Tensions between private passions and social demands in The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Great Gastby by Scott Fiztgerald

Tensions between private passions and social demands in The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Great Gastby by Scott Fiztgerald

If we take into account our own life, we may often encounter several instances in which there is tension between our private passions and the social demands we have to face. This topic has been illustrated by so many novelists in their texts that even when it seems pretty simple at first sight, it hides many complexities. In order to portray the tension between private passions and social constraints, we are going to analyze Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Scott Fiztgerald’s The Great Gastby.

In the novel by Chopin, private passions and social demands and mostly comprised in the character of Edna. At first, she represents and ideal wife and then, because of her passion she turns into a rebel in society. At the beginning of Chopin’s novel, Edna struggles to keep appearances by organizing parties and trying to be a typical housewife, but little by little she realizes that that is not what she wants for her life, and she gets to a point in which “even her children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her”. In her process of “awakening” she finds out and recognizes “her relations as an individual to the world whitin and about her”. However, Edna’s awakening encounter many clashes between what her private wished represented when she awoke and what society expected from her. During this process that for many is seen as a “rebellion”, she gets to know Robert, who ends up being her lover. Robert also represents a tense situation for her between what she wantes and what she was supposed to do. Edna was married and had children, but she said she would give up the unessential for them but she was not prepared to give up herself. Edna’s passions were so strong that she even set aside not only her social duties but also her children, adding to this the fact that “there was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert!". For Edna, private passions were above everything else, even her children. She was willing to give everything to achieve them to the point ofcommiting suicide after realizing that society was not willing to accept her that way.

In the novel by Scott Fitzgerald, the tension between private passions and social constraints is mainly illustrated in the character of Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is Nick’s cousin (the narrator of the story). She is a beautiful youn lady who stands for the perfect housewife and the rich class who lives in East Egg. Daisy has chosen Tom to be her husband even though she had promised Jay she would marry him. After many years, Daisy and Jay get together again in a love affair. However, for Daisy Buchanan her social demands are more important than her private passions. She is not ready to give up her social status for Gay Gastby, even when she loves him. According to her, their love affair represents passion, curiosity, attraction but true love. For Gastby, Daisy is the woman he wants. He even gave his life for her when taking up the responsibility for having killed Mrs. Wilson with the car Daisy was driving. What is more, Daisy was not willing to make sacrifices since she moves houses after the incident even knowing that Gastby’s funeral was taking place. Daisy represents her class, her wealthy and the vices of the American society in the 20s. She strongly desires to keep appearances whenever she experiences the tensions between her private and social duties.

These two novels present different instances in which private needs exceed or go beyond social demands or constraints. However, it depends on how the author has constructed his/her character, the way his/her character would approach the topic. In the case of Chopin, she decided that the character of Edna would go deep into her soul and passions even if that meant her life. But in the case of Fitzgerald, he chose to depict a character interested in what society expected from her. Anyway, both characters, Edna and Daisy, were characterized as weak ones and in the end, none of them could stand their choices: Edna commited suicide, Daisy went back to normalcy.

Home and Identity in Beloved by Toni Morrison and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Home and Identity in Beloved by Toni Morrison and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

