My latest paper...
Does anyone have advice as to how to cite newspaper articles (old ones) which do not appear to have an author? I have all the other info, just not the author? I used footnotes because I couldn't find the proper MLA format to cite them. Thanks.
Man-Cheong
20 September 2009
The “White Peril” of Broken Blossoms: an inevitable life of misfortune
At the turn of the 20th century, anxiety about the influx and subsequent integration of Chinese immigrants had reached a fever pitch in England. Warding off what was then known as the “Yellow Peril” had become a prominent objective among nationalistic British who felt that the “purity” of their Anglo-Saxon society (Scheffauer 654) was being threatened. In particular, many felt that the growing trend of miscegenation between Chinese men and English women was “part of a vast conspiracy, one designed to degrade White women and to undermine the moral and physical strength of the British imperial centre” (Hevia 234). The area known as Limehouse Causeway was at the time the largest Chinese community in London and (perhaps not by coincidence) was also severely economically depressed. The British media, in an effort to alert the public to the “growing national problem” of Chinese in England (Scheffauer 645), accordingly painted portraits of Limehouse as a sordid locale, a “scandal, a peril, and a plague spot” , not befitting of polite (English) society. Chinatowns, and Limehouse in particular, were purported to be veritable “dens of iniquity”; they had, according to the media, become that way as a direct result of the vices brought to Britain by the Chinese. Gambling, opium dens, and prostitution, for example, were all vices deemed to have brought moral destabilization and ruin to England; the most outrageous result of which having been the miscegenation of Chinese men and White women. Negative depictions of the moral lassitude of Limehouse soon became prominent in the film world as well, creating a new and comprehensive awareness of the “Yellow Peril”. What these arguments fail to take into account, however, is that these destructive vices, supposed exclusively to be Chinese, actually were in place in Britain long before any influx of Chinese immigration. Perhaps the seeds for miscegenation had already been planted by White people in English society, and the Chinese just helped the issues come to fruition. This essay will discuss how these problems were actually previously established in England, how they presented an intrinsic “White Peril” in their own right, and how they cannot therefore be allocated solely to the “Yellow Peril” and its introduction to Britain.
The interpretation of Chinatown as a den of iniquity was not limited to print. We can see a similar depiction of Limehouse in American director D.W. Griffith’s 1919 film Broken Blossoms (or, the Yellow Man and the Girl), based upon a short story by English writer Thomas Burke called The Chink and the Child. After his earlier work, The Birth of a Nation, was panned by critics as being outrageously racist, Griffith made Broken Blossoms, a love story between a Chinese man and a young English girl, in an effort to clean up his public image. The movie attempts to portray the interracial relationship between Cheng Huan and little Lucy Burrows in a positive light; yet we see that nothing positive can come of their relationship, as by the end of the film both characters are dead. In this, there is an implicit message which reflects that of the public opinion of the day: namely, that engaging in such “unnatural” behavior as miscegenation, no matter how genial the relationship, is detrimental to British society and can only result in ruin and misfortune.
In one of the film’s most poignant scenes, we follow young Lucy Burrows who, “when not serving as a punching bag for [her abusive father]’s feelings … may be seen creeping around the docks of Limehouse”. She sits dreaming of a better life, of an escape from her miserable existence at the hands of her father Battling Burrows. Burrows, a raging alcoholic, frequently beats and starves her, so Lucy wanders around the neighborhood for as many hours of the day as possible; this is preferable to remaining at home. Usually, a home symbolizes safety and comfort, but here we can see that this is unfortunately not the case for Lucy. For her, home can only be a source of fear and anxiety. Livelihoods like these were apparently fairly common among impoverished English women, and Lucy’s unfortunate situation provides a compelling reason White girls at that time sought to break away from their immediate surroundings. They hoped to better themselves. Their situations were so bad, that any other prospects, even Chinese ones, had quite a good chance of being better than what these girls had previously been dealt.
This scene is pivotal because it allows us as an audience to fully understand Lucy’s predicament. Later in the scene she passes a couple of prostitutes on the corner, who emphatically advise her not to succumb to the pitfall of their profession. The pitiful plight of the white Englishwoman in Limehouse is further underscored by Lucy’s “married acquaintance”, who is as equally enslaved to her husband as Lucy is to Battling. “Whatever you do, dearie, don’t get married”, she warns. In this woman’s opinion, marriage is an even worse prospect for Lucy than the one she already has. From this exchange, we can see that that English women at that time frequently had strained or tumultuous relationships with English men, and that moreover neither the women nor the girl seem to have any means of escape from her fate. Both the prostitutes and the married woman wish to help Lucy in the only way they can. They understand that their lives are unhappy, but that it may be possible for a younger, more upwardly mobile girl to improve her living situation. It seems that in a lower class neighborhood like Limehouse, girls are destined either to a life of prostitution or of marital drudgery, often overworked by their abusive husbands. For Lucy, and indeed all women who are victims of this unfortunate sort of upbringing, there seem to be no other options. In this short scene, we are presented with all of the archetypical reasoning for White girls to be driven to “take up with Chinamen”: squalid living conditions populated by “underworld types”, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of White men, prostitution, and ultimately the drudgery of a life of poverty.
The media, in its attempt to demonize the Chinese, deliberately used specific language and imagery to put British women on a pedestal. Women were often portrayed as innocent and helpless, and thus easily corruptible. In Burke’s original short story, Lucy is constantly being referred to as “birdlike” (Burke 27). The very title of the film itself suggests that “White Blossom” as Lucy is called by Cheng Huan) is quite clearly to be perceived as a delicate flower, easily crushed by the societal evils by which she is surrounded. For Griffith, as well as for many jingoistic Britons, these evils are decidedly and irrevocably Chinese. Yet the hypocrisy of this mentality is really quite astonishing. Prostitution, which is a profession that existed in Biblical times, clearly was present in England before the arrival of Chinese. The same goes for gambling; British policemen would often arrest or fine Chinese for this offense. While it is true that gambling had, and still has, a visible presence in Chinese culture, the English hardly had room to criticize this: they themselves had been betting money on horse races long before the card game of “fan-tan” ever reached Europe (Scheffauer 472). Similarly, the argument to condemn the Chinese for the smoking of opium also does not carry much weight; if we are to accept Broken Blossoms as truth, it is clear that Battling Burrows (a White Englishman) has a heavy dependence on liquor — and his subsequent misdeeds, as a direct result of this, far exceed any problem caused by Cheng Huan’s occasional visit to the opium parlor. To further underscore the hypocrisy of this ideology, we can also argue that the English (who, in an attempt to address a trade imbalance, initially introduced opium to China) actually created the problem of Chinese addiction to opium in the first place. If it had not been for the English and their trade embargoes, China would never have traded opium on such a scale, and most probably would not have developed such an infatuation with the drug. Therefore, it can be said that the Chinese dependence on opium was a direct result of English exploits, and should not be considered inherently a Chinese problem. From these examples, it is clear that many of the so-called “problems” with Chinese society in London, including the issue of miscegenation with White women, ultimately came about as the result of a vicious cycle and were actually propagated by British actions.
To journalists like Scheffauer and Burke, and filmmakers such as Griffith, the issue of White women’s fraternizing with (or, God forbid, marrying!) Chinamen was seen as a destructive force, an unnatural phenomenon, an “abomination” (Scheffauer 478) that must be stopped at all costs. Groups of well-meaning “rescuers” invaded Limehouse with all the zeal of Christian missionaries, in a crusade to return the White women there to conventional London society. Although many of these articles make explicit mention of the fact that the White English women who took up with Chinese did so because it was preferable to the conventional life among other Whites, the underlying message and goal of these publications was to “rescue” these girls from their scandalous existences and return them to more “respectable” ones. It would seem that preserving the purity of the White race from being tainted with “Yellow” blood was a more important objective than solving the home-grown economic problems which prompted the English women towards Limehouse in the first place. This is an egregious disconnect; the fact that the film audience would actually rather see Lucy die than wind up with a Chinaman, is quite telling of how unacceptable that lifestyle was considered to be. Even though Lucy’s being with Cheng is clearly far superior to her miserable existence beforehand, socially it is still completely unaccepted. One might ask, if a life among the English was admittedly so bad for poor English women, why — even when they themselves affirmed that they were more contented among the Chinese — was their situation publicly considered to be worse? This is a question not readily answered, except for the acknowledgement that an overwhelming fear of the “Yellow Peril” had blinded British society to the fact that a “White Peril” was already looming at home. It is always easier to point fingers at someone else than to shoulder the blame.
