Post-structuralism: Starting Questions

1. Post-structuralism: Starting Questions • What are the foundations (or centers) in your life? Are they universal foundations? • Is there any eternal Truth? • How do you describe your “self”? • Is it always possible to find out thecentral meaning, or unity, of the literary texts we read? On what grounds can we compare 阿甘正傳 with The Age of Innocence, 人間四月天 with 很愛很愛你?

2. Post-Structuralism & Postmodern Texts Post-StructuralismDefined &Marxismvs. Post-Structuralism Fiction and Reality: Examples 1: context into text, 2: life//story-telling , 3: parody 4. Other kinds of “fiction” Deconstruction 4. Subject and Power

3. Post-Structuralism Defined • What is post-structuralism? • An anti-foundationalist mode of thinking prevalent in the second half of the 20th c. • Foundations: • Reality Representation • Man Subject • Truth; History; God, . . ., any kind of Totalization and Center. Différance and Discourse

4. Poststructuralism: Major Concerns • “Representation” – Re-presentation or realistic presentation is impossible. metafiction – Meanings of a text cannot be fixed; must be un-decidable or multiple. Deconstruction • Textualization of Knowledge, Subject and Society e.g. Foucault – Truth is provisional. – Subjects are fragmentary. – Society is a network of discourses.

5. Economic Base as Society’s Foundation Class as the most important category History of class struggle, or Materialist view of history Society as network Provisionary forming of group/personal identity History is also a narrative. Marxism vs. Post-Structuralism

6. Fiction Reality Belief History Memory Life Identity Fiction and Reality Metafiction: 1. Discuss/expose novelistic elements or frames; 2. Undermining the “Author’s” abilities to control meanings; 3. Parody or patische • Realism in novels, • Historiography, memoir • Absolute truth in • Religion and philosophy • Scientific knowledge • in the world and self

7. Example I: Context (Author & Viewers) astext; the royal couple put insidethe mirror. Las Meninas 1656

8. Example II-1: Tristram Shandy (1759 and 1766) • Life // storytelling—telling story to prolong life • Shandy on digression“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul of reading;--take them out of this book for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them; [...] restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a bridegroom,--bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids appetite to fail.” (95)

9. Example II-2: The French Lieutenant’s Woman • Victorian Author-god vs. postmodern author • “The freedom that allows other freedoms to exist.” • The author is still a god, but no longer omniscient; freedom given through the multiple endings and leaving Sarah unknowable. • Is the author free to create? • Are we/the characters free to choose?

10. Example II-3: Six Characters in Search of an Author • How do we interpret these characters without an author or a script? Why do some characters “live eternally”? Why do they need a producer or an author if the script is in them? • 1. The characters as ideas, and to “materialize” means to find embodiments in performances. • 2. The characters as outcasts, and the script they want is the officially acknowledged/recognized story.

11. Example II-4: “Lost in the Funhouse” as a Kunstlerroman • Two major characters: Ambrose and the narrator – and maybe the two are one? • main actions • visit of the Ocean City on the Independence day during WWII. • Ambrose --frustrated in seeking for his love, ends up staying in the funhouse. • the narrator – trying to tell a good story about it. E.g. p. 1944

12. “Lost in the Funhouse” • chronological sequence of events: In the car – see the Tower – arriving at the Ocean City – boardwalk – invitation of Magda -- Funhouse • The structure of the story: • part I: 1st paragraph (present tense) • part II: chronological • part III: pp. 1939 Ambrose and the narrator lost in the Funhouse • part IV: pp. 1974- entrance • part V: pp. 1949 after exposition; summary of the story and possible endings

13. The story as a Kunstlerroman • Ambrose’ personality: p. 1937, p. 1939 • highly sensitive and shy; not able to express his love; different from the other kids • his detachment 1943; 1948 • his experience in the funhouse 1949 • his becoming a funhouse maker

14. “funhouse” and life • Labyrinth structure caused by narrative intrusions (about italics, names, description, metaphoric description, plot) and confusion of plot-lines • the historical relevance: WW II and independence day pp. 1940; 1944 • possible endings and what they mean

15. Example III Parody and Re-interpretation (1): Daffodils poems • Questions: • What is the poem “The Wordsworths” critical of? Who is the “we” in the poem? • What is/are the target(s) of parody of “The New, Fast, Automatic Daffodils”?

16. Example III Parody and Re-interpretation (2): Icicle Thief (1989) • Questions: • How is the original film, Bicycle Thieves, changed? Why is the focus shifted from the bicycle to the chandelier? • How is the director presented in the film? • How are the two families presented in the film? • What roles do the TV program host and the commercials play in the film?

17. Similarities between the film and its original • Similarities: • unemployment problem • police inefficiency • the priest helpless • the children: one neglected, the other helpful. • Differences: • from the need of means of production to that of luxury items • non-realistic; exposure of filmic frames, denial of the director’s power.

18. Example III: Icicle Thief • Examples of the fictional frames/context Exposed: (Transition: 1. Blackout, 2. Lake, 3. Train, 4. ? ) • Breaking the frames: • A character in the commercial. • Bruno’s seeing the audience boy. • The mother and the son. 4. The Director The audience The TV station The commercials BT Film

19. The Director, Nichetti, in the film • A. caricatured • B. signed the release: treated as a puppet • C. Goes into the film to change the plot: • The plot – father handicapped, mother becomes a whore, and the kid sent to an orphanage. • “In my film, there are no jails, no lawyers.”

20. in the film within the film: Antonio Maria Bruno and the baby outside the film Father --newspaper Mother – food and phone Son – building blocks Daughter –remote control The two families in Icicle Thief The role of the bicycle? And Chandelier? -ridden by the mother, thrown aside, sold -for sports

21. Interruptions of the Commercials • detergent and happy housewives • superman • Big Big • Liquor

22. Example IV-1: Collage and other kinds of “fiction” • Mary Beth Edelson, Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper, 1971.

23. Example IV-2: Collage and other kinds of “fiction” • Marisol, by La Visita, 1964

24. Fiction Narratives (novel, history, life story) Virtual reality cyber space commercial world machines and cyborg Simulation Politics Reality? Bodily/emotional Experience, Memory, Historical Facts, Identity Example IV-3: other kinds of “fiction”