	Beloved	The House on Mango Street
Homes	A “Home” serves as a place to gather strenght, to formulate strategy, and to rest even when this is not enough to solve institutional and social evils. A "Home" for Esperanza is a place where she is free to be herself, which in turn, will mean a fully developed indentity.	A “home” is a place with which characters feel identified, a home characterizes who they are and it determines how they view themselves. It is a depiction of who they are inside and how they grow through life experiences.
Change of spaces	Spaces change through geographical movement, from Sweet Home to 124 Bluestone.	Spaces and homes change as characters grow. How they view things also changes.
Constraints	Home is constrained by the law, by the walls of the house, by the armed guards, by violence and trauma. A home demands for self-protection but it is not a place you can entirely rely on, it is vulnerable (school teacher / Bluestone)	The features that constrains Mexican homes in the United States are the windows of each house. Women fell trapped in their houses and they only have access to the world through the window.
Rent vs Ownership	124 Bluestone is owned by white abolitionists and rented by Baby Suggs.	Esperanza’s family have rented many houses but now they own the one in Mango Street.
Aim of home	Sethe creates in her house a space to provide warmth and sustenance to her family and yo the community	For many characters it is a place of refugee and belonging, the stories of the different characters show that they want to go back to the place they call home.
Relationship with the community	Center and heart of the Black Community, this leads to the lack of privacy. No sense of family for Baby Suggs, which is the reason why she opens the house for the community.	Their house is located in a Mexican Neighbourhood in the U.S where immigrants live and share their lives. No privacy.
The power of language	Beloved may be read as Morrison's effort to transform those who have always been the defined into the definers. Even when being slaves, the characters manipulate language and transcend its standard limits. Their command of language allows them to adjust its meanings and to make themselves indecipherable to the white slave owners who watch them.	Throughout The House on Mango Street, particularly in “No Speak English,” those who are not able to communicate effectively (or at all) are relegated to the bottom levels of society. Mamacita moves to the country to be with her husband, and she becomes a prisoner of her apartment because she does not speak English. She misses home and listens to the Spanish radio station, and she is distraught when her baby begins learning English words. His new language excludes her. Esperanza observes the people around her and realizes that if not knowing or not mastering the language creates powerlessness, then having the ability to manipulate language will give her power. She wants to change her name so that she can have power over her own destiny.
View on Women	For Baby Suggs the house provides a space for the necessary work of getting others out.	For Esperanza, Mango Street forces women into a subordinate position dominated by males who sexually manipulate women.

“THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN” BY JOHN FOWLES

METAFICTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN CHAPTER 13 OF

“THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN” BY JOHN FOWLES

In order to analyze metafictional characteristics in Chapter 13 of “The French Lieutenant's Woman” by John Fowles, it is necessary to define two important concepts: Postmodernism and Metaficion. Postmodernism, is a movement that emerged in the 1960’s whose main ideas were related to the rejection of boundaries between high and low forms of art, the rejection of genre distinctions, an emphasis on pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Lyotard adds to this idea the fact that, during modernity all aspects of modern societies, including science, depended on these grand narratives. Postmodernism then is the critique of grand narratives, the awareness that such narratives serve to mask the contradictions and instabilities that are inherent to any social organization or practice. As a consequence, minorities emerged showing a situational, provisional, and temporary, truth, reason, or stability giving birth to many genres within Postmodernism, among which we can find Metafiction. Patricia Waugh provides the following definition of the term: "fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality". Metafictional works, she says, are those that "explore a theory of writing fiction through the practice of writing fiction".

Chapter 13 begins "I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my mind”. In this short passage we can cleraly see one of the metafictional characteristics throguh which the author challenges the traditionl roles of the author and the reader. This is related to the authorial intimacy that the author posses, he intrudes comments in order to destroy the illusion of reality and blur the lines between fiction and reality. Another characteristict Fowles uses is the dramatization of the reader. He addresses the reader so as to make him / her aware of his / her role as player in his novel. For instance, when he says “You may think novelists always have fixed plans...” his addressing directly the reader. Furthermore, he also says “If you think that, hypocrite lecteur, I can only smile...” playing not only with the idea of addressing the reader but also with the idea of intertextuality ("The Flowers of Evil" by Jean Baudelaire-1857).

On the one hand, John Fowles considers himself a Victorian 'omniscient narrator', but he intrudes in his fiction and gives characters restricted freedom since he also gives them commands like: “When Charles left Sarah on her cliff edge, I ordered him to walk straight back to Lyme Regis”. He also uses parody when writing in the manner of Victorian writers did. He re-visits the past and shows himself like “god” writer like in Victorian times but he ends up giving freedom to his novel: “The novelist is still a god, since he creates (...) What has changed is that we are no longer the Gods of the Victorian image, omniscient and decreeing...”. On the other hand, he keeps an epigraph on each of his chapters as Victorian writers did. In Chapter 13, Fowles also talks about Postmodernism and Lyotard’s idea of the fall of the grand narratives and the idea that such narratives serve to mask the contradictions and instabilities of past dicourses: “So if you think all this unlucky digression has nothing to do with your Time, Progress, Society, Evolution and all those capitalized ghosts...”.

All in all, in Chapter 13 of “The French Lieutenant's Woman” by John Fowles, we can clearly see how the autor had employed all the resources and techniques that Postmodernism offered. He questioned the relationship between fiction and reality, he challenged the tradicional roles of autor ad reader, he had also payed homage to some of the techniques used by Victorian writers by employing them in his novel. Finally, he has invited the reader to play the role of a detective, to make him or her part of his fiction.

