Homo Homini Lupus
You've heard the phrase, "dog eat dog."Homo homini lupus is the Latin phrase for "man is wolf to man." This was Sigmund Freud's view of human behavior, which we glimpse in many not only in history but in dramatic pieces ancient or modern.
Much of drama, especially tragedy, but also comedy, is about human aggressiveness and failure. Human aggressiveness towards weaker or different people, or human failure to be liberated, perfect, happy, and so on, can fill up millions of books, but plays have a way of capturing our worst and best moments.
Read this excerpt from Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontent and write a 50-word comment on the exchange that humans make for civilization (i.e. what do we give up and what do we gain?). And finally explain how this leads us to watch drama (whether comedic or tragic).
posted by John Bailes at
Monday, December 04, 2006
8 Comments:
I think the exchange that humans make for civilization is just about anything. Alot of times people give up so much and they in return do not gain one thing. People are always thinking about their wants and not their needs. Civilization and Discontents has been wrote because today's society is not content with their life or the things they have. Things on the outside seem so good and sometimes too good to be true and that is why we as humans give up so easily and pay for consequences by not gaining anything. On the other hand, giving up a bad lifestyle or things that aren't good can usually lead to a better future and gaining alot more like respect which actually to me is alot more than gaining something you think you might want or need. Real life leads us as humans to be drawn into the drama in T.V., movies or plays, whether comedic or tragic. Alot of times people are guilty of gossip. Well, it is the same thing and interesting to most of society to watch something that is real or could possibly be real.- Jillian
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Anonymous, at December 04, 2006
Fred believes that mankind is agressive by nature. He thought that sexual desire and temptation were the main motivators for people. We suppress our naural agressiveness in order to function in society. Our sacrafice of what we truly desire, allows us to participate in modern society. We don't really get anything in return for this sacrafice other than not being further restricted in our actions. In actuality if we did not put down these feelings, we would be in prison; in an environment that is all about natural aggressiveness. This makes us watch drama because the people act out all the things we wish we were doing. We are so tame and restrained that we live through people on television and stage.
Matt H
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Anonymous, at December 04, 2006
We live in a field where the grass is green with envy. We're always wanting what we don't have, and our hearts are set on things that we don't need. Sexual desire and temptation are a natrual part of man. These things are not what make us so angry, but what the world has turned the idea of love into. Women will always be searching for Lloyd Dobbs (from film Say Anything), and men will always be looking for Pamela Anderson. This causes drama, for we are all trying to become that which we are not. We're all actors when it comes to love, and that is the comedy and tragedy of life.
-Ryan Darling
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Anonymous, at December 06, 2006
We are all ingrained with the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, but like Freud says, the golden rule “treat your neighbor as yourself” is unsurprisingly the actual opposite of the way society behaves. Nobody wants to be caught acting the natural but selfish way that we all behave so when we watch drama, it’s like being able to connect to people who are flawed out-loud. Perhaps people are drawn to drama because they feel comfortable with characters who are vulnerable and think the same way we do though we know it is “unacceptable.”
By
Unknown, at December 06, 2006
We as humans have developed into civilizations of the past couple thousands of years. Many people try to say that we would be better off without civilization, that man should live like animal out in nature. People say it would be better this way.
However, I think we can no longer comprehend what all that would mean. Today, the majority of the world lives in some form of civilization. Particularly in America, we had developed so far past the state of natural living that I doubt we could ever know enough about it to go back to the simpler time. It's hard to want to eat a cracker once you've tasted a cookie.
We obviously gain huge amounts from living in civilizations. In general, people live longer due to advances in medicine and in types of living. However, on the downside it seems man's thirst for violence rises as civilization does. I daresay that murders have increased 100 fold from the days where people lived in a feild working together to kill buffalo.
I seem to have expanded a little too much on this. So, I will end by saying the reason we watch drama both comedic and tragic is that we can see reproductions of the lives we lead and the world around us. Comedy makes us laugh at the bad things, and tragedy makes us realize they need to be fixed.
By
Tinamari, at December 06, 2006
We has humans have a desire to fit in, to belong but in this desire we give up a lot. We watch movies and because of what we see, all the sex and temptations, we allow that desire to grow and it leads us to believe that the grass is greener on the other side. When all we have to do is accept the life that the Lord has given us and live it to the best of our ability and we will see that our grass is green and healthy. MariaF
By
Anonymous, at December 08, 2006
my papers will not send sorry
Donna Pursley
December 12, 2006
English 1020
A Farce Written by Anton Chekhov
“The Bear” is a short play by Anton Chekhov. In the story, Mrs. Popov is pretending to grieve over her dead husband, but really cares nothing for him because he was very unfaithful. She is visited by a man who her husband owed money to. From their conversation, they fall in love with each other. This sounds almost like a romantic comedy, but the main characters are not evolved enough because in a romantic comedy, the couples have to persevere through situations. It is a farce which a comedy that has no one other purpose than to make the audience laugh. The characters make it a farce because of their overly passionate tendencies and lack of character evolution by the author.
