Some Sense in the Nonsensical World of Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the man who is known worldwide as Lewis Carroll, had an early love of games, logic, and pretend. Due to his own rather idyllic childhood, Dodgsonspent most of his adult life attempting to reconnect with its magic, mystery, and endless possibility. A great lover of anagrams, Dodgson created the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” a mixture of letters in his first two names. The adoption of a pen name was Dodgson’s way of seperatinghis serious scholarly work from that of fantasy and imagination–as “Lewis Carroll” is much an imagined version of himself still connected with childhood pleasures.

The child of a cleric and one of eleven siblings, Dodgson grew up entertaining his family with invented games, poetry, and satirical performances in which he would mock characters from his favorite stories. Always the entertainer, Dodgson, under the name Carroll, went on to write his own form of poetry–nonsense poetry, in which form, rhyme, and meaning are derived from seemingly nonsensical ideas or language. He published his poetry as well as some parodies and sets of comical rules and instructions in magazines such as Comic Times and The Train, both London publications (Stoffel).

A graduate of Oxford University with excellent marks in mathematics and classics, Dodgson became a Victorian-style Renaissance Man. He took up an interest in theater, poetry, storytelling, and photography–on top of being a scholar, a teacher, and a cleric. He held several positions at Christ Church College in Oxford, and it was here at the age of 23 that he met the Liddell family. Henry George Liddellbecame the dean of Christ Church College and settled into the college with his family, including little Alice Liddell. Dodgson found immediate interest in the young children and became a frequent companion of theirs.

The Liddell family inspired Dodgson in all sorts of ways, becoming the subjects of some of his most famous photography, but most famously little Alice inspired Carroll’s most brilliant achievement–the story of what would become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, originally called Alice Underground. The story began as an oral tale told by Carroll on a sunny afternoon during a river cruise. Created completely on the spot, Carroll told the story of Alice falling down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of creatures, characters, and curious things. The story was so loved by the girls, especially Alice, that Carroll was obliged to write it down.

The story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is largely a children’sbook, designed to delight young readers withits silliness and creativity, but underneath the playful banter and colorful characters lies a very socially and politically interesting menagerie. In the introduction to the Barnes and Noble Classics edition by Tan Lin, it is said “Alice’s various encounters and conversations, the mock trials and sporting events–such as croquet games with flamingos as mallets–tend not to go anywhere conclusive. Races are conducted that nobody wins. People sit down to dine but end up eating nothing. Alice or one of her interlocuters will simply walk away from a conversation. These episodes suggest an alternative and much less rational model of our lives, a cornucopia of blunders, non-conversations, and frustrating encounters. Beneath our rational, day-to-day arrangements and reasonable expectations lies something else entirely” (xix). Wonderland is a world in which our society’s most irrational is given rational attention.

It is certain Carroll modeled many of the characters on actual friends, acquaintances, or socially popular stereotypes–the Dodo bird for instance was Carroll’s own poke at himself for his stuttering speech problems; he was called “Do Do Dodgson” (Stoffel). The Mad Hatter is commonly accepted to be a hatter Carroll personally knew who spent too much time in his hat shop inhaling the hatting glue (Stoffel).

Through these fantastical characters and scenarios, Carroll was able to satirize the social rules and question the dominant power structures of 19th century English society. Alice, a good but rather headstrong little girl, finds herself among a society of people who do not obey the same rules, codes, and signs as she has been laboriously learning in both school and etiquette classes. As she exists outside the codes of their culture, she is continuously unable to communicate effectively with anyone she meets–conversations most often end in tears as Alice tries very hard to make some sense out of Wonderland. Stoffel writes of this enduring fascination with the curiousness of Wonderland in her book, Lewis Carroll and Alice, “The wild unreality of the tale only underscores a satisfying sense of familiarity” (68).

The minute Alice accepts one way of approaching these new codes, they are turned on their head again, by yet another character. The seemingly endless lessons of trial and error anger Alice as she begins to find such a fluctuating society tiresome, aggravating, and inefficient. Arguments are circular, logic is backwards. Alice is at once the most logical and illogical being she encounters, depending upon whose reality you are to view from.

The notion of family is directly questioned with the character of the Duchess as she throws tantrums and dangerously smashes everything in sight. Her child, whom she refers to as “pig,” wails and wails as its safety is never certain. There is no tender, motherly care here. Motherhood, one of the most powerful cultural myths in Western society, is inverted–the mother acts like the child and cannot or will not care for her own offspring. Another way of reading this scene is that the Duchess is only rising to the expectation of her role as the unaffected, selfish bourgeoisie who care only for themselves that her name seems to suggest.