It is therefore easy for third parties from slightly higher classes, who have admittedly “never known what poverty is” , to speculate on the reasons for White English women to be drawn to the Chinese element of Limehouse. Fingers pointed the blame at gambling, opium dens, and prostitution rings as inherent Chinese problems that had somehow invaded England’s lower-class neighborhoods in a grand scheme to “hypnotise” their White women. What almost all of these reports fail to explicitly acknowledge, however, is that this so called “problem” of miscegenation would not have arisen in the first place if it had not been for the poor economic conditions to which women in London were already being subjected, with or without the influx of the Chinese. Yet almost all of these accounts, including Broken Blossoms, postulate that the White girls are driven to the Chinese because of their insufferable economic conditions, often exacerbated by drunk and/or abusive White husbands. These issues, as well as gambling, prostitution, and alcohol abuse all had existed in England long before the Chinese arrived. The social evils which the prevailing opinion of the day deemed to be exclusively Chinese institutions, in fact had always been present in London, particularly in economically depressed areas like Limehouse. Therefore, it can only be deduced that this so called “problem” was really a product of the English themselves, their hypocritical class system and their speculative fear of the “Yellow Peril” itself.
Works Cited
Burke, Thomas. “The Chink and the Child”. Limehouse Nights. New York: McBride & Co., 1919.
Broken Blossoms (or, The Yellow Man and the Girl). Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Lillian Gish. Paramount, 1919. Film.
Hevia, James L.. “The Archive State and the Fear of Pollution: From the Opium Wars to Fu Manchu”. Cultural Studies. 12.2, (1998). 234-264. Print.
Marchetti, Gina. “Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: race, sex, and discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction”. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Scheffauer, Herman. “The Chinese in England: A Growing National Problem”. The London Magazine. June 1911: 465-480. Print.
Scheffauer, Herman. “The Chinese in England: A Growing National Problem”. The London Magazine. July 1911: 644-657. Print.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Unfinished: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy and its Repercussions during the French Revolution
This is an unfinished term paper about the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and its affect on the rest of the French Revolution. I say "unfinished". Although I describe the initial public reaction to the document, I fail to provide examples of how its reception turned sour and ultimately contributed to several of the bloodiest episodes of the Revolution: specifically, the Vendee Rebellion, the September Massacre, and the Reign of Terror. When I have time, I intend to amend this essay to include passages describing these events and how the Civil Constitution of the Clergy helped to exacerbate them.
HIS392
Balsamo
7 August 2009
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy and its Repercussions during the French Revolution
On July 12, 1790, The National Assembly passed a new decree: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Civil Constitution, in its zeal to denounce the Church and elevate the State, “combined a religious reform with a political” one (McManners 38), thereby angering people from all theaters of French society. Widely regarded as a momentous event that created an internal schism between the religious and secular groups within France, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was the first notable division among Revolutionaries and Counter-Revolutionaries and therefore a precursor of the bloody Radical Revolution that was to follow. This paper will address some of the reforms to the Catholic Church proposed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and underscore the document’s importance as a turning point in the French Revolution.
According to the French dictionary Larousse, laicism or “laïcité” is the “conception and organization of a society founded upon the separation of Church and State, which removes the Church from all political or administrative power; and, in particular, from the educational system”(Larousse online - see footnote). Although the word itself wasn’t coined until the early 20th century, the concept of a separation between powers was very important to the fundamentals of the French Revolution, and was instrumental in creating a division between the secular and the spiritual.
One of the issues that spearheaded the push to revolutionize France was the enormous debt that the country found itself in, after years of war and luxurious living by the upper classes. Moreover, the system of taxation was so inefficient as to be consistently losing money. “French government was finally on the verge of complete insolvency” (Popkin 22) and national financial ministers realized that major reforms to the system were the only way to get the country out of debt. They realized an obvious way to make some money was to sell some of the vast landholdings which belonged to the Catholic Church. In 1789, the National Assembly voted to “expropriate the Church’s accumulated property” in an attempt to pay off the national debt; however, this decision proved to have an extensive effect on both the clerical and taxation systems in France. These problems escalated until there was a pressing obligation upon the National Assembly to “undertake a thorough restructuring of the Church” (Popkin 51), a restructuring which ultimately manifested itself as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
The main purpose of the document was to enact change, to simplify and reform the Church in a way that would benefit the nation and consequently the third estate. Due to the longstanding tradition of primogeniture, nobles in France who were not the firstborn were often left without land. Because they were members of the upper classes and used to luxuriant standards of living, these second and third-born nobles often became members of the clergy as an alternative. Thus the Church was rife with people who held very high offices, but who were not there necessarily for religious reasons; they had joined instead rather as a means of perpetuating their lavish lifestyles. In an effort to abolish the practice of overpaying the undeserving fatcats within the Church, the National Assembly proposed that the salaries of clergy members be standardized. In Title III, Article V of the Civil Constitution, we can read explicitly the rules to which this new system of standardization apply: “The salaries of the parish priests shall be as follows : in Paris, six thousand livres; in cities having a population of fifty thousand or over, four thousand livres; in those having a population of less than fifty thousand and more than ten thousand, three thousand livres; in cities and towns of which the population is below ten thousand and more than three thousand, twenty-four hundred livres”. In this way, the State could better monitor the goings-on of the clergy, and monitor the government’s respective expenditures for each individual.
One of the most important features of the legislature in the Civil Constitution (and arguably the most incendiary) was the new system of democratic elections of bishops and curés by departmental electoral assemblies. According to Title II, article III of the Civil Constitution: “The election of bishops shall take place according to the forms and by the electoral body designated in the decree of December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the departmental assembly”. Under this new legislation, instead of the King’s choosing the bishops (and favoring those members of the nobility who were perhaps in his pocket somehow), in true revolutionary spirit the power of election would now be in the hands of the people. Unfortunately, as with many ideological reforms in the early revolution, this also proved to be a problem. According to Title II, Article XXI of the Civil Constitution:
XXI. Before the ceremony of consecration begins, the bishop elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal officers, of the people, and of the clergy, to guard with care the faithful of his diocese who are confided to him, to be loyal to the nation, the law, and the king, and to support with all his power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king.
This article is extremely important because it is very telling as to the ultimate motives of the National Assembly. This new reform caused debate because it “overturned the hierarchical structure of the Church, under which authority descended from God through the Pope to the bishops, who in turn consecrated priests” (Popkin 52). Where once the clergy swore allegiance only to the king (and, more importantly, the Pope), here they are required to take an oath that implies that the “nation” takes precedence over both of those authorities. In order to create a new order and a new France, revolutionary authorities were determined in all areas to put nation first. Any dissent was seen as disloyalty to the nation, counter-revolutionary, and potentially treasonous. We would see the gross escalation of this sentiment just a few years later, during the Reign of Terror, in which disloyalty to the state could and often did prove deadly. It is important to acknowledge that the concepts of “loyalty to the nation” and “putting the nation first” were integral to the formation of the French revolution and later became the driving force behind the Reign of Terror.
In a nutshell, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy decreed that “the people (including non-Catholics) would elect priests and bishops; [and] clerics would become, in effect, civil servants under the control of the state”. The demands of the Civil Constitution “stirred more resistance than any previously taken by…revolutionary authorities”, and the National Assembly responded to the unrest by demanding that clergy members take an oath of loyalty to the new regime or “face dismissal” (Bell 183). Just as they made the king sign the bill against his wishes, revolutionary authorities forced those religious figures who knew what was good for them to publicly state their support for the Civil Constitution.
