Miss Piggy – “The Starlet”

Miss Piggy is a main character on The Muppet Show. She’s intriguing in that she is a pig that carries all the traits of a Hollywood starlet. She considers herself to have incredible talent and singing abilities and if you tell her any different she will be sure to let you know. In an interview with Time magazine, Miss Piggy performer Frank Oz said, “She wants everyone to treat her like a lady, and if they don’t she’ll cut them in half,” (Skow). Her life story is identical to one of a star. She began her career in the entertainment industry by winning a beauty pageant. She walks the red carpet, has been on the covers of people and life magazines, had her own perfume and published a book entitled “Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life”.

She presents herself as a strong and independent woman. Bonnie Erickson, the designer of Miss Piggy said in an interview with Smithsonian magazine, “The character was inspired by the jazz singer Peggy Lee who was a very independent woman,” (Gupta). Although she is a pig, her exterior appearance is reflective of a blond bombshell. She wears revealing clothing and carries extreme sex appeal. On the other side she knows karate and if insulted will not hesitate to use her expertise. All of her eccentricities are exaggerated and none of them reflects any type of sexuality. Miss Piggy’s costume designer Calista Hendrickson said in an interview with New York Times magazine, “Miss Piggy’s not aware of the fact that she’s overweight, she dresses as if she’s 30 pounds lighter. So she has a lot of fantasy,” (Culhane). Since Miss Piggy doesn't actually fit the stereotypical beautiful qualities of an actual woman, she uses her strength and character to be judged as an individual.
She's a prima-donna and has an inspiring personality. Miss Piggy’s attributes are just a presentation of what any sexual human being may be like. In “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Judith Butler states, “It is necessary to consider that sexuality always exceeds any given performance, presentation or narrative which is why it is not possible to derive or read off a sexuality from any given gender presentation. And sexuality may be said to exceed any definitive narrativization,” (725). Therefore, the character that Miss Piggy portrays is not reflective of any particular sexuality. It's just Miss Piggy.

Works Cited
Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Literary Theory: An Anthology Ed. Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Blackwell Publishing, 1998. p. 725
Culhane, John. “The Muppets In Movieland; Muppets Moving Muppets.” The New York Times. June. 1979
Gupta, Anika. “The Woman Behind Miss Piggy.” Smithsonian Magazine. Oct. 2008
Skow, John. “Those Marvelous Muppets.” Time Magazine. Dec. 1978

The Postmodern Group Presentation

The idea of the presentation was to produce a game that the class could all be involved in. We wanted to use this game to interpret the theories of postmodernism. Thinking about the particular ways of how to make something random, reflective, self-referential, allegorical, pastiche, etc., we came up with the improvisation. With the improv, just as with postmodernism, anything goes. We were also fortunate to have Dominic in our group as he is the improv expert and came up with both of the interesting ideas entitled “Cliffhanger” and “The Patent Office”.
All of our ideas were formed within group discussions, once in front of Starbucks and then we all met together in “Second Life”, a website in which you can create your own Avatar, and your own virtual world. It was technologically enlightening and a little scary because within this little world anything can happen and you can be whoever you want to be, and while in our “Second Life” world we found that it reflects postmodernism in many ways. In our meetings, other than deciding what we would present, we also discussed the theories and tried to get a better handle on what postmodernism and post structuralism really consists of.
My personal contribution was given when advising the group that after each game, we should discuss how we included insight into all of the postmodern theories within the improvisations. Also, to make sure that we asked the class questions regarding the aspects of postmodernism that they saw within the games.

Life of Pi

Lyotard’s “The Postmodern Condition” and “A Thousand Plateaus” by Deleuze and Guattari, provides theories of the how to interpret the structure of literature. The reference of the allegory within postmodernism can be illustrated in each of the theories presented. The panopticon, metanarratives and rhizomes can all be considered allegories. A novel that represents the aspect of the allegory is “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. It is highly eclectic and also carries post modern reflections of randomness, artifice and fragmentation.
Pi is a tale of survival under the most catastrophic circumstances. It’s complex because it’s actually a story within a story. The author tells his personal story and in doing so tells the story of another man. In “A Thousand Plateaus,” Deleuze and Guatarri say “The book imitates the world, as art imitates nature: by procedures specific to it that accomplish what nature cannot or can no longer do. The law of the book is the law of reflection, the One that become two” (380). This type of novel helps that statement to carry validity. When one begins to read it, it becomes a reflection of what one may think is reality, but there is no sense of reality in the tale.
The religious part of the allegory is introduced when Pi tells the author that when he finishes telling him his story, he will believe in God. Pi himself has grown up believing in 3 religions, he’s a Christian, Muslim and Hindu simultaneously. One of the strong quotes in the book is when Pi says “I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both” (24). This is reminiscent of the panopticon theory that Foucault speaks of.
Pi’s father is a zoo keeper in Canada, who flees the country because it is going through political turmoil. There is a terrible shipwreck in which the whole family is killed. Pi is the only survivor besides an orangutan, hyena, zebra and a Tiger. The story explains how human values might change when in a life or death situation. When Pi is telling his story it’s difficult to decide if the story is true and the end explains the nature of why and how the tale was told in the first place.
Within the story there are symbols for all disciplines. It indicates the power of humans being territorial when it comes to having to live alone with a tiger on a small boat for 277 days. It shows how starving changes the human condition. The whole story is symbolic of human nature and what one will do in order to survive. Martel does this by using a lot of metaphors and visuals that are unrealistic and combining them with postmodern theories of life.

