Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, devices (literary resources, images, etc.) that can help develop and inform the major themes on intercultural dialogue.

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Theme 3: Life is about Connectness

Since our birth we are immersed in a world of messages and representations. Different narratives, emerging from oral and written literature, radio, television, film, and the other products of media culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities: our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of “us” and “them.” Michel Foucault explained that individual and social identity is a product of a dialogue between sometimes conflicting voices, for every subject negotiates the divide between me/not me in the process of organizing an identity. Identity is about situating ourselves in reference to others by means of time (narrative) and space (this piece of digital literature shows how “balance” affects us). Representations of time typically take the form of the metaphor of the journey/voyage (progress through life) while space can be represented in three ways: the individual, his/her inmediate community (family), small rural communities (close to the essence of natural environment) or larger urban communities (cities). More recently communities are developing also into “virtual communities“ like our blog, YouTube or Facebook.

Motif 3.1 the Individual and the Metaphor of the journey/voyage in narrative

Awareness of time in its three categories of past, present and future has decisively contributed to human success in the struggle for existence. It has enabled us to draw upon past experience in the present to anticipate future needs (teleology). Thus, from the making of the first stone tools to the complex structure of modern technological civilization, we have sought to improve the standard of living.
Our very memory patterns are shaped by the passing of time, with short term memory transforming itself into long lasting memory, in a process which also discards a lot of unneeded and disconnected information. Spatial metaphors have an important role in this information compressing. Thus, it is not by chance that we perceive our very existence as a spatial metaphor expressed in the figure of a journey/voyage narrative.
Narrative is a literary genre that reveals the passage from an instantaneous temporality (description) to a sequence of independent events constituting a story. Therefore it has a structural temporality which gradually links the different parts into an organized cohesion. Human beings use these narrative patterns to configure and order our temporal representation of the world, that is, the stories of our lives. The journey is, thus, a recurrent structural device, persistent in oral and written narratives in all cultures and virtually all theologies. The biblical myth of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise is a journey narrative, where a theological idea, man’s fall from God’s grace, appears in terms of spatial movement. Spiritual connotations of place and movement appear variously throughout the Bible contributing to form the history of humanity on a nomad basis. The Jewish and later Christian conception of historical-theological time is not only the very foundation of most western narratives, but of western metaphysics, as Heidegger, Derrida, Kristeva, among others, have pointed out.
These patterns of journey narratives are also found in the classical tradition, with Homer’s Odyssey and other quests demonstrating the usefulness of journey motifs conveying non-spatial experiences.The hero’s descent into the underworld became a regular feature of “night journey narratives”, symbolizing the hero’s spiritual experience (from Dante’s Divine Comedy, Joseph Conrad’s culture shock in Heart of Darkness to modern works like Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’ s To the Lighthouse, to modern visions of Apocalypse, Inferno and futurist quests). The greatest quest in the history of British literature is the story of Arthur and his knights in search of the Holy Grail. You can find the original text at Georgetown’s impressive website, here read by Sean Bean.
The journey can be used as a metaphor for the passage of time or for penetration into different levels of consciousness.It symbolizes mankind’s efforts toward intellectual and moral and religious goals, and even the search for meaning itself. The following BBC video explains the relevance of John Bunyan‘s allegory Pilgrim’s Progress in the development of the British novel. It’s a Puritan journey narrative.
In some journey narratives, it is the journey itself, the endless process of traveling that matters, not the goal for it may mean ongoing life and future possibility (see Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. Other journeys, like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or Dante’s Divine Comedy mentioned above, are night journeys or journeys into Hades. The earlier version of night journey in Western culture can be found in Plato. The association of the west (sunset) with death (east=dawn=birth) is a major source of directional ambiguity. In American literature, the journey west may symbolize quest and progress (i.e frontier narratives), although in the 20th-century this positive association dissapears and the US political and economic climate makes intellectuals (Henry James, Hemingway, etc.) look towards the east, that is Europe. Steinbeck‘s novel East of Eden , set in California (the extreme eastern territory in the US and locus of the American dream for climatic reasons and economic ones -gold rush), the novel illustrates the end of the American dream.  In European Modernism, James Joyce’s The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ends with Stephen’s intention to travel eastward towards Europe. In other cultures the corresponding West/East values of the European and American traditions may be oriented to the North and South instead, as it is the case in some Semitic cultures. Walter Scott’s narratives, Waverly, The Heart of Middlothian, etc., also have a North-South orientation, as the hero or heroine travels from or towards Scotland in search of his/her identity. In Borges‘s The Inmortal or in the recent New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster, wandering parallels a detective investigation on the nature of identity.
We can experience the passing of time in two ways: one is to contemplate it as an external absolute entity flowing away from us while we stay fixed. In the second model we experience ourselves as changing phenomena, a situation that requires a higher level of abstraction, producing relative perceptions of time sometimes called subjective: time stretching or contracting, elastic time, etc. These dual perceptions of inner and outer dimensions make possible the existence of bergsonian “inward journeys” or processes of introspection, the object of much modernist experimentation (Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, etc). Thus, the journey can become a quest for identity, whether individual or socio-cultural (as in historical narratives). Journeys are also pathways to exotic adventure and discovery (Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers’ Travels or they can become traps (labyrinth) where orientation is difficult and the way out is a quest in which one needs to solve the “enigma“, that is, find the “connection” among the disconnections.
Reflect briefly on what the presence of the see voyage means in the first two English novels, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels? Compare to other books you are reading (i.e. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, etc.)

