The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, looks at the racial and moral world through the eyes of the protagonist Huck, exploring the relationship between Huck and Jim and their journey to freedom along the Mississippi River. T. S. Eliot opens his 'Critical Essay' on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by declaring that it 'is the only one of Mark Twain's various books which can be called a masterpiece'.

T. S. Eliot marks ‘the Boy and the River’ as the most significant features of Huckleberry Finn within his essay, ‘An Introduction to Huckleberry Finn’. He states that these two elements, which when treated with ‘sensibility and his [Twain’s] experience formed a great book.’ The boy is used to narrate the story, with the unfolding events presented through his eyes, and by doing so Twain does not force Huck’s thoughts and opinions onto the reader, Huck simply observes the world and accepts the world for what it is and what it inflicts. The River holds great significance over the novel and has the power to control the journey of Huck and Jim. The River has the power to deter Jim from his freedom in Cairo and to separate Huck and Jim before reuniting them later in the novel. The River signifies the power of nature and the weakness of man. 

Mark Twain: 30th November 1835 - 21st April 1910

Eliot discusses how ‘It is Huck, who gives the book style’ by presenting the book through Huck’s eyes. Twain creates a narrative that discusses the events with a natural, boyish flow that comes only with a character that is aware, reflective and true to themselves. Without the placement of Huck as the narrator and main character the story would be a great deal less effective and the underlying themes of the novel would be lost. Eliot characterises the role of the boy, Huck, in the adventure, as the boy that Mark Twain still was, unlike Tom Sawyer who was the boy that Mark Twain had been. (Eliot, Introduction p. 329) Eliot describes Huck as being an ‘impassive observer’ who ‘does not interfere, and […] does not judge.’ (Eliot, Introduction p. 330) This makes for a change in narrative as previously the narrator had some sway within the text.

The relationship that exists between Jim and Huck is a key theme throughout the novel as both characters are victims of an unjust society and relate to one another as outsiders. The relationship between the two is viewed by Eliot as one of co-dependency. Eliot states that ‘Huck in fact would be incomplete without Jim […] they are equal in dignity.’ (Eliot, Introduction p. 331) Huck is not allowed to act as a boy would and find joy within his practical joke on Jim but has to bear the responsibility of a man. At a time when Jim would be considered less than an animal, this shows the intensity of the relationship between Jim and Huck. Huck presents a more evolved child character as he is more aware of the world around him, allowing for a more grown up perspective of the real world, a world which Jim has experienced and been personally victimised by. This creates a deeper understanding between the two companions and highlights the problematic society of the time. 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain

The significance of the landscape through which these figures journey is that the River actually manipulates and controls every situation. It is the River that decides where Huck and Jim shall go and it is the River that leads Huck on his adventure. Additionally, as Eliot states, Huck is ‘also the spirit of the River.’ (Eliot, Introduction p. 333) He seems to have no beginning or end, and he, like the River is experienced by the reader than just viewed or acquainted with. ‘It is Huck who gives the book style. The River gives the book its form.’ Elliot makes it clear that there is an obvious connection between the River and the landscape, with the River being a strong influence over the progression of Huck’s and Jim’s journey. The natural influences determine where the companions end up as it can often be unpredictable and unruly. ‘The River is never wholly chartable: it changes pace, it shifts its channel, unaccountably; it may suddenly efface a sandbar and throw up another bar where before was navigable water.’ The River is the determiner of their success and strays them on a course unknown.

With modern readings focusing solely on the issues of race and slavery within this novel, it is easy to dismiss the importance of the other aspects such as close relationship with Jim and Huck, where the former acts as a paternal figure to the latter. Issues of race are closely intertwined with the relationship between the pair however this soon progresses into something more, something held closely to humanity rather than a difference in appearance. Additionally, the importance of the River may also be lost on the reader, if the sole focus is placed upon race, however with close reading and analysis it is clear how all of these aspects link with one another in order to combine the tropes of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Yours adventurously,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

     www.underthefable.com

Crushed by Denise Greenwood: Interview

I was lucky enough to be able to interview Denise Greenwood about her latest novel, Crushed. She was kind enough to let me interrogate her with a heap of questions, so many thanks! Full details of Denise Greenwood and Crushed are available down below. Crushed is already out in Ireland and will be released as an e-Book via Kindle, Nook and Kobo etc. It is due for release in the UK during early 2016.

