Final Essay

Rachel Noel
English 495ESM
Professor Wexler
December 10, 2010

Globalization in Slumdog Millionaire
The disparity between social classes exists everywhere, but with an estimated population of 1.2 billion, India is the second most populous country in the world, and it is therefore subject to some remarkable disparities between the rich and the poor. Along with these discrepancies in the social class comes the idea of globalization, the process by which society and its components are integrated through a global network, driven by a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural, and political factors. The people of Mumbai live in extreme conditions one way or the other it would seem, but both facets of the social hierarchy are affected by globalization; that is to say, the American culture is prevalent in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, exposing the acculturation of the Indian people to American culture via American products.
Evident from the beginning of the movie is the disparity between social classes in India, where the rich benefit from American-made products while the poor suffer in inhumane conditions. Jamal and Salim live in a high-population ghetto, or slum, as is implied by the sheer number of people in the streets and further evidenced when they escape terrorists at the beginning of the film, flitting through back alleys and escaping into a milling cluster of people on the other side. This instance goes to show just how many people in Mumbai there are, and how many of them are suffering from poverty, forced to live in a ghetto with poor sanitation and overcrowding. However, not all people in the country live in such conditions; the audience sees examples of those more fortunate in passing, high contrasts to the life Jamal lives. For example, Jamal and his brother steal from a rich family, so evidenced by the food they eat and the son in the family’s hefty weight, on a train by sneaking in through their window to steal food. Other wealthy individuals dress the part, sometimes in what look to be Armani suits, and ride in American-made cars. Bearing that in mind, and speaking to the idea of globalization in Mumbai, many of the individuals in the film who are wealthy display their affluence via American products.
Americanized wealth in the film takes on many forms. Amitabh Bachchan, a well-known actor from Mumbai, is shown in a series of short clips to be an Americanized movie star, complete with American cop clothing and aviator sunglasses. Javed the crime lord first appears in the back of a Ford car driving through the square of Jamal’s home. Maman, the man who raises orphans to beg and steal, first appears to Jamal and Salim with brandless bottles of soda, the unmistakable shape of which distinguishes them as Coca-Cola bottles. Prem, host of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” dresses in similar clothing to his American counterpart, Regis Philbin. As a teenager, Salim owns a Colt, a gun produced by a United States manufacturer. When Latika lives with Javed, a plethora of items in their home are entirely westernized, complete with GE stainless steel refrigerator and stove, as well as a wide-screen TV. These examples of how people live richly in the country speaks to the effects of globalization: what would their lives be like without American products?
Ash Amin, in his article titled “Regulating Economic Globalization” explains opinions of globalization being divided along distinctive ideological and interpretive lines. For the one group, those of Neo-liberal opinion, “negative outcomes are the product of insufficient market freedom, that is, incomplete market-driven globalization”, which calls for “the total freedom of factor markets, free trade and market extensions” and so on (218). The other group, he contends, blames “neo-liberal policies or unbridled global capitalism for the increase in inequality and vulnerability” (218). The first group focuses on adjustment policies on governments has enforced unemployment, investment blight, poverty, and indebtedness, while the other sees the problem stemming from rising inequality, the exploitive practices of transnational organizations, the bias of the free market towards the most powerful organizations, et al (218). Though it is difficult to say what precisely has caused the socioeconomic problems in Mumbai as displayed in the movie, it can only be presumed that both factors have had a hand in it. For example, the audience comes to see the involvement of the police as a bad thing. Despite the fact that they are a governmental agency, the police are corrupt, irreverent, lazy, and mean; as the only real representation of the government presented in the movie, the audience is left to question what impression this sort of group leaves on the social class. This draws upon the ideals of the first group, who argues that the government has the most significant influence on poverty, unemployment, and other factors that influence the social classes. The second group has a valid argument too, for many transnational organizations such as Coca-Cola and Ford are present in Mumbai, both of which are hugely powerful organizations in America and can only be more powerful in Mumbai due to the disparate economy.
So there are obvious implications behind the power of the media in globalization, and all products in the film must have some kind of sway over the culture in this fashion. This is obvious in the movie in a multitude of ways, not the least of which being the country’s fascination with “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” The show is American in origin, and practically duplicated for Indian television, but the people of Mumbai are eager to snap up the “exotic”: in other words, American-made things. Though Amin’s article is only a single observation on the reasons behind globalization, Thom Hartmann, in his article “Globalization is Killing the Globe: Return to Local Economies”, speculates about transnational organizations in much the same way. He says, “The transnational corporations benefiting from globalization are also, in most cases, the transnational corporations that own our media”, once again enforcing the idea that transnational corporations not only benefit from globalization, but goes on to say that those organizations own the media. This could contribute to the fact that American-made products have the sway they do in the culture; those powerful organizations help to assimilate the Indian culture into the American culture, benefiting from the merge because of how those corporations sell their products. Hartmann even goes so far as to say that “globalization is the villain here, and one that needs to be taken in hand and brought under control quickly if we don't want to see virtually the nations of the world end up subservient to corporate control”. This is definitely true in the case of the individuals in the movie, for it is shown that even the almighty American dollar in and of itself has a firm grasp on the economy of Mumbai, as is evidenced by the scene in which Jamal recalls giving a 100 dollar bill to a blind childhood friend.
A depressing note about Slumdog Millionaire is it seems that, whether or not the people of Mumbai are rich or poor, and whether or not they themselves own American-made products, they are subject to the acculturation of their own culture into an American one. These people watch “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, they drive American-made cars, and they even drink soda from an American manufacturer. Unwittingly, these people are subjugated to the pressure of globalization, assimilated bit-by-bit into a world that increasingly resembles their own.

