems like the Aurora
shooting might indicate that this kind of villain portrayal is harmful, so I
want to do a more general analysis to see if this is the case. The first option for this project is to
strictly do the essay portion by writing about these characters in relation to
Marcuse and society in general. This would involve heavily cutting down my
second revision and still my general style of commentary on Tyler Durden to
apply this to more characters and their impacts in the real world. I am also
thinking that a visual presentation might go well with the paper or even
supplement some of it. This would involve either transferring my main points to
a PowerPoint with movie clips in it or splicing together footage of these
villains along with narration overtop by me to be posted on YouTube or simply
submitted for the project. I feel that the medium will become more apparent as
I research but suggestions are welcome.
Initial Bibliography
Fahraeus,
Anna, and Dikmen Yakah. Çamoğlu. "'Wait till They Get a Load of Me!': The
Joker
from Modern to Postmodern Villainous
S/laughter." Villains and Villainy: Embodiments
of Evil in Literature, Popular
Culture and Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011. 71-88. Print.
This source analyzes both Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson’s
portrayal of the Joker. I will use their analysis of how both Joker’s reflect
societal troubles and their criticisms of it in my paper.
DiPaolo,
Marc E. "Terrorist, Technocrat, and Feudal Lord." Heroes of Film,
Comics and American
Culture : Essays on Real and
Fictional Defenders of Home. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland &, 2009. N. pag.
Print.
This source analyzes Nolan’s Batman movies and how their
antagonists are used for social commentary through terrorism to help aid me in
this analysis.
Ling, L. H. M. "The Monster Within: What Fu Manchu and Hannibal
Lecter Can Tell Us about
Terror and Desire in a
Post-9/11 World." Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 12.2 (2004):
377-95. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/positions/v012/12.2ling.html>.
This
source discusses Hannibal Lecter in the context of Orientalism and terrorism in
the 21st century. This will help in showing how the portrayal of
Lecter affects the real world.
Note:
I will also use the sources from my Revision #2 for critique on the character
of Tyler Durden.
Also, another character that frequently came up in preliminary research was the antagonist of A Clockwork Orange. I will watch the movie as soon as possible to see if this is also a viable character to analyze.
Ball, David M., and
Martha B. Kuhlman. The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of
Thinking. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2010. Print.
Freyne, Patrick.
"Chris Ware's Comic-book World." Review. The Irish Times [Dublin]
26 Sept. 2012: n. pag. LexisNexis Academic. 26 Sept. 2012. Web. 15
Apr. 2013.
Hamilton, Natalie.
"The a-mazing house: the labyrinth as theme and form in Mark Z.
Danielewski's House of Leaves." CRITIQUE: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction 50.1 (2008): 3+. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.
Toth,
Josh. "Healing Postmodern America: Plasticity and Renewal in
Danielewski's House of Leaves.” CRITIQUE: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction 54.2 (2013): 3+. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.
2. I
think in this essay, by comparing the houses in both Chris Ware’s Jimmy
Corrigan and Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves and
what it means about their views on what exactly the “home” is, I gave uncover a
better understanding of how these books are related in main ideas despite their
obvious differences. Although some critics might claim that it is a stretch to
compare a graphic novel to a more traditional (although very unique itself)
novel, I hope to prove that discussing similar aspects of these novels can be
beneficial for readers.
3. I
believe that there is quite a bit of information in chapter 3 of Herbert
Marcuse’s book One Dimensional Man that could help drive my
paper’s ideas along. “The corrosion of privacy
in massive apartment houses and suburban homes breaks the barrier which
formerly separated the individual from the public existence and exposes more
easily the attractive qualities of other wives and other husbands,” writes
Marcuse. This is one example of how the existence of the “home” in modern
society has been altered, and Marcuse seems to believe that increased sexuality
and other aspects of society that focus on material goods over core beliefs is
changing the way we live, which could fit perfectly into my paper somewhere.
