Ladies and Gentlemen, your final blog prompt

Taduesz Borowski's short story, "Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber" depicts daily life in Auschwitz as described by the story's unnamed protagonist, a non-Jewish Polish prisoner who works in the concentration camp gas chambers. The main character does anything within his power to appeal to the prison guards and work his way up in the camp's hierarchy to improve his material situation and thus guarantee his own survival.

As we saw in class, in Claude Lanzmann's 1985 Holocaust documentary "Shoah," Lanzmann interviews gentile Polish villagers living in close proximity to the Chelmno death camp. It is striking to see how much hatred and stereotyping by the villagers seems to stem from economic disparity. This very famous scene is touched upon in a 2009 article by "The Nation:"

"Shoah's largely unsympathetic portrait of the Poles is the more disturbing for their having escaped historical condemnation thus far, and speaks volumes about the deep roots of anti-Semitism in Poland, both before and after 1945. Yet, the scandalous attacks on Lanzmann in the official Polish press, and the ensuing furor, have almost obscured the significance of Polish anti-Semitism within Shoah itself.

The anti-Semitism of the Poles is primordial, raw and unprocessed, while the Germans filter their reactions through the bureaucratic screen of modern language and precensored speech. The Poles are traditional anti-Semites, unable to conceal their resentments and prejudices, while the Germans are calculating and unrepentant killers hiding behind rational and bureaucratic masks. Apart from demonstrating the persistence of anti-Semitism in contemporary Poland, and apart from documenting the cordon sanitaire it provided for the killing, Shoah draws a sharp contrast between Poles and Germans and accentuates the primeval character of Christian anti-Semitism by contrast with the technological modernity of the Nazi murder machine."

If you are interested you can read more here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/19860315/rabinbach

My question for you is:
Please share your reactions to "Ladies and Gentelmen, to the Gas Chamber," and Shoah. How do you understand Borowski's narrator? Can you excuse his emotional distancing for the sake of self preservation? And similarly, do you find the nonchalance of the Polish villagers toward the fate of their Jewish contrymen excusable, or maybe understandable? Is Borowski's character and are the Polish villagers complicit in what took place by not standing up?

Please freely share your opinions and reactions.

An adventure in hyper-textuality

As we didn't get a chance to discuss the Borges short story in class on Monday, I would be interested to hear what you thought of "The Garden of Forking Paths." Did you enjoy the text? What elements of his philosophy made sense to you, or what did you find to be confusing? Borges' story is described as a "hyper-text;" what is the significance of this term in relation to the story? And as usual, feel free to share any other connections you might see.

Freud and Proust

For this blog post, I would like you to simply compare the writing of Freud and Proust. What similar themes do you see in both Sigmund Freud's "Dora" and Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past?" Do you see elements of psychoanalysis in Proust's writing? Are there any similarities in form or narrative structure? Feel free to make any additional comments about these two writers.

American Modernism

In Monday's class we discussed Europe's arguably first "modern" poet, Charles Baudelaire. In our discussion of Baudelaire's writing, we focused on his preoccupation with city life and appreciation of a newly emerging mass society. In consideration of Baudelaire's respect for modernity, I would like you to watch this brief 10 minute introduction to a BBC documentary on the rise and fall of Detroit (it actually has a hopeful message). This is an absolutely fascinating film and if you are interested in the topic, the full version is available on youtube. (Sorry I can't embed in Blogger for some reason!) The video link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReqG6qbx_c0

Detroit is presented in the documentary as the "birthplace of the American modern." In the height of its prosperity it was eerily called the "Paris of the mid-west" as it was the location of unprecedented urban growth. In its post-industrial life, however, it has left a landscape of abandoned buildings and the highest employment numbers in the country. Detroit is of course just a single example, but it shows the fragility of such a rapid, urban growth.

In your opinion, what are the potential positives and negatives of living in a mass society? As we invest more in technological and scientific progress, is the dream of modernism going to bring society to a better place? Is there a positive side to living as an anonymous "man of the crowd"? Is community still possible in city life? You can respond to the video and prompt in any way that you feel is most productive.

A Brief Note on Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel Notes from Underground features the inner monologue of an unnamed man whose general disgust with 19th century civilization leads to his spiteful behavior and alienation from the community. The Underground Man is also an archetype that one sees reproduced in modern (by modern, 20th or even 21st century) literature, films and cultural productions dealing with man's discontent in mass society.

In your own words, how would you characterize the Underground Man's personality and philosophy? Does his inter-personal behavior seem bewildering, or are you able to make sense of his social alienation? And, if you would like to tackle this question, are there any personalities in contemporary literature or media that have a disposition similar to that of the Underground Man?

Frederick Douglass

The reason I believe Douglass uses such rhetoric as “barbarous” and “savage” is to give readers who have never seen first hand the work of slavery a lasting, terrifying image. He wishes to describe his captors as negatively as possible to inspire readers to join his movement against slavery. If he used less negative descriptions of the slaveholders it wouldn’t create this lasting impression. By giving his readers descriptions which they can relate to it allows his autobiography to have more effect. The readers begin to feel injustice for another human, brought into a world where he has little choice of freedom, and everywhere he turns he must seek the permission of others or be beat savagely like an animal. He describes several instances of punishment brought onto him, fellow slaves, and even family members. These serve the purpose of again showing the brutality of slavery and how slaveholders treat their property worse than that of animals. All of which is to inspire readers to fight against such a terrible practice.

Frederick Douglass

“The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” was published in 1845, well before emancipation; however, Frederick Douglass had already escaped from slavery prior to its publication and upon its release moved to Great Britain. In 1847, two British abolitionist women helped Douglass to purchase his freedom and he returned to the US to pursue a career in writing and politics.

Douglass was not only an abolitionist, but was also very closely involved in the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. In 1848 he attended the Seneca Falls Convention, one of the first major women’s rights conventions and met the spearhead of the women’s suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At the convention he was quoted saying in his support of women’s rights:

“In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.”

I think it is important to note the close relationship between the abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage movement in the 19th century. Also, it is interesting to think about what a progressive thinker Douglass must have been to understand that the advancement of the society as a whole is dependent on the elimination of both racist and sexist policies in government.

And now for your prompt: Please choose ONE of the following questions to write on:

1. Both Frederick Douglass’ narrative and Rousseau’s Confessions are written in a similar auto-biographical/ memoir form. How are these two texts similar and in what important ways do they differ?

2. In Chapter IV Douglass uses language such as “barbarous” or “savage” to describe many of the slave masters. What might be the intended effect of this rhetoric on the reader?

3. What is Douglass’ opinion on the role of religion in maintaining the institution of slavery? Is this a valid position?