Semiotics & Structuralism in The Dark Knight

                            The Revenant: A Conflict Between Two Opposing Characters
The Revenant is the story Hugh Glass’s personal struggle to have his revenge against the man who left him for dead in the wilderness. Is not only about Glass’s journey to recovery motivated by revenge, but I also found that it showed the differences between Glass and the man who left him for dead, John Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was only concerned with taking his beaver pelts back for profit. When it was crucial for them to travel quickly in order to escape Fitzgerald insisted on carrying beaver pelts hoping that he could sell them if they did escape. Later, after Glass is injured Fitzgerald abandoned Glass- something that he was not willing to do with his prospective money. Fitzgerald’s greed also motivated him to stay behind with glass. However, instead of staying with him like was supposed to he abandoned him to return and collect his reward.

            A young supporting character, Jim Bridger, was visibly conflicted by his moral obligation to stay behind with Glass and Fitzgerald’s plan to leave and collect the reward. Eventually Bridger was tricked by Fitzgerald and left Glass. When they returned to collect their reward, he did not report what had actually happened. Instead, he collected the reward with Fitzgerald and kept silent. Despite being bothered by what he had done, Bridger showed that it was easier to succumb to greed than to resist it.

            I saw a connection between Fitzgerald’s disregard for the land and Native Americans and his disregard for Glass’ life. His self-centeredness and greed were prevalent. He saw no problem exploiting other people to ensure his own survival or profit. He used the Native American’s land for profit and manipulated Bridger into leaving Glass for dead. His actions showed his disrespect for the land and the people that lived on it. His disrespect was rooted in his greed. It did not matter what the consequences of his actions were as long as he profited. On a more drastic scale, he killed Glass’s son, Hawk, just to ensure his own gain. He was detestable not just because of what he did to Glass, but also because of his self-motivated decisions that did not regard anyone other than himself.

            Fitzgerald’s character was constructed in a way that made Glass’s desire for revenge acceptable. While Glass’s strength to survive outrageous injuries and return for revenge makes an incredible plot, the dislike that people watching the film have for Fitzgerald really fulfills Glass’s revenge against Fitzgerald. When a character is as deplorable as Fitzgerald was, revenge does not seem to be a moral dilemma like it can be in other films. Due to his nature as well as what he had done, few people would question if it was acceptable to despise Fitzgerald.

            The movie shows Glass’s extraordinary survival, but it also shows the conflict between a good man and a corrupt one. When Glass struggled across mountains and through blizzards, he was not just struggling against himself and the land. He was struggling in order to return and kill Fitzgerald- the man who was the antithesis of Glass.

Structuralism in Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale”

Structuralism establishes the fact that there is a natural order to things, and that everything follows this natural order. Moreover, not only does everything follow these structures of order, they are all “generated by the human mind” (Tyson 199). Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” very follows a structure and natural order of things and, to me follows a structuralist pattern in the eys of many readers of the tale.

Most readers of Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” will admit that it seems to follow a natural order. Maybe this has to do with the fact that most people read this Tale in High School, and never really delve deeply into it. But nevertheless, there is a structure which it follows that is most likely created by us, the reader. In the Tale, you have the damsels in distress, the knights in shining armor, and the love triangle that leads to a battle to the death for the hand of the lovely maiden. (Never mind the fact that the damsels in distress just so happen to be the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, and her sister Emily. I mean, that’s got to be something to raise an eyebrow at, but apparently that is irrelevant, so we have to hush and don’t ask questions). Given this classic “Knight in Shining Armor Fights to Death for Hand of Lovely Maiden” type of plot, we see the “Knight’s Tale” follow this natural order. This is the order we expect it to take, for we have come to understand most stories of Medieval Knights and Ladies as having similar plots.

 

According to Tyson, “structuralism sees itself as a science of humankind, for its efforts to discover the structures that underlie the world’s surface phenomena” (200). To explain, the surface phenomena which relates to the Knight’s Tale would be the way which we think of women as opposed to men. Women are portrayed as weak, frail, and in need of saving from the first strong white man that happens to walk by. Especially in literature, we often see this trend of viewpoints play out. Hence, because we automatically read women as frail and in need of saving, when reading the “Knight’s Tale,” we might first see Emily as such. It’s a structure we’ve established in our minds to think of ladies in waiting as in need of saving from some handsome knight. So, when the story unfolds and Arcite and Palamon (the two knights in the Tale) fight to the death for her, we see this as a natural succession of events.