Metafiction and the Novel Tradition - Patricia Waugh

"What is Metafiction and why are they saying such awful things about it?"

From Metafiction, Patricia Waugh,UK, 1984.

Patricia Waugh makes us point out the similarities amongst a selection of quotations and she lists three things readers would say:

A celebration of power of creative imagination together with an uncertainity about the validity of its representation

Literary form and the act of writing fictions

A parodic, playful, excessive or deceptively naíve style of writing.

But, the reader is offering a description of the concerns and characteristics of the fiction, so the term “Metafiction” needs to be defined:

“Metafiction is a term given to a fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its satus as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship of fiction to reality”

So, Waugh claims that such writings not only examine the fundamental structure of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text

NOVELS EXPLORE THE THEORY OF FICTION THROUGH THE PRACTICE OF WRITING FICTION.

Metafiction poses questions through its formal self-exploration, drawing on the traditional metaphor of the world as book.

Consequently, if our knowledge of the world (as individuals) is now seen to be mediated through language, then literary fiction becomes a useful model for learning about the construction of “reality” itself.

According to Waugh, “Language is an independant self-contained system which generates its own meanings. Its realtionship to the phenomenal world is highly complex, problematic and regulted by convention. Meta terms, therefore, are required in order to explore the relationship between this arbitrary linguistic system and the world to which it apparently refers”.

World OF fiction = World OUTSIDE fiction

The dilemma Metafiction sets out to explore: How is it possible to “describe” anything?

If the writer sets out to “represent” the world, he or she would realize that the world as such, cannot be “represented”. They can only “represent” the DISCOURSES of that world.

Hjelmslev deveolped the term “Metalanguage”: “Language which, instead of referring to non-linguistic events, situations or obejcts in the world, refers to another language: it is a language which takes another as its objects”.

In Saussure’s terms, a “metalanguage” is a language that functions as a signifier to another language, and this other language becomes its signified.

So, in the process of writing, what is explored is the problematic realtionship between life and fiction.

Metafiction pays attention to particular conventions of the novel by which the process of its construction is displayed. Novels attempt to create alternative linguistic structures or fictions which imply the old forms by encouraging the reader to draw on his or her knowledge of traditional literary conventions when struggling to construct a meaning for the new text.

Metafiction and the novel tradition

Patricia Waugh argues that, “… the term “Metafiction” might be new, the practice is as old (if not older) than the novel itself…metafiction is a tendency or function inherent in all novels”

Novels are constructed on the principle of fundamental and sustained opposition:

CONSTRUCTION OF AN ILLUSION à LAYING BARE OF THAT ILLUSION

This is done so, in order to create a fiction and to make a statement about the creation of that fiction. Writers feel that any attempt to represent reality an only produce selective perspectives.

As a consequence of this, more and more novelists question and reject forms that correspond to ordered reality:

Novel tradition

A well-made plot

Chronological sequence

Authoritative omniscient narator

Rational connections

Atmosphere of certainty

Metafictional writings

The process of constructing the world is more important than the plot

Unimportance of sequence & details

Non rational connections

Plurality of Voices

Atmosphere of uncertainity

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Las Horas de Michael Cunningham: Características postmodernistas y metaficcionales, temas y estrategias.

Las Horas (The Hours) es una novela de 1998 escrita por el estadounidense Michael Cunningham. En 1999, ganó el premio Pulitzer por Ficción y obtuvo un Oscar en 2002 luego de haber sido llevada al cine con el mismo nombre. El libro/película encapsula la historia de tres generaciones de mujeres que se vieron afectadas por la novela de Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway.

1. Virginia Woolf mientras escribía en 1923 Mrs. Dalloway y la lucha en contra de su enfermedad menta. PERÍODO DE POSTGUERRA (Primera Guerra Mundial)

2. Sra. Brown, esposa de un veterano de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, quien lee Mrs. Dalloway en 1949 mientras planea el cumpleaños de su esposo. PERÍODO POSTGUERRA (Segunda Guerra Mundial)

3. Clarissa Vaughn (lesbiana), quien planifica en 1999 una fiesta para celebrar el premio mayor de la literatura otorgado a su mejor amigo y ex amante, el poeta Richard, quien está agonizando de SIDA. POSTMODERNIDAD

