Art can be shocking and disorientating, provoking thought by stepping off canvases and breaking out of marble shells. Audiences in the 21st Century have come to expect increasingly abstract and personalised viewpoints: we can accept mediums as diverse as human bodies, lights, sound, animals, installations, film, nudity, violence and photography.
The barriers between artist, audience and artwork are also continually traversed. This is especially obvious in the field of installations and performance art, which use touch, sound, taste and mental fantasy–beyond mere visual observation–to reflect each artist’s view on modernity and the world they inhabit.
Above: “Love’s Paradox” by Damien Hirst (http://www.heraldsun.com.au)
Yayoi Kusama (1929 - Present) is an avant-garde Japanese artist and precursor of pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements. In the mid-1970s, Kusama voluntarily checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill. She now she lives at the psychiatric hospital by night and works in her studio (a short walk away) by day.
Below: art by Yayoi Kusama (http://uk.phaidon.com)
The first striking thing about her work is the abundance of polka dots on every type of surface, walls, floors, canvases (some of them as long as 30 feet), mirrored rooms and even naked assistants. Suffering from nervous disorders and hallucinations since childhood, the vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets," as she calls them, are taken directly from her hallucinations where items (like polka dots, flowers, patterns or colours) would compulsively and aggressively multiply, alarming and overwhelming her sense of physical reality. In numerous art installations, stark white, moulded phallic protrusions seem to grow out of, cover and completely consume items like shoes, boats, chairs and ladders.
Performance art and public happenings are also a significant part of Kusama’s work. She often invites public participation and advertises in newspapers and magazines promoting these happenings in public spaces, where she would paint polka dots on these volunteers.
Her neurosis has given her a type of vision, and her art is almost inseparable from her individual experience. By transcribing her own mental version of reality into a physical realm, it is as journalist David Pilling remarks:
Image source: http://www.cindrea.nl
Performance art, involving a higher degree of unpredictable interaction, shifts art from a static teaching tool to a highly interpretive dialogue between performer and observer. One of the most well-known performance artists is Marina Abramović (1946- Present), famous for using her body as her primary medium and subject to explore physical, emotional and imaginative limits. Considered the grandmother of performance art, her inclusion of observers and outside participants has pioneered a new notion of identity. Though disturbing and seemingly sensational on the surface, her performance art becomes the opposite of sensationalism or exhibitionism–a gesture of self-erasure.
In Rhythm 0 (1974), one of her best-known performances, Abramović placed 72 objects on a table, ranging from those that were harmless or could cause pleasure (a feather, wine and a flower) to those that could inflict pain (whips, knives and a loaded gun on a table). For six hours the artist allowed random members of the audience to manipulate her body any way they chose.
Image source: http://www.theguardian.com
The self-erasure of the artist, with her body as a passive canvas, explored the limits of the relationship between a vulnerable performer and an active audience. The resulting violence reveals the casual aggression a human subject can inflict when protected from social consequences.
Often, Art no longer holds artist and audience at a safe, protected distance. It invites the physical inhabitation of a mental scape, including more invasive physical manipulations (as in Abramović’s use of her body), creating dynamic, multi-sensory and often destabilising experiences.
The Politics of the Outsider in Ken Kwek’s Unlucky Plaza (2014)
Nearly halfway during Ken Kwek’s film Unlucky Plaza (2014), Sky (played by Adrian Pang), a wealthy motivational speaker, references the character Shylock in his fear and frustration against a ruthless loanshark (played by Guo Liang) that has come to collect a bad debt. This will doubtlessly remind audiences of Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice and of the Jewish moneylender who demands ‘a pound of flesh’ off Antonio if he cannot pay off his debt. In the play, Shakespeare positions Shylock as an outsider in Venetian society, a character whose unsavoury dealings with money and payment earn him contempt and scorn with the other characters. Couple this with the fact that Shylock is a Jew living on the fringes, both politically and economically, in a Christian society, and Shylock becomes a reviled symbol of antisocial cupidity and unchecked materialism.
Kwek’s film uncannily places its main character, Onassis Hernandez (played by Epy Quizon) as an outsider in Singaporean society. He is a Filipino man who has a son from a failed marriage to Cindy, a Singaporean. As the film begins, we learn that he is about to be evicted by his landlady for not being able to pay the new rent rate for his flat. It turns out that he is the owner of a small café in Lucky Plaza (a place which has become famously associated with Filipinos living in Singapore) selling Filipino cuisine. Onassis is in dire straits as the café business is failing due to a food scandal involving a salmonella outbreak years ago.
From the outset, it is clear that Kwek centers the human drama of the film on the relationship between Onassis and his son Popoy (played by Christian Wong). Eager to provide a better life for Popoy in developed Singapore, Onassis tries his best to make ends meet, growing increasingly frustrated at each turn when his money runs out and his application for a Singaporean IC gets rebuffed by the authorities. There is great potential for Kwek to utilize the outsider figure of Onassis to probe the failings of society through a trenchant social critique of how the marginalized are slighted in affluent Singapore.
