Mantissa and the idea of obscenity in the id and superego

“ “All right. I may, heaven knows why, out of some misguided sense of responsibility, have inspired you with the mere gist of a notion of some new sort of meeting between us. But all I saw was an interesting little contemporary variation on an ancient them. Something for learned readers. Not that obscene…” She waves towards the head of the bed. “I thought at least you’d have the sense to consult a few classical texts, for a start”. Her finger traces obsessively up and down the swan’s neck of the golden-armed lyre. “It’s so unfair. I’m not a pig. And humiliating. If my wretched family gets to hear about it.” Her voice grows increasingly hurt. “They think it’s all a huge joke anyway. Just because I thought it was clever drawing love poetry when we picked lots in the beginning. Then getting stuck with the whole of fiction as well. I have to work ten times as hard as all the rest of them put together.” She broods over her wrongs. “Of course the whole genre is in a mess. Death of the novel, That’s a laugh. I wish to all my famous relations it was. And good riddance.” She pauses again. “It’s what I loathe about this rotten country. And America, that’s even worse. At least the French are doing their best to kill the whole stupid thing off for good.” (Mantissa, pg. 66).

This passage demonstrates quite poignantly the ideas that are imposed in the self other relationships and the ideas of the id, ego and superego in postmodern critical theory. This line was spoken by part of the muse as she is obviously upset about how greene is trying to write down the story that is unfolding before him. In the id and superego the idea of how one perceives oneself and the others around him are explained and to an extent tested through theory and critical thought. Fowles in this passage demonstrates how these ideas help the main character, Miles Greene, tries to comprehend the idea of trying to write down the story but in doing so may alienate the people around him. In this passage the muse is trying to help him to write down the story but she is becoming more and more irritated as she is trying to change it as she writes it and he does not want to go along with that. I think that this is somewhat similar to the idea of the treatment and how he resisted the doctor and the “treatment” as being obscene. One of the main ideas in this passage is how does the idea of the obscene play into the idea of the muse in the story and how does the muse play into the idea of the obscene so as to clarify one another. Can this even be done? The politicizing of art and aesthetics is a theme that runs rampant throughout the novel and I think that in this passage it is shown quite heavily in order to make the point that the muse is what have come to understand in texts of the cannon and the idea of obscenity is what is being debated throughout the story to provoke the imagination of the reader.

American Beauty and postmodernism-in practice, somewhat!!!

The idea of postmodernism is a unique and objective way of looking at a text like Mendes’ film American Beauty. The film tries to pick apart the idea of what beauty is and how it can function in a mundane setting such as the ordinary, everyday life of the average America. In my paper for this course I would like to try to pull apart some of the ideas that Mendes explains in the film and try to focus them using a variety of critical cultural and literary theories but mainly focusing on a postmodernist perspective.
In order to critique the movie with any effectiveness I think that I am going to need to try to further understand what postmodernism is and to try to understand it in both a literary and cinematic viewpoint. I am going to need to address the idea of cinema veritae and to try to explain why American beauty provides and exemplifies the this idea in a postmodernist, post-structuralist viewpoint.
Many cultural theorists including beaudrillard, lacan, and derrida have compelling arguments about what truth is and Mendes expands on these ideas in the film American Beauty. I think that getting to the idea of what truth is and how it functions is an important point to make in this paper as well as foucault’s idea of the author function and how who says the idea in question is very significant to the idea of truth and reality. The other idea that I would like to focus on in this paper is how does the film change our ideas and understanding of what is simulation, simulacra and the superreal in the context of everyday American life as we know it and the movie shows it. In the paper I would also like to tease out the idea using theory of how some of thoughts and actions in this movie may be considered area while in another context they would be thought of as profanity or obscenity and to examine the idea of what makes this movie aesthetically acceptable while in another setting it would not be and tie that idea into postmodernist thought and specifically the author function as Barthes and Fouccault describe it.
The paper will utilize the 6 to 8 sources that are required for the assignment as well as many more because, I would like to examine what scholars and theorists think about the ideas of postmodernist beauty and the film American beauty. Within these sources I will also use different types of theory like feminism and even liberal humanism to explain the concepts of beauty in American beauty.
These are some of the main points that I would like to explore in the paper and would like to show how postmodernist theory can be applied to contemporary texts and ideas to change our understanding of them and how they work.