Another power structure that is directly mocked is that of the Queen of Hearts. Perhaps modeled after King Henry VIII, the Queen has a fondness for beheading her subjects at her whim. Satirizing the belief that kings and queens ruled by “divine right” as chosen guardians of their people, Carroll’s Queen is unfeeling, maniacal, and destructive–completely unconcerned for the safety of her realm. Her subjects fear her and all bend to her will, but for all her ability to cause such a steam, the Queen of Hearts has very little care for follow-through. Fond for shouting “Off with their heads!,” the Queen does little to ensure her sentences are carried out. This says a great deal about Carroll’s belief of the ineffectiveness of the ruling power structures when their actions are selfish and preposterous.

Other lessons Alice comes to learn deal with proper etiquette, as she tries to utilize her cotillion to the best of her ability. But in Wonderland, etiquette is only as good as those who recognize and appreciate it. At the Mad Tea Party, Alice meets the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, both of whom are throwing an endless tea party. Too lazy to wash their tea sets, the table is set with many tea sets–the partiers simply move down whenever they need a clean cup. As Alice waits to be invited to join, the Hatter and the Hare simply grill her brutally, a very unwelcome behavior for a host to their guest. Since she never receives an invitation to sit, Alice sits, and is berated for assuming she could join them.

As Alice tries to make sense of the answer-less riddles and neurotic logic the Hatter and Hare present to her, Carroll shows how limiting a certain set of societal codes can be. Alice refuses to appreciate the company of the Hatter and Hare because they do not communicate in the same way. What is illogical to Alice, seems perfectly logical to them. Everything Alice has learned, which she upholds throughout the story as the pinnacle of her reality, is completely useless in Wonderland–the characters simply do not subscribe to the same sets of values and etiquette.

The Caterpillar is another example of the ineffectiveness of Alice’s socially-coded language in Wonderland. In trying to explain how she has changed throughout the day while in Wonderland, Alice fails at even establishing who she is. The Caterpillar desires to know who Alice is, but Alice can only describe herself as what she is not. This kind of intercourse of language shows the culturally expected universality of language–within a society one expects their language and usage to be understood–however in Wonderland those expectations are nonexistent. Knowing who you are not is not the same as knowing who you are. Language plays a huge role in the story as the ways in which we limit our communication with those outside our society is amplified in almost every scene.

Perhaps the most direct satirical shot is taken at the justice system and its ability to try cases fairly and unbiased. The Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen of Hearts tarts, so a trial is convened to her the case. It is presided over by the King of Hearts who is completely inept at remaining reasonable and unbiased. He tries to issue the sentence before the presentation of the evidence, presumes the Knave guilty before proveninnocent, and belittles his witnesses into telling the version of the story he wishes to hear. The verdict is quite clearly always rendered in his own opinion, despite the presence of a jury full of timid Wonderland creatures. The jury is armed with black boards to take notes of the trial, but all that is every really managed is the putting down of their names and whatever evidence the King deems important (which is of course, always ultimately unimportant).

The trial scene demonstrates Carroll’s attack on the ability of the dominant power structures to manage justice without applying their own prejudices or morality upon the cases. The outcomes are always a reflection of the presiding structure–power is at its most powerful here as fates are in others hands.

The world of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlandis a complex one, a wonderful cultural study in its own right. Carroll uses the veil of childhood to unveil the vary narrow-minded view of societal rules, codes, and etiquette–saying that those rules are all well and good, so long as they are used within the culture they are born from. Semiotics will only go so far in a land as topsy-turvy as Wonderland.

The Buddha of Suburbia

Hanif Kureishi’s novel is a nonstop barrage of defeat after defeat, failure after failure of most every character. “Buddha” Harroon leaves his wife for Eva, but by the end of the novel has come to regret and resent this decision. Jamila, first defiant and revolutionary, gives in to the cultural pressure applied by her father Anwar to become the wife of a man she both detests and takes advantage of. Karim has failed relationship after failed relationship in both love and friendship only to realize at the end that the only constant is the family which he has spent most of the book avoiding and separating from.

All of this made the ending of The Buddha of Suburbia seem unfitting. When I read the last few sentences of this largely depressing novel, I found myself in disbelief that Karim would utter those last thoughts–”And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it wouldn’t always be that way” (Kureishi 284). Optimistic words for a young man who has had very little reason to be optimistic about anything.

Karim, a self described misfit due to his British/Indian genetics, stumbles through the whole novel–essentially becoming disillusioned at every turn, as no matter what he endeavors to become to to achieve, someone or something always knocks him down. His relationship with Charlie does change over the arc of the story, however he de-idolizes Charlie as he comes to realize that Charlie’s ability to be “cool” is due to his ability to “sell-out” at every turn–to become whatever it is that he needs to be to fit in. Karim does positively come to realize the importance of finding your self–of making your own reality–but Karim’s self is still always defined by the dominant white English culture that he straddles the line of.

