Ancient Literature in our Modern World

The movie I picked for this assignment was Hick and the scene I picked was nearly to the end of the movie where Luli (Chloe Moretz) shoots Eddie (Eddie Redmayne). This scene shows Eddie killing Glenda (Blake Lively), and he is going crazy because he cannot believe what he just did, Luli, which was close to Glenda killed Eddie out of spite.

Some background information about the movie: Luli left her home in Nevada to go to Las Vegas to become an actress. She went on a trip with a few bucks and asked for rides in order for her to get to Las Vegas, along the way, she met Glenda, a cocaine addict, which became Luli’s close friend and she sort of admired her because of how independent she was.

Luli met Eddie, which had something with Glenda, but Luli liked Eddie, and Eddie made her believe he liked her, and he only did that to get closer to Glenda. Eddie fooled and lied to Luli until she finally opened her eyes that he was using her to get back with Glenda.

In this scene we can see a fraction of Eddie’s madness about Glenda which ends up in her murder. Despite the fact he lied to Luli and made her believe that he felt something about her, he also killed Glenda, which was friend, all this situations led her to kill Eddie.

This scene from this movie, even though is short, relates to Jacobean drama because of the lying and the violence involved. We could compare this movie to The Duchess of Malfi specially in the madness that Ferdinand had towards his sister (the Duchess) which compelled him to kill the Duchess, Antonio and their kids.

The scene that I chose is the last scene of Cruel Intentions which is when Kathryn is revealed to have a big part to do with Sebastian’s final break down before his death. She is, also, discovered to use cocaine. Choosing a scene from this movie was difficult since this whole movie is about mind games, betrayal, dramatic love, drugs, sex, manipulation, and not necessarily incest, but close since Kathryn and Sebastian, step-siblings, always have sexual encounters throughout the movie. Jacobean dramas are all about these themes present in Cruel Intentions. In Cruel Intentions, Sebastian and Kathryn are step-siblings who have indulged in multiple sex flings and heartless destruction and manipulation of others. When Kathryn and Sebastian make a bet if Sebastian can manage to seduce the virgin, Annette Hargrove, Sebastian realizes that he is falling in love with her. This is when Annette’s pure heart changes Sebastian and he becomes very different from his manipulative step-sister. However, since his sister can’t rest until Sebastian is destroyed, she tells her lover about how Sebastian hit her, which is a lie, and which leads to Sebastian’s death. One quote from the movie is when Kathryn admits to manipulating Sebastian, she says, “You were very much in love with her. And you’re still in love with her. But it amused me to make you ashamed of it. You gave up on the first person you ever loved because I threatened your reputation. Don’t you get it? You’re just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with. And now you’ve completely blown it with her. I think it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” The manipulation that is very strong in this movie is what Jacobean dramas entail. Without the manipulation there is no Jacobean drama

This chapter opened up a whole new door to what lengths we would go to keep social norms alive.  Ferdinand says to the Duchess:

“Enjoy the lust still, and a wretched life,

On that conditions; and for thee, vile woman,

If thou do wish thy lecher may grow old

in thy embracement’s, I would have thee build

such a room form him as our anchorites

to holier use inhabit, Let not the sun

Shine on him till he’s dead, let dogs and monkeys

Only converse with him, and such dumb things

To whom nature denies use to sound his name.”

Do we allow social norms to have us hate our family and wish such horrors upon the father of our nieces and nephews??

Do you think things would be different if Ferdinand supported the Duchess??

For this week’s online assignment you’ll need to know what Jacobean drama is (consult the course assignment page for further info). We’ll be discussing Jacobean drama in class, but here is a helpful link. Remember – The Duchess of Malfi is a quintessentially Jacobean drama — so over-the-top violence, incest, jealousy, revenge! Those are the kinds of characteristics typical of Jacobean plays.

Here’s an article from The Guardian that provides some helpful background:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jan/20/jacobean-tragedies-changeling-duchess-malfi

“On the face of it, few things seem more remote to 21st-century Britain than the world of Jacobean tragedy: a shadowy universe in which sexual and political betrayal combine with incest, insanity, forced marriage and ferocious honour codes that would not disgrace the 19th-century mafia (many are, indeed, set in Italy). Their cast-lists are often an alphabet soup of semi-southern European names; their belief systems seem impossibly remote. And that’s to reckon without the bizarre plotting. The Duchess of Malfi is tortured by her brothers for having remarried, then strangled along with two of her children; one brother runs mad. In The Changeling, the heroine loses her virginity to her disfigured servant – the ironically named De Flores – then is forced to pimp out her maid to the man she herself is in love with (the maid dies in a fire). In ‘Tis Pity, a sister becomes guiltily pregnant by her brother, only for her heart to be cut out and skewered on a dagger. Women Beware Women culminates in a killing spree administered by poisoned incense.”

One thing in The Duchess of Malfi that astounds me is the fact that Ferdinand and the Cardinal wont allow the Duchess to remarry. The Duchess is a grown women and i believe she can make decisions on her own and doesn’t need the approval of her brothers to do so. On page 70 Line 136 the Duchess says “Why should only I of all the other princes of the world be cased up like a holy relic? I have youth, and a little beauty.” For some reason the Cardinal and Ferdinand are completely against the idea of her having a second husband. Ferdinand even brings up the case that the Duchess has lost her Reputation. “You have shook hands with Reputation and made him invisible (Lines 134-135).”

My questions are:

1) Why are Ferdinand and the Cardinal against the Duchess remarrying?

2) Why is the Duchess allowing her brothers to control her life, causing her to be secretly married?

3) Do you agree with the fact that the Duchess is essentially a “holy relic”?

Here are some useful links to help you navigate this complicated play! And help you answer your questions due this week:

Some background on Acts 1 and 2

What is a malcontent?

A really nice PDF that provides helpful notes for some key parts of the play

I felt that both On&on by Joey badass was a connection to the poem Drinking Alone by Li Bo. The first time i read this poem there was a very unnerving vibe about it, i think everyone has a moment where they feel the need to drink alone but when he uses the moon and his own shadow to substitute them for friends or just people they meet it made me think of this song. In joey’s song, On&on it relates to being alone and that not everyone can be trusted and sometimes you need to be alone to recollect your thoughts and goals on life. One of the lines in his poem that goes,

(” We share life’s joys when sober. Drunk, each goes separate way.”)

You can compare this to a line in joeys song that goes,

(“Happiness is temporary, always has been. I just lost one but sometimes i win.”)

i feel that you can compare the feeling of loss with being drunk and that when you drink you are essentially wanting to forget all the negative things in life. In both the song and poem you can relate to the feeling of being isolated and that only a few friends will actually stand up for you, or in Li Bo’s case the moon and his own shadow. There was another line in this poem that stood out to me and it goes

(“Constant friends, although we wander, we’ll meet again in the milky way.”)

you can compare this line to a line in joey’s song that goes,

(“Whenever you need me just take a plane to the astral zone.”)

I think both these lines can be interpreted to the people that they won’t meet again during their lifetimes but they were close friends or whatnot and they will meet again in their afterlives. Both of these artists has a really unique way of expressing their forms of being alone and it caught my eye because sometimes i cant help but feel the same way.

The assignment due Tuesday has been posted under course assignments as a Word Doc. Here is the link to The Duchess of Malfi available at the Baruch bookstore:

http://www.amazon.com/Duchess-Malfi-Other-Plays-Law-Case/dp/0199539286/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424359206&sr=1-4&keywords=The+Duchess+of+Malfi

And here’s the version I originally ordered, also acceptable for class:

http://www.amazon.com/Duchess-Malfi-New-Mermaids/dp/1472520653/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424359206&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Duchess+of+Malfi