Analysis 4: One man thought that he could resist drowning by resisting the idea of gravity.

"In contrast to German philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men imagine, but from real active men. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. When empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge takes its place philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence" (Marx 656).  Marx is trying to say that all of mens cognitive abilities, their consciousness, derives from need and from history, history and need are not derived from it.  In "German Ideology" he details how societies arose in their four steps into feudalism and the class system that he further outlines and calls into action in "The Communist Manifesto".
In his manifesto, Marx tells how the Bourgeoisie were able to over throw the aristocratic elite and become the new dominant class, and that this evolution was lead by capitalism.  He says that capitalism and the merchant zeal lead to the bourgeoisie to enslave the world with capitalism and destroyed the family and society with industrialization.  He goes on to state that the proletariat is being ruled by the Bourgeoisie, and that the workers are selling their labor to the ruling class individuals. The Communist Manifesto is a warning and a call to arms saying that the working class can destroy the ruling class much the way that the bourgeoisie overcame the aristocrats.


In "Capital" he states that commodities can only truly be compared in the time it takes to make the commodity (labor time) and that the only value it can then be weighed in is money. He also argues that by putting a monetary value on an object it loses the labor-value and is only seen in the aspect of monetary worth which then makes the public lose touch with the amount of labor put into the product. this means that capitalism is focusing more on the money and less on the labor price which allows for the company to pay workers less and still charge more money for the object, and allows workers who produce nothing that can be consumed (marketeers) to make more than the laborers.


Yet he fails to take into account that after the proletariate takes over they will become the ruling class.  His essays focus on how society is born from class struggle, and this class struggle pushes society on to the next evolution (evolution through revolution).  In a society with out any monetary value, only labor value will rule, so unless their is a system with no skilled workers only a shared rotation of work (i.e. one individual farms one day, then smiths the next) there will exist another class struggle.  That would be a struggle between the desirable jobs and the undesirable.  A farmer would be more desirable than a stable hand, and a smith would be more desirable than the trash collector, a doctor most desirable of all.  The credit would not be weight in money, but in labor time and reluctance to do the job. If every one were to share and get equal shares of everything, it would soon become evident that the individual making clothes had to do less back breaking labor than the individual making buildings so the division in labor would still be evident.  The class system would not be devised by money, but by desirable position.  Marx is only calling for the evolution of the next class system, for their is no true way to break from class.  If all individuals shared and rotated jobs, then their would be no doctor or no truly skilled farmers, crops would succeed or houses would be erected one day, only to be placed in the hand of a less skilled individual.  this could lead to instances of shoddy houses, ruined harvests, or poisonous medicines.  It is seen in history that humanity started living longer and became more productive with the idea of specialized jobs and skills.  So either humanity would have to resort to a more primitive time, or their would be a class division among trades. 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Marx, Karl. "Capital". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 
Marx, Karl. "The Communist Manifesto". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 
Marx, Karl. "The German Ideology". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

Analysis 3: Lost in Context

In the essay "Death of the Author" Barthes calls for the importance of the text above the author or of the biography and history of the text.  He stresses the importance of the text itself, that it must be approached with a clear mind, not weighed down by the knowledge of the authors struggles or the political mind set of the time period.  He also says that any story is trapped in the context of the medium, and that all narratives and language are quilts of what has already been seen, written, or said already.  He stresses that language in itself is a prison, but working inside that prison one can still develop something original.
Iser's essay "Interaction Between Text and Reader" suggests that during the reading of any text the reader most play the part of an active participant.  That the characters, what is shown, what is said, and what is unsaid, all come together on the focus of the reader and it is this process of actively reading and constructing the story that creates the interaction.  He says that the text tells the reader through a process of showing the reader and allowing the reader to infer which allows the reader to be an active component and allows each reading of the text to change. He says that the text is polysemantic and can have many meanings, and with out the reader each meaning less is pointless and the text is pointless.
Together the two authors create an understanding of the reader-response theory, in which the reader defines the work.  That being said i am choosing to preform a reader response analysis of the ending of the show "Lost".  I know nothing about the show, have never seen any episodes, and no nothing about the actors or directors.  I am simply going to conduct a reading of the text and with a combination of reader response and semiotics try and define or come to an understanding of what is transpiring.


The only line of dialogue is spoken by a bald male upon what appears to be the main character entering a church "We have been waiting for you".  This is then a pivotal part in understanding the text, while the scene changes between a dying man in a jungle, and a group gathered in a church, the only line is "we have been waiting for you".  This implies that the group in what appears to be a church had arrived before him and had been waiting for him to start what ever they have gathered together to do. Through a semiotic read, and by understanding the blank (that which is left unsaid), the audience can infer that this is the afterlife or heaven based on the credits showing a wrecked plane and the man dying in the forest.  That as well as the white wash when a man (who is possibly a pastor) leaves the church and enters a white celestial void.  While these things are not explained to the reader, it is inferred by illusions to other pop-culture t.v. shows and movies that show a white wash as the presence of heaven or death. The fact that one of the final scenes of the stumbling man is him closing his eyes, then the switch back to the church further stresses that the church symbolizes the after life, and it being a church must then be heaven.  The love interest and a room of friends are clearly gathered do to the familial way the group accepts the new comer and interacts almost as if they had all been through some trying event (possibly death on the airplane). So the scene then seems to be the passing of the man in the jungle and the acceptance of his ghost in the afterlife by his friends in heaven after a struggle (hinted at by his injured stumbling through the woods), and that he is the final member of the group before they can enter heaven.


