Dramatic Monologue: Mary Shelley

So, I used to write speeches and dramatic monologues for my friends in high school, for English and Drama. I was so desperate to show off that I could be clever, and my friends were often happy to exploit that. What I'm posting is The One piece which turned out leaps and bounds better than the rest, and was written in two days. For context, this was a Yr 13 Drama student (girl) who wanted to do a monologue in the guise of Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus).

..

Dear Doctor

Am I a monster? For surely, if a monster is something that no one desires, then I am most certainly that. Doctor, you delivered my children and as they were in my arms, they were breathing, conscious creatures- I failed to make them beautiful, but they had form and grace. Neither was a boy, nor a girl, but they opened their eyes to see a paradise lost, and as I held each in my arm, I couldn't but think “it's alive! It's alive!”¹

Then, they weren't, and if my children aren't alive, then I have no purpose because it is a man's lot in life that if his wish is to give life then he is a madman! but it has always been that it is a woman's lot to prove that not only God can create life². There is something I must confess, I must- I think it will thrill you, it will shock you, it might even terrify you- but the two great mysteries of this, the region, the soil, the climb, in which the lost Arch-Angel fell, the two great mysteries are life and death³; life being the weaker- life is the absence of death. When I write to you I pour my soul, my life, and where from? These hands which hold a pen? This brain which cups my words? This heart which bleeds emotion?⁴ Life's easy- nature's way of keeping meat fresh, nothing to a man of science. We are not a single being, doctor; it is a lie- there is no contact where flesh stops and aether begins, only that we are made of many parts of all things precious, like a modern prometheus⁵- blood vessels and muscles act like wires and springs, and even after death, the wires sleep restlessly, waiting hopelessly for some sign to show that they have not been abandoned, cast away like used toys of time's predation.

There is death, one of the strangest tales ever told. Nothing to a blind man, who would hear the same of death as he would if he were lonely, and how he would feel that the world is quiet here. There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.

I am so lonely. I had a lover, but he ran away, scared and repulsed. He showed me how to read, how to speak, how to act like a human being for all human beings want is to be in the company of their own likeness. Speaking, reading, thinking, not so much movements learned but movements...remembered. Learning from many people, many places, each part of my soul is a part of them. Who are these people from whom I am comprised? Good people, bad people?

Like a bolt of lightning in the darkest of nights, he left, terrified of his creature which he had made, scared of something which could speak and reason⁶.

"Begone! Believe me from the sight of your detested form"⁷

The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover...

He gave me life, but what kind of life was it? He was a master, but a master has responsibilities. A master does not leave his student left for dead in the weary world of wild endeavour, so deformed and horrible am I. All I wanted was your love, every bird in the sky flies with another, ever deer has a mate, and I am the first and last and I am alone. Even Eve had Adam on her wedding night, a companion to survive an eternity in Eden, though she was cast out, while I did no wrong. When I see others, men and women, with their young, I feel the snake tell me to burn the Garden to the ground.

Doctor, forgive me. If I were, in your professional opinion, an abomination, a social experiment gone wrong, a woman with such intuition, if I were a monster then the monster was the best friend I ever had^8.

Dear Doctor Frankenstein, what shall I do? You are my doctor, and I am your monster.

Yours, truthfully, Mary Shelley

1From James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein film. Also, a reference to Shelley's children who died in infancy.

2Quote from 2004 film 'Van Helsing' featuring Frankenstein's Monster.

3A mash-up of quotes from Paradise Lost (featured prominently in Mary Shelley's novel, and the prologue to the 1931 film

4Inspired by a line from Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'

5“Modern Prometheus” being the subtitle of the novel of Frankenstein

6An allusion to Percy Bysshe Shelley or Lord Byron (ambiguous nature of this allusion is intentional)

7Quote from the novel, but here used in the context of Percy/Byron to Mary Shelley

8A quote from Boris Karloff who was the first actor to portray Frankenstein's Monster in a film with audio.

The Last Tin of Spaghetti

A little insight into the mind of a trainee teacher. As part of our practicum (basically an unpaid internship at a school), we were mandated to write journal entries of our experiences to compile in our teaching portfolios. I wrote this about ten months ago near the middle of my second practicum. Respect teachers.

In many shipwrecks, survivors are often occupying deserted islands as castaways with nothing. I cannot recall the details but do remember two men who, after losing their shipmates and vessel to a devastating storm, made their way to an uninhabited island. With only each other for company, they soon found that their fishing skills without equipment was negligible, their supply of cigarettes quickly ran out, and that they did not enjoy the nightlife of carnivorous insects. While I do not feel particularly seaworthy, I submit to understanding these men in regards to their feeling nothing. As I write this, it is exam week for my school which means that the seniors have gone off of leave. Through the luck of the draw, I have no scheduled junior classes and so while I informally observe classes, I don’t have any grit to do while the senior students are away. More closely, as I write this, it is actually night time and I am in the middle of writing lesson plans by the light of the moon and a computer monitor, with my sole companion- my last tin of spaghetti.

