Week 5: "Ordered Chaos of the Dreaming"

(Sorry if this post appears twice...I posted the first time without signing in! oops) 

We ended class on Thursday with the question of a “women’s language.” I find this a very provocative question, especially after the time that I’ve spent thinking about the positive/negative dichotomy of man/woman. I suppose it harkens back to our well-worn topic of categorization and the destruction/fortification of those boxes. Because we are so rooted in language, as Acker articulates in her essay Seeing Gender, it seems only natural that these categorical binaries are intimately connected to the act of signification itself. The human compulsion to “name” things is something that is central to our understanding of the world around us, even in the very distinction between “self” and “other.” I feel that the very concept of identity is rooted in act of filtering out the “other” and by so doing, naming it. Ultimately, I tend to think of the whole thing as a “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” Do we construct categories of gender because of language or do these distinctions already exist and language just “names” it?

Yes, this sense of “naming” does have a kind of patriarchal, authoritative ring to it – I think of the Gospel of John (“in the beginning was the word and the word was God”) and all that logocentric, Derridian stuff.   Therefore, to come back to the initial question of creating a “women’s language,” or even the concept of such a thing existing, I think we run into a few pitfalls. Firstly, if language is essentially masculine in nature, is a “feminine” language even possible through the written word? Secondly, if such a language could be created, would we not be fortifying the walls between the genders, creating an even bigger gap than when we started? Thirdly, how does one even initiate a new language, with the old being so essentially ingrained in our education and our concept of our world? I think that the notion of a “women’s language” was radical in its conception because it illuminated some implicitly masculine aspects of the language that we use everyday. Ultimately, though, I don’t know if such a thing is possible or even productive. 

All this does relate back to the humanities in some important ways, in my opinion. I think it points to the power of words and language in relation to conceptualizing the world around us. The more I continue to think about it, though, the more I get stuck in that self-referential loop. At some point, life lies outside of what we can speak and what we can read and what we can name and I think that a crucial part of deconstructing the gender binary lies in that space beyond language. I think we run into problems when we place too much faith in our signs and words and too little attention to everything else.

 Today’s discussion on Seeing Gender hit a weird place for me—I’ve been thinking a lot lately about literature and authority, and it was interesting to hit upon these issues through the context of Acker’s sought “escape” into the books she read. One of the most moving quotes I found in the reading was “I am Alice who ran into a book in order to find herself. I have found only the reiterations, the mimesis of patriarchy, or my inability to be. No body anywhere. Who am I? Has anybody seen gender?” (84). The books she read as a child were supposed to be another avenue to the adventure she felt she was denied as a girl. Literature is often used as a passage way into another world or dimension that the reader would otherwise never have a chance to visit. What happens, though, is that literature more often reflects the realities of society. Writers still write what they know and see around them, and I think that if patriarchy exists in our world, it will be reflected in literature even if the author is hoping to encourage different perceptions (See Acker’s description of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass: the entire story is from Carroll’s imagination but gender issues can still be found within the text if looked for). Now, as an adult, Acker realized that what she had been looking for all along (a reflection of her self) doesn’t exist in the literature she had read as a child growing up. This is where I start to question my assumptions and seem to go back on an opinion that’s pretty engrained in me: “But what if language need not be mimetic?” (84). My usual stance is that the context in which an author is writing heavily influences the literature that the author composes, and the events of the time period or details about the authors life can often be found in the text somehow (i.e. language mirrors life). But can’t literature then reflect imagination—something outside and even sometimes unaffected by reality? Would we still be able to call it literature? This is the possible exterior of patriarchal definitions, I think, in which Acker can find the body, but how we use language in literature must change before we can get to that point.

Forgive me all for I have sinned. In Tuesday's class, my group was discussing how interesting it would have been to know the women's version of the story (Nada and Kai'ckul). It was then that it occured to me that if the old man never told his grandson that the women heard a different story, I would have never even thought about the women. It honestly never crossed my mind that there were these two men talking of a story, about a queen of a land and still women had not come to my mind. I keep trying to say that it's because this seemed to be a male's only ceremony but even then, I did not wonder what the women did. The women just were not in my thoughts.

I must do better.

