Excessive Suspension of Disbelief: Raymond Jeans La Lectrice Essay

Excessive Suspension of Disbelief: Raymond Jean's La Lectrice When I begin a class in fiction or poetry, I always talk for a few minutes about the various purposes of literature: escape, didactic, and interpretive. I tell my students that escape literature is a wonderful way to forget our problems for a while (less dangerous than drugs, alcohol, careless sex, or driving), but that escape literature can be harmful if one expects one's personal life to be as exciting, successful, or romantic as that in escape fiction. As Meg Ryan's friend says to her in Sleepless in Seattle, "You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie." Thus my title, "Excessive Suspension...." In The Literary Work of Art (1931, trans. 1965), Roman Ingarden analyses the layers of meaning he beleves exist within a work of fiction. His theories were popularized by Renà © Wellek in Theory of Literature (Wellek and Warren). Ingarden identifies four strata. The first is the sound stratum, which he defines as "the stratum of word sounds and phonetic formations of various orders: the second is "the stratum of units of meaning of various orders and phonetic formations of various orders"; the third includes objects represented in the "world" of the novelist, which he defines as "the stratum of manifold schematized aspects and aspect continua and series" (Literary Work of Art, 30); and the fourth includes the stratum of represented objectivities and their vicissitudes" or the world as it "is seen from a particular viewpoint." As Ingarden complains in his preface to his second edition, Wellek had erroneously added a fifth layer, that of metaphysical qualities, which include "the tragic, the terrible, [and] the holy." Ingarden argues th... ...s read and view and how those fictions shape us. La Lectrice is a testimony to the power a written text may have-that even a single reading experience may permanently change a reader's life. But, most of all, La Lectrice is great fun. But, as the policeman cautions the lectrice, "Reading is fine, but look where it leads. When you read a book, anything can happen." Works Cited Ingarden, Roman. The Literary Work of Art. Trans. George G. Grabowicz. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1973. From Das literarisch Kunstwerk. Tà ¼bingen: Max Neimeyer Vertag, 1965. -----. The Cognition of Literary Work of Art. Trans. George G. Grabowicz. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 198. From Von Erkennen des literarisch Kunstwerk. Tà ¼bingen: Max Neimeyer Vertag, 1973. Deville, Michel, dir. La Lectrice (film). Elefilm, 1988. Jean [Kermer], Raymond, La Lectrice (novel). Editions J'ai lu, 1986.

Culture And Climate Essay

In this paper a relationship between culture and climates is discussed with a focus on the southern California hunter gatherer societies. When there is a climate change the society will have to change their way of life in order to cope or else the change of climate could end up affecting the society adversely and even claiming life. Some of the change that occurs in the society due to climate change is that of food that is being eaten. Change in climate also could mean the people adapt to a new dressing code because of the increase or reduction in the temperatures. The effect of climate change will have a varying effect on the communities depending on whether they are gatherers/hunters or agriculturalist. When there is rain reduction the effect will be felt more by the agriculturalist than the hunters as much as all of them need the rain. When there is lack of rains some communities end up being violent as they fight for the few resources like pasture and water points. A good example of such an experience is the massacre that occurred at the Craw Creek whose evidence was the mass grave that was found with the remains of 486 individuals who had been mutilated. The attackers it is believed that, they made the attack because they were desperate due to lack of food as a result of climate change. When the society has a fear of being attacked they will always prepare for war. The society starts training the young people on how to fight and protect the community wealth. The community which has a tendency of being involved in wars will have its members having the skills of making weapons. They will also be involved in trade with other communities in order to sell or buy weapons. Some of the communities in Southern California like Chumash had other ways that they used as adaptation means to climate change that brought about severe droughts. This community adapted to using of a variety of plants and animal food such that when the climatic conditions were unfavorable they could resort to the use of the less preferred food which could be available at the time and these could help them avoid starvation. The communities learnt skills of storing food to avert effects caused by short term climatic changes. These community stored acorns, had skills of smoking and drying of fish, they dried seeds in addition to having the skills of constructing indoor and outdoor storage facilities. With enough food stored the community was able to support a dense population throughout the year including the years when there was little harvest. Different species of crops and varieties perform differently in same climate change. This also applies to the different tamed animals. There are some crops that will give a very low harvest or none at all when there is a change in climate while others survive in different climatic conditions. When communities are faced with unpredictable climate condition they resort to farming of different crops so as to survive harsh climatic conditions as seen from the case of the Chumash people. Water is a resource that becomes rare whenever there is extended droughts and as a result the communities which live in areas that are prone to droughts always have a culture of storing water. The Chumash people can also serve as an example in this area as research has shown that they had storage facilities to ensure there was supply of water for their use during the drought period. Their most common storage vessel was an asphalt interior lined water bottle. Due to the fact that asphalt preserves well, the evidence of the water bottle use and manufacture by the community is clear. The communities that were neighbors to the Chumash like Cahuilla and were in the desert regions had the skills of digging wells as way of adapting to the desert conditions. Exchange which was practiced among the Chumash is also seen as a way of the community trying to cope with the environment they new to be unpredictable. By the time of arrival of the Spanish the society was involved in exchange of prestige goods which partially had support of marriages that were so extensive that there was linkage of different ecological zones. There was a variety of goods that were being traded among the adjacent regions and these included foods, raw materials, manufactured goods and other goods. With the community involved in trade chiefs and other individuals who were powerful amassing a lot of wealth to themselves which was in form of prestige goods, a lot of food that was in storage facilities, shell beads which was being used as currency and canoes. This also brought about the emerging of network systems that were very powerful which involved ceremonial feasts. The use of prestige goods is believed to have been adopted as a form of social storage over thousands of years as a response to recurring droughts that challenged steady supply of required resources of the Chumash society. Reference Lynn H. (2005). Culture and Climate: Reconsidering the Effect of Palaeoclimatic Variability among Southern California Hunter-Gatherer Societies. World Archaeology, Vol. 37, No. 1, retrieved on 27TH April 2009 from: http://www. jstor. org/stable/40023887