Below comment suggestions and image by Leticia H. sends (Dec. 13 2007) on the poem Ithaka by K.Kavafis

In the poem Ithaka, Kavafis emphasizes the value of the individual experience. According to him, Poseidon, the savages and the Cyclops do not really exist or, if they do, they only exist in the mind of each one. Ithaka itself is simply an excuse for a long journey. Its the journey itself what really matters, what you are going to learn on it. There is no hurry and you do not have to worry if you get lost because there is no destination.    This also connects with The Odyssey, one of my favourite books. The Odyssey is also a poem about  a journey with  two roads (a beginning and the road back) What it is important in the Odyssey is not to get back home but the experiencies during the journey. It is also a call to adventure in many ways (for example the Telemaquia) I think that the importance of The Odyssey is because it is a mix of adventure, feelings, real life, other worlds, mythology (tradition) which is what unites everybody. That is what makes it universal. (as in Ulysses by Joyce) This can also be CONNECTED to Robinson Crusoe in the way that Robinson escapes from his country just  seeking for ADVENTURE and it is this adventure and the time what will make it wiser, what will make him know himself (as in the Odyssey) and know the others. It can also be connected since Robinson Cruse may be understood   as a nationalist poem, as the Odyssey, the Iliad  and The Aeneid.  Also may be connnected because of narrative techniques  (in media res-flash-back) It is alsro related to Don Quixote, in  Spanish literature, in the sense of adventure and  narrative techniques. In Gulliver’s Travel  is not important to get home, as for K.Kavafis, but to learn from the journey. Even Gulliver is almost decided to continue living forever with the horses because of their society  which is utopic (as some societies in The Oddisey and as the world Robinson builds around him)