It has been a tough week, faced with the ever-edging reality that soon this career will soon be ignited and I will move from the unpaid intern to something quite startling- a professional. For indeed, a teacher is a professional and the more this week has gone on, the more I have grappled with this fact. I don't mean to gripe about Epsom Campus as if this were a running gag of a sitcom, but the staff there often talk about how teachers go to work to change lives and instil a sense of wonder in students. My sense of wonder is how teachers with this mentality survive the first five years on the job. Certainly, the variety of achievement that practicum demands have reminds me of the Hegelian master-slave dynamic (or, more cynically, of the prisoner-warden relationship). It has become my practice as of late to say to inert students “at least give me the courtesy of pretending to work” as opening their exercise books is at least a bigger step to the possibility of studying than a closed book. While teachers have a huge onus on the learning experience, I feel like some professional distance is required when students refuse to work and no amount of coaxing or pedagogical rationale will change that fact. We're teachers. We're not Jedi (I actually looked this one up and the plural of those heroic lightsaber-wielding freedom fighters is the same as the singular).

One of the Graduating Teacher Standards is “demonstrate commitment to and strategies for promoting and nurturing the physical and emotional safety of learners” and I am pleased to see that I have jumped another hoop in this puppy parade of assessment. During one of my informal observations, I spied a mutual loathing (adulterated loathing) between two adolescents which eventually flared into an emotional meltdown for one of them. Although it was my first time in the class, I was quickly able to diffuse the victory party the bully had thrown by sending him out of the classroom. Talking with him, I discerned that he engaged in such a conflict for no good reason other than that he saw it as fun, and upon the bare facts being laid out, it was something he was embarrassed about. The Church of Neo-Classical in Doctor Who don't have a devil- just the things that men do.

Another GTS I remember hooping is “demonstrate proficiency in oral and written language (Māori and/or English), in numeracy and in ICT relevant to their professional role”. The former is quite a boring story- as a threat to a few students who wouldn't do formal writing, I would teach them math (I know, I know- I shouldn't use one subject as punishment for another). Following through with my bluff, I laid out the Euclidean proof of Pythagorean theorem, and the use of triangular numbers in calculating two-point connections in polygons. Perhaps not a conventional piece of evidence for the GTS, but I must say, it does count (sorry-not-sorry, as the kids say). The ICT came in the fact that I was able to use the DVD function in the class projector while the reliever teacher was confused about it. Again, a weak show (but you haven't come here to hire me as an ICT teacher unless there was an ICT Teacher conference in Dunedin, and there's been a cataclysmic disaster in Dunedin).

A third GTS (I promise, this is probably the last one I talk about) is “demonstrate respect for te reo Māori me ngā tikanga-ā-iwi in their practice”. My practicum school had, in its tutor group time, the daily notices (yellow pages in the school) read out. One such notice was a scholarship being advertised solely to Maori students. “That's just racist” says the trio of white students who I genuinely enjoy talking with during the form time. I then seemed to be possessed by the Spirit of Educational Professional Studies 612A/B, and went on a rant about affirmative action, achievement equality, historical disadvantages that Maori students have had. The matter was dropped, though if it sunk in is impossible to prove.

Finally, I hesitate to go back to this well but I would like to talk about the fact that I am still living very much a threadbare existence as a student teacher who is unpaid and still with expenses like rent and food and power. Okay, maybe it seems stupid but I like a roof, and meals, and light when it goes dark. “Get a job perhaps” said my Visiting Lecturer the last school I was at. My answer was to bite my tongue, because the response would likely have been “oh, why didn't I think of that? You are a clever person. I see why they made you a lecturer!” It did, in fact, cross my mind to get some work this year to tide me over financially but I already have a job. I am at school for six hours every day and doing university assessments or school prep for three more. If you think I have energy for another job on top of this one, you must think I have a superhuman reserve of it. So, like the castaways I mentioned at the beginning, with seemingly nothing, I must conjure up a rather impressive existence. I must metaphorically turn palm fronds into beach hammocks, stones and sticks into fishing spears, and small twigs and hay into a fire in which to send smoke signals (SOS). This marooned status has, I know, been entirely voluntary, and so I posit that this should only prove to demonstrate even more that I desperately want to be a teacher for this miserly living is easily something I could have opted out from for something that might have fed me. I shall proudly write my lesson plans and university assignments by the light of the moon with my last tin of spaghetti for a friend, though like most castaway stories, I'm probably going to have to eat him.

