Monday, September 21, 2009
The Monk Blog 1
As I read The Monk, I started to see a common theme emerge between the characters. It seems that every character in the book is somewhat ashamed of who they are. Some might call this theme a case of identity crisis but I think it is a bit different than that. The way I see it, the characters aren't so much questioning who they are but rather embellishing or omitting aspects of their lives that they feel would improve their social situations. For example, Ambrosio seems to be torn between his devotion to the church and his own vanity. It is not essential that he be one hundred percent humble and I don't think that he struggles with acknowledging his own narcissistic ways, he simply chooses not to display these traits publicly because it would reflect poorly on the "Man of Holiness" he plays in front of the public. I see a similar shift in character occur when the Dons meet Antonia. When they first encounter Antonia in church, they embellish their own backstories, act overly chivalrous, and talk up their "noble" roots to impress the young woman. They aren't hiding who they truly are but they're making themselves look better in front of her to win her over. It's like straightening your posture and puffing out your chest when an attractive girl walks by, you know you're not that tall and not that in shape but it helps to "cheat" a little bit to catch the eye of the opposite sex. This is exactly what Matilda does by disguising herself as a man to get close to Ambrosio. She isn't confused about her sexuality or who she is, she just knows how to get what she wants. Many people feign interest in things to get close to the person they're enamored with. Even I've done this when attempting to gain the affection of a woman. "Oh, you like such and such? Me too." You don't really enjoy it but you act like you do to have something in common with the person you're interested in. For all the reader knows, Matilda could care less about religion, but she becomes an expert on the subject to spend time with and impress Ambrosio. In conclusion, The Monk doesn't seem to deal with themes of identity as much as it deals with the little (or in Matilda's case not so little) lies people tell to make themselves feel better and attract the opposite sex.
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Connor, nice post but remember that you must include direct quotes from the text for these blogs. I think what you're talking about here is closely tied to modernity and the making of the modern man and woman. As Michel Foucault explains in his essay "What is Enlightenment?" Modern man...is not the man who goes off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he is the man who tries to invent himself. This modernity does not 'liberate man in his own being'; it compels him to face the task of producing himself." (I'd really recommend reading the whole article if this stuff interests you: http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html). As the middle class grew to power in the late 18th and 19th century, it became imperative for this class to "learn" how to be "respectable." Novels became a large part of this education, but this was also a great time for the rise of etiquette books. For a member of the middle class, behaving like "gentlemen" or a "lady" was paramount to maintaining one's place in society. This "modernity" as Foucault terms it obviously has some serious psychological repercussions--first and foremost repression. Look for this phenomenon as we read _Wuthering Heights_ where we see Heathcliff "learn" to become a gentlemen, but in the process represses some of his deepest, darkest desires.
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