El efecto más maravilloso que Cunningham logró en su novela es que los tres personajes se reflejan en situaciones que Clarissa Dalloway de Virginia Woolf experimenta en el libro de Mrs Dalloway. Sin embargo, la novela de Cunningham también refleja la obra de la Sra. Dalloway de Virginia Woolf:

* Estilo de narrativa – El fluir de la conciencia

* Las técnica utilizada por Woolf en Mrs. Dalloway cuyas acciones tienen lugar durante un solo día

Por otra parte, si tenemos en cuenta los diferentes temas y estrategias metaficcionales utilizados por Cunningham en Las Horas, encontraremos un narrador visible así como la dramatización explícita del lector. Este estilo narrativo particular adoptado en la película representa el fluir de los pensamientos y las percepciones de los personajes principales como ocurrirían en la vida real, sin filtros y de manera impredecible. Cunningham también aparece como un narrador subjetivo ya que la voz proviene de la mente de los tres personajes principales, con interjecciones ocasionales de otros personajes. El narrador habla en tercera persona en cada uno de los capítulos / escenas y sigue el personaje principal respectivo (Clarissa Dalloway, Virginia Woolf o Laura Borwn) a través de sus pensamientos. Por momentos, el narrador disiente y examina lo que otros personajes piensan sobre el resto. Por ejemplo, en la escena de la cocina, Kitty dice lo siguiente sobre la Sra Brown: “No puedes ser una mujer completa hasta que no has sido madre …”.

Durante la película, los personajes intentan construir y deconstruir diferentes mundos. Este proceso de construcción y deconstrucción se torna altamente problemático para todos los personajes ya que las tres mujeres sufren conflictos internos ya que luchan contra sus propios sentimientos e infelicidades.Virginia Woolf lucha en contra de su enfermedad mental y en su lucha siente que no puede escribir, Clarissa Vaughn lucha en contra de su miedo a la muerte y en su lucha se pasa la vida organizando fiestas ("una vida vacía y hueca" según Richard) y Laura Brown lucha contra sus sentimientos por no quedar atrapada como ama de casa y ni siquiera poder preparar una torta de cumpleaños. Como consecuencia, podemos observar que los tres personajes intentan construir algo y que fallan al intentarlo.

Respecto de las diferentes técnicas de la película, la que Cunningham utiliza de manera más visible es la metalepsis. Esta técnica se relaciona la poca claridad de los límites entre la ficción y la realidad que propone la metaficción. La Metalepsis tiene que ver con la violación de los niveles narrativos. Cuando Richard se suicida en Mrs Dalloway (de Cunningham), la Sra. Brown va a la casa de Clarissa Vaughn y entra a la ficción de la Sra. Dalloway y eventualmente se superponen ambas historias. Los límites de la ficción y la realidad dentro de las mismas ficciones se van borrando gradualmente. También es posible que al contruir el proceso de narrativa, Cunningham mismo se haya transformado en una persona ficticia para así entrar en la ficción y proyectarse doblemente en las tres historias, como autor y como la Sra. Woolf.

Cunningham también emplea las cajas chinas. En este caso, por ejemplo, en la Sra Dalloway de Cunningham, Richard escribe su propio libro dentro de otro libro que hace de marco (llamado Las Horas) el cual lo incluye y cuyo autor es el mismo Cunningham. Como consecuencia, tenemos un libro dentro de otro libro a pesar de que los límites entre ficción y realidad estén borrados. En la Sra Dalloway de Cunningham, Clarissa Vaughn dice “El se los apropia” (cuando Richard escribe sobre ella), ya que ella siente que la ficción de Richard es su cárcel, y agrega: “Buen día, Sra Dalloway…Desde allí en adelante, quedé atrapada …” y "Me han robado mi vida. Estoy viviendo en un pueblo en el cual no deseo vivir. Estoy viviendo una vida que no deseo vivir. ¿Cómo fue que ocurrió esto?”. De esta manera, nos muestra cómo se siente atrapada en la ficción. Además, Cunningham hace uso del mise-en-abyme (puesta en abismo) cuando Richard, el autor ficcionalizado, le hace un homenaje y se burla de la Sra. Dalloway o Clarissa Vaugh: “Oh, Sra. Dalloway... siempre organizando fiestas para cubrir el silencio”.Michael Cunningham también teje un entramado de referencias intertextuales con el trabajo de Virginia Woolf así como también de su biografía (referencias a los diarios de Woolf). Cunningham conoce de distintas maneras a la Sra Dalloway como su fuente. Le da a la Sra Dalloway el rol de conectora de los elementos en Las Horas y la utiliza para desafiar la linealidad y crear una narrativa circular. La presencia más obvia de la novela de Woolf en la narrativa, es el episodio de la Sra Brown. En este, se reproducen largos fragmentos tomados literalmente de la Sra Dalloway mientras Laura lee el libro. Michael Cunningham recurre al intertexto centro no solo al comienzo de su versión actualizada de la Sra Dalloway, sino también durante el resto de la novela / película en el cual la utiliza como marco.