Several goals of the Civil Constitution appeared to be beneficial; the Catholic Church under the old regime was in bad need of reform and many of the rules proposed by this new document would lead the Church in a new, more streamlined direction. However, perhaps the National Assembly were too ambitious in their enthusiasm to reform the Church, and attempting to change so drastically something that had been in place for hundreds of years was simply too much too soon. Another of the major sensitive issues raised by the Civil constitution was the granting of full civil and political rights to both Protestants and Jews. As French citizens, these religious minority groups would now be freely allowed to join departmental electoral assemblies; as a result of their being able to participate in assembly legislation, they would also have the power to vote on the elections of bishops. The idea of Catholic priests being selected by Protestants, Jews, or Atheists was particularly upsetting to groups of devout Catholics (Popkin 52). Although the Civil Constitution was disconcerting to those lay groups who were religious, many of those within the Clergy itself seemed to accept the document with open arms, at least at its introduction.
In The French Revolution and the Church, John McManners states that even though the new changes to the clerical system were harsh, the clergy as a whole did not dislike the proposals put forth by the Civil Constitution enough to reject it. “The poverty of the lower clergy, of the priests who had the care of souls, shocked the people through its flagrant injustice, by contrast with the luxury of the high dignitaries, of the bishops and archbishops—a luxury sometimes outrageous” (Aulard 29). These financial shortcomings, therefore, helped to inspire a more Revolutionary spirit within the lower clergy, and explain why so many church personnel embraced the Civil Constitution with the enthusiasm that they did. Notably, both McManners and Popkin seem to agree that the one glaring problem the clergy had with the Civil Constitution was the National Assembly’s failure to consult the Church before imposing changes. The Assembly had been reluctant to involve the Church with the proceedings out of fear that it would give the noble members of the clergy a “counter-revolutionary platform, and would be an admission that the clergy still remained an Order in the State” (McManners 42). In an enlightened society whose ultimate goals were always serve the Nation and to tear down an oppressive old regime, the prominence of the Catholic Church would have to be diminished. The Church appealed to the Pope to approve the Civil Constitution, while the National Assembly did not care about the Pope’s opinions as it was itself too concerned with the reform of the State. What ensued was a confusing clash of powers involving the Clergy, the King, and the Pope in a race against time to modify the Civil Constitution before it was officially passed into law. Eventually the Assembly lost their patience and demanded the clergy to swear an oath of allegiance to the Civil Constitution and to the State. This blatant subordination of the Church, which had once been the utmost authority, to the State, caused an irreparable rift within the history of the French Revolution, causing discord among people who had until that point unanimously supported much of the same reforms.
Various language within the Civil Constitution of the Clergy demonstrates that the tone of the document is one not only of religious reform, but of societal reform as a whole. Several points are made which underscore the Revolutionaries’ goals to reorganize Catholicism into a more modern institution, whose first and foremost loyalty was to the government of France, and not the Pope. The educated and “enlightened” classes of 18th century France found that “to be impious was to be in the fashion” and the questioning of the practices of the Catholic Church was common, even normal, among nobility (Aulard 32). These new loyalties introduced by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy underscored the growing power of the state and the lessening power of the religious establishment. Many religious-minded peasants in the countryside resented this. God (and by proxy, the Pope) were supposed to be unquestionably powerful and certainly demanded more respect than a bunch of city folk with newfangled ideas who had decided otherwise. The system had been this way for hundreds of years, and such a fundamental change to beliefs of the French populace proved hard to swallow.
In summary, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy came about as a result of the National Assembly’s effort to pay off the national debt created by years of over -expenditure. After having liquidated the lands owned by the Church in an attempt to sell them on the free market, the Assembly was forced to drastically reform the institution of the Catholic Church. The reforms presented by the Assembly were well-received by some but not by others. This created a split between counter-revolutionaries and those who supported it, not only among members of the Church but also among the laypeople, in particular the more religious peasantry of rural areas. The differences in religious and political opinion caused by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy changed the climate of the Revolution, and were an antecedent of the bloodier clashes these groups would face in the years to come.
Footnote: Laïcité (nom feminin): Conception et organisation de la société fondée sur la séparation de l'Église et de l'État et qui exclut les Églises de l'exercice de tout pouvoir politique ou administratif, et, en particulier, de l'organisation de l'enseignement. (Le principe de la laïcité de l'État est posé par l'article 2 de la Constitution française de 1958.)
Works Cited
Aulard, A. Christianity and the French Revolution. Trans. Lady Frazer. London:
Riverside Press, 1927.
Bell, David A. The Cult of the Nation in France: inventing nationalism 1680-1800.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. March 2001. Hanover Historical Texts Project.
J.H. Robinson. 8 August 2009. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/civilcon.html
Larousse.com. 8 August 2009. http://www.larousse.com/dictionnaires/francais/laicite
McManners, John. The French Revolution and the Church.
New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Popkin, Jeremy. A Short History of the French Revolution.
New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.
HIS392
Balsamo
7 August 2009
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy and its Repercussions during the French Revolution
On July 12, 1790, The National Assembly passed a new decree: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Civil Constitution, in its zeal to denounce the Church and elevate the State, “combined a religious reform with a political” one (McManners 38), thereby angering people from all theaters of French society. Widely regarded as a momentous event that created an internal schism between the religious and secular groups within France, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was the first notable division among Revolutionaries and Counter-Revolutionaries and therefore a precursor of the bloody Radical Revolution that was to follow. This paper will address some of the reforms to the Catholic Church proposed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and underscore the document’s importance as a turning point in the French Revolution.
According to the French dictionary Larousse, laicism or “laïcité” is the “conception and organization of a society founded upon the separation of Church and State, which removes the Church from all political or administrative power; and, in particular, from the educational system”(Larousse online - see footnote). Although the word itself wasn’t coined until the early 20th century, the concept of a separation between powers was very important to the fundamentals of the French Revolution, and was instrumental in creating a division between the secular and the spiritual.
One of the issues that spearheaded the push to revolutionize France was the enormous debt that the country found itself in, after years of war and luxurious living by the upper classes. Moreover, the system of taxation was so inefficient as to be consistently losing money. “French government was finally on the verge of complete insolvency” (Popkin 22) and national financial ministers realized that major reforms to the system were the only way to get the country out of debt. They realized an obvious way to make some money was to sell some of the vast landholdings which belonged to the Catholic Church. In 1789, the National Assembly voted to “expropriate the Church’s accumulated property” in an attempt to pay off the national debt; however, this decision proved to have an extensive effect on both the clerical and taxation systems in France. These problems escalated until there was a pressing obligation upon the National Assembly to “undertake a thorough restructuring of the Church” (Popkin 51), a restructuring which ultimately manifested itself as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
The main purpose of the document was to enact change, to simplify and reform the Church in a way that would benefit the nation and consequently the third estate. Due to the longstanding tradition of primogeniture, nobles in France who were not the firstborn were often left without land. Because they were members of the upper classes and used to luxuriant standards of living, these second and third-born nobles often became members of the clergy as an alternative. Thus the Church was rife with people who held very high offices, but who were not there necessarily for religious reasons; they had joined instead rather as a means of perpetuating their lavish lifestyles. In an effort to abolish the practice of overpaying the undeserving fatcats within the Church, the National Assembly proposed that the salaries of clergy members be standardized. In Title III, Article V of the Civil Constitution, we can read explicitly the rules to which this new system of standardization apply: “The salaries of the parish priests shall be as follows : in Paris, six thousand livres; in cities having a population of fifty thousand or over, four thousand livres; in those having a population of less than fifty thousand and more than ten thousand, three thousand livres; in cities and towns of which the population is below ten thousand and more than three thousand, twenty-four hundred livres”. In this way, the State could better monitor the goings-on of the clergy, and monitor the government’s respective expenditures for each individual.
One of the most important features of the legislature in the Civil Constitution (and arguably the most incendiary) was the new system of democratic elections of bishops and curés by departmental electoral assemblies. According to Title II, article III of the Civil Constitution: “The election of bishops shall take place according to the forms and by the electoral body designated in the decree of December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the departmental assembly”. Under this new legislation, instead of the King’s choosing the bishops (and favoring those members of the nobility who were perhaps in his pocket somehow), in true revolutionary spirit the power of election would now be in the hands of the people. Unfortunately, as with many ideological reforms in the early revolution, this also proved to be a problem. According to Title II, Article XXI of the Civil Constitution:
XXI. Before the ceremony of consecration begins, the bishop elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal officers, of the people, and of the clergy, to guard with care the faithful of his diocese who are confided to him, to be loyal to the nation, the law, and the king, and to support with all his power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king.