However, Onassis’ humanity is partially denied to him through the film’s cynical bartering of stereotypes of the outsiders in our society: Onassis’ cultural heritage is (predictably) reduced to a sentimental backstory of selling adobo, Manila is painted by Onassis to be a place of inefficiency and corruption, and there is the somewhat uncharitable reference by Sky to a hostage situation in the Philippines turning into a soap opera. As if to drive home the point, Onassis’ assistant at his café is a PRC worker, and Onassis implies at one point that the salmonella outbreak could have been caused by a mainland Chinese cook because they (the Chinese) put dangerous chemicals into their food all the time. One might argue that Kwek plays up these stereotypes for dramatic effect and lighthearted comic relief, but these clichéd, one-dimensional representations of Filipinos and Chinese people reduce to some degree our identification with Onassis’ struggle and deflect our attention away from problematic societal attitudes towards foreign workers which cause his desperation and disenfranchisement.
Much of the best moments in Unlucky Plaza come from how Kwek uses Onassis’ narrative to expose the insecurities and hypocrisies of the other characters. Although Sky uses his motivational seminars to harangue his audience, preying on their desire to get rich quick, he himself is revealed to be nothing more than a fraudulent poseur as he gets into trouble with a Chinese loanshark syndicate for borrowing an extravagant amount of money. His wife Michelle (played by Judee Tan) is a disgruntled teacher who dreams of escape from her loveless marriage and the trauma of losing her child. The illicit nature of her desires is emphasized in an unsubtle sexual scene involving her pastor Tong Wen (played by Shane Mardjuki). The film reveals the unbridgeable gap between the public and private personas of these characters, highlighting that it is precisely this gap that structures their neuroses and antisocial drives.
Caught between their desires and the need to maintain a veneer of respectability, they turn towards criminality: Sky borrows money illegally and abets the loanshark in acts of vandalism against the house he needs to sell, Michelle heartlessly cheats Onassis of ten thousand dollars which she needs to escape with Tong Wen, and the pastor poses as a property agent to carry out the scam against Onassis. Kwek here indicts not only his characters for their thoughtlessness and selfishness, but also the larger society for its easy glorification of wealth and insubstantial flashiness, and its various hypocrisies which lie at the heart of its political and economic structures. Read in this way, each character in the film becomes an outsider through his or her straddling the boundaries between socially-sanctioned and illicit behaviours and desires. It is in these moments that the film handles satire and social commentary with a deft touch, allowing the audience to look into the emptiness that the characters carry within themselves.
However, it is Onassis the biggest outsider who commits the transgressive act of kidnapping Sky, Michelle, Tong Wen and the loanshark, demanding a helicopter to take Popoy and him out of Singapore. Similar to Shylock, Onassis intends to exact his own ‘pound of flesh’, or hand of each of his hostages, if the police do not meet his demands. Onassis’ act ironically brings to light Michelle’s relationship with Tong Wen, uncovering the layers of deception at the heart of Sky and Michelle’s failed marriage. Kwek brilliantly positions Onassis’ kidnapping as a way in which uncomfortable truths are exposed, not only with respect to Michelle’s infidelity, but also the xenophobic tendencies of Singaporeans towards outsiders: Onassis’ café in Lucky Plaza is wrecked by an angry mob incensed by his actions. The unsettling role of the outsider is displayed here, as he or she is able to destabilize the norms of society and reveal ugly attitudes and truths which normally lie hidden underneath its façade.
Viewing the film, one ultimately feels that if Kwek had taken his material further in this direction, a more socially observant film could have emerged. However, Unlucky Plaza is unfortunately let down by an ending that unrealistically resolves almost all contradictions which trap Onassis in the first place. His erstwhile vulgar and demanding landlady offers him the old rent rate if he surrenders, and his hostages save his life when he is about to surrender. More implausibly, Onassis is only jailed for a short period of time for kidnapping (a capital offence in Singapore) and business in his café picks up after media publicity. The film even stages a talk show where Onassis, Sky and Michelle come together to discuss their experience, marital friction between the latter two seemingly resolved. If the philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek is right in claiming that cinema stages fantasy for its audience, then the ending of Unlucky Plaza depicts a Singapore which has accepted and integrated the outsider who has, in the past, rocked the foundations of its social security. By making its main character wealthy, allowing him to succeed in Singapore’s capitalist economy, the film shores up and leaves intact the structures of society which it had somewhat ventured to critique earlier on, reconciling all tensions and frustrations which made Onassis such a compelling character.