Básicamente, Cunningham retiene el argumento de la Sra. Dalloway y la caracterización de los personajes de Las Horas quienes tienen origen en los personajes del Woolf.

Referencias intertextuales presentes en el libro /película:

"...Qué emoción, qué shock, estar viva en una mañana de junio, próspera y casi escandalosamente privilegiada, con un solo simple trámite por hacer..."

- Clarissa reflexionando sobre el día mientras entraba a la florería.

"...el triunfo y canto y la manera extraña de sonar de algún avión era lo que ella amaba; la vida, Londres, este momento de junio..." - Laura al recordar una cita de la Sra Dalloway de Woolf.

"...Vivimos nuestras vidas, lo que hacemos y luego dormimos. Es tan simple y común como eso. Algunos se tiran por la ventana o se ahogan o toman pastillas; más mueren por accidente, y la mayoría de nosotros somos devorados por alguna enfermedad, o si tenemos suerte, por el tiempo. Solamente queda esto de consuelo: una hora aquí o allí cuando nuestra vida parece, en contra de todos los obstáculos y expectativas, abrirse y darnos todo lo que siempre imaginamos, aunque todos, excepto los niños (aunque tal vez, también ellos), saben que las horas serán inevitablemente seguidas por otras, más oscuras y más difíciles. Aún así, queremos la cuidad, la mañana, la esperanza más que a nada más. Solamente el cielo sabe porque lo amamos..."

- Clarissa reflexionando al concluir el día.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham and its Postmodernist & Metaficional Characteristics, Themes and Strategies

The Hours is a 1998 novel written by the American writer Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar winning 2002 movie of the same name. The book/film concerns three generations of women affected by Virginia´s novel.

1. Virginia Woolf herself writing Mrs. Dalloway in 1923 and struggling with her own mental illness. POST WAR PERIOD (WWI)

2. Mrs. Brown, wife of a WWII veteran, who is reading Mrs. Dalloway in 1949 as she plans her husband's birthday party. POST WAR PERIOD (WWII)

3. Clarissa Vaughn, a lesbian, who plans a party in 1999 to celebrate a major literary award received by her good friend and former lover, the poet Richard, who is dying of AIDS. POSTMODERNITY

The most amazing effect Cunningham achieved in his novel is that the three characters mirror situations experienced by Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway in 'Mrs. Dalloway'. However, Cunningham's novel also mirrors 'Mrs. Dalloway's' in

* The stream-of consciousness narrative style

* The device in Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' of placing the action of the novel within the space of one day

