Mundane Details

When looking at literature analytically, everything said in a story can be interpreted as serving a purpose. Something that has always attracted me to different kinds of literature is attention to detail, even of the most mundane objects and experiences. The same is true in film, and I decided I would list a few examples that I could think of to compare and contrast them, as well as discuss their significance. These moments that can often be seen as commonplace often play a great role in a novel or film, such as symbolism, but more often, they seem to be key in establishing the aesthetic, and creating the general feeling of a work, as well as the moods of the individual moments within them. Also, could it be that being able to capture such experiences in a way that makes them appear a certain way, such as giving them significance when they are often ignored, or being able to capture them exactly as they appear in real life, be one of the qualities that makes a novel a work of great literature, and an author a great author? This may be what makes many novels universal. 

Haruki Murakami could be called a master of describing the smallest details that are often thought of as providing little for the development of a story, but in his novels it is possibly the most important attribute to creating his stories. There is a moment in Kafka in the Shore when Kafka Temura says "I grab a carton of milk from the fridge, check the expiration date, and pour it over some cornflakes, boil some water, and make a cup of Darjeeling tea. Toast two slices of bread, and eat them with some low fat margarine." What is the importance of this scene? Arguably, absolutely nothing. But really, such scenes as this are what makes Murakami's work cinematic. Describing scenes like this, that really are mundane, may have the ability to create a stronger bond between reader and character as well. It should also be noted that this scene takes place during a time of crisis for Kafka, and this moment may be a kind of break from the tension of what had recently happened, and what the reader is expecting will happen a few days or so after this moment. Murakami's novel After Dark is even more filled with descriptions of such experiences, and all of them together are just as important in the novel as the events that occur in it. They make the novel seem like a movie, not a book, and create the effect of placing the reader in the story, as if it were told in second person narration.

The final scenes of Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby both describe the images of their settings, which play major roles of symbolism. Doing so in the final scene of a novel seems to make the effect of closing the story with something almost calm in feeling, or the exact opposite, but most often leaves the reader questioning its significance.

Also in The Great Gatsby, attention to the detail of human expression in interaction is key in characterization, and also creating the effect of an almost magical tone. When Nick Carraway first meets Jay Gatsby, he describes his first impression of him: “He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” Such a conclusion of a person upon first meeting them is unlikely, but that is what makes this moment key in the novel.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers creates a lens of a child's perspective not only because it is partially narrated by a young main character in that the protagonist F. Jasmine's thoughts are expressed to the reader by McCullers, but because of the moments in which ordinary objects and scenes are described with extreme detail by McCullers, similarly to the way the reader would imagine the F. Jasmine would. For example, the many scenes in which the trellis' shadows "stretch" across the grass outside of F. Jasmine's house during sunsets can be thought of as a symbol of the passage of time, which in the summer in which the novel takes place seems to F. Jasmine to go slowly, but to the reader its actual speed is clear.

To Animate the Lifeless Clay

Up to the fifth chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein there is little said about setting. The focus that would have been put on that is instead directed to events in comparison to other novels. This is primarily because, as is expected, in the chapters in which Victor Frankenstein is the narrator, he is telling his tale to Robert Walton so the style of narration takes on the form of spoken word from memory. However, this created room for the reader to imagine the setting themselves. What is interesting about this is that the way the reader imagined the exact setting of each event, if they did at all, could possibly be a projection of their interpretation of the story (or even on an even broader scale - how they interpret stories in general) This is true with all stories of course, but it may be even more so with a story dealing with fear, which is especially so in the case of Frankenstein as it deals with scenes in which Victor's fear is described in great detail, notably moments such as when he described "his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that almost seemed the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and black lips." (p. 43) as well as the when he describes the dream he had when trying to find a momentary escape from dealing with his creation, "delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death..." (p. 44). It should also be noted that these moments were specifically chosen to be described in great detail over others by Mary Shelley, assumably because both are moments where tension is built up to a horrific and grotesque scene. This places a greater emphasis and significance on the expression of Victor's fear and enables the reader to strongly "share" the same emotions as Victor.  Another point that can be made is that even with great accounts of detail in passages to describe the specific placement of objects and a character's actions, the reader may choose to, or without noticing, ignore that and imagine their own idea of the event.