Eleanor begins as a positive relationship for Karim as they fulfill each others sexual appetites, but ultimately even she is taken away from Karim from Pyke, the epitome of that white, English leading class within the city of London. Pyke is successful, genius, rich, powerful, and desirous–even to Karim himself.  Pyke’s power extends to Karim’s manhood and bedroom skills, and Karim never really recovers from this blow. This relationship triangle effectively destroys his idyllic vision of the city of London, which was a refuge from the dingy suburbs in which he couldn’t escape his biracial ancestry.

As a post-modernist novel, The Buddha of Suburbia posits the search for Karim’s new reality against the backdrop of the impossibility of his success as he exists outside of the “true” reality of society–the dominant reality of the white and the English. Kureishi writes a curious ending to this novel of disappointments and depressing disillusionments of the Indian subculture in English society. As Turner discussed in British Cultural Studies, the subculture always struggles within the constraints and expectations of the dominant culture; even if they exist completely outside of those realities.  Perhaps the ending was meant as Kureishi’s own hopeful mantle that “hopefully it won’t always be that way.” Hopefully one day the subculture won’t be made simultaneously miserable and happy. One day they can exist alongside the dominant culture and experience life in the same, “normal” ways as the English do. The hill won’t always be so steep, Kureishi seems to say.

Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway pushes the concept of the “novel” to its furthest edges. Her stylistic choices arrest the expectations that nineteenth century novels produced and upheld, causing the reader to dig deeper, think harder, and focus carefully on the mundane. Taking place in just a single day, Mrs. Dallowayis a frenzied narrative of stops and starts–the rhizomatic nature of plot lines create confusion and muddle the clarity of consciousness, clearly a commentary on the reality of how life is really led.

Due to her use of stream of consciousness, Woolf enters the heads of her characters without introduction or clear delineation, but it is by her excellent use of characterization that the reader is able to derive who’s head it is we are in. Through these glimpses of psyche, the unconscious of each character is made clear–and the effects their environments have had on them is apparent. Characters have constructed their realities based on their experience, their status (class), and their gender.

Woolf’s text questions the predictability of these realities with characters such as Septimus Smith. A war veteran suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder, Septimus returns from the war only to find the society in London wishes only to forget the war. Society doesn’t wish to dwell on death and destruction, but rather tea parties, dresses, marriages, and scandals. For Septimus, reality is unbearable as he cannot erase the images of dead comrades and exploded body parts. He now exists outside the constructed reality of post-war society and thus cannot stand to be a part of it.

Illness and disease play a big role within Septimus’ character, as it did in Woolf’s own life. The first World War changed everything–gas warfare, machine guns, tanks, bombs, planes–and the destruction was horrific. Men not only were killed, but were obliterated; literally torn to bits in front of other soldiers. Soldiers started experiencing hysterics, typically considered a womanly illness, and it was deemed necessary to find a way to control and fix such a “problem.” Pat Barker’s novel Regenerationtells an excellent account of the medical aftermath of WWII at Craiglockheart War Hospital. The novel details how doctors attempted to deal with the psychological issues the PTS D victims suffered from. Because of the industrial revolution, the body was looked at as a machine–broken machines had to be fixed, greased, and kept in working order. Efficiency became a huge issue and when people stopped being efficient, they were sent to doctors who were very poorly aware of diseases of the mind.

In Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus and Lucrezia struggle with doctors who are baffled how to treat a patient without physical wounds. Without a wound, how are you ill? How do you heal the mind? The doctors recommend solitude and the institution of routine and order–the only sort of “healing” advice they could give. But Septimus doesn’t want to be alone. He is already alone in the eyes of society who shun him not only because of his “disease,” but because he represents the war which they would rather pretend never existed. He is a constant reminder of what was lost–of all the men who suffered and families who are destroyed.

In the end, Septimus takes his own life, not wanting to be separated from the only person who still exists in his reality, Rezia. And despite the society’s wish to brush away the aftermath of the war, “death” comes to Clarissa’s party anyway, in the form of gossip and news of Septimus’ suicide.

Modernists, such as Virginia Woolf, wanted to reconstruct a new reality out of the post-war era. Their quest was for meaning, structure, and order in a time that the previous meanings, structures, and orders had all failed them and allowed such a terrible catastrophe to take place. Septimus is a casualty of this search because he could no longer fit into the prescribed structures society still upheld. Septimus could not go back to the way things were as could Clarissa or Bradshaw, or Richard. His reality was forever altered from his experience in this new world, this new horrific humanity–and because he could not conform again, he could not live.