On the other side, if we take into account the different metafictional strategies and themes employed by Cunningham in The Hours, we can find a visibly inventing narrator and explicit dramatization of the reader. The particular narrative style adopted in the film depicts the flowing thoughts and perceptions of main characters as they would occur in real life, unfiltered and often unpredictable. Cunningham is also the subjective narrator since the voice comes from within in the heads of the three major characters, with occasional interjections from other characters. The narrator speaks in the third person and in each of the chapters, he follows the respective main character (Clarissa Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, or Laura Borwn) through their different thoughts. The narrator sometimes also diverges and examines what the other characters think about the rest of them. For instance, in the kitchen scene, Kitty says the following about Mrs Brown: “You cannot call yourself a woman until you are a mother…”. During the film, characters are also trying to construct and deconstruct different worlds. This process of constructing or deconstructing becomes highly problematic for all characters since the three women suffer an internal conflict since each of them fights against her own rising feelings of unhappiness in life. Virginia Woolf struggles against insanity and in doing that she feels she cannot write a book, Clarissa Vaughn fights her fear of mortality and in doing that she spends her life organizing parties ("shallow empty life" according to Richard), and Laura Brown wrestles with her feelings of being trapped in her life as a housewife and in doing that she feels she cannot even make a cake. Consequently, we see that the three characters were trying to construct something and they failed while trying to do it. As regards the different techniques in this film, the most visible one Cunningham used is metalepsis. This technique is related to the blurring of boundaries that metafiction proposed, it has to do with the violation of narrative levels. When Richard commits suicide in Mrs Dalloway (Cunningham’s fiction), Mrs Brown goes to Clarissa Vaughn’s house and becomes part of Mrs Dalloway fiction and they eventually overlap. Boundaries between fiction and reality within the fictions are gradually blurred. It also possible that when constructing the process of writing, Cunningham has transformed himself into a fictional persona and by that he enters the fiction projected himself in doublets, as the author and as Mrs. Woolf plunging throughout the three stories. Cunningham also employs chinese-box worlds within his fiction. This is the case, for instance, when in Cunningham’s Mrs Dalloway, Richard is writing his own book within a framing book (called The Hours) which includes him, and whose author is Cunningham himself. Consequently, we have a book within a book despite the fact that the boundaries between fiction and reality within the fictions are gradually blurred. In Cunningham’s Mrs Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughn states “He makes them his own” (when Richard writes about her), since she feels his fiction is her prison, and she adds: “Good morning, Mrs Dalloway…From then on I’ve been stuck…” and "My life has been stolen from me. I am living in a town I have no wish to live in. I am living a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen?”, letting us know how she feels stuck within fiction. What is more, Cunnigham makes use of a mise-en-abyme when Richard, the fictionalised author, pays homage to and mocks Mrs. Dalloway or Clarissa Vaugh: “Oh, Mrs. Dalloway... Always giving parties to cover the silence”. Michael Cunningham also weaves a fabric of intertextual references to Virginia Woolf’s works as well as to her biography (references to Woolf’s diaries). Cunningham acknowledges Mrs Dalloway as his source in several different ways. He gives Mrs Dalloway a role as one of the connecting elements in The Hours and uses it to defy linearity and create a circular narrative. The most obvious presence of Woolf’s novel can be found in the Mrs Brown episode. It reproduces large excerpts taken literally from Mrs Dalloway as Laura Brown is reading them. Michael Cunningham draws upon his central intertext not only at the beginning of his updated version of Mrs. Dalloway, but he continues to use Mrs. Dalloway as a framework throughout the whole novel. Cunningham's basically retains Mrs. Dalloway’s plot and the characterisation of the characters of The Hours originates in Woolf's characters.

Intertextual references present in the book/film:

"...What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run..."

- Clarissa reflecting on the day as she walks to the flower shop.

"...Why doesn't she feel more somber about Richard's perversely simultaneous good fortune ("an anguished, prophetic voice in American letters") and his decline ("You have no T-cells at all, none that we can detect")? What is wrong with her? She loves Richard, she thinks of him constantly, but she perhaps loves the day slightly more..."

- Clarissa thinking about Richard.

"...the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June..."

- Laura remembering a quote from Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway.'

"...We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so..."

- Clarissa reflecting at the end of the day.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

DIFFERENTES CLASES DE AMOR

Wuthering Heights (Cumbres Borrascosas) de Emily Bronte


De acuerdo al Diccionario Oxford, la palabra amor presenta varias definiciones: 1 un sentimiento intenso de profunda afección 2 un profundo apego romántico o sexual hacia alguien 3 un gran interés y placer en algo 4 una persona o cosa que uno ama. Pero, ¿es posible realmente que el amor quepa en una de estas definiciones?. Creo que la palabra AMOR tiene tantas definiciones como gente en el mundo. Por lo tanto, si existen tantas definiciones como gente en el planeta….me preguntaba ¿existen “diferentes clases de amor"?. Pues parece que no soy la única que lo piensa. Cuando Emily Bronte escribió Wuthering Heights (Cumbres Borrascosas) probablemente haya querido probar esto.

Los personajes de Emily Bronte generalmente transmiten emociones extremadamente intensas. Los personajes de Cumbres Borrascosas no son la excepción. En su novela los personajes no se aman debido a sus caracteres agradables sino, por el contrario, por los profundos sentimientos y emociones que experimentan.