Denise Greenwood

Can you tell me a little about yourself and your background?

I was born and raised in Blackpool but then lived and worked in Manchester for a number of years where I was drawn to the theatre, comedy clubs and culture scene. I now live with my husband Jerry and son Rees in a hamlet in Littleborough. It is on the fringe of an old Lancashire mill-town at the western slopes of the South Pennines. After a long career as a Policy Development Manager for a major UK retailer I turned my skills from technical material to writing fiction in 2010. I use my unconventional life experiences and love of psychology to create characters and stories to push the boundaries of fiction. My first two books Temptation and Star Keeper are contemporary literature which attracted full page features in Northern Life and Style Magazines but after writing my first two books I was drawn to my darker side and wrote a dark and chilling thriller. Although it was initially an exploration I now find it is where I belong so I am currently working on my next novel.

What were you like at school? Did you always plan on becoming an author?

When we first moved to Manchester I offered to sing a song in front of the class. My Irish roots taught me that bursting into song was second- nature. I later penned and presented a short play and chose two of my friends to act in it with me. I also remember as a small child sitting on a window ledge and reading a book which I became lost in. I still remember my wish - that one day I could write something that would make others feel as I did at that exact moment. When I was an adult I occasionally thought about my wish but it was merely a pipe-dream. Then, in 2009 while sat on a church pew, I was struck with an idea which I couldn’t shake off for weeks. In an effort to get the idea out of my head and onto paper I unleashed a hidden side of me that I’d forgotten about. I became that small child once again and I knew that wishes, no matter how old they are, mustn’t be ignored. I jokingly refer to that year as my “mid-life crisis.”

What types of books do you tend to read?

I have eclectic tastes and it depends on my mood. My first passion is the English Classics. I want to become lost in the world of yesteryear and the lives of characters that face adversity. I also enjoy lighter, more modern reading, particularly the tales of people who move abroad and then become immersed in a new way of life. I have a system – I read something heavy then move onto light.

Which writers inspire you?

Hardy, Dickens and Brontë because they bring together characters whose strengths are often hidden until they are challenged. Their individual stories become part of a bigger picture. Robert M Pirsig because he delves deep into the psyche then entices the reader to join him in his quest to answer life’s big questions. Often, the writer’s life interests me – what made them take up a pen.

What is your favourite quote?

“Tell me what company thou keepest, and I’ll tell thee what thou art” – Don Quixote PY11 Ch23 – Cervantes.

How would you describe your personal writing style?

Visual – I vividly visualise my characters and the scenes they are in. I carry them around in my head for months before I begin to write and it is almost like replaying a film. The words I use are like paint on an artist’s brush and I try to use them to convey the scene I have in my head.

What are your ambitions for Crushed?

I hope that my characters will stay with readers so that they find themselves thinking about them long after they have finished reading. As I visualised my book so strongly I know that Crushed would also make a good TV or film adaptation.

Crushed is unlike any other book that I have read previously, where did you get the inspiration to write it?

I was watching a TV programme, Once Upon a Time, and it was Robert Carlyle, who was playing Rumpelstiltskin, in a unique way. At that moment I remembered running along a street as fast as I could. I was seven years old and returning from my first school play. Rumpel had frightened me. As I watched the TV I wondered what had made Rumpel such a twisted character and although the TV programme tried to explain it, it wasn’t enough for me. What if there didn’t have to be a traumatic event to change a person? What if just the experience of one moment of weird emotion connected the person to unnatural inclinations? I then thought of a boy who had lived near me. He had been my friend briefly before he’d moved away. He was an odd and sometimes scary boy. I wondered what he would have been like if I’d known him as a teen and then an adult. My two memories gave birth to my protagonist.

Are there any true elements within Crushed? Maybe characters that bear similarities to people who you may know or maybe even the setting?

The setting is in Halifax, a short train journey from where I live. All the scenes in my book are based on places I have been to but I make them bigger than life and adapt them for my characters. I’m a keen observer and people-watch so many of my characters contain small elements of something I’ve observed in a person, whether I know them or not. I like small details such as a way of walking or a brief facial expression as they often betray an inner emotion.

Crushed - Denise Greenwood

How long did it take for you to complete Crushed?

