An Artist of the Floating World

This blog is a response to the thinking activity task assigned by Dr Dilip Barad sir. This blog will be on Kazuo Ishiguro's "An Artist of the Floating World"

An Artist of the Floating World written by British Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel is set in post world war II Japan. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his once great reputation has faltered since the war and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. The chief conflict deals with Ono's need to accept responsibility for his past actions rendered politically suspect in the context of post-War Japan. The novel ends with the narrator expressing goodwill for the young white-collar workers on the streets at lunchbreak. The novel also deals with the role of people in a rapidly changing political environment and with the assumption and denial of guilt.

The Symbol of Lantern:

Tōrō- is a traditional lantern made of stone, wood, or metal. Like many other elements of Japanese traditional architecture, it originated in China where they can still be found in Buddhist temples and Chinese gardens. Later Lit lanterns were considered an offering to Buddha. Their use in Shinto shrines and private homes started during the Heian period (794–1185).

Japanese culture is also known for its culture, they celebrate Toro Nagashi -Literally translating to “lantern” and “cruise/float”, respectively,  the Japanese Floating Lantern Festival- Toro Nagashi, represents the Japanese concept of floating paper lanterns down a river. Traditionally, this idea of floating paper lanterns symbolized the guiding of souls, those who have left the physical world and now exist spiritually.

Lanterns can be occasionally seen in old shops and often at many festivals in Japanese shows and movies.

The lantern is of great significance in this novel. The term Lanter appears many times in this novel. Lanterns in the novel are associated with Ono's teacher Mori-san, who includes a lantern in each of his paintings and dedicates himself to trying to capture the look of lantern light. For Mori-san, the flickering, easily extinguished quality of lantern light symbolizes the transience of beauty and the importance of giving careful attention to small moments and details in the physical world. Lanterns, then, symbolize an outlook on life that prizes small details and everyday moments above the ideological concerns of nationalists or commercial concerns of businesspeople. It is an old-fashioned, aesthetically focused, and more traditional way of viewing the world.  

lanterns are also associated with the burning of the painting, and we know that it is not directly shown in the novel but it is one of the indirect meanings we get in the scene where Masuji Ono and his father were having a conversation about Masuji's paintings. Later Ono smells something burning but his mother is not agreeing with him. She almost avoided Ono's query. but here we get the sense that the smell of burning from his father's room could be Masuji Ono's paintings burnt by his father.

Film Adaptation:

The movie An Artist of the Floating World directed by Kazuki Watanabe is originally Titelled as "Ukiyo no gakka".This movie is faithful to the original novel though there is some improvisation from the side of the director. Like at the start of the movie the 'Bridge of Hesitation' is constantly coming in the novel. There is no conversation between father and son. In the novel that scene plays a vital role because this is the incident that led Ono to move away from his home and start his career in painting.

The above frame is showing Masuji Ono (younger self) burning his Paintings, and the Older self is watching his younger self burning his own paintings. This is not in the novel it is an interpretation of the novel made by the director.

Uses of Art/Artist:

There are main two perspectives that we know of, one is 'Art for Art's Sake and the other is 'Art for Life's Sake.' In this novel, There are five perspectives, 1) Art for the sake of art- Asthtic delight, 2) Art for earning money or business purpose, 3) Art for nationalism/Imperialism- Art for the propaganda of Government Power, 4)Art for the Poor / Marxism, and 5) No need of art and artist.

The last perspective: No need of art and artist is the perspective of Ono's father when he found out that his son is interested in painting. there is no direct event that shows that his father has burned his painting but we can assume that the smell of burning is the burning of the paintings. His father is believing that art can not help you in earning money, it will only bring poverty. Matsuda is leading Ono towards the problems of the lower-class people. this leads him to paint the 'Eyes on Horizon' and 'Complacency' Painting. 