And yet, Onassis’ application for a Singaporean IC is still pending when the film ends. Kwek leaves this issue hanging, as if to bring up once again Onassis’ unresolved status as outsider. For us, it is through this gap in the film that we are left to ponder on what this film could have potentially been, had Kwek followed through on the subversive potential which the outsider brings to our sense of identity and consciousness, both personally and politically.
words by: Ian Tan
We couldn’t decide which trailer to choose, so we decided to share the link of both instead! Watch the trailers of Unlucky Plaza here: the first brings out its dark comedy and the second highlights the dramatic and suspenseful nature of the film and the issues it deals with.
“Gather around, I’ll tell you a story.” Drawn by these seven magical words, a small huddle of children creep forward, wide-eyed in their curiosity. Let’s sit with the children for a while – draw closer, the wind is loud and the fire is going strong. It’s alright, the children won’t notice our presence, they are captured by their grandfather’s tale.
“I was a sailor once, when I was young. Ah, but that was such a long time ago – I was a sailor when I met your grandma, as a matter of fact, but that’s not a story for today.
“This happened before I met her, anyway. We were coming home, almost in our country’s waters, when a storm shook. Nothing we couldn’t handle, o’course, the Taygeta was built better’n that, she’s a stout boat, but some men got mighty scared that they wouldn’t be going back to their wives after all.
“Well, we made it out alright. When we checked the navigation, however, we were lost, blown off course and we didn’t know how to get back. The captain puttered around below deck, tried to find our way, but the storm had messed around with our equipment and barely anything worked right.
“Praying must have worked, because we came across a small bay. In order to anchor the ship we needed deeper waters, so we went around the bay, and that’s when we saw them, on the rocks.”
Here one of the children pipes up, one of the older children, but full of active imagination. “Mermaids, Grandpa?” His question is met with hissed shushes, but we smile because we know better; that a child’s imagination is bright and innocent and should be encouraged.
His grandfather’s eyes darken. “Child, if there is one thing I never want to see again, it’s mermaids. Vicious, heartless, child-drowners, them.” He spits, disgusted, into the fire, and continues.
“At first, we thought them harmless. Just a bunch of women swimming, that was all. A little dangerous, perhaps, but they seemed to know what they were doing. The moment they spotted us, though, a collective shriek rose up, and they dove beneath the waves.
“We thought we’d scared them away, but no. A moment later, they resurfaced and clambered onto the rocks, and that’s when we realized – instead of legs, they had fish-tails, scales sparkling in the sunlight. They weren’t all fish, a couple were seahorse-tails, snake-tails, even a small shark.
“They smiled at us, bared their sharp teeth. We tried to turn away, but then they began singing, and it was like nothing I’d ever heard. Their song was beautiful, but terrifying and deadly all at once, and we all knew without a doubt that those sirens intended to captivate us and lure us to our deaths.”
Hear the creak of footsteps behind us, see the children turning, faces dismayed as they know what their father will say.
“Stop your nonsense tales, Father,” the young man admonishes gruffly, “they are not true and you are scaring the children.” “But, Papa!” A clamour of voices rise, their little owners eager to hear of the sirens and their grandfather’s no doubt daring escape. Their mother arrives to back them up, placing a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“They are children, they dream and fear well. Let them have their story.” Their grandfather’s tale is over, however – he gathers the smallest child onto his lap. “It is late, I shall not bore you. I saw a mean old bobcat the other day…”
Their grandfather’s story ends here. But what of their father? A fisherman by trade, he knows the great watery rage that is the sea. We will follow him outside, to the moon-washed beach. He’s troubled, and rightly so. Business has not been good recently, and providing for his wife, seven children, and his father is growing ever harder. He has not said anything to his family, they would get worried. He can almost see his wife, worried and chiding, “Lachlan, you should have said so earlier. I would have done what I could.”
Small footsteps patter up the stretch of sand towards us, a small cry of pain uttered as the child steps on a stray pebble. Lachlan spins around. It is his smallest child.
“Ríonach, my love, what are you doing out here?” He bends down, arms outstretched. “Mama told me to come get you,” she gasps, stopping briefly to catch her breath, plump hands reaching out to him, still a distance away from him.
“I’d like a little time to myself,” he tells her, and that’s when she appears to slip on the rocks, although they are not wet at all – there is a splash, and a wail, and he lunges for her, but his child, his darling, she is gone. Lachlan springs to the water’s edge, and he hears soft laughter on the wind. He stares at the sea, bewildered and horrified, and when his gaze passes briefly over you, you can almost feel this father’s fright and anger. Where is Ríonach?
Hours pass, spent searching the seas and diving, and Lachlan’s family, with the exception of his father, come out to help. Voices fill the night, but still no Ríonach. Eventually, they have to admit defeat, and they return home.