However, this system is rather flawed in reference to the “Knight’s Tale” because Emily really does not want to be saved (What?! You mean to tell me the damsel in distress isn’t always in distress?! Shocker.). She even prays to the goddess Diana for freedom from not just one of the two knights, but both saying: “I want to be a maiden all my life, I never wish to be [a] lover or wife” (Chaucer 145). She is still forced to marry one of the knights, but the fact that she blatantly didn’t want either of them is often overlooked by readers. Why do you think this is? I think that it is because of the structures we already have set up in our minds due to many years of grooming. We see the knights in shining armor who have fallen desperately in love with the lady (never mind that they never really met her,  it’s true love, meeting the person doesn’t matter in these tales), and we see the lady trapped without a man to save her (never mind that she wasn’t really trapped, that she was perfectly content ALONE) and automatically our minds avert to the familiar Knight in Shining Armor-esque tale. Because of our interpretation of women, and the way our minds have been groomed to think about them from the examples we often see other people portraying in the world, this is a structure we have adopted.

It may have flaws, but it is still our “norm,” the way in which our minds have interpreted tales of this kind. And while some people are working to change this normality, it’s still a structure that our brain concocts due to the surface phenomena we see around us, and thus it portrays structuralism.

                                                      Works Cited:

Chaucer, Geoffrey, and Sheila Fisher. The Selected Canterbury Tales: A New Verse Translation. W.W. Norton & Co, 2011. 

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge, 2015.

Structuralism and The X Files Episode Structure

Structuralism is of particular interest to me because of the way it emphasises the way specific works add to the bigger picture and minimize the individual instance. This makes it an perfect fit for interpreting television shows in general, but i'm going to be looking at The X Files in particular. To begin with some background information, the show first aired in 1993 to 2002, and was just picked up again recently in 2016. While for the most part the show is described as a procedural, this line is heavily blurred throughout the course of the show. The X Files uses it’s format, or more specifically the expectations that it’s format creates,  to make a world in which it appears actions do have tangible consequences.

The concepts of langue (the order and structure of language) and parole (the utterances and instances of a language) are concepts that help illustrate how The X Files achieves this. The langue of the show are all the unwritten rules that we know it will follow (if you have seen the show before). For example, we are aware that there is no way that Mulder or Scully die in the middle of an episode in the middle of a season, especially if we are aware of the sheer number of seasons likely after that. In the same way, we understand that it is unlikely that whatever mystery the protagonists are trying to solve will be wrapped up in the first 15 minutes of the show. This is because we have knowledge about the langue of the show. Each individual episode is the parole through which we would gain this understanding.

The X Files uses the audience’s conceived langue and plays with it, building episodes and stories with it in mind. Usually in a procedural tv show like this one, everything would be wrapped up at the end of the episode and reset for the next. The X Files often adheres to this formula, and has many “monster of the week” structured episodes, in which everything is wrapped up in the end and often never mentioned again. However there are outliers. Certain episodes will follow the “monster of the week” structure and wrap everything up nicely, only to have the events of that episode come back to haunt the protagonists again later on. For example, Eugene Victor Tooms who is listed on the X Files wiki as “genetic mutant serial killer who was capable of squeezing his body through narrow gaps” shows up in the third episode of the series and his story is seemingly wrapped up by the end of the show, only to reappear later in the twenty first episode to have his story finally brought to a close.

http://x-files.wikia.com/wiki/Eugene_Victor_Tooms

These episodes co-exist along with even larger story arcs in which it is quite clear that the story will continue on throughout even a season or two. “The Cigarette Smoking Man” and the events and circumstances surrounding him are a great example of this. He is so integral to the overarching story of the show that despite having only four audible words in the first season of the show, he has his own wikipedia page full to the brim with information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_Smoking_Man

Each of these distinct types of episodes (Monster of the week, continued story, or plot arch) even has outliers within their type. In his article "Structuralism in Cultural and Literary Studies" Robert Parker asserts that these odd examples only add to the richness and help further define the system, and that when we find them we may choose to “enlarge the circumference of the system to include the anomalous case, or draw a boundary to define the system by determining what conventions fit into it and what conventions do not fit into it”(Parker 52). The X Files allows you to consistently enlarge the circumference of its system because of the way it handles it’s episode structure. Actions that you may have thought to have no consequence may be integral to a future plot. This is not even to mention the movies which contain integral plot points for the category of episodes that deal with these things, which means they are a seemingly concrete part of the system. The ways in which the show constantly mixes and changes its parole lead to an interesting and dynamic langue.

Highlighting Reader-Response Theory

Highlighting Reader-Response Theory

Introduction

The recent furor over the book “Fire and Fury” written by Michael Wolff really made me think about the Reader-Response Theory. On the face of it, this is a book that should have received passing attention from the media. It had numerous errors and was poorly written in many aspects. However, the ground had been set by the president’s actions and every reader got what he or she expected from the book. It drove home the point that a creator can lose control of his or her product. In fact, in today’s world the reader has the ultimate power. At no other time has Reader-Response Theory been as relevant as it is now.