I nurtured my ideas and imagined possible outcomes for a long while before putting together an outline based on the images I saw. Often being in a new place triggered something and so I returned to that place and took photos, notes and spoke to people before I began my research. It took roughly six months to get Crushed into my head clearly before I began writing and then it took just three to write it. However, Crushed wasn’t complete until I had gone through it for re-writes and finalised its flow and order. This took another three.

Did you ever feel like giving up whilst writing this book? If so, what pushed you to continue?

I never lost heart. Crushed was a part of me and I was driven to write it. My characters pushed me to continue. Writing Crushed was one of the most pleasurable but disturbing experiences of my life.

Was there a personal reason that you chose the colour red as the hair of the girls? Of course there are many connotations of red with blood and love but did you have a specific reason yourself for choosing it?

In the days of black and white movies female roles were easy to fathom – blondes were good and sweet, brunettes were often the villains or not to be trusted. When colour was introduced, the red-heads were sirens and feisty. On a more personal note, I have natural black hair but sometimes in bright sunshine one copper-red hair stands out. People have plucked one from my head and marvelled. I put it down to my Irish roots. I knew that my female protagonist had to have a hair colour that would make her instantly stand out from a crowd.

I’m strangely drawn towards Barrington. Did you intend for his character to become a Byronic hero of sorts?

It is the moody, weird and sometimes scary people that we remember most. I deliberately didn’t want to explain why Barrington was unique, it was down to the reader to decide but, I also wanted the reader to question what they thought of him. When he meets his perfect victim he is totally unprepared for what he experiences. It is foreign to him. Romance is not a word I would use for what develops as it is too strange for that description. A unique relationship is forged between two unique characters. Barrington appeals to the darker side and the journey into it should be taken lightly. I still question myself about him and his appeal – magnetic or weird?

What inspired the character of Judith, your antagonist?

Judith is an amalgamation of all the people I've met who take up a job or cause then corrupt it. She also has a perspective often seen in attention-seekers. They thrive on drama and twist their interpretations of what they see and hear then interject their opinions or selves with the assumption that they're doing good.

Did you have to conduct a lot of research when writing Crushed?

Research was part of my six-month process before I began writing. Not only did I research places thoroughly, I also asked medical experts about some of the scenes I had planned so that I could confirm the information I’d researched online. Small details also take time to research, such as the simple experiment of freezing Brazil nuts then cracking them so that the sound they make is similar to that of a small bone breaking.

The ending is not something that I would have imagined. How did you decide upon it?

When I’ve created my characters in my head then their story often presents itself to me. I see the ending first then I work backwards. Often when I’ve nearly completed a book I realise that the ending I’d first envisaged is not the true ending at all. As the characters and the story evolved I’m led to an extended conclusion. I always knew how I wanted Crushed to end but I do not like parcels that are neatly tied with a bow at the end. Just as when I watched an actor playing Rumpel on TV, I wanted more than a simple conclusion as life is not like that so I didn’t succumb to simplicity.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Write from the heart and forget the fact that someone else will read your work. You began writing for a reason, what was that reason? What part of you does writing reach or expose? Your instincts will tell you when you have finished. Then, go out to meet the professionals who are the gatekeepers to the publishing industry and listen to what they have to say.

Describe your story in one sentence.

A chance encounter with a young woman challenges a killer’s patience, rigid perspective and strict lifestyle as he struggles to maintain his façade but, is his perfect victim all what she seems?

Do you have anything to add about your writing process, Crushed, or anything in general that I have not asked?

At first writing was a personal experiment to see if I could do it but once I began, it released a Kraken. I realised that the “extraordinary” is to be found in every aspect of one’s life. I am constantly amazed by people who live ordinary lives and yet have strange perspectives. During recent years I’ve seen people create drama in their lives as a form of compensation for being so ordinary and as a writer it is manna from heaven.

Contact information for Denise Greenwood:

Website: http://www.denise-greenwood.com/

Twitter: @DeniseGauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denise.greenwood.16

Book Trailers: - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiAhgB7epsJi05_Thf-wt2Q

Yours weekly,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

www.underthefable.com

Crushed by Denise Greenwood: Review

Crushed is the third novel written by author Denise Greenwood. As a thriller, Crushed is a shift away from Denise Greenwood’s first two books Temptation and Star Keeper which are contemporary fiction. Denise Greenwood stated, ‘After writing my first two books I was drawn to my darker side and although it was initially an exploration I now find it is where I belong.’ She is currently working on a new novel as well as promoting the release of Crushed.

