Thursday, June 4, 2009
Comparison
In all three pieces of literature, blindness is used as a motif to emphasize a weakness in a person or group of people. In Jane Eyre, the blindness that the society exhibits shows the weakness of the people to recognize woman as equals and also shows the lack of respect for people in different social structures. The blindness of the society also emphasizes the struggle that especially woman face when trying to get a job, get married, or move in or out of their set structure to better them selves. In King Lear the physical blindness emphasizes the weakness of not being able to see the truth in a situation. Both Gloucester and King Lear suffer due to not being insightful and forthcoming with the truth. Finally in Galileo, his physical blindness was the demise of his own success. But throughout the play and his life, the community and the Church was blind to his studies and the proof that his work was uncovering. In all three pieces of literature, there was someone or some group of people that tried to get in the way and stop the main characters from what they were wanting to achieve. Overall, both the metaphorical and physical blindness found in this literature amplifies problems that society and groups of people are still subject to facing today and demonstrates the problems as well as destruction that is caused.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Jane Eyre Video: Wedding Interrupted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpjvSmInWEg&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=850730E9F8221C72&index=7
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Blindness as Galileo's Demise
In Galileo the play as well as in his life, mainly physical and metaphorical blindness have a large role. Metaphorically, people of the community are blind to Galileo and the sciences because the do not want to see or believe anything other than the church. Also in this time, the church and God were the only things used for reasoning and usually the Bible or word of mouth was used as proof. When Galileo came along it was absolutely radical to think that there was anything of the science nature.
Galileo was an Italian scientist who designed the basic laws of falling bodies, which although was verified by careful and precise measurements, was not believed by much of the surrounding community. He also spent much of his efforts working with and trying to decipher different aspects of space and the solar system. He constructed a telescope which he used to study lunar craters, sun spots, and also discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, as well as advocated the Copernican cause. Although Galileo continually found new evidence to support his claim, the church and the majority of the public was very against this as it went against everything the Bible and the church had preached. The feeling that many shared was that if God had created humans as His ultimate creation he would have put them in the center of the universe. In 1616 the Church had sent Galileo a formal warning saying that they viewed his theory as a denial of the Christian Doctrine and therefore he stopped publishing anything about his theories or discoveries for the next ten years, even though the Pope had encouraged him to publish he work “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which very openly argued for the Copernican system or theory. At this point after this work was published in 1632, the Church had him tried before the Inquisition accusing him of heresy, and also forced him to relinquish his views and surrender to the Church. For the last eight years of his life Galileo was forced to life under a house arrest, although he continued to write and in 1638 he published his last work which was a compilation of all his physics research and had it published in Germany due to the Inquisition that was still in place in Italy.
Shortly before Galileo’s last work was published, in 1637 he began to loose his eye sight. It is thought that this was largely due to his hand made telescope and also mainly due to the fact that he had stared at the sunspots on the sun for too long and too frequently during his studies. The sunspots along with the way in which the telescope was made damaged his eye and deteriorated his eye sight. This along with his old age lead to him eventually becoming blind. In this case what lead to Galileo’s success also lead to his demise. All of his hard work, observations, and calculations in order to try and explain the solar systems set-up lead to him no longer being able to study, even if it wasn’t for the Inquisition being in place and the Churches ruling. So by the end of Galileo’s life, the metaphorical blindness of the community he lived in being ignorant of his studies as well as not wanting to believe that there was any other explanation for what they had believed and followed for so long resulted in a request to stop his studies. Also his physical blindness finally put his studies and observations to conclude.
Galileo was an Italian scientist who designed the basic laws of falling bodies, which although was verified by careful and precise measurements, was not believed by much of the surrounding community. He also spent much of his efforts working with and trying to decipher different aspects of space and the solar system. He constructed a telescope which he used to study lunar craters, sun spots, and also discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, as well as advocated the Copernican cause. Although Galileo continually found new evidence to support his claim, the church and the majority of the public was very against this as it went against everything the Bible and the church had preached. The feeling that many shared was that if God had created humans as His ultimate creation he would have put them in the center of the universe. In 1616 the Church had sent Galileo a formal warning saying that they viewed his theory as a denial of the Christian Doctrine and therefore he stopped publishing anything about his theories or discoveries for the next ten years, even though the Pope had encouraged him to publish he work “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which very openly argued for the Copernican system or theory. At this point after this work was published in 1632, the Church had him tried before the Inquisition accusing him of heresy, and also forced him to relinquish his views and surrender to the Church. For the last eight years of his life Galileo was forced to life under a house arrest, although he continued to write and in 1638 he published his last work which was a compilation of all his physics research and had it published in Germany due to the Inquisition that was still in place in Italy.
Shortly before Galileo’s last work was published, in 1637 he began to loose his eye sight. It is thought that this was largely due to his hand made telescope and also mainly due to the fact that he had stared at the sunspots on the sun for too long and too frequently during his studies. The sunspots along with the way in which the telescope was made damaged his eye and deteriorated his eye sight. This along with his old age lead to him eventually becoming blind. In this case what lead to Galileo’s success also lead to his demise. All of his hard work, observations, and calculations in order to try and explain the solar systems set-up lead to him no longer being able to study, even if it wasn’t for the Inquisition being in place and the Churches ruling. So by the end of Galileo’s life, the metaphorical blindness of the community he lived in being ignorant of his studies as well as not wanting to believe that there was any other explanation for what they had believed and followed for so long resulted in a request to stop his studies. Also his physical blindness finally put his studies and observations to conclude.