Mario and the Magician - 18314 Words

Thomas Mann MARIO AND THE MAGICIAN The atmosphere of Torre di Venere remains unpleasant in the memory. From the first moment the air of the place made us uneasy, we felt irritable, on edge; then at the end came the shocking business of Cipolla, that dreadful being who seemed to incorporate, in so fateful and so humanly impressive a way, all the peculiar evilness of the situation as a whole. Looking back, we had the feeling that the horrible end of the affair had been preordained and lay in the nature of things; that the children had to be present at it was an added impropriety, due to the false colours in which the weird creature presented himself. Luckily for them, they did not know where the comedy left off and the tragedy†¦show more content†¦The excursion is a favourite one for the restless denizens of that pleasure resort, and a Fiat motor-bus plies to and fro, coating inch-thick with dust the oleander and laurel hedges along the highroad-a notable if repulsive sight. Yes, decidedly one should go to Torre in September, when the great public has left. Or else in May, before the water is warm enough to tempt the Southerner to bathe. Even in the before and after seasons Torre is not empty, but life is less national and more subdued. English, French, and German prevail under the tent-awnings and in the pension dining-rooms; whereas in August-in the Grand Hotel, at least, where, in default of private addresses, we had engaged rooms-the stranger finds the field so occupied by Florentine and Roman society that he feels quite isolated and even temporarily dà ©classà ©. We had, rather to our annoyance, this experience on the evening we arrived, when we went in to dinner and were shown to our table by the waiter in charge. As a table, it had nothing against it, save that we had already fixed our eyes upon those on the veranda beyond, built out over the water, where little red-shaded lamps glowed-and there were still some tables empty, though it was as full as the dining-room within. The children went into raptures at the festive sight, and without more ado we announced our intention to take our meals by preference in the veranda. Our words,Show MoreRelatedEssay about Mario and the Magician1412 Words   |  6 PagesMario and the Magician Ââ€" Illness and Deformity In Thomas Manns Mario and the Magician, Mann uses illness and deformity to symbolize the driving force towards disaster. It is in the illness of the characters that the setting for disaster is made, which then beings on a downward spiral once the character of Cipolla enters the story. Cipolla is not only mentally ill, but he is deformed. Much of his deformity is left a mystery for it is described so vaguely by the narrator. The first episode ofRead More European Fascism Essay3458 Words   |  14 PagesEnlightenment as Mass Deception.† While each of these works approaches the problem of fascism from a different direction, their concerns converge: fascism, they conclude, undermines the integrity of the individual. Thomas Mann describes Mario and the Magician as â€Å"a warning against the rape [caused] by the dictatorial being who in the end was overcome and destroyed† (Leser 193). Mann’s view of the dilemma that fascism poses for the individual, then, can be understood from two directions. First,Read More111135197X 38570 Essay example17696 Words   |  71 PagesHaving good social skills is essential for my job, and I decided (OR have decided) to take a class in personal communication. I 3. Since she was a child, she has liked sports, especially water sports, such as swimming and waterskiing. I 4. Mario graduated as a veterinarian in January of last year. C 5. Correct I 6. First, we went to Italy. Then, we traveled to Austria and Germany. Finally, we visited Spain. I 7. The professor gave an introduction to the course yesterday, the firstRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagescereal. b) You can have eggs, but not juice or cereal. c) You can have (eggs or juice) and cereal. d) You can have either eggs and juice, or else cereal. e) You can have eggs, and you can also have your choice of either juice or cereal.93 ââ€"   4. If Mario says, Some of these grapes have seeds in them, can you be sure he also means that some of them dont, assuming that he intends to make a true statement?94 5. The following statement might appear in a recommendation letter: In my opinion, you will