Class Notes (10/4)

John Fisk

• Lesson will be constructed from character, then to setting.
  • Both basic categories to understand literature.

Character

• 2 ways to approach character: Realism vs. Structuralist (semiotic)
  • These are ways of readers to make sense of text.
  • Reading realistically: characters live outside the text.
    • Also, the obvious: it can happen in our world. This is known as verisimilitude.
      • (Veri = Latin for true, similitude = Similar, likeness)
        • Small aside: In vino veritas. In wine, truth. Alcohol reveals the truth.
        • Another aside: libation means booze.
      • True likeness.
      • Verisimilitude creates a world like ours, following the same physical laws, psychological conventions, etc. The same rules.
      • Take three novels: Elantris, The Invisible Man, The Great Gatsby.
        • We know Gatsby and Invisible Man are realistic because they are set in our world. Follow our own rules.
        • But we still like Elantris, a book about some magic shit, because they follow established rules and rationale.
          • Despite being a fantasy novel, it still has verisimilitude. Realism does not mean realistic. It just mirrors our world.
    • What does any of that have to do with character?
      • Because the narrative is treating them as real people, with rules to govern them.
    • Even inanimate things can be characters.
      • This is because characters are always individuals. Laws govern them, regardless if they are a lightbulb or a person. They have motives, interests, etc.
  • Reading realistically has a problem:
    • Look at Gran Torino, it addresses racism. To fix racism, he hangs out with the people he hates. Social problems are being solved at the individual level.
  • Realism reduces social problems to individual problems.
    • The plot of Gran Torino doesn’t fixed racism, but it shows that the social problem can be resolved. Don’t despair.
    • Fisk’s problem with this: that doesn’t resolve the issue. Realism is dumb.
  • Let’s read Two Gallants realistically.
    • Corley and Lenehan are broke.
    • Lenehan can’t break out of his class because he is passive and needs ambitions.
      • We do this all the time, and read it realistically all the time.”
• Fisk says: no, let’s not, ya stinkin animals.
• Let’s approach it like a structuralist.
  • Characters are now just words on a page.
  • They don’t have the context of our world.
  • They’re not real people, they’re just words.
    • Characters are no longer individuals, they’re ideologies.
      • Made in the purpose of discourse.
  • Conflicts between characters are not individuals, they’re conflict within a system.
  • So, let’s return to Two Gallants.
    • Joyce uses this dual protagonists of doers and watchers a lot.
    • Lenehan and Chandler from Little Cloud are both submissive, reserved, etc.
    • Corley and Gallaher from Little Cloud are both big dudes, older, vivid clothes, repetition of slang.
    • These characters are part of a system. Joyce doesn’t really care about these individuals, he cares about a character system.
      • Textual, not real.
      • Reflects a social conflict.
      • The same system everytime: a doer and a watcher.
      • 
        

Lenehan

Corley

Think, artist-y, watcher

Big, bold, doer

• Change the names to literally any Dubliners story. It’s a system of the same relationship.
• Structuralist reading is reading semiotically.
  • Think of traits semiotically, in binary opposition.
  • The main relationship is opposing each other.
• The difference between realistic and structural reading is looking at the characters as individuals or ideologies.
  • Realistic: see a character as a character, who has their own life, etc.
    • It’s fun to read, but comes at a price. Individual reform doesn’t solve the problem. We allow it to fool us.
  • Structural: see a character as the ideology they represent and share.
  • Fisk sees realistic as naive, and structural as critical.

Classwork: Character Trait Analysis.

Label every piece of text in terms of character: direct vs. indirect, action, speech, appearance, environment. Group 1, Joyce’s Little Cloud, from “Little Chandler’s thoughts ever…” to “and this consoled him.”