Your
blog comments will be due on Thursday, June 11th by 10 am. You may
draw from these questions for your posts, or develop your own response
to the readings.
1) In
many ways, The Infernal Desire Machines
of Doctor Hoffman is a meditation on the city. What are some of the ways Carter describes
the city and the effect Dr. Hoffman’s machinations have on this space and the
experience of this space? What sort of
connections can you draw between this anonymous city and other “fictional”
cities we have read about in other texts in this class? Make sure to use examples from the texts to
support your answer.
2) In what ways does this novel explore the
nature of the imagination? How does Dr.
Hoffman via his ambassador describe it?
How does the Minister see it? How
does Desiderio? Given these different
perspectives on the nature of the imagination, how do you see and experience
it? Make sure to use examples to support
your answer.
3) In what ways is this novel a “postmodern”
novel? Draw connections between previous
texts we have read and this novel to explore the ways in
which this novel explores postmodern themes. Make sure to use examples to support your answer.
“Whenever the fish began to rot, Mama exchanged it for a fresh one just like it so that, though the doll was always changing, it always stayed exactly the same.” (Carter, pg. 75-76)
ReplyDeleteDesiderio’s description of Aoi’s fish doll is for me the most startling description of the life and world that Angela Carter is describing in her book The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. In the entire world these characters are living in, whether it is the mirage infested Capital or the barges on the river, there seems to be no way of telling time and yet all characters are aware that time is passing by. Mary Anne knew her father would have been back in time to trim the roses, he never would have let them get that wild. All the flowers shedding their petals when the Ambassador leaves the restaurant. The white painted faces of the River People women hiding their facial features to not reveal their age. Mirrors being broken so people cannot look at the changes they are going through, even though they know they are getting older.
“The tiredness each night when you realized that you faced the exact same struggle tomorrow and every tomorrow to come,” says on of Dermot Bolger’s characters (From These Green Heights, pg. 32). And I think this same sentiment is shared by many of the characters in the book so far, but more importantly, I think this idea of suspended animation is making Desiderio feel like his life is being wasted away. So far he has been able to put away the illusions and the mirages knowing that these are just exactly that; and the way in which he does this is by remembering the past and bringing to the surface his Indian heritage. But there is a shift that has happened: once he committed to embracing this connection with his heritage by marrying into the River People, the defense mechanism cracked and the Ambassador’s face showed up at the exact moment of his decision making.
I cannot tell what will happen next, but I have a strong feeling that if Desiderio keeps embracing his heritage the glass wall separating him from Dr. Hoffman’s machines will continue to crack, eventually breaking. I think he will have to go under the influence of this “freedom from time and space” (Carter, pg. 33) only to come back out of it and save everyone else. This idea finds itself rooted in one of the concepts of postmodernism we have been reading about in our other essays. As expressed by Nao-Kurai in such a way that it scared Desiderio to flee for his life: “But they couldn’t learn, no matter how they tried... So then they knew it was magic and they killed Snake and cut him into little pieces. Then they each ate their piece and... after that... they could all make fire...”, (Carter, pg. 90).
I would encourage you to continue exploring this concept of "Time" in Carter's novel in order to examine the role of Time in the built environment. Consider, for instance, why Professor Hoffman decided to blow up the cathedral and how the Minister defends this structure as one in which "Time" was "programmed into it by the cunning of the architects." What is the Minister's view of time compared to Dr. Hoffman's perception of time ("the slavish time you despise" [34])? You might also want to explore Dr. Hoffman's work toward destroying the linearity of time, or Dr. Mendoza's discussion of the orgasm as taking place "in neither past, present nor future" (104). You might also be interested in the recent architectural interest, specifically Henri Lefebvre's work, in the term "jouissance" which is French for the female orgasm, but also means a kind of transgression that moves beyond limits. Jouissance transcends ideas of temporalities and moves us to experience time in a liberated, unstructured way.