Works Cited

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. “A Thousand Plateaus.” Literary Theory: An Anthology Ed. Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Blackwell Publishing, 1998. p. 379

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Canongate books, Ltd. Great Britain. P. 24

The Laborer in "Silas Marner"

After reading Karl Marx, I was reminded of the literary work of George Eliot’s “Silas Marner.” This story is embedded with Marxism. The themes carry a complete materialistic undertone. The lives of each character in the book surround the obsession with monetary value. Within the life of Silas it is mistrust and abandonment that leads him into material mania, with the other characters it’s within the social class system that they lose themselves.

In the story, Silas, a weaver, is banished from his home town for being accused of stealing. He feels so betrayed when he arrives in the new town of Raveloe, he becomes obsessed with his work which provides his earnings. This becomes his only will to live. He loses all social ties and constantly works on his loom. As his faith in his old community fades, he replaces it with his fixation with money.

Eliot’s description of the way Silas looms his weave is reminiscent to Marx’s description of man becoming nothing more than a machine in the labor force. She writes “Strangely Marner’s face and figure shrank and bent themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart” (20).

In Marx’s “Wage and Labor Capital,” he states “the exercise of labor power, labor, is the worker’s own activity, the manifestation of his own life. And this life activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of subsistence. Thus his life-activity is for him only a means to enable him to exist. He works in order to live. He does not even reckon labor as part of his life, it is rather a sacrifice of his life” (660).
Marner’s earning’s then become the only value he can identify with. These earnings become a replication of his lost community and his will to exist.

Eliot also indicates Marx’s writings in the relationship carried out by one of the families in the story. This bourgeoisie family is the hierarchy of Raveloe. Marx describes this type of family in “The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” when he states “The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (256).

Since Marx’s writings came right before Eliot’s his theories may have inspired her while writing Silas Marner. There is definite indication of that in the book.

Works Cited
Eliot, George. Silas Marner. New York: Penguin, 1996

Marx, Karl. “Wage Labor and Capital.” Literary Theory: An Anthology Second Edition. Ed. Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Blackwell Publishing, 1998. p. 660

Marx, Karl. “The Manifesto of the Communist Party.” Literary Theory: An Anthology Ed. Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Blackwell Publishing, 1998. p. 256

Freud's interpretation of Nirvana's Lithium

I'm so happy. Cause today I found my friends.
They're in my head. I'm so ugly. But that's ok.
'Cause so are you. We've broke our mirrors.
Sunday morning. Is everyday for all I care.
And I'm not scared. Light my candles. In a daze cause I've found god.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah.....

I'm so lonely. And that's ok. (alt: 'cause today )
I shaved my head. And I'm not sad, and just maybe
I'm to blame for all I've heard. And I'm not sure.
I'm so excited. I can't wait to meet you there.
And I don't care. I'm so horny. But that's ok. My will is good.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.....

(Chorus)
I like it. I'm not gonna crack.
I miss you. I'm not gonna crack.
I love you.I'm not gonna crack.
I kill you. I'm not gonna crack. (x2)

I'm so happy. Cause today I found my friends.
They're in my head. I'm so ugly. But that's ok.
'Cause so are you. We've broke our mirrors.
Sunday morning. Is everyday for all I care.
And I'm not scared. Light my candles.
In a daze cause I've found god.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah.....
(Chorus)..

Attempting to analyze the song "Lithium" by Nirvana might seem impossible. It is difficult to decipher what it all means. However, the title itself does shed light on the unusual lyrics. Lithium is an anti-depressant medication taken by those who suffer from bipolar disorder. The story of the lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, is a popular one. After being addicted to heroine for several years he committed suicide on April 8, 1984. It is rumored that he may have suffered from bipolar illness. According to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, almost 6 million Americans suffer from the disease (dbsalliance.org).

In an interview with Flipside, Cobain was asked if the line "Lite my candles, in a daze, because I’ve found God" was about his view on people who are brainwashed by religion? Cobain replied "Yeah, I guess you could say that. The story is about a guy who lost his girlfriend, I can't decide what caused her to die, let's say she died of AIDS or a car accident or something, and he's going around brooding and he turned to religion as a last resort to keep himself alive. To keep him from suicide" (Al and Cake).