The Race Space

So, I haven't written much original material for this blog. I apologize. It's been a bit of a hectic time for my Master's degree (or as I like to spell it, Maester's degree) and I don't really have much time now but I think that's a price I'm willing to pay. I'd like to write about something that I haven't discussed much with anyone over the last nine years, but I feel like it's something that is constantly weighing on my mind.

I am ethnic.

This is not that unusual. As far as I understand it, we all have ethnicities. I recently read this collection of essays called 'Half-Half' that I started eleven years ago and only just finished. 'Half-Half' is an anthology of authors writing about being biracial or bicultural. I've never been that interested in race, ethnicity, or heritage because to me, heritage is simply a geographical horoscope. Rather than by simply being born at a certain point in time, you happen to be born at a certain point in space- and for some reason, we like to think that this can define us. I know there are huge cultural and ethnographical arguments about why being born in one culture can greatly influence who you turn out to be (I, for instance, didn't have an arranged marriage or get into soccer at any point) but I feel like in a globalized society, we begin to assert so much precociousness into what is really not that big a deal. Should we be proudly tolerating cries of “I'm half-Irish, and a quarter-Jewish, and an eighth-Indian...” when you know that this person is probably soporifically horrifically boring?

I don't think so.

If you live in a reasonably first-world comfortable society, there are an infinite plurality of influences exerted daily, hourly, minutely, into your consciousness. Not just different races, but cultures, subcultures, even random acts of geography which are shaping the fluid sense of self that we have. How could you say that your ancestors had any real impact on you compared to the greatest friend you ever had? Not a huge Walt Whitman fan but he did write those famous words “I am large, I contain multitudes”.

Some people would accuse me of acculturation at this point, and I would reply with the fact that this accusation isn't totally baseless. I have no love for the idea of preserving cultures for the sake of posterity. There are plenty of cultures that we modern apes never documented and they have been wiped from the Universe's sweet face of existence. Was there really such a tragedy? “Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it” some jerks inevitably say. It's a good thing we do teach history in schools, as we have gotten rid of racism, sexism, war, terrorism, corruption, and religious dogma. Thanks History.

Without pussyfooting, I know I sound like a sourpuss. I am not Anthropologist, merely a Media Scholar, but I would like to bring up two concepts here- Eurocentricism, and invisibility. Eurocentricism is the idea that those with European features fare better in a society that was colonized by white people. To refuse this notion is to ignore a subtle, but everpresent problem. I bear no ill will towards white people, but I have to say, in proportion, white people make up 90% of those who ask “where are you from?” An Australian comedian (I'm sorry I don't remember your name and I'm not going to be able to find you on the internet, but I remember you were on Rove and you won some Snickers Comedy festival) phrased it perfectly- the question “where are you from?” is really “why aren't you white?!”

Look, none of us chose to be non-white. Trust me, if I could I would. Being ethnic offers me no real competitive advantages in a Western society. “Passing” is something I do very well, and many white people have said “oh, you could be a white person!” as if to say “if I didn't know any better, I'd have said you were the normal colour a human should be”. It's not a compliment; it's just about the worst thing you don't realize you've said in a long time.

The other problem is the systemic nature of being disadvantaged as an ethnic minority, and I'm just going to leave two links on this at the end because I'm not super-interested in giving the math of this statement. Part of my problem with my ethnic identity is that I've always felt like I don't really have one. I wouldn't identify as anything, even now, not the place where my ancestors originated, nor the country I lived in for eighteen years, or the country I was born in. I am reluctantly content to just wave off the whole issue because it's confusing. Should it be confusing? I wish it weren't.

The other issue is invisibility- this idea that race is invisible to most “colour-blind” people. These people are jerks. “Oh, but that doesn't happen anymore” they might say, “I would never discriminate against anybody”. I don't think most people would consciously choose to discriminate in most social or professional situations, but you often don't know you're doing it. Metacognition, the ability to analyze your own thinking, can be difficult. To ignore the tumultuous landscape is to try to go skiing in the jungle. Sure, you can do it, but you've made an alarming error assessing the situation. Where would you draw the boundaries about where race-blindness starts? Is it when you get past Northcote and over the bridge? Perhaps just a little passed Epsom Avenue? Or is an epoch? Once we, in what would become the first-world, all abolished slavery, we fixed the problem of race. Was it the 9^th of April, 1847 that we solved the issue of race, or was it the 15^th? Perhaps it was when affirmative action was called 'affirmative action'. It's an epic army of cats, quick-footed and sneaky, pervasive and often unintentional, directionless and comforting, but unless we want to be overrun, we need to start thinking more broadly about what to do about this.