His father glances at him knowingly. “You can’t find her. She’s been taken, further and deeper than you and your little fishing boat could ever reach.” It takes all of Lachlan’s willpower not to rush over and shake his father until his teeth rattle in his skull and demand how he can get his child back. “I told you,” he continues, “they’ll do anything they can to get their hands on a child to turn into one of them.”
Lachlan glances around helplessly, eyes settling pleadingly on his wife. Sionann will know what it takes to calm him, to assure him that everything will be alright – but she is looking equally lost, eyes drifting back and forth as though she will find Ríonach hiding in a corner, ready to jump out at them. No, we cannot help, the child is far beyond our reach.
The family drifts on in a daze, unable to comprehend the loss of their youngest. Lachlan, especially, because she was so close and he could have caught her. Sionann has started leaving the children in their grandfather’s care and wandering down to the beach, his father reports, but that’s understandable. The children are the most affected, all of them refusing to go near the water.
Lachlan has started blaming his wife, just a little bit. Of all the people she had to send out for him, did it have to be little Ríonach? Could strong Aidan not have done? Or Muirenn, the strongest swimmer? He casts angry glances in her direction occasionally, but she appears not to have noticed.
This afternoon, the sun beats heavily down on Lachlan’s back. He’s back early, more so than usual, because the catch has not been good. That is alright, because in a few days the fish will be more abundant.
Sionann is not at home. The children tell him, she’s gone out again, despite the heat. Lachlan heads outside, wishing for the comfort of his wife.
There, see, a silhouette, in the distance, Sionann’s, no doubt. Lachlan’s pace quickens, then a head pops out of the water in front of Sionann. Lachlan stops. If it is a person swimming, he would prefer not to disturb them. Socialising is not his forte.
He sits down, feet dangling in the cool water, eyes trained on his wife. She exchanges words with the figure in front of her, and glances around. Lachlan is hidden by the bushes, so she does not see him. Later, when he considers this, maybe it would have been better to have revealed himself before then.
Sionann is doing something peculiar – surely she is not stepping out of her skin! Lachlan cannot believe his eyes, but that is exactly what she is doing. Her skin peels off like a coat, and she slides smoothly into the sea.
A coldness encircles his ankle, and it is all Lachlan can do not to scream in surprise. “My, my. Spying on your wife, hmm?” The voice is cool and musical, and Lachlan turns to face a woman, half-risen out of the water. Her hair is long and red, seaweed tangled in it, her eyes large and arresting. Lachlan cannot tear his gaze away, but then a shimmer almost blinds him.
It is her tail. The woman, still holding on to his foot, has a tail. Lachlan gapes. “You – my father – my child - ”
She smiles and shrugs. “The small one? She makes a beautiful siren. My gratitude to your wife.” Lachlan now knows that his father has told the truth, and that these man-eating creatures do exist.
A seal comes up behind the siren, and nudges her tail. She turns, addressing the animal. “He was spying on you.” The seal regards him, and speaks.
“I’m sorry, my love. We are sisters, and they demanded a sacrifice. I cannot go against their wishes.”
A selkie, one of the seal-skinned sea-folk, gazes up at him with the soft eyes of his wife.
Another shimmer of scales, and a familiar face pops up beside the seal’s. “Sorry, Papa. Grandpa was right.”
words by: Tania Leong
illustration by: Kate Leiper
When the original ‘Old Boy’ came out in 2003, it met with critical acclaim almost instantaneously (and for good reason). Not only was it a dense meditation on the nature of revenge, but it was also a giddily kinetic action movie. Expertly directed by Park Chan Wook, CNN has named it as one of the best Asian films ever made. Even notoriously finicky film critic Roger Ebert heaped praise on the movie, calling it a “powerful film… because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare”.
Exactly a decade later, acclaimed American director Spike Lee released a remake of ‘Old Boy’. Unsurprisingly, the movie was ravaged by critics (myself included), who saw the movie as a cheap and soulless remake. One of my favourite movie critics, Bob “Moviebob” Chipman famously asserted that “you can make a film out of almost anything”, and this hold true for remakes as well. However, a good remake needs to understand two essential truths in order to succeed:
1. The remake needs a voice of its own.
2. The remake needs to understand the context in which it is situated.
Sadly, the ‘Old Boy’ remake failed to grasp these two things, and failed miserably as a result. This was the inspiration of my haiku, encapsulated by me saying that the movie lacked both “Soul” and “Seoul”.
Remakes need a voice of their own
Not many are aware of this, but the original ‘Old Boy’ was part of a larger whole. It was the second film in a trilogy that would eventually be called Park Chan Wook’s “Vengeance Trilogy”. While the three films could easily stand as separate films in their own right, the thematic thread that ties them all together makes for an interesting study on the multi-faceted nature of revenge. Viewers are left with questions like “What is revenge?” and “Is revenge ever justified?”
