Post-Colonial and Post-Modernist View of Walcott's Collected Poems and Roy's The God of Small Things
"Language was not so much a distinguishing sign of a soul or spirituality, which animals do not possess, as a social practice which enhanced survival of the species"-Nietzche. Nietzche reminded twentieth century intellectuals of the decisive role of language in the construction of human experience of 'reality'. With his 'perspectivism' and relativism, truth, whether artistic or scientific was seen as a social matter and a linguistic product, the displacement of one set of figures of speech by another, with knowledge the interrelations of signifiers in a field of experience made of prior interpretations. (Irving Howe, 80).
Thus in Walcott's poems and in Roy's 'The God of Small Things' modernism was further routed by inversion of ethical values as power tools for survival and exploitation, and of art as a veil over a reality describable only as wanton, godless procreation. This conception of a dynamic world of super changed energies of unimaginable force, often in violent conflict and ever-changing relations, came to resemble Freud's concept of id.
We observe, in their writings (Walcott and Roy) the apparently rational surface of consciousness hides a mass of tangled and conflicting desires, impulses and needs. The outer person is a mere papering-over of the cracks of a split and waring complex of selves driven by life and death instincts.
Walcott in his poem 'The Divided Child' writes,
There
was your heaven ! The clear
glaze of another life,
a landscape locked in amber, the rare
gleam. The dream
of reason had produced its monster :
a prodigy of the wrong age and colour.
(Walcott 145).
According to him, language was not the transparent tool for the objective representation of a stable reality: ethics was not expressive of a discovered system of absolute values or religion other than a desire for parental protection throughout life.
He writes in his poem 'Lampfall,'
And I'm elsewhere, far as
I shall ever be from you whom I behold now,
Dear family, dear friends, by this still glow
The lantern's ring that the sea's
Never extinguished
Your voices curl in the shell of my ear.
(Walcott 95).
When Roy was asked in an interview, 'What does it mean to be Indian?' she replied: 'Do we ask, 'What does it mean to be American or to be British?
The body and the spirit are connected through the entity of emotions and feelings, which are formed through experiences, understanding, and knowledge about the world. As Australian poet Gwen Harwood’s poem’s “Triste Triste and “Alter Ego” seeks to find and reconnect an individual’s inner-self again through both the body and spirit, Kenneth Slessor’s poems “Sleep” and “ ” explores how the separation of the body and spirit can be seen as a positive component towards the core experiences of human life. As each of the poems captivates a sense of intertwinement within the body and mind, the poems seem to reflect and mirror one another, drawing upon similar experiences and emotions which are conveyed through the persona’s journey.
Without perception, in our illusions and hallucinations, we lose “our sense of beings,” (Capra). Lost in “isolation,” (Capra) perhaps lost within our own illusion, our abstractions, we lose the ability to judge, to dichotomize, reality from illusions, right from wrong.
To conclude this essay, I like to emphazise that Rosenthal's HOT is more of an empirical hypothesis, rather than an analysis of the term ‘consciousness.’ His aim is precisely to explain the phenomena of consciousness in relation to other mental states, such as thought and perception, and while achieving this, he has elaborated a theoretical structure for comprehending the functions of our mind.
Sigmund Freud's model of the mind can be likened to an iceberg, where the tip is visible above the water and the rest is hidden below the water unseen. The visible part is likened to our conscious mind from where we have our sensa...
“There are no facts, only interpretations”, said famous French philologist Friedrich Nietzsche on the topic of deconstruction. It is this quote that we are opened into the world of deconstruction, a world where “language doesn’t reflect or convey our world but constitutes a world of its own”. Deconstructionists believe that language is the barrier that forces thoughts to lose their purpose. The moment you share an idea from the inner workings of your mind, whether it be written or spoken, is the moment the idea is lost in translation. In order to understand deconstruction, one mu...
Violent acts in the workplace come from a diverse population of perpetrators. Employees, former employees, clients, strangers, and even employers are all potential sources of violent behavior. In most cases, the person responsible for workplace slayings fits a certain stereotype. The violent person is either an unhappy employee, a frustrated customer, or in some type of relationship with an employee in the company, and almost always a socially reclusive male (Chavez, Workplace 1).
