Prior to taking this Contemporary Literature class, I had no clue as to what exactly will be taught or what would be expected of me. However, after attending the first few classes, I realized that this class was totally different from any English class I had ever taken. The material is not what you would find in a classic English class, however, it requires critical thinking and helps one go beyond basic analysis.
First and foremost, my reading development, I would say, has come a long a way. I believe that before taking this class, I fell in the Text-Self stage. In high school, one of the numerous literature books I was exposed to was “Animal Farm”. It was a very interesting story, however, most of the assignments that were given on it were that of us finding symbols and also giving our views about the story and the characters. I believe that my analysis of the story was very “I” based since I had to relate it to an experience I had had and find commonalities between them. In other words, to indicate, whether, I liked the story or not.
I though that college would be different since it was a new and higher stage and plus, it was in a different country. However, I was somewhat wrong about that assumption. I remember one of my first major analysis papers I wrote for my Written Communications I class as a freshman, was on rhetorical analysis of the Cardinal Stritch Chapel. The paper was based on my analysis of the chapel and how its existence affected society per se. That is, whether it raised arguments or not and how it flowed in society. I strongly believe that the paper was very subjective because it dealt with my opinions of the place and whether I liked it or not.
The same can be said for the first film analysis I did which was on “Hostage”. My analysis was a bit skewed since I had to convince individuals on why it would be a good movie to watch. I did this by citing specific examples to support my claim in hopes of drawing views in. Even though, I was not asked to find symbols, I still had to analyze texts subjectively.
My next phase in English courses was Written Communications II. In that class, I read a bunch of short stories and analyze them. The difference between this class and the ones that I had had previously was that in this class, I was expected to use other texts that were similar to write creative analysis and also to find out how the texts were structured. It was not the cookie cut analysis that I was exposed to during high school and my freshman year in college. It allowed me to relate different stories to each other in order to understand the lifestyle of a particular time period. This, I believe, was an introduction to the text-other text stage in my reading development.
Currently, I consider myself to be in the Text-Other Textstage. This is because with my exposure to blogging and having to analyze texts that I have read using key terms such as Metafiction, Intertextuality, Pop culture & High culture and Emplotment, have broadened my scope of text analysis.
For instance in Art Spiegelman’s Maus I was exposed to Emplotment. This is because throughout the story he takes you on an emotional journey. That is, tragedy (e.g. Tosha killing herself and the three children, Bibi, Richiev, and Liona, in order to prevent them from going to the gas chamber.), comic (e.g. at the end of the story he calls his dad a murderer because he burnt the diaries – totally unexpected after an intense look at the Holocaust), irony (e.g. when he had the honor of burying the “mole” that turned his family over to Gestapo after he had been left for dead) and romantic (e.g. Vladek’s love for his first wife Anja). Hayden White wrote about Emplotment and how that is prevalent in History and Literature. That is to say that both History and Literature fall into those four categories. I was able to find those structures in Maus and to analyze the text accordingly.
Another example of my text-other text stage is my analysis of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy – A City of Glass. The story deals with Metafiction and how everything in life is left to chance. It also explores the notion of us playing different roles in our lives. The way in which the story is written is different from most, in that it does not have a fixed structure. This causes a bit of a disturbance between when we read we attempt to find structure and since this is different from the norm, it becomes uncomfortable to read. We tend to rationalize everything; however, in this book it is difficult to do so because everything is left to chance.
As I continue in my reading development, I hope to reach the Text-World stage. I believe that I have been exposed to it a little bit with the film Brokeback Mountain. This is because the film addresses social issues such as gender roles and what is expected of each person. Judith Butler who writes about Queer Theory exposes us to a different mode of thinking for which the film Brokeback Mountain is a classic example of. I believe that as I continue to read and watch similar films I would be able to move from the Text-Other text stage to the Text-World Stage.
All in all, I am convince that the whole process of blogging and having my writing public for all to critique has helped me in my reading development and analysis of texts. As continue with this venture, I hope to improve in both areas and who knows, I might become an avid blogger even when the class is over.
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