Your blog comments will be due on Wednesday, June 17th
by 10 am. You may draw from these questions for your posts, or develop
your own response to the readings.
1) One of Carter’s projects in this novel is to reveal
the ways in which desire can very much be a social construction. From Desiderio’s ever-shifting subject
position, we see him perpetrate a rape that runs him afoul of the law in one
instance, but then becomes an initiation of sorts later in the novel. It is the tale of Sleeping Beauty we tell our
children, but a horrible act of violence in another context. Pedophilia is socially acceptable in one
particular social schema, but taboo in others, and so on, as Carter switches
from exploiter to exploited, subject and object, and back again. What do you think of Carter’s game? To what extent is desire socially
informed? And if desire is truly the
root of imagination as was discussed in our earlier class session, what does
that mean for the work of the architect?
2) Both feminist non-feminist critics have criticized
Carter’s novels as “pornographic,” but Carter articulates how she sees herself
as bearing the legacy of the Marquis de Sade whom she calls “a moral
pornographer” who “might use pornography as a critique of current relations between
the sexes…Such a pornographer would not be the enemy of women, perhaps because
he might begin to penetrate to the heart of the contempt for women that
distorts our culture even as he entered the realms of true obscenity as he
describes it” (from Sadeian Woman 20). Mandy Koolen argues that Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor
Hoffman “demonstrate[s] the pervasiveness and insidiousness of patriarchy,
the ways that women internalize sexist and misogynist beliefs and, in turn, how
women’s sexual desires are shaped by living in patriarchal environments” (400).
Do you agree with Koolen? How can
certain environments be “patriarchal” and in what ways do we internalize such
systems of oppression?
3) In the House of Anonymity, Albertina (in disguise)
states, “My house is a refuge for those who can find no equilibrium between
inside and outside, between mind and body or body and soul, vice versa, etcetera,
etcetera” (131-2). In a previous class
session, Connor brought up the pervasiveness of “in-between” spaces in the
novel. What other instances of “in-between-ness”
do we see in this novel in terms of space, bodies, and desire?
1. Carter discusses the distinction between political views, one being Dr. Hoffman and the other being the Minister. The shifting positions between exploiter and exploited seems to me as a struggle to find oneself. Desiderio is constantly seeking a family and/or friends. Everyone that takes him in ultimately have a special need for Desiderio. Desiderio was taken in by all parties: the minister, the river people, the peepshow/Dr. Hoffman, the Centaurs and the acrobats. The minister had Desiderio go on a special mission that may or may not result in his safe return. The river people took him in, healed him, made him family and then attempted to consume him for his knowledge. Dr. Hoffman took Desiderio in upon recognition of his safety to his regime. After breaking down to desire, or in this case lust, with Albertina, Desiderio finally realizes that Albertina and he are meant to make love to power Dr. Hoffman’s machines. Finally, the centaur people wind up raping Albertina and the females are forced to violate Desiderio. Desire is ultimately formed by a firm balance of decisiveness or the ability to respond, and accepting the correct kind of desire. I believe that Carter’s game is representative of how one can flourish in society through individualism.
ReplyDeleteAn architect can learn from this message through design methods. Architecture school is not meant to learn how to recreate existing architecture, but to transform it. My explorations in architecture and interpretations of this text has led me to also realize that in order to succeed in designing architecture is to have a strong opinion in your own beliefs.
I wish you had elaborated more on how Carter's game is to reveal how "one can flourish in society through individualism." I think a part of what Carter is trying to show us is that "individualism" is a myth and that we are constantly shifting our subjectivity to accommodate others. One of the questions Carter's novel raises, definitely, is how do we know who we are? Who we *truly* are? Do we create our subjectivity or is it "given" to us by our society, our social context, etc? This is absolutely an important question for anyone, but especially for the architect, writer, and visual artist who needs to know what she stands for in this crazy world. I think one of the questions you might pursue in this course is "Is individualism possible in our postmodern context"? If we are all a part of a big semiotic system from which we can't escape, how do we create anything "new"? Perhaps Gramsci's enclave theory via the Jameson text we read could provide a partial answer for you.
DeleteAngela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, introduces a deeper level of desire as her novel continues on: sexual desires. The varying sexual travesties, which take place in the repetitious escape/crusade adventures of Desiderio, outline and incorporate the questions outlined in the second prompt. I would argue, however, that while the question can easily be pointed towards a gender specific issue, I would say this encompassing question is posed: regardless of gender, what do people choose to do with their desires and how does it cause them to act?
