PAPER 8- CULTURAL STUDIES.
“Post-Modernist theory applying to a
short-story –
‘The Guest’ by Albert Camus”
Post-Modernism
Postmodernism, especially in terms of its
use for Cultural Studies, rejects the opposition between ‘high’ or elite
culture and ‘low’ or mass culture. It questions the criteria by which certain
forms/terms/assumptions are projected as ‘good taste’, ‘classics’, permanent
(‘for all time to come) and universal. Postmodernism is closely aligned with
cultural studies in its rejection of ‘high/low’ distinctions between cultures,
and its focus on the moods by which certain cultural artefacts come to occupy
higher status.
It interrogates any notion, philosophy or
ideal of a general, universal and overarching nature (such as Marxist idea). It
celebrates plurality, heterogeneity, and the small, local, innovative,
marginalised and unfinished narratives that respect differences and
specificities of cultures, individuals and religions. Meaning is seen as
differential, contingent and purely arbitrary. The process of repress nation
seeks not to offer any insights into reality or truth.
In literature it collapses the distinction
between genres and conventions. The thriller format becomes part of the serious
novel. Comic element and absurdity mark the author’s attitude to tragic events
like death, suffering, the Holocaust (Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, the fiction of
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr). Myths, fairy tales,
legends and contemporary realities merge (Donald Barthelm, Salman Rushdie &
Gabriel Garcia Marques). Historical figures jostle with contemporary people
(for instance, the use of Goethe and Hemingway as characters by Milan Kundera).
It becomes impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion, for both the
characters and the reader. The distinction between ‘real’ history and ‘mere’
fiction is called into question (Graham Swift’s Water land). The narrator
continually undermines his own apparently ‘reliable’ narrative & we are
left wondering: can we trust this story at all?
Postmodernism suggests that power relations
structure all social truths, approaches and even conceptions of reality.
Jean-Francois Lyotard and the Postmodern
Condition:
Jean-Francois Lyotard characterises the
postmodernism as disbelief in and resistance to metanarrative (narrative that
seek to explain and address universal conditions while assuming that these
explanations suit all contexts and locations).
1 The disbelief towards metanarratives is
the disillusionment with totalizing explanations of reality. This includes the
narrative