That was a small semiotic reading of pheminology and the reader response theory.




Barthes, Roland. "Death of the Author". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 
Iser, Wolfgang. "Interaction Between Text and Reader". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 

Response: Communism and the Military.

Marxist thought (the Communist Manifesto) calls for a new state in which the class system is torn down, when the workers, the people, are equal.  Many say that the military is an example of this, they see that privates across the branches, regardless of their job, make the same pay.  Yet they fail to take into account the extremely structured system that exists inside the military.  Each soldier makes the same pay based off of rank and time in the military, but does not take into account the training or job they hold.  On top of that the officer and enlisted ranks are taught different, they are handled differently, and their pay is vastly different because they want to breed to separate cultures. The military functions off of the existence of "the workers" and the "wealthy", and they use the non-commisioned officers to function as the burgess.  The military is the exact opposite of what communists are trying to embody, the military is feudalism.  The workers owe the military their life for the duration of their contract, they are paid and housed by owned by the government.  Every officer signs for the equipment and enlisted under his command.

There is no "equality" the class structure has not been broken down.  Even a "communist" military goes against the ideas of Marx.  The only truly communist culture would be found in nature, the hive mind, the ability to work for the whole and not just for the singular individual.

Response: Geek Gods

This week in class we covered a concept, well mainly the comparison of, the mythic and romantic hero.  We established an idea that the Mythic hero was better by better in form, and the romantic hero was better in degree.  Our definition of the idea was that we are told the Mythic hero is better, where as we must establish that the romantic hero is better through perception.  Another idea was that the Mythic hero is better than us physically, while the Romantic hero is better than us emotionally.

I had brought up the the fact that we are living in a time of the "nerd god", and that the greeks believed that the Gods were an embodiment of our vices. Like how Zeus was an adulator, Iron Man's an alcoholic, and Batman is a self righteous violent vigilante.  Yet they are physically better than us and all the stories tell us so.

Then the idea sprang to mind; God is the mythic hero, and Jesus is the romantic.  For this i am talking strictly in a sense of "myth" and not in a sense of "religion".  In the old testament God constantly shows man he is his superior, and demands they worship him.  He even goes so far as to smite cities and flood the world out of rage.  On the opposite side of that coin, Jesus is the compassionate embodiment of God. It is never stated that he is better than man, but we perceive that he is better than man because he does not sin.  He becomes a compassionate God and the paradigm shifts. It goes from the concept of the psuedo-greek gods (the Jewish God) to a "human" and compassionate Jesus (the Christian God).  Its a shift from the Mythic to the Romantic, from the wrathful to the compassionate. A "real life" embodiment of the concept.

Analysis 2 "In the name of God, My Father I fly. . .'

The Flight of Icarus by Gabriel Picart.

A young man flies under the sun on failing wings.  He is only clad in a cloth wrapped around his waist and the fabricated wings.  His body is arranged in the classic crucifix position with his head cocked back hinting at the fact that the painting is done from a perspective under the model instead of in front of it. This would mean that the artist would be "on the ground looking up" to capture the angle on the model.  Yet the way the body is arranged, the shadows cast on his body, and the lack of depth applied to anything other than the body gives the illusion that we are facing the body as it flies in front of the sun.  This gives both an implied angle, and a perceived angle on the model in the painting.  Regardless of the angle, the painting is an interpretation of the Icarus myth. The sun is painted with a brass and gold feel, where the wings have more of an egyptian style, the body is painted in a more modern or renaissance style, and the cloth looks like it might be real.  Each aspect feels like it is done in a slightly different style, like different images layered on top of each other, like a combination of pre-existing art compiled.

To take a semiotic reading of the painting, one must first define the over all signifier.  The painting is that of the greek myth Icarus; a boy who, in the attempt to escape the labyrinth, flew to close to the sun on wax wings.  Icarus being the signifier signifies the story of the labyrinth simply by trying to explain the image and its significance.  Yet he also symbolizes two major ideals of the west, freedom and science (or at least the courage to invent and explore).  The two concepts are semiotically linked with Icarus because it is his lust for freedom and his curiosity that inevitably leads to his end.  His father was the one to craft the wings, but it was the boy that took off in the glory of flight and died do to his inability to head his father's warning.  So now Icarus has another signified meaning, he is a tale of caution.  The phrase "flew to close to the sun" is a warning, it signifies those that in their haste, curiosity, pride, or irrelevance to the law chose to defy the natural order and paid for the cause.  Those trying to play "God" are seen as flying to close to the sun, are seen as modern day Icarus.  The painting can signify both the need to be cautious, and the want to fly and explore.  Flight itself signifies freedom in the American conscious,  the painting can then serve as a warning to America; beware of your freedoms because they can be used to destroy you.

" . . . His eyes seem so glazed, as he flies on the wings of a dream. Now he knows, his father betrayed, now his wings turn to ashes, to ashes his grave." Iron Maiden- Flight of Icarus


Saussure. "Course in General Linguistics." ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.