Crushed is available in Ireland, however it will be released in the UK early into 2016. Nonetheless, it will become available as an e-Book for Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc. over the coming few weeks. When I was given the opportunity to read Crushed for review, I jumped at the chance to delve into this psychological thriller. I was not disappointed either, this novel was a delight to read and I found it to be a welcoming change from the usual university readings that I have to do. Usually, I do not have much time to read anything else however I was determined to read Crushed.

The novel begins by introducing the protagonist, Barrington, who seems unlike many typical fictional characters. The novel progresses from Barrington’s childhood into adulthood, however right from the start we can sense that something is not right with him. He shocks his teacher and classmates with his actions, however we can put down his behaviour to his dysfunctional family life. His mother is more concerned about appearances, his father is concerned with his work and other women. Small instances such as viewing his father’s infidelity add to the instability of Barrington. 

Crushed - Denise Greenwood

Right from birth, Barrington has been isolated, but spoiled. The one place he finds his solace is in his treehouse where his repressed desires and emotions come to light. He is consumed by his new compulsion, to hear fragile bones being crushed. Elspeth, the girl with the red hair, becomes his first human victim.

After fourteen years, he encounters another girl, Caprice, who also has red hair. She brings back countless emotions and memories that Barrington had repressed. However, instead of acting upon his desires and making her another of his victims, something shocking happens. He takes her to his home. Caprice challenges Barrington in ways that are unthinkable. She pushes his boundaries, defies his rigid routines, strict perspective and limited patience. Barrington’s break to his schedule leads to resurfacing memories and we learn more about the past fourteen years. Caprice is running from a tormentor, however Barrington is unaware of this.

Although Barrington is a complicated ‘hero’ to say the least, the main antagonist of the novel, Judith, is someone actually loathe. Barrington may have committed some unspeakable acts, however Judith is the real life villain that everyone has encountered. She is a carer next door to Barrington, at a nursing home. Not only that, she’s a massive busy-body! She watches Barrington and comes to unsettling conclusions about him. She’s bitter, nosey and spiteful. She even goes to extreme lengths of following Caprice and pretending to know Barrington, in order to learn more about him.

However, through Caprice, Barrington manages to perceive himself the way others do and learns to control his actions and emotions. Is she the one to save him? What is Caprice’s secret? If you want answers, you know what to do! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I can guarantee you will too – especially the ending! I also interviewed Denise Greenwood so why not check that out!

Contact information for Denise Greenwood:

Website: http://www.denise-greenwood.com/

Twitter: @DeniseGauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denise.greenwood.16

Book Trailers: - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiAhgB7epsJi05_Thf-wt2Q

Yours weekly,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

www.underthefable.com

The Relationship between Practical Criticism and New Criticism

New Criticism is the development of the Practical Criticism approach by American critics and poets. R. C. Murfin, R. C and S. M. Ray describe what New Criticism is within The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. ‘The foundations of the New Criticism were laid in books and essays written during the 1920s and 1930s by I. A. Richards (Practical Criticism [1929]), William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity [1930]), and T. S. Eliot ("The Function of Criticism" [1933]).’ New Criticism regards literature as an independent item. Murfin and Ray continue to state that: ‘rather than basing their interpretations of a text on the reader’s response, the author’s stated intentions, or parallels between the text and historical contexts, New Critics perform a close reading, concentrating on the relationships within the text that give it its own distinctive character or form.’ Although we associate New Criticism with certain principles and terms—such as affective fallacy (the notion that the reader’s response is relevant to the meaning of a work) and intentional fallacy (the notion that the author’s intention determines the work’s meaning)—the New Critics were trying to make a cultural statement rather than to establish a critical dogma.

Practical Criticism is a form of close reading and is related to developing the skill of being able to critically analyse texts (usually poetry) on early readings. It originated with Richards and it is the way that one can come up with analytical and interesting points about a piece on first reading, rather than getting into the academic exercise of theoretical criticism. The main ideology behind Practical Criticism is rather than concentrating on the author or the social context, you focus purely on the text itself and the lexis itself. According to Peter Barry’s Beginning theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cutural Theory, ‘the job of criticism is to interpret the text, to mediate between it and the reader.’ Practical Criticism perceives literature as a vehicle for transmitting universal truths and eternal values, considering that the meaning of a text remains constant throughout time, and is there to be extracted from the text.

