For the film the fugitive, I feel it gave a good feel for the book. What really caught my attention was how the male lead role (marcel) would follow this woman he was with all the time. When the film first started it almost made it seem like she did not know him as a person and he was literally going to kidnap her. But we later see that they are “together.” The way he handled his relationship is very similar to how people handle their relationships today. Most people beat around the bush if they feel their partner is cheating and just see what they are doing on social medias or from other friends. Marcel even went off in the movie to almost interview a woman couple to try and understand what his partner was up to. Sometimes confronting them would make things a lot more easier for both the people in the relationship. There are cases when you don’t want to know what going on but it is even worse to lie to yourself about it like what marcel was doing with his relationship to Albertine. I honestly wish Marcel didn’t kill Albertine off in his novel because it would have been nice to see how their relationship would have ended, or at least how he wanted it to end in real life.
Author: mitlar03
quick thoughts
The madeleine is the symbol of the past that arises unintentionally through the novel. Proust traces the subjectivity that accumulates memories without realizing it, like the madeleine. If analysts speak of “affective consciousness” to describe memories, it is to emphasize the non active dimension and assigned the matter that the memories come to him without being summoned. (involuntary memory)
The smell and taste, in other words it is a sensual action, or intelectual? It could be the consciousness that restores the thread of memory. Like past and present memories.
In other words the subject can somehow bend time and break the contrast between past and present with these senses. The dominant time of the human condition seems to be the past in Proust. Man is essentially nostalgic.
Proust’s seven books form a cycle. They kind of seem to be, Proust’s memoir. Many significant facts have been changed to enhance the effect of the novel, in order for it to seem, to the author and the reader, to actually recapture the past, Proust’s childhood, and the happening of World War I in France. Here is where the madeleine comes in. Quick after talking about his single night of bliss with his mother, he remembers how it was a family custom to visit his great aunt Sunday afternoons. She would always offer her visitors madeleines and cup of tea. When he enjoy this combination again, a sense memory of visits to the long dead great aunt returns to him. As he gets older, novels progress, he despairs of making anything of his life and his literary aspirations until several repeated instances of this effect show him how he might portray scenes and senses from his past with enough intensity to go beyond memory, and therefore beyond loss, grief and sadness. In the last book, he talks about how three sense memories in a short space of time motivate him to finally get started, and to produce the seven novels.
Every book I read I become attached to some of the characters. I begin to think about what they would be like if I actually met them. When I read Proust I am always thinking about the characters he talks about and I try to image faces along with them like Swann, Odette, or Albertine. Before Trevor’s talk about Marcel Proust I always thought of him being tan skinned guy with light brown hair and blue eyes for some reason. When Trevor displayed an image of Proust he was not the image I imagined when reading the novel. He had the Jewish traits dark brown hair, was thin and also very light skinned. After seeing what he really looked like that is was I began to see as I kept reading the novel.
Marcel was a character the stuck out to me a lot throughout the novel. And mainly because how he acted and would describe his feelings about certain characters. Even when he was younger Marcel would notice all these little details about the characters in the novel. When I was reading I would always think what if I was a character in Marcels world, and what would he say about me. Since I will never actually be a character in his novel I will make up my own. I wouldn’t want to be a character that has a long important relationship with Marcel because his character does not seem like a person I could have a good relationship. I would however love to be someone he briefly sees and describes like he did with his uncles mistress in Swanns Way. Him seeing me walking or riding a bike in Combray would be a good part for me. Just a random girl he wanted to know but never ended up doing so because that’s what he seemed to do a lot throughout his novel.
There is difference between the two main women in Kindred. Dana coming from a totally different perspective than Alice. Dana is a modern woman who has only read about slavery, while Alice, a free woman at the beginning, has grown up in a society that condones slavery. Alice looks at death as being better than slavery, but Dana does not. Dana knows survival is the better pathway as long as there is a chance for freedom. I believe a difference is also shown by the past of Dana and Alice. Dana had experienced real freedom, while Alice only knew of a white man or woman being able to do whatever they please to her. Because Rufus kept abusing Alice, she saw no hope in her future. Dana is willing to do anything for freedom.
Dana is a strong character in Kindred and this book is told from her point of view. We first see Dana’s reactions to returning to the antebellum South, her interpretation of the nature of her white ancestor Rufus, to her feelings about her husband and the oppression of black people and American Indians in the nineteenth century, and her beginning to understanding the lost and strengths of black people in general. (slaves in particular)
Because we are reading at Dana’s point of view, we can understand her reactions to her experiences and brutality of the slavery era. Dana seems powerless when she returns to the antebellum South whenever Rufus’s life is endangered. Rufus develops from a boy who bonds with Dana into a complete racist who tries to rape her and Dana’s desire to protect Rufus kind of disappointed me. Dana’s narration makes it vivid for readers to image the cruelty and hardships black people faced in the antebellum South. Seeing slaves beaten, makes Dana and us readers aware that the beatings and abuse slaves suffered were much more shocking in reality than we see on tv and in films. Butler’s use of Dana as narrator rejuvenates the book’s subject matter.
In the middle of my work shift I’m helping out a client purchase all of her make up, (I work in sephora) and as I’m doing so I hear a familiar conversation with my co workers and see what I am doing a lot closer than usual as if I had done this exact thing sometime before. I have had many experiences like this but this experience was so real, like I have dreamt it before, and maybe I did. Any time I have déjà vu I always think if it’s just something that Ive literally done before but just from a different day and it brings up those old memories or if it’s an experience I have dreamt of and I’m finally experiencing it in real life. Maybe it’s both. Its always random déjà vu memories too, nothing that I would think of ever again. Involuntary memory for sure.
