De-What?

Ah, spring break. A time to kick back, relax, enjoy yourself...or in my case, worry about what the heck deconstruction really means in time for this test on Wednesday. Oh, joy.

I thought I had it figured out on Friday, but then I read Professor Thomas's blog and I'm back to being confused again.

Here's what I had worked out before:

Demystifying is concerned with answering the "What?" of the piece- What is it, What does it do.

Deconstruction is more concerned with the "Why?" and the "How?"- Why does the author do this instead of that, Why does it work in the way it does, How does it work the way it does.

Now I'm convinced that demystifying is concerned with the What, Why, and How, and deconstruction is concerned with something I don't necessarily have a word for.



On my break I took the opportunity to go into Chicago for two days with my freinds and visit the Art Institute, one of my favorite museums, and I decided (this was Monday before I had read the Professor's post) that maybe I could analyze a painting. And I like Professor Thomas's example, so I think I'll have a go at that."Europe Supported by Africa and America", by William Blake. At first glance, a very ordinary engraving in the Allegorical sort of mode.

Emphasis here on Allegorical.

So for the formalist analysis, we observe the individual elements and their perceived meanings. Three women (the preferred choice for portraying continents in art, for reasons I'll explore later) of different ethnic backgrounds, metaphorically three continents, standing on a grassy field with flowers at their feet. The one in the middle, whose eyes are looking downward, is supported by the other two, who are looking out of the engraving. The woman in the middle is holding what looks to be a laurel garland, and is wearing a rope of pearls. The other two women are wearing golden armbands. America's knee is bent inward to point towards Europe, and Africa is turned towards Europe also, focusing the observer's eye on the middle figure even more. Europe's hair is also long and curled to cover her genitals, and so, coupled with her downcast eyes and the pearls, is an metonymic image of purity while the two chargers, so to speak, of Africa and America are brazenly inviting the observer to look at them. In this way, Europe is symbolically more civilized (read: less sexual) than the other two.

Chargers, for the record, are a heraldic device used when displaying a shield, the two figures outside of the shield who hold it up. The United Kingdom's chargers, for example, are a lion and a unicorn, for England and Scotland, respectively. (Interestingly, if you look carefully, you'll notice the Unicorn is chained.)





Now to demystify, examining the ideology behind the piece; why the author does what he does. This engraving was done in 1796, a period when Europe was just beginning the quest for colonial power. Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal, the four major players in European Politics at the time, all had colonies in both America and Africa, whose revenues were a great source of income for the Europeans, the "Support" that both these continents offer Europe. Their great wealth of natural resources is given by the golden armbands they wear. Since Europe is victorious over the other two, she holds the laurels in front of all of them, emphasizing her supposed power, but since Europe would be nothing without the colonial revenues, she leans on both of them like a sick woman. Europe is also standing a little higher than the other two, another indication of dominance.

And finally, the deconstruction, examining the questions this piece raises for us and the binary oppositions. One thing that entered my mind as I was writing this: Why Women? We're talking about the continent of Europe here, the most powerful political force in global politics! Theoretically speaking, that should be a man, the man who has dominated the other two! But then I remembered that we're talking about continents here, not people. the continents are women because it's the land we're talking about, and the European ideal is that land is property and made to be subjugated, in contrast with the Native American and even the African idea that land is community property and made to be shared. Maybe that's demystification; I don't know.

Another thing that occurred to me is that I mentioned up above that since Europe's eyes are cast down and her long hair is covering her private parts she appears less sexually charged than the other two. But long hair has been (and still is, in some parts of the world) a very sensuous and sexual thing; we still 'let our hair' down on occasion and the phrase still means the same thing it did back when women were sporting updos like the Gibson Girl here; going wild and behaving in disregard of the rules. In that sense, Europe is the most sexual of them all- she has the longest hair and it is down- but at the same time is looking down, not inviting or brazen about her sexuality at all but rather repressing it, hiding it with that 'double standard' hair.

insomnia and freudian psychoanalysis

I woke up on Saturday morning at one in the morning, which is when my roommate decided she was going to start going to bed. By then I had been asleep two hours, and was very disoriented as to why I couldn’t sleep. I moved my covers, turned over a few times, and then, finally, got out of bed and took my retainers out to think about this.