Clarissa retains her masks, her position, her status, because she can communicate with her society. Language remains as it ever has for her, the biggest issue of her day being the arbitrary planning of her party, while Septimus is stripped of his. Without being able to communicate or empathize with society any longer, Septimus is lost. He no longer wishes to wear masks and his cares have extended far beyond the triviality of his social class. His concern, like the modernists, is of the human condition.

The London Eye

Looking at the London Eye from the base of its massive spokes and space-age capsules, I was reminded of the first time I saw the Eye in person on our walk to Westminster at the beginning of the program. Staring at this technologically dominating masterpiece from across the Thames, with the huge clock of Big Ben and Parliament in my periphery, I was surprised at how out of place the Eye looks in the skyline of this ancient city. I can imagine what an uproar such a structure would cause here in London. It seems disgustingly fantastical amongst the ancient buildings, history, and tradition that surrounds it–the juxtaposition is peculiar and unfitting as it sits on the edge of the river surrounded by old bridges, old buildings, and the gothic spires of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Underneath its cables and spokes I couldn’t help but marvel at it, however. Its size is daunting and screams of Britain’s attempt to compete with the rest of the world for technological superiority–a sentiment that is perhaps lost on visitors as London is marveled for its history, its ability to uphold a monarchy. I wanted to come to London to see the old, to experience a city that had survived the ages–to feel the romance of it, I suppose. But the Eye is definitely not romantic. It is steel and metal. It is imposing and futuristic. It is stark white against a backdrop of neutral colored buildings and blue skies. It is impressive.

Post-modernism has sought to create these juxtapositions–to bring things together that would never (seemingly) naturally be put together. The Eye is a perfect pastiche of forms. Built for the millennium celebration, it is Britain’s most impressive new tourist attraction. I must admit that the ride, or “flight,” isincredible–the views of the city are amazing–but it also has the ability to morph all of London’s incredible architecture into a mass of crowded buildings, dwarfing all that history with this single Ferris wheel that makes everything else look like brown roofs and messy streets.

I realized that this is the new London. This London “Eye” is where Britain wishes to move towards–a competetor in technological power–not to simply rely on the idealized past that has brought tourism money in for decades. London is trying to break with its past, much like the post-modernist sentimentality. The Eye is a new representation of England’s place in this world–it is the modern and the savvy. It is the Eye with which London, and England, now wish to be viewed.

The Tate Modern

Modernism took art to the edges of its preconceived structure and form by thwarting expectations and destroying linear progression. The rhizomatic approach that is found within Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, can also be applied to the works of art found within the Tate Modern’s galleries, as the concept of “art” is questioned at every turn. It is a place where graffitti is accepted as art, where digitalized images are given as much prominence as a Picasso or Pollack. Modernists, surrealists, and vorticists are juxtaposed on blank walls in cavernous spaces effectively shocking and jarring traditional interpretations of beauty, truth, and humanity.

A new reality was called upon in the post WWII era, leaving artists of all mediums to passionately and uniquely grasp onto a new level of meaning and order in a chaotic and unpredictable post-war world. The art within the Tate Modern is a perfect reflection of that chaos and quest–an amalgamation of sculpture, claustrophobic canvases, and obscure narratives arrest the sensibilities in every room. I found myself being both awed and disgusted by some of the representations found at the Tate Modern, and the question of “what is art?” has never been so questionable for me.

There were several works I found to be provocatively interesting–an exhibit entitled “Thirty Pieces of Silver” on the second floor was one of my favorites. The artist, Cornelia Parker, created thirty disk-like formations of silver items all hovering inches above the gallery floor from clear fiber-optic cables. The pieces of silver themselves had been purchased from markets all over London and then flattened, by way of a steam-roller. The silver, hung beautifully when looked at as a collection, became dented, twisted, and distorted upon close inspection–crumpled trombones, smashed teapots, bent forks–giving the impression of the decay of our personal treasures. Everything ends up as junk, the exhibit seemed to say. Everything is destroyed–sentiment is fleeting. All things material, “expensive,” cherished things one day become trash. But even this trash could be beautiful.

The stability and lack of structure or form within our lives is questioned by this exhibit, as these recognizable objects of silver “finery” are still distinguishable in their crumpled forms, however they are useless now. Useful only in depicting loss and the triumph of time and decay over usefulness and ability.

The Tate Modern displays the Modernist preoccupation with the formless, the haphazard, and the organic. Lines and colors are haphazard, often. Canvases are overcrowded with action, sentiment, or movement. The art seems to bleed over the edges, to escape from the works themselves–as if the edge of the canvas is securing only a portion of what the work is trying to convey.

