I am Love and Solaris response post

 This week we watched I am love and Solaris.

 Reha's character and relationship with Chris rings true to what we have been discussing in class thus far. she said in the movie "my voice sounds the way it does because that’s how you remember it to be and I want to commit suicide because that’s how you remember me" the audience has no idea what Reha was like- they couldn’t even tell if how she looks is truth, or if that too is part of the illusion. Chris cannot undo his perceptions, like what Lancan said in the mirror stage, we cannot go back to knowing what life was like before the illusion. Chris impression of Reha even after she committed suicide, is still positive he remains in love with her despite the fact she got an abortion without talking to him about it, and she was drifting from him.  in the additive model of impression formation in psychology there is a theory that our impressions are based on simple characteristics that we add together and that equals a impression. in this theory  you can add a negative character trait and it still leads to a  more positive impression because the positive traits weighed more heavily. why do we do this, why do we still maintain positive impressions of those we love even when they have hurt us, even when we know that our love is an illusion. We cling so desperately to something uncertain. Desire causes physical arousal, our hearts start beating faster, butterflies in your stomach (the blood in our stomach rushes to our heart in order to pump more blood and prepare for an adrenaline rush), sweating, heavier breathing. we begin to feel what it’s like to be alive. When the repetition of life gets to us all we desire is to feel alive, like there is something to live for, and at times to affirm that we still contain life. Chris was living his life day by day knowing exactly how it would begin and end, being a passive participant. Then he gets called to something extraordinary, it reawakens him. he loves the feeling so much he dies for desire. but on the other hand the physical arousal we feel is similar to the experience of fight or flight. When we're afraid we have a choice to run or to stay and fight. I find that ironic because in love and desire your presented with the same choice, you stay and surrender to desire or you run away, when you run the desire follows you and never really goes away, unlike predators in the wild desire doesn’t die. I think that’s why Chris at first rejects Reha but then he realizes it will follow him weather in a physical sense or in his dreams. When you stay you’re always fighting, trying to maintain the illusion.

I am Love is a beautiful movie, and found many ways to express desire and love in its many forms, but the part of the movie that  remains vivid in my mind is the section when Emma and Antonio make love in the garden. This is a recurrent theme in most of the films and book we have reviewed. Gardens symbolize nature and innocence- something untouched. In the film there are clips of insects ravaging the flowers much like Antonio was doing to emma. Emma was content in her life before never really questioning it. But after this garden scene she is reminded what it is to be primal. So there is a contrast between what the garden represents and what occurs in the garden. she later experiences tragedy and is left with the choice to stay in a life she now knows she cant stand to live in or flee with her lover and have a chance to experience desire with all her senses.   

After watching both of these movies I sit here and wonder who is worst off; those who run from desire or those who stay to fight. Personally I am the one who runs away, I recently come to the realization that running seems to cause just as much pain as staying. Those who run become even more trapped in an illusion because you never achieve that moment of reality that occurs after physically indulging in desire, you constantly wonder and desire what that will feel like. So in some ways I applauded these characters for taking the incentive and making that choice to do something kind of crazy.These characters knew a kind of truth that is often surpassed, desire isn't something you can not contain, and it knows your weakness and will exploit it. Sometimes it means rebelling against social norms in order to be happy.

Madame Bovary week 2

Rodolphe's box of "memories" is more like a storage place of his repugnant collection of  his mistresses trinkets  , a mere disposal of his past desires fulfilled. I find it ironic he put his collection in a an old used cookie tin. cookies are a snack one indulges in  when there is a craving for something sweet, its never something one could consume as a meal. cookies aren't  meant to be fulfilling. these women are like cookies to Rodolphe, something to quench his desires but never something that is made to last. instant gratification. the fact that his stores his "souvenirs"  in a used container  is just one more sign of disrespect in regards to these women. To him they have served their purpose and now they are labeled as used items to be disregarded. they are all the same to him, wanting and expecting to much, he's not in it all for the romance; he's in it for the sake of being in a game. He's the personification of  stereotypical "player", viewing woman as pawns, objects of desire- nothing more, and without any forms of true originality, other then the physical possibly unique attributes  they may posses that happen to turn him on. he expresses in part II " Emma was like all other mistresses: and the charm of novelty, slipping off gradually like a piece of clothing, revealed in its nakedness the eternal monotony of passion, which always assumes the same forms ans uses the same language." Rodolphe doesn't even think of Emma as her own person but as a part of a collection of all women; something to be had. he cant even be passionate for woman any more because he has surpassed authentic emotion  and is running on instant gratification and that alone. he leaves her because she starts to expect what he cant offer. Gustave Flaubert clearly uses Rodolphe to be an even less sympathetic character then Emma.