One quick note about the corrective measures we might take, and my overwhelming advice on this to white people is very similar advice I give to struggling husbands- give support, but don't try to take control of the situation. Hello white people, we appreciate all that you've done for us, but it's not your fight- we'll let you know when we need help. It'd be very similar to me arguing for Trans equality, advocating for the rights of Trans people to marry, use public bathrooms, et cetera. I seriously do believe in Trans equality, but at the same time- I'm not personally affected by the outcome of this struggle. When you're the figurehead of a fight which has stakes that aren't yours, you're not being a good Samaritan- you're co-opting someone else's life as your activity. Support the stance, don't try to steer it.

This is a blog about me though, and I just wanted to write about my own experiences recently about this. I've had the horrible feeling that I have been seduced by this race problem that throws me under the bus, in that I don't really have many friends the same ethnicity as me- and part of that has been by design. The people I congregate with have all homogenized in a certain way that I found attractive, and they didn't just happen to be white. I rarely make the effort to join Kiwi Asian clubs or date ethnic minorities, and this might seem strange- but it should be an effort. Though it's still a problem, it was an effort to get the majority of husbands to stop viewing their wives as property. Like that, we've come a long way with regards to race- but there's a reason why I likened an army of cats to racism- they're everywhere, and you often don't notice they're living with you until it's too late.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2864535/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/research-shows-white-privilege-is-real.html?_r=0

“Desperate to be Feared”: A Textual Analysis of Brian Azzarello's Joker

"You really want to know what it feels like to be the clown at midnight? Where there's only ever one joke and it's always on you? Well, here you are. Now do you get it?"

-The Joker, Batman #681.

The 2008 graphic novel Joker, written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Lee Bermejo, presents a unique re-interpretation of the Batman mythos, giving an awkward and often unnerving portrayal of Gotham City, and the novel utilizes the comic medium to much advantage in achieving this. The novel follows small-town crook Johnny Frost as he escorts, and later serves the psychotic and sociopathic Joker who, on being released from Arkham Asylum, returns to Gotham City in order to reclaim his criminal empire. Two aspects of the comic's mise en scene highlight the awkward and unnerving effect- the unusual lack of emanata that demonstrates movement, and the irregular and erratic page layout. The stylistic choices in presenting this tale provides a refreshing and compelling addition to the DC Comics corpus, and it is a tale which could only have been told through visual narrative.

Unlike most comics, Joker does not use emanata for much of the book's artwork in order to indicate movement¹. This creates an unusual juxtaposition within the reading experience, between the impulse of assuming both static imagery and movement. The static imagery comes from the fact that without emanata, comics do not generally have an easy way of conveying movement pictorially. However, movement is conveyed in two ways, contradicting the “static” picture. One simple way is the level of sophisticated detail in which the artist has put into moving objects, such as the crinkles on the Joker's coat as it blows in the wind or Johnny Frost's jacket draping as he is suddenly picked up off the ground by Killer Croc. A more extra-diegetical way of conveying movement comes from the sequence and flow of panels, in which the reader is aware that there logically must be movement between panels, though they will not see such movement “portrayed” in the panel itself. In Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics', he writes “when part of a sequence, the art of the image is transformed into something more: the art of comics!”, expressing the idea that comics as a medium require sequence in order to function². Joker takes advantage of this presupposing movement in comic medium in order to ignore the semantic emanata. This idea that removing emanata can make a comic both unfamiliar, while details in artwork provide an allusion to movement, thereby instilling a sense of familiarity, invokes the idea of Freud's Uncanny in relation to the comic's nature.

The emanata, which is usually absent throughout the entire book, may act as a way in which to foreshadow the Joker's Uncanny nature to Frost. Freud considers the Uncanny to be 'the opposite of what is familiar; and we are tempted to conclude that what is 'uncanny' is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar''³. If Joker has artwork that we may consider to be somewhat uncanny, then it can also be argued that this is a visualization to parallel the Joker's behaviour within the story in relation to the narrator. A common recurring theme is Johnny Frost's admiration for the Joker, in the belief that the two are similar in many ways. As the Joker begins his descent into chaos (such as burning down his own bar, murdering an elderly couple and sleeping with their corpses in bed, and raping Frost's ex-wife), the psychologically stable Frost begins to have increasing unease with the Joker, showing the uncanny effects of Frost seeing himself in the Joker, but also seeing something darkly unfamiliar.