Freud might say that the guy whose lost his girlfriend is experiencing the same type of loss discovered during the early stages of development. The same loss that Freud discusses when he says "That efflorescence comes to an end in the most distressing circumstances and to the accompaniment of the most painful feelings. Loss of love and failure leave behind them a permanent injury to self-regard in the form of a narcissistic scar, which in my opinion...contributes more than anything to the "sense of inferiority" which is so common in neurotics" (435).

However, the lyrics do not seem to indicate what Cobain states the song is about. The song actuallly is representative of someone who is suffering from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression. When Cobain sings, "I like it. I'm not gonna crack. I miss you. I'm not gonna crack. I love you. I'm not gonna crack. I kill you. I'm not gonna crack" (sing.365.com). These lyrics are typical of somone who is suffering mania. It relates to someone who is battling between the conscious and the unconscious. According to the National Health Institute some signs of mania are, increased energy, activity, and restlessness. Excessively "high," overly good, euphoric mood. Extreme irritability. Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another. Poor judgement. Increase sexual drive. Denial that anything is wrong (nimh.nih.gov). According to Rivkin and Ryan in Strangers to Ourselves, "Freud spend most of his life studying the boundary and the dynamic movements between the conscious self or ego and the unconscious, which he later came to call the id." (391).

There is no doubt that the person described in the song is experiencing a state of neurosis. The repression expressed is carried so deeply that if he experiences loss again suicide may be inevitable and as for Cobain personally, that turned out to be the outcome.

Works Cited

Al and Cake. An Interview with...Kurt Cobain. Flipside. May/June 1992.

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
<http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home>

Freud, Sigmund. Chapter 5, Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Oxford, 2004. p. 435

National Institute of Mental Health
<http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml>

Nirvana Lithium Lyrics – Sing365.com
<http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lithium-lyrics-Nirvana/1121C5DF5495B3A44825682D000BD4F3>

Rivkin, Julie. Ryan, Michael. Chapter 1, Introduction: Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford, 2004. P.391

Freud - The Lonely Woman

She is a 67-year-old divorced woman. Her ex-husband passed away years ago. She had three children, one passed away at 34, the others don't want to have anything to do with her. Her mother recently passed away. They never had a good relationship, she was basically raised by her grandmother. She is extremely lonely and suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. She constantly associates love with money and treats her youngest son as if he is the one that is supposed to handle all of her unhappiness even though he lives 4000 miles away and has a family of his own. She is a helpless soul and is still searching to find herself. She is manipulative, conniving, stubborn and unhappy. She constantly is switching from one mood to the next. Blaming her environment for all her unhappiness and then trying to act like she is happy. This makes her seem selfish and narcissistic. She has anxiety and claims she feels as if she's walking on pins and needles.

Freud might call this women neurotic, she "maintains the relationship to an external reality while in psychosis that relationship breaks down all together" (391). She seems to be in a constant battle with her inner self. The people she loves seem to keep abandoning her and she has never had any type of role model in her life which is causing her to live in a state of neurosis. So according to Freud the introjection which she has received all of her life, which has been nothing but negative, has caused her to project that on to her environment. "Introjection and projection are terms used to describe how the self shapes itself by adapting models from outside itself and externalizes its own feelings by assigning them to others" (391).

"Introduction: Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Oxford, 2004 p. 391

Michael Jackson - Cultural Pheonmena

There isn't any other famous person that is more signified through cultural phenomena than Michael Jackson. He did not only idealize culture in the 19th century, but became a product of an institutionalized framework "the media." His life was completely structured by the authoritative figure of his father from the time he knew Michael had talent. Even he himself has said what it was like for him as a child, "Because parents have power over children. They feel they have to do what their parents say. But the love of money is the root of all evil. And this is a sweet child. And to see him turn like this, this isn't him. This is not him" (Celebrina.com). The structure that Michael's father brought him up in made Michael become the exact opposite of what his father probably ever wanted him to be.

What is kind of shocking and ironic is that everyone had this concept of Michael, he was the King of Pop, he had this presence about him that society connected to as a whole. There wasn't one human being in the world that didn't know who he was, not even babies. He was this way because of the symbolic systems that his life was made up of, which is something that society generated. "The cultural meaning of any particular act or object is determined by a whole system of constitutive rules: rules which do not regulate behavior so much as create the possibility of particular forms of behavior" (Culler 56). I believe that once there wasn't anyone there to tell him which structural system to go by he actually started to lose a sense of realization.

In comparing concepts and sound-images to famous people, it is apparent that the concept of Michael and the sound-images of him have always been linked. The institutionalized framework that enveloped Michael Jackson caused him to end up losing himself in the signs. He didn't even no what to identify with. He no longer could control his inner life and decided to try to control his appearance. After the molestation allegations he lost everything. Michael Jackson (signified) lost his reputation and therefore lost being "The King of Pop" (Signifier).


Works Cited
Culler, Jonathan. "Course in General Linguistics." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Oxford, 2004. 56-58.
Michael Jackson Quotes & Trivia. 2007-2008
<http://www.celebrina.com/michael-jackson/quotes/>