Paintings capture fleeting moment, such as Picasso’s “The Kiss,” as it focuses on the violent, rather unattractiveness of ardent passion when decorum is thrown aside. The art seems to say that the beauty is in the sentiment, not in the portrayal–the seizure of such feelings is what is important, not the way in which they are enacted; life is constantly in flux, as is the colors, the movement, and the lines of such paintings.

There is heavy usage of natural or organic objects/subjects–sculptures made of found items from streets or trash cans; paintings with the paint scraped across the canvas to show the deliberately placed material underneath (Max Ernst’s “Forest and Dove”). The Modernists were always trying to dig below the surface–to show the underside of expected emotions or situations. They were also concerned with the masks society wears as they assume their appropriated positions and live up to or discard their expected positions, as in Claude Cahun’s self portrait photograph in which the artist peeks out from behind a window display of carnival masks.

Experience seems to be the key to determining or deriving meaning from Modernist works, and one of the best characteristics of modern art is that there are multiple meanings to be garnered from each piece. Items are used which are prone to physical change, demonstrating the triviality of form and structure when those ideologies cannot be forced to remain static in a changing world.

Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral

Upon first glance the Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral don’t appear to have much in common. Both icons of London, both gigantic tourist attractions, these two institutions have long served British culture. Culture itself develops around the most powerful of its institutions, so it is only natural that these two sites have dominated very different, but both very powerful parts of the British culture–the power of defense for the city of London, and the power of the Catholic church.

Religious and protective power have been the foundations of any settlement since the hunter/gatherers. Most, if not all, towns have at least one church and the might and importance of a villiage depended on its ability to protect itself against invasion and outside control. The city of London certainly prospered due to its location and its defense mechanisms. Likewise, London has its fair share of churches, religious sites, and even ritualistic associations such as Stone Henge.

The Tower of London was the first building built by William the Conqueror after his invasion of 1066. Seeking a place for a new fortress that was dominate the skyline as well as “the hearts and minds of the subjugated Londoners,” he erected the White Tower and subsequently the inner and outer walls of the Tower (from the Tower of London guidebook). Totaling 20 in all, the towers of the Tower of London were all specifically placed to offer the best protection for William and his residence, set-up within the White Tower. For hundreds of years, a giant moat was the most important line of defense for the Tower as it provided a barrier around the entire enclosure. It was not until Queen Victoria’s reign that it was drained due to its disgusting consistancy of dead animals, sewage, and rotten items.

The Tower was an important military fortress and remained a royal residence for centuries. Its power was not limited to might of arms, however. It was also a prison and a place of execution and murder. Public and private executions helped to solidify the Tower of London further into the minds of Londoners as it amplified the power and subsequent fear of the fortress. Being sent to the Tower of London was never a pleasant experience–treason being the most common offense. Its noteriety grew out of its power to decide so many fates so effectively and absolutely–even royalty themselves were executed here. The towers are painfully small, crowded, and clausterphobic. The cramped quarters only made stays at the Tower more unpleasant–again solidifying the play of power at work.

Housed at the Tower of London since the 17th century, the crown jewels are another way for the Tower to maintain its importance and exude its power. The crown jewels being among some of the most expensive and priceless artifacts in the world, not to mention being so dear to the pagentry of Britain’s coronation process, are kept at the Tower due to its security. Hard to believe that they are still housed here today as the Tower is certainly no longer the most secure site in London. But by possessing these most sacred objects that reflect the might and power of the British crown and empire, the Tower is still given a monumental power in the hearts and minds of its visitors.

While St. Paul’s Cathedral is quite the opposite in means of executions and torture, the idea of power is applicable. St. Paul’s is stunningly beautiful. Its massive exterior is only dwarfed by its magnificent interior which is decorated liberally with gold, marble, and all things sparkly. What says money and power like priceless decorations? Although there has been a church located on the same site since Anglo-Saxon times, the current St. Paul’s was designed by Christopher Wren in the late 17th century.

The giant dome dominates the skyline of London still today in a world of skyscrapers and modernized business buildings, and as a visitor this has a profound affect. The sheer size and grandeur of such a building breathes religious power–the kind of resources and time and artistry that was spent to make such a monument to faith is exhausting. It seems the Catholic faith spent little care on the monetary costs of such an effort, and instead focused on inspiring awe and offering heavenly access through a beautiful shrine. The glitz and the glamour of the interior mimic the grandeur of the crown jewels at the Tower, and the open, spacious interior screams might and power as did the narrow interiors of the Tower.