This article is extremely important because it is very telling as to the ultimate motives of the National Assembly. This new reform caused debate because it “overturned the hierarchical structure of the Church, under which authority descended from God through the Pope to the bishops, who in turn consecrated priests” (Popkin 52). Where once the clergy swore allegiance only to the king (and, more importantly, the Pope), here they are required to take an oath that implies that the “nation” takes precedence over both of those authorities. In order to create a new order and a new France, revolutionary authorities were determined in all areas to put nation first. Any dissent was seen as disloyalty to the nation, counter-revolutionary, and potentially treasonous. We would see the gross escalation of this sentiment just a few years later, during the Reign of Terror, in which disloyalty to the state could and often did prove deadly. It is important to acknowledge that the concepts of “loyalty to the nation” and “putting the nation first” were integral to the formation of the French revolution and later became the driving force behind the Reign of Terror.
In a nutshell, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy decreed that “the people (including non-Catholics) would elect priests and bishops; [and] clerics would become, in effect, civil servants under the control of the state”. The demands of the Civil Constitution “stirred more resistance than any previously taken by…revolutionary authorities”, and the National Assembly responded to the unrest by demanding that clergy members take an oath of loyalty to the new regime or “face dismissal” (Bell 183). Just as they made the king sign the bill against his wishes, revolutionary authorities forced those religious figures who knew what was good for them to publicly state their support for the Civil Constitution.
Several goals of the Civil Constitution appeared to be beneficial; the Catholic Church under the old regime was in bad need of reform and many of the rules proposed by this new document would lead the Church in a new, more streamlined direction. However, perhaps the National Assembly were too ambitious in their enthusiasm to reform the Church, and attempting to change so drastically something that had been in place for hundreds of years was simply too much too soon. Another of the major sensitive issues raised by the Civil constitution was the granting of full civil and political rights to both Protestants and Jews. As French citizens, these religious minority groups would now be freely allowed to join departmental electoral assemblies; as a result of their being able to participate in assembly legislation, they would also have the power to vote on the elections of bishops. The idea of Catholic priests being selected by Protestants, Jews, or Atheists was particularly upsetting to groups of devout Catholics (Popkin 52). Although the Civil Constitution was disconcerting to those lay groups who were religious, many of those within the Clergy itself seemed to accept the document with open arms, at least at its introduction.
In The French Revolution and the Church, John McManners states that even though the new changes to the clerical system were harsh, the clergy as a whole did not dislike the proposals put forth by the Civil Constitution enough to reject it. “The poverty of the lower clergy, of the priests who had the care of souls, shocked the people through its flagrant injustice, by contrast with the luxury of the high dignitaries, of the bishops and archbishops—a luxury sometimes outrageous” (Aulard 29). These financial shortcomings, therefore, helped to inspire a more Revolutionary spirit within the lower clergy, and explain why so many church personnel embraced the Civil Constitution with the enthusiasm that they did. Notably, both McManners and Popkin seem to agree that the one glaring problem the clergy had with the Civil Constitution was the National Assembly’s failure to consult the Church before imposing changes. The Assembly had been reluctant to involve the Church with the proceedings out of fear that it would give the noble members of the clergy a “counter-revolutionary platform, and would be an admission that the clergy still remained an Order in the State” (McManners 42). In an enlightened society whose ultimate goals were always serve the Nation and to tear down an oppressive old regime, the prominence of the Catholic Church would have to be diminished. The Church appealed to the Pope to approve the Civil Constitution, while the National Assembly did not care about the Pope’s opinions as it was itself too concerned with the reform of the State. What ensued was a confusing clash of powers involving the Clergy, the King, and the Pope in a race against time to modify the Civil Constitution before it was officially passed into law. Eventually the Assembly lost their patience and demanded the clergy to swear an oath of allegiance to the Civil Constitution and to the State. This blatant subordination of the Church, which had once been the utmost authority, to the State, caused an irreparable rift within the history of the French Revolution, causing discord among people who had until that point unanimously supported much of the same reforms.
Various language within the Civil Constitution of the Clergy demonstrates that the tone of the document is one not only of religious reform, but of societal reform as a whole. Several points are made which underscore the Revolutionaries’ goals to reorganize Catholicism into a more modern institution, whose first and foremost loyalty was to the government of France, and not the Pope. The educated and “enlightened” classes of 18th century France found that “to be impious was to be in the fashion” and the questioning of the practices of the Catholic Church was common, even normal, among nobility (Aulard 32). These new loyalties introduced by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy underscored the growing power of the state and the lessening power of the religious establishment. Many religious-minded peasants in the countryside resented this. God (and by proxy, the Pope) were supposed to be unquestionably powerful and certainly demanded more respect than a bunch of city folk with newfangled ideas who had decided otherwise. The system had been this way for hundreds of years, and such a fundamental change to beliefs of the French populace proved hard to swallow.
In summary, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy came about as a result of the National Assembly’s effort to pay off the national debt created by years of over -expenditure. After having liquidated the lands owned by the Church in an attempt to sell them on the free market, the Assembly was forced to drastically reform the institution of the Catholic Church. The reforms presented by the Assembly were well-received by some but not by others. This created a split between counter-revolutionaries and those who supported it, not only among members of the Church but also among the laypeople, in particular the more religious peasantry of rural areas. The differences in religious and political opinion caused by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy changed the climate of the Revolution, and were an antecedent of the bloodier clashes these groups would face in the years to come.
Footnote: Laïcité (nom feminin): Conception et organisation de la société fondée sur la séparation de l'Église et de l'État et qui exclut les Églises de l'exercice de tout pouvoir politique ou administratif, et, en particulier, de l'organisation de l'enseignement. (Le principe de la laïcité de l'État est posé par l'article 2 de la Constitution française de 1958.)
Works Cited
Aulard, A. Christianity and the French Revolution. Trans. Lady Frazer. London:
Riverside Press, 1927.
Bell, David A. The Cult of the Nation in France: inventing nationalism 1680-1800.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. March 2001. Hanover Historical Texts Project.
J.H. Robinson. 8 August 2009. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/civilcon.html
Larousse.com. 8 August 2009. http://www.larousse.com/dictionnaires/francais/laicite
McManners, John. The French Revolution and the Church.
New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Popkin, Jeremy. A Short History of the French Revolution.
New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.
Baron Victor Frankenstein: Mad Scientist extraordinaire
A running theme in the genre of European Horror is that of the Mad Scientist. In this essay I point out how the depiction of Baron Frankenstein (specifically in the film Curse of Frankenstein) does or does not adhere to specific Mad Scientist paradigms within that genre, according to various scholarly essays that have been written about the topic.
HIS357
Troy
7 August 2009
Baron Victor Frankenstein: Mad Scientist extraordinaire
One of the most enduring images we have seen in 20th century horror films is that of the “Mad Scientist”. As discussed in class lectures, the archetypical mad scientist adheres to various conventions which define him as such. In Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the character of Baron Victor Frankenstein exhibits many of these attributes, thereby illustrating the definition of this role quite well.
The Baron we see in Curse of Frankenstein is an interesting character because he is less personable, less forgivable, than his counterpart in the novel (and indeed in other film adaptations). The mad scientist often exhibits something lacking physically, thus he makes up for this with his over-achieving quest to play God. Yet for this Frankenstein, there is nothing outwardly indicative of his increasingly malevolent personality. His physique is unassuming; he’s distinguished but not overly attractive; slim but not particularly athletic. He dresses quite well, befitting his status; his speech reflects his privileged upbringing and considerable education. In fact, Frankenstein is a perfect gentleman and 19th century aristocrat; this is part of what makes his character so scary. Neither we nor any of the other characters in the story (even those close to him) can believe he is capable of performing any of the atrocities that he commits. Frankenstein’s behavior is dangerously arrogant from the very beginning of the movie, a characteristic which sets him up to become somewhat of a villain as the story progresses. He does exhibit several of the definitions of being a mad scientist as discussed in class: he does isolate himself from the community—almost as soon as the film starts and he enlists Paul to be his tutor, he shuts himself off almost completely from society. In order to get his grisly deeds done, he begins to operate only at night and only with other people who would also be involved in such sordid affairs; that is to say, the scum of society.
