Perversity and Lawrence’s Prussian Officer Ferdinand de Saussure developed his "theory of the sign" as part of a more general course on linguistics he taught in the nineteenth century. The "sign" represents the arbitrary relationship between the signifier (a word, or even a sound), and the signified (the meaning we give to the word or sound in our minds). For example, the word "can" signifies a cylindrical container to me, but could mean something entirely different to someone who does not understand English. The relationship of the word "can" to a can is completely subjective. It's nothing but a trigger for my pre-existing notion of a can. SIGNIFIER (CAN) SIGN =SIGNIFIED (CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER) Actual meaning comes from the thing itself, rather than our word for it. Jacques Lacan modified Saussure's original algorithm so that the signifier dominated the signified. We have many words for the same object. For example, the adjectives ugly, unattractive, hideous, revolting, and homely describe a less-than-desirable state of physical beauty. Why choose one word over another? The signification is roughly the same. Yet subtle differences exist between these signifiers - differences which relate as much to the speaker as to the object being described. The choice of a signifier is nowhere near arbitrary; words may not have transcendental meaning, but they certainly relate to each other within a given linguistic structure - a language, a dialect, or even a piece of fiction. One interesting way to explore the mystery of the signifier is through constructs like metaphor and metonymy. These work within a text, simultaneously concealing and betraying meaning. Metaphor an... ... middle of paper ... ... the characters oppose each other. The tension becomes too much, and the binary opposites cancel each other out, literally - the orderly murders his captain and then dies himself. Truly, "The Prussian Officer" is bound up in a language of its own. Signification is dynamic, moving with increasing speed toward destruction. Meaning collapses at the end of the story. Luckily, there is a backtrail of metaphor and metonymy to reflect the shifting relationships between the terms of battle. [1] David Herbert Lawrence, "The Prussian Officer". D.H. Lawrence:Complete Stories. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1955 (105). Hereafter cited parenthetically. [2] Anthony Wilden, "Lacan and the Discourse of the Other". The Language of Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981 (225).
Author: Walter Benn Michaels is the chair of the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago teaching literary theory, and American literature. Michaels has also has multiple essays and books published such as Against Theory, The shape of the Signifier, and Diversity's False Solace
Though the novel introduces the reader to a seasoned soldier in the German army, its tale of war begins even before enlistment. The soldier’s “bellies are full with beef and haricot beans;” their hearts are full of happiness. “The cook,” or one’s parents, “spoons…out a great dollop,” or provides for their needs (1). Before enlistment, the men’s futures were good and certain; “each man had a mess tin full for the evening” (1). Though sheltered, the men were “satisfied and at peace”(1). Shortly after these introductory passages, Baumer expresses his disdain for this prior life, suggesting that the soldiers’ present paradigms are the only views that are reliable; “our generation is more to be trusted than [the older generation]” (12). However, though these men have been alerted to the ways of the world, these revelations visibly corrupt them for within their soul (“under their nails”) lies the...
...ome aspect of war, from battling with enemies to how battle spiritually destroys young men. The one positive point of this novel is how friends cared for one another when going through tragedies and stressful experiences. It also portrays how strong a soldier needs to be, in order for them to be in the war.
Jünger’s opening chapter recalls the enthusiastic first thoughts on entering the war, upon arrival in Champagne, “Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war .” Though the illusion was soon dispelled, throughout the novel Jünger did not seem to be phased by the reality of his mission. When Jünger described reaching Orainville, he wrote, “We saw only a few, ragged, shy civilians; everywhere eels soldiers in worn tattered tunics, with faces weather-beaten and often with a heavy growth of beard, strolling along at a slow pace, or standing in little clusters in doorways, watching our arrival with ribald remarks .” This is Jünger’s first of a pattern of acc...
feels an electric impulse when he is with her and when he speaks his soft
According to Etherington-Wright and Doughty, “The signifier is the form that the sign takes. It can be a word. It can be a word. It can take the form of a specific sound or marks on a piece of paper (a combination of letters of letters or symbols). The signified is the conceptual stage of communication. This is when the sign stimulates a mental idea/image” (Doughty, p. 65). A signifier in Alice in Wonderland, is the world of Wonderland itself. The signified is her quest for knowledge. The signifier is her physical journey through wonderland, but signified is her search for understanding. Another example is the signifier of the white rabbit. The rabbit signifies a figment of her imagination. While the thing that is signified by the rabbit is her curious nature as whole. In the Wizard of Oz, a signifier is the ruby slippers. They symbolize magic, and what’s signified by them is Dorothy’s potential power. “She has it, she just doesn’t know how to use it yet, which is really why Glinda sends her off to see the Wizard. Only after all of her adventures, and the attendant self-reliance that comes with taking out two wicked witches single-handedly, can she tap into that power and use it to get what she want” (Shmoop). In the move Big Fish, the fish is another great example of signified and signifier. The signifier is the fish, representing Edward himself, while the signified is his life and
Elizabeth led England during it’s greatest time of influence as a nation despite the prejudices against her gender. Many people believe that her life was like a fairy tale-“Beloved by the kingdom; dressed by servants in jewels and gold, silk and velvet; pampered and treasured by kings and married to princes”, but in reality her life did not come close to being a fairy tale. Many of her subjects hater her from the moment she was born. She experienced imprisonment, her sister threatened to kill her, and she was almost forced in marriages with men she hated. Some of her friends caused uprisings in her name. Her enemies tried to assassinate her. Her father had her mother beheaded and ignored her for most of her life. Although she had many suitors, she never loved any of them. She understood the common people and eventually gained the loyalty of those who hated her. She could also be ruthless. The city gates and London Bridge held the bodies of the people that she executed during her reign.
In the late years Elizabeth still showed her devotion to her people, she gave one of her most famous speeches in 1601 to the Parliament, during what is referred to as her "Golden Speech," a self-reflective Elizabeth seemed to look back on her long reign. "Of myself I must say this, I was never any greedy, scraping grasper, nor a strait, fast-holding prince, nor yet a waster. My heart was never set on worldly goods but for my subjects' good." (biography.com ex
One of the more interesting concepts is the "Chain of signifiers", in which the signifier itself points not to the signified, or concept, but rather points to another set of signifiers, which each point to another set of signifiers, ad infinitum. It is this idea that "the word...never reaches the point when it refers to a signified" (Tyson 252) that positions language as nonreferential, with no end-game where a signified is met and all the supplements provided by the signifiers are resolves. There is no point at which language "refer[s] to things in the world" (252) instead relying on how we, through our own structures of signification, view concepts. Each chain of signifiers is dependent upon the structure that acts upon the creation of meaning and experience, and no longer dependent on the signified itself. For instance, a text never reaches the point where it relays the disparate ideas that formulated the text in the mind of the author - it instead is formulated of supplements that point to poten...
Dickinson uses many ways to get her point across. She uses metaphors, imagery, and personification. Throughout her poem she refers to death as he, giving him a human form so people could look at it differently. She also uses metaphors, like setting sun, grazing grain, and children to represent different stages of life. The rhythm also sets the mood of the poem. Since it has a darker feeling to it, readers can get the right feeling and mood about her poem to understand it better.
Emily Dickinson is known for her poetry especially surrounding the subjects of death, love, and nature. These themes, however, are less standard than they may appear at first glance. Dickinson writes poetry with complex themes, and in many cases, each of her poems may be classified by more than one theme. “Because I could not stop for death” is a prime example of Dickinson’s multifaceted work. Emily Dickinson personifies death along with an underlying theme of love in “Because I could not stop for death.”
Symbolism is when an author uses a symbol or an object to relate it to another meaning other than its literal meaning. It is normally used
A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2009 Open-Ended Question for AP English Literature and Composition).
Spenser, Edmund. "Epithalamion." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. By M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. 7th ed. Vol. 1B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. 863-78. Print.
Observations: Upon first glance, many literary elements popped out at me. To begin, it was obvious that, in typical Dickinson fashion, there were many dashes. These dashes are used to indicate an interruption or abrupt shift in thought and to add emphasis. More importantly, they are there to remind the reader to stop and take a longer pause to reflect back on what was trying to be said at that point within the poem. These dashes, from simply looking at the poem, also interrupt the rhythmic flow and help lend a hand in helping Dickinson create a unique form of diction. Alliteration is also a key element throughout this poem as there are many ‘s’, ‘w’, and ‘f’ sounds. For example, there is line within the poem that says, “When One died for Truth, was lain…” With this, there is a continuous “w” sound rolling off of the tongue. Assonance is also noticed throughout the poem in that Dickinson uses ‘oo’ sounds with the words beauty, tomb, who, truth, and room. In terms of rhyme and meter, the poem is set with a fixed rhyme pattern that took the form of ABCB. There are also many moments throughout the poem in which words are randomly capitalized. Although they look as if they were capitalized sporadically and without thought, these words were written this way to place emphasis upon the meaning of the words and the messages behind them. The structure of this poem (and most of Dickinson’s poems for that matter) is a closed or fixed form dealing with four line stanzas, or quatrains. Figures of speech used, just by observing the poem, were metaphors, personification, and metonymy. For example, this whole poem focuses on death and truth – two things that are ‘intangible’ objects without life to them. Yet, Dickinson portrays them in a way in wh...