Seduction, as well as some other terms, has been an important chapter for Beaudrillard’s theory of sexuality. Beadrillars was applying/using/ these terms in order to expand his analysis on the contemporary culture. Within his studies, he examines and identifies the attributes, strategies and meaning of seduction, the act of diverting from one’s path and its fatal attraction. Moreover, Baudrillard situates the act of seduction in regard (not respect) to the theory of appearance and disappearance, all appearances are meant to disappear resulting to a constant distortion of the image and its meaning. The phrase I chose to work with is “the secret, the distance”, referring to an image which is no longer transcending reality or real. The closer you get to an image; the meaning of the object is lost. With the example of high-resolution images, he explains that the image comes too close to reality resulting to its disappearance. The viewer experiences and sees everything and there is nothing else left to see. Another term referring to the lost of meaning is the mirror. For Baudrillard, a mirror is not a reflection but a deception and through the parallel world of reality it introduces a new kind of maze and labyrinths, seducing you of what is real and what virtual, and where the beginning and the end are. Labyrinth is based on the idea of finding the finish point through the losing of yourself/identity. Moreover, labyrinths and mazes were metaphorically used to represent a trapped human soul or even in several religious were used for virtual walking and representing the birth and the god. In other words, by reaching the end, one was identified with God. Furthermore, camouflage is a phenomenological survival strategy or masquerade... ... middle of paper ... ...rder for birds to feel even more welcome to the site. Because of the size and the importance of the aviary to the whole building, the aviary is located in the middle, leaving space and easy access for birdwatching. In this way kids, schoool, parents and adults are welcome to spend a day watching birds and educate themselves about the area, its history and the environment. A library, a lecture theater and an information desk are included in the centre to help people study about nature. Also, a number of laboratorys are located in the basement floor, with easy access to the aviary to maintain a healthy environment for the birds but also to encourage reseach and surveys on nature. In this way, researches from over the world can come to analyse and research about the birds. The cafeteria and the roof ‘amphitheater’ allow the visitors a more relaxing atmosphere.
Janet M. Ellerby analyzes “Lust” in her essay titled, “Lust”. In this essay, Ellerby goes through and gives a brief but accurate summary of the short story. Then she gives her interpretations of what this story was supposed to mean. She finally talks about the techniques Susan Minot used in order to get the atmosphere and emotions she wanted the reader to experience. I agree with how Ellerby interprets this story and it will be evident throughout this paper. Because I agree with what this essay had to say, I will be able to use it as evidence to support my ideas.
Victor Hugo penned a fantastic, picturesque story of passion and the human spirit in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The dramatic emotions of the characters play out on the stage of fifteenth century Paris, France. Quasimodo, a repugnant physical defect of nature, lived severed from human contact, excepting that of the solemnly aloof priest, Claude Frollo. For his part, Frollo strove for knowledge until he encountered the captivatingly gorgeous gypsy dancer, Esmeralda. She existed solely to adore an arrogant captain of the King's Archers, named Phoebus de Chateaupers, for saving her from being kidnapped. Enticed by Esmeralda's dancing to the depths of his being, Frollo outwardly denounced her as a sacrilegious sorceress, but his body raged for her out of lust, accounting for his repeated attempts at having her prohibited from dancing near the cathedral, or stolen away. Esmeralda, furiously in love with Phoebus, nearly sacrificed her virtue to gain his heart, before Frollo gravely wounded him. Tortured into confessing witchcraft and condemned to die by a court with church officials, the gypsy enchantress obtained sanctuary in Notre Dame cathedral, rescued from the hangman's noose by Quasimodo. At this point, Frollo attempted to claim Esmeralda's merciful and virtuous heartfelt forgiveness for his passion, failing miserably because his efforts appeared feeble and lascivious. Frollo and Esmeralda perished, however, after a storming of the cathedral and gruesome battle, dying sacrifices on the altar of human emotion.
The Byzantine Empire was a primarily Christian empire whose reign started in 330 A.D and ended in 1453 A.D with the capturing of the its capital, Constantinople by the Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. In the years following the fall of the Byzantines, many of the Christian basilicas were transformed into mosques for Islamic worship, inspiring many artists to create works that embodied their religious politics. One of the pieces created following the fall of the Byzantine Empire is the painting of Yusuf Fleeing Zulayhka, created in 1488 by Kamal al-Din Bihzad, a famous Persian painter who worked under the patronage of several Persian sultans. The illustration depicts Yusuf’s struggle to escape his master’s wife Zulaykha as she chases him through her elaborate palace in an attempt to seduce him. The representation was made using paint, ink and gold, and features jewel-like colors in order to portray the extravagancy of the palace Zulayhka has built specifically for the seduction of Yusuf (Stokstad 286). This essay will assess three accounts of the story of Yusuf and Zulaykha and the reasoning behind why the narrative is often labelled as a cautionary tale and of what kind.
During this time the works on sexual power and dominance written by Michel Foucault informed the interpretation and analysis of historians on the subject of Two-Spirit sex roles. Foucault, esteemed for writing a comprehensive history of sexuality, informed many of the analysis on this subject following his work’s publication. In his volume the History of Sexuality published in 1972, Michel Foucault discusses the many aspects of sexuality and its use as a form of power. Specifically Foucault was imminent in interpreting the role of dominance and passivity in sex and in homosexual interactions. These discussions informed many of the works that followed, especially the work Long Before Stonewall (Rifkin, 2011).
Herman Melville wrote some of the most widely read works in the history of literature during the late nineteenth century. He has become a writer with whom the romantic era is associated and a man whose works have become a standard by which modern literature is judged. One of his most well-known and widely studied short pieces of fiction is a story entitled, simply, Billy Budd. In this short story, Melville tells the tale of Billy Budd, a somewhat out-of-place stuttering sailor who is too innocent for his own good. This enchanting tale, while inevitably entertaining, holds beneath it many layers of interpretive depth and among these layers of interpretation, an idea that has been entertained in the literature of many other romantic writers. Melville uses a literary technique of developing two characters that are complete opposites in all aspects and contrasting them throughout the narrative, thus allowing their own personalities to adversely compliment each other. Melville also uses this tactic in another well-known short story, Bartleby the Scrivener. Much like Melville's two stories, another romantic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses this tactic in his short story, The Artist of the Beautiful when he creates two completely different characters who vie for the same woman's love. Both writers use the contrary characters to represent the different facets of the human personality. Using this idea and many others, these romantic writers, Melville and Hawthorne, created works with depth of meaning that were both interesting to read and even more intriguing to interpret.
It is of particular interest to look at sexuality in relation to the modern daily life. What may seem abnormal and even abject in daily life is constitutive in human sexuality. It goes beyond normal functioning, rationality, and purposefulness, making sexuality inherently excessive. The discrepancy between the sexual and daily life connotes the otherness of sexuality. Freud mentions this in Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality in his contention that perversion should be used a term of reproach: “no healthy person, it appears, can fail to make some addition that might be called perverse to the normal sexual aim.” Although he may have been focusing on the abnormal particularities in normal sexual life, this idea expounds ...
Essential yet underplayed, seduction is a means to establishing a physical union. Throughout literature the basic arts of seduction, chasing the opposite sex, have changed, but a reader of such literature can see that the motive of seduction has mostly remained the same. The metaphysical literary motive of seduction in the context of this paper is a delicate technique of intentionally tempting a person to participate in a physical union or exploitation, or to inspire or persuade a person to partake in sexual behavior. Although the outcome of these seduction techniques are sexual, literary authors have their own ways of writing these complex ideas in a colloquial language. As time progressed, debates over the literary means of seduction have arisen and challenged many.
Volpe, Edmond L. "James's Theory of Sex." Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Portrait of a Lady: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Peter Buitenhuis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet— they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn, they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not let me sleep. Even during the celebration of Mass, when our prayers should be purer, lewd visions of those pleasures take such hold of my unhappy soul….Even in sleep I know no respite. Sometimes my thoughts are betrayed in a movement, of my body, or they break out in an unguarded word (Letter 4,
In Sigmund Freud’s “Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness”, contained in Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, the writer presents separate roles for men and women as it relates to sexuality, even referring to a “double code of morality” (22) for the genders. In his paper the former often takes the role of the subject while the former becomes the object. In fact, women are described as the “true sexual guardians of the race” glorified, it seems, instead of truly studied. However, in one particular section of the essay, Freud turns his focus onto the female sexuality. In specific he references the various factors that, in his eyes, can influence the female sexual formation. The primary influences being that of the society, primarily the institution of marriage, and that of the family, which would include both a woman’s parents and children. After discussing these elements, Freud then
Michael Foucault played a key role in the construction of the modern concept of sexuality through interlocked approaches. The purpose of this writing is to promote an understanding of mental defectiveness that can lead to criminal behavior. In the wake of Foucault's influential sexual histories, Krafft-Ebing is often maligned as a contributor to the repressed Victorian construction of sexual deviancy.
In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, the overruling drive of the narrator, Humbert Humbert, is his want to attest himself master of all, whether man or woman, his prime cravings, all-powerful destiny, or even something as broad as language. Through the novel the reader begins to see Humbert’s most extreme engagements and feelings, from his marriage to his imprisonment, not as a consequence of his sensual, raw desires but rather his mental want to triumph, to own, and to control. To Humbert, human interaction becomes, or is, very unassuming for him: his reality is that females are to be possessed, and men ought to contest for the ownership of them. They, the women, become the very definition of superiority and dominance. But it isn’t so barbaric of Humbert, for he designates his sexuality as of exceptionally polished taste, a penchant loftier than the typical man’s. His relationship with Valerie and Charlotte; his infatuation with Lolita; and his murdering of Quilty are all definite examples of his yearning for power. It is so that throughout the novel, and especially by its conclusion, the reader sees that Humbert’s desire for superiority subjugates the odd particularities of his wants and is the actual reason of his anguish.
This essay will analyze and critique Michel Foucault’s (1984) essay The Use of Pleasure in order to reveal certain internal weaknesses it contains and propose modifications that would strengthen his reading of sexuality as a domain of moral self-formation. In order to do so, it will present a threefold critique of his work. Firstly, it will argue that that his focus on solely the metric of pleasure divorced from its political manifestations underemphasizes state power as a structuring principle of sexuality. Secondly, it will posit that his attention to classical morality privileges written works by male elites and fails to account for the subtexts that would demonstrate other forms of morality. Finally, it will argue that the nature of actors’ resistance to moral codes, explicated through Butler’s concept of iterability and signification, is an important factor that should also be considered. As a result of this critique, this essay
In Literature and Life, Love is a powerful force. Sans love; feelings, desires and relationships may seem empty. This force however, can also be destructive, even may end a marriage. Marital discord, arising in general, due to infatuation, lust or affection for a third person, may crop up primarily facilitated by adverse familial, economic or societal conditions that do frequently find their mention in the written word. Some of these concerns like family, marriage, sexuality, society and death, are notably illustrated by the authors, Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary and Laura Esquivel in Like Water for Chocolate.
...the main site of modern commodification of both nurturing and sexual services. The dysfunctional family relationships are presented through the manipulation of sexual attraction, as well as the exertion of dominance between characters in the urban London city after the World War II.