But to focus on something less abstract and broad I thought of how chapters 3 through 5 primarily have the purpose of providing in great detail the build up and fall of Victor's preoccupation with creating the monster. This brought me to think of the default mode of the brain, which is described simply as one dwelling on self reflection, often negatively, as a result of an idle mind. This brought about ideas of contrasts and similarities between Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, in that Wuthering Heights deals with characters whose conflicts can be described as due to excess free time, and the conflicts of Frankenstein so far, which can be described as having a similar cause, as Victor and the characters of Wuthering Heights are both from a similar social class, but yet dealing with the workings of the brain and almost straining to achieve something above human power. There is the moment on page 43 when Victor reflects "a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule."

There is also the broad question that is brought to mind just by hearing the title Frankenstein, and that is, what is the significance of the universal enjoyment of fear as entertainment, if there is any at all?

Breaking the Fourth Wall

In her TedTalks lecture called The Politics of Fiction, Elif Shafek discussed how literature allows readers to embrace different experiences and understand and connect with the lives of others. Stories in literature and film have the ability to make an audience completely immersed and invested in the story of a person who is often fictional, but some actually have the ability to make the viewer feel as if they had been picked up and dropped right beside the character in the story, or even become the character in the story. The same effect is possible in other forms of visual art as well. Such an effect can be created in film by capturing scenes in POV shots, making the characters look or speak directly to the camera (what is referred to as breaking the fourth wall) altering sound so that it seems as though the audience is hearing it in person themselves as they have heard it in real life situations (for example, when a character dives underwater and the only sounds are the muffled splashing noises one would hear if they were swimming) as well as many other techniques.

In Jean Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie, Amelie often breaks the fourth wall. It is something that allows the audience to get to know her and become attached to her character, as she rarely speaks throughout the film. In this scene, Amelie is introduced again to the audience as an adult in the present after they have learned about her childhood and family.

In literature, the "fourth wall" is broken by switching to second person perspective. It seems that second person is used in pivotal moments, often to evoke a sense of urgency or seriousness. In Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore, the third person perspective of Nakata's suddenly but smoothly transitions into second person when Nakata kills "Johnny Walker." What happens in reading this part of the novel is the reader is so immersed in the urgency and suspense of what Nakata is doing that he or she does not realize at first that each action is now beginning with "you." Then, when he or she does realize, he or she feels more taken aback by the gory scenes being described, and are caused to be even more confused as to why Nakata is doing it. The reader is taken with the thought of "me? I'm not doing this!" and then "why is he doing this?" It is then that, at this point about halfway through the novel and now familiar with and attached to Nakata's character, that it dawns on the reader that there is something wrong with the situation, and suddenly becomes unreal and nightmarish.

Breaking the fourth wall in film is also used to heighten the entertainment value of a film, often by making a character do so in the beginning of a film, in which they introduce what the audience is about to see. In the preview for Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window, the protagonist breaks the fourth wall by explaining what happens to him in the movie in retrospect from after it had apparently already occurred, which can be thought of as a spoiler. The moment that he speaks to the camera this way is actually not in the movie but only in the preview. Here breaking the fourth wall is used for advertisement of the film. Instead of drawing the viewer as the events of the film unfold or as an introduction to the film before the story even begins, the audience is spoken to directly by one of the characters even before they see the film.

On Passive Characters

There is something about stories in which characters say little and make little or no progress that happens to say more about a theme than stories in which characters experience a profound change. It seems to be that when there is no dialogue the focus that would be directed on it is transferred to setting and action. It also appears that in stories where this is the case, there is far more monologue, in which the reader or viewer can hear or read a character's thoughts, or the character speaks directly to them. These characters also often seem to drift through scenarios, whether they are in the center of them or play little to no part in them, because of the way more attention is put on their thoughts of the situation as opposed to the actual action.