These are different kinds of power, but power all the same. St. Paul’s is the guardian of some of the most revered tombs to military power (Admiral Nelson) as there are plaques for lost seamen, WWII soldiers–which evokes the same might as the defensive tactics of the Tower. Both places are associated with both death and life–William the Conqueror saw the Tower of London as a beacon of hope for the growth of a great city, yet it is the horrific deaths that visitors come to gape at. St. Paul’s celebrates the glory of the Catholic faith and honors the deaths of great men who served it.

The power of faith and the power of military drive humans to do many things, to accomplish goals, to thwart defeats. But it is also the people , the culture, that uphold these institutions that give the Tower of London and St. Paul’s such power. Otherwise, they would just be beautiful old relics of arguably bygone times.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

“For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.” The Picture of Dorian Gray, 119.

Society creates it’s masses, much like an artist creates a masterpiece. Each imposes upon it’s object a reality outside of any individual proclivity that may exist. Portraits and pictures can hardly escape the personal perceptions of their artists, and similarly human beings cannot escape the rules and moralities imposed upon them by culture–the individual bends to the perceptions of the masses, a method of control and of constructing a commonality of reality for those who find themselves within it. The Picture of Dorian Gray looks at how this reality is constructed, primarily by using Dorian as a work of art on which others impress their perceptions.

The curious title of Oscar Wilde’s work automatically poses the question: Although Basil paints Dorian’s portrait, why then does Wilde call his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray? As Lord Henry says, “Names are everything,” and in Dorian Gray this is certainly true (161). A portrait is an artist’s rendering of another in as close a fashion to reality as possible. A picture can be seen as more ambiguous. In “picturing” something we idealize it; we create it in as much of our own image as we do the reality of the actual physical form. This vision can change over time alongside our perceptions of the object, but it is always based upon the impressions and perceptions we have at the time of viewing it.

This debate is linked to the relationship between art and reality. A painting is considered art, while a photograph is commonly considered reality–at least more so than the former. Both, however, are entirely dependent on the commonly understood perceptions of the culture that is exposed to it. Art, for instance, relies heavily on the relativity of beauty, truth, love, passion, and death. In Dorian Gray, Dorian is universally held by society as youthful and beautiful and he unknowingly (but rather happily) makes a pact to give his soul to remain in such good social graces. His reality of the artistic and the physical start off in the same place.

The “picture” of Dorian, which is ever only seen by Dorian and eventually Basil, changes to reflect this pact–and because the picture is external from Dorian and he is allowed to witness his own beauty and subsequent ugliness, his own perception of himself is changed whenever he views the picture. He literally begins “picturing” himself differently as time wears on–in fact he hides the painting upstairs so he can remain as naive as possible as to the actual degradation of his soul. Publicly, physically, “realistically,” Dorian remains young and beautiful and therefore innocent and trustworthy. Privately, Dorian is hideous, shameful, and loathsome.

The physical form is closest to our reality for we can see it, touch it, hurt it. Because of the picture, Dorian is actually able to have a separate reality–one that is simply a perception of those who view him. Those who come to know exactly who he really is (his soul), see his ugliness. Dorian’s picture is more real than his physical reality–Dorian’s mind (associated with the soul) is placed seperate from his body (his reality).

The Picture of Dorian Grayis therefore more about the ways in which Dorian is perceived by society than it is about the actual portrait. The portrait figures, of course, but more so as a mirror of Dorian’s own perception of himself. Dorian is a work of art to both Basil and Lord Henry and both seperately help to “create” him. Sybil Vane also pictures Dorian, to the most extreme, as she simply knows him as “Prince Charming.” He is physically as much of a facade to these people as the paint is layered over a blank canvas. They each brush him as they wish to see him, but Basil and Sybil suffer fatally when they discover the folly of that ideal.

He is idealized by all of the characters in the novel, even himself. It is interesting also that even at the end of the novel: “they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty” (Wilde 184). The portrait returns to it’s original beauty as the perceptions of the servants remain loyal to Dorian’s facade of reality. Wilde does not go beyond the servants merely “recognizing” the withered dead man on the floor except to metaphorically say that Dorian was finally publicly revealed for what he was and he could be “pictured” into reality no more.

Turner

Graeme Turner’s accessible text British Cultural Studies, presents critical discourses on how to read a culture, and essentially every by-product of that culture, as a text. Using theoretical approaches by Saussure, Foucault, Marx, and Gramsci, to name a few, Turner opens up British culture as one would open and peruse the leaves of a book. He seamlessly sews together the ideologies of theorists in a manageable and coherent manner to help understand how  images, concepts, and premises are used by a culture to represent and interpret the framework of their language, their behaviors, and their ideals.