Mrs. Popov’s fake mourning for her husband is very extreme. She has not left her house in the seven months since her husband pasted, and she will not see visitors. When a visitor would come to her, she would tell her servant to tell them that she was not home. Once a visitor does not take no as answer and pushes his way into her home, she pretends to contemplate moving to a convent. When she is mad, she is absolutely furious and tries to have a duel. The over exaggeration of her feelings makes the character seem funny.
The main characters are not evolved at all. They meet, have a fight, and fall in love in a time frame of maybe an hour. They do not overcome any kind of obstacle. There is not enough time. This makes it funny because it shows exactly how fast most people say that they are in love and how much they really know one another.
“The Bear” meets all the criteria for a farce. It does not have to be anything but funny. It does not have to be a long story or have highly developed characters. It just is funny because it is funny.
By
Anonymous, at December 12, 2006
William Faulkner writes many novels about families. He makes up Yoknapatawpha County, which is modeled after where he grew up. He understands the complexity of a person’s nature, and conveys this through his novels. He shows people for what they really are. Every one is confused and dysfunctional due to their confusion and lack of trust between the characters. One of his most notable novels that demonstrate a dysfunctional family is As I Lay Dying. This story is about a farming family taking their mother to be buried in Jefferson, Mississippi. The story is told through personal narratives by each character. Because Faulkner chose to tell the story by using narratives, he leaves each character stripped and naked. The reader can decide for themselves who the heroes and villains are without any help.
William Faulkner grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. He never went to high school let alone graduated college. He referred to himself as the oldest sixth grader that he had ever met. Faulkner actually never started out as writer. He was a historian. “The main source of his inspiration was not literature but the passionate history of the American South” (Dark in August, par 2). His passion for where he grew up was the reason he modeled a fictional county where most of his stories take place. He could easily relate to the area and the people in it. Most English teachers tell their students to write what they know which is exactly what Faulkner did, and he got a Nobel Prize for it. Faulkner died in the same area. Now, the University of Mississippi is converting his old house into a museum. This is what a man said after viewing Faulkner’s home. “It's everything like a Faulkner novel is; it's got a long driveway like his long sentences. What they see is an antebellum home that is in the same shape as it was when he died in '62” (Hicks, par 6). He definitely took his passion seriously because it shows up in almost every aspect of his life.
Every day there is confusion largely in part to misinterpretation. This book is the same. It can easily be misinterpreted. It is sometimes hard to keep which character said what. Confusion is also present with the characters. They easily get confused in their situations. Vardaman, the youngest child by Addie, confuses himself easily. At one point he thinks she is a fish that he caught, killed, and ate. Later in the story he believes that she is alive and cannot breathe in the coffin. Every one confuses Jewel for not caring about any one and being mean to their mother, but Jewel is simply misunderstood because he cares very much for his mother. He only shows it after she is dead. He even runs into a burning barn to save her body, risking his own life, and also he is the one that pulls the coffin out of the river. Jewel shows “human love and hatred to such a power that their normal receptacles no longer contain them” (Levinger, par 6). Most of Jewel’s actions happen through violence because that is what he relates to.
Darl is the most educated of the children. He tries to question things. He wants to know what death is, and what the purpose of life is. He even tries to understand the other characters, but he doesn’t really trust any of them especially Jewel. He states that Jewel’s mother is a horse because Jewel seemed to care about his horse more than his own mother (Faulkner, 95). When things go wrong, it is always Jewel’s fault. Trust is what holds families together. Because of his family’s mistrust in him, Jewel trusts no one. He does not trust his neighbors or the people in town. Dewey Dell, who is pregnant, is only daughter of Addie and trusts pretty much every one. Her trust is misplaced in a pharmacist, who rapes her. After her rape, she reflects the human heart in conflict with itself. It must struggle with the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed-love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice (William, par 4). She ultimately ends up trusting no one after that.
Faulkner shows the southern family as a jumble of confused, mistrusting people, who only share a common heritage. A family is the ultimate dysfunctional unit due to misunderstandings. Through a family’s misunderstandings if left alone, a lack of trust is formed. Once a lack of trust has been gained, family members begin to confuse each other’s actions for forms of love or of hatred. A relationship built with out trust ends up as little more than an acquaintance in the end because one partner will know nothing about the other which happens in story of As I Lay Dying.
Works Cited
“Dark in August: intellectual in Yoknapatawpha. (1992 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference).” The Economist (US) 324.n7772 (August 15, 1992): 76(1).
Hicks, L. Wayne. “Walking in the footsteps of William Faulkner.” Denver Business Journal 51.17 (Dec 17, 1999): 18A.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Vintage International, 1930.
Levinger, Larry. “Prophet Faulkner: ignored for much of his own time and then embalmed in dignity by the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner spoke to the violence and disorder of our time ...” The Atlantic Monthly 285.6 (June 2000): 76-8,80+.
“William Faulkner, past and future.(Lexington)(Column).” The Economist (US) 344.n8033 (Sept 6, 1997): 30(1).
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Anonymous, at December 12, 2006
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