ReplyDeleteMandy Koolen notes that the book “demonstrate[s] the pervasiveness and insidiousness of patriarchy, the ways that women internalize sexist and misogynist beliefs and, in turn, how women’s sexual desires are shaped by living in patriarchal environments” (400). I believe that much of what society views as important can be seen in how spaces are laid out. This is represented when the Count and Desiderio are in the whorehouse and the women are literally placed behind a cage. It is demeaning situations such as this, where it is curious to ponder who is more misogynistic, the man who visits a prostitute or a woman who allows herself to be a prostitute?
There is the common expression that a man of many hats has many skills and the ability to transition between them as needed. Unfortunately, that offers a possibly misconceived the notion that by switching one’s clothes, one acquires a new skill set. The dress required in the brothel illustrates a negative connotation to a patriarchal society: “our expressions hidden and the most undifferentiated parts of our anatomies exposed” (130). Identity and integrity are forfeited and forgotten in order to be able to make decisions without any form of accountability. Easy, pleasing, and selfish choices can made without perceived consequences.
The addictive part about desire, on the other hand, is the struggle to fulfill it. Desiderio echoes this when he says, “None of the metamorphosed objects before me aroused the slightest desire in me. Even though they came in all the shapes of every imaginable warped desire, they seemed to me nothing but malicious satires upon eroticism” (135). Desires are an unfortunate element in society because they present themselves as a goal, but once acquired, its value diminishes rapidly. So this inability to fulfill or feel fulfilled contains devastating and oppressive qualities that become the norm.
As is the case with the centaurs. While Albertina was being raped, such desire becomes pale and vapid, not to mention murdering the moral value behind that type of interaction. “Though they were men, they did not know what a man was” (174). Does an understand of ourselves alter our desires and are we then able to differentiate between positive and negative longings?
Again, I really like how you analyze literature spatially. It always helps me to think about these literary works in ways I never imagined before! I think in looking closely at this novel, it would be valuable for us to consider how subject (of desire) and object (of desire) are placed and how Carter has a tendency to blur those two positions. At the end of the novel, Desiderio refuses to become a "machine" for Dr. Hoffman's bizarre revolution. Moments before he consummates his desire for Albertina (the sexual object), he realizes that it is actually HE who is the object of desire. Understanding that forced him out of a state of desire and into a state of...what? Revenge? Desiderio kills the REAL Albertina--not the fantasy he created around her. Yet, in doing so, he condemns himself to a lifetime of longing for her. He says, "I knew I was condemned to disillusionment in perpetuity. My punishment had been my crime" (220). In your post you say that the value of desires diminish rapidly once fulfilled. Are there other moments in this novel where the "power" of desire becomes a victimization? Where else do subject/object reverse and what are the consequences of that reversal?
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ReplyDeleteThe entirety of the novel Carter advocates the conception of what would ensue if a person were able to experience all he/she desires. The protagonist, Desiderio, reminisces of his sexual encounter with the mayor’s daughter averring “if she was asleep, she was dreaming of passion and afterwards I slept without dreaming for I had experienced a dream in actuality” (Carter 56). Through rationality Desiderio recognizes the young girl to be unconscious and underage, however passion ultimately influences his decision in the act of sexual intercourse.
ReplyDeleteDr. Hoffman’s machines project representations of the world onto the city challenging the ideas between rationality and passion (reality and fantasy). Desiderio influenced by these projections, opts to surround himself in fantasy with Albertina. Like Desiderio, our own thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are affected by the environment in which we inhabit. We, too, succumb to our wants and choose to surround ourselves with the projections of the mass media to reinforce these desires. In this sense, moreover, Carter seems to make the argument that technology can be used to enslave humans by giving them falsified information which feeds into their own philosophies and interpretations of nature. Imagination is the primary tool in which the divisions between these two distinct frames of thought may dissolve: “Everything that can be imagined can also exist” (Carter 97). However, Carter makes a clear distinction that between the boundaries of reason and passion, rationality always triumphs.
I think it's interesting to ask yourself how this story would be different if it were written in the third person or from the perspective of another character. In some ways, by allowing Desiderio to tell his own story, we as readers come to sympathize with his subject position even though he is, undoubtedly, a rapist, a pedophile, and a murderer. It might be a good exercise for you to go back into the novel and find places where the narrative breaks down, where Desiderio is not so sure about his own story, or where he tries to make himself look better than he knows he appears. At the end, after he kills Albertina, he says, "I think I killed her to stop her killing me. I think that was the case. I am almost sure it was the case. Almost certain" (217). I think here Carter is playing with our belief in Desiderio as a "hero" and giving us a space to question the story he is telling us. You say at the end of your post that "rationality" always triumphs, but I wonder if it's actually the case that "rationalizing" always triumphs. We "rationalize" our desires and our actions and thus create our own moral realities.
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