In a sense, the original ‘Old Boy’ had an unfair advantage, because it was located within the context of a larger trilogy, which gave it the freedom to explore specific aspects of the revenge motif. Unfortunately, the new film stands on its own, crippling it right from the beginning. It did not have the time nor the space to explore everything that it needed to do, instead opting to sacrifice a large bulk of the screen time to generic action set pieces.
In addition, the stomach-churning reveal in the final act of the original ‘Old Boy’ has already been known to most movie viewers for at least a decade, which again disadvantages Spike Lee. Much like how ‘The Sixth Sense’ cannot hold up for more than one viewing, the remake of ‘Old Boy’ tries to pour new wine into an old wineskins. There is simply no incentive for viewers of the original to watch the remake. Even if they did, the reveal in the film’s third act no longer holds as much shock value as watching the original. The “updated” ending became piecemeal at best.
Seen in this light, the remake of ‘Old Boy’ can thus be read as a mercenary attempt by Hollywood to cash in on an unknown Asian film that proved to be successful in a hope to replicate its success in a Western market. Beyond financial reasons, it has little reason to exist – a soulless and empty movie.
Remakes need to understand context
As alluded to in the Haiku, the ‘Old Boy’ remake lacked “Seoul”, shorthand for saying that it does not understand its new context. One glaring example of this is in the iconic hammer fight sequence of the original, where Oh Dae-Su dispatches a whole gang of bat and club wielding thugs with a hammer. As a way of paying homage to the original, Spike Lee has actor Josh Brolin wield a hammer in an almost shot-for-shot copy of the hammer fight (As a side note, the entire film feels like a frame-for-frame retake).
Here is a case where context needs to be considered. In the original, it makes complete sense for the thugs to be armed with bats and clubs, given how restrictive the gun laws are in South Korea. However, the same does not hold true in America, where guns and assault rifles would no doubt be easier to procure. Shouldn’t the henchmen be all armed with pistols and rifles, given that a large bulk of the film is situated squarely in an American urban space? The audience is asked to take this in good faith, and this becomes problematic, as American sensibilities clearly conflict with the movie’s Korean roots.
At the end of the day, the failure of the remake can perhaps be summarised in one word – laziness. The 2013 ‘Old Boy’ fails to understand that even remakes need to work hard to stay relevant, and should try to add something new to the original whenever possible. As a person who cares passionately about movies, I am glad that the movie failed. It assures me that new viewers cannot be won over by old tricks.
And to Spike Lee, I simply say: “try harder, old chap”.
There has been a shift in word ownership, as well as their power and resulting influence: from authors—those who produce words—to their readers and recipients, or those that receive those very same words. This is hardly a recent phenomenon of Generation Y. Popular serial publication in newspapers and periodicals in the 18th Century onwards meant that literature was accessible to the common populace. This generally meant that the authority of the author over his own work became more subject to publishers and editors, who in turn relied on perceptions of and popularity amongst the public to profit commercially.
Even in 1861, the famous Charles Dickens had to subject his famous Great Expectations to the demands of readership by being pressured into giving Pip and Estella a happier ending, contrary to his original, gloomier intentions. The later, commonly used ending which Dickens grudgingly wrote ends on the suitably ambiguous phrase “I saw no shadow of another parting from her”. This allows romantic imaginings on behalf of the reader and a more sympathetic, emotional closure for the popular and low-born Pip, who had carried a torch for the beautiful and haughty Estella since childhood, despite being cruelly used as a pawn in her quest to break men’s hearts.
However, in the current 21st Century and age of technology, social media and consumerism, words are another commodity and any attempted ownership is a particularly fleeting and flimsy endeavour. Today, most things are available for free on the Internet from literary works, like Dante’s “Inferno” to music and apps via the apple store. One could argue that the unlimited reproduction of literature, and the gradual blurring between art and popular culture erode literature’s erstwhile cultural prestige and the original author’s controlled authority over his own work. Furthermore, when personal responses, opinions or videos commonly “go viral”, it is hard to determine the origin of any conversation or control the resulting ripples that result in the far reaches of the Internet’s scope.
Roland Barthes’ The Death of the Author (1967) is a canonical text which argues against literary criticism's traditional practice of incorporating the author’s intentions and biography to interpret a text. Instead, Barthes advocates liberating the reader from “domination” by the author since “to give a text an Author” and assign it a single interpretation “is to impose a limit on that [very] text”.
This sentiment has been well adopted by those of this generation, many of whom feel like they have an intrinsic right over words in the world, as well as their producers. Take for example George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (also known as the immensely popular television series Game of Thrones)._ _Martin has often received death threats for killing off popular characters – just think of the brutality of The Red Wedding, a massacre where numerous characters including Catelyn Stark and Robb Stark were murdered – and slow writing pace, which they blame on Martin’s personal lifestyle and travels.