You May Say I'm a Dreamer...

Through our discussion of the role media plays in the classroom last week, I was somewhat appalled to hear that someone thinks that there is "no John Lennon of our generation". This is a very bold statement to make, in my mind. In a very literal sense, there is, of course, no John Lennon because no one individual can precisely replicate another. It is true that few singer-songwriters have had as profound an influence on our generation as Lennon did on his, but to expect that there will be an individual that represents the same sort of sentiments for our generation is inconceivable. This is a different time, and with the advancement of our culture has come a tremendous number of changes regarding our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. John Lennon would not be the same if he had been a part of our generation rather than his own, as he would speak to different facets of our communities and lives.

If what was meant by this statement was that there is no inspirational figurehead of our generation, then I beg to differ. This contention was brought up seemingly as a part of a larger argument that there is no one out there to challenge the conventions of our society, which makes me raise my hackles even more; how profound must an individual's ideas be to be considered a "John Lennon"? To what end must they unite and inspire a nation? Consider individuals such as Ursula Le Guin, a woman who considers herself an anthropologist... of societies that have never existed. Similarly, consider her book The Left Hand of Darkness, in which there is a species that changes gender and places no emphasis on conventions of one's sex. Is this not good enough? Does it not challenge society enough? Is its statement not bold, or its message meaningless?

I also have considered what it means to be a "John Lennon", and have found myself consistently stumped. I can't put a single, solid definition to what it means, so does that mean that it is an undefinable thing to be him, or is it simply that we can never hope to achieve the same amount of success through an individual's actions? Regardless, I believe that the claim is untrue. There are a plethora of individuals who contribute to society in unique ways and have broken conventions of society enough times to be considered as much an inspiration as he.

(This isn't to say I don't love John Lennon, the Beatles, and everything he and they have accomplished, but someone's got to play the Devil's advocate.)

Myth & Media

After watching the mythology presentations in our class, I have done a lot of thinking about the concepts presented in mythos and their relation to the modern day. What I have concluded is that many of the themes discussed in class are present in various facets of the media. For example, the trickster figure is a common trope in comics, movies, and even televised series. Stories make use of the trickster figure at various points, often for comedic purposes.

The female divine, too, can be seen in many aspects of the media, but is more specific to celebrities who bill themselves with a particular theme in mind. The male divine, though not quite of such epic and religious proportion as depicted in myth, is nevertheless present in modern media. Even sacred places have their, well... place. Those that might contest the relevance of myth in present day have only to look to the media to see examples of classic mythical figures.

Myth & Culture

For as long as I can remember, I have read. Books, magazines, brochures, comics -- so long as there is text, I am content to read it. I have gladly read and re-read stories over the years, sometimes starting a book again just after I've read it for the first time, certain I may have missed something. But of all those many tomes and texts, my very favorite type of literature is fantasy and myth. Something has always appealed to me about creation myths in specific, though I couldn't say just what it is about them I so enjoy. I like learning about myths from different cultures, too, as so many different cultures embrace unique and fascinating variants on the origin of man, how the sun came to sit in the sky, and so on. It makes me wonder about how those different myths come to define specific aspects of the culture and how they may have affected modern day societies.

Myth-ink Link

Many people regard myths as a thing of the past -- stories that are in relative conjunction with other legends and stock fantasy. However, myths are relevant to the modern day. For example, many people see graveyards as bad places to be, and perhaps even go so far as to associate them with bad luck, though there is only superstition to dictate such a feeling. As a culture, we associate graveyards with the dead (and rightly so), yet many old traditions from multiple different cultures suggest that the spirits of the dead are present in such a place, and that may be the reason why we, a culture otherwise ostensibly devoid of mythos, believe that graveyards are inherently bad places to be.