DeleteAngela Carter’s intriguing novel, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, offers the nature of imagination with such layers of intonation that bizarre and brilliant definitions arise from various characters, conversations, and interactions. One beautiful and striking essence of imagination is that of desire. Desire is developed within our own mind. Sexuality and personal desires are generally on some amount of sliding scale whether is be a drastic and definitive as the Kinsey scale or simply personal attractions. For Desiderio, “my desire is to see Albertina again” (Carter 14). That fantasy could easily be played out with hallucinations of a young women wearing nothing but provocative nightwear, an illusive interaction with a highly sensory peep-show, or dreams of a symbolic swan. The minister had to partake in some amount of imagination of theorization as to how such mystifying machines, or more accurately, their effects could have been created by Dr. Hoffman, and how they could be prevented. In the text proceeding the luncheon with the special agent and the some of that included within, these imagination differences are revealed. I find the simple comment made by Desiderio to be exposing: “I could see what the Minister could not” (Carter 31). The novel has explored the concept of seeing. Dr. Hoffman is producing levels of seeing that are blurring reality. This is not too distant to what we view as a normal issues today such as denial, love, and infatuation. A compressive list would exhaust but people attach filters to what takes place around them and bias or skewed perceptions arise. How are these different from Carter’s creations? While at lunch the special agent or ambassador's magical and expressive demeanor, mannerisms, and appearance posed the question of reality, “Whether you are real or not, I know for sure that I am not inventing you...I don’t have enough imagination” (Carter 36). Imagination, the creation of images or false realities, is a powerful tool that is obviously portrayed in the dense works of Dr. Hoffman but also more simply by those character’s where it acts as the motivation to continue on in their journey as is the case with Desiderio.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in what you're saying about Desiderio's relationship with Albertina and the many ways he perceives and imagines her. It might be an interesting exercise to track the many "disguises" and "guises" of Albertina--the way she represents herself and the way Desiderio perceives her. Sometimes she is her own agent, but sometimes she is an object for Desiderio to observe (such as in the samples and the rape scene). Sometimes her gender is blended and obscured, and in other moments her entire identity is presented as "anonymous." You also bring up human emotions such as "denial, love, and infatuation." How does Carter play with each of these concepts in her novel? Desiderio says he made his "own definitions." Could this be true of love?
DeleteDaniel Knox
ReplyDeleteAngela Carter’s, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, describes the ever-growing desire to break from the constraints of a modernist society, through a series of characters perspectives. Dr. Hoffman begins his experiments by simply changing simple tastes, “Sugar tasted a little salt, sometimes” (Carter 33). He later began to affect the sense of place when “the proportions of buildings and townscapes swelled to enormous, ominous sizes or repeated themselves over and over again in a fretting infinity” (Carter 19). In my opinion, this city is a representation of a modernist city clashing with the metaphorical desire to think and act free from the hierarchical settings of modernism.
The Modernist characters are described as those who see reality for what it really is – plain and boring. The Minister and Desiderio fall into this category because they are the presumed protagonists. Desiderio states after the demise of Dr. Hoffman’s regime, “I survived because I could not surrender to the flux of mirages. I could not merge and blend with them; I could not abnegate my reality and lose myself forever as others did”(Carter 11-12). I interpret this statement as a true soldier of a modernist world in the sense that Desiderio could not see the illusions as real, or is it an allusion to a lack of conformity in a structured society? The Minister falls under the same category for Desiderio describes him as, “…never in all of his life felt the slightest quiver of empirical uncertainty”(Carter 22). The Minister takes a very strong position in the reality or the proverbial modernist society by way of designing machines and computers to calculate how real an object truly is, while Desiderio struggles with an aloof interest in neither the illusions from Dr. Hoffman, nor seeking the truth.
The remainders of characters present in the novel as of now have accepted the illusions, whether they perceive them as reality or not. The Ambassador for Dr. Hoffman, being an illusion himself, feels that this anarchist freedom has, “liberated the streets from the tyranny of directions and now they can go anywhere they please. He also set the time pieces free so that now they are authentically pieces of time and can tell everyone whatever time they like”(Carter 33). The Ambassador has touched upon an intriguing comparison to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, being the concept of radical individualism. The notion of freedom without government control is an interesting facet to any modernist society because modernism is not prepared for subtle changes. I perceive the Ambassador’s opinion of the illusions, or metaphorical anomalies that occur in society, as one of many interpretations of society. These illusions are not clear, thus causing different analysis. This is a major difference in modernism versus post modernism, by way of a creating an argument that lends itself to an obvious solution/opinion or one can create an open ended statement that alludes to a more diverse group of interpretation.
"In my opinion, this city is a representation of a modernist city clashing with the metaphorical desire to think and act free from the hierarchical settings of modernism." I would be careful thinking in terms of Dr. Hoffman's city as liberating in the way the "modernist" city is not. Couldn't it be argued that the Minister is under his own imaginative spell of "order" and "linear time"? In what ways does Dr. Hoffman produce his own hierarchies in his so-called "liberated" city? Is the pervasiveness of imagination within this city truly liberating, or does it produce it's own fetters, confines, and limits? In some ways this is THE question we must ask in regards to postmodernism. When "solution[s]/opinions[s]" are open-ended, allowing for a more "diverse group of interpretation," can exploitation emerge from that "open-endedness"? How do you think Carter would respond to this question?