This reveals, perhaps disturbingly, how the public feels entitled to demand word production or creative output at our expected pace. Furthermore, in the current century, through social media and the internet, the line between personal life and public work, the creative process and the creative product are becoming ever blurred, causing an audience to feel a consumer’s right over the word-producer himself as well as the written or creative product. This certainly heralds the “death” of the author’s authority and independence.
Like what happened to the ending of Great Expectations, the claims of ownership by readers or viewers make us feel we have a right to our expectations (no pun intended) being met and the right to object and impose ourselves upon a narrative. However those in the 21st Century further their levels of imposition on an author by re-writing elements that they dislike and broadcasting them to others publically, instead of merely complaining to the author (like in Dickens’ case). There are 5,500 stories on fanfiction.net alone under the category A Song of Fire and Ice. Fanfiction can be defined as a literary subgenre where people come up with their own endings or versions of a story or create romantic pairings not in the original book or movie.
Additionally, with the advent of social media, the pressure of conformity on creative artists and producers to new, modern ideals is ever more evident. Even new Disney cartoons feel the need to re-invent the stereotypical “Disney Princess” and ideas of true love at first sight, damsels in distress and Prince Charming. In the wise words of Queen Elsa: “You can’t marry a man you just met.”
Instead, recent movies like Frozen emphasise stronger and more independent female characters. Rather than relying on a handsome prince to save the day (who in the end turns out to be a villain), Anna thaws her frozen heart and commits an act of true love by sacrificing herself to save her sister.
This progress can definitely be a step forward for gender equality and female emancipation. However, it also reveals the irrefutable pressure the viewers have on word or creative production due to commercial concerns or public popularity. This new power vested in a popular readership due to technology, allows readers to respond, alter, and proliferate words, often without jurisdiction from their origin, granting an unprecedented independence to the reader from the “domination” of the author, greatly amplifying an already existing trend.
What do we mean when we designate a text as “literary”?What makes a literary text different from an ordinary text? One might seek an answer through examining the effect a literary text has on the reader, and one may conclude that the text has a more “powerful” effect on its intended audience. One way of thinking about this effect is through the concept of reader-response criticism, which highlights that the significance of a literary text depends greatly on the interaction between the words of the text and the interpretation which the reader brings to it.
Literary texts by themselves are incomplete; readers bring their own subjective experiences, knowledge and emotions to the reading of the text. This ensures that the meaning of a text can never be decided beforehand or in the absence of the reader, because each reader’s response to a text is different and varied. Readings of literary texts thus become inexhaustible as human institutions, cultures, and traditions change all the time, and every generation of readers and critics brings to bear different ideas to the interpretive understanding of literary texts.
Below, I analyse a famous poem, “Ozymandias” by the Romantic writer Percy Bysshe Shelley using reader-response criticism, highlighting how the meaning of the text emerges through an interplay between the text and a reader’s response to it:
Reader-response criticism starts with an awareness of the ambiguities in the text which invite the reader to fill in the gaps through his interaction with the text. With the title of the poem also functioning as the subject, the name “Ozymandias” will raise certain expectations or generate an abovementioned “gap” in interpretative understanding that the reader must attempt to fill during his reading of it. The reader will next realise that the subject is fragmented into a series of corporeal images such as “shattered visage”, “wrinkled lip”, and “sneer” that can never fully be integrated into any coherent whole. The poem invites interpretation on who exactly Ozymandias is but stubbornly resists providing any concrete answers, turning our reading into a desire to understanding what can never be fully understood. In this shuttling between what the reader construes the image of Ozymandias to be, and what the text actually offers, there is a constant re-negotiation of meaning.
So far, the poem has hinged on the reader’s tentative reconstruction of the figure of Ozymandias. Here is also where the crux of the poem lies: once the reader has internalised the whole exoticism of the image, and its claim to be the “King of Kings”, the poem brilliantly overturns all our expectations by a deflation of Ozymandias through the words “decay” and “wreck”.
The real surprise of the poem comes when the reader realises that all his understanding about Ozymandias fades into utter irrelevance along with “the lone and level sands”. What we do know about Ozymandias never did matter in the first place; all our images of him turn out to be sham images. Our preoccupation with Ozymandias has ultimately been ridiculous; the more we focus on what we imagine Ozymandias to be, the more we remain as trapped as he was on his transient grandeur and authority. The reader integrates his experience of reading in the first half of the poem only to realise that all his attempts go against Shelley’s emphasis on the absurdity and insignificance of worldly authority and tyranny. In the process of reading the poem, the reader's expectations are continually revised and overturned. At the end of the poem, the reader comes away with a new appreciation of the poem’s concerns because his understanding of it has been transformed through his reading of it.
Concluding Thoughts
In summary, reader-response criticism may be formulated like this: the process of reading raises horizons that the text will either supplement or subvert; the reader will come back to the text with renewed insight into the difference between his earlier reading, and a later, superior one. In this way, the literary text has the power to transform the reader’s experience of it, ensuring that he comes out of that experience as a better reader.
