Collection of Essays

Analysis of Julia Kristeva’s Philosophy

Julia Kristeva is a postmodern, post-structural philosopher, a radical feminist known for introducing many new terms into Philosophical jargon.

Her first concept is subjectivity. Individuals are people who feel, think and will. Subjectivity is process of semantic signification. Subjectivity is closely linked to the ontological concept of being. Philosophy asks questions like what is being, what it means to be a being. Every individual is subjective.

Next comes Kristeva’s concepts like Semiotic and the Symbolic. The semiotic is a realm where the normal rules of language do not apply. The semiotic dethrones the syntax of language. Examples of the Semiotic can be taken from streams of consciousness narrative, poetry, dance and music. The symbolic realm is one which follows the traditional structure of language. Grammar and rules of the syntax are strictly adhered to. Legalistic, political, linguistic and medicinal texts operate on Symbolic norms. Kristeva distinguishes between two types of texts the Geno text and the Pheno text. The Geno text belongs to the semiotic realm and the pheno text belongs to symbolic realm.

Kristeva says that structuralism is synchronic and post-structuralism is diachronic. A synchronic approach begins from a point of time and does not take into account the history of many periods. A diachronic effort takes into account the meaning of a term from different historical epochs. For example: let’s take into account the meaning of the word temple diachronically. Temple as found in the Biblical Old Testament refers to synagogue or place of worship. Temple found in the New Testament refers to the body of Christ and also we have the saying: ‘your body is the temple of God: so don’t desecrate it’.

Next of Kristeva’s concepts is inter-textuality. Language is interwoven simultaneously from many texts. For example a work of fiction might contain idioms and allusions. Reading too is a process of inter-textuality.

Kristeva makes a foray into the Freudian concept of dreams. Freud described dreams as being one of condensation and displacement. A condensed dream shows many symbolic images that can be interpreted. A displaced dream is a dream where the dreamer wants escape from reality. Let’s illustrate it with examples. In a dream I saw I am making love to my significant other in granddad’s house. This is an example of a condensed dream. An interpretation of it would be, I am doing an act where I am desecrating the sanctity of marriage. The house of my grandfather can mean sanctity. Another example is I am seeing my father constantly in a dream. This is an example of displacement. Do I want to shirk my responsibilities of being a father?

Kristeva also questions the stability of the self. The self has to do a tight-rope-walking act between the Id, Ego and Super Ego. A postmodern interpretation would be deify the ID, glorify the Ego and subvert the Super Ego.

Kristeva has also introduced the concept of abjection. Abjection is a process through which one expels what one dislikes. Examples of abjection are feces, vomit and wee-wee. Kristeva uses the concept of abjection for the Nazi hatred of Jews. Hitler felt abject when he was denied of paternity by his own father. And his father being a Jew, Hitler became a tyrant in decimating them.

Kristeva mentions of three generations of feminism, the first wave, the second wave and the third wave. The first wave feminists wanted to be just like men. The second wave feminists imitated the archetypal role of the lover and the mother. The third wave feminists on the other hand balance themselves between alternating roles of being a wife, mother and worker. For the third wave feminists, feminism is glorified and deified.

Analysis of George Bataille’s Blue of Noon

George Bataille is French, postmodern novelist who is profane, promiscuous and drunken. His novels exemplify all kinds of vices. Women are treated with utter profanity and he maintains many links with promiscuous strumpets.

The main characters in his novel are Tropman and a woman called Dirty. The novel is set in three places, and those are London, Barcelona and Germany. The novel is a caricature of pathetic irony and signifies existential nihilism. What I find surprising in the novel is that none of the character’s sexual adventures reach a dizzy height of poetic sublimity. The novel evokes a chaotic and anarchic pathos.

Tropman for most of the time is drunk and whoring. It’s questionable whether he gets an existential pleasure. Tropman can be considered like Camus’ myth of the Sisyphus where Sisyphus is condemned by the Gods to roll a boulder uphill only to find that it rolls down again. Sisyphus forced to do the same act again and again. The novel cannot be regarded as masterpiece of art. The novel takes little account of the prevalent political climate of the places. We all know that a revolution is boiling in Barcelona. The novel can be considered as Nietzsche’s Dionysian because it contains violence, sadism, drunkenness and orgies. Is the novel a modern day celebration of defeated hero like Don Quixote? Tropman is a tragic hero who wants to escape from the realities of his family and life. The novel is a literature of the abyss. Irony is a pathological symptom and has been used as a neurotic metaphor. The novel symbolizes the degradation of the human mind. There is no soulful catharsis in the novel. One feels depressed when one reads the novel. The novel is a result of lunatic mind caught in the fetish of sadistic and masochistic narcissism. None of the characters in the novel are happy. For Bataille brothels were considered as temples. Bataille is a prodigal son who never returns to the father. The novel is disgustingly pathological and neurotic. There is no richness of literature or the beauty of prose. The novel is written in plain everyday language. The characters suffer from the poverty of their minds. The novel is symptomatic of pathological cultural disease. The self becomes a dialectical machine caught in the neurotic delirium of subdued passions. The novel is carnival of narcissism. Beliefs and value systems collapse into an abyss. The novel’s portrayal of characters is myopic. We are caught in the deluge a meaningless passion.

Analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist known for his renowned works: War and Peace and Anna Karina. His philosophy of life was one of Christian anarchism, a philosophy that lays mistrust on all legal and political institutions of the state and a philosophy that adheres to nonviolence and pacifism.

War and Peace is a philosophical and literary work, a masterpiece that espouses Tolstoy’s Christian view of life. The novel war and peace contains a chronicle of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Tolstoy’s rhetoric is persuasive and convincing. The aesthetic aspects of the work are minimal. The novel engages in the trivialities of life. War and Peace has become an

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Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.11.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-4204-5

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