Close Reading
April 19th 2015
As we begin volume two part two Places-Names, Within A Budding Grove, we notice young Marcel has matured significantly. He is emerging from childhood and expressing his world of sexuality. In the beginning of Places-Names, Marcel is on his way to Balbec along side of his Grandmother. He seems to be reminiscing over his old love for Gilberte, he then begins to describe how his love for her is no longer fully intact, however that feeling of love he had for Gilberte before is still with him but no longer just for her, he can bestow that love on another girl (299).
Marcel goes on with how he is almost completely over Gilberte then he suddenly hears someone refer to “the head of the Ministry of Posts and his family (300),” which makes him remember a conversation Gilberte had with her father Swann. That memory reminded him of Gilberte which brought back the memory of his feelings for her. He mentions the laws of habit and how habit weakens everything because it can remind us of a person we had forgotten, (a habit of remembering Gilberte when he heard similar words from a conversation she had which stimulates his feelings) (300).
I would also like to focus on a similar passage when Marcel begins to understand the power of his sexuality on pages 317-320. Although he had loved Gilberte at one point he is now realizing his feelings for other girls. While he is on this train he spots a girl who is giving coffee and milk. He realizes he is attracted to this girl and begins to pay attention to every detail of her, like most people do when they become attracted to someone. He describes her face as being rosier than the sky (318), which in habit reminds him of the beautiful sunrise he had witnessed earlier through the window during his train ride. He begins to imagine being with her and all these emotions he had experienced before is all coming back for this different girl.
“When we feel the desire to live which is reborn in us whenever we discover a new beauty and happiness” (318). From my understandings he begins to use a metaphor explaining the qualities of beauty and happiness because we often forget that these are individual qualities (318). “A well-read man will begin to yawn with boredom when one speaks to him of a new “good book,” because the man will image all sorts of books that he has read, where a good book is something special, and not made up of all the previous books but is its own book” (318). This all meaning that Marcel should not think that this girl is going to be like his last love Gilberte but she will be different because she is not Gilberte. It is again habit that gives us this need of comparing one thing we have experienced to another which does conflict with decisions we make and sometimes the people around us. Like Marcels grandmother and her habit of carrying a volume of Mme De Sevigne and Memories De Madame De Beausergent because she then gave Marcel Sevigne to read and he began to admire the author (314).
Marcel seems to be obsessed with this amazing feeling he receives when he is in the presences of a beautiful women. He is in love with being in love. He does not know the girls name, or her life story, he just wants to dig deeper into these feelings. Marcel does miss his chance of meeting this girl but keeps this idea in the back of his head that one day he could possibly see her again until then she is just in his memories.
Before the class watched the film, I googled the documentary we were going to watch and I honestly did not think it was going to be good. When it began the first 20 minutes somewhat bored me, but once it started to get into the romance with the mother and the father I became very interested and kind of attached to this family. Later on when they reveal the mothers affair with harry who we later find out is Sarah’s biological father, I became very emotional, mainly towards Micheal. I absolutely loved how throughout the movie Micheal was narrating and reading his writing because it backed up what they said in the beginning how he was a great writer and he really is. When he said to not feel sorry for him and to feel sorry for harry because in the end the mother did end up with him and he also had the privilege to raise Sarah. That was the best line in the entire film for me. Although Sarah and her father and whoever else was involved with this documentary probably made a lot of money from it, I still give them a lot of credit for revealing this personal story to the world. It was very touching.
It is extremely easy to want a lot of things. Growing up I wanted everything, nice clothes, a nice house, but of course in life you will not get exactly what you want unless you work for it. I did not grow up in a wealthy environment, but it was still good living. However, I wanted more, I wanted nice things and a big backyard and I knew I had to work hard for it.
I had my first job at sixteen serving coffee and I have had a job ever since. Because I had a job I was able to get myself some nice things and even saved up enough to buy the 1997 jeep wrangler I am still currently driving. After I graduated high school I was enrolled to attend a university that was located two hours away from my parents home. I was excited to start school and begin my life journey.
College was not mentioned much in my family, and neither of my parents had attended. I have five siblings, two older brothers, two older sisters and one younger sister. A few of them graduated high school and none had attended college. Since I want so much, I knew that I had to go to college and get some type of education for a good paying career. When I got into college and told my family they were overwhelmed with joy and so was I.
I was always into art and computer art. When I started school I took many graphic design classes because eventually I wanted to be a graphic designer. I had so much fun in my classes creating pictures, paintings, sculptures and so much more. During my sophomore year I took a typography class and the biggest assignments was to teach our class how to use a certain tool in photo shop. At first I was nervous because I am not the best public speaker, but when my turn came suddenly I was excited to show the class tricks I had taught myself in photo shop. I presented to the class how to download painting stamps that they could use for their computer art. No one knew this trick and everyone was thrilled with my teaching. Seeing all the students so interested in what I was saying and seeing them do exactly what I had taught them later in the quarter was one of the best feelings. After that experience I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
Because I had changed my intended career choice I had to start taking a few different classes. I kept at my art classes because I want to teach visual arts. At that time the school I was attending no longer offered a visual art endorsement for students who wanted to teach art. I was devastated, because I knew I would have to attend another school that did. I was not happy that I had to leave but I did anyways because I knew that I wanted to be a teacher and nothing else. When I transferred it did set me back from my intended graduation date, but for the good.
I am still in the process of earning my teaching degree and in the end I know it will be worth it. The day I decided to go to college was the best decision of life. I won’t have the high paying job I intended for to pay for all the nice things, but I will eventually have a job I love and that is the main nice thing I want. My dream job.