The Motif of Blindness in King Lear
In King Lear there are examples for both physical blindness and metaphorical blindness that have a central role in the play. The metaphorical blindness takes hold of both Gloucester and King Lear, as both of them have loyal and disloyal children and they are both blind to the truth, as well as the fact that they both end up disowning their loyal children and choosing the disloyal child their heir. In this case the fathers are blinded by what they would like to feel or hear from their children and choose the heir based on that, not the truth. In this case the metaphorical blindness that the men face is only undone once they have become physically blinded. In the case of Gloucester , he has his eyes physically plucked out and loses physical sight forever and Lear doesn’t realize his error until he has gone mad and they both come to realize how dearly the truth about their children has cost them. Shakespeare believed that blindness did not only mean the inability to see but was also a mental flaw which some people possess. This makes them unable to see things from a different perspective and generally leads to a shallow and narrow thinking person. In King Lear the blindness that Gloucester and King Lear face is a little of both this blindness and physical blindness and is without doubt the primary reason for the bad decisions that they made and would later regret. Due to King Lear’s position in society, he was expected to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong, and unfortunately he was unable to do so when it came to the truth of his daughters. Even though by the end of the play when King Lear’s wicked daughters locked him out in the storm and he realized how terrible they were as well as how wrong he was for thinking they were the better of the daughters all along, the damage had been done. Even though Cordelia’s lack of compliments towards the King in the beginning of the play was due to her overwhelming love and affection they she simply could not put into words, King Lear saw it differently and banished her from his kingdom. Unfortunately, once he realized this it was too late, and King Lear’s blindness ended up costing him the life of Cordelia and consequently his life as well. Gloucester ’s blindness is similar in the fact they he had to suffer legitimately when his blindness denied him the ability to see the goodness of Edgar and the wickedness of Edmund. Even though Edgar was the honest and loving son, Gloucester disowned him and wanted to kill him. Edmund plotted against them and tried to convince Gloucester with a false letter that Edgar was plotting to kill him, and Gloucester ’s blindness caused him to believe these lies, but later Edgar, disguised as Poor Tom saves his life. Gloucester was unable to mentally see when he had the physical ability, but unfortunately his ability to see the true nature of his sons happened only after his eyes were plucked out.
Blindness as a Motif In Jane Eyre
In Jane Eyre, there are strict social structures and gender relations that lead to blindness of fact in everyone’s opinion aside from Jane. Jane is the one to be critical of the strict social hierarchy of Victorian England. Rochester being outside of Jane’s social standings has a hard time establishing a relationship with Jane, and Jane also becomes every critical of the type of relationship they will have as well as how it will be perceived by others. Jane is very verbal throughout the novel about speaking her mind as well as speaking out against class prejudice. Jane also constantly struggles with the perceived inequality of females compared to men in society.
Although the boundaries of society are never bent, Jane and Rochester are finally able to marry because of the inheritance that Jane almost magically come into form her deceased uncle. The fight against gender equality is a hard struggle for Jane especially since the three main male figures are a threat to her search for equality. Mr. Brocklehurst, Edward Rochester, and St. John Rivers are all some what sexist and all try to keep Jane in a position where she cannot express her thoughts and feelings. Jane is adamant to only settle for equality and has to make several hard decisions along the way to make mainly the men in her life realize that she is worth this dignity; she has to escape from Brocklehurst, reject St. John and his enticing offer, and then finally only end up with Rochester once she is certain that they are both equal and that she can marry him guilt free. Although Jane realizes that women in her culture and social structure are generally supposed to be calm and reserved, she also realizes how unrealistic it is to expect that, and they she is not going to conform to those standards. Jane fights for her equality and for what is just throughout the novel and in the end she achieves it by never becoming blind to what others want her to think as the other people in her social structure have become.
Although the boundaries of society are never bent, Jane and Rochester are finally able to marry because of the inheritance that Jane almost magically come into form her deceased uncle. The fight against gender equality is a hard struggle for Jane especially since the three main male figures are a threat to her search for equality. Mr. Brocklehurst, Edward Rochester, and St. John Rivers are all some what sexist and all try to keep Jane in a position where she cannot express her thoughts and feelings. Jane is adamant to only settle for equality and has to make several hard decisions along the way to make mainly the men in her life realize that she is worth this dignity; she has to escape from Brocklehurst, reject St. John and his enticing offer, and then finally only end up with Rochester once she is certain that they are both equal and that she can marry him guilt free. Although Jane realizes that women in her culture and social structure are generally supposed to be calm and reserved, she also realizes how unrealistic it is to expect that, and they she is not going to conform to those standards. Jane fights for her equality and for what is just throughout the novel and in the end she achieves it by never becoming blind to what others want her to think as the other people in her social structure have become.
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