Teju Cole's novel Open City features a character that makes these attributes of a "passive character" even more exaggerated, for his past time is walking through Manhattan without a specific destination just to observe the city around him. In his walks, certain interactions between strangers that he just so happens to see and meetings with various characters often are connected to the larger theme of the story, as well as often brought back memories of Julius', the main character's, childhood. Each of these moments is greatly occupied by Julius' reflection.

Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man focuses on a relatively laconic character who drifts through a situation he seemingly just happened to fall into. However, where Open City makes up for the passivity of Julius' actions with monologue and dialogue to create a better understanding of the novel's themes, Dead Man makes up for the passivity of William Blake with the effect of an old black and white film on the audience  and the film's soundtrack to create mood.

In a Fishbowl

What seems to make the majority of the characters of Wuthering Heights so "unlikeable" to readers is the fact that each of the many exaggerated mistakes that they make seem clearly avoidable, and their reactions to the situations they put themselves in as over the top but more often just unfitting altogether. Wuthering Heights may not only be a novel that explores human relationships, but also the effect of setting on them. Maybe in addition experimenting with how an effectively entertaining story can be created, she was also experimenting with how human relation and interaction work in general. Maybe there was a purpose to making the characters so clearly and openly flawed; to provide a reflection of the clearly and openly flawed situation she had created them in.

When I read Renigald Rose's screenplay of Twelve Angry Men I imagined the story played out with the nameless characters as similar to props. I thought this was attributed to the stage notes in the first pages, with their descriptions and plan of the room they occupied for the majority of the play. The characterization of the juries was like this: when the name of the character was introduced, for example, jury three, a form was imagined, just the basic outline of a man, and when their description was told, (juror number three is described as "a very strong, very forceful, extremely opinionated man within whom can be detected a streak of sadism. A humorless man who is intolerant of opinions other than his own and accustomed to forcing his wishes and views upon others") that form had been stamped to be molded into a character that follows the description given.



As opposed to Wuthering Heights, where the characters are developed over time, although remain relatively true to the first impressions they create on the reader, just as in Twelve Angry Men, the prose of the landscape around them as well as the fact that the Mrs. Dean inputs her opinion of the characters' actions, create a distinction from the bare characterizations and descriptions of setting that are relatively open to the reader for their interpretation in Twelve Angry Men. After the character descriptions, a bird's eye view of the set of the play (the jury room) is presented, and below is a list of the objects each character has with him, which are for the most part the only major attributes to their physical descriptions. These objects are mostly the only given physical descriptions of the characters, and the rest is up to the reader to decide.

However, both the plots of Twelve Angry Men and Wuthering Heights challenge human emotion and interaction in a small, cramped space. Wuthering Heights takes place for the most part in two estates and the land between them, which may not be small and cramped, but may seem so to their inhabitants because of the isolation and the same few people to interact with day in and day out. In Twelve Angry Men, the space that the characters are in is a small room which is described by the characters as hot and cramped. This description may be more of a reflection of the situation as opposed to a literal description, and the same goes for Wuthering Heights as well. By doing so, both works create the effect that the characters are being viewed as if they were in a fish bowl, even more so than most other works. The events of Twelve Angry Men takes place over the course of a day, and Wuthering Heights years, but still a similar is created among them of an analysis of relationships and interaction that is even more apparent than in other works.

