Within Chapter 12 of Desire, the main topic of discussion is found in what is called "sexual citizenship." This topic caught me by surprise do to the fact that within the Church and government one's natural sexual desires shifted from a innate humane feeling to a revolutionary movement. It is stated that over time, sex has been glorified and blown out of proportion through the media in order to influence generations. In the eyes of the church, it can be concluded that sex is a natural desire, a bond that should be shared between husband and wife to sanctify the unity of marriage and symbolize the divinity of the God head. However, as it is displayed in the media sex is now a "citizenship" and has been liberated in order for freedom of expression to take place. It's not more of the action of sex but the very desires of sexual pleasures that must be taken into account. Therefore, I pose the question, how strong is desire?
An excerpt from the chapter reads "...They repudiate Lacan's idea that desire was a lack. If we think of desire as lack, we want to plug this whole by acquiring objects, tapped by capitalism. Instead, Deleuze and Guattari wanted revolutionary desire to flow through one person to another in "desiring machines" formed of "great gregarious masses." In revolutionary love, possessive love would disappear and "persons give way to decoded flows of desire, two lines of vibration." Desire was once again perceived as an abstract force detached from the person."
If we are to accept this claim made in the prior sentence above that desire was may be viewed as an abstract force detached from the person, what say we then? Are our lives influence/controlled by an outside force in which we have no control? Are our desires not our own? This idea now questions the very thought of desire being a lack but a force, an entity that can not be obtained. With this in mind, the symbolic elements of Celestina come to mind. Was she not the symbol of a force that flowed from person to person while being detached from each person? In the end Celestina died, however her spirit still lived on. So shall we say that desire is not a "lack" per say but a force that can never truly be tangible and in itself there is no satisfaction? By definition, desire is defined as a longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment. This definition supports the claim that desire is wanting what we can not have yet it does not express evidence that in itself desire can be perceived as an abstract force detached from the person.
One thing is certain, no matter how one perceives desire, whether it be a lack or an abstract force, it can never be satisfied and will always be a product of longing for something that neither exists or is achieved.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Love Song
Golden; Chrisette Michele
Take me back in the day
when loving was pure
Love ain't going away,
love is always cure
Life's not always perfect
but love's always forever
Let's let true love
connect, let's try lasting together
I'm so ready to love, I'm
so ready to promise my all
I'm so ready to give to
the day that my life is no more
I'll be everything that
this woman could possibly be
'Cause I'm ready to be
like the olden days
When commitment was golden
Be the man of my dreams
and get down on one knee, love
Say you'll be all I need
and then ask me to marry you, my love
Let's take two golden
bands and let's walk down the isle, love
I'll say I do and you'll
say I do, may good God and commitment, oh
I'm so ready to love, I'm
so ready to promise my all, all
(Promise my all)
And I'm so ready to give
to the day that my life is no more
(My life is no more)
I'll be everything that
this woman could possibly be, yes, I will
(Possibly be)
'Cause I'm ready to be
like the olden days
When commitment was golden
(Golden)
Let's last forever
Now typical American,
shady love
Let's stay together
May God smile upon our
everlasting lives
I'm so ready to love, I'm
so ready to promise my all, yes, I am
(Promise my all)
I'm so ready to give to
the day that my life is no more
(My life is no more)
And I'll be everything
that this woman can possibly be, yes, I will
(Possibly be)
'Cause I'm ready to be
like the olden days
When commitment was golden
(Golden)
I'm so ready to love, I'm
so ready to promise my all, yeah, yeah
(Promise my all)
And I'm so ready to give
to the day that my life is no more
(My life is no more)
I'ma be everything that
this woman could possibly be
(Possibly be)
'Cause I'm ready to be
like the olden days
When commitment was golden
(Golden)
Golden, golden, golden,
golden love
Our commitment is golden
I think that it's safe to say that these words speak for themselves. One might conclude that this poetry is similar to that of Troubador. Growing up, one might say that I was a "hopeless romantic," loving the very idea of a "perfect love." Like many of us I grew up with a fairy tale of how Love should be, a Medieval courtly love if you will, the prince coming to rescue the damsel in distress as they live a life of reverie. Golden encompasses every nuance in such a love. I'm still that hopeless romantic and I still believe in that "fairy tale" love. Fairy tales are nothing more than an ignored reality and Chrisette Michele does an exceptional job of delivering the Hopeless Romantic's Anthem.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Vargas Llosa's "The Bad Girl" - Week Two
The topic of discussion that I wish to discuss is the Bad Girl's pursuit of Ricardo by telephone. This event perplexes my mind and truly has me wondering about the games/tricks that The Bad Girl plays or is it that her tricks have tricked her? If I understood correctly, from the time of their first interaction, The Bad Girl had no true interest in Ricardo. Ricardo would confess his love time and time again yet The Bad Girl literally treated him like a puppy, announcing that he was "unworthy." Still, Ricardo never lost hope, never lost his will to love (lust) her despite her clear neglect of his feelings and emotions. As the events lead up to the "Pursuit of Ricardo," I question, what happened in the Bad Girl's mind? What caused her to retreat to the one who she was not pursuing? We discover that after the Ricardo finally answers the phone and asks to meet, The Bad Girl appears dressed like a beggar and looks so sick he thinks she's going to die. She eventually faints and he takes her to his apartment and then to the hospital. She claims that she was in prison and they raped her, but he doesn't believe her. If I was Ricardo, I doubt that I would've believed her either but as I look deeper, I find that here is some truth in The Bad Girls claim.
Claim 1: She was in prison.
This claim serves as a metaphor to the emotional prison she was in. Here you have a girl that from the time of her character's introduction, she was not fully characterized. Her character lacks substance, lacks understanding. As seen in Madame Bovary and other sources of reference concerning Desire, she is lacking/empty. I hate to be cliche' but she winds up looking for love in all the wrong places. I retract that and conclude that she wasn't looking for love yet only satisfaction for her burning desire. However, as we all are, she's human. After you search and search for something to exist that doesn't, you lose yourself. There is no sense of connection to reality because for so long a dream was being chased. This can serve as a prison-like construct of the soul.
Claim 2: She was raped.
For a mighty promiscuous woman, the word rape doesn't seem likely to be in her vocabulary. Could you believe that one who enjoys violence would claim to have been assaulted or involved in an involuntary act? The point of the matter is that in a sense, The Bad Girl was raped. Raped in this sense meaning the taking of one's innocence, one's purity. Am I suggesting that The Bad Girl was a pure woman? No. But what I do suggest is that underneath The Bad Girl is a good girl who's been hurting for a while now. And who does one go to when they are in need of healing, the one who showed consistant love over a period of time. Unfortunately, that happened to be Ricardo.
I say unfortunately for Ricardo's case because like most good boy's he falls in the trap of the Super Hero syndrome, a syndrome that I know all too well. Upon their meeting, we see that The Bad Girl appears as a sick beggar who is in dire need. What does Ricardo do? He helps her and tries to restore what innocence she may have had but as it is in her nature, The Bad Girl overpowers the good girl and eventually leaves again to play games of "Love." This is a cycle that is seen all throughout Love in American Culture. The good boy goes after the bad girl, thinking that she is the source of the answer of his problems and later gets burned in the end. Blinded by the image of the romantic couple, the good boy can not see the darkness lurking within this girl. There is no good and there is no chance of a relationship. In reality she is a shadow; in his eyes she is a rose. Oil and water do not flow together. I speak from experience.
Claim 1: She was in prison.
This claim serves as a metaphor to the emotional prison she was in. Here you have a girl that from the time of her character's introduction, she was not fully characterized. Her character lacks substance, lacks understanding. As seen in Madame Bovary and other sources of reference concerning Desire, she is lacking/empty. I hate to be cliche' but she winds up looking for love in all the wrong places. I retract that and conclude that she wasn't looking for love yet only satisfaction for her burning desire. However, as we all are, she's human. After you search and search for something to exist that doesn't, you lose yourself. There is no sense of connection to reality because for so long a dream was being chased. This can serve as a prison-like construct of the soul.
Claim 2: She was raped.
For a mighty promiscuous woman, the word rape doesn't seem likely to be in her vocabulary. Could you believe that one who enjoys violence would claim to have been assaulted or involved in an involuntary act? The point of the matter is that in a sense, The Bad Girl was raped. Raped in this sense meaning the taking of one's innocence, one's purity. Am I suggesting that The Bad Girl was a pure woman? No. But what I do suggest is that underneath The Bad Girl is a good girl who's been hurting for a while now. And who does one go to when they are in need of healing, the one who showed consistant love over a period of time. Unfortunately, that happened to be Ricardo.
I say unfortunately for Ricardo's case because like most good boy's he falls in the trap of the Super Hero syndrome, a syndrome that I know all too well. Upon their meeting, we see that The Bad Girl appears as a sick beggar who is in dire need. What does Ricardo do? He helps her and tries to restore what innocence she may have had but as it is in her nature, The Bad Girl overpowers the good girl and eventually leaves again to play games of "Love." This is a cycle that is seen all throughout Love in American Culture. The good boy goes after the bad girl, thinking that she is the source of the answer of his problems and later gets burned in the end. Blinded by the image of the romantic couple, the good boy can not see the darkness lurking within this girl. There is no good and there is no chance of a relationship. In reality she is a shadow; in his eyes she is a rose. Oil and water do not flow together. I speak from experience.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Vargas Llosa's "The Bad Girl" - Week One
One cannot write about The Bad Girl without first paying hommage to the prior, Madame Bovary. Is not this novel just a more modernized recreation of the tale of desire and obsession only with a new twist? "The Bad Girl" serves as a young Emma Bovary only with more ambition, drive, and overall fuel for passion. The novel begins with the classic story of a young lover being attracted to what he believed to be a young Chilean girl, whom everyone was in love with. Her grace, her beauty, her dance, her curves, her... blah blah blah, were oh so captivating. Turns out the girl wasn't even who she said she was. Which brings me to my first point, a false sense of reality.
We,ve learned that our eyes are our biggest detriment in this thing called "love." We become attracted to what we think we see and from there Cupid strikes us and our passioned desire takes over. As read in the text, Ricardo, as well as every other boy in the town, was love struck by Lily. Everything about her made them want her. This obsession was purely originated by what was perceived about this girl. And while they were desiring Lily, she was desiring a life that was fabricated by her own imagination. Now on to the matter of incessant desire.
Not too far after the Lily's character was introduced was she exposed as a liar, fabricating stories about her life in Chile. What does this tell us? Already the motif created from Ovid's Narcissus is revealed, "...The thing you are seeing does not exist...What you see is only a shadow, image, cast by your imagination..." This reveals that the object of Ricardo's desire and who this mysterious woman, known as "Lily," hopes to be does not exist. As in Madame Bovary, you have a young woman wanting to live a life of high status, a life of societal acceptance, and will do anything to gain it. This desire does not leave Ricardo nor Neo-Emma as they move on in life. As Ricardo is living his dream as an interpreter for Unesco, Neo-Emma becomes "Comrade Arlette," a member of the Cuban revolution. Upon recognition, Ricardo immediately revisits his passionate hopes of having Neo-Emma fulfill his desire. Funny thing is, the girl whom Ricardo described to Neo-Emma, the one he had "fallen in lust with, was no remembered at all. Comrade Arlette denied ever being such girl. Why? The girl never existed. As Ricardo attempts to act upon his desire, Comrade Arlette toys with him; she finds him unworthy of the minimal attention of that is showed to him. One would suggest that Ricardo should just move on and let his childhood crush go but he cannot do such a thing; Cupid's arrow was already heart deep. Ricardo falls in the category of "puppy." Pity.
As we've learned so far while dealing with desire, an encounter is bound to happen with: false sense of reality, incessant lust, blindness, broken dreams, and a life of unfulfilled satisfaction.
I can't wait to engage in the discussion concerning "The Bad Girl."
We,ve learned that our eyes are our biggest detriment in this thing called "love." We become attracted to what we think we see and from there Cupid strikes us and our passioned desire takes over. As read in the text, Ricardo, as well as every other boy in the town, was love struck by Lily. Everything about her made them want her. This obsession was purely originated by what was perceived about this girl. And while they were desiring Lily, she was desiring a life that was fabricated by her own imagination. Now on to the matter of incessant desire.
Not too far after the Lily's character was introduced was she exposed as a liar, fabricating stories about her life in Chile. What does this tell us? Already the motif created from Ovid's Narcissus is revealed, "...The thing you are seeing does not exist...What you see is only a shadow, image, cast by your imagination..." This reveals that the object of Ricardo's desire and who this mysterious woman, known as "Lily," hopes to be does not exist. As in Madame Bovary, you have a young woman wanting to live a life of high status, a life of societal acceptance, and will do anything to gain it. This desire does not leave Ricardo nor Neo-Emma as they move on in life. As Ricardo is living his dream as an interpreter for Unesco, Neo-Emma becomes "Comrade Arlette," a member of the Cuban revolution. Upon recognition, Ricardo immediately revisits his passionate hopes of having Neo-Emma fulfill his desire. Funny thing is, the girl whom Ricardo described to Neo-Emma, the one he had "fallen in lust with, was no remembered at all. Comrade Arlette denied ever being such girl. Why? The girl never existed. As Ricardo attempts to act upon his desire, Comrade Arlette toys with him; she finds him unworthy of the minimal attention of that is showed to him. One would suggest that Ricardo should just move on and let his childhood crush go but he cannot do such a thing; Cupid's arrow was already heart deep. Ricardo falls in the category of "puppy." Pity.
As we've learned so far while dealing with desire, an encounter is bound to happen with: false sense of reality, incessant lust, blindness, broken dreams, and a life of unfulfilled satisfaction.
I can't wait to engage in the discussion concerning "The Bad Girl."
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