The most important characteristic of Frankenstein that is common to all mad scientists is that of developing a God complex. The further these experiments progress, the more consumed with playing God the character becomes; and no matter how gruesome the results, Frankenstein believes he is above them, believing he can somehow fix whatever went wrong.
In "Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film', Darryl Jones emphasizes the fact that most of the experiments utilized by these mad scientists begin as “fundamentally benign scientific endeavour[s]” (Paul comments on the possible medical advancement that the re-animation of dead tissue could have within the medical world), but that—usually through the fault of the increasingly delusional mad scientist—“go awry” (Jones 52). “Science” itself does not actually play a large role in The Curse of Frankenstein. Though the creatures are shown being animated and re-animated through the use of impressive high-voltage circuitry and bubbling vats of chemicals, the actual scientific processes of the procedure are not explicitly shown. This is one of the only similarities the film adaptation has to the novel, and is apparently not a major concern for the audience; we seem to be able to momentarily suspend our cynicism for a story whose entire premise centers around a scientific accomplishment so impossible as to be considered supernatural.
We are an educated, technologically-savvy society; ordinarily we would praise and admire Frankenstein for being able to create life and make possible the impossible. Yet Frankenstein’s lust for power, his obsession with playing God, and his ultimate descent into madness render him distasteful in the eyes of the audience. We question his morality and find his ever-increasing selfishness objectionable. Therefore, he cannot be classified as a hero but rather an anti-hero, and in this case even a borderline villain. The Curse of Frankenstein is an unusual case because there is no clear-cut protagonist in the film. Though the storyline centers around Frankenstein, his irredeemable behavior causes the audience to turn against him and side with Paul, who seems to have stronger morals; yet Paul’s failure to intervene ultimately enables Frankenstein in his macabre escapades. His saving grace comes at the end of the film, in which he finally puts his silence to good use: Frankenstein is sent to his death and thus punished for his crimes. In this story, the most antagonistic thing is Frankenstein’s mad scientist persona, his all-consuming desire to perpetuate his practices no matter the terrible cost. We cannot fully root for any one character and definitively say that he or she is the protagonist of the film; so perhaps we will just leave it at this: the entire cast of characters and the story itself (Jones 61) may function as a combined protagonist because their actions collectively represent the empathy of the audience.
Baron Frankenstein is the archetypical “mad scientist” because he fits very nicely into certain definitions of this role: he descends into insanity, he isolates himself from the community, he has delusions of grandeur and a God complex; his experiments begin innocuously enough, yet go awry and eventually spiral out of his control. The Curse of Frankenstein provides an interesting example of the “mad scientist” persona because its is a little different from the norm; Curse’s Frankenstein is darker, less accessible man, more mad than scientist; therefore from the audience’s point of view he is a much scarier character.
HIS357
Troy
7 August 2009
Baron Victor Frankenstein: Mad Scientist extraordinaire
One of the most enduring images we have seen in 20th century horror films is that of the “Mad Scientist”. As discussed in class lectures, the archetypical mad scientist adheres to various conventions which define him as such. In Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the character of Baron Victor Frankenstein exhibits many of these attributes, thereby illustrating the definition of this role quite well.
The Baron we see in Curse of Frankenstein is an interesting character because he is less personable, less forgivable, than his counterpart in the novel (and indeed in other film adaptations). The mad scientist often exhibits something lacking physically, thus he makes up for this with his over-achieving quest to play God. Yet for this Frankenstein, there is nothing outwardly indicative of his increasingly malevolent personality. His physique is unassuming; he’s distinguished but not overly attractive; slim but not particularly athletic. He dresses quite well, befitting his status; his speech reflects his privileged upbringing and considerable education. In fact, Frankenstein is a perfect gentleman and 19th century aristocrat; this is part of what makes his character so scary. Neither we nor any of the other characters in the story (even those close to him) can believe he is capable of performing any of the atrocities that he commits. Frankenstein’s behavior is dangerously arrogant from the very beginning of the movie, a characteristic which sets him up to become somewhat of a villain as the story progresses. He does exhibit several of the definitions of being a mad scientist as discussed in class: he does isolate himself from the community—almost as soon as the film starts and he enlists Paul to be his tutor, he shuts himself off almost completely from society. In order to get his grisly deeds done, he begins to operate only at night and only with other people who would also be involved in such sordid affairs; that is to say, the scum of society.
The most important characteristic of Frankenstein that is common to all mad scientists is that of developing a God complex. The further these experiments progress, the more consumed with playing God the character becomes; and no matter how gruesome the results, Frankenstein believes he is above them, believing he can somehow fix whatever went wrong.
In "Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film', Darryl Jones emphasizes the fact that most of the experiments utilized by these mad scientists begin as “fundamentally benign scientific endeavour[s]” (Paul comments on the possible medical advancement that the re-animation of dead tissue could have within the medical world), but that—usually through the fault of the increasingly delusional mad scientist—“go awry” (Jones 52). “Science” itself does not actually play a large role in The Curse of Frankenstein. Though the creatures are shown being animated and re-animated through the use of impressive high-voltage circuitry and bubbling vats of chemicals, the actual scientific processes of the procedure are not explicitly shown. This is one of the only similarities the film adaptation has to the novel, and is apparently not a major concern for the audience; we seem to be able to momentarily suspend our cynicism for a story whose entire premise centers around a scientific accomplishment so impossible as to be considered supernatural.
We are an educated, technologically-savvy society; ordinarily we would praise and admire Frankenstein for being able to create life and make possible the impossible. Yet Frankenstein’s lust for power, his obsession with playing God, and his ultimate descent into madness render him distasteful in the eyes of the audience. We question his morality and find his ever-increasing selfishness objectionable. Therefore, he cannot be classified as a hero but rather an anti-hero, and in this case even a borderline villain. The Curse of Frankenstein is an unusual case because there is no clear-cut protagonist in the film. Though the storyline centers around Frankenstein, his irredeemable behavior causes the audience to turn against him and side with Paul, who seems to have stronger morals; yet Paul’s failure to intervene ultimately enables Frankenstein in his macabre escapades. His saving grace comes at the end of the film, in which he finally puts his silence to good use: Frankenstein is sent to his death and thus punished for his crimes. In this story, the most antagonistic thing is Frankenstein’s mad scientist persona, his all-consuming desire to perpetuate his practices no matter the terrible cost. We cannot fully root for any one character and definitively say that he or she is the protagonist of the film; so perhaps we will just leave it at this: the entire cast of characters and the story itself (Jones 61) may function as a combined protagonist because their actions collectively represent the empathy of the audience.
Baron Frankenstein is the archetypical “mad scientist” because he fits very nicely into certain definitions of this role: he descends into insanity, he isolates himself from the community, he has delusions of grandeur and a God complex; his experiments begin innocuously enough, yet go awry and eventually spiral out of his control. The Curse of Frankenstein provides an interesting example of the “mad scientist” persona because its is a little different from the norm; Curse’s Frankenstein is darker, less accessible man, more mad than scientist; therefore from the audience’s point of view he is a much scarier character.
Profondo Rosso - European Horror and the Giallo
This is my reaction to "Profondo Rosso", a European Horror film that belongs more specifically to the sub-genre of the Giallo. In case you're unfamiliar with the Giallo style of movies, here's a little background on it:
http://www.kinoeye.org/02/11/needham11.php
The "Gialli" are an Italian style of horror movie, centering principally on a detective-solving-a-murder plot and often containing very gory scenes. The name comes from the Italian word for "yellow" and refers to the color of the covers of Italian horror serials published in the 1920s and '30s.
...............................................
Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso or Deep Red is a classic example of European Horror, and in particular the sub-genre of the Giallo. According to Maitland McDonagh’s "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento", Deep Red is definitely a Giallo in that it is a “psychological/detective thriller whose overt concerns are the mechanics of crime and punishment; however this film’s particular style leans closer to the “serie noir”, in which the two stories (the first being the initial murder which sets the events of the film in motion, and the second being the unraveling of the case itself) are fused together (McDonagh 5). The movie opens with a murder scene: we see someone get stabbed, and the feet of a nearby witness, who is obviously a child. The next big event is the fate of a German clairvoyant; after she psychically identifies the presence of a murderer in the audience of her press conference, she is followed back to her apartment and brutally murdered, presumably by the same person who committed the murder in the opening scene.
The rest of the story follows one Marc Daly, a pianist, who witnesses the crime while hanging out in a downstairs courtyard with his friend Carlo. After picking up on something that the police don’t notice, he teams up with Gianna, a female journalist he meets at the crime scene, and the unlikely pair spend the remainder of the movie trying to solve the mystery of the perpetrator’s identity. Marc cleverly notices that a certain song (a child singing, or a children’s record maybe) is always playing when these murders are committed. His friend the Professor (also a friend of the dead psychic Helga) makes the ingenious connection that the song must have played a crucial role in the murderer’s childhood, and has had a lasting psychological impact on him or her. We find out at the end of the film that the killer is Carlo’s mother. Notably, we discover that the song which heralded the murders was actually a children’s record; Carlo had put it on immediately beforehand, and it played throughout his experience of witnessing the death of his father at the hands of his mother. McDonagh makes note of the extensive use of music in Deep Red, yet he doesn’t really touch on this aspect of it (McDonagh 9-10). From this reading, we are meant to understand that music plays an integral part in the Giallo, which it definitely does in this case. He mentions the importance of diegetic music in the film, especially the jazz which both Marc and Carlo play, but doesn’t discuss this particular plot device (which is actually really important and kind of central to the story).
Ultimately, I did enjoy the film, although I thought it was a little slow-moving in parts. The scene in which Marc is chipping away the plaster which covers the drawing on the wall seemed to take FOREVER, and the fact that it dragged on didn’t really seem to increase the suspense. My favorite aspect was the mystery of the killer: several red herrings are thrown in, such as the fact that the killer wears thick black eyeliner (but so do almost all the main characters), and also that we are led to believe that Amanda Righetti (who has written a book about the event shown in the opening scene) is the child who witnessed (committed?) the murder years ago, now grown up. Of course, we find out she’s not the killer once she’s murdered, but the ruse is entertaining anyway. I also think (and we discussed this in class) that the goriness of the murders and the fakeness of the red blood detract from the scariness or the horror of the story. This gory, bloody mess is also a characteristic of the Giallo (as evidenced by the films of not only Argento but also of his mentor Mario Bava (McDonagh 6)), but because the horror in this film is so explicit I found much of it to be ineffective (or at least, it smacked strongly of B-movieness).
Overall I think this movie is a good choice to show as a model for the Giallo; it was interesting and seemed to conform to all the characteristics of the genre. From the reading we get the impression that it is probably one of the better films within this class of horror and I’m glad I got the chance to see this movie rather than one of Argento’s other works such as Tenebre or Suspiria .
http://www.kinoeye.org/02/11/needham11.php
The "Gialli" are an Italian style of horror movie, centering principally on a detective-solving-a-murder plot and often containing very gory scenes. The name comes from the Italian word for "yellow" and refers to the color of the covers of Italian horror serials published in the 1920s and '30s.
...............................................
Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso or Deep Red is a classic example of European Horror, and in particular the sub-genre of the Giallo. According to Maitland McDonagh’s "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento", Deep Red is definitely a Giallo in that it is a “psychological/detective thriller whose overt concerns are the mechanics of crime and punishment; however this film’s particular style leans closer to the “serie noir”, in which the two stories (the first being the initial murder which sets the events of the film in motion, and the second being the unraveling of the case itself) are fused together (McDonagh 5). The movie opens with a murder scene: we see someone get stabbed, and the feet of a nearby witness, who is obviously a child. The next big event is the fate of a German clairvoyant; after she psychically identifies the presence of a murderer in the audience of her press conference, she is followed back to her apartment and brutally murdered, presumably by the same person who committed the murder in the opening scene.
The rest of the story follows one Marc Daly, a pianist, who witnesses the crime while hanging out in a downstairs courtyard with his friend Carlo. After picking up on something that the police don’t notice, he teams up with Gianna, a female journalist he meets at the crime scene, and the unlikely pair spend the remainder of the movie trying to solve the mystery of the perpetrator’s identity. Marc cleverly notices that a certain song (a child singing, or a children’s record maybe) is always playing when these murders are committed. His friend the Professor (also a friend of the dead psychic Helga) makes the ingenious connection that the song must have played a crucial role in the murderer’s childhood, and has had a lasting psychological impact on him or her. We find out at the end of the film that the killer is Carlo’s mother. Notably, we discover that the song which heralded the murders was actually a children’s record; Carlo had put it on immediately beforehand, and it played throughout his experience of witnessing the death of his father at the hands of his mother. McDonagh makes note of the extensive use of music in Deep Red, yet he doesn’t really touch on this aspect of it (McDonagh 9-10). From this reading, we are meant to understand that music plays an integral part in the Giallo, which it definitely does in this case. He mentions the importance of diegetic music in the film, especially the jazz which both Marc and Carlo play, but doesn’t discuss this particular plot device (which is actually really important and kind of central to the story).
Ultimately, I did enjoy the film, although I thought it was a little slow-moving in parts. The scene in which Marc is chipping away the plaster which covers the drawing on the wall seemed to take FOREVER, and the fact that it dragged on didn’t really seem to increase the suspense. My favorite aspect was the mystery of the killer: several red herrings are thrown in, such as the fact that the killer wears thick black eyeliner (but so do almost all the main characters), and also that we are led to believe that Amanda Righetti (who has written a book about the event shown in the opening scene) is the child who witnessed (committed?) the murder years ago, now grown up. Of course, we find out she’s not the killer once she’s murdered, but the ruse is entertaining anyway. I also think (and we discussed this in class) that the goriness of the murders and the fakeness of the red blood detract from the scariness or the horror of the story. This gory, bloody mess is also a characteristic of the Giallo (as evidenced by the films of not only Argento but also of his mentor Mario Bava (McDonagh 6)), but because the horror in this film is so explicit I found much of it to be ineffective (or at least, it smacked strongly of B-movieness).
Overall I think this movie is a good choice to show as a model for the Giallo; it was interesting and seemed to conform to all the characteristics of the genre. From the reading we get the impression that it is probably one of the better films within this class of horror and I’m glad I got the chance to see this movie rather than one of Argento’s other works such as Tenebre or Suspiria .
American Horror: Wilderness in 19th Century America and Pet Sematary
This is a short essay I wrote utilizing various sources from my History of Horror Films class. In it I discuss the ideology of "American Horror", the concept of "the Wilderness" within American Horror, and how these concepts are demonstrated in Pet Sematary, a contemporary American Horror film.
HIS357
Troy
30 July 2009
American Horror Short Essay: Wilderness in 19th Century America and Pet Sematary
As covered in some of the readings for class, the “American Gothic” tradition in horror differs from that of European horror in several ways; one notable difference is the idea of “Frontier Gothic”, and in particular, the idea of the wilderness as dangerous. When America was first settled, the country was one great big wilderness, inhabited by tribes of Indians and species of animals, all unknown and many potentially dangerous. Even today, large areas of the country are still uninhabited, rugged terrain, the kind you wouldn’t want to be stranded in without food or water. Yet the temptation to explore such a vast wilderness fraught with danger often proves irresistible for the characters in horror stories.
In Alan Lloyd Smith’s essay on American Gothic Fiction, he underscores the importance of the concept of wilderness as treacherous especially when compared to what had, until then, been considered dangerous in European mentality (Castles and the like). Smith quotes Charles Brockden Brown’s consideration of the significance of the wilderness to Americans: “the incidents of Indian hostility, and the perils of the…wilderness, are far more [frightening to an American audience]” (Smith 79). Yet in spite of all this imminent danger there is an inherent yearning of the human spirit to not only explore and conquer the wilderness, but also to retreat to it as a means of getting in touch with one’s inner self.
In Pet Sematary, a 1989 film directed by Mary Lambert and based upon a novel by Stephen King, our hero (?) Dr. Louis Creed believes himself to be above falling prey to such superstitions. A man of science, he chooses to enter the wilderness (in this case, a burial ground long-ago abandoned by Indians, who recognized the power there as inherently evil). Because Louis Creed is a scientist, like so many European explorers that came before him he callously disregards any sort of religious or supernatural belief (as evidenced by his discussion of heaven and hell with his daughter). By the end of the film, he has committed a number of ethically questionable deeds — the murders of his wife and neighbor are a direct result of his actions — yet Louis still does not learn from his transgressions and continues to disrespect the very real beliefs of the Indians. Even though the resurrecting power of the graveyard is clearly unholy and must never be used, Louis still fancies himself somehow more powerful. Louis ultimately believes he can tinker with the Indians’ supernatural force of resurrection of the pet sematary, and bend it to suit his wishes. He believes he can go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants. In a sense, he believes he can play God. Of course, he is wrong, and the moral of the story is never to fancy oneself greater than the wilderness or to disregard someone else’s beliefs, as you will always lose out in the end.
According to David S. Lovejoy in his essay “Satanizing the American Indian”, the European colonists considered the Indians of America to have had two prevalent spirits, one good and one bad. Lovejoy informs us that “emphasis” was (and, to a certain extent still is, as we see in Pet Sematary) put on the latter, whom the Indians “feared and propitiated” (Lovejoy 611). Smith also talks about the importance of “the self” in the Frontier Gothic/American Gothic movement. With increased space such as the wilderness of America, people were no longer confined to small areas. People were finally able to “get away from it all” and presumably to use the meditative isolation of the wilderness to find themselves. The problem with this idea is, we may not like the person we find when get there. The potential awfulness of finding oneself in a tortured “inward state of mind” (Smith 79) therefore becomes a classic characteristic of American horror. In the writings of Henry David Thoreau (whose Walden was a virtual instruction manual on how to use the wilderness to gain inner peace and enlightenment), that this desire to explore nature is thus ingrained in each of us, and thus we are willing to risk the perils of the wilderness that we may be able to understand it better. From this concept is born the story of wilderness as horror in the American tradition, in which our protagonists struggle to find themselves in the wilderness, always finding themselves somewhere between enlightenment and jeopardy. The “wilderness” in Pet Sematary — and by extension the religion of the Indians— is clearly a force greater than the “self” of the human protagonist who has chosen to violate it; in this instance, having ventured into unknown territory ultimately causes Louis’ descent into madness. Pet Sematary is an interesting example in that it embodies not only the idea of horror as “the other” (the mystical Indian religion, the evil force of the cemetery, the threat of the wilderness itself) but also of “the self” (Louis’ internal ethical struggle and his ultimate descent into madness), both of which are characteristics of modern Gothic storytelling and which therefore make Pet Sematary truly a tale of American Horror.
HIS357
Troy
30 July 2009
American Horror Short Essay: Wilderness in 19th Century America and Pet Sematary
As covered in some of the readings for class, the “American Gothic” tradition in horror differs from that of European horror in several ways; one notable difference is the idea of “Frontier Gothic”, and in particular, the idea of the wilderness as dangerous. When America was first settled, the country was one great big wilderness, inhabited by tribes of Indians and species of animals, all unknown and many potentially dangerous. Even today, large areas of the country are still uninhabited, rugged terrain, the kind you wouldn’t want to be stranded in without food or water. Yet the temptation to explore such a vast wilderness fraught with danger often proves irresistible for the characters in horror stories.
In Alan Lloyd Smith’s essay on American Gothic Fiction, he underscores the importance of the concept of wilderness as treacherous especially when compared to what had, until then, been considered dangerous in European mentality (Castles and the like). Smith quotes Charles Brockden Brown’s consideration of the significance of the wilderness to Americans: “the incidents of Indian hostility, and the perils of the…wilderness, are far more [frightening to an American audience]” (Smith 79). Yet in spite of all this imminent danger there is an inherent yearning of the human spirit to not only explore and conquer the wilderness, but also to retreat to it as a means of getting in touch with one’s inner self.
In Pet Sematary, a 1989 film directed by Mary Lambert and based upon a novel by Stephen King, our hero (?) Dr. Louis Creed believes himself to be above falling prey to such superstitions. A man of science, he chooses to enter the wilderness (in this case, a burial ground long-ago abandoned by Indians, who recognized the power there as inherently evil). Because Louis Creed is a scientist, like so many European explorers that came before him he callously disregards any sort of religious or supernatural belief (as evidenced by his discussion of heaven and hell with his daughter). By the end of the film, he has committed a number of ethically questionable deeds — the murders of his wife and neighbor are a direct result of his actions — yet Louis still does not learn from his transgressions and continues to disrespect the very real beliefs of the Indians. Even though the resurrecting power of the graveyard is clearly unholy and must never be used, Louis still fancies himself somehow more powerful. Louis ultimately believes he can tinker with the Indians’ supernatural force of resurrection of the pet sematary, and bend it to suit his wishes. He believes he can go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants. In a sense, he believes he can play God. Of course, he is wrong, and the moral of the story is never to fancy oneself greater than the wilderness or to disregard someone else’s beliefs, as you will always lose out in the end.
According to David S. Lovejoy in his essay “Satanizing the American Indian”, the European colonists considered the Indians of America to have had two prevalent spirits, one good and one bad. Lovejoy informs us that “emphasis” was (and, to a certain extent still is, as we see in Pet Sematary) put on the latter, whom the Indians “feared and propitiated” (Lovejoy 611). Smith also talks about the importance of “the self” in the Frontier Gothic/American Gothic movement. With increased space such as the wilderness of America, people were no longer confined to small areas. People were finally able to “get away from it all” and presumably to use the meditative isolation of the wilderness to find themselves. The problem with this idea is, we may not like the person we find when get there. The potential awfulness of finding oneself in a tortured “inward state of mind” (Smith 79) therefore becomes a classic characteristic of American horror. In the writings of Henry David Thoreau (whose Walden was a virtual instruction manual on how to use the wilderness to gain inner peace and enlightenment), that this desire to explore nature is thus ingrained in each of us, and thus we are willing to risk the perils of the wilderness that we may be able to understand it better. From this concept is born the story of wilderness as horror in the American tradition, in which our protagonists struggle to find themselves in the wilderness, always finding themselves somewhere between enlightenment and jeopardy. The “wilderness” in Pet Sematary — and by extension the religion of the Indians— is clearly a force greater than the “self” of the human protagonist who has chosen to violate it; in this instance, having ventured into unknown territory ultimately causes Louis’ descent into madness. Pet Sematary is an interesting example in that it embodies not only the idea of horror as “the other” (the mystical Indian religion, the evil force of the cemetery, the threat of the wilderness itself) but also of “the self” (Louis’ internal ethical struggle and his ultimate descent into madness), both of which are characteristics of modern Gothic storytelling and which therefore make Pet Sematary truly a tale of American Horror.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Piola - A slice of Italy in NYC
Stars: $$$ 1/2
Price: $$$
Weirdness factor: 2
Piola
48 E 12th St, New York, New York, United States
Piola was recommended to me as a place to interact with Italians and enjoy an authentic Italian gastronomic experience stateside. It didn't disappoint.
The restaurant is easy to find, about 1 1/2 blocks from the Union Square station.
Piola is mainly a pizzeria, but also offers salads, some pasta dishes, and a selection of meat and fish appetizery-things. It's quite authentically Italian, as there are many pizza joints, especially in Rome, set up with menus just like this.
The pizza menu has about 40+ different kinds, such as the "Siracusa" with mozzarella and artichokes or the "Giallanera" with eggplant and bell peppers. And, just as you'll find in Italy, there is a selection of "pizze bianche", pizzas without tomato sauce. I'd rate Piola's pizza crust a 10/10 - delicious. You can even see the pizza chefs hand rolling out the dough in the centrally located, open kitchen.
Each pizza is a managable 4-piece custom creation, and prices range from $10 to $16 depending on which you choose. You can even make personalized additions and substitutions; I had them put bell peppers on my "quattro funghi".
One high point are the $9 daily deals; your choice among 4 or 5 pizzas/pasta dishes, a soda, and (I believe) salad for a fixed price.
Piola has an acceptable wine list; I recommend asking your (authentically Italian!) server for a suggestion, as the wine we picked (the Piola house blend) was absolutely atrocious, especially at an exorbitant 25 bucks a bottle. Next time I'll try the "kiwi caipiroska", which looks awesome from its advertised picture.
Piola hosts events throughout the week; while it was pretty dead during the day (when we went) it becomes a cool local hang out at night, particularly on a Monday (when there's live music from 5-7 with drink specials and free finger food at the bar).
I'd recommend Piola for its relaxing, loungy atmosphere and authentically Italian staff, not to mention the delicious pizza.
Pretty averagely priced eats in NYC, and a nice experience overall.
Price: $$$
Weirdness factor: 2
Piola
48 E 12th St, New York, New York, United States
Piola was recommended to me as a place to interact with Italians and enjoy an authentic Italian gastronomic experience stateside. It didn't disappoint.
The restaurant is easy to find, about 1 1/2 blocks from the Union Square station.
Piola is mainly a pizzeria, but also offers salads, some pasta dishes, and a selection of meat and fish appetizery-things. It's quite authentically Italian, as there are many pizza joints, especially in Rome, set up with menus just like this.
The pizza menu has about 40+ different kinds, such as the "Siracusa" with mozzarella and artichokes or the "Giallanera" with eggplant and bell peppers. And, just as you'll find in Italy, there is a selection of "pizze bianche", pizzas without tomato sauce. I'd rate Piola's pizza crust a 10/10 - delicious. You can even see the pizza chefs hand rolling out the dough in the centrally located, open kitchen.
Each pizza is a managable 4-piece custom creation, and prices range from $10 to $16 depending on which you choose. You can even make personalized additions and substitutions; I had them put bell peppers on my "quattro funghi".
One high point are the $9 daily deals; your choice among 4 or 5 pizzas/pasta dishes, a soda, and (I believe) salad for a fixed price.
Piola has an acceptable wine list; I recommend asking your (authentically Italian!) server for a suggestion, as the wine we picked (the Piola house blend) was absolutely atrocious, especially at an exorbitant 25 bucks a bottle. Next time I'll try the "kiwi caipiroska", which looks awesome from its advertised picture.
Piola hosts events throughout the week; while it was pretty dead during the day (when we went) it becomes a cool local hang out at night, particularly on a Monday (when there's live music from 5-7 with drink specials and free finger food at the bar).
I'd recommend Piola for its relaxing, loungy atmosphere and authentically Italian staff, not to mention the delicious pizza.
Pretty averagely priced eats in NYC, and a nice experience overall.
Popei's - Local flair and local fare in Central Long Island
Stars: ***
Price: $$$
Weirdness factor: 3.5
Popei's Clam Bar
451 Middle Country Rd, Coram, New York, United States
Located smack-dab in the middle of Long Island, Popei's is about the localest of seafood joints you'll find. This place is particularly good if you're in the mood for a low-key, family-style seafood atmosphere, but the reasonable prices are really the main draw.
Although we were there on "ribs night", Popei's has a different all-you-can-eat special every day of the week. They're particularly renowned around here for their $30 snow crab leg special, on Tuesday and/or Wednesday. It's probably a good idea to check their website ahead of time to find out what the special will be for the night you plan to visit.
All the dishes are served in large, family-style portions; they can definitely be taken home in a doggie bag for the next day's lunch.
We each had a (decently priced) local draft beer, and the fried oyster appetizer (which was my favorite of the items we ordered). The oysters were large and juicy, the fry coating was light and not greasy at all.
As for entrees, I was less impressed. I had the Stuffed Eggplant (eggplant stuffed with shrimp, scallops, sealegs, broccoli, & ricotta cheese then topped with marinara & mozzarella)and my friend had "Mike's Unforgettable" (tortellini in a cajun alfredo sauce with shrimp, scallops, sealegs & veggies).
In case you were wondering, "sealegs" is just a euphemistic term for "fake krab meat", and I'm sorry to say it comprised the majority of the "seafood" in my dish. Hers was a little better, as she had visible tortellini, but I was hard pressed to find a single piece of eggplant until after 5 minutes of digging way to the bottom of the hot mess that comprised my dinner plate. To be fair, I wasn't really that hungry; if I had been, perhaps I could've given a more positive review. But I barely touched my food (I was a little turned off by the "sealegs", honestly) and gave the leftovers to my family. I think next time, try to stick to the basics (fried shrimp, fra diavolo whatever) and stay away from anything smothered with melted mozzarella, as you can't see what you're eating (maybe they do that on purpose...?).
On the upside, they do have a huge menu: if it swims in the ocean, Popei's probably carries it. They also have a "landlubbers" menu for those who don't eat seafood. Another high point is their full bar and outdoor seating area. The drinks are priced pretty well, you can smoke out there (which, believe me, is very important to the regulars), and the service was excellent. Our waitress was friendly and seemed shockingly normal compared to the roughness of Popei's' patrons.
The clientele, as you may imagine, is comprised only of locals. Think: 45-year-old-townies looking for a good time. Whether you like this kind of atmosphere is moot- on a Friday or Saturday evening, be prepared to deal with loads of drunk, possibly rowdy, but ultimately fun-loving bargoers. If you're not really into that kind of scene, the indoor dining area is decidedly more low-key and family friendly than the outdoor tiki bar, so make sure you sit inside if that's the case.
All in all, Popei's is reasonably priced, for both food and drinks. Seafood restaurants are getting more and more expensive and Popei's manages to keep the costs down. There are so many chain-alternatives, such as Red Lobster, that it is tempting to ignore local places like this. But if you're in central Long Island, and you're in the mood for seafood in a relaxed atmosphere, Popei's Clam Bar is definitely worth a visit.
Price: $$$
Weirdness factor: 3.5
Popei's Clam Bar
451 Middle Country Rd, Coram, New York, United States
Located smack-dab in the middle of Long Island, Popei's is about the localest of seafood joints you'll find. This place is particularly good if you're in the mood for a low-key, family-style seafood atmosphere, but the reasonable prices are really the main draw.
Although we were there on "ribs night", Popei's has a different all-you-can-eat special every day of the week. They're particularly renowned around here for their $30 snow crab leg special, on Tuesday and/or Wednesday. It's probably a good idea to check their website ahead of time to find out what the special will be for the night you plan to visit.
All the dishes are served in large, family-style portions; they can definitely be taken home in a doggie bag for the next day's lunch.
We each had a (decently priced) local draft beer, and the fried oyster appetizer (which was my favorite of the items we ordered). The oysters were large and juicy, the fry coating was light and not greasy at all.
As for entrees, I was less impressed. I had the Stuffed Eggplant (eggplant stuffed with shrimp, scallops, sealegs, broccoli, & ricotta cheese then topped with marinara & mozzarella)and my friend had "Mike's Unforgettable" (tortellini in a cajun alfredo sauce with shrimp, scallops, sealegs & veggies).
In case you were wondering, "sealegs" is just a euphemistic term for "fake krab meat", and I'm sorry to say it comprised the majority of the "seafood" in my dish. Hers was a little better, as she had visible tortellini, but I was hard pressed to find a single piece of eggplant until after 5 minutes of digging way to the bottom of the hot mess that comprised my dinner plate. To be fair, I wasn't really that hungry; if I had been, perhaps I could've given a more positive review. But I barely touched my food (I was a little turned off by the "sealegs", honestly) and gave the leftovers to my family. I think next time, try to stick to the basics (fried shrimp, fra diavolo whatever) and stay away from anything smothered with melted mozzarella, as you can't see what you're eating (maybe they do that on purpose...?).
On the upside, they do have a huge menu: if it swims in the ocean, Popei's probably carries it. They also have a "landlubbers" menu for those who don't eat seafood. Another high point is their full bar and outdoor seating area. The drinks are priced pretty well, you can smoke out there (which, believe me, is very important to the regulars), and the service was excellent. Our waitress was friendly and seemed shockingly normal compared to the roughness of Popei's' patrons.
The clientele, as you may imagine, is comprised only of locals. Think: 45-year-old-townies looking for a good time. Whether you like this kind of atmosphere is moot- on a Friday or Saturday evening, be prepared to deal with loads of drunk, possibly rowdy, but ultimately fun-loving bargoers. If you're not really into that kind of scene, the indoor dining area is decidedly more low-key and family friendly than the outdoor tiki bar, so make sure you sit inside if that's the case.
All in all, Popei's is reasonably priced, for both food and drinks. Seafood restaurants are getting more and more expensive and Popei's manages to keep the costs down. There are so many chain-alternatives, such as Red Lobster, that it is tempting to ignore local places like this. But if you're in central Long Island, and you're in the mood for seafood in a relaxed atmosphere, Popei's Clam Bar is definitely worth a visit.
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