Superstition plays an unquestionable role in all of this, as well. If we did not believe that negative things would come as a result of our not observing a certain tradition or unspoken rule, we would most likely let a superstition, or myth, fade into obscurity.

Bad Poetry

As an individual who occasionally gives in to some mysterious whim and writes some potentially poor or pretentious poetry, I feel a little presumptuous speculating about what makes bad poetry so unbearably… bad. The World English Dictionary’s definition of poetry is “literature in metrical form; verse”, which gives us plenty of insight as to what poetry is, literally (no pun intended), but does not give us any idea of what constitutes good poetry, or what we should look for to determine poetry’s worth.

I surmise, then, that bad poetry lacks originality. It does not inspire the reader to imagine any circumstance that they have not already considered, nor do they envision a setting they have not already encountered. Bad poetry is matter-of-fact and practical. It reuses age-old phrases and images that not only fail to stimulate the reader, but also cause them to think the piece trite. Above all else, bad poetry has no imagination.

Heart's Desire

O, fickle heart, it has e'er been thou
That has led me astray, and so sweetly
Cajoled, lured me to this state wherein
I have lost all my control, completely.
Lost my logical sense of right and wrong
And lost all of my control completely.
How do I rebel against thee? Thou'rt
Not of a substance which I can defend
Against, nor art thou conscious choice; naught can
Come of it but unfortuitous end.
No simple thing to resist, yet I must,
Or I shall face unfortuitous end.
So ensorcelled by your lies have I been,
And in so, tempted to do wayward sin.

Riptide

The trepidatious white foam of the tide
Reminds me there is infinitely more to me
Inside.
A concept adrift on currents presently,
The I of I swam out too far and died,
Henceforth to be washed up
On the other side.
A place far across the sea.

How is it that the me of me came to be
Sans compass, navigation,
No stars or iron with which to guide
Or plot my course?
It was nature's judicious
Show of force,
That which the tremulous foam belied.
I found myself trying to rely
On instinct, but to no avail.
The "why" of it is less form than function.

To the credit of the tide
It has taught me
I must come to see
The I of I, the me of me.

Poetry Analysis: Robert Frost

Renowned as one of the greatest American poets, Robert Frost is a literary icon celebrated by poetry enthusiasts and scholars the world over. One of Frost’s greatest poems, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” conjures up a veritable plethora of images, from the peaceful, wintry landscape to the darkly ominous deep woods. Many scholars interpret the poem as a nod to the danger of distraction and the press of obligations on a man’s conscience, and yet others read into it for its various and sundry interpretations relating to transcendence, mysticism, and religion, but it was the inscrutable John Ciardi who “first unsettled a great many poetry-lovers with his analysis of Robert Frost’s poem” in 1958, asserting that “the dark and the snowfall symbolize a death-wish, however momentary” (440). His irrefutable view of the poem revolutionized the way that many individuals now approach it.

The death-wish interpretation is based largely on the suggestive nature of the poem, and there is an unmistakable air of somberness throughout. Though the beginning lines are rather ambivalent, based mostly on the narrator’s observation of the landscape and the falling snow, it soon turns to darker things. “The darkest evening of the year” in line 8 may be a reference to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year (and thereby the longest night), but it also conjures up an image of danger. The distracted narrator, no matter his intentions, is still subject to the bitter cold, and winter days are short. Stopping for too long in the snow-laden forest would inevitably mean death. Even though phrases such as “easy wind and downy flake” and “lovely, dark and deep” summon up the image of a peaceful landscape, the tone that the poem takes on in the last few lines are almost as cold as the snow the speaker is riding in. "But I have promises to keep," he says, as if awakening from his reverie of the first three stanzas of the poem, "and miles to go before I sleep". Sleep can be interpreted a number of ways, but in this instance, it likely represents a symbol of death, meaning that the speaker has obligations to fulfill before he can rest with finality.

The title itself even gives some indication of the death-wish. It is no mistake that Frost chose the word “stopping”, though he could have chosen a word like “hesitating”, or even “pausing”, which would ultimately lend the poem a completely different tone. As it stands, however, there is ostensible hesitation, and the temptation to stop and rest. As Ciardi puts it, there is an impulse buried within the poem, “hunger for final rest and surrender that a man may feel” (440). With the sense that there is more to his trek than simply a naturalist’s admiration of the surrounding area, but rather that the weight of obligations lie, largely unspoken, on his mind, the speaker can be assumed to be a a more morbid and introspective individual than initially suspected.