Eye of the Beholder

What draws more people to certain works than others is that in these works situations are visually portrayed similarly to the way the viewer interprets things themselves. More specifically, there is a way to make viewers feel even more connected to a film by using visual elements to create a combination of images that together bring about emotions in the viewer. In psychological projection, people put themselves in the situation that is being presented in a work. In addition to this, it seems that what makes a work successful is that it is an accurate representation, which can refer making a representation of a situation and setting so that it is nearly identical to how it is or appears in real life, or a rendering of the creator's thought, to create it so that it appears very similarly as how they envisioned it. Association with memory also plays a great part in this. For example, someone might have experienced something that had a profound effect in their life, or that they are simply familiar with, for example, in a room that had a certain design and feel to it, and when they are in a similar setting they will experience similar emotions that they felt during that event in the past. This must mean that when shots of films are created, certain things such as lighting, set design, etc. are arranged to match what creates the mood that the filmmakers are trying to establish. When one thinks about their favorite works of literature, he or she may notice that all of the narrators of those works speak a certain way that is very similar to the way he or she himself or herself narrates their own life, possibly with similar diction or syntax. Similarly, in film or photography as well as other mediums of art, a work may make a person become even more invested in a plot if they portray situations the way that viewer sees them. Now, these things most likely seem like common sense, but there is actually a lot to explore about how this actually happens in the brain, why people are attracted to certain things over others and how visual memory works.

 

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

I have recently read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story entitled A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. I enjoyed the story more than I have enjoyed any other story that I have read recently, and I felt that I should wonder why this was so. After I finished reading the story, I thought that it wasn't so much the plot of the story itself that I was drawn to, it was mostly Garcia Marquez's way of telling it. When the topic of why people are drawn to certain pieces of literature is discussed, the idea that is most always brought up is psychological projection, where the reader becomes involved and invested in the plot of a story because they are experiencing the plot themselves as one of the characters. A part of projection that seems obvious is that people are especially drawn to works because they relate to aspects of it, such as finding similarities between themselves a character, or between the setting of the work and a place they are familiar with and associates certain feelings or memories with. Or, the reader aspires to have traits that one of the characters possesses. However, it seems to be that what is discussed less about projection is even more important but less clear, which is why a reader is drawn to a specific style of story telling. This can go into certain genres of literature, for example, someone's favorite works may be all southern gothic works, which might be because that person is drawn to the kinds of characters that are common in southern gothic, usually flawed and in a flawed environment, for the reasons previously described. However, one may find that when taking into account his or her favorite works, they may all be entirely different genres, but may have very similar styles of narration.
Films are similarly constructed and brought to life with not words but lighting, costume design, and all of the other things that are created with words in literature but physically created in film. Jean Pierre Jeunet's film Delicatessen is visually constructed similarly to the imagery of Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. The broadest comparison that can be made between the two is that the settings of the two are somewhat of microcosms. Delicatessen takes place in a radius of one block at the most, most of the movie taking place in the apartment that the main character is a new tenant in. One line that sets the fact that A Very Old Man With Wings is a fantasy story is "the world had been sad since Tuesday." Around this line are other sentences that establish the world as nothing more than the home of the married couple where the angel falls, and maybe the town that it is in as well, although that is only referred to a couple of times and the story takes place mostly in the couple's courtyard. The effect that one particular setting is in fact the only thing in a representation of the world in a story, and that there is nothing beyond that. There is also the tone set towards the angel that establishes him as almost part of a dream, and since he is the main focus of the story, the whole thing may very well be a dream. For example, the husband finds the angel and then "frightened by this nightmare, [he] ran to get Elisenda, his wife..." The main thing that seems to make Delicatessen seem so dreamlike, or rather nightmare-like, is the use of color and lighting. Like Amelie, another film of Jean Pierre Jeunet, color is used to create different moods, but mostly to create the overall "glow" of the film, in Delicatessen it emphasizes the crowdedness of the apartment building and creates the feeling of a kind of post apocalyptic frenzy for resources. There is also the fact that both works focus on fantastical characters and subjects. In A Very Old Man With Wings, the angel is the main focus, and there is also girl who was turned into a tarantula the size of a person with her head still intact, who takes the attention away from the crowds that originally came to the couple's house to see the angel, which can be interpreted as irony and symbolism, and in Delicatessen the premise is a butcher/landlord that occasionally butchers his tenants and sells them as meat to his remaining tenants in a place and time where grain is currency. We also don't ever meet any other characters outside of the apartments other than the people who live underground and eat grain rather than use it as currency, as well as the main character the magician and the butcher's daughter who can be viewed, like the angel, as set apart from the ignorance and anonymity of the other characters.