Richards gave students poems in which information about the author and date were left out on purpose. He went on to analyse the student opinions. He reported the results in Practical Criticism: a Study of Literary Judgment, (1929). What was apparent throughout was many fluent and avid readers failed to understand what the poems were about.

When asked to write about Spring Quiet by Christina Rossetti, (although they did not know who wrote it or when) two students responded;

“It has little merit - parts of it are deplorable. The first two verses are quite attractive, and the rhyme ‘thrush’ with ‘bush’ is almost bearable. When ‘boughs’ and ‘house’ come next however, the attempt to enjoy the poem fails. There are not only poor rhymes, there is also much poverty of thought and much real silliness in the poem.”

And “The first 2 lines are not sense. I laughed at the rhyming of thrush and bush; and boughs and house. Reminds one quite pleasantly of the ‘poetry’ one wrote when aged ten.” (Richards, Practical Criticism: a Study of Literary Judgment)

Richards commentates that, ‘reminders of our own poetic efforts, not only at the age of ten but even in years closer at hand, have an inevitable influence on our judgment, a useful influence when it keeps within its province, but dangerous when it meddles with matters beyond it. All but a very few beginners in verse find rhyming a great strain upon their verbal ingenuity and attention.’ (Richards, Practical, p. 33)

Intentional fallacy and affective fallacy are two terms introduced by Wimsatt and Beardsley to juxtapose popular beliefs such as to know what the author intended with the text is to fully comprehend the text itself and judging a poem erroneously, based on the emotional response of the reader. Delahoyde states within New Criticism: Introduction to Literature that ‘the "intentional fallacy" is when one confuses the meaning of a work with the author's purported intention (expressed in letters, diaries, interviews, for example).’ Therefore showing that New Critics believe that the work isn’t related to the author as such and is completely unconnected. ‘The "affective fallacy" is the erroneous practice of interpreting texts according to the psychological or emotional responses of readers, confusing the text with its results.’ New Critics believe that the text is a stand-alone piece, and should be treated as such. In continuation, Murfin and Ray state within their glossary of critical and literary terms that ‘New Criticism regards poems as having elaborately structured, complex meanings with a relative disregard for their historical context.’ In this regard, New Criticism is similar to Practical Criticism as the latter also focused on the text rather than any background to the poem or on the author. However, New Criticism stresses greatly on close textual analysis, especially on literary devices such as the use of sound effects like onomatopoeia, images/symbols like metaphors and similes, rhythm, irony and repetition.

Thus it is safe to state that Practical Criticism and New Criticism go side by side, with New Criticism furthering the ideologies behind Practical Criticism. Richards and Empson can be seen as the founders, with T.S Eliot furthering the ideas in more detail. In a sense, they’re both the same theory with how the texts are perceived, however New Criticism goes a step further with its underlying beliefs. New Critics place great emphasis on the fact that the meaning of a text is intrinsic. In essence however, New Criticism is Practical Criticism, just with more depth.

So, with this in mind, do you think you’ll be engaging with texts in this regard? Or perhaps you already did and didn’t know it! Let us know in the comments below.

Yours Practically,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

The Hidden Chorus

The chorus. Where did it come from? Why is it so important? Why have so many writers included it within their work such as Shakespeare? Well, let’s take a trip back to 776-336 BC.

In Ancient Greece, the chorus was a very important part of Greek tragedies, if not the most important part. Daniels and Scully, authors of “What is really going on in Sophocles' Theban Plays”, state, "No feature of Greek tragedy is more intractable than the chorus." For Ancient Greeks, the chorus' role was an obvious one and although the language was always in a formal dialect, it wasn't difficult to understand the chorus' message. Tragedies were written in verse, and actors would either say or sing their lines. Only men could perform in the plays, females performing was unthinkable. In Ancient Greece, the playwright was a choreographer and a composer in addition to being a playwright. He choreographed the dances for the chorus as well as composing the music that the chorus sang. The chorus usually sang and danced between lines, and the role of the chorus, in this regard, could be seen as a form of entertainment and the audience would have been highly interested upon watching this.