Power is a big factor within Turner’s work. The positions of power are always contested and tried within a culture– Foucault’s theory that power is not fixed is especially helpful in realizing how the dominant ideals and images within a culture can shift, but it is also important to maintain a level of universality. If our myths, for instance, are not grounded in a universal truth we hold to be “reality,” then it means nothing to us. The myth simply does not work; it gets dismissed as fantasy, or irrational.

The myths of a culture–such as that of gender or religion–are often the most profound truths within a culture. They are the universal glue that holds the society together. Disassociate from such a myth and one finds him or herself outside the dominant culture–the power structure that has the ability to either assimilate or deny. Myths tend to “naturalize” ideologies by making them seem inherent traits or characteristics of human beings, when in reality they are little more than cultural mores designed to help control and contain a culture within certain bounds. 

Realities are a mixture of the myths, representations, and ideologies that a culture upholds as the “natural.” Nothing, however, is natural. We come into the world already capped with either a pink or a blue hat on our heads. Not because it is natural, but because society has to order things, has to name things–categories exist in order to help us, as Turner posits, identify ourselves away from something else–essentially ”not this” or “not that.” Language depends on a cultural understanding of what something is not rather than that which it is. An arm is an arm because it is not a foot. Language is not natural–the word foot does not mean anything to a speaker of another language as they have their own term for that extremity.

For me, what Turner is most fascinating in his discussion of, is that of semiotics and structuralism. The signs and signals cultures create and respond to are invariably inherent to the power structures that control the culture. Turner cites Saussure’s theory that codes are broadly shared, but not fixed. The relationships between codes help define a culture’s myths and the language helps to achieve a “universal” cultural reality. Semiotics helps explain how these codes work and why they work in some cultures, but not for others.

Turner’s use of television programming in Britain is a good example of this. Television shows are almost always created with a sense of the culturally understood morality. The shows that survive a television season are those that are the most “real.” They are those that portray either accurately, or less popularly, the idealized or ugly side of “reality.” The show “Eastenders” in Britian had to come to terms with their ambitions of attracting a larger young adult viewership by bending to their own sense of reality. In the show’s case, that reality was an idealized soap opera where the adults acted illicitly and improperly–perhaps lessening the gap between the morality of the ages.

Turner also uses American portrayals of Middle Eastern political figures to prove an interesting point about how semiotics can be used by power structure to garner a certain reaction or opinion from the general public. The Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was deliberately photographed by the press with grand sweeping American flags behind him, or in a regal, but updated traditional garment. This positioned him closer to the American public and less like the Taliban that was so feared. The signified here is that he is trustworthy, “more like Americans,” and “attractively” or acceptably foreign.

All of these codes and myths create a reality that stands at the basis for a universal understanding of the world. Without a basic understanding of the relationships between language and reality, one cannot fully participate within a culture. Turner’s book help open the door to the field of cultural studies and it’s foundations of theoretical thinking so that the ways in which we gain access into a foreign culture can be interpreted and criticized.

The National Gallery

Just the exterior of The National Gallery is impressive. Standing on Trafalgar Square it is almost ominous in its domination of an entire side of the square. The inside is no less impressive. Walking into the Gallery is breathtaking and even the map can’t do justice to how much history of art is housed in its rooms. Strolling through such a place is impossible, I found my attention arrested in every room–medieval altar pieces, giant canvases that I can’t even fathom one person imagining and creating in a lifetime. Paintings that span the emotions in the most minute of details.

Seeing so many famous names in one place and realizing the sheer pricelessness of such a collection overwhelmed me. There are portaits, landscapes, allegories–here are the works of art I’ve seen only in pictures and in books. Being able to practically put your nose up to a canvas and see the brilliance of colors and the precision of the brushstroke–the detail of lace and hair color and expressions is just incredible. No photograph of the works in the National Gallery can do even the slightest justice to the reality of the artistic genius found there.

The room I was most inspired by house a whole host of Peter Paul Rubens work. I had seen a few sketches of his at the High Museum in Atlanta, but nothing like the grandeur of the canvases here at the Gallery. They are massive and colorful. When I entered this particular room of the Gallery, it was the first time I sat to enjoy and contemplate what the piece was conveying. In Rubens work there is so much to enjoy and even more to derive from his figures and his backgrounds. They are almost busy in their construction as there is usually many things all going on at once that the viewer must “read” in order to fully understand Rubens artistic “point.” Rubens’ paintings are like stories and as I read several of them, one of them struck me the most.

image courtesy of http://www.grandspeintres.com/rubens/tableau.php?tableau=samson&id_peintre=11

The Rubens painting I immediately liked was his ”Samson and Delilah.” Delilah lays in a violently red dress with her breast exposed, cradling a sleeping Samson on her lap. Her construction makes her look sensual, yet dangerous. Her colors are passionate and her exposure is seductive, but it is also treacherous. Samson is beautifully muscular, showing his strength and agility, as well as his manliness. He has an animal skin blanket wrapped around him, another testement to his power. Delilah looks at Samson with a confusion of pity and of love–to me more pity than that of love, as if she is sorry, at the last moment, for what she has agreed to do.