If A Body Catch A Body: Can We Find Comfort In Social Alienation?
"I felt so lonesome, all of
a sudden. I almost wished
I was dead."
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
WhenThe Catcher in the Rye was firstpublished in 1951, no one knew how a world absorbed with the post-war regrowthof the Truman era would react to an adolescent novel with seedy elements ofprostitution, underage drinking, smoking, and frequent cursing from its main protagonist, a sixteen year old drop out named Holden Caulfield. Since then, The Catcher in the Rye has been considered by many to be one of the best novels of the century, with The New Yorker’s Menand observing: “Salinger is imagined to have given voice to what every adolescent, or at least, every sensitive, intelligent, middle-class adolescent, thinks but is too inhibited to say.”
The plaudits for Salinger’s magnum opus do not appear to be confined to the era of its publication. The tale of a dropout’s listlessness and his litany of vices fueling his discontent carries an equally strong appeal to present day readers. As recently as 2012, reviewers like The Guardian’s Aiman has found “it an exciting and compelling read, with a gallon of brutal reality poured in along with some humour, contrasting with moments of depression”. It is my belief that The Catcher in the Rye’s universal appeal stems from the treatment of its strong motifs of social alienation and loneliness. Holden’s attempts at overcoming these challenges, while fruitless for the most part and deplorable to some, provides his readers with the implicit encouragement that they are not alone in their feelings of isolation and that they should never give up in the search for themselves, no matter how much the cost or personal sacrifice. The Catcher in the Rye poignantly captures the failings of the post-war era when individuals felt displaced from the after effects of World War II. Holden’s struggle to make sense and direction in an uncaring world devoid of any real purpose thus epitomises the existentialist movement popularised by Sartre and de Beauvoir, re-emphasising the worth of the individual and human agency following the aftermath of a dehumanising global conflict.
The themes of The Catcher in the Rye continues to influence generations of readers.
“I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life”, confesses Holden as the third chapter opens with his discontented mutterings. “It’s awful”, he admits. What makes Holden’s admission of his compulsive lying particularly noteworthy is that one of his major peeves is the superficiality of the people he feels he is surrounded with. From school philanthropists, church ministers to pimps and even particular words in his known lexicon, it seems that there are very few things that are spared from Holden’s judgmental eye and being accused by him of being “phony”.
While Holden does not explicitly state what is phony about the people and to a lesser extent things that he dislikes, the main cause of his attitude comes from his disenfranchisement with the world and the pretentiousness that people adopt to conform to social mores and expectations. He criticises his headmaster for putting on airs when he meets the parents and regards with disdain musicians like Ernie who behave ostentatiously once they have achieved fame and recognition at the expense of their art. Although this appears to characterise Holden as a hypocritical malcontent, it is his reasons for lying that set him apart from the other phonies.
The notable occasions on which Holden has been found to lie are all derived from the same reason: self-preservation. When he lies to his classmate’s mother, he ostensibly does so to avoid being identified as being out of school before the term break has commenced, but his underlying reason is because he finds himself attracted to her on different levels and therefore avoids risking his sense of self and being vulnerable by opening up to her. Holden consistently lies about his age in his interactions with adults, but this is particularly because of the age limit on the activities he attempts to indulge in. By lying his way into underage drinking and prostitution, Holden uses the very attribute he abhors about adults—phoniness—against them as he attempts to breach the gap between adolescence and adulthood. The social critique we can derive from this diegesis is that Holden is only able to gratify his desires by interacting with the underbelly of society and its less-desirable elements. It is his search for companionship that pushes Holden into embracing the deceptiveness of his interactions, but his articulated guilt at the awareness of his actions further humanises Holden as a conflicted youth.
While the adults in Catcher in the Rye exhibit phoniness as part of the malaise of conformist culture, Holden’s contempt for this behaviour stands out as a truly genuine sentiment in a world tainted with pretences. His actions show us that if we had to lie, lying to protect one’s individualism is far more ennobling than lying for the approval of your fellow men. With this being said, we should also bear in mind that Holden’s attitude and perception of people damages his chances for normalcy. His relationship with Sally Hayes is badly damaged when he confides in his alienation with her and his desire to run away with her. This causes her to abandon him during the date, further perpetuating his feelings of isolation and loneliness. Holden’s worldview is also undercut by Phoebe Caulfield’s pragmatism which counterpoises her brother’s idealistic delusions of never growing into adulthood. Despite the self-destructive effects of his flaws, Holden’s unwavering desire to be his own catcher at his own detriment endears him to his readers.