Aristotle argued in “Poetics” that “…the chorus should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be a part of the whole and should participate in the drama not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles.” From this we can gather that Aristotle values the chorus greatly as part of a play and believes that Sophocles was superior in his choral writing. Choral odes should not be “mere interludes,” but should contribute to the unity of the plot – which according to Aristotle was the most important element in a tragedy. The masks that were worn during the performances were generic for the chorus, and this was to highlight the chorus as a whole rather than individuals. This reinforced the viewpoint of how the audience of the time would view the chorus as a whole body, rather than individuals and the viewpoints of the chorus was relatable to the viewpoints that the community held as a whole, not just individual beings.

Like most of the ancient Greek tragedians, Sophocles divides his choral odes into strophic pairs – strophe and antistrophe. Both sections have the same number of lines and metrical pattern generally. In Greek, ‘strophe’ means ‘turn,’ and ‘antistrophe’ means ‘turn back/against.’ During the strophe, choruses danced from right to left and during the antistrophe they did the opposite. Sophocles may have split the chorus into two groups, so that it was as if one part was conversing with the other. The oppositions created by strophe and antistrophe may represent the endless, irresolvable debates which were prevalent in Ancient Greek society.

An example of the chorus’ integral role within a Greek play, ‘Oedipus Rex’ serves a fitting illustration. The first time we hear from the chorus in ‘Oedipus Rex’ is directly after Creon, Oedipus’ brother-in-law returns from the God Apollo, with Apollo's message about how to save the city of Thebes from plague and ruin. The strophic pairs are generally in more extravagant and ambiguous verse than the actors' lines are. The strophe is reacting to the news from Apollo and in some ways foreshadowing the events to come when it says, "I am stretched on the rack of doubt," and then words are used that express fear and foreboding, like "terror and trembling" and "full of fears" and "doom." The language is rich with metaphors, and for Aristotle, “it [metaphor] is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblance.” The antistrophe is calling on the Gods to help them, such as ‘Athene’, ‘Artemis’ and ‘Phoebus’, thus reflecting the polytheistic beliefs held by the Ancient Greeks. The function of the chorus here is split into two. The first function is to show a reaction to the news that they have just received and the second is to plead to the Gods, thus showing the integration of the chorus into the play. G. M. Kirkwood states in his journal “Phoenix”, titled ‘The Dramatic Role of the Chorus in Sophocles’ that “It is generally assumed that the main function of the Sophoclean Chorus is a philosophical one; that it serves above all as the spokesman for a certain view of life.” The chorus were seen as the voice of the community and perhaps due to this, those that were performing as part of the chorus were local men and it was seen as their duty.

Unlike his contemporary Euripides, Sophocles was known to mix his chorus into the action of the play. In ‘Oedipus Rex’ we see the chorus advising Oedipus to remain calm, such as when they tell Oedipus and Creon to stop arguing, “My lords, an end to this.” There is direct address between the chorus and Oedipus which shows that the chorus were not just overseers but involved in the plot too. After Oedipus pieces things together and realises what he’s done and sees the truth, ‘anagnorisis’, the chorus mourns the tragedy.

Alternatively, the chorus in ‘Oedipus Rex’ manages to convince Oedipus not to banish or execute Creon at the start. Although the chorus only speaks once in a while, it is present throughout the play as an observer. This is rather significant as they oversee all of the action and help make decisions, such as when Oedipus asks the chorus to help send him out of Thebes or kill him and the chorus leader replies that Oedipus should go “To a fearful place from which men turn away, a place they hate to look upon.” This shows the significance of the chorus, not just as narrators of the action, but as an integral core to the play.

Therefore, the chorus especially within Greek tragedies has a variety of roles and functions. The chorus comments on the play's action and foreshadows future events. As well as this, the chorus help characters of a play and therefore are connected directly within the play. The chorus also give an in depth view of the character’s emotions and thoughts as they explain Oedipus’ feelings, “Unhappy in your fate and in your mind which now knows all.” Sophocles also used the chorus to comment on the larger impact of the characters' actions and to illustrate a play's central themes. Shakespeare’s use of the chorus in a similar manner can be seen to have drawn from the Ancient Greeks.

Yours dramatically,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

www.underthefable.com

Have something to say? Please comment below, all feedback is welcome.

