Falling asleep and waking in jail

Freud and Fiction Introduction to Theory of Literature Professor Paul Fry

After discussion deconstruction we are taking back to psychological concerns in literature. The lecture concerns two parts of human behaviour which is repetition and a preoccupation with one's death. When we contemplate death we are in a strange way considering our end like one does the goal of a project or in special relevance, to a story.

In fact, we consider that stories often contain elements that are not pleasurable to read and trying to gather a meaning can be laborious on the mind. It causes us to pause and think why we are drawn to this rather than towards things that bring us joy. Like near the beginning of this survey we are reminded that the study of meaning comes from people who want meaning to be complicated and are serious about it. But this has a more Hemingway-ish notion to it in that we repeat uneasy aspects to master them and to die the way we choose. In this round about way we are stuck in a structuralist mindset while setting precedent that form comes about from psychological processes. We have a almost deterministic view of beginning, middle, and end.

St. Anastasia The Golden Legend Jacobus de Voragine

This tale is is oddly and severely neurotic. The reactions the characters have are shrouded in myth they are set in motion by something rather ordinary--pairing of incompatible lovers. Love here seems to be treated arbitrary as Anastasia is paired with one stranger after another predestined to end in tragedy. The unrealistic pairings have these strange effects on people either causing them to fake sickness, fall into a deep sleep in a tense moment, have clothes that cannot be taken off by force, or thrown into dungeons.

There is also a rapid pace where these things keep happening as if from a fevered mind of a story teller. The overwhelming feeling is a searing one rather than a sense of wisdom being granted or being washed in myth.

Looking out a window eating bread

Deconstruction Introduction to Theory of Literature Professor Paul Fry 

Deconstruction follows what we learned about previously with intellectuals distancing themselves from God and the author. Deconstruction largely places language in a role that we would consider the author as previously in a hard to conceptualize way. Unlike semiotics, language under deconstruction is more direct with no opposite like an idea to generate it. There is a sense to dispel this separation we have with text as if it was created  from an idea. It is supposed that the way text reveals itself is a mirror to the actual thought and that even our thoughts are of the structure of text.

While semiotics was a discursive study that avoided a strict structure and was mailable, deconstruction is most discursive to the point that it seems unstable logically, and this was intended it seems. In a sense we saw a play of opposites in semiotics re: thought and symbol, but here there can be none as the discipline strictly with holds thinking in terms of kind and things more or less are but cannot be compared in likeness or difference. We witness a intense scepticism that will be obstinate to the point that it will do away with meaning. In past we have seen movements that favor the whole or will look at parts. Deconstruction is sort of like an anti-whole movement. It looks at parts but not to know them and to show how they can only be confusing if one looks for a wholeness.

Zaddikim Come to Kolbishov Tales of the Hasidim Martin Buber

A man who is busy studying becomes interrupted by two gentlemen. He does not see the value in entertaining these men but shows them some hospitality none the less. He is intent on his studies but also overhears the two men talking and as he reads his texts he gradually feels a sense of wisdom overtake him. Long after they leave he discovers a longing to be with them.

Of course finding meaning is an eager process but does involve a person who does not have an understanding to somehow come to an understanding. Searching for it can be a confusing task and because of misunderstandings and missed opportunities never connecting. While the gentlemen in this story are actual people they might as well be voices washing in one's psyche while contemplating something else. Emerging knowledge springs from connecting those unacknowledged murmurs with the objective thing being contemplated.

But there is also a theme of hospitality of strangers that plays with the quest for knowledge. Here the hospitality was not lusty at first but just to simply satisfy two travellers who needed a place to stay. There is a humility to this story and the story teller seems to feel conflicted for not entertaining these guests to a greater degree but if you examine past the humility you can find that his efforts would probably exceed what most people would offer. In a sense wisdom comes first of all from generosity but not for the sake of something. The experience that comes from this generosity will combine with the current task and fill it with humanity.