During his forays into different areas of New York City, Holden’s taxi travels are interspersed by his repeated question about what happens to the ducks at Central Park during the winter when the lake has frozen. It is apparent that Holden’s cynicism is matched only by his sensitivity, but the frequent symbolism of the ducks which he mentions brings up the recurring motif of loneliness and social alienation in the novel. Holden stands at the metaphorical cliff that separates childhood from adulthood, and while he confides in Phoebe that he sees himself as the catcher who prevents children from falling over the precipice into the unknown, he experiences the inner turmoil of having to face the unchartered territory of growing up.
Cast out of his school because of his academic shortcomings, Holden’s ennui bears similarities with the ducks. He has nowhere to go because his present environment is no longer habitable. Like the ducks, he needs to find his place in a world that has revealed itself to be inhospitable and dangerous. He remains persistent in asking about the ducks because he wishes to believe that when the lake is no longer frozen, the ducks will return to it and things will remain status quo once again. Holden is averse to change himself and hopes to derive comfort from the transience of change as he attempts to navigate through his “frantic flight from Adultism and his frenzied search for the genuine in a terrifyingly phony world”, as Heiserman and Miller Jr explain in Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: The Catcher in the Rye. Holden remains identifiable to readers because he is the duck who stays in the lake despite its changes. He does so not out of stubbornness or teenage rebellion, but because he steadfastly cherishes the experiences of his childhood and refuses to barter the innocence and carefreeness that accompany it for the artificiality that comes with maturity.
Teenage smoking and Holden’s red hunting cap are iconic symbols.
I first read The Catcher in the Rye when I was 15. For some of you, that is an age that seems like a lifetime ago. For others, you were only 15 during the previous phase of your lives and tertiary education felt like the next great beyond. You may even be Holden’s age as you are reading this and fretting over your ‘O’ levels. No matter which stage of life you may be at, a great source of encouragement can be derived from the fact that the previous obstacles you have faced have been overcome in one way or another. As I look back on the travails of teenage love and academic stress of my youth, I recognise that most of my fears gradually diminished with the passing of time. The anxiety I felt over 7-11 booze-fuelled unrequited love no longer occupies the forefront of my consciousness because it has been buried by the memories of my mid-twenties and I’ve gained a better understanding of myself. While datelines are still a constant in my life after a decade, the importance and the details of homework assignments and tertiary projects are not recallable. What remains true and poignant is the intensity of the emotions I have felt during the different phases in my life.
Perhaps it was the outdated clothing. Maybe it was the ridiculous hairstyle I kept or personal peculiarities I was unaware of, but when I first looked at the batch of students I would be taking my tertiary education with, I told myself that I had never be able to fit in with this crowd. I was, and still am, terrible at making new friends and acquaintances. That unspoken tension and pressure to strike conversations for the purpose of navigating the obligations of social acceptability sickens me if I have no genuine interest in a person. While I see the necessity of doing so now in the context of one’s professional life, I was repulsed by the falsity of it all when I showed up at an orientation camp during the December before my tertiary education began. My mother’s warnings that I should get to know my course mates so that I would not be alone when it came to choosing project groups during school term all the more cemented my belief in the ludicrousness of orientation camps. Why did I have to befriend overly-enthusiastic plastic people that were oblivious to the manufactured nature of their interactions?
I did what Holden would do. I lied. I told my lecturer that I had an urgent family emergency to attend to because a relative had fallen severely ill. In the subsequent months, I discovered the painful way that my mother’s advice was true. When school started, I was one of the few misfits without a clique, but that did not bother me much because I felt that in a media-related course it was natural to expect phonies everywhere around. That in turn resulted in several instances of truancy, because I felt that the interactions with my school mates were stifling. I failed a module, and it was not until the second year where I made genuine friends in school. Although I largely kept to myself during my first year, I never felt entirely alone because of Holden. I drew comfort from the fact that all those years ago, an author encapsulated the sentiments of isolation in a protagonist who was as flawed and vulnerable as I was, who dealt with a superficial world on the same terms I did. Was it emotionally healthy? Perhaps not, but it did make me a lot more independent socially ̶ a characteristic I still take pride in today.
So if you have not read The Catcher in the Rye, I strongly recommend that you do. Some say that Salinger wrote it as an adolescent novel for adults while others contend that The Catcher in the Rye is an adult novel for adolescents. I think that The Catcher in the Rye is a work of literary excellence that bridges the struggles of teenage angst and the pressures of adulthood. More than 12 years after first reading The Catcher in the Rye, I have veered off the safety of the rye field and over the edge of the cliff’s precipice into adult life. Holden failed to catch me from going over, but his first person narration in The Catcher in the Rye held me long enough to comfort me and reassure me that if you are true enough to yourself and confident enough in yourself, it is okay to be alone.
“If anything is sacred the human body is sacred… Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?”
— “I Sing the Body Electric”, Walt Whitman
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words by: Sim Jia Ling
This poem is paired with Esther Vincent's "The trouble with Tattoos".