DeleteThe Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman centers around an unnamed city engulfed in a war on reality. The city has fallen prey to the forces of “unreason” through a host of mirages and ghosts propagated by the antagonist, Dr. Hoffman. The city’s sense of space loses it rational architectonic order and falls victim to ceaseless contractions, expansions and realignments. The protagonist, Desiderio, describes the sense of space as being “powerfully affected so that sometimes the proportions of buildings and townscapes swelled to enormous, ominous sizes or repeated themselves over and over again in a fretting infinity.” (Carter 19)
ReplyDeleteTime itself is subjected to deconstruction discarding time by destroying buildings which by their architectural motifs regulate a sense of time: “Dr. Hoffman had destroyed time and played games with the objects by which we regulated time” (Carter 21). The city’s esteemed cathedral, fashioned in the classical revival which the Minister of Determination called “a masterpiece of sobriety” (Carter 34), becomes destroyed in a display of fireworks by Dr. Hoffman’s entourage.
Dr. Hoffman is interested in reconstructing and deconstructing buildings in an abstract manner in which the city can operate.
As opposition to this ideology, the Minister of Determination wages a campaign to quarantine the “unreality.” Reality, for him, is measured as a societal structure being “the greatest of all the works of art that man can make. Like the greatest art, it is perfectly symmetric. It has the architectonic structure of music, a symmetry imposed upon it in order to resolve a play of tensions which would disrupt order but without which order is lifeless. In this serene and abstract harmony, everything moves with the solemnity of the absolutely predictable.” (Carter 35)
Dr. Hoffman repudiates these grand notions of an ideal utopian city. These sentiments parallel Frank Lloyd Wright’s radical individualistic ideology of Broadacre City. Wright sought to dispose of the traditional industrialist city which he saw as aesthetically unpleasant.
I think you have done excellent work here analyzing Carter's meditations on the city, but I'm curious to know what YOU think about all this. Who do you find yourself sympathizing with more--the Minister or Dr. Hoffman? Or do you see yourself as Desiderio, trying to develop your own definition of the city, neither giving into or giving up yourself to the pull of ideology? These questions remind me of what Harvey discusses in his chapter on Postmodernism in which he reflects upon the characters of fiction as no longer contemplating "how they can unravel or unmask a central mystery, but are forced to ask, 'Which world is this? What is to be done in it? Which myselves is to do it?'" You might want to consider how our digital age pushes us to ask similar questions.
Delete*which of myselves... can't edit comments.
DeleteThe book the Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter is very creative book. When I was reading it, I recognize a great sense of imagination. The imagination and the story in book are based on true historical facts, which are mixed with fictional information.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how for instance, the author brought some key facts of history into the reading. By revealing the background of Dr. Hoffman, in the first part of the book, with true historical facts, it gives to the story a realistic tone. Ms. Carter does it very gracefully when, for instance, she informs us, “(Desiderio and his people) knew the very date, 18 September 1867, on which Dr. Hoffman’ s great-grandfather arrived in this country, a minor aristocrat of slender means fleeing from unmentionable troubles in a certain wolf- haunted mountainous Slavonic principality which was subsequently rendered into legislative non-being during the Franco-Prussian War or some such war.” (Carter 26) This war is very importance because the French city of Paris was besieged and later the whole country surrounded to the Germans. Another good example is the fact that she discussed the assassination at Sarajevo (Carter 27), another key historical evidence which demonstrates that the author is indirectly talking about France, because it triggered the beginning of the First World War. At the end, Germany took over France. There is a sense of repetitiveness and consistency in these historical facts.
Ms. Carter used also many French common and proper nouns that gave me the feeling, at first, that the anonymous and occupied country was France. For instance, the first and most important clue was the use of the word minister, which is a French/ Latin concept for a leader. During the Franco-Prussian war Jules Favre, the French minister of Foreigner affairs was a key negotiator with the Germans. Feux d’ artifice (Carter 34), Mary Anne (Carter 56), fin de Siècle (Carter 19) and Bois de Boulogne (Carter 19) are a few other instances of the use of French words and names, which also lead me think of France as the occupied country.
On the other hand, the characters in the book describe the nature of imagination in various ways. Dr. Hoffman via his ambassador sees the occupied country as an opportunity to experiment. According to the ambassador, Dr. Hoffman’s intention is to help by liberating the occupied people’s mind. For instance, the Doctor believes that, by eliminating directions, in the city he “has liberated the streets from the tyranny of directions and now (people) can go anywhere they please. He also set the timepieces free so that now they are authentically pieces of time and can tell everybody whatever time they like.” (Carter 33) This type of relationship is always happened between occupant and occupied people. The stronger person wants to experiment, study and control the weaker person. At the end the weaker does not have a voice. I believe that this is a type of behavior that the postmodernists reproach to the modernists.
Thank you,
Edgar Irakiza
You might be able to push your analysis further by drawing relationships between Carter's novel and the surrealist movement in art. Consider works by Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, and you might also want to take a look at Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifesto as a reference. http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm In many ways these artists were trying to reconcile the tension between dream and reality and trying to explore the true nature of our experience and thought. The historical precision in which we receive details about Hoffman contrasted with the wild, erotic, bizarre, and nonsensical images Carter paints for us might be an extension of this movement and would be worth exploring, especially given your current work on play.
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