I'm writing a paper about Shakespeare's love(s) in his sonnets and still watching Cure videos, so I really just couldn't help myself:

"Friday I'm in Love"

www.youtube.com/watch

to say that i loved the book would be an understatement. it intrigues me. the pictures, the colours, the way it holds you by the hand and tells you it's story, somehow still managing to leave room for your own perception/interpretation.

but im not going to go into that right now. right now, im going to tell you how, in terribletwo's words, the story 'violated me'

dreams and the manner in which they play a role in what we do and how we behave and who we are is something ive been interested in for a while now -- needless to say, the manner in which that concept was depicted in the book blew me away.

your subconsious/unconscious mind is your safe haven, or so we like to believe, and thats why the idea of a vortex scares most  people. it makes you wonder if you do have a place thats truely your own anymore. if someone could enter your dreams, enter into your subconscious mind, would you then have any privacy at all? i guess not. but would you be safe? thats something that i think differs from one person to the next. if you can fnd safety in knowing that your not alone, then maybe yes. but if you need your own sense of space, or think you do, then i guess not. nonetheless, the idea itself is an interesting one. because it is so possible.

your subconscious is intangible, and alive. more alive then we ever believe it to be. and it is, in my opinion floating, almost like a cloud, engulfing you on all sides. in it, it holds all your background thoughts, suppressed emotions and character traits. so its no surprise that it becomes more apparent to us, in our dreams.

but if its floating, it also makes all those emotions and thoughts a little vulnerable, more vulnerable than they are in your mind anyway. more vulnerable than you would ever let them be. so maybe it is possible, in that state of vulnerability, for it to fuse, for a small amount of time, with another subconscious mind. and when are you less aware of yourself then when you are asleep?

am i saying that there is a vortex? no. but i am saying that it is possible. and that knowledge of this vortex would probably make people make an effort to be more aware, of themselves, of their subconscious mind. and awareness of that would lead to awareness of identity, of a more secure sense of being.

thats how i think the book gravitates towards gender and sexuality, it deals with identity, identity realised through awareness. and if we are ever questioning our identity, our gender and sexuality, we need to be more aware of the forces within us that our shaping us everyday. our fear, anxiety, memory, even (as mentioned in the book), our desire.

 Admittedly, the humanities are my comfort zone. I love it here. But I still appreciated the discussion question Anne asked in class: What particular contribution can the division of the humanities make to our understanding of gender and sexuality? It wasn't something I would have necessarily thought out on my own even though it's something definitely worth considering. Literature, unlike science, is an expression rather than stated fact. It offers readers a character (and in the case of The Doll's House, a face) to associate with whatever issues are discussed in the text, and then delves deeper into these issues through tools like symbolism and imagery. And it is through this use of characters that allows readers to sympathize with gender and sexuality issues--like the example someone brought up in class of Will & Grace allowing viewers to "have gay friends." Characters have the ability to evoke emotion in readers, unlike the anonymity of scientific texts, and offers us an entirely new perspective on gender and sexuality. 

Anne mentioned in class that her discussion group talked about whether the reader's imagination is stunted when words are used along side with images such as in a graphic novel. This interested me because I then started thinking about "The Doll's House" as a whole. While it is Neil Gaiman's story, it is not his completely. I say this because even though the ideas of the images are his, the actual images are not. The graphic novel was illustrated by five different people, all of whom, I'm sure, had their own personal take on the images from their own imagination. Even if the illustrators' images were representative of what Gaiman wanted, there is no way, without Gaiman drawing them himself, that they were exactly how he pictured it. I hope that makes sense... I think this also brings back the idea of how personal and fragile each persons' dreams are. The idea of a vortex is so horrifying because it takes away from a person able to just be: to just be in their dreams, imagination, creations, and themselves. I believe, no matter how much we might hate to admit it, we are never completely ourselves in the "waking world." We ARE a part of our surrounding world and it is a part of us, BUT in our dreams we our of our own world and no one can take that away from us, unless they are a vortex...

            What a novel! I simply could not put this book down! Overall I was surprised by how entertaining a graphic novel could be (this was my first experience reading one). One of the reasons I think I was so engaged was because I was constantly in a state of bewilderment. I continued reading in the hope that I would better understand Neil Gaiman’s plot. Is there some sort of main point to The Dollhouse? If so I am in desperate need of clarification. Despite the fact that I was overwhelmed by the complex nature of this text I did my best to examine it from a gender and sexualities studies perspective. Thus, if I were to critique this novel from a gen/sex angel then I would argue that Gaiman represents various female stereotypes in his female characters. For instance, Lyta’s character embodies the stereotype of the quintessential housewife, a woman that finds herself lost and unsatisfied with the life she has created for herself. Rose Walker on the other hand represents an assortment of stereotypical female identities. We see her become The Dollhouse’s leading lady as she takes on the role of heroine in her search for her younger brother, Jed. Soon after, Gaiman portrays Rose as an insecure female and victim of sexual assault. Well I look forward to reading what other people have to say about this truly puzzling novel..