One exception to this lack of emanata is Batman, who seems to radiate emanata in the few scenes in which he is present, swooping from the tops of bridges and engaging in fisticuffs with the Clown Prince of Crime. The sudden inclusion of emanata is subtle, and may be considered functionally metonymic in several ways. One interpretation of Batman's presence generating emanata to a scene could be its antithetic nature to an uncanny Gotham which lacks emanata, that the Joker is responsible for. The Joker's possession of panel stems from the lack of emanata very well; Batman's emanata breaks any spatial trope that suggests he is occupying his own portion of the panel. In Neil Cohn's article “Extra! Extra! Semantics in comics!: The conceptual structure of Chicago Tribune advertisements”, he defines the use of metonymic reference in comics as “a part of something to reference a whole or stating a place for an institution. In all cases, the metonymic element has some sort of related connection to a broader conception that it invokes”⁴. Batman's emanata may be thought of as a status symbol, referencing traditional and familiar Batman material where emanata is plentiful⁵, metonymic of the idea that this Batman figure has been “borrowed” from the mainstream comics to this re-interpretation. In Dennis O'Neal and Leah Wilson's book 'Batman Unathorized'⁶, they write 'Trademarks get their power in the same way- the consumer's participation in the culture of consumption is what makes a trademark valuable...Batman has value because we look at Batman and say “Tough” or “Cool” or “Funny” or “Hero” or “Bad-ass”'. In this sense, Batman (whose appearance can be likened to a cameo role), is fundamentally ineffable in his portrayal, even in this alternate-reality, uncanny, Joker-dominant story as he is essentially a trademark.

The erratic page layout also contributes to an awkward and unnerving effect in Joker. In Marshall McLuhan's 'Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man', he popularized the phrase 'the medium is the message', suggesting that the 'cool' medium of comics requires greater audience involvement and participation than a 'hot' medium⁷. Joker uses quite an active presentation unique to the comics medium, in order to convey the Joker's personality in the story, and his relationship with Frost, as it seeps into the construction of panel composition in page layout. Their first encounter continues the white gutters, as the Joker and Frost remain quite amiable and casual with each others presence. However, the Joker's figure is able to extend beyond the boundaries of his panel, as he is draped over three separate panels in fact, each panel with a different spatial point disconnected from the last, a feat which will only ever be displayed by him. Already, the Joker is demonstrating his ability to break extra-diegetical conventions which may act as a presage as to his breaking all manner of social conventions. The medium has intertwined the message.

In contrast to Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (another Joker-centric graphic novel), Joker has gutters which change colours, or are removed altogether in favour of panels simply being overlaid on other panels to fill the hyperframe. The first page of the story opens with a hyperframe divided into four equal horizontal panels, the first three of which share the same overview of a grubby Gotham City, divided by a pristine white gutter. The next two pages also feature rather casual panel layouts, with white gutters, giving a metronomic effect on the comic's atmosphere. These three pages all give a feeling of claustrophobia as the clean white gutters seem to contain the grime which the panel contents resonate. This metronomic rhythm is instantly broken on the fourth page in which the entire page is one hyperframe depicting the Joker's exit from Arkham Asylum and entrance into the story. Later, the panels are separated occasionally by brown gutters, as if to make the transitions between moments dirty, the gutter being the space where temporal jumps occur in sequence. These temporal jumps seem to have been infected by the Joker's influence on the setting. Where there are no brown or white gutters, there are no gutters at all to leave panels in a cluttered, uneven collage in the hyperframe which resemble the subjective time being expanded, such as Abner (the Penguin) having a long scene in which he is racketeered by the Joker and Killer Croc into servitude. The hyperframe having uneven panels overlaid on one another seem to make a clenching motion, similar to disjointed editing between awkward, un-natural camera angles on film, intensifying the uncomfortable atmosphere.

Joker uses the comic medium to its advantage in telling this unusual story; utilizing a lack of emanata and strategic page layout. An unnerving and awkward effect is given through comic technique, which is appropriate as it is immerses a reader into the role of the titular character. Through artistically intelligent choices, Joker remains a graphic novel that's no joke.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-McCloud, Scott. 'Understanding Comics'. New York: Harperperennial. 1994. pp. 5. Print.

-Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. London: Imago Publishing. 1919. pp. 7. Print.

-Cohn, Neil. “Extra! Extra! Semantics in comics!: The conceptual structure of Chicago Tribune advertisements”. Journal of Pragmatics. Volume 42, Issue 11. November 2010. pp. 3138. Print.

-O'Neal, Dennis. Leah Wilson. “Batman Unauthorized”. Chicago, IL: BenBella Books ; Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. 2008. Print.

