Assignment
Lecture 6 Albert Camus
“The Guest”
Albert Camus
Camus was born in Algeria which was under French rule at the time, but he was not himself Algerian
He lived most of his adult life in France
He was an intellectual
One of the principle proponents of Existential philosophy
Some have called him an absurdist
The historical facts of French colonialism in Algeria play a role in understanding the “The Guest”
The setting becomes an integral part of the meaning of the story. Camus carefully describes the landscape and turns it into a character in the story.
setting
Your text is pretty good on setting, which is a somewhat straightforward element of stories—so, read that section. But, I want to emphasize one point about setting: It is easy to say that setting is the where and when of a story. But, there is some nuance there: a story that takes place in New York City in 2018 could potentially take place in very different milieus (which incorporates the idea of surroundings or circumstances). For example (staying with NYC), a story could take place today, which would focus on the residents of a Park Avenue penthouse, or among the poor in the South Bronx. Those are not quite the same settings, even though they are.
Camus’s philosophical background also plays a role
Existentialism-
Existentialism is not really an organized philosophy
One of its central tenets is that individuals are responsible for giving meaning their lives—in the face of the overwhelming meaninglessness of existence.
Camus-
described himself more often as an absurdist,
which incorporates this tenet, but adds: “the efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail.”
Thus according to absurdism we need to give our lives meaning...all the while knowing there is no inherent meaning in the world, and we will ultimately fail.
Cheery, huh?
As we read “The Guest,” we are brought into a very strange world
Rich descriptions allow us access, but also limit our perspective
The characters are drawn as inscrutable
We have a limited sense of the characters’ motivations for action
There is something going on outside of the small world of the characters, but we are never allowed to see it
The ending is somewhat perplexing
It seems to be making a statement about moral concerns
But never really gets there, which is part of the nature of absurdist literature
There is no grand narrative or big symbolism that will yield meaning on the world
It’s just people trying to make sense of senseless situation
Sisyphus is a perfect symbol for the absurdist project: every day he rolls that rock up the hill and watches go back down.
As a story, “The Guest” ends almost “anti-climactically.” Daru is left alone with his thoughts and the message left on the blackboard, which seems to make his efforts to remain neutral meaningless. The locals misread his actions despite of his efforts. Daru’s situation echoes Camus himself, who tried to remain neutral in the Algerian conflicts, but he ended up angering both sides.
Guy de Maupassant
“The Necklace”
Lecture 7
Guy de Maupassant
Protégé of famous French novelist Gustav Flaubert
De Maupassant was an influential and prolific short story writer
An example of Realism
Also, rocked quite the mustachios!
“The Necklace”
“The Necklace” is one of de Maupassant’s most read works
Its structure is a delicate mix of character development and plot
As we begin to understand Mathilde’s motivations, the outcome of the story becomes more significant
Had she been a more conformist, or a less responsible person, the effect of the surprise ending would be lost
In this context, the first lines of the text begin to immediately draw the reader a picture of the kind of woman she is:
She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks.
This line sets the scene for the story and for the development of the character
You may notice that there is some class-consciousness in this statement
The term “clerk” is not necessarily in reference to actual clerks—though her husband turns out to be an actual clerk, but more to do with the class of people that do that “kind of work.”
Association with the term has to do with the bureaucracies that develop in France in the mid to late 19th century
Civil Servants: France has the world's highest civil servant/population ratio—estimates range from 28% to an incredible 35% of its working population, or 5 million civil servants (fonctionnaires)—also known, less complimentarily, as chieurs d'encre (“ink-shitters”). (http://www.parisvoice.com/practical-paris/467-dealing-with-french-bureaucracy)
In an earlier era, the term might have been merchant class
It may also be worthwhile to note that the whole notion of “bureaucracy” is French
Part of the appeal of Mathilde’s character is that her champagne taste and beer budget is something with which we can mostly sympathize
However, there is a deliciousness about the outcome
While we sympathize with her, on some level, we are not too sorry when we discover her “downfall”
We may not be ecstatic about her comeuppance, but we are not sad either
But, on the other hand, it is her ignorance of the objects above her station that allows for her mistake;
Schadenfreude?
A bit on Realism
This is another term that seems simple until you look into it.
“Magical” Realism
The first thing we should recognize about realism is that it is not REAL.
If you buy a jacket made of “realistic leather,” it is definitely not real leather.
But realism functions on various levels at the same time. This might be best expressed through visual art.
This painting is an attempt to capture accurately every “real” visual cue of the subject; everything in the painting is a common object; there are no nymphs or seraphim. It is just a table with what appear to be the remains of a meal. It attempts to represent reality photographically, or photo-realism.
Compare these pictures, what are the differences in “realism”? Painting 1 presents a “realistic” situation, but makes no attempt to present photo-realism. Painting 2 is closer to photo-realism, but presents a fantastical scene. Painting 3 is the closest to showing a common scene in the most realistic way, but it remains not quite “realistic.”
1
2
3
In this painting, our first response may be that it is not realism, but that is not entirely accurate. Despite, the schematic representation, we can make out that these are human forms in some arrangement, maybe a party.
These pictures conflate realism and fantasy. The fantasy would not work unless the realism is convincing, and the realism is almost too real. De Maupassant presents his story, unlike Poe, with a narrator that is almost invisible. We don’t have to question if the narrator is reliable because we barely tell there is one. In this sense, he attempts to show us the world through unfiltered eyes—something like photo-realism.
Reader-Response Criticism
This critical approach is in direct opposition to the new criticism
Where new criticism (and other formalist approaches to literature focus on the text and its meaning, the Reader-Response approach focuses on the audience
If you think back this diagram I shared with you earlier,
Reader-Response focuses on the audience side of the diagram while formalism (especially the new criticism) focuses on the work itself without considering audience at all
Also unlike formalism and new criticism, reader-response is not a unified system of critical analysis
There are several different Reader-Response approaches
One is to say that texts do not come into existence until the a reader interprets them
By necessity this means that each reader creates the text for him or herself
Interpretations are limited by two things the meanings available to the reader as a function of the process of reading and the ways of understanding the individual elements of the text
If a text says, “get out of here,” we understand that this could mean several things, some which could be exactly opposite to what those words seem to indicate:
It could mean: “are you kidding me?”; “I don’t believe you”; “I believe you, but it is hard to”; “leave!”
But it is unlikely that it means: “I had a cherry soda for lunch”
Another view, which is closest to Stanley Fish’s idea is that every reading is bound by an “interpretive community”
This a group of people who share a relatively similar understanding of the text
So, it could be people with similar cultural backgrounds
Or, who are reading the text in shared context
Or it could be expanded out to most readers of the text
For example, the first readers of “The Lottery”
There are other ways to do Reader-Response criticism, but the main idea is not to argue that your own (perhaps peculiar interpretation) is valid, rather to point out how the text opens itself up to diverging interpretations based on readers’ reactions and experiences.
Or, make a “meta” argument that focuses on the fact that a text is irreducible to one transcendent meaning.
Reading “The Lottery” from a reader response view
Depends on:
what a reader believes in:
traditions • new ideas
community • individual
superstition • chance
shared experience
discussion helps distinguish experiences
shared discussion shapes reactions
The text is not absolute because language is never absolute. It is not a transparent conveyor of ideas with the audience receiving a clear transcendent message from each work.