n the first chapter, Darnton explores the folk tale with the argument that a full exploration of such tales gives insight into the social construction of reality and thought in previous generations and eras and we can thus explore better the vast differences between modern thought and thought from the Middle Ages. Darnton ridicules the psychoanalytic interpretations of folk tales offered by Bettelheim and Fromm. However he just glosses over the archtypal interpretations of Jung or the structural interpretations of Levi-Strauss. After pages and pages of half told folk tales he concludes that folk tales conveyed conventional wisdom to common folk in a time of great economic and social uncertainty. Life was fragile and this was reflected in these odd tales. Of course some tales have as the moral that we should be kind to strangers and other folk tales have as the moral that we should be careful around strangers, but what the heck, Darnton thinks there are lessons to be learned from them all. He observes that common sense varies from culture to culture and is basically a social construct. I am not sure if I totally agree with him. I would think in all cultures it is best not to argue with a drunk man who holds a gun. However, for some phenomena, Darnton may be correct, common sense differs from culture to culture and era to era. He does point out an observation from study of folk tales across Europe. He finds that Italian and French folk tales are more playful, full of trickstes who jest and humble the powerful; whereas German folk tales are more dark and more often violent. We are immediately struck by the weakness of Darnton's work, which is the issue of sampling. Does he select a random sample of such tales, or all tales, or just the ones he wishes to discuss? I found his arguement that for many peasants who toiled continually in the fields, that history was not conceived as a series of political events to which they were not privy. This is an interesting thought but I suspect that common villagers made up for this with a sense of seasonal history based on planting, harvesting, and storing crops; religious history based on multiple Saint days and other Christian holidays throughout the year; and personal history as one experiences births, marriages, childhoods, deaths in families and friends. Another interesting item from Darnton is that when someone is given a wish in a folk tale, they ask for food. He relates this to the lack of food during much of Europe's history. On this point, I think he wins.
The second chapter is an analysis of a printer's journal where he relates a story from his youth where he and other workers beat to death neighborhood cats. Darnton first puts this story in a context of general cruelty to animals, especially cats. However he then gives it a particular interpretation of social protest by young worker men against the rich employers, many of whom owned cats. He documents well the deterioration of the old guild system and the effect this had on the lowest level workers. Whereas I found his analysis of the killing of the cats to be somewhat of an economic statement during class-warfare, I wish Darnton had commented more on the sadistic cruelty of human beings, particularly males between 13-19.
The third chapter was one of my favorites, though far less dramatic than the first and second chapters. Darnton analyzes a description of a town procession written by an upper-middle class middle-ages male observer who put social annotations throughout the description. The desire of the middle class to emulate the upper class and find many social distinctions between themselves and the the lower classes is perfectly displayed here in this interesting case study.
The fourth chapter also analyzes the work of a single man, however this time it is the extensive files of a spy who maintained records on the intelligensia during the Enlightenment. One reason this chapter is interesting is that writters we now
The Great Cat Massacre Notes: The masters family believed that they had been be-witched and ordered their apprentices to rid of all the cats, they dumped sack-loads of half-dead cats into the courtyard and pronounced them guilty and read them their rights. (mental picture, so funny) It is so funny how bad fortune is automatically related to witchcraft, seems barbarous and the opposite of the Enlightenment. How is beating a cat half to death funny, they are helpless animals. The two apprentices…
Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb 1951 Color TV Introduced South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain 1952 Car Seat Belts Introduced The Great Smog of 1952 Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship Polio Vaccine Created Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25 1953 DNA Discovered First Playboy Magazine Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest Joseph Stalin…
mother was assaulted by Mr Neal, reinforcing the abuse that was suffered by Aboriginal women at the hand of white men who exploited their power. Mary refuses to work in the hospital and tells Neal to “go to hell!” consequently she is flogged with the “Cat-o’-nine-tails”. Such weapon is a symbol of convict oppression further demonstrating that Neal is out of touch with the fast moving modernisation of society. Mary like many was separated from her family and perceived as a “give girl” who was to be handed…
them during the Belgium control until 1961(Anderson, Belgium in Rwanda). The wealthier class, the Tutsi, became more powerful than the Hutu, who were considered the poor and unskilled labor class. In 1990, the Hutu-backed government authorized a massacre of hundreds of Tutsi (Anderson, Belgium in Rwanda). On April 6, 1994 the long time Hutu leader, Juvenal Habyarimana was traveling in a plane that was shot down. The new interim government started planning for the genocide of the Tutsi (Anderson…
reckless disregard for the rules of art, it was in fact his greatest triumph in the sculptural carving of space’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/turner.shtml In conclusion I think that Turners Slave Ship is hugely successful and achieves a great deal. It reaches out to the viewer and calls on them to reflect on the subject matter in all its raw and base unpleasantness. It is a moving work of art which was ground breaking for its time, controversial in both its content and in the way it broke…
positions, and emphasis on loyalty to family. | Maoism | Democratic centralism, responsibility of ruler to the people. Vision of ideal society based on self-reliance and struggle. Egalitarian social structure; mass line between rulers and subjects. | Great Leap Forward(1958-1966) | A utopian effort to transform China into a radical egalitarian society. Mainly economic and was based on 4 principles. 1) All-around development 2) Mass Mobilization-better motivation, harder, work, less unemployment 3) Political…
grew by leaps thanks to the Great Awakening. IDENTIFICATIONS: Great Awakening The Great Awakening was a religious revival held in the 1730's and 1740's to motivate the colonial America. Motivational speakers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield helped to bring Americans together. George Whitfield Whitefield came into the picture in 1738 during the Great Awakening, which was a religious revival that spread through all of the colonies. He was a great preacher who had recently been…
Kylee Luckett BIO 106 Dr. Harper 4/10/2012 “The World is Blue” Sylvia Earle Review and analysis by: Kylee Luckett “It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” -Albus Dumbledore They say only a few will ever speak loud enough to be heard over the other seven billion voices on the planet. Today someone is shouting. Screaming off of the pages of “The World is Blue” is Sylvia Earle…
Abattoir: a slaughterhouse; massacre Absinthe: wormwood liquor of a bright-green color Acciaccatura: grace note, an embellishing note usually written in smaller size Acedia: ennui; state of torpor or listlessness; spiritual apathy Acervuline: aggregated, heaped up, bundled, collected or localized Acidulous: somewhat acidic or sour in taste or manner; somewhat sarcastic Acolyte: ranked clergy member; assistant in liturgical rites Acoustic: of or relating to sound, the sense of hearing, or the…