Thinking Activity: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

This blog is a thinking activity on  George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four also known/published as 1984. This task is assigned by Dr Dilip Barad sir. This blog will see the central themes of the novel, 1984 as dystopian fiction, meaning the term Orwellian, and Newspeak.

What is dystopian fiction? Is '1984' a dystopian fiction?

Dystopia was introduced in contrast to utopia. The term Utopia was first coined by Thomas Moore for his 1516 book Utopia. The term Utopia is Literary translated as "no place", coming from the Greek meant non-existent society, when 'described in considerable detail'. However the meaning of this word has changed with time, now Utopia usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society.

A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. 

If I were to describe Utopia then its meaning would be, A perfect but illusory place where everybody desires to exist.

Dystopia is often treated as the opposite of Utopia. The meaning of Dystopia is an imagined world in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. Dystopia is often characterized by rampant fear or distress, tyrannical government,  environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society.

'1984' as a dystopian fiction

Dystopian society includes the elements like 

Complete control over the people in society through the usage of propaganda

The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has these elements like Society is under the control of a particular political party. In the novel, this political party is known as the Party. The leader of the Party, Big Brother is controlling everybody's lives by keeping eyes on them through surveillance.

Heavy censoring of information or denial of free thought

Heavy censoring of information in the novel is the invention of the new language/dictionary, known as 'Newspeak' in the novel. The ultimate goal of the newspeak dictionary is to narrow language so that 'Thoughtcrime' is impossible. This very idea seems to be imposed on the people but they easily believe every word of the 'Party' and 'Big Brother', 'The Ministry of Truth' exists to alter historical records to fit the Party agenda.

Worshipping an unattainable goal, the complete loss of individuality, and heavy enforcement of conformity.

The Unattainable goal of every political party is to cease control over the country. Oceania, Eurasia, And Eastasia are the three countries that make up the whole earth in the novel. These three countries engage in war, to keep the populace and maintain power among the elite nation. that's what every party is believing and making people believe that they will be a global power.

What according to you is the central theme of this novel?

The central theme of the novel is authoritarianism and totalitarianism. because the Party controls every movement of people By surveillance screen. The leader of the Party, Big Brother is said to be watching everybody, but in reality, nobody has ever seen him. Even Winston Smith at a certain point was said and believed that Big Brother doesn't exist. After so much torture he still says that he hates Big Brother. The term 'Big Brother is watching you', 'Two Minutes Hate', 'Thought-crime', and 'Room No. 101' became very popular.

 What do you understand by the term 'Orwellian'?

 As this video suggests that many believed its meaning to be Authoritarian, but it is incomplete and cannot fully convey the meaning of the term Orwellian. George Orwell spent most of his life fighting against the anti-democratic forces of both the Left-wing and the Right-wing. He understood the use of language. Language plays a vital role in shaping our thoughts and opinions, politicians use language in such a way that the public easily believes that even if that is not the truth. One of the reasons behind blind faith is the 'Area of interest'.

Waiting for Godot

 Thinking Activity: Waiting for Godot

"Why you should read Waiting for Godot"  

Samuel Beckett, one of the most prominent playwrights originally Wrote “Waiting for Godot” in 1949 in French as “En attendant Godot”, later translated into English in 1954. This play has been performed as an absurd drama after the Second World War. As Martin Esslin addressed this play as, “One of the successes of the Post-war theatre” (Esslin). In this play two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for Someone known as Godot, who does not make an appearance throughout the play. The play begins with waiting for Godot and ends with waiting for Godot. The Subject of the play is waiting rather than Godot.

ESTRAGON

Let's go!

VLADIMIR

We can't.

ESTRAGON

Why not?

VLADIMIR

We're waiting for Godot.

ESTRAGON

(despairingly) Ah!

In act I Estragon said: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!” this becomes one of the themes and central ideas of the play as well as of the Twentieth Century.

