The Real

Just when I was thinking Terry Eagleton is generalizing a lot of novels written in that time, he says, "It is true some texts seem to approach the real more closely than others" (173). And the point that he makes is that books have their own truth, society, and rules, but in some instances it will parallel that of history. He states that literature has the freedom to veer away from history. I think this ability allows it to exaggerate what was going on socially at the time to make a point, or make a whole other reality to juxtapose with current society. Regardless, I think the text does and should serve a purpose, the author should have a message.

Eagleton tries to make a distinction between expressing ideology and making a production of it. It sounds like the same thing to me. Is the distinction what I said before: that the literature parallels history? The way he explains it it's like he is telling us what it doesn't do, "A dramatic production does not 'express,' 'reflect,' or 'reproduce' the dramatic text on which it is based," but then he goes on to explain that it is a production. So, I take that to mean it makes it's own real that may or may not be similar to its current society.

The men are chillin'

I want to start off by saying that the article (for once) was enthralling. I was most interested in the chapter about women's sexual liberation. Although she focused primarily on the right to an abortion, I thought she left out a critical part in the struggle for sexual liberation. The males' role in it.
Men were always able to do what they want sexually. It was not scandalous for men to go out and have multiple partners and sex before marriage. Isn't this where we get the saying: "boys will be boys"? Yet, women were suppose to hold on to their virtue and wait til marriage. While this theory might be gone today, we have a double standard as to what men are able to get away with and what women are.
The difference is what males think. Men still control the world and the thought process of society. Sure, women can now go out and have sex with whoever they want, but there's a title for those permiscuous women. Whereas men get savvy titles such as womenizers, players... something that boys and foolish men actually aspire to become.
When men start to realize (never going to happen) that they can't do something and expect women not to do it too, only then will we be able to move forward from this double standard. But why would they do that when they are living the good life??

Some thoughts on Barry

"Hegemony is like an internalised form of social control which makes certain views seem 'natural' or invisible so that they hardly seem like views at all, just 'the way things are.' The 'trick' whereby we are made to feel that we are choosing when really we have no choice is called by Althusser interpellation" (158).

When I read this, I actually started paying attention to the text. I think Althusser has a good point. How do we view society, or all the political madness, or every aspect of life? As the norm, "the way things are." And yet, the state has an input on all of it. There is nothing in the constitution about education, yet the federal government finds ways (No Child Left Behind and funding) to make sure they have a say in what goes on in classrooms.

So I'm thinking, in a country where we pride ourselves most on our freedom to do whatever we want, is it really all a charade? Are we programmed by school, media, church, etc. to think that we have the option to choose whatever we want, but in actuality we are following some subtle rules we call custom? Interesting stuff.

All these posts...

It seems as though each era has a post- ... there's modernism and post-modernism... there's Victorian and post-Victorian eras. In Jameson's "Postmodernism" he attempts to describe the difference between the two, and the need for the "post". He states, "It may indeed be conceded that all of the features of postmodernism I am about to enumerate can be detected, full blown, in this or that preceding modernism" (269). Jameson calls this time period "Old Modernism," which is an interesting view point.
When the eras change it is usually because of a rebellion of the current era. For example modernism came into being because the Victorian way was not working for their state of mind or culture anymore. So then postmodernism must spring up because modernism is outdated. What Jameson is arguing against is that just because postmodernism aims to be the exat opposite of modernism (much like modernists' goals were to be opposite of Victorian) it does not mean that premodernism (or Old Modernism) and postmodernism are the same thing. He says that we have to take into consideration the time period, "The first point to be made about the conception of periodization in dominance, therefore, is that even if all the constitutive features of postmodernism were identical and continuous with those of an older modernism... the two phenomena would still remain utterly distinct in their meaning and social function, owing to the very different positioning of postmodernism in the economic system of late capital, and beyond that, to the transformation of the very sphere of culture in contemporary society" (270). What I find is that a different cultural era comes into place due to an rebellion of the current society. In literature the two are always linked, so you cannot ignore the economical and societal changes.