4. I
plan on keeping most of what I wrote in the first draft because I feel like it
laid the groundwork for a very good longer essay that delves more into the
meaning of what the images of the disappearing houses in Ware’s and
Danielewski’s books mean rather than just descriptions of them. I think the
main purpose of this essay is to expand on what I think is a high-potential
idea with more research and more analysis to see what I can come up with.
Remember, nobody is required to do a graded entry for next week. If you aren't doing a graded entry, don't post! If you are, do post! If you haven't yet done a project proposal, you still need to sent me one, but you can just email one (not to be graded) at your convenience.
Note: The deadline for the final project will not be Thursday - probably it will be Saturday morning, the same as we've done for the revisions.
If you are doing graded work for next week, use the prompts from last week - just do one you didn't do last week.
As
mentioned in my Wednesday blog entry, I found the quote, “marriage of the positive and the
negative-theobjective ambiguity,”
to be very interesting. As I read more of House of Leaves, I also thought that
it applied to the house. The house is many things – it has many hidden rooms
that come and go, it takes away and it gives back, and it is an always changing
between what it is and what it could be.
The house is described as
“collapsing, expanding, tilting, closing, but always in perfect relation to the
mental state of the individual.” This is especially important as Navidson and
the rest of the explorers come to understand the house. At the surface, and as
the house is still mysterious to the crew, the positive (as the house is) view
of the house is a massive and constantly changing entity. It reflects the fact
that they are still exploring the house and don’t know what the house contains
or what it means. Once the Halloway crew reaches the bottom and Navidson comes
in after him, the stairway shrinks and they make it down in much faster than
the other crew. As well as the point made in the book that “Navidson’s rapid
descent reflects his own knowledge that the Spiral Staircase is not bottomless,” I think this reflects the negative view of the
house (the house as it should be). Navidson, Tom, and Reston are on a rescue
mission and they know that they need to find the others soon. The house changes
to meet their mental state and thus the staircase changes from an estimated 13
miles down (and hundreds of feet in diameter) to a mere 5 minute walk and only
about 100 feet down. This all connects back to the objective ambiguity of experiencing
events in different ways based on their knowledge and understanding of the
event.
Karen is another great example
of the objective ambiguity in House of Leaves. At first I was very much
inclined to dislike Karen. She comes across as, one of the many fake references
used in the story describes her as, a “cold bitch, plain and simple.” From the
accounts given in the book, she is depicted as a cheater and impatient and
petty with Navidson. The whole reason that they move to Virginia is because
Karen has offered an ultimatum that Will spend all his time with the family and
not on his job or she would leave. Soon, there is new information about Karen
presented that shows her in a new light. She has a crippling case of
claustrophobia that was brought on, if not from a rape that her sister had
claimed, possibly some other unspeakably horrible event in her childhood. When
Navidson wanted to explore the new hallways, Karen was terrified for him and
asked him not to explore it further for his safety. It showed that she did care
about his welfare and wanted him not to feel any of her fear about the place. Also,
she is shown as forgiving later in the book when she is putting together A
Brief History of Who I Love and finally finds out what Delial means. She tries
to turn her life around to prepare for reconciliation. This objective ambiguity
shows that Karen is a human with both good traits and flaws but is all the more
interesting of a character for not being so one-dimensional.
Sorry
this is late. Found the CD online and wanted to finish listening to it tonight
before I posted.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves relates closely with the album Haunted by rock artist Poe, who happens
to be Danielewski’s sister. Both exhibit long, drawn-out and complex narrative
sequences followed by brief, rapid sections. Both feature similar subject
matter, often referencing haunted things, repression and other creepy topics. But
beyond their obvious similarities on a broader scale—the album serves as the
soundtrack for the book in many ways—there are also instances in both pieces of
art that can help the reader or listener better understand a specific moment in
the other piece. An example of one of these occurrences comes from Poe’s song “5
& ½ Minute Hallway”, which directly discusses the hallway with the same
name in the Navidson house
from Danielewski’s book.