In his article “The ‘Death Wish’ In ‘Stopping By Woods’”, James Armstrong says that he himself “heard Mr. Frost himself at a public lecture pooh-pooh the death-wish interpretation”, but that this interpretation is not without merit; “if we feel obligated to accept Frost’s disavowal as the final word, then there is no more to be said; but we need not do so” (440). It is ultimately the audience that interprets a poem, regardless of how a writer intends it, though Armstrong’s further interpretation of “Stopping By Woods” coincides with Ciardi’s views of the poem. Armstrong speaks to the idea of the death-wish when he addresses the tone of the poem, saying that “the association of death with dark, with winter, and with snow [is not] an unnatural or novel one” (445). Armstrong also references Thomas Mann and Thomas Lovell Beddoes, both of whom have relied on the symbolic significance of snow to represent death in their own writing. Through Armstrong’s interpretation, Ciardi’s impressions hold true; that the death-wish is a significant facet of the otherwise innocuous poem.

The commonly-held belief is not the interpretation of all who read it, and as William H. Shurr asserts in his article “Once More to the ‘Woods’: A New Point of Entry into Frost’s Most Famous Poem”, “whatever associations with death the [poem] may have, they are also appropriate to another area of experience… a more problematical aspect of the death-wish interpretation is the existence in the poem of a concrete symbol of death” (586). While it is true that there is no one thing in the poem that points specifically to a solid symbol of death, many images are indicative of it, as with the dark woods and the press of obligations. In Shurr’s analysis of the poem’s structure, he finds that “line 13, ‘the woods are lovely, dark and deep,’ is central… there is only one assertion in the poem about the subject most under consideration” (587). Following his logic, the narrator’s attention to the woods is the actual subject of the poem, and though the unknown lies within them, there is nothing about them that unequivocally implies death. Shurr goes on to say that “the speculation that this resistance is primarily to the lure of death is finally inadequate… if death appears in the poem, it is represented by the ‘frozen lake’” (587). The lake, though it helps to paint a picture of the scenery, does not imply death strongly enough to be considered the only symbol in the poem that could be construed with such a meaning. Though Shurr makes valid points about the structure and tone of the poem, Armstrong’s affirmation of Ciardi’s interpretation easily convinces readers of the reality behind the rhyme.

Robert Frost himself denied the potential death-wish interpretation of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, but Armstrong encourages readers to challenge the assertions made by poets themselves; after all, Frost admitting that his poem embodies a death-wish would cause readers to question his motives, and “few men would willingly put themselves in the position of having to answer such a question” (440). Individuals who read the poem for themselves cannot help but see the images clearly presented there. The snow, the dark, and the unspoken obligations on the narrator’s mind are all irrefutable indications of the true meaning behind the poem.


Works Cited
Armstrong, James. "The "Death Wish" in "Stopping By Woods"" College English 25.6 (1964): 440+. JSTOR. Web. 13 Sept. 2010. .
Shurr, William H. "One More to the "Woods": A New Point of Entry into Frost's Most Famous Poem." The New England Quarterly 47.4 (1974): 584-94. JSTOR. Web. 13 Sept. 2010. .

Musical Meaning

Last week's class presented an interesting issue associated with poetry; lyrics and song. Though there is a comprehensible connection between lyrics and poetry, and some songs resemble traditional facets of the poetic form such as metre and cadence, many songs and lyrics are distinct from conventional poetry.

As we examined the lyrics of The Smiths' "Ask" before we listened to the song itself, trying to decipher both the meaning behind the words and the music that accompanied them, so do I ask you now to first read the lyrics, and then listen to, Cream's "White Room". 

"White Room" lyrics

What do you think of when you read these lyrics?  Do they come together to create a comprehensible story or image, or do individual lines create their own images?  Alternately, do you think there are no images presented here, and the words are simply arbitrary?  Do the lyrics evoke any emotions, or are they simply incomprehensible strings of words?



After listening to the lyrics and the music together, what is your impression of the song as a whole?  What does the music lend to the piece?

Introduction

My name is Rachel.  I fear that anything that I have to tell you about myself, aside from that one immutable fact, is probably extraneous to the purpose of this blog.

I feel that media technology has, or can have, a multitude of different roles when it comes to teaching, and it is truly at the discretion of the operative in charge to determine to what end they utilize it.  For example, a teacher that wishes students to find articles from an online database to study can easily do so through many programs now available from universities and libraries worldwide, though this hardly seems the most innovative use of an ever-expanding, multi-purpose tool.  There are almost boundless uses for the internet, and countless items to be found within (or is it on?) for the purpose of teaching.  In my own experience, it seems that teachers less familiar with the internet tend to assign obscure, confusing assignments that require locating arcane texts online, and those familiar with internet news sources, databases, and otherwise often assign work that is relevant and interesting both.

To wit, I have never kept a blog for a class before...

T-e-s-t-i-n-g

Look, look, I'm a blog post!