A lo largo de la obra Cumbres Borrascosas de Bronte, se presentan dos clases de amor claramente distinguibles. Por un lado, el amor de Linton: un tipo de amor paternalista que presenta una ambiente seguro para Catherine. Aparte de ello, Linton es un hombre físicamente atractivo: “Era un hombre alto, atlético y de buen porte; Aparte, mi amo era un poco esbelto y parecía más joven. Su porte recto sugería la idea de que había estado en la armada. Su rostro era mucho más añejo en expresión y decisión en rasgos que los del Sr. Linton; parecía inteligente y no retenía marcas de una degradación previa...".

Por otro lado, el amor Heathcliff era del tipo romántico, irracional, pasional que representa el principio de unidad concebido en la naturaleza. Catherine ama a Heathcliff con toda la fuerza de su ser, con la verdadera naturaleza de su existencia. Por ello, el amor de Catherine por Heathcliff es asexuado.

“Mi amor por Linton es como el follaje en los bosques: el tiempo lo cambia, estoy conciente, así como el invierno cambia los árboles. Mi amor por Heathcliff se parece a las eternas rocas de abajo: una fuente de placer apenas visible, pero necesario. Nelly, ¡soy Heathcliff!. Él está siempre, siempre en mi mente, no como placer, no más que lo que es siempre un placer para mi, sino como mi propio ser. Entonces no hables otra vez de nuestra separación: es impracticable; y--".

Cómo podemos ver en este pasaje, hay dos clases distintas de amor en la vida de Cathy. Y el que podemos apreciar que siente por Heathcliff parece estar en un estado inmaduro, pero basado en el principio de unidad y unanimidad. La unión se alcanza en la naturaleza.






DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word Love presents many definitions: 1 an intense feeling of deep affection. 2 a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. 3 a great interest and pleasure in something. 4 a person or thing that one loves. But, do you really think love can be compress into one or any of these definitions?. It is my contention that the word Love may have as many definitions as people populate the world. So, if there are as many definitions of love as people in this world...I was wondering, are there “different kinds of love”?. Well, it seems that I am not the only one who thinks that way. When Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights she may have wanted to prove this.

Emily Bronte's characters usually convey extremly intense emotions. Her characters from Wuthering Height are not the exception. In her novel, characters do not love each other because they have nice and pleasant personalities but because the deep feelings and emotions they experience.

All along Bronte’s Wuthering Heights there are two kinds of love clearly presented. On the one hand, Linton's love: a paternalistic love that presents a safe atmosphere for Catherine. Apart from that, Linton is physically attractive: “He had grown tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom, my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton’s ; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation.”

On the other hand, Heathcliff’s love was a romantic, irrational, and passionate kind of love that represents the principle of oneness conceived in nature. Catherine loves Heathcliff with all the strenght of her being, with the very nature of her existence. Consequently, Catherine’s love for Heathcliff is sexless.


“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly I am Heathcliff!. He’s always, always on my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure for myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk about our separation again: it is impracticable; and--"

As we can see from this passage, there are two different kinds of love in Cathy’s life. And the one we can see she feels for Heathcliff appesars to be in an immature state, but based on the principle of oneness or unanimity. Union is achieved in nature.

The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

THE GREAT GATSBY de Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) & LA DECADENCIA DEL SUEÑO AMERICANO