-McLuhan, Marshall. “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”. New York: MIT Press. 1964. Print.

1Emanata is included in this text for sound effects. I would argue that artistically,sound effects being removed would not make any significant stylistic difference to Joker's textual form as dialogue, which is included, already depicts aural properties. Perhaps if the novel did not include dialogue, the removal of sound effects would indeed make a similar intriguing difference from tradition as movement does.

2McCloud, Scott. 'Understanding Comics'. New York: Harperperennial. 1994. pp. 5. Print.

3Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. London: Imago Publishing. 1919. pp. 7. Print.

4Cohn, Neil. “Extra! Extra! Semantics in comics!: The conceptual structure of Chicago Tribune advertisements”. Journal of Pragmatics. Volume 42, Issue 11. November 2010. pp. 3138. Print.

5The Man Who Laughs and The Killing Joke would serve well here to illustrate my point.

6O'Neal, Dennis. Leah Wilson. “Batman Unauthorized”. Chicago, IL: BenBella Books ; Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. 2008. Print.

7McLuhan, Marshall. “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”. New York: MIT Press. 1964. Print.

An Interview with the Past

I thought I'd make up some questions that I could answer every now and then and see what sort of changes in my life are happening.

Q. How are you?

A. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Lately I haven't been socializing but instead trapped in my own routine, like some dystopian version of my usual life. The uni work has been piling up and-

Q. What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you since we last talked?

A. Sometimes I catfish old men on the Internet to raise my self-esteem.

Q. You make it sound like it's not your fault. Be honest- how was it your fault?

A. Well, it's more society's fault for putting undue pressure on people to be happy outside of their own gestalt, while also penalizing people on awkward social matters to the point where only the anonymity of the Internet can armour people to express themselves.

Q. Drink of the day?

A. Irish coffee, with instant coffee and gin (it's all I have, other than red wine and vermouth). It was going to be martinis but I've had quite enough of those lately.

Q. Favourite outfit you've worn recently?

A. Three-piece tuxedo (black), with cuff links, pocket square, with a black bowtie with a floral blue pattern to match a blue TARDIS pin on my left lapel.

Q. Most recent thing you've learned?

A. There's a new musical called Hamilton about the life of one of America's founding fathers Alexander Hamilton. I did not know that France allied themselves with America when America seceded from England.

Q. So, what are you working on now?

A. Class presentation for Chinese Film Genres, outlining the synopsis of a play I'm collaborating on, and working on my own play which I want to talk about at a later date.

Q. Any other thoughts?

A. “The past is another country. They do things differently there”.

Lacan and Sherlock Holmes: Understanding the Savage

'I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?' – Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four.

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of Sherlock Holmes, it is clear that the creation and continual substantiation of the consulting detective is not solely derived from his own character, but through the mirroring of other, specifically male, characters. When applying Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage to a reading of Sherlock Holmes, it is evident that there is an indexical relation to Lacan’s theory and the interactions between Sherlock Holmes, and the three most prominent characters, Doctor John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, and Professor Moriarty. This mirroring is appropriate in conveying a Gothic sensibility to the stories as Sherlock Holmes himself embodies a Gothic spectacle.

In her article, ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’, Anna Neill discusses several points in which the Sherlock Holmes diegesis invokes several Gothic elements¹. The narrative mode is said to contain “realism of detective fiction…encounters and overcomes that fiction’s own attraction to the Gothic: to the horrific, the concealed, and the (often) apparently supernatural”. Neill then cites Nils Clausson who surmises that by its very nature, a Gothic tale must destabilize the scientific analysis of criminal science. Therefore, the character of Sherlock Holmes seems to represent a level of cognitive dissonance- he possesses a ‘divinatory gift’ which makes him a ‘logical genius’.

It is this juxtaposition, or as Neill refers to it, “mongrelizing” which provides an insight into the Gothic characterization of Sherlock Holmes. The detective contains many traits that could validly classify him as a common archetype of Gothic fiction, a Byronic hero (being arrogant, distasteful of society, intelligent and disrespectful of authority) but his ability for observation and deduction, as C. Auguste Dupin called it ‘ratiocination’, is so great that it is verging on supernatural, making Holmes a Gothic spectacle as well. In one display of Holmes deducing facts from Doctor Watson’s married life in A Case of Identity, Watson even says “you would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago”.

