Dichotomous Images in McEwan’s Saturday: In Pursuit of Objective Balance

Text Matters ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 270-277
Author(s):  
Joanna Kosmalska
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Human Personality ◽  
The Real ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides

Saturday sets out to depict the contemporary world with its ambiguities and paradox. In the novel, like in a mirror painting, every event, character and conflict is highlighted from diverse, often contradictory, angles by the narrator's extensive commentary, flashback and reference to other books. The prevailing happiness of mass protests against the war on Iraq is countered by the recollection of mass graves, an element of Saddam's callous regime, the real terrorist threat is contrasted with national paranoia, and the Prime Minister's performance of truthfulness is scrutinized by means of Paul Ekman's study of micro-expressions. The technique of dualistic depiction is further used in order to describe the characters. Reworking the idea of two sides of the same coin, McEwan offers the novel as a metaphorical study of the intricacies of human personality. Therefore, Baxter becomes simultaneously an offender and a victim, John Grammaticus turns from a successful poet into an alcoholic womanizer, and Lilian Perowne's physical and mental disintegration is contrasted with her past as a champion swimmer. McEwan's dichotomous description of the world echoes Barthes's binaries, not only in the duality itself, but also in the fact that the juxtaposition of contradictory images constitutes a more complete depiction of an event or a person. The contrast between the opposing ideas is further accentuated by the use of different jargons: the language of medicine, media, upper-class, working-class, and the like. The use of language throughout the novel seems to repeat the notion that by means of jargons people control and exclude others, highlighting their authority and constructing their position of supremacy. Saturday, which captures acutely the events of a single day in the life of a renowned neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne, presents issues, such as the terrorist threat or the creation of media reality, that appear international in consciousness. The essay illustrates how, with admirable artistry, McEwan incorporates meaningful images, visually complex descriptions and different kinds of language into a diary account, for readers to enjoy a more objective comment on the contemporary world.

scholarly journals Pyotr Chardynin’s The Idiot as a Phenomenon of Creative Reinterpretation of Dostoevsky’s Novel

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
Anastasia Ryabokon’
Keyword(s):  
Film Adaptation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Human Personality ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Main Protagonist

The essay explores the artistic and expressive features of the world's first film adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, directed in 1910 by Pyotr Chardynin. The author substantiates the degree of influence of one of the most important philosophical concepts of the novel that of a split in the human personality on Russian national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis of the figurative system of the film shows that its semantics and the images of its characters were ahead of its time and, therefore, deserve closer critical attention.In the The Idiot the idea of Dostoevsky about a human beings separateness in the world is revealed in the four main characters Prince Myshkin, Parfyon Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya who are not complete, full-fledged personalities but separate components of a harmonious human personality. These characters, like puzzle pieces, possess mutually complementary qualities. Thus, Prince Myshkin, the bearer of the highest spirituality, is contrasted with the earthly and passionate Rogozhin. And the images of Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya are connected, respectively, with the images of Heavenly Love and Earthly Love. If the characters of the novel could unite with each other in love and harmony, the world would get a complete harmonious person, like the one created by God for the Garden of Eden. However, such a merger seems impossible within the limits of earthly existence. In Dostoevsky's novel the individual parts of the soul could not unite into a harmonious whole. Egoism, passion, pride and imperfection of human nature do allow the protagonists to unite and lead them towards personal disintegration.In Russian national cinema, Dostoevskys idea of human beings separateness undergoes a number of transformations. The changes introduced by Pyotr Chardynin into the film adaptation of the novel mostly relate to the image of the films main protagonist Nastasya Filippovna, whom the filmmaker associates with a dying Russia. Chardynin also transforms other protagonists. Prince Myshkin is the only carrier of the highest spirituality, while Nastasya Filippovna, Aglaya and Rogozhin are earthly and passionate. At the end of the film, Nastasya Filippovnas murderer Rogozhin, dressed in a Russian folk costume, sobs at the bedside of the dead tsarina, while heavenly prince Myshkin who was not accepted by her in her lifetime, comforts the sinner. Chardynins film transforms the idea of a split in the human personality into the idea of the Russian separateness from God, the internal split within the Russian world and, as a consequence, that worlds inevitable death.

scholarly journals Workers Who Benefit from the Exploitation of Other Workers

2020 ◽  
pp. 223-239
Author(s):  
Marcel Van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Global South ◽  
The South ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
The Real ◽  
The North ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
The World ◽  
Wage Earners

Often, all too often, global working-class solidarity remains fragile, conditional or fails to be realized in practice, whatever the lofty rhetoric may be. The present paper explores one possible explanation: workers in the North profit from the exploitation of workers in the South through cheap commodities and services, and additional job opportunities. For example, wage-earners in the North can buy T-shirts so advantageously because their real wages are much higher than the real wages of labourers in the Global South. This is what I would like to call a relational inequality within the world working class: some workers are better off because other workers are worse off. The paper presents a very tentative historical outline of global relational inequality since the 1830s.

scholarly journals The Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) and its Aftermath in Contemporary World Affairs

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sanjmyatav Bazar
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The World ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
New Phase ◽  
Economic And Social Impacts

As the conception of security consolidates our prosperity to evolve on this planet that revolutionises our social norms and values from time-to-time, it also encounters threats and challenges that could potentially deliver a massive impact to the world. For instance, such security dilemmas would result in transforming the world order, international relations or even the lives of billions. This is the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) and it has changed the world for an indefinite period. Thus, it has forced us into a new phase, new norms and a new world. This paper will examine how this coronavirus outbreak has political, economic and social impacts on the world order through the lens of international relations.

scholarly journals Pursuit of Truth in Doris Lessing’s Shikasta: Plato and Nagarjuna in Conversation

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Shaereh Shaerpooraslilankrodi ◽  
Ruzy Suliza Hashim
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Intuitive Knowledge ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Main Obstacle ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Self Transcendence

<p>In Doris Lessing’s novels, obtaining Truth to transcend the soul has been notably emphasized. Similarly, in <em>Shikasta, </em>the necessity<em> </em>to acquire genuine awareness has been focused as the mere way to self-transcendence. The detailed inspection of the novel explicates how human species live in amnesia, unable to remember their authentic reality and trapped in the disease of individuation. While the novel does not reject reason as the mean to “remember” the Truth, it mainly regards mindfulness and intuitive knowledge as a tool to achieve authenticity. The facets of amnesia and illusionary conception of the world make the novel a satisfactory text under both Plato’s and Nagarjuna’s interpretation of visionary world. However, its tilt towards non-dual patterns to attain Truth makes Nagarjuna’s approach a contribution to Plato’s rational manner in this regard. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to apply Plato and Nagarjuna’s pursuit of Truth to examine Lessing’s elucidation of authentic knowledge in <em>Shikasta</em>. The methodology appropriated in the paper entails depiction of visible world as an illusion of the Real pointed in Plato’s allegory of Cave and Nagarjuna’s Mundane Truth. We clarify emotion as the main motivator of such illusionary status stressed in both Plato and Nagarjuna’s thoughts. We argue that while the importance of reason and eradicating emotion cannot be ignored, what adjoins people to Truth is mindfulness and intuitive knowledge which is close to Nagarjuna’s non-dual patterns. By examining ordinary life as the illusion of Real, and emotion as the main obstacle to achieve the Truth emphasized in both Nagarjuna and Plato’s trends, we depart from other critics who undermine the eminence of essentialist trace in Lessing’s works and examine her approach towards Truth merely under postmodern lens. This departure is significant since we clarify while essentialism has been abandoned to a large extent and supporters of Plato have become scarce, amalgamation of his thoughts with spiritual trends opens a fresh way to earn authenticity in Lessing’s novel. </p>

Between magnificence and monstrosity: Turkishness in recent popular cinema

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 123-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asuman Suner
Keyword(s):  
Popular Cinema ◽  
Action Films ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Box Office ◽  
The World ◽  
Turkish State ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Turkish Society

AbstractThis paper studies the idea of Turkishness as one thematic element that commonly characterizes recent Turkish box-office champions. The preoccupation with the idea of Turkishness in recent popular cinema can be seen as a reflection of Turkish society's bafflement with the process of rapid and intensive transformation during the 2000s. In this period, Turkish society has grown increasingly confused about how to assess its own worth in the contemporary world. The paper makes use of the terms “magnificence” and “monstrosity” to make sense of the excessive representations of Turkishness in Turkish box-office champion action films and comedies of the second half of the 2000s. The term “magnificence” stands for aspirations in Turkish society during the last decade about the revival of the glory of the Ottoman past and becoming a powerful actor again on the world scene. The term “monstrosity” is employed in relation to Turkish society's cynical indifference to the violence perpetrated by the Turkish state, which is often rendered acceptable through the presumption of “Turkish peculiarity.” The paper points to the continuity between recent blockbuster action films and comedies in their representations of Turkishness by suggesting that magnificence and monstrosity appear in these films as two sides of the same coin.

scholarly journals Editorial

Philosophy ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Real Problem ◽  
The Real ◽  
The World

Editorial: Scholarly Class‘It follows from the laws of the order of rank that scholars, in so far as they belong to the spiritual middle class, can never catch sight of the really great problems and question marks; moreover their courage and their eyes simply do not reach that far—and above all, the needs which led them to become scholars in the first place ... come to rest and are satisfied too soon.’Thus Nietzsche (in The Gay Science 373). Nietzsche goes on to castigate those scientifically minded philosophers who would divest existence of its rich ambiguity. A scientific interpretation of the world might be the stupidest one, the poorest in meaning, an essentially mechanical world being an essentially meaningless one. It would tell us no more of the value of the world than would a scientific account of a piece of music tells us about music.Many, particularly perhaps readers of Philosophy, may warm to Nietzsche's words. It is also true that in courses of philosophy we hear far more about science and philosophy disguised as science than we do about music. It may, indeed, be possible to do a degree in philosophy without learning anything about the values of music at all; strange, given that for most young people, including many students of philosophy, a particularly mechanical form of music is both narcotic and more meaningful than language.But, let us go back to ‘scholars’. Nietzsche himself might avoid the tu quoque. Certainly he wasn't an institutional scholar. Nietzsche's weapons, though, have a habit of being two-edged in the hands of his followers, doing as much damage to those who wield them, as to those at whom they are waved. In any case, if scholars are members of the spiritual middle class, their critics are not, just because they are critics, members of the upper class. Their courage and their insight can be as limited and derivative as those they criticize. This is the real problem posed by scholars of the middle class.

scholarly journals Children of “Toxic Parents”: An Attempt of Interpretation of “The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 281-301
Author(s):  
Barbara Myrdzik
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Professional Success ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
The World ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Professional Fulfillment ◽  
The City

The article constitutes an attempt to interpret the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro The Unconsoled – a work with a complex plot and a multi-threaded structure, typical for a composition stretched on the frame of the rhizome-like labyrinth and the motif of memory imperfections. The labyrinth is a space of strangeness, of being lost. It is a journey of the main character who wanders around various spaces of the city and hotel (which performs a variety of functions), meets many random people and listens to their accounts. The life problems of the city’s inhabitants indicate the eternal truth, according to which a man cannot live without understanding, without talking to someone kind who has the ability to listen. They were looking for someone who would listen and understand them, someone who would kindly respond to their problems. It may also be assumed that living in a world without the feeling of a lack of transcendence, the inhabitants were looking for an authority like a messiah who would indicate the direction of renewal in the world of chaos and who would answer the question: How to live? The novel describes a cultural crisis triggered by the feeling of a fundamental contradiction between the world of scientific truths and the inner world of every human being. Values such as faith, friendship, selflessness, truthfulness or family, to which Ishiguro pays a lot of attention, have been lost. “Toxic parents” are shown in multiple configurations: on the example of Ryder’s parents, or Ryder himself as the father of Boris and Stephan Hoffman. The author shows one of the major causes of the paternity crisis, namely the cult of professional success. Professional success and rivalry connected with it completely absorb Ryder’s life and activities. As a result of the pursuit of professional fulfillment, the role of emotional ties in his life becomes less significant, they almost disappear. It may be assumed that, using the example of the crisis in the described city, Ishiguro presents the contemporary world, which lost the sense of life; however, he did not limit it to the lost past. The world in which all attempts to search for a new form of expression and valorization end in failure. It is a labyrinthine, objectified world which is only given outside, a world of showing off and a “game” of pretending, without honesty and simplicity. It is a place dominated by a pose and culture of narcissism, full of inauthenticity, artificiality and appearance. In addition, The Unconsoled is a poignant novel about human loneliness.

scholarly journals Spectacle of musealization and literaturization of the world in post/postmodern society

Arta ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-121
Author(s):  
Elena Prus ◽  
◽  
Ludmila Braniste ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mario Vargas Llosa ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Model ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Nobel Laureates ◽  
Orhan Pamuk ◽  
The One

This article discusses current issues in the evolution of museums worldwide, influenced by global phenomena. The globalization of culture, on the one hand, and the musealization of the world, on the other hand, become the plays of a spectacle of the contemporary world. The museum cultural model becomes dominant in today’s society, influencing all spheres and finding representation in the world’s literatures. Among the various approached theories, the concepts of musealization of the modelled world as a cultural spectacle, “the world as a museum”, imaginary museum, the literaturization of the museum and the musealization of literature. From this perspective, the theses of the Nobel laureates in literature Mario Vargas Llosa and Orhan Pamuk are analysed. In Pamuk’s novel The Museum of Innocence, the museum is the structuring narratological axis of the novel, its theme and compositional nucleus.

SURVEY OF DISASTERS IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE: A CASE STUDY OF I AM MALALA (I AM MALALA: THE GIRL WHO STOOD UP FOR EDUCATION AND WAS SHOT BY THE TALIBAN)

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Lale Massiha
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Human Origin ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Real ◽  
Normal Part ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Literature

I am Malala, the real story of the struggles of a girl who, unlike her elderly, did not remain silent, injustice and in order to bring the voices of the Pakistani girls to the victims of the bullying of the Taliban. Malala Yousafzai has gained world renown and released the story of her life with the help of Christina Lem in the story of a biography in 2013. Malala's militant spirit and his rhetoric have been of great interest to the world. But what caused Malala's fate was evil and evil that he had in his life from the beginning of his birth in various ways. In the present study, Kant's viewpoint is about moral misconduct, which suggests that evil does not have a super-human origin. Based on this, evil is being studied at its various levels and in the stages of Malala's life. In addition, John Kick's and Claudia Cardre's ideas have been used to analyze the intentions, motives, feelings and responsibilities of evil, organizational and individual evil in the novel "I am Malala". In other words, with the help of these theories and definitions, there are some kinds of evil in the novel, which at first glance is a normal part of the life of the characters of the story. The false beliefs and insistence on their continued existence make the various bad forms in Malala's life. With a carefulreading of the novel, one can show badly in the society and the context in which the story is formed. In a nutshell, theorists, including Hannah Arendt, refer to Hitler and the Holocaust, and then cite other examples. The present study seeks to add the Taliban to this list by showing the organizational weakness in this novel. The study seeks to show that evil in modern literature is not created by super-human forces or witch women, and terror and war are not even bad ones. But any harassment or enjoyment of the suffering of others or even silence against the suffering of others is evil and has irreparable negative effects on the lives of the characters what can be seen in the place of Malala's life.

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