Motif 3.2: The Individual in Nature: the Ideal Garden

Time and space are essential human dimensions. We have seen how time, being an abstract concept, it’s generally represented in terms of space using the metaphor of the journey or voyage. Other important spaces are rural and natural environments (the country), our immediate communities and cities. Different periods yield different representations of the country and the city. Myths of Paradise have always been linked to the idea of the return to the idyllic garden, closely attached to nature. The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden stages the problem of human desire in two ways: 1) on the one hand desire of knowledge (Adam and Eve are not allowed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil 2) on the other desire is linked to pleasure and sex. Michel Foucault speaks about the difference between pleasure and desire.
In Britain, the Romantic Movement, a reaction to growing industralization and urban growth, took poets and intellectuals to the Lake District for long periods of time. Their artistic works are closely connected to the relationship between nature and the artist/creator (i.e Wordsworth‘s “Daffodils“) as a kind of god (i.e Keats‘ “Hyperion“). The artist, “prophet of imagination” as Blake called him, was supposed to create out of instincts, desires etc.,  arising from his own unconscious, imagination and contact with nature. Technology and science (taking place in the cities) yielded only creations that went wrong, monsters. Gothic literature, a genre that became very popular during this period, often pictures this criticism of science and technology, frequently attached to urban growth. In the following video Paul Levinson’s talks about Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein and the development of Science Fiction: You can find a feminist postmodern hypertextual reflection on Mary Shelley story in Patchwork Girl. Nature has also been closely associated with feminine issues, particularly maternity, as women were defined as space: Gaia, that is, the Greek mother earth, from which the first man is created also in the Biblical account. Women have always been seen as receptacle, vessels, etc. (see Neumann 1972). For the romantics, nature becomes a kind of return to their origins, to their essence, a place of shelter for the otherwise tormented existence of the Byronic hero (or rather anti-hero). The romance yielded through the figure of the woman is here a kind of salvation from corrupting social forces (think of Zorrilla’s Don Juan being saved by Dña. Inés; think also of medieval romances where the knight is saved by, in this case, not the presence but the remembrance of his lady). This is also the case of Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre. In Emily Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights the lack of female support causes the downfall of the hero; her daughter Cathy is given another chance. The influence of the natural environment (their native Yorkshire) is very important in the Bronte’s sisters narratives, that present naturalistic techniques that associate the state of mind of the protagonists with natural elements (the wind, the moors, etc.).
Think about the Romantic elements in both of these novels and prepare to discuss the role of women in them, particularly in relation to the following motif: family plots.

Motif 3.3: Immediate Communities: Family Plots

In her 2004 book Novel Revelations: The Transformation of Kingship in English Literature and Culture 1748-1818, Ruth Perry discusses work by authors in the period in relation to family ties. For instance, both Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver Travels begin presenting the heroes in relation to their fathers and elder brothers (primogeniture was in close relationship to future work prospects- the eldest son usually inherited his father’s trade- and economic issues). In this context, mothers do not exist. Early novels about women, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded present similar issues. It is in Jane Austen‘s novels, however, when the family plot becomes the central motif. The lack of female authority meant not only the dispersion of communities (Richardson’s epistolar novel is an example of the difficult situations which originated in unwanted illegitimate heirs arising from relationships between masters and maids) and the growing power of individualism (on this topic see I. Watt), exemplified in Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders but also changes in property laws and marriage settlements that affected women directly, leaving sisters and daughters economically unprovided. Smaller communities are the object of Jane Austen’s narratives during the Regency Period. In her novels ,Austen attempts to strike a balance between reason and intuition, between sense and sensibility. The heroines generally represent the rational mind while her heroes are typically romantic. Inheritance issues drive most of Jane Austen‘s plots and subplots, and because women’s virginity was  increasingly commodified (as in Pamela)  for the marriage market and issues of romantic love left aside, Austen tried to show how love, both between parents, daughters and brothers, and also between husband-and-wife to be, was equally important. Filial relations between siblings and between children and their parents are just as important as romantic relations between unmarried men and women. In fact, in Victorian (Dickens) and late-Victorian (George Eliot) novels the reunion of long-lost fathers and daughters, for instance, or the intense relation of brother and sister are especially affecting. Perry claims that this trend, further emphasized in Modernism (see Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse) might indicate that the “marriage plot” as seen its day in an age of redefined families and relationships (we must remember Woolf’s own bisexual inclinations).
What is your opinion? A very interesting transversal topic of study and discussion is the relevance of the marriage and family plots in novels (and remember that the novel is a genre addressed to the middle classes and very frequently to women -on this see I. Watts). Think of Austen’s influence on The Diary of Bridget Jones. How have things changed??
Family plots remain central in Dickens’s novels, often presenting orphans such as Little Dorrit, Pip or Oliver, seeking a family to belong to.