Poe and Psychoanalysis

When I first came across the works by Edgar Allan Poe truly, I was confused. It was during my first year at university through the first semester. I had come across ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ previously for my A-Level as it was used to compare Gothic aspects within ‘Jane Eyre’ however I never paid much attention to the deeper meaning behind his texts. So when asked to read ‘The Purloined Letter’ and secondary reading on Poe and his works to prepare for a seminar, I didn't think much of it.

That all changed when I started to learn about his abnormal life and that’s putting it as politely as possible. His mother died when he was three years old, he married his first cousin who hadn't even reached the age of fourteen and he was twenty-seven. His wife also contracted TB – the same disease that killed his mother, foster-mother and brother.

You may be wondering what this has to do with his writing. Well, Poe’s work is packed with reference to his life which he may not have intended to include himself. The death of female characters, the sexualisation of woman all represent Poe’s inner consciousness.

The definition for psychoanalysis within the Oxford dictionary provides a brief yet informative summary of psychoanalysis. “Psychoanalysis: a system of psychological theory and therapy which aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.”

Psychoanalysis is a form of literary criticism that focuses on the minds associated with a certain piece of literary work. This could be the mind of the author or the mind of a character within the text. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis as a literary critique and believed the text is not written out of mere coincidence but like dreams it is the unconsciousness and repressed memories within that of the author that is escaping through the text.

Psychoanalytic critics affirm that a text’s true meaning lies with the author’s unconscious desires and issues. To completely understand a text, we must focus on a particular character within the literary work; however it is to be presumed that all of the characters represent the author’s unconscious thoughts in one way or another. A psychoanalyst’s interpretation is that everyone’s actions are driven by sexual and/or pleasure seeking intentions, so nothing is really how it appears. We can use ‘The Purloined Letter’ as an example of psychoanalysis within Poe’s works.

A ‘classical’ psychoanalytical approach to 'The Purloined Letter' such as Marie Bonaparte, believed that the true meaning in Poe's work is hidden and needs to be found. In 'The Purloined Letter' a letter is stolen from the Queen by the Minister, when she tries to conceal it in plain sight. When the police cannot find the letter, they approach Dupin, thus leading to him finding the letter at the Minister's, hanging over the fireplace in plain sight and they bring it back to the Queen.

Bonaparte believed that the fireplace is a symbolisation of the female genitalia and the letter symbolises regret for a missing maternal penis and reproach for its loss. The letter, according to Bonaparte is the, "...symbol of the maternal penis, also 'hangs' over the fireplace, in the same manner as the female penis, if it existed, would be hung over the cloaca which is here represented... by the general symbol of fireplace..." (Muller, J. P., & Richardson, W. J.: The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading).

Therefore, the story of the missing letter and finding it displayed over the fireplace on the mantelpiece is all truly, according to Bonaparte, Poe's unconscious wishes of finding his mother's maternal penis. As classical psychoanalysts would argue, literature is the fundamental outlet that reveals the psychology and personality of the author. Bonaparte goes on to state that Dupin is actually Poe himself on this pursuit and Poe is also the narrator who is observing his own triumph.

From Bonaparte’s viewpoint, we can see that although the author controls language, the unconscious comes through, so what is read is not literal, but the unconscious thoughts of the author which are hidden throughout the text and need to be found.

Jacques Lacan, a ‘structuralist’ psychoanalyst, however, “does not talk about the psychology of the individual author, but sees the text as a metaphor which throws light upon aspects of the unconscious, on the nature of psychoanalysis, and on aspects of language.” (Peter Barry: Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory).

Lacan’s seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’ in 1954 itself was a critique of Marie Bonaparte's interpretation of 'The Purloined Letter' and mocked the idea of taking Freudian concepts and finding them in any text, in whatever way possible.

Although Lacan also considers the maternal penis, not as an anatomical object but an apparatus which enables the first meeting with absence when the child senses that he or she is not the mother’s world and that the mother wants more than the child. The child wishes to be the phallus for the mother, according to Lacan. So although this correlates with the Freudian concept of psychoanalysis, Lacan goes on to further this and uses it as his starting point.

Lacan stated that language positions you and it’s through the structure of language that we get to see the unconscious. Lacan uses literature because he believed that it can tell us something about the unconscious as a whole, and believed the unconscious was structured like language, unlike Bonaparte who used it to analyse the author.