La decadencia del sueño americano durante los años 20’.
A nivel superficial, The Great Gatsby es una historia de amor entre un hombre (Gay Gatsby) y una mujer (Daisy Buchanan).
Sin embargo, el tema principal de esta novela trata sobre una importante meditación simbólica de los Estados Unidos durante la década del 1920. La misma tiene lugar durante el verano de 1922 en Long Island, Nueva York.
Fitzgerald retrata la desintegración del "sueño americano” durante una época de prosperidad jamás vista antes y el exceso de materialismo (conocido como "los locos años veinte"). Fitzgerald describe los ‘20 como una era de decadencia social y moral, señaladas en el materialismo, cinismo, avaricia y en una búsqueda vacía del placer. Las fiestas extravagantes que Gatsby realiza cada sábado por la noche resultan en la eventual corrupción del sueño americano, mientras la sed de dinero y placer superaban los valores más nobles. Además, en aquel entonces, el 18va Enmienda de 1919 dictaba la prohibición de la venta de alcohol. Esta prohibición creaba un inframundo diseñado para satisfacer una demanda masiva de alcohol contrabandeado tanto para el consumo por parte de ricos como para pobres. Así emergieron los contrabandistas e hicieron millones de dólares gracias a la venta ilegal de alcohol.
Para comprender mejor el contexto en el que Fitzgerald escribió su novela, es importante considerar la situación que atravesaba los Estados Unidos en aquel entonces. Al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1918), los jóvenes americanos que habían peleado en la guerra estaban desilusionados. Además, el alza en los mercados tras la desgracia de una guerra, llevó a un repentino y sostenido incremento de la riqueza nacional y a un materialismo reciente que emergía a medida que la gente gastaba dinero y consumía a niveles sin precedentes. Cualquier persona podía hacer una fortuna, sin embargo, la aristocracia estadounidense desdeñaba los nuevos industrialistas ricos y los especuladores. Consecuentemente, se generó un choque social que Fitzgferald retrató geográficamente en su novela con los nombres de: East Egg (representaba la aristocracia) y West Egg (los nuevos ricos). El escritor presenta estas áreas de manera profundamente dividida debido a las diferencias entre los nuevos ricos y las viejas familias adineradas.
La gente también cambió su mentalidad, a partir de lo cual, emergen nuevas formas de entretenimiento: la radio, el fonógrafo que se vendía en todo el país, la”era del jazz” floreció, los eventos deportivos eran importantes y la industria cinematográfica y automotriz llegaron a ventas pico.
Por lo tanto, Fitzgerald creó personajes que representaban estas tendencias sociales. Por ejemplo, Nick y Gatsby, quienes eran parte de esa generación que luchó en la guerra recurrieron a una vida salvaje y extravagante para compensar el caos y violencia que habían vivido durante la guerra. El dinero, la opulencia y la exuberancia se pusieron a la orden del día. Varios trepadores sociales y especuladores ambiciosos que asistían a las fiestas de Gatsby, daban evidencia de la avaricia se mezclaba con la riqueza.
En su sentido originario, el sueño americano se trataba sobre el descubrimiento, el individualismo y la búsqueda de la felicidad. Los 20' en Estados Unidos eran manipulados por el dinero fácil y los valores relajados que corrompieron las ideas originales del sueño americano. Sin embargo, este nuevo sueño americano no duraría mucho y su caída es lo que sigue a esta forma de vida tan extravagante. Fitzgerald la describe como una tierra vastía. Parece que el sueño americano no solo ha sido cambiado sino corrompido.

El valle de las cenizas = Decadencia moral & social de los Estados Unidos

El valle de las cenizas está ubicado entre West Egg y New York City y consta de una larga y recta línea de tierra desierta creada por los desechos de cenizas industriales.
Representa la decadencia moral y social que resulta de búsqueda desinhibida de riqueza.





THE GREAT GATSBY by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) & THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s.
On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the love between a man (Gay Gatsby) and a woman (Daisy Buchanan).
However, the main theme of the novel, encompasses a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole. It is set up during the Summer of 1922 in Long Island, New York.
Fitzgerald portrays the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess (known as: The Roaring Twenties). Fitzgerald describes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its materialism, cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The extravagant parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night resulted eventually in the corruption of the American dream, as the desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble values. Moreover, at that time, the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) was passed and it banned the sale of alcohol. This prohibition created an underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike. Bootleggers emerged and made millions of dollars out of selling alcohol.
To understand better the context in which Fitzgerald wrote this novel, it is important to take into account the situation America was going through at that time. When WWI ended (1918), young Americans who had fought the war became disillusioned. What is more, the rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels, consumerism sprang. A person from any social background could make a fortune, but the American aristocracy scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators; consequently, there was a social clash that Fitzgferald portrayed geographically in his novel with the following names: East Egg (represents the established aristocracy) and West Egg (the self-made rich). The writers presents these areas as deeply divided by the difference between the noveau riche and the older moneyed families.
People also started going through a new state of mind in which new ways of entretainment were allowed, the Radio emerged, Phonography was sell all over America, “the Jazz Age” flourished, Sporting events were important, the Cinema and Car industry reached its peak. So Fitzgerald created characters that represented these social trends. For example, Nick and Gatsby, who were part of the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate the chaos and violence they had lived during the war. Money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth.
In its original sense, the American dream was about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. The 1920s in America were driven by easy money and relaxed social values that corrupted the original American dream. However, this new American dream would not last long and downfall is what follows after such extravagant ways of living. Fitzgerald describes a wasteland. It seems that the American dream has been not only changed but also perverted.

The valley of Ashes = Moral & Social Decay of America

The valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth.