Feels like she knows more about Septimus after he commits suiside
Made bad decisions that left bad memories
Septimus
Questions life as a whole
Commits suicide because he is overwhelmed by his war memories and is going to be put in a mental home
Naturally attained bad memories from the war
Conclusion
The connection between Clarissa and Septimus is that they are both experiencing the same feelings but for different reasons. Although both Clarissa and Septimus feel depressed, they each react to the depression differently, showing that they were not meant for each other and if they were together there would be much greater problems for the both of them.
Here is the full video and transcript we watched in class today:
…Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people’s lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today – that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past. The splendid word “incarnadine,” for example – who can use that without remembering “multitudinous seas”? In the old days, of course, when English was a new language, writers could invent new words and use them. Nowadays it is easy enough to invent new words – they spring to the lips whenever we see a new sight or feel a new sensation – but we cannot use them because the English language is old. You cannot use a brand new word in an old language because of the very obvious yet always mysterious fact that a word is not a single and separate entity, but part of other words. Indeed it is not a word until it is part of a sentence. Words belong to each other, although, of course, only a great poet knows that the word “incarnadine” belongs to “multitudinous seas.” To combine new words with old words is fatal to the constitution of the sentence. In order to use new words properly you would have to invent a whole new language; and that, though no doubt we shall come to it, is not at the moment our business. Our business is to see what we can do with the old English language as it is. How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question.
And the person who could answer that question would deserve whatever crown of glory the world has to offer. Think what it would mean if you could teach, or if you could learn the art of writing. Why, every book, every newspaper you’d pick up, would tell the truth, or create beauty. But there is, it would appear, some obstacle in the way, some hindrance to the teaching of words. For though at this moment at least a hundred professors are lecturing on the literature of the past, at least a thousand critics are reviewing the literature of the present, and hundreds upon hundreds of young men and women are passing examinations in English literature with the utmost credit, still – do we write better, do we read better than we read and wrote four hundred years ago when we were un-lectured, un-criticized, untaught? Is our modern Georgian literature a patch on the Elizabethan? Well, where then are we to lay the blame? Not on our professors; not on our reviewers; not on our writers; but on words. It is words that are to blame. They are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most un-teachable of all things. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. But words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none. Yet there is the dictionary; there at our disposal are some half-a-million words all in alphabetical order. But can we use them? No, because words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. Look once more at the dictionary. There beyond a doubt lie plays more splendid than Antony and Cleopatra; poems lovelier than the Ode to a Nightingale; novels beside which Pride and Prejudice or David Copperfield are the crude bunglings of amateurs. It is only a question of finding the right words and putting them in the right order. But we cannot do it because they do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. And how do they live in the mind? Variously and strangely, much as human beings live, ranging hither and thither, falling in love, and mating together. It is true that they are much less bound by ceremony and convention than we are. Royal words mate with commoners. English words marry French words, German words, Indian words, Negro words, if they have a fancy. Indeed, the less we enquire into the past of our dear Mother English the better it will be for that lady’s reputation. For she has gone a-roving, a-roving fair maid.
Thus to lay down any laws for such irreclaimable vagabonds is worse than useless. A few trifling rules of grammar and spelling is all the constraint we can put on them. All we can say about them, as we peer at them over the edge of that deep, dark and only fitfully illuminated cavern in which they live – the mind – all we can say about them is that they seem to like people to think before they use them, and to feel before they use them, but to think and feel not about them, but about something different. They are highly sensitive, easily made self-conscious. They do not like to have their purity or their impurity discussed. If you start a Society for Pure English, they will show their resentment by starting another for impure English – hence the unnatural violence of much modern speech; it is a protest against the puritans. They are highly democratic, too; they believe that one word is as good as another; uneducated words are as good as educated words, uncultivated words as good as cultivated words, there are no ranks or titles in their society. Nor do they like being lifted out on the point of a pen and examined separately. They hang together, in sentences, paragraphs, sometimes for whole pages at a time. They hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lectured about in public. In short, they hate anything that stamps them with one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is their nature to change.
Perhaps that is their most striking peculiarity – their need of change. It is because the truth they try to catch is many-sided, and they convey it by being many-sided, flashing first this way, then that. Thus they mean one thing to one person, another thing to another person; they are unintelligible to one generation, plain as a pikestaff to the next. And it is because of this complexity, this power to mean different things to different people, that they survive. Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning, the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination…
I must say I really enjoyed this piece, it explored such a fundamental topic that relates directly with human existence and psyche.
Although it is not my intention to summarize this piece, I do want to take some time to accredit the author of his ability to maneuver seamlessly through his critical thinking process. I found the writing style ironic, considering the context of what he is attempting to analytically dissect can hardly be understood in such a way, which he goes later on to admit. I believe that I find myself so fond of his maneuverings through the piece because I, myself, often attempt to analyze exstisentially ideologies in a similarly formulaic way. I do personally believe that even the most exsitentially complex concepts can be broken down and understood in individualized compartments. In my opinion, it can be argued that those who are able to deconstruct and answer some of life’s most puzzling inquires in a way that the solutions are ingestible by a larger audience and comprehended by a broader scope of individuals are even more talented then those who pose the question in the first place.
I found it interesting how the author continuously referred to the “creative thinker” as his own abstract entity, apart from “the rest of us.” Its as if being a creative thinker is not an aspect of man, but man is an aspect of the creative thinker. It makes me wonder what in fact, constitutes the identification of such a title. To me, and as the author also later acknowledges, the creative thought process is one of many thought processes that combined create a great thinker.
My favorite part of the piece as a whole was the question it presented in the very beginning regarding the whereabouts thats creative writers gain their inspiration. It was a perfect opening idea to generate the reader to think in such a way that questions creation, and humanism. Authenticity is such an important concept that can be related to almost anything, in any given situation in our world. There is never any full and complete understanding without awareness of origin.
In this blog Creative Writers and Daydreaming, Sigmund Freud has shed light on; how creative writers comes with the thoughts and how it can be compared with or differs from the daydreaming. My impression to Freud’s childhood imagination was very personal, intriguing and reminiscences of my own childhood life, as for my drawing classes, I used to come up with the imagination of wide green hills, clear blue sky and small cottage like houses beneath the hills where small brook passes by from the side of the house. All this objects in drawings were mere part of my thoughts rather than any place where I had ever been to.
Freud’s idea of bringing the connection between child’s play and creative writers work is very interesting. As both of them play their part seriously and expends large amount of emotion in their work. Freud writes, “Child’s best- loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?” (21-25, Page 25) He then explains that creative writer does similar by creating the world of fantasy where writer takes his work very seriously and by investing large amount of his emotions. Nonetheless separating from the reality.
“The fact that all women in novel fall in love with the hero can hardly be looked on as a portrayal of reality, but it is easily understood as a necessary constituent of a daydream.” (78-80, Page 26) I agree with this part from the blog. Many times in the real world the true hero or lover will be the one to get betrayed or dumped by the women. Whereas, in novel, the creative writer keeps himself in the mind of the reader and chooses his word and story to give some purposeful direction. Or, to make the story sound more interesting and meaningful.
His description on how one’s “strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds a wish which finds its fulfillment in the creative work.” (Page 27) describes the evolution that occurs between the childhood and adult phase of human.
After reading this article, I remembered one example, Shelly’s way of bringing a lifeless matter by joining pieces of other dead part is no less different than the story of Cinderella where an ugly and poor lady was turned into charming princess. As a reader and an imaginative thinker myself, since childhood, I found Freud’s blog to be very good way of showing those similarities to readers.
The Metamorphosis is quite the read that will leave you feeling one word: unsettled. Reading Gregors journey feels like a silent horror movie where you rely on sound to depict the suspense. Kafka’s piece isn’t exactly “scary”, but it left me feeling thrilled and uncomfortable, where I constantly heard the silent movie music get escalated to higher and higher notes. Because I’ve read The Metamorphosis previously, I started this response by first reading Freud’s work. Being a big fan of Freud, I instantly became enwrapped in his words and began to see many connections to Kafka as an author and to Gregors character.
First, I wanted to react to the use of imagery Kafka uses. Oh the chills and thoughts you’ll have as you imagine this lonely, sad man wake up as this slimy creature. He lives his life in a robotic manner: wake up, eat, work, and sleep. However, you sympathize with him. You feel sorry for him because he lives so selflessly. After he undergoes his transformation, Gregor struggles to live. This theme of Gregor struggling and trying to continue his stressful job presents a MUCH bigger idea that we can analyze (which I’ll elaborate on later).
The sympathy I felt for Gregor reminded me of Freud’s explanation on one aspect of how authors write creative stories. Freud said that “each of [the characters] is the center of interest, for whom the writer tries to win our sympathy by every possible means and whom he seems to place under the protection of a special Providence.” In The Metamorphosis, Kafka wins our sympathy for Gregor through means of family abandonment, the three boarders, and his sisters turn of compassion.
Freud also writes about how creative writers normally like to connect their stories to their own life. He says “a strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds with which finds its fulfillment in the creative work.” I’ve read a lot about Kafka himself and learned that he suffered a great deal in his life with on and off depression. His two younger brothers died during infancy. Kafka did not have a great relationship with his parents. Overall, the home was constantly filled with sadness. Freud would look at Kafkas life of tragedy as a personal connection to Gregor. Another very sad, but in my opinion, outstanding, connection between Kafka and Gregor is the transformation. Gregor becomes a cockroach who is essentially a dying man in a slimy shell. Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hindered from doing many things, like serving in the military, due to his condition. Kafka too was just a dying man in a shell.
On another note, I found the entire chapter “Creative Writers and Daydreaming” very relevant. In addition to the methods authors use to write creative stories that I mentioned above, Freud also wrote an analogy linking children at play to the imaginative process of writers. Freud explains that children are most creative when they are at play, just like writers are when they are fantasizing their new story lines. This was fascinating to me because I instantly thought of myself as a child. I remember being with my friends at the park pretending that the rubber matting was lava and the concrete sidewalks were the “safe” zones. I remember countless memories of hide and seek, looking for new innovative spots to hide. Now, a decade or so later, I think back to this time of creativity at play and realize that that same mentality of thinking of new games or looking for a new, secret place to hide is exactly the kind of mentality that creates great works of fiction and fantasy. Even though Kafka lived in sadness, I’m sure he had to use some elements of creativity to create this dark, gloomy work.
Although I believe Freud makes a valid point, I did not see the element of kinship in The Metamorphosis. Freud says that “typical features of these egocentric stories point to…all women in the novel invariably fall[ing] in love with the hero…” The only women in the story are the mother, the sister, and the maid, (who, if I may add, is a freak), who are all only terrified and disgusted by Gregor’s new image. Grete was the only one who showed some compassion initially but still ended up turning her back on him by letting him die.
The second chapter of the Freud reading spoke more about dreams. When reading The Metamorphosis, I felt like it was a dream. There was no background to it. Gregor just wakes up to be this gross bug. I was waiting for him to say “and then I woke up from this awful nightmare.” The abrupt transition makes it feel very trance and dream-like. Freud would use this as an opportunity to implement a philosophical idea that dreams are wish fulfillments. In a way, we can say that Gregor wanted his misery of a continuous working life to end and becoming a cockroach was his wish fulfillment.
Lastly, this comment may be irrelevant but I would feel like this response is incomplete if I don’t mention how I felt about this story overall. I’ve touched upon it briefly, but I was really saddened by the end of the novel. Gregor lives monotonously- he must provide for his family by working a job he hates with people who don’t care for him. There is nothing to his life. And then one day, he wakes up and hes a cockroach. But this transformation demonstrates a very big theme and an even bigger explanation to life. This story is obviously wildly absurd, but it suggests that we as humans often operate in a routine lifestyle that we cannot break. Time passes by us blindly and we cannot stop it. Then one day, you wake up and you’re a cockroach (metaphorically speaking, of course). Kafka is trying to tell us to slow down and enjoy life because one day you’ll wake up too old to do anything. Your family who you once provided for will be young and will not want to take care of your old self. You won’t necessarily deserve it, but Kafka is trying to say we can all become a cockroach some point in our lives- insignificant and useless.
The Metamorphosis is strange and hard to grasp, but I believe we can classify this as a great work as it shows relevance to life and leaves me captivated with many emotions.
In this paper, Sigmund Freud takes an attempt to explain where, and how creative writers come up with their fictional ideas. He explains that this is mostly a result of their experiences as children. My initial thoughts were that this is a rather scientific way of looking at creative thoughts. I also had questions on what could be other ways than just creative writing that will allow people to express their fantasies. After that, I realized that the overarching theme of being influenced by childhood experiences is true for other aspects of our lives besides writing.
The reason I thought this paper was scientific is because Freud uses daydreaming as adults and connects it with how we were as kids. He almost metaphorically mentions that just like children take their playtime seriously, and differentiate it with the reality, creative writers are also very serious about their fantasies, and differentiate it from real-life facts. I think this juxtaposition of similar psychology at very different times of ones life is very crucial in showing the connection between childhood memories and writers experience. Also, it helped me look at fictional writings in a different manner. Now, it seems to me like a fictional book is an instrument that bridges the gap between one’s childhood thought and adult fantasies, which in of itself could be a derivative of that very childhood experience. In other words, adult fantasies are shaped by how one was nurtured as infant.
When I read the statement,” A strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds a wish which finds its fulfillment in the creative work,” I thought that the whole idea of someone’s childhood experience having effect on their adult lives is not only true when it comes to writing. I think creative writing is a means of how one expresses the “memory” people have in their childhoods. However, it is possible that people express it in other ways such as sports, careers choice, etc. For instance, a soccer player who had a tough upbringing may be more aggressive in the field than the rest of his / her teammates. I also think that childhood experiences always have some influence in how people make decisions in other aspects of their lives as well.
In conclusion, I thought this paper gave a very good explanation for where the creative writers get the fictional/creative part in their works. I find it logical that creative writers get ideas from childhood experience the memory of which is triggered by a present experience. I also thought that there might be other ways than creative writing that allows people to express their fantasies.
We have all been victims to the daydream and emotionally attached to a fictional character. Whether it is the power of our imagination or the talents of the writer, people seem to be fascinated by the idea of creating something from nothing or making a certain connection that they find comfort in. Sigmund Freud in his two chapters, Creative Writers and Daydreaming and The Interpretation of Dreams, explains the type of mindset writer’s have and the certain aspects behind dreams in a way I have never thought of.
I would like to start off on Freud’s first chapter, Creative Writers and Daydreaming. One of the first points he makes is how creative writers and children have a similar thought process. They are both able to use extravagant imaginations to develop a story or create a world to play in. This is an interesting connection he makes. Never looking at it in this way before, I find myself agreeing with him. Creative writers must have a unique way of thinking, almost that of a child, to be able to come up with the stories they do. I find myself thinking of Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, when discussing this point. Shelley thought up the idea of a scientist bringing a man back to life by sewing dead body parts together and approached it in such a serious manner that is not foreign to her own self. This concept is so unique, yet so bizarre. I would say this is exactly how a child’s imagination works.
Another point Freud makes in the first chapter is about how writers, in a way, can be connected to daydreamers. He talks about a writer creating a hero and being able to be inside his or her mind throughout their journey, while people seem to make themselves the hero, or center of attention, within their daydreams. Personally, as someone who often daydreams, I can say that I am proof of this relation. In all of my daydreams I find myself being the “hero” or making sure that whatever happens, it will be of my enjoyment or beneficial to myself. Who would want to dream about someone else accomplishing a great feat or being praised for his or her good deeds? In a way, I see daydreams as a means for one to be selfish and I feel that writers tend to do this with their readers and heroes. They put the readers in the mind of the hero allowing them to know the hero’s wants, desires, feelings, thoughts, etc. All of this further strengthens the connection between hero and reader, which is not present with other characters in the story.
In the second Chapter, The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud talks about two characters, Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, and the impulses we have towards our parents. I believe the use of Oedipus Rex is a primary example to explain how this idea works. His story of the violent acts towards his father and his sexual relations towards his mother portrays what Freud is discussing about with dream interpretations. I can see how this idea might be controversial and hard for some people to grasp, both aspects seeming to be uncomfortable for one to feel towards their mother and father. One can see where these feelings derive from though. A mother is the one who nurtures her child and shows them love and affection. With a young developing mind, a child can easily get these feelings mixed up. A certain comparison I made when reading this chapter was how men tend to look for traits of their mothers in women when looking for a girlfriend or wife and vice versa with women and their fathers when looking for a man. I feel to some extent branches off Freud’s idea of the sexual impulses towards ones mother.
After reading Freud’s coupling of creative writers and the imagination of children and his interpretations of dreams, I was able to expand my views on these topics. He contributed strong evidence to support his points and while reading his work, I myself, was able to make certain connections to personal experiences or to works we have read in class. I found Sigmund Freud’s, Creative Writers and Daydreaming and The Interpretation of Dreams, to be informative and interesting readings.
Many perceptions of the depiction of the monster in Mary Shelley’s iconic novel Frankenstein point to a seemingly obvious conclusion; he was an evil mutant, a sub-human degenerate, a killer with a sick mind and equally disgusting appearance. On the other side of that impression stands the image of something as pure and innocent as a lamb.
In William Blake’s poem entitled “The Lamb”, a child narrator marvels at the animal and asks it “Dost thou know who made thee”. The child then concludes the lamb’s maker must have been God (Jesus is known as a lamb in Christian tradition). A parallel can be seen between the monster and the lamb, because doctor Victor Frankenstein created the monster while himself playing god. Frankenstein’s discovery of electricity fueled his arrogance and made him feel god-like, possessing power far greater than any other human being, “Capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter… What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp” (Shelley). Additionally, much like god, Frankenstein leaves his creation with free will but limited knowledge, able only to fend for itself and live lost, alone in the cruel world. At first glance, the similarities seem to end at both creatures’ makers. It appears that in any other respect the lamb and Frankenstein’s monster could not be more different; while one is described as a gentle creature with soft bright wool and a “tender voice”, the monster is ugly, repulsive and aggressive.
However, a deeper analysis reveals more parallels between the lamb and the monster, especially if one subscribes to the notion that objects are reflections of their creators. Frankenstein was motivated by his obsession with natural philosophy, delusions of grandeur, and little concern for what possible consequences might ensue. One might argue that his act of bringing the cadaver to life was cruel; it went against nature, and brought an innocent to a life of uncertainty and suffering. The creature was born not only free from guilt, he was entirely ignorant of the cruel world around him that later shaped him into becoming a monster. He was at first innocent just like a lamb, and only turned to mirror his creator’s cruel demeanor after experiencing a lot of rejection and pain.
The human-like creature created by Victor Frankenstein in “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley has a strong resemblance to the creature described in the poem, “The Tyger” by William Blake. As we continue to hear his story in the book, we discover that the creation of the creature in “Frankenstein” and the several monstrous acts he committed can be seen within the lines of “The Tyger.” For example, in the poem, Blake continually questions the creator of the tiger; in the first and last stanza, he writes, “What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” He describes the creator as “immortal” and even daring, since he had the ability to create this beautiful yet deadly animal, which is described as “burning bright in the forests of the night,“ having a twisted heart, and being a “deadly terror”. Blake continues questioning and asks whether its creator was smiling once his work was done. We can assume that he asks this question because he wants to know the reaction of creating something that is both so dangerous and aesthetically appealing to the eye.
Like the tiger, Frankenstein’s creature also has fearsome features, yet was seen as beautiful at its birth; Frankenstein describes, “Beautiful – Great God!….his hair was a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…” (Shelley, 49). Frankenstein first sees the creature as a beautiful one but slowly develops feelings of hatred and disgust, especially after he concludes of its destructive actions towards the human species, as we learn later on in his involvement of the deaths of William and Justine. Much like the description of the tiger, the creature has a twisted heart in the way that he now despises the human species; he is also dangerous because of his bigger body frame. Therefore, I believe he is more like the tiger than the lamb since the lamb is described as more of an innocent creature, unlike the “deadly terror” that Frankenstein has created.
Watch this video of poet M. NourbeSe Philip reading her poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and respond. Discuss what the poem says about language, familial connection, and how slavery destroys human connection. Responses should connect the poem to any aspect of Frederick Douglass’s A Narrative of a Life.
