Final Paper Ideas

I recently stumbled upon an article regarding sympathy vs. empathy; the article suggested that sympathy is more a process than a feeling that a reader undergoes. The article also suggests that "sympathy denies what empathy most highly prizes, namely the fusion of self with other"(Grenier). I think this concept can be directly applied to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. The article also suggests that it is our sympathetic response that is what makes characters feel more real to us as readers. By using this article, "Thinking of Me Thinking of You" as well as Vermeule's article "Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?" I hope to further explore the ideas of sympathy and empathy as presented in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. 


I may also not use The Curious Incident but instead focus on a poem, as the "Thinking of Me Thinking of You" article equates sympathy to metonymy and empathy to metaphor. I haven't not fully decided but I am hoping to make some progress regarding this tonight.

Actual vs. Virtual

The article "Virtual Laboratory" really struck a cord with me. The idea that virtual reality is in fact very real to us as humans was surprising to me; I always thought that I would be able to separate between virtual reality and reality. What stood out to me the most, however, was the stigma study in the article. The fact that we as humans react the way we do to just simple facial birthmarks shed a lot of light on Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and why Haddon specifically did not state that Christopher was autistic. If we as humans react the way we do to virtual reality, it can be suggested that we do the same with literature; it seems that Haddon was trying to avoid that immediate stigma often associated with autism, and was trying to allow the reader to form their own opinion about Christopher as a character. If you take this article and translate it in such a way that it can be applied to literature, it definitely shines a lot of light as to why authors may write the way they do. In order to avoid stigmas and labels, authors may leave some ambiguity in regards to their characters to allow the reader to insinuate what characteristics of the characters are.

On a side note, I really wish that autism was not associated with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. I feel that my reading of the novel would have been completely different had I been able to read it with a clean slate and no pre-conceived notions. 

A World of Metaphor

My oral presentation mainly focuses on the familiarity of metaphor and the article "Neural Correlates of Metaphor Processing". To distant my blog post from the same concepts, this post will mainly focus on a section of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" that I really enjoyed. The section I found really beautiful is the section discussing the yellow fog and smoke. I mention this in my presentation, but mainly to use as an example in class rather than discuss the actual metaphors present in the lines and how many layers there are in the poem. I felt the yellow fog was a metaphor for his thoughts. While the idea of an animal, such as a cat, are present through the language, I feel that that is the metaphor at the surface. Once you dig a little deeper, you realize that this section is in fact directly discussing consciousness, and is using the metaphor of a cat, disguised by the metaphor of fog, to explore this. This suggests that there are many layers to metaphors; I would never generalize to say that each and every metaphor has another layer, but it does suggest that we as critical readers must explore metaphors at a level more than simply what immediately strikes us. The window panes seem to reflect the brain and how our thoughts and consciousness envelope our brain, just as the yellow fog is enveloping the window panes. 

Gaps

Key aspects of narrative are missing from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime that is the result of Christopher's narration. While Christopher is not specified as having any cognitive condition, the way he narrates the novel suggests he may have Aspberger's syndrome. Although the novel is classified as a narrative, the fact that key aspects of the typical narrative are missing suggest that this classification may not be the most appropriate. We as the readers are required to fill in the emotional gaps, because while Christopher attempts to explain emotions to us, he doesn't necessarily communicate the emotion well. Additionally, Christopher has difficulty understanding sequential events, and thus sequence is often interrupted, leaving it up to the reader to piece together the events occurring in the novel. While some readers may find this annoying, I personally think it creates more of a connection to the novel. I also think it truly helps to develop the reader's individual reading of a novel. The emotions a reader applies to a novel where the emotions aren't spelled out says a lot about the reader, and how they interpret the novel. I think that an interesting experiment would be to compare how readers read the novel, and whether or not the emotional response is similar. It'd be interesting to see if our brains read the novel as an autistic individual would or if it would just be differing emotional responses. 

