The use of the ‘double’ as a significant factor in film makes 19th-century literature and mythologies to carry out in today's culture. Using the ‘double’ as a theme has become highly favoured throughout centuries due to the work of nineteenth-century authors such as Hans Christian Andersen "The Little Mermaid", Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray", Edgar Allan Poe "The Cask of Amontillado" and Fyodor Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". Nevertheless, although while the ‘double’ has continued to be used continuously, the implications and interpretations underneath it have evolved. This raises the question; how does the theme of the ‘double’ cause one the feeling of uncanny or fear, particularly through film? Within Pilar Andrade's text written …show more content…
With the presence or appearance of another self or "other," some important doubts emerge questioning first the identity of this double (who are you?), but also and as a counterpart, the very self-identity of the original (who am I?) and of his/her perception of reality (is what I am seeing real? Is it imagination, hallucination?). Thus, the double questions one of the basic rules of logic: that of non-contradiction. It makes evident that (being A the original and B the copy) the proposition "A is always equal to A and different from B" is incorrect. An exact copy of a human being works with another proposition: "A is always equal to A and equal to A and equal to …show more content…
The different doubles we see in today’s cinema are; ‘narratology doubles’, ‘transformation doubles’, ‘reflection doubles’, and ‘physical doubles’. Restoring the theme of psychological thriller. This is explored by Levi Strauss in his blog post “The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: The Double in Popular Culture" where he explains each stage of the ‘double’ used within film in today’s society.
Some films and television programs that have utilised these themes of the ‘double’ are Lord of the Rings (2001-2003), Coraline (2009), Orphan Black (2013-1017), Dexter (2006-2013), and Jekyll and Hyde. However the film that will be discussed is "Black Swan” (2010) (refer to fig.4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). What is shown within this film is how it represents the concept of the ‘double’, bringing to light that the protagonist character’s doppelgänger is a part of them, initiating fear within
In other words, the identical replica is exactly ourselves. If we imagine a person who looks exactly like ourselves introducing himself/herself in the way that we normally do, same name, same words, same gestures and same body languages, we probably will be annoyed simply because they are not us. A cloning man will never replace the original person. Each of the views above are undesirable to define personal identity. It would become more desirable if we draw a connection between body and mind, which is named brain. Brain is where thoughts and emotions form and take place, it is also the most crucial organ which controls every single muscle on human body and every bit of sensation. Therefore, we can say that brain is interactive with both body and mind. Linking back to the concept of personal identity, the idea of persons are identical with brains connect Weirob’s and Cohen’s view since the interaction between the three.
...d traditions, but also blending two distant genres together. The blending of genres gives us ideas about common conventions in films that we do not usually pay attention to, and how they can be manipulated to change the way we think about individuals and groups. Edward Scissorhands dives deeper than just a “Beauty and the Beast” narrative, and influences audiences to explore topics of how the gentlest of souls can be misjudged by their appearance, a seemingly normal community can be the “bad guy” if it only has its personal intentions in mind and no one else’s, and that true love is not about what is on the outside, but rather, what is on the inside. Edward Scissorhands can be considered as one of the most appealing films of the 20th century as it keeps audiences guessing, surprises them at the most unexpected times and breaks conventional film boundaries.
Over time, a change has occurred from the typical horror story to a violent and bloody legend. The original short story " The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow" is an example of a simple, yet mysterious fable in which Ichabod Crane acts as the protagonist. Ichabod becomes the victim of the feared headless horseman after believing the superstitious tales of this spirit preying in the night. The film that is supposedly based upon the tale provides a deceiving, yet compelling title of Sleepy Hollow, as one might assume that the film is a reenactment of the short story. The film and original tale differ in that the film has blood, gore and controversy while the story depicts a simple and descriptive place where an evil incident occurred. The gap between the story and the film is somewhat large, as the two are almost completely different. This gap displays how our culture has transformed the originality of the 1800's to a gruesome and elaborate fairy tale through desensitization.
These two scenarios from Anglo-Saxon and modern times are similar, as well. They are similar because of the continuity of “monsters” terrorizing a society being a great influence among audiences of the past and present. The two works of both eras demonstrate the continual interest in defeating villains and “feeding” it’s listeners with tales such as these.
“In literature the double is a result of the author's conscious or unconscious desire for a wider range of action, possibilities of behavior for his hero that go beyond the morally acceptable, and this wish will create itself in the form of a double, or anti-hero” writes Joyce Carol Oates in her piece “Tragic and Comic Visions in The Brothers Karamazov.” Just as Oates suggests that doubles are created in order for an author to extend a character's range of believable actions, doubles exist to bring about change in their original forms. Citing Mikhail Bakhtin's criticism of Dostoyevsky's creation technique, I intend to align the author's intentions with the intentions of his characters, and explain that due to the author's need for a wider range of motion within a character, the character themselves creates a double. Through an understanding of this, one can view my theory through a psychological viewpoint of the original, non-duplicated, character. I also aim to present the idea of the double as an authorial tool. The latter viewpoint intends to examine doubles through in purely literal light.
Relations between sympathy-empathy expressiveness and fiction have become a significant issue in the debate on the emotional responses to the film fiction. Due to their complexity many scholars found it useful to diagram them. With his essay, “Empathy and (Film) Fiction”, Alex Neill tries to develop new theory for analyzing the fiction and, especially, the emotional responses from the audience on it. The project of this essay is represented with an aim to show the audience the significant value of the emotional responses to the film fiction. From my point of view in the thesis of his project he asks a simple question: “Why does the (film) fiction evoke any emotions in the audience?”, further building the project in a very plain and clever way. Tracing the origins of this issue, he distinguishes between two types of emotional responses, sympathy and empathy, as separate concepts in order to understand the influence of both types of emotional responses to fiction. However, relying mostly on this unsupported discrepancy between two concepts and the influence of the “identification” concept, Neill finds himself unable to trace sympathy as a valuable response to fiction. This difficulty makes Neill argue throughout the better part of the text that empathy is the key emotional factor in the reaction to (film) fiction and that it is a more valuable type of emotional response for the audience.