 In Beckett’s this play, we can find the bourgeois ideology of late modernism. Vladimir and Estragon encounter Pozzo and Lucky, they discuss their miseries and consider hanging themselves, but they ended up waiting for Godot. They do not know why they were put on the earth, they are seeking existence, and they wait for Godot for enlightenment, it is salvation for them. The play begins and ends with the same words. Its final lines are: "Well, shall we go. / Yes, let's go. / (They do not move)."

[In both the acts speaker changes]

The nature of time is also an interesting subject of the play, for some and boring for others in the play. Time moves in a cycle, with the same events recurring repeatedly. The characters are living in a never-ending loop. Vladimir, who remembers everything knows that they have been there the other day to wait for Godot, but Estragon remembers nothing. If we look at the plot, both the acts are almost similar, it would be possible to increase the number of acts with this technique of Beckett.

In both Acts, evening falls into night and the moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?

The classic interpretation of night and dark represents death. The falling of night is as much a reprieve from daily suffering as death is from the suffering of a lifetime.

Unlike traditional literature, where the falling of the night and rising of the moon is regarded as bad omens, evening fades into night and the moon rises. However, in this play, everything is different because it was created in the modern era when writers/artists were defying every rule and regulation of tradition and that is one of the many reasons. 

There’s also the issue of the moon, as its appearance in the sky is the real signal that night has come and the men can stop waiting for Godot.  

Estragon, in act I comments, the moon is "pale for weariness […] of climbing heaven and gazing on the likes of us." Though the man who remembers nothing of yesterday, he does at this moment seem to comprehend the endless repetition of his life.  And if the moon is weary just from watching, imagine what that says about the predicament of the men themselves.

If we look at the falling of night and the rise of the moon, we can perceive it in two ways. One is that the moon is providing some form of relief to them since it is the end of the day and thus the end of the waiting. The other way to look at it is with hope because Godot did not appear and there is still a chance that he will appear the next day. 

It is exactly similar to what we do throughout our life. We, humans, are accustomed to the cycle of the sun. We go to work at sunrise and come back at sunset. As soon as the moon rises we fall asleep. well, not in times like this but that is what people used to do. But the sleep through the moonrise gives them another stress and that is another day of waiting.

W. B. Yeats' Poems

 Thinking Activity: W. B. Yeats' Poems

This blog is a response to the thinking activity assigned by Dr Dilip Barad Sir. In this blog, I am going to find the pandemic element and background in Yeats' poem "The Second Coming"

Pandemic Reading of "The Second Coming"

The Second Coming is one of Yeats’ famous poems, written in 1919 soon after the end of World War I. As the title suggests, it describes the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yeats is giving the mysterious and powerful alternative of the Christian idea of the second coming like Jesus’s prophesied to return to the earth as a saviour 

What is the Second Coming?

The Second Coming was the religious teaching of the Catholic Church which stated that Christ would return to the Earth for the final judgment. During the Middle Ages, the idea of the second coming was of great importance to people and was widely discussed, from the Church to the people.

The Title:

This poem is very complex to understand and is debatable. At first, the critics criticize the title of the poem. According to them, the title is against Christian belief. Athletic remarked that the title of Yeats’ poem is not even a misnomer but a misleading device for conferring upon the poem a range of reference and imaginative power that it does not possess and cannot sustain. The poem should have been called“The Second Birth” which is the wording Yeats first employs in its draft. According to the critic, by giving the title of“The Second Coming”. Instead of the second birth, Yeats disgraces the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

 

Pandemic Reading:

Nowadays the pandemic reading is very easy as we are going through the Covid-19 Pandemic. Before our times no one has ever thought about the possibility of reading this poem through the pandemic lens. Many have always seen it through religious or anti-religious poems. Many writers have talked about the war aspect of the modern era, but we find very few works that include the impact that pandemic has made on the respective era.