In the workplace, stress can have some strong physical and mental effects on employees. To best understand stress, it is first important to define it. Stress is defined as “a feeling of tension that occurs when a person perceives that a given situation is about to exceed one’s ability to cope and consequently could endanger one’s well being” (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2011). Stress on the job is usually the result of people feeling inadequate and unable to perform the given duties of a position at a high level. This could be the result of not having the tools necessary to complete the work or having an outside need that is unable to be met while performing duties. Today, we’ll examine different types of stress and the effects that stress can have on individuals and the workplace.
The study of semiotics shows that language is the primary mediator in the construction of reality. All systems of signification are dependent on language, and the development of subject position is determined through the act of speaking. (footnote 2) In a discussion of language functions, Fredric Jameson d...
Mrs. Smith arrived to her appointment on time, alone, appropriately dressed, and appeared to be her stated age of 54. Throughout the testing process, she was engaged, maintained good posture, eye contact, insight, understanding, awareness of issues, and discussed topics in an open manner. In addition, she spoke with a normal tone, rate, and volume. Mrs. Smith did not exhibit any issues with her hearing, vision, motor skills, or word finding. Her mood was calm and composed, which was congruent with her affect. In addition, she exhibited a logical thought process, and did not display any signs of psychosis.
Basically, we all know and understand that stress is bad for us. However, it is a natural state of the body, which is a good thing itself when present in small quantities....
The first site I visited was at lounge/bar in New York City. My sister came down from Connecticut, and she wanted to hang out before she had to go to her medical mission trip to Dominican Republic. We decided to go this lounge/bar place in New York City. The atmosphere was inviting and energetic. There were people, both male and female, dancing on the dance floor and there were others either relaxing by the lounge area or at the bar. As I was looking around the environment and enjoying the aurora around me, I notice two groups of women. The first group had four women siting at the lounge area and they all look as though they were around their mid thirties to late thirties and looked very professional. The second group was group of five women
It is difficult to fill a position of someone who is seen by the company as irreplaceable; individuals can easily be passed over for a promotion if they are superior in their current position.
But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human life, such as human dignity and personal identity. The mind-body problem entails two theories, dualism and physicalism. Dualism contends that distinct mental and physical realms exist, and they both must be taken into account. Its counterpart (weak) physicalism views the human as being completely bodily and physical, encompassing no non-physical, or spiritual, substances.
Deep in the minds of human beings lies a vast ocean of emotions and experiences. The human mind is often misconstrued and simplified by those who possess one, but delving deeper into the mind and it’s processes you see a whole other world that is veiled beneath the surface. One of the most famous examples of the human mind is the image of an iceberg, what is on the surface is so minimal compared to the immense body that lies underneath. Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and believed in the idea of the unconscious and subconscious that help power who we are. Through psychoanalysis Freud began to reclaim the self as an individual and stressed the importance of the external world and it’s direct role with the internal realm of an individual. Although it was originally found to be a sort of therapy for those with mental illnesses, it has an interesting and analytical and philosophical view of the self, and through this spawned new beliefs in philosophy. Through the establishment of the id, superego, and ego, and the past’s affect on the shaping the present state of the self, psychoanalysis reclaims the self for an individual and is successful in doing so.
Everyday, there are workers who come home from their jobs with a high amount of health issues. Headaches, aching muscles, exhaustion, and many more health issues have workers wondering why this is happening. All of these symptoms can be linked to stress in the workplace. Job stress has become more of a problem than ever before. Numerous studies show that job stress is the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades (“Workplace Stress,” 2004). Stress has become more common and costly in the workplace not only for the workers, but also the companies. What is considered stress in the workplace? Many companies everyday are dealing with issues related to stress in the workplace. For example, the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre NSH Trust Foundation Hospital noticed there were issues with stress when people began calling out sick. Their consultant for occupational health began to see a pattern of worker stress that might be the case. With stress being such a big issue in the workplace, are there ways a company can decrease the amount of stress?