Madame Bovary Week one

    Emma, to me, represents the fickleness of youth; wanting everything a little to badly, to be part of something exciting and bigger then yourself, and some how expecting it all just to happen, never quite being satisfied and yearning to be completed. she is easily aroused by the "glitter" in life and not bothering to look into the deepth of it. she, like most girls, dreamed of a passionate love affair; like the ones she reads in novels. her desire is always passion and nothing more, she doesn't look to the person and desire to be with them she looks for the possibility that he can supply what she wants, naively thinking that her desire for him will follow. in the being of the novel she quickly realizes that Charles is not giving her what she wants "... acting upon theories that she believed to be sound, she kept trying to experience love."
    Charles in contrast knew what it was to be in a marriage without passion and wasn't overly sad to see his first wife die. this time around Charles is in love with Emma despite her constant pulling away. In some ways, i feel he likes it; to him it makes the moments that he can get just a little bit closer that much more exciting. but his desperation is the very thing that makes her retreat. this reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Grace Potter and the Nocturnal called "apologies"
"My love is like a blanket
That gets a little bit too warm sometimes
I wanna wrap somebody in it
Who can hold me in [her] arms
Cause when it got a little too hot in there
[she] was always stepping out for air and he froze
Oh [she] froze"
Emma wants to escape from the blanket Charles has her under, still youthful she wants to experience life, not wanting to settle. But  Charles loved her the very way she had always dreamed but is to busy looking at the surface of passion, Lust.

Second half Of Celestina

        In the second half of Celestina Melibea and Calisto consummate their love for each other. they meet up in  the garden in which they first meet at night. the repeat imagery of the garden  relates back to the garden of Eden, that love is paradise and can lead to eternal pleasure and happiness. the two meeting in Garden at  night represents the Garden of Eden, and its promise of eternal pleasure, is a part of an illusion or a  mere shadow of reality. At night we can not see  and need the help of artificial light in order to get clarity. in desire our ideas and morals are obscured and we have this idea that the light of the other person will lead us to something better. in desire we come to obsess and chase after someone in hopes to get tangible pleasure.  
        The fact that Melibea and Calisto meet at night also alludes to our societies ideas that mischief occurs at night, because we can hide with the darkness and don't have the light of day to show us all that is wrong with the picture.                                                                                                                                                                                    
        Melibea says to Calisto " my lord, for gods sake, now I'm all yours, now I'm your lover, you cant deny my love for you or deny me sight  of you. " The two lovers only meet at night for the rest of the novel after the death of Sempronio, Parmeno and Celestina because Calisto is in hiding. I think this is because  the lovers are only able to see each other through the artificial light that the other projects. In this quote Melibea is saying she can not go without seeing him because of her love, which is ironic because what she see him for is an illusion cast by the shadow of night and illuminated by her desire for love.

response to Celestina

         The epitome of desire reverts back to the story of Adam and eve in the Garden of Eden as told in the bible, and Celestina parallels many of its themes. in the very beginning of the story Melibea and Calisto meet in a garden and Calisto proclaims she is perfection and this is attributed to the glory of God, he sees Melibea as a gift from god to him. Eve was a gift to Adam someone he could relate to and later procreates with. Propelled by his desire Adam was willing to do anything that Eve wanted of him, much like Calisto who sought out Celestina even against the better judgment of his ,once loyal, servant Sempronio.
    Sempronio was representative of the conscience but later was swayed by Celestina to disreguard moral superiority and become a slave to his desire, is money and prosperity.

      Calisto wanted his desire to subside and the only cure that ,besides time, is to have the desire reciprocated. Celestina devized a plan that would change Melibea's feelings for Calisto and she too would sucombe to desire.Celestina is representative of the serpent, she knows exactly what the others characters want and how to get inside their heads and think the way she wants them too. Melibea was hesitant at first and knew that desire was the fire behind Calisto's words and all the bad that would become of letting desire the best of them. But celestina spoke to Melibea's virtue, and convinced her that buying her cord (which was cursed to make her desire Calisto) would help a poor unfortunate soul. Melibea succumbs to desire and it will end in their demise much like Adam and Eve.

Calisto says it perfectly " ... and so said Adam, Solomon, David, Aristotle and Virgil but they all gave in to a woman. who am I to be more strong minded than they." we all know this tale and how it ends but yet we find excuses for why we succumb to desire, it goes back to Lancan and the mirror stage we know we can never know ourselves without the image and it’s a constant battle that results in self destruction.