Response

Tyson asserts that critical thinking directly affects how a piece of work is received and whether it ever achieves its objectives. In fact, when the population is critical in its thinking, the readers have the power to keep falsehoods and propaganda outside the public space. In times of low critical thinking, the reader loses his or her power. Take the example of Lenin and his experiment. A critical thinker would have punched massive holes in the philosophy and a critical populace would have resisted it vociferously. However, the author was able to dictate what his book meant and thus able to enslave the readers.

The Reader-Response Theory is also evidenced in the manner in which respected media and publishing entities are doing business. At The New York Times, every journalist with a prominent column has to be active on social media and engage his or her readers. It is the readers who will determine what ends up on the front page due to their constant feedback. It is the same case in many other firms and organizations. In a world of critical thinkers, the literature follows the reader and not the other way round. It is indeed possible for creatives to move against the tide but many just choose to go with the flow.  In the modern world, the world of literature follows the reader.

The power of the reader can also be seen in the popularity of “The Great Gatsby” years after it was written. Books like these were often ignored at their moment of writing but gained prominence years later. In almost all of these cases, it is readers who led campaigns which made the books famous. However, there is the danger that the Reader-Response Theory can lead to the dilution of literature. The fact is that not many people are gifted with literary skills. Therefore, it makes sense for those with the skills to drive the process. Putting the reader in control is quite risky and can lead to literature that caters to the lowest common denominator. In fact, the American television sector is a great example of mediocrity created by catering to the audience’s basest desires. That said, it is impossible to ignore reader responses.

Conclusion

The media and literary world today is full of examples of Reader-Response Theory being applied in the real world. The fact is that the theory will continue to be apparent as more and more people gain access to more information. The New York Times has bowed to reader pressure and so have many authors. The sad thing is that not all responses are driven by critical thinking. Therefore, relying too much on reader responses usually leads to mediocre literature.

😋😍Structure and Semiotics in The Avengers😎😊

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tructuralism can help explain why the 2012 movie The Avengers was so successful. In its striking similarity to professional wrestling matches, observers find a theme that has been perpetuated since the ancient Greek era.

            First of all, to establish the film’s noteworthy achievement level. Critic review website Rotten Tomatoes has it ranked at a favorable 92 percent enjoyment score for analysts, and a close 91 percent for audiences (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marvels_the_avengers/). Unsurprisingly, then, upon its release, it earned $1,518,812,988 worldwide, despite utilizing a comparatively small production budget of only $220 million (http://collider.com/marvel-movies-box-office/). Clearly, people really liked what this feature offered.
            Answers to the widespread appreciation that the hero-heavy accomplishment generated can be derived from structuralism, a root-cause approach to literary study. As student resource Shmoop explains, “Structuralist theorists are interested in identifying and analyzing the structures that underlie all cultural phenomena—and not just literature” (https://www.shmoop.com/structuralism/). To them, the outpouring of support that The Avengers received would be indicative of its adherence to a previously established pattern historically guiding celebrated entertainment. And they would probably zero in on modern wrestlers to prove their point.
            Semiotics—the examination of the ways that linguistic and nonlinguistic objects and behaviors operate symbolically to communicate a message—is a component of structuralism that the method’s scholars would be excited to use to illustrate the nature of the spectator sweep that The Avengers snagged (Lois Tyson; Critical Theory Today, Third Edition: A User-Friendly Guide; 205). Within semiotics, a wrestler’s occupation is a sign system—a thing, an action, or a collection of things or actions capable of being assessed as a specialized language (Tyson 205). When a competitor gets ready to rumble, he or she relies on the sign system of wrestling—a language meant to provide onlookers with the cathartic pleasure of watching justice triumph in a clear-cut, good-versus-evil situation (Tyson 205).

The fancy picture shown here emphasizes the excellent teamwork that the Avengers display and, more importantly, the professionalism characterizing the post that it appears in.

