Blue Pill:
Posted by on Thursday, April 12th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback.
English 738T, Spring 2015
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback.
Caleb Williams certainly sets us up to see literature (e.g. the ballad, the hypothetical excuse in Falkland’s trunk) as a powerful tool for creating new worlds. If Caleb Williams were a movie, it could end with him breaking the fourth wall and giving the audience a wink.
First of all – Nigel, I am SO GLAD you found a use for the Keanu meme! I saw it awhile ago, but couldn’t find one I liked.
Secondly – I love the idea of a wink a-la-Branagh’s Iago, especially after a dramatic courtroom “I am Falkland’s murderer!” scene. But I’m not sure if that would serve to endear Caleb to the audience (that trickster!) or alienate them (that TRICKSTER!). Interestingly, on the one hand it would completely dismantle Godwin’s sympathetic portrayal of wrongfully-persecuted Caleb (and by extension, his political critique), and on the other, it would serve as a total subversion of the controlling system (a compelling political statement in itself). I suppose while the rousing, empowering account seems more appealing, Godwin’s views on revolution (and his insight into the ‘reality’ of the system) speak for themselves.
I’m thinking about the chance that “it would serve as a total subversion of the controlling system” alongside the deflation of audience endearment to the audience. I say this because in our time we’ve observed a kind of hegemonic ju-jitsu that has absorbed the energy of destabilizing critiques and turned them back against the stability of its own targets: so, science is subjected to the “teaching of the controversy,” “critical thinking” is ranged as a value against findings of science inconvenient to a particular ideology on the one hand, and inimical to a particular industry on the other. The mind-set that countenances radically destabilized vision enables reciprocal destabilization. From these observations I am convinced that a hegemonic system can fully and fairly ruthlessly insulate itself from critique by dissipating its critics energies in sophistic effort-waste. I wish it were otherwise.
With substantially worse than Falklands, and substantially more vivid and complex scenarios of reality inversion churning through society, I really wish it were otherwise.
“audience endearment to the audience”–> “audience endearment to Caleb Williams”
Is there a way to edit one’s comments in this system? I keep making typos! Ouch!
If you have a “comments” option on the dashboard left-hand menu, you should be able to click on that, hover over the title in question, and see an edit button. Can’t remember if that menu item is available to the “author” role, though.