- Troubadour Poetry, Slavoj Žižek, and Buñuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire” -

T R O U B A D O U R  P O E T R Y,   Z I Z E K,   A N D  "T H A T  O B S C U R E  O B J E C T  O F   D E S I R E"

     What I find interesting about the poetry is all the sadness and extreme despair that comes out of love. Love is word we over use in our culture: I "love" spaghetti, I "love" this tv show. The actual word love is supposed to hold a extreme meaning of maximum joy and happiness, yet we "love" the Jersey shore? That being said, troubadour poetry was written in a time where the word love really meant a whole lot more, and when so much heartache comes with it, it's even more sincere and significant. 

I started to think at why we feel love and I thought, for whatever reason, of dreams. There's a reason we cannot remember dreams when we wake up. This is a defense mechanism that your brain has so that it doesn't have to rationalize your dreams the night before. Sometimes dreams feel so real and if we had a lot of our brain power devoted to analyzing dreams we could very easily go insane and start questioning reality. My question is, if our brain is crafty enough to come up with this safety net, how come we are so subject to love? Why doesn't our brain register love as a threat and develop a defense mechanism against it. It seems to do us more harm than good at most points.

     After reading this essay I found several things interesting. First off, I liked how he Zizek refereed to women as the "Lady" because I think that says a lot about the idealization of women, through text. We talked last week about how people are blinded by love and wind up thinking that the person they're in love with is this god-like, perfect creation. Thus, referring to the text, we think of them as "The Lady" for us. It's a mocking way to write but I suppose we're mocking ourselves by falling into this trap.

Another thing I found interesting about Zizek's essay was how it related to the video we watched. It's interesting how from an outside perspective we see things are being unreasonable or ridiculous, but when completely involved everything seems very real. Love really is like a drug in that it inhibits our ability to see things clearly and think logically, to an extent. 

     This film had a surplus of examples of love and desire. I think you can sum it up as just that: love and desire. Even though the two words are correlated, they are very different. In the movie, Mathieu falls in love with Conchita but also desires her greatly. When he has her all he wants to do is be with her sexually, but when he loses her, all he wants to do is have her back (not necessarily sexually). 

On the other hand, Conchita loves Mathieu but also desires his love in return. I'm not convinced that their relationship would ever be normal because they both love and desire the same thing in different ways. We naturally believe that when two people "love" each other, they're perfect for each other. This movie is a great example of how love can ruin people while having both people still love each other... over... and over... and over... and over again.

In regards to two actresses playing Conchita, I wanted to believe that one was a representation of Mathieu's love for Conchita and the other was a representation of his lust for her. However it didn't quite add up. I came up with several different ideas, each one getting shut down. I am interested in seeing what other people came up with in class because this is one thing that really stuck with me.

The other part of the movie that was odd to me was the butler's character. I'm not entirely sure why he kept coming on screen buttoning his clothes and straightening his tie (as if he had just had his clothes off). It happens a few times, which led me to question his behavior. He also drops a dew demeaning lines about women that Mathieu shuts down rather quickly. I feel like this character is symbolizing something but am struggling to find out what. Once again, I look forward to what the class thinks.

- Song of Songs, Narcissus, and Lacan's "Mirror Stage" -

S O N G  O F  S O N G S

The relationship between the lover and beloved is very sensual. There are many elements of the text that conclude this. The very first line is "Let him kiss me the with kisses of his mouth..." It's interesting that the first line of the song is not something alone the lines of "Oh how I feel for this man..." but instead is something physical. The poem also continues to compare the love to material objects, which makes the love seem un-authentic. Furthermore - this is a love between a wealthy man and a lower class woman, which brings with it taboo qualities (which can make people more attracted to each other). The conversation goes back and forth about beauty and jewelry but is very shallow, in fact non-existant in regards to deeper emotional meanings. 

N A R C I S S U S

After re-reading Narcissus' and Echo's conversation I realized that Echo did not "echo" Narcissus in the traditional sense. Apparently Echo had the ability to pick and choose which aspects of conversation she was to repeat. She chose certain sections of Narcissus' shout-outs to reply back with. When Narcissus questioned  "Is there anyone here?," Echo responded, "Here!" The "?" and "!" suggests that Echo didn't respond in a questioning way ultimately meaning that she can also change the inflections that the first voice says (which is not traditional in an echo either). That being said, Echo came off as possibly insane. She may have scared Narcissus by immediately charging to embrace him rather than identifying herself first. Naturally anyone alone in the woods would have made a bolt for it. I knowI would.

When Narcissus saw his reflection in the water he immediately fell in love with the desire for himself. He fell in love with something he could not have (in this case because he was the person). Being the individual was not enough to satisfy his desire for himself. He needed some external connections whether it be emotionally, physically or both. 

Narcissus was fully aware that it was his reflection in the water but he couldn't pull himself away from the burning desire he felt. This is a very common aspect of love. Very often when we desire something we tend to put it on a pedestal and admire to a point that is unrealistic. We almost "fool" ourselves into believing that person, object, place or whatever is the most incredible god-like thing ever to exist, whereas someone who wasn't clouded by desire may have a more practical interpretation. The fact that Narcissus knew it was himself and still could not conquer his emotions proves that we are controlled by our lust and victims to its power.

M I R R O R  S T A G E

One can absolutely see a correlation between Lacan's article and the Narcissus myth: primarily, the whole concept of reflection. Lacan calls the discovery of reflection an identification, which is practical for when we are extremely young in age, we have very little ways of connecting with our identity. This leads to physical motions being our initial bridge to discovering who we are. (Perhaps there is some underlying reason there as to why we are such a physical species?)

Just like Narcissus became aware of himself when admiring his reflection, we become a little more connected with ourselves. The story starts to digress, of course, when Narcissus falls victim to his own desire. Luckily, humans are too young to feel desire for love to that extent at that age.