Inherent thoughts

This article was so interesting, as these are concepts I myself have often wondered about. A lot of this article relates to my previous paper regarding memory in Proust's "The Cookie", as memory is given agency in that narrative. To read that "we anthropomorhpize because guessing that the world is humanlike is a good bet" clarifies a lot in my mind, not only in terms of literature but in terms of our everyday thought processes as well. I have felt that applying human-like qualities to unfamilar concepts allows those unfamiliar concepts to become more familiar, as you are relating to something you understand better. Reading this article reaffirmed that notion for me; additionally, the actual idea of agency is presented in this article and extends agency to the concept of person. The article explains that "our concept of person is automatic"; thus, it can perhaps be said that because our concept of person is automatic, our anthropomorphism is somewhat automatic as well and thus unconscious. I'm not sure that I can make this leap but it's interesting to think that certain concepts are inherent to our brains, and we then apply those inherent to literature as well as our everyday lives (in my case). 

Paper Outline

1. Connectivity: The use of cognitive metaphor in Proust's "The Cookie" and Cavendish's "The Circle of the Brain Cannot be Squared"

2. Introductory paragraph:

Metaphor is a common literary technique that has been used by various authors across the centuries. Metaphors allow authors to compare an object to another object with which a reader may have more familiarity. Another function of the metaphor is to give the reader another frame of reference regarding the object, often to guide a reader’s interpretation. Although metaphor is most commonly seen in literature, cognitive metaphor is a type of metaphor utilized by individuals unconsciously. Cognitive metaphor theory states that individuals process abstract ideas by relating them to a more concrete idea. In Proust’s “The Cookie” and Margaret Cavendish’s “The Circle of the Brain cannot be squared”, the authors use cognitive metaphor to assist the reader with their interpretation of both pieces of literature. Cognitive metaphor in these two pieces also present the reader with comparison’s of the brain as a whole in Cavendish and specifically the concept of memory in Proust’s. Both the brain and memory are both complicated concepts; although both are concrete in that individuals are aware of them, they are extremely abstract in that very little is known about the brain and memory and how each works. In addition, both pieces of literature are evidence of bridging the gap between the arts and sciences, two fields of study assumed to be unrelated. In reality, the study of the arts and the study of science are closely interrelated, to the extent that neither can exist without the other. Proust’s “The Cookie” and Cavendish’s “The Circle of the Brain Cannot be Squared” utilize cognitive metaphor in order to assist the reader’s understanding of the literature and demonstrate the interdependence of different fields of study, specifically the arts and the sciences.

3. Metaphor is most commonly recognized as a literary technique; however, our brains subconsciously utilize metaphor on a daily basis.

 

Proust’s “The Cookie” exemplifies not only literary metaphor, but also discusses cognitive metaphor as utilized by the brain.

The idea of metaphor arises as Proust anthropomorphizes memory by stating “the memory revealed itself” (Proust).

I have been working on the paragraphs regarding Cavendish's poem; however, I'm re-working the paragraphs because I haven't been happy with how I originally wrote them. 

4. I'm also re-writing my conclusion but the general premise is an extension of how the two pieces of literature create a direct relation between the arts and the sciences. Cavendish's entire poem is centered around this theme, while Proust's narrative also does the same, but in  a less obvious way. 

After I have finished up the paragraphs and conclusion, I will post those.

Week #5: Tasks

"Children must be left entirely at liberty; they will learn every thing better than you can teach them; their memory must not be overloaded with trash; their reason must be left to grow." Maria Edgeworth's "On Tasks" explores the growth of a child, not only physically but emotionally as well.  I feel that this quote explains a concept most children will readily agree with and most adults will readily disagree with; I personally agree with this quote entirely. As adults push their own opinions and ideas upon children, they can create the "trash" that can "overload" a child's memory and create unnecessary memories for them. The idea that "their memory must not be overloaded with trash" relates to our discussion last week regarding memory. I feel that this chapter on tasks emphasizes that over-stimulation of our brains will create memories that we do not necessarily need. Allowing a child's reason to grow on its own, rather than pushing for it to grow, allows the child to grow up into an individual rather than an imprint of the adults who have brought that child up.