Holmes’ overlap between Byronic hero and Gothic spectacle is important as during the course of the canon, he meets characters who he finds can act as a mirror to himself. In the 1996 essay “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”, Jacques Lacan investigates the psychological phenomenon that takes place between infants and their reflections². Lacan interprets a human infant recognizing its image (imago) to be the moment of apperception, when the infant can recognize itself as a physical object (gestalt). This self-identification however is flawed as the infant believes that their reflection is greater than their own physical body as their own physical body does not have a great degree of self-control and is physically vulnerable. The imago therefore becomes something for the infant to strive for, the Ideal-I.

One instance in which Lacan’s mirror theory could be applied is in the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson finds himself drawn to London as he has ‘neither kith nor kin’ and is discovered by Stamford, who appears to be his only friend. Stamford introduces Watson to Holmes who, for the duration of the novel, also seems to remain without kith or kin.

As Holmes and Watson were brought together as they both had the same problem (they needed a flatmate to continue living in the city), it is obvious that Holmes, to some degree, acts as a reflection for Watson’s own personal affairs. The scene in which Holmes and Watson meet show that they mirror each other in their tastes; both enjoying the smell of strong tobacco, the sound of a good violinist and being awake at “ungodly hours”. In this sense, Holmes is the imago to Watson. Watson realizes his measure as a gestalt by being Holmes’ ‘Boswell’, as evidenced in The Hounds of the Baskervilles where Watson is even able to competently investigate in Holmes’ steed.

However, Watson is also shown to see Holmes as his Ideal-I in the detective profession which Watson so often admires. In the short text ‘How Watson Learned the Trick’, Watson attempts to demonstrate how he mastered Holmes’ and claims that Holmes has an important client named Barlow that he will visit, is speculating in finance and was greatly preoccupied in the morning. Holmes disproves all of Watson’s deductions, showing that Holmes is still an idealized version that Watson must strive for (indeed, Holmes even encourages Watson to pursue the ‘trick’). However, by the time of the last chronological story in the canon, ‘His Last Bow’ Watson still does not seem to have matched Holmes in this particular field. This may underline the relationship between the human infant and the Ideal-I; the infant can never attain the state of being as his reflection.

In the story ‘The Greek Interpreter’, there is a sequence in which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson head to the Diogenes Club to visit Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft Holmes. In what is Watson’s original encounter with both of the brothers together, Sherlock and Mycroft take turns standing at a window and deducing that a man is an old soldier, who served in India, was widowed recently. Mycroft wins the game by deducing that the soldier had children, and not a single child as Sherlock thought.

In the scene, Mycroft acts as a Lacanian mirror for Sherlock in a number of ways. Watson’s opening narration of the tale denotes that he believed Sherlock to be an ‘isolated phenomenon’, a term that could be applied to mean the singular, as an infant would believe itself to be. As Sherlock positions himself beside his brother, he looks into his imago as Mycroft, quite uniquely, has Sherlock’s seemingly-supernatural powers of deduction. Mycroft has “eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers” which helps to serve as a physical echo of Sherlock’s image. Mycroft then engages with Sherlock as a gestalt, as a reflection of his skills as a detective.

Mycroft functions as the Ideal-I in two ways to Sherlock. The first is that he is an idealized version of Sherlock in his more astute reasoning skills. The second is that Mycroft very rarely strays from the path from his home, to the government bureau in which he works and the Diogenes Club³, and so remains more or less invincible from physical danger. Sherlock, on the other hand, remains versed in singlestick, boxing and fencing⁴ and yet still in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, Sherlock is incapacitated after being injured by thugs.

Finally, there is a distinct corruption in the Lacanian mirror relation between Sherlock Holmes, and his nemesis Professor Moriarty⁵. In the deceptively titled story “The Final Problem”, there is a scene which Holmes describes to Watson in which Moriarty visits 221B Baker Street. When Moriarty sees Holmes, it is clear that Moriarty finds Holmes to be an imago intellectually when the two exchange the following dialogue:

Moriarty: Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.

Holmes: then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

Here, the duplicity is obvious. However, Moriarty’s intentions were to try and peacefully negotiate with Holmes to cease his investigations. Moriarty grows his gestalt when he declares war on Holmes, “You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.” Moriarty defines himself in opposition of Holmes, thus he grows into a tangible character.

Moriarty also views Holmes as an Ideal-I, but unlike how Watson views Holmes, Moriarty seems to be undone by this vision. Indeed, when in confrontation with his Ideal-I, Moriarty dies in the process while Holmes survives⁶.