Stories have an opportunity to leave the reader with many different impressions. When you look a different characters within the stories the ones that leave the greatest impressions are the ones that tend to scare us. The figures in Bob Dylar’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?”, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suite” all instill a bit of fear in the reader. They are symbols that represent the devil or devil like attributes in people and the uncertainties of human nature.
... imagination is sometimes more excessive than the action on the screen. After the application of Williams’ “theory” to David Creonenberg’s film Shivers, it is apparent that the spectator’s personal perception of the action (or inaction) is more the cause of the bodily reaction that Williams is referring to, rather than the objective excess on the screen. Ultimately, various characteristics of Williams’ arguments are true, but as a film theory in general, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess” needs further research and flexibility in order to be both relative to all “body” genre films, and applicable to all unique spectators.
In the film, Kubrick makes better use of symbolism and the archetypical characters in the story than King did. Stanley Kubrick has taken advantage of the words written by King and turned them into a genius image. The film is loaded with copies and cycles, individuals existing in two time periods with clashing personas, which are constantly battling each other throughout the movie.
Everyday the North American media sends millions of sexually provocative images through the airwaves and onto television screens. According to a recent study, an overwhelming 56% of all television programs contain sexual content (Vieth, 2). Our society has become so immune to the representation of sex that, for the most part, it goes unnoticed. Although concerns regarding sexuality still remain, society's tolerance level has changed dramatically over time. The history of attitudes toward sex and sexuality is a cultural process that can be seen through the literature of an era. The Awakening was the first piece of American fiction to blatantly attack the nineteenth century notion that marriage, emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy were inextricably bound together. Chopin's novel was advanced in theme over other nineteenth century works. Her piece more closely reflects the modern novel. Chopin gives her readers the story of a married woman, Edna Pontellier, as she explores her sexuality and need for emotional intimacy outside her marriage. Edna's need for extramarital relationships challenged the nineteenth century ideas of femininity and propriety.
Man may look and act a certain way on the outside but could be completely the opposite in actuality. The nature of man consists of sin, which is concealed by a mask of goodness and virtue. Society teaches humans to mask the evil tendencies we have and to only convey their angelic sides to the world. The doppelgangers that these characters carry with them do not stay tucked away forever; rather they slowly show themselves through their actions and the decisions that they make. The suppressed half is the gateway to understanding the entire person. Without the good part in people, there is no bad; without the evil, one can never fully know the person as a whole.
The term “psychoanalytic criticism” covers how the unconscious dimension, subjectivity and sexuality of the human relates to our understanding of both literary and filmic cultural texts (Buchanan 2010, p389-390). The concept of psychoanalytic criticism is used to contribute to our understanding of Michael Gondry’s Bjork: Army of Me in a number of ways. It can explain how the use of the unconscious is able to determine the behaviour of the ‘repressed’ thoughts and desires as they are forced out of our conscious awareness, by adapting to practices that are based on specific theories developed by Sigmund Freud between 1856-1939 (Barry 2009, p92). One of the key aspects of this is the use of symbols and connotations, which hide meanings below
The problem of personal identity is difficult to solve, especially since there is ambiguity in the terms. Identity may mean the same person or how one sees oneself. Anyhow, philosophers wish to assess this issue and find a suitable explanation, one motivation being responsibility. Humans will hold others responsible for acts such as murder, theft, and fraud. However, the person who will face the consequences must be the one who truly committed the wrongful act. A second motivation is interest in the future. An individual may become concerned or excited for an event that will occur in the future. Surely, these emotions entail that they will be the same person once that event occurs. The last motivation for resolving personal identity is immortality; basically, what will connect a person to whatever lives on after their physical death. Something can be identical in two ways: quantitatively or qualitatively. To be quantitatively identical is to be numerically identical, and to be qualitatively identical is to share exact qualities. There are two criterions on which personal identity is based, but the most important is the metaphysical criterion, which attempts to explain “being” or existence, without the necessity of physical evidence ...
One of the most interesting aspects of Victorian era literature reflects the conflict between religion and the fast gathering movement aptly dubbed the enlightenment. Primarily known for its prude, repressed, social and family structure beneath the surface of the Victorian illusion many conflicting, perhaps even radical, ideas were simmering and fast reaching a boiling point within in the public circle. In fact writers such as Thomas Hardy and Gerald Manly Hopkins reflect this very struggle between the cold front of former human understanding and the rising warm front know only as the enlightenment. As a result we as readers are treated to a spectacular display of fireworks within both authors poetry as the two ideas: poetics of soul and savior, and the poetics of naturalism struggle and brutality, meet and mix in the authors minds creating a lightning storm for us to enjoy.
1. Introduction Gothic fiction arouse as an opposition to notions of order and rationalism, and was intended to stimulate emotions and superstitious beliefs. It focused on mysteries, supernatural, indescribable phenomena and gloomy settings, but also on “psychological insights” (Cameron 2010: 9) of the characters. Therefore, many Gothic works involve fragmented or double characters. The theme of the doppelgänger or double self, developed in different ways by the various authors, is the inevitable consequence of the ever-growing interest in the complexity of the psyche and the subconscious.