The story of Samson and Delilah is of course that Samson was a strong force, said to gain his strength from his hair, which had never been cut. The Philistines commissioned Delilah to seduce Samson in order to learn the secret of his strength, and she betrays Samson by cutting his hair as he sleeps. Rubens’ painting captures this moment in the betrayal, and he portrays it with Delilah’s puzzling glance at Samson (the mixture of pity and love) as if to question her guilt or regret. I couldn’t help but asking if she really did love Samson and it was her duty that got in the way. Rubens makes her a passive character in the actual cutting of the hair, as he paints her servants doing the deed.

The other interesting part, for me, was the lighting of the painting which comes from two seperate sources. One, is the candle Delilah’s maid is holding close to Delilah’s face to illuminate the cutting. But more than the actual deed, the light highlights Delilah’s face, which makes the viewer notice her expression immediately. Second, is the candle held by the soldiers in the doorway–the Philistine’s who wait to arrest Samson upon the loss of his strength. The effect of the two candles is that shadows are thrown all around the room–shadows that reflect the ambiguity of Delilah’s feelings for her betrayal.

I sat in front of this painting for a good while, trying to read into the symbolism Rubens deliberately painted into it, and realized that I have a new appreciation for artwork. Since our discussions in class, I have realized just how much our world and respective cultures rely on signs and signals, symbols and meanings, and the universality of all of these things. Without those unifying aspects the painting would be static and wouldn’t mean anything. It would simply be (an albeit beautiful) picture.

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey has always been a bit of a fairytale to me. I have seen in on countless news programs, travel programs, and heard it regaled on countless pairs of lips. It is a place where kings lay, are coronated, and revered. It is a place of worship and a place of beauty. Some many years ago, while studying Medieval and Chaucerian literature, I found out about the Poets’ Corner inside the Abbey. My idealized version of what it would be like to experience Westminster for myself, was nothing compared to the reality of the visit.

For me, the Abbey is about presence. Upon first walking in visitors are greeting with looming white statues to various figures of British and worldwide importance. It is a powerful greeting to see heaped together so many names and important deeds thrown together in once place. Then you stare down at the floor. Almost every stone under your feet is inscribed either in memory of or as the burial site of some person or another. Some of the stones are so worn by the hoards of feet trespassing daily on their graves that you can no longer make out the names. I found this incredibly sad and it immediately colored my take on Westminster. It hit me that this beautiful abbey is shrouded in death, it is built upon death as almost every inch of it contains human remains. Some have much more dignity than others, of course, but while I felt guilt at walking over and ogling at the tombs, I noticed how many other tourists walked around lazily, seemingly oblivious to the same reverent solemnity that I felt.

Poets’ Corner, however, changed my feelings about Westminster. Maybe because of my own spark of interest, or perhaps because I was overcome with a feeling of honor, I no longer felt saddened, but instead awed. Seeing the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (rather tiny for an adult man!) and realizing that he sparked a tradition that for hundreds of years has held writers of all kinds of styles, subject, backgrounds, and noteriety in a kind of peaceful camaraderie made me want to cry.

The stones and memorials in Poets’ Corner are beautifully, if not a bit crowdedly situated and as an English major, I couldn’t help feeling a bit of irony that some of these writers were buried or commemorated in a church at all. Or that their memorials are situated in such close quarters at all! Lord Byron…Oscar Wilde…both notoriously devious men (at least socially) now are revered by the church, when in their own time were imprisoned or banished for their immorality.

At Westminster Abbey, particularly in the Poets’ Corner, I felt honored to remember the men and women memorialized there. Charles Dickens, a writer I admire immensely, is buried there, and I simply cannot believe that I was so close to the remains of such an important writer and figure. It is the closest I will ever be able to get to any such important writers from long-dead writers and I will never forget that feeling. In the end I felt that the sadness of death there, and the Abbey’s particular brand of displaying and honoring the people buried there, is not for gaudy show. It is to remember their spirits and the accomplishments and importance those figures had on the world. How can you not feel some sort of overwhelming power at being in the same room with so many famous kings, queens, and writers that have been immortalized within both British and American cultures? The figures have remained larger than life in our movies, our books, and our visions of royalty and monarchy, particularly when I think about British culture. It seems special that visitors are allowed access to the final resting places of these people who spent their lives in the public eye, and who spend their eternities evoking the spirit of their age.