Week Six Responses

Today’s multiplicity of critical approaches owes a “tip of the hat” to Formalist/New Critical and Structuralist literary theories. Formalism, the “granddaddy” of literary criticism, holds little sway in contemporary application, yet many of its basic principles – specifically close reading and the interpretative uses of irony and paradox – serve as the foundations for theory today. Structuralism furthers this groundwork, creating a system for decoding both literary and socio-cultural signs. Consciously or unconsciously, some portion of each of these theories informs our approaches to literature and the wider world around us. -VB

“If we break down The Matrix’s plot, we will see that there are at least three broad characters generally found in every other story: the superhero, the damsel in distress, and the villain. Neo was the ‘superhero,’ the human beings who lived in the unconscious non-reality were the ‘damsel in distress,’ and the three agents were the representation of the ‘villain.’ The story is thus very conventional: the superhero, after suffering a great deal of difficulty and overcoming many obstacles, released the damsel from the hands of the villain and then brought his beloved to a new level. In Frye’s categorization, The Matrix is classified as comedy because ‘the protagonist and his beloved become the centerpiece of some sort of improved social order’ (222). The Matrix, seen this way, is actually structured in a very conventional way of story-telling: it is a typical Hollywood movie which reflects the belief . . . that somehow the good will overcome the bad. With Structuralist criticism, then, we may never find newness in the story since the structure greatly remains the same except for the ‘decoration’ and the way the story is told.” – Dono

“Paradox and irony are interwoven in a New Critical reading of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Gloucester first deems his legitimate and illegitimate sons naturally equal (which they are not in Elizabethan times) and only sees the truth when he is blinded. Another example is Edgar, who, dressed like a beggar, is encouraged by Albany to rule the kingdom. . . . Irony also contributes to the complex unity of literary language. Usually, one would expect the Fool to add a comic element to the narration; in King Lear, however, he constantly comments on Lear ironically. This irony (and sarcasm) is created out of the discrepancy between the truthfulness of the Fool’s words and the absurdity of the context in which it occurs. For example, he points out the reversed power structure between Lear and his daughters as early as Act I, Scene 4: ‘The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, / That it’s had it head bit off by it young.’ Although Lear is still the king, he no longer has the power that comes with his position.” – Johannes

“In Lear, an intricate system of code switching is shown in Shakespeare’s many oscillations between blank verse in iambic pentameter and unmetered or common speech. This language use sets up a system of oppositions within the text that reveals which characters are truly moral and which are ‘base’ or manipulative. . . . A change in linguistic pattern [from blank verse to common speech] indicates that Regan and Goneril tend naturally toward speaking in a baser manner than is seemly for women of noble birth, implying through the significations of such language that they are therefore immoral or suspicious as, of course, they prove themselves to be. By contrast, those who code switch down to the common level in order to assume an alternate identity . . . are viewed as noble since their natural tendency is toward high speech and they only assume a baser form in order to protect those they care for. . . . Thus, we can see the fruitfulness of a Structuralist perspective on such a piece, which exposes the binaries the text creates without a bias toward either pole. [Furthermore] as the system of signifier/signified is arbitrary, the judgment of morality tied to these linguistic codes is wholly a construction and as such can bear no bias other than that which is ascribed to it.” – Keen

“Edmund’s obsession with the binary opposition of legitimacy versus illegitimacy functions throughout King Lear as an example of how structuralism reveals a text’s framework. Edmund’s invocation of Nature (1.2.1-20) exemplifies the synchronic tension between his brother’s legitimacy and his own ‘bastardy.’ Adopting a semiotic lens, the words ‘base,’ ‘bastard,’ ‘deprive,’ and ‘brand’ function as signifiers for the signified idea of social hierarchy. Edmund (Gloucester’s bastard son) is literally below Edgar (Gloucester’s legitimate son) in social status. Edmund acknowledges this above-below relationship through his pun, ‘Edmund the base / Shall top the legitimate.’ Edmund’s linear ambition advocates inverting the social hierarchy wherein, ‘gods, stand up for bastards!’ However, this soliloquy is addressed to Nature, which is cyclical. Edmund is ignorant that his linear ambition contradicts Nature’s cycle because he is robbed of experience and, by extension, language through the title ‘bastard.’” – Peter

“Phone calls literally frame each ‘descent’ into the Matrix: the film begins when ‘Trinity’ escapes agents by being beamed up in an urban phone booth (a scene that evokes that iconic sci-fi/adventure narrative, Superman), Neo’s first contact with the aptly named Morpheus (lord of sleep and dreams) happens via phone. The mysticism and potency surrounding the phone in The Matrix made me think of the phone in ‘Daddy’ (‘the black telephone’s off at the root, the voices just can’t worm through’) as an instrument of communication between the living and the dead, and also of the phone in Cold War films – a sinister black or red object which heads of state receive messages of imminent doom. I also thought the self-conscious meta-film traded on the telephone’s importance in film. Multitudinous movie plots have been propelled by phone calls – phone calls are often turning points or moments of revelation in a narrative – and the screenwriters/directors of The Matrix seem to lend the phone a certain iconicity.” – Sarah

“Structuralist and Formalist views imply that a text will not change and therefore is always perceived in the same way. And yet, texts undergo change as they are read over decades and centuries. Even if King Lear is about the deception of language and undermining somebody’s reputation, there are also other aspects to the plot that are perceived more predominantly at certain times than others. The reading of King Lear in 1607 is different from the reading 400 years later. Since language is ambivalent, at the same time the plot automatically becomes to some degree unstable. A plain statement of fact in 1607 might be seen as ironic in 2007. In addition, the way that readers react to a text depends on much more than structure. What about the dynamics between two particular characters? Where do their conflicts come from and what do they mean? As the amount of literary theories points out, there are many ways to approach a text and more issues to focus on that structure alone.” – Thorsten

“Glittering green, the Matrix presents itself as columns of glowing characters – numbers and letters – which, when organized into specific patterns, literally create the human race’s perception of the world around them. Lines and rows of symbols, markers which carry literal and literary significance, shape daily existence and everyday life as the majority of the world understands it. Ferdinand de Saussure studied words as cultural-linguistic signs consisting of a sound-image signifier and a conceptual signified. Understanding of these signs emerges from cultural conditioning and internalization of the structure for decoding language symbols. For the characters in The Matrix, the seemingly incomprehensible, streaming lines of computer coded text translate into visual realities. After being freed from the Matrix, Neo marvels that his newfound companions easily decipher distinct images from a code language he cannot “read;” having lived so long within the Matrix, he lacks the structural framework to interpret it from without. Neo does not see translatable differences in the signs on the screen and, lacking a perceptible differentiation between the code-words, is unable to recognize or identify anything in the language that structured his reality for his entire lifetime.” – Veronica