We can find some works like Elizabeth Outka’s “Viral Modernism: The influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature”. The book looks at the small group of authors who addressed the pandemic head-on in their work but also argues the works of some of the great writers like T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf. W. B. Yeats was deeply affected by the pandemic. By combining literary analysis with the flu history Outka is making clear that the pandemic wasn’t Forgotten it just went underground.

Why diseases are recorded differently than War in Our Mind:

Diseases are recorded differently by our mind than something like war. Both the situations are different but a massive amount of death is certain in both. Diseases are highly individual, where you are fighting your own battle. War is Different from pandemic by nature because nations fight each other. War is something that nations and politics give importance to and respect the deaths of the soldiers. Whereas in Contagious diseases people must maintain their distance, it creates a different fear among people. To record the massive impact of the pandemic is a very difficult process, you can record the economic loss, to keep the records of the dead bodies which is something beyond tangible in times like pandemic, is too difficult. 

The Second Coming Poem and the Pandemic:

The Second Coming was published in the year 1919, if we investigate the history of pandemics, we can find The Spanish Flu or the Great Influenza epidemic had struck in the year 1918 and two years later, nearly a third of the global population, estimated 500 million people was affected. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it the second deadliest pandemic in human history.

Elizabeth Outka Writes, “In November 1918, at the height of the pandemic’s deadly second wave, W. B. Yeats watched helplessly as his pregnant wife, George, struggled to fight off the virus at their rented house in Dublin.” (Outka) In this pandemic unlike so many pregnant women of the time, George Survived coming on the verge of death. Further, as Outka writes, “Just a few weeks later, during his wife’s recovery, Yeats wrote arguably his most famous poem, “The Second Coming,” one widely read as channelling the zeitgeist of its turbulent moment." (Outka)

Where can we find such a thing in the poem?

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.” (1-8)

Turning and turning can be seen as the symptoms of a disease, things fall apart; the centre cannot hold, can be read as the body is going through intense pain and dizziness it might because of that reasons 'Centre' (mind) not control the body. ‘The blood-dimmed tide’ could be related to influenza and ‘The ceremony of Innocence is drowned’ could be related to the death of the newborn/yet to born baby or mother by the flu.

Work Cited:

Outka, Elizabeth. Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature. , 2020. Internet resource.

Yeats, W.B,. "The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats | Poetry Foundation". Poetry Foundation, 2022, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming.

Existentialism

 Flipped Learning: Existentialism

This blog is a Flipped Learning task on the philosophy of Existentialism, assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. In this task we have to watch video resources, which is available on teacher's blog, to understand the concept of Existentialism and ask questions from/related to the videos or the philosophy of existentialism

What is Existentialism?

"A philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will." (Oxford)

"A system of ideas made famous by Jean Paul Sartre in the 1940s in which the world has no meaning and each person is alone and completely responsible for their own actions, by which they make their own character." (Cambridge)

 

Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is by embracing existence.

In short an individual trying to find what is the meaning of life and if the answer is nothing or life is meaningless then he/she might try to commit suicide. Just like the character in the following video.

The above video is from the Japanese Animation Series Called Naruto Shippuden adapted from Masashi Kishimoto's original manga series, Naruto. In this video Itachi (little boy) have seen/fought in the war (Great Ninja War). At a very little age, he is trying to understand why everybody killing each other. He asked his father why did he try to kill me? his father replied, "It is the war between nations, that's why strangers kill each other meaninglessly, that is what shinobi world is." Later at the graveyard, he asks another person who is standing aside and says, "grieving over the dead is meaningless". Itachi did find an answer from him that is 'There is no meaning in life if it is not eternal'. Further in the video, we can see him attempting suicide, that's what existentialists call 'Leap'.

I like the fifth video 'Existentialism: a gloomy philosophy’, because whenever we hear about the theory of Existentialism the first thing that comes to our mind is a depressed person who can not find any reason or purpose worth living life so he bends towards the thought of committing suicide. it seems a negative subject. But this video is showing the complete picture that why it is not a negative subject.