So what do you think? Do you agree with Lacan’s viewpoint that language merely tells us about the unconscious as a whole rather than an analysis for the author like Bonaparte believed? Can you think of other examples that suit a classical or a structuralist’s psychoanalytic theory? What do you think of Poe’s work in general? I personally find that he is like marmite, you either love him or hate him. I have yet to make up my mind about which category I fall into, however.

Yours Analytically,

Sadia Parveen.

@Sadia_x95

www.underthefable.com

A brief history of nonsense - Flarf poetry

 As a self confessed lover of all things pretentious I have a soft spot for Flarf poetry. Chances are you do not. Flarf poetry is as unloved as it is unknown, lost in the fog of the internet (ironically so vital in its creation) and the sheer volume of poets and poetry coming out of the wires nowadays. Those who have heard of it, or even read some of it, almost universally hate it.

 To be fair, it is easy to see why. But before we castigate it and push it to one side as nonsense for nonsense sake, we should have a look at where it came from.

Flarf was born in New York at the turn of the century, and its creation can be attributed to one man. Gary Sullivan created a nonsense poem to send into a scam poetry competition (no names here, we all know who they are!) and Flarf was born. The poem, the first lines of which are shown below, is meaningless and has no context or poetical merit, but was of course included in the poetry competitions winners;

Yeah mm-hmm, it's true
big birds make
big doo! i got fire inside
my huppa chimp (tm)

Gary sent this masterpiece off to his friends, and pretty soon they were all involved in sending poems around the group. Flarf became a serious poetic consideration soon after, with people taking Google-search snippets and forming them into humorous/disturbing verses. This took Flarf from nonsense to something more, injecting it with a dash of pop/meta culture and meaning it started to mean.

You can read a lot more in-depth history on Flarf if you so wish, but to me that is missing the point. Flarf wouldn’t want you too. Flarf is only concerned with the now, the hyper-real and the nonsensical. In its brief history, it has grown only in one area. Now a few of the poems are good, whereas once they were uniformly awful.

If you love your hog of a oneself
grinding up against a dirty guitar
kung fu-style

in negative space
then you are cocked up with lollipops,
doggie style.

Expect toy ATM's next.

The lines above are taken from Sharon Mesmer’s ‘I am cocked up from overpower’. This is a great example of Flarf starting to mean something rather than just be something. The poem is satirising the very culture and saturation it was born from, a key element of Flarf. Flarfist’s know how ridiculous the fact their poetry is seen as art is and have integrated that in to their poems.

awe yea I open a photo album I found under my bed 
uhhuh, The dusty, leather cover decaying and smelling of the years 
awe yea baby Regrets mingling with my tears 

The above is an exerpt from Drew Gardner’s ‘As Dolphins Langour’. Using the same technique as other Flarfist’s, Drew has constructed something with actual emotional heft. Not easy to do, in fact I would argue it is the more difficult task. Flarf poets limit their palettes (maybe I should write poetry with lines like that) and therefore making something worthwhile becomes more difficult.

The writing of Flarf poetry is not solely down to Google searches. Another popular method is to take a phrase and run it through translators until it takes on other meanings entirely. This juxtaposition allows for some interesting creations but also can have a subtext. What happens, for example, when we run ‘I shatter into a thousand porcelain shards’ through translate a few times, we get ‘I own a piece of cloth decomposition’ as highlighted in the fantastic (and free) E-Book ‘Ten poems ruthlessly mangled by Google Translate’ by Ari Eckols.

But is Flarf something that requires anyone’s interest, or is it just tripe for tripe’s sake. Does it have any meaning? Does it have any place in serious literary circles?

Yes. Yes it does. Flarf is the trip-hop of poetry. It’s the pop-art of the Meta-age. Taking samples and pasting them together to become more relevant is practiced in all art forms. Forming something beautiful from otherwise unrelated snippets. Flarf is this generation’s Beat poetry. When Kerouac wrote How to Meditate, I am sure people reacted in the same way as they do when they read Flarf.

the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a 'I-hope-you' or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind

Not that different is it? Just as beat poetry was taken in and adored by those ‘hyper-intellectual’ enough to instruct the rest of us in what to enjoy, so Flarf was/should and will be heralded as a harbinger of cultural nirvana.

But what do you guys think? Is Flarf purely an attempt to cash in on meta-culture and not real poetry? Or, like me, do you love Flarf with all your heart!

Yours Nonsensically

Stuart Buck

@stuartmbuck