Comment by Leticia H. on 3.3 Family plots (Dec 23 2007) I think it is true that we can’t notice any family plot in Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver’s Travels. In these last ones we can find the importance of society (in Robinson Crusoe because of the lack of society and necessity of creating a new one). I am not quite sure if Fielding, before Shelley and Austen, was able to mix society and family plots (very well done, by the way) . In Tom Jones, for example, the female role is much more important than in Gulliver’s Travels and we can also  distinguish  the two kinds of women that we have seen in class, though not very clearly (Moll Flanders =Molly Seagrim the prostitute ; Sophie = as in Pride and Prejudice). Fielding plays with the idea of destiny, travel, adventure, city space/country, heroes/antiheroes, perfect romantic women/protitutes, the army (which he criticises), etc. Tom Jones is an excellent novel although difficult to read & long. I also consider that we can see the importance of family plot in Frankenstein where we can notice a special relation between “brothers and sisters” (the main character marries his “sister”). In Jane Austen, family plots are obvious. The relationship between Lizzy and Jane is almost the most important thing for both of them. Another group would be the little sisters; yet another, Darcy and his sister (who are really close). Austen’s sister Cassandra was her best friend, as Lizzy with her eldest sister (see biography). Dicken’s novels are frequently developed in orphanages and they usually are about abandoned children. In many cases, they resemble Frankenstein, with the topic of lack of love and sensibility. Most of them grow up trying to survive in the streets by stealing and without receiving any education (Oliver Twist or Pip). However, at the end of these novels, for some reason or another, the protagonists become luckily rich. To be honest, I didn’t like at all Jane Austen’s novel: 1) Firstly, because it was less entertaining than Robinson and Gulliver’s Travels and even Tom Jones. These two novels are not just “any novel”. They are two of the most entertaining and best novels ever written (at least in my opinion). 2) Secondly, because it was harder to read. 3) Finally, because I didn’t like the atmosphere of  this novel and the excesive retoric to express it: it was too persistant on the same topic: marriage. I know the writer wanted that the reader of this kind of novel (mostly women) felt reflected in the characters. I also know marriage was an important topic for that society and a necessity for the parents, but it feels like an obsession (maybe because we don’t have this necessity nowadays, in the western world, at least). However in Bridget Jones’ Diary, she is really worried about marriage, maybe because she’s completly alone and she’s getting older. In general, the way women lead their lives nowadays cannot be compared with two centuries ago, because nowadays it is so different. It is also true that today many people consider important one factor: money. The theory was (and still is) “if man is not handsome but has money (Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice) it doesn’matter. In fact, Lizzy’s best friend marries Collins because she has no money, her parents can’t keep her and she’s getting older doesn’t want to be alone (similar to Bridget Jones). I guess it’s not by chance that the role of Darcy (in Bridget Jone Diarys) and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice is almost the same. He’s the serious man who falls in love and because of Bridget (Elizabeth)’s prejudice the relationship is not possible until his real good nature is discovered. In my opinion it would have been original and “relaxing” if Jane Austen had introduced the character of the brother in the Bennet’s family because this way we could have noticed the difference in treatment between women and men, brothers and sisters, the trouble of inheritance and marriage (not only with women) as well as how this man could have been  grown up…In Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein we can see how the Romantic Period was and the importance of women and heroes during it. Smart and nostalic heroes such as Darcy and romantic women in love (e.g Goethe’s Werther) When reading a story from the Romantic period, I cannot help thinking about a Millais’ Picture: Ophelia. It is about a romantic woman who commits suicide by drowning because of her unsatisfied love. The natural background is very evocative: the idea of the relationship between life, death and nature. Millais just kept loyal to the Shakespearre’s allegory (the Romantics loved the past because it was better (“those were the days…”) Maybe, the Romantics like the Nature because it is something that changes constantly but always remains… maybe my interpretation is wrong. This topic is easily related to the natural places and the idea of the ideal garden. In the Romantic period, the ideal of the perfect garden was a little different: Romantic gardens were wild, messy, melancholic, inspirating. There were no straight lines anymore as in the Neoclasicism but curves, little hills and waterfalls, streams, little animals, etc. In Madrid we can visit a couple of Romantic Gardens: La Alameda de Osuna and El Campo del Moro. In contrast , in Aranjuez, we can find a Renaissance garden, El Jardín de la Isla, but also, next to it, a big Romantic Garden: El jardín del Principe. Many artists found inspiration in places like these (Rusiñol). And even in the last century, a musician as Joaquin Rodrigo found inspiration in the royal gardens of Aranjuez to compose “El Concierto de Aranjuez”, internationally known (I think you’ve already noticed I am from Aranjuez, haven’t you?) You can YouTube it here.