However, it could be argued that Sherlock Holmes cannot act as a Lacanian mirror for more than male spectacle. Irene Adler, or ‘The Woman’, from the story ‘A Scandel in Bohemia’ is known to be the most famous of Holmes’ adversaries besides Moriarty, but her meetings with Holmes are always through written correspondence or while Holmes is in disguise. As she has the honour of being the first chronological person, and only female, to outsmart Holmes, it is clear that she is just as mentally adept as Holmes. In the only sequence in which Watson is present for both Holmes and Adler, Adler simply says ‘good night, Mr. Holmes’ while in disguise. As she ‘eclipses the whole of her species’ it remains apparent that no female can be Holmes’ mirror.

Holmes embodies a Gothic spectacle which permeates in his Lacanian doubles, Watson, Mycroft, and Moriarty. This can result in the insight of each character, which has created an approach to the canon which, while improbable, is not impossible.

1 Neill, Anna. ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’. Victorian Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press. 2009. pp 611-622. Print.

2 Lacan, Jacques. “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”. Ecrits: A Selection. W. W. Norton & Company. 1966. pp. 29-34. Print.

3 More or less a direct quote from Guy Ritchie’s 2012 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

4 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet”. London. Ward Lock & Co. 1887. pp. 24. Print.

5 I have here refrained from giving the Professor the given name James as there is substantial dispute over whether James is his name, or his brother’s name. There is a humourous sketch in which all three Moriarty brothers are called James.

6 Poignantly punctuated in the 2012 Sherlock episode ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, an adaptation of The Final Problem. Moriarty, when in confrontation with Sherlock says ‘you’re me!’ and shoots himself directly after.

Can You Believe...?

So, I wrote a poem in 2013 that got me praise from some women who found the satire biting and swarthy, and condemnation from some men who said I was being sexist and misogynistic. While polarizing, I don't feel like I necessarily should explain myself. You may like this, you may not like this, but I've given so much thought as to whether this is subtle parody of mansplaining or gentle justification of the unfair sex that I genuinely have forgotten which side of the ring I'd come from.

Can You Believe I Don't Have a Girlfriend?

I [object] to objectifying women

Not because I don't do it myself- as any man (who is that way sexually orientated) guilty as sin of that

Sin

Men stare at breasts like a man staring at a waterfall when he's dying of thirst

Hand on my, admittedly quite weak, heart: I would rather ogle personality first

Ma'am, if you ever catch me admiring your behind...

I'm sorry

I don't want to get into your pants; I want to get into your mind

When you pass, it's like a motion sensor in my eyeballs, you're in range so I...

Lock-On

Because we're guys, and we're just hard-wired to think about how best to get our

Fuck-On

We don't want to do it! It's not something we choose!

A man will look at an ass like a woman will look at shoes!

If women ruled the world, and executed every man who checked out a a midriff, or a rear...

[OH LORD]

It would be like watching The Hunger Games at

[16x FAST-FORWARD]

“All men are animals!” the FemiNazis cry with glee!

Yes we are...all women are animals too...

~It's a matter of taxonomy~

However, if you're here tonight with your boyfriend and the really hot girl walks by, if he checks her out don't be annoyed much

He will know the #1 rule of the art of visual appreciation of the female specimen, and that is 'look, but don't touch'

I just want to make it clear and understood

If I could wank over your interest in wildlife preservation, I would

And I am aroused by your knowledge of all the Gryffindor quidditch chants

But I can't ascertain something like that from first glance

All you little chicks, with your endless torrents of selfies, might think you're a catch

But when it comes to love, there is no physical beauty if there is nothing in your brain to match

And if you are offended by guys checking you out and you think they're only interested in your body, stop self-pitying yourself.

And if you are offended that guys “don't want to know you”- actually, fair enough- but you can't make that claim if you don't let them talk to you- the central lesson in any hetero-normative romantic story in the history of humankind should be that MEN ARE NOT TELEPATHS AND WOMEN SHOULD NOT EXPECT THEM TO BE!

And if you are disgusted by the fact that you have attracted the attention of creepy old men- actually, fair enough: I can see your point- I've been checked out by creepy old men myself.

They offer me drugs.

I say 'thank you' because drugs are expensive, and one must always remain charming.

Ironically, it was Oscar Wilde who said it best- “would you be in any way offended if I said that you seemed to me to be the visible personification of absolute perfection?”

And it took me some time to understand what he meant by that, because it's very easy to misinterpret that line. You do not look perfect- you look like perfection itself.

Let me break it down for you, so you can take something away~

All the single ladies (all the single ladies)

If you do notice a guy stare at you tonight, take a minute out of your precious time to talk to him, see what he's about

Because I guarantee you that every taken male in this room started his relationship by checking a girl out

I beg of you, if your man has eyes that wander, then let him because later, in privacy, he will use his “I”s to look at your “you”s

I [object] to objectifying women, but I have behavioral flaws I hope you can excuse

Thank you.