“I live at the end of a 5 and ½ minute
hallway/but as far as I can see, you are still miles from me/in your doorway,”
Poe begins the song. From the very first line of the song, it is clear that Poe
isn’t speaking from the perspective of any of the characters in Danielewski’s
novel who view the hallway cautiously; instead, she is speaking for whatever is
at the end of the hallway, whether it be the hallway itself, the house, or even another force
such as a ghost. Regardless of what Poe specifically is representing, her voice
gives the one unspoken for character in the book a voice: whatever is haunting
the house. When the
Navidson’s first discover the hallway, the family doesn’t understand its
meaning, but it certainly scares them. “The hallway also remains meaningless,
though it is most assuredly not without effect. As Navidson threatens to reenter
it for closer inspection, Karen reiterates her previous plea and injunction
with a sharp and abrupt rise in pitch. The ensuing tension is more than
temporary” (House of Leaves 60). I envision the beginning
of Poe’s song to be in this moment, with the Navidson’s looking down the
hallway nervously and Poe’s voice representing the hallway looking back and
giving the family a warning.
Later in the song, Poe sings “5
more minutes and I’ll be there/inside your door/but there’s more to this
story/than I have exposed/there are words made of letters/unwritten.” This
passage increases the eerie factor to the voice of the hallway. The first two lines
imply that whatever is at the end of the hallway could enter the Navidson’s house in a matter of minutes,
and then it acknowledges that it doesn’t have much of a voice in the novel by
stating that “there’s more to this story than I have exposed.” The rhythm of
the song in these lines further adds to its creepiness, as it is one of the
slower moments in the entire album and resembles a ghost moaning with a fading
voice at times.
By creating the character of the
hallway and giving readers and listeners some insight into what is haunting the
hallway feels and thinks, Poe’s song adds another level of depth to her brother’s
already layered book. The house
finally has a voice, and it is just as creepy as most fans of House of Leaves would’ve imagined it.
Since
the beginning of the semester when the class was first informed about the final
projects, I’ve had a story in my head. As soon as we were told that our final
projects could be creative, but needed to somehow reflect the views of the
class as a whole, it began to form. It has literally just been squatting in my
imagination since day one. Now is the chance for it to finally leave my psyche.
To
summarize, in the far future humans will be encased in metal for their protection,
like robots (or Cybermen). In this world there is a girl who becomes curious
about the way things used to be, slowing becoming more and more disconnected
from the world in which she was born into. It is not fully developed in my
brain. I was fearful that something might get in the way of it actually coming
out, whether it was a new final project format or just a new, easier idea from
me. But luckily neither of those things happened.
Much
of what has been discussed in class comes off as an “outside looking in”
perspective on technology (with the exception of Neuromancer and possibly Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) But in this story I want to try and
capture an “inside looking out” view. I want to argue that technology is not
necessarily a bad thing, but that it is not quite enough. For instance, I
personally do not see technology as a bad thing, and tend to embrace it’s
growing position in our every day lives. That being said, I would prefer to
make friends face-to-face, not face-to-screen. I would prefer to give someone a
hug or a handshake than text them a winky face emoticon. I’m glad to have
technology in my life, but it is not the only thing I want in my life. I’m
hoping to write a story that shows this perspective. The girl in this story is not
Frankenstein’s monster, or an android that needs to be retired. She’s
essentially me with a hard exoskeleton.
Writing
this will be hard. I understand that writing a creative essay is going to take
a lot more work, and willpower to complete than a traditional essay would
require. I’m not exactly tackling this project because I feel like I would do
better on it than if I went the less creative route. I just really need to
write this story, and I need some sort of pressure to do it, because on my own
I just get too distracted. I know it is not the easy way to go, but I think for
me it will be a more honest way. I could churn out a decent essay exploring the
literature and themes addressed over the course of the semester, but then it
would just be another essay I need to do. But with the story, it can be a bit
more than that.