Romanticism was broken by the Scientific Revolution which brought industrialization, capitalism, technology, comunications and in the end, world wars. The railway (transportation) symbolized the machine revolution. However, for me, it is a very romantic image to see how the machine breaks the charming of the Nature. Tha means the man is upper Nature. We can even control it. Man is dehumanizing himself. E.g. David Lynch’s film: Elephant’s man or Shelley’s Frankenstein). Lack of love creates monsters. Man is becoming more materialist, individualist economically and mentally (not with the feeling of loneliness as Romantics). Man works now for himself, to survive, he becomes the centre of the world. God is definitely dead (Nietzsche) in countries like England. The growth of the industrial field brings people to the city and so it becomes bigger (The City Space). Many people go to bigger cities to seek success but with the avalanche of people, the result is prostitution, alcohol, poverty, pollution selfishness (as in Moll Flanders), work becomes slavery more than ever for machine’s workers who don’t know if we work to live or if we live to work.In fact, there were some movements against the machine (Ludism). We can draw the following “connections” with some of the motifs treated below: Individual (= nature??) vs machine (technology). Workers blamed machines & technology for their difficult lives (machine=monster). But, since man is the creator of machines: The individual vs him/herSelf.  Plauto’s aforism: ‘Homo homini lupus’ (Plauto said it  2200 years ago) “el lobo es el hombre para el hombre”. Two centuries ago the development of science gave Frankenstein as a result (lack of love). Nowadays, science continues to monster + cure. Science is needed for the development of humanity but, at the same time,  its moral and ethical control escapes us.

Motif 3.4: Other Communities

Is YouTube a community? Response to “Is YouTube a community’” by Mike Skullman, a young Canadian anthropologist (one doesn’t know whether to believe him or not) who participates in the YouTube Community with over 80 videos!!! He defines his stuff as “strange and funny. Obscure and informative. Thought provoking. Controversial. A slice of life.” In some videos one doesn’t know if one is dealing with the “real” Mike or not. One wonders who is this guy really? One of the differences between Online communities is this: in the absence of real time visual contact one can disguise, one can take on different avatars (you can find some here and there; you can use a different avatar depending on your mood). A blog is an Online community.

Motif 3.5: The City Space

Ancient Western civilizations include the garden and the city as important loci. In ancient times cities were settlements of significant size. The first cities were located in Mesopotamia, such as the Biblical cities of Babylon and Ur, and in Egypt along the Nile and also the Indus Valley and China. They were highly developed in many ways; for instance they were first to use urban planning, municipal governments, urban sanitation and sewege systems, drainage, etc. The unification of cities under a common leader often lead to the expansion of empires. Thus, the ancient Greek province of Macedonia, where Alexander the Great was born, became the key to the expansion of the Hellenic Empire, defeating other empires such as Persia. The most important Greek polis were Sparta and Athens. The Greeks also conquered the city of Troy (Turkey) . Homer‘s Iliad is the most famous narrative of Achilles’ deeds in the Trojan War.
At times of uncontrolled urban growth the country appears as an escape to the corruption of city life. In certain novels the city environment is associated to vice and prostitution (i.e. Victorian narrative).
Compare Defoe’s story Moll Flanders to the following sequence of paintings by William Hogarth. Observe and comment on the portrait of London as a city of increasing financial power and materialist spectacle in the 18th-century.

Prostitution reached its peak during the industrialization in the Victorian Era. Lack of effective contraceptive measures, together with unhappy economically driven marriages was the cause that led many married women to avoid sex, often blaming their religious beliefs. Prostitution was encouraged by men seeking pleasures their wives denied them, together with an enormous flow of unskilled workers that, coming from the country, invaded the cities to become an underclass, sometimes referred to as the “sunken people” which lived in absolute poverty, finding no other way out to survive than crime.  In his novels Dickens offers a sentimentalized, romantic portrait of these “fallen women” who either repented or died (i.e. Oliver Twist; for more information see M. Mason 1995). These video gives more information on the appalling conditions of workers (so called “hands”) during the Industrial Revolution.  An era of clocks and machines, deshumanization and precarious working and living conditions gave rise to the Marxist Revolution at the end of the century

The City of London in Literature. Download doc. Londres-la metropolis vista desde las artes

Theme 4: Disconnections

Life is about connectness. But life is also about paradox. In the movement of life (life is a journey/voyage) there are moments of connection and of disconnection. We may connect with our own self, with other individuals, with the natural environment, with our social networks and institutions. But at times we might also disconnect (we might disagree with others, we might like to show our own individuality, we might loose touch with what appear to be an “essential” natural connection when we realize that technology mediates some of these connections). These are the Conflict Narratives of our lives. Think about this and try to complete the following chart: Conflict Boookmarks

Disconnections happen as the movement of life goes on. They necessary in order for us to adapt to new conditions and changes in our lives. New connections are negotiated/mediated and produced from disconnections. It is not surprising that narrative plots generally arise from “conflict” and its resolution. The earliest accounts (narratives) of the origin of the world are related to the notion of conflict: think of Hesiod’s Theogony and Zoroastrianism.

The following are the different lines of “conflict” or disconnection.

Motif 4.1: The individual vs him/herSelf

Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man implied the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, to the universe as a whole. The Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and God. It is not surprising that it was a period of religious turmoil (Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on humanist textual criticism of the New Testament). Let’s not forget that the upheavals occurring in the arts and humanities were mirrored by a dynamic period of change in the sciences. Some have seen this flurry of activity as a “scientific revolution,” heralding the beginning of the modern age. This revolutionary new way of learning about the world focused on empirical evidence, the importance of mathematics, and discarding the Aristotelian “final cause” in favor of a mechanical philosophy. Early and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus and Galileo.Well obviously because everything is “connected”.
Important: the Renaissance places Man (not God) at the center of the world (see Da Vinci’s portrait). It is man’s textual reading that matters in religion; it is man’s observation based on experiments and (emperical evidence) that matters in science (God=the final cause is no longer important). In Copernicus and Galileo’s models the earth turns around the sun (in the Biblical account the earth is the center of a world creating on the image of God; Renaissance cosmology possed a direct challenge to religion; In 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church‘s Congregation of the Index suspended De Revolutionibus until it could be “corrected”, on the grounds that the Pythagorean doctrine that the Earth revolved about an immobile Sun was “false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture”.

The individual self, that is, our ”identity” is a combination of factors: biological (ethnicity, gender, age) and cultural (values, believes, goals etc.) see graphic in http://interculturalobservatory.wordpress.com/mindmaps/ Identity is thus contextual since it depends on cultural factors (space: community, nation) and time (the passing of our lives -journey/voyage narrative). Heidegger termed this “dasein” (being in a particular “da” that is, place). He also added that identity was constituted by language, that is, by the way we speak about ourselves (since the relationship between our memory patterns and our knowledge of the world takes narrative forms). What is happening to humanity when the human placed at the center of the portrait is a monster, as in William Blake’s Red Dragon and the woman clothed in sun (the sun is a phallic symbol just as the large tail)? The greatest monster ever is of course Satan who abandoned God’s society because of his rebellious individualism.  You can give us ideas, links, suggestions, anything you like. You are the CENTER of the blog right now.
Among the most memorable characters in literature are those who fulfil their destinies in the midst of uncomprehending or hostile social environments — the dissenter (remember Defoe was a Presbyterian and thus a dissenter) , the rebel, the pirate, the loner, the saint, the sorcerer, the hero, the villain, the monster, the misfit, the homosexual, the devil.The dramatic conflict in such works is generated by tensions, not so much between two or more individuals as between an individual and social groups. And what gives depth and significance to the conflict is that the individual is not simply good or bad (paradox again), but interacts in complex ways with others of his group, and embodies in his/her rebelliousness hints of some general truth about individualism and society (disconnection and connection).

Motif 4.2: The individual vs his/her creator

Mary Shelley’s story Frankenstein illustrates the theme of disconnections in several ways. The story may appear to critize the bad use of science and technology to create monsters, a topic we can find in subsequent representations (literary, filmic etc.), mainly in Science Fiction (Brave New World, Matrix, etc.) and how these monsters might revolt against their creator. There are several layers to this conflict (or disconnection).

In the story of Western religious thought the first revolution takes place between God (the creator) and Satan (one of his creatures, who falling from Divine Grace, becomes a Fallen Angel; The Talmud declares that there are 7,405,926 demons, divided in 72 companies.  While most people believe that Lucifer and Satan are different names for the same being, not all scholars subscribe to this view). Angels are supernatural beings that, in many religions, acts as guardians of human beings and above all messengers of God, that is, they mediate between God and humans. Other religious figures, such as the Titans in Greek mythology, are also middle figures between the gods and the mortals and in some cases, they were overthrown by the main god, Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus, the depths of the underworld (Greek Hell or Hades), with a few exceptions. Both Greek and Egyptian mythologies, and also Zoroastrianism believed that in the beginning, the universe was filled with the dark waters of chaos (evil), and order (goodness) was the result of a conflict or struggle between originary forces (in the most ancient religions) or beings (in the more recent ones) (moral dualism). This emphasis in “force dynamics” seems to operate transversally in most cosmogonies, thus emphasizing the biological patterns that constitute also cultural change through the internalization of cognitive structures. The notion of conflict (disconnection) appears to be linked also to matters of power. The struggle is always between a superior creative force or being and a minor one (created by or originated in the first), generally above the level of the common mortals, that is, supernatural. The mediator angel or titan usually challenges the power of his creator. In the case of Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, the titan Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. Fire is a symbol for 1) light, that is knowledge, and 2) technology: two sides of the same coin. Both concepts are related to the Satan’s fall (he wanted to be like God) and human fall since God forbid man to eat of the tree of knowledge of good & evil.

Further connections link the question of conflict of power to the notion of authority and thus to the notion of author and by a loopback to the notion of creation. Plato‘s Phaedrus is one of the first sources on the subject. Although ostensibly about the topic of love, the discussion in the dialogue revolves around the art of rhetoric (the art of persuasion), dialectics and writing, the socratic notion of dialogue and dialectics being, in turn, linked, to that of conflict negotiation, that is, connection. In Phaedrus, Socrates tells a brief legend, critically commenting on the gift of writing from the Egyptian god Theuth to King Thamus, who was to disperse Theuth’s gifts to the people of Egypt. After Theuth remarks on his discovery of writing as a remedy (pharmakon) for the memory, Thamus responds that its true effects are likely to be the opposite; it is a remedy for reminding, not remembering, he says, with the appearance but not the reality of wisdom. Future generations will hear much without being properly taught, and will appear wise but not be so, making them difficult to get along with. Thus, pharmakon or writing = memory for memory; but the term also refers to a poison sometimes used as a medical remedy (for instance cannabis can be used for medical use). Pharmakon is also a scapegoat. When used as a metaphor, a scapegoat is someone selected to bear blame for a calamity. Scapegoating is the act of holding a person, group of people, or thing responsible for a multitude of problems. The concept is linked to the idea of sacrifice and collective responsibility, an idea that branches (connects) into many religions.
Thus we can draw the following connections: a) two beings in a power conflict -one is the creator, that is the father, the other is the creature, that is the son; b) the son is created equal to the father but when he challenges his father and tries to claim equal knowledge/technology he is spelled from Paradise (either Heaven in the case of supernatural angels, titans, etc. or the Garden of Eden in the case of mortals who live close to “nature”); c) sometimes the son is a mediator between the superior being (father) and the mortals (Prometheus); d) in any case he is a scapegoat or pharmakon, both the poison (evil) and the remedy (goodness). Please send your comments to the blog as the subject connects in an interdisciplinary way with religion, literature (think of Shopocles‘ Oedipus), literary criticism (Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence), Freud’s psychoanalisis, cognitive linguistics (force dynamics), music (Rem’s “Losing my religion”-lyrics or Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” ; and extreme example is this by Tenacious D -lyrics is here but don’t listen to it if you’re easily offended by vulgar language), etc.
By the way, and where are women in the whole story?? Yes, at the beginning the main fear is that they can “control”, that is, to gain power, through sex (temptation). Thus, they also became pharmakon -simultaneously poison-evil & remedy-goodness-mediators-saints-angels of the house, in any case, whether in the negative (evil) or positive (goodness) connotation, women were granted the burden of moral responsibility. Again, the blog awaits your comments on Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, Dickens‘s angels of the house etc.
The encounter with the evil side of us makes humans 1) warn of the consequences  2)look for someone to blame for it, that is, a scapegoat.

Motif 4.3: The individual vs the other (man vs woman etc.)

An excellent movie that illustrates all the aspects of this problem is Crash (2005). You can watch this trailer in Spanish or this other in English. “It’s the feeling of contact, and we miss it so much that we crash against others to be able to feel the contact/touch”, emblematic quote from the film. Here Black Eyed Peas’ rap “Where is the love” with Spanish subtitles.
Yet another lovely movie on the theme of connections&disconnnections is Amelie (2001), the story of a lonely girl who one day discovers a box & tries to find its owner. In the course of the story she will help a lot of people connect with themselves (put together the pieces of the puzzle) and to many isolated others. Yann Tiersen’s vals is just wonderful.

4.3.1. Man vs Woman

Connections and disconnections are a love topic par excellance, with oscillations between happiness and misery, time after time. Most serious disconnections take place because of violence and dominance. Domestic violence is a serious problem in Spain. In 2007 more than 60 women died, victims of domestic violence. This is the  video, performing well-known Spanish actresses, musicians and personalities of the Spanish world of art and sports, used by the Institute for Women in its campaign against domestic violence. Those in the Audience Studies  class in Boston might be interested in this and in the comments by Spanish students on this topic
You might like to listen to Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” and join in the interpretation (lyrics here). This song has been described as difficult but, in fact, there are many words that point in the direction of a criticism of the role of masculinity. Allusions to “Johnny”, the slang word used for penis, or “gotta a woman down in the tunnels”, “he’s got the action, he’s got the motion”, “the boy can play”, “power & glory”, “violence and double talk”, and of course the metion of “a knife” which is a phallic symbol. Comments please.

4.3.2. White man vs Black Man

Bob Dylan’s story of Hurricane (subtitled in Spanish & English). Comments please.

4.3.3. Others and their connections & disconnections

ExperienceVision Comments please.

4.3.4. Everybody vs Everybody

Guns & Roses’ version of Bob Dylan’s Knocking on Heavens Door lyrics here.

Motif 4.4. Individual vs Society

Listen to Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” and explain how it relates to the Motif of Man vs Society (and in a certain way to Man vs Nature). Another good example is Pink Floyd’s “Another brick on the wall” (in this case mechanization, fear of losing identity). To the individual, society appears as an immovable body (nature even more so because the time of nature is even longer; remember our basic framework is based on time/space relations, right?). Society exists before the individual comes into it and after he is gone (dead). Society appears to have the power to forge or carve his/her identity when in fact it is the individual himself/herself who forges it in his/her contacts/connections with others –and institutions: family, school, community of friends, society, regional community, nation, the world (remember Locke’s Concerning Human Understanding??)

Motif 4.5. Individual (= nature??) vs machine (technology)

Is nature the real essence of humanity?? Is technology a necessary evil?? Some people might need technology to live better or even survive. Watch the following video on Being an Unperson and relate it to the topics developed by Mary Shelley in Frankestein: a) being uncategorized in the usual structures shared by the mayority (that is being a minority, monster, being an unperson); b) identity; c) technology. The video is very critical with society’s behaviour to what its terms “unpersons”. There are other disconnections such as autism. In this documentary by RTE 1 (Irish TV; notice the nice Irish accent! It’s about the experience of  a man with Asperger Syndrome at Trinity College, Dublin)

Theme 4  Disconnections. Características del Postmodernismo