            Without a doubt, the two opposing sides are blatantly defined in director Joss Whedon’s superhero party, and the protagonists’ win is indisputable. As in the high-class and intricately complex world of the revered ring-rocker, each champion is an easily identifiable type (Tyson 205). The imposing lineup consists of Iron Man, the self-made tech genius and sardonic comedian; Captain America, the patriotic super-soldier and moral paragon; Hawkeye and the Black Widow, the undercover international agents and allegiance-switchers; Thor, the haughty prince and hammer-thrower; and the Hulk, the Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde scientist and monster nightmare. Likewise, these leading personalities reinforce the idiosyncratic images of heroism that they project via consistent interactions in the same manner that World Wrestling Entertainment stars do (Tyson 205). For example, to discover the truths that another character is hiding, Iron Man implements covert devices to hack his air carrier. In response to Iron Man’s brazen distrust and deception, Captain America, after chastising him, does his own antithetical—contrastingly open and honest—research by physically breaking into a locked section of the airborne vehicle and locating definitive tangible evidence. And, of course, the talent-stacked team defeats their enemy, the devious demigod Loki, at the end of the story.
            In the course of the involved narrative—which includes an abundance of tense fight scenes, humorous jokes, and emotional backstory—twenty-first-century viewers are playing the part of their counterparts in the theaters of a long-lost Greece. There, gladiators and staged productions served as outlets for celebrities to exaggeratedly demonstrate their pain, despair, or triumph and enable fans to vicariously release their individual feelings (Tyson 206). Iron Man’s self-explanatory name; his up-to-date style choices and expensive attributes; his sleek metal suit; his aggressive outlook; and his derisive smirks make him as straightforwardly categorized as he is predictable and, therefore, reliable. Captain America’s eponymous title; his muscular physique; his bright, bold costume; his confident attitude; and his focused facial expression allow him to be a foil who is also plainly defined and understandable. Whether a moviegoer prefers the snarky Tony Stark or the ethical Steve Rogers, there is—depending on the perspective applied—a hotshot gladiator, actor, or wrestler in The Avengers to whom he or she can relate, an obvious good guy, a trustworthy good guy, emerging victorious from a battle against evil.
            Given the evident parallel between The Avengers and WWE, both of which are reminiscent of archaic Greek spectacle—incorporating either slaves and grotesque bloodiness or performers and casual relaxation—it is not a shock that the feat earned as much as it did at the box office. Structurally, the semiotics undergirding the sign system, the readable content, of the superheroes’ antics are those responsible for knockout rounds and historic Grecian revelry alike: personalized main characters behaving consistently and conquering a cowardly villain once and for all.  

Reader Response of Toni Morrison - Teaching Controversy

When it comes to teaching in our English Language Arts and Reading classrooms, reader response is probably the most practiced technique to creating literary analysis. In secondary English classrooms, teachers select texts that engage with a variety of controversial topics. From coming of age novels to texts about brutality, teachers are given the opportunity to discuss these matters with students in an environment where they gain their own voice through writing. Yes, teachers have overused reader response to distinguish textual meaning, however there is still some merit in reader response and teaching controversial novels. Based on Rosenblatt’s transactional theory, where the text and reader will each have a unique interaction with each other, journals allow students to experience extreme emotion through the work of Toni Morrison.

            Two novels that are widely used among American Studies literature and are banned in some districts are Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize wining American novelist. She is known for her epic themes, exquisite language, and African American characters, which are central to the narrative. Her novel, The Bluest Eye, teachers utilize reader response as a means to have the student react to their experience reading the graphic language. In the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 1993 issue, a 11^th/12 grade teacher describes her time teaching the novel and dealing with it’s controversy. In the novel, students are exposed to graphic sexual language and even a brutal rape between a father and daughter. Teachers, specifically English, have to be careful with the content they choose and the reception of the students/parents. In order to understand the student’s perspective of these sensitive topics, the teacher learned not only the maturity within her students, but their capacity to relate their emotions to the text. The Bluest Eye emphasizes American idealism versus harsh reality. With this in mind, students were able to respond to topics such as dreams, the abused becoming the abuser, disappointment, rape, and even the act of emotional love becoming only physical love.

 In Morrison’s Beloved, students are able to use reader response to not only make predictions, but to grapple with Morrison’s linguistic ability to relate to the past. In the 1998 NCTE issue, reader response was utilized in Morrison’s Beloved as a means to creating discussion among classrooms. Students utilized their journals to make reactions to their reading and ask questions they encountered with the reading. Again, students took notice of Morrison’s literary techniques and were able to construct a similar structure within her novel. To emphasize meaning, narratology is a form of structuralism, used by Morrison, which allows the reader to gain a unique meaning based on the character speaking in the novel. In all, through the use of reader response journals, teachers were able to derive classroom discussion based on her students findings.

Gaining a better understanding of a student’s perspective is crucial to a secondary English teacher. In general, teachers must be able to help their students and teachers need a baseline to what a student knows or doesn’t. Although reader response is used more nonsensically in a classroom, they still have a merit. English teachers strive to not only create literary scholars, but independent and self-reliant thinkers who employ language and literature to enrich their lives. Reader response journals are a great tool for engagement and allow for teachers to gain a sense of what their student’s interpretation is of the work.