Then I went outside in the hallway and wrote a poem, which summarizes what happened next.

are you sick, she asks, in the throwing up way, she asks me, as if the asking will help me somehow realize i need to run for the bathroom
no, i say, i'm sick in the insomnia way
in the its one oclock in the morning and i can't sleep and it's driving me nuts way
sick in the i think i got too much sleep last night way.

oh, she says,
because if you do need to, you know, throw up, you should go to the bathroom.
i go.
i am thinking while i do it, thinking of what kind of sick i am.
right now, at one clock in the morning,
i am sick in the way that its too warm and i want to be cold
sick in the way that my hands won't type now because they are shaking and stumbling over the keys
sick in the way that troubles me, that makes me want my mother to complain to
but i know that it is also one oclock where she is
and calling will not help me or her.
sick in the way i cannot explain
but i know that something is wrong
and i cannot fix it
alone.

when i am back she is asleep, all lights off.
thanks, i say to the darkness.
now i feel like throwing up.

When I cannot sleep, I begin by thinking about stories I am writing, or things that have to be done the next day, and then I move on to boring things, like my blog for this class. And I begin thing about how this feeling of throwing up is probably a symptom of something, and how Lacan says that symptoms (wrong kind, I know, bear with me) are metaphors of another problem. So I begin asking myself, what could this insomnia/feeling I want to throw up be a metaphor for?

It could be from the taco pizza I had last night for dinner, which looked a little iffy and was probably sitting out for a while before I got to it, but then I remember today (yesterday, I guess, it's one in the morning now on Saturday) was Friday, and I was not supposed to eat meat, which, of course, the taco pizza had on it, so perhaps my insomnia is from guilt.

after that I remember that after I realized at dinner I was not supposed to eat meat I began thinking about how lent this year has seemed really short, and that that is probably because I haven't been observing a lot of the Lenten traditions my family has like keeping catholic kosher on Fridays (no meat, fasting) and going to stations. I remember I talked with my brother that afternoon, who mentioned that he was getting ready to go to stations, and also remember that I felt a little lonely after that and wanted to go home.

Then I remember I wanted to talk to my mother, but Jeffery wouldn't get her for me, just like I want to talk to my mother now (as it says in the poem) like I do every time I feel sick. I would go upstairs and wake her up and say "Mom, I feel sick" and she would get out of bed and get me crackers and water and stay up with me until I felt better, but now that I'm at college, I can't just call and expect her to get up because I have an upset stomach, now can I?

I realize that all of these things that I'm thinking about revolving around this pizza are all about home, and then it strikes me; perhaps what I really have is HOME sickness, literally I am sick for home, and it is now manifesting itself physically.

Another possibility presents itself after that, that perhaps the tea I had before going to bed was caffeinated and now I am feeling the effects of that, or perhaps I am detoxing that stupid pizza because it was green tea, and then I am back where I started trying to get this pizza I was not supposed to eat out of my system. before I went to bed I was working on a paper for my chemical substance abuse class about the TV show House and how, during third season, he checks himself into rehab to detox and hopefully get better after he's pressed with criminal charges about his Vicodin abuse, so this may also have contributed to the detox theory, but I also remember that while I was watching house it occurred to me that perhaps my family, since Friday is when USA broadcasts House reruns, is also watching House, and again I am back to being sick for home at one in the morning, sitting in the bathroom wondering if I can just throw up and get this over with and go back to sleeping.

It is nearly two in the morning, and I have reached a new level of pathetic- I have just psychoanalyzed a physical symptom, and in some bizarre, complicated way, it made sense. that still leaves me with the problem of not being able to sleep on a Saturday morning, but that, of course, is a trifle compared to the last one.

I begin to wonder as I sit here in the bathroom that perhaps the reason I cannot throw up this guilt that the reason that it is sitting here on my chest like it is intent on spending the week there is because I do not want it to leave, I want to suffer and sit in our bathroom at two in the morning and write all this down on a clipboard, because somehow this will serve as a lesson in guilt and then I realize that is perhaps one rabbit hole I do not want to go down.

Yet another thought presents itself, that my not wanting to go to sleep shows that I am afraid of what my dreams might be saying to me, that I am homesick and at eighteen years old I do still want my mother and I am not as independent as I seem. and this makes the most sense to me of all of them, (partially because I changed my facebook status to "wants to put off tomorrow as long as possible") which to me is really the scary part, because I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow and it doesn't look like I’m going to bed anytime soon if this is indeed the case.

The point of this post is that I think I understand Freud now. I hope that this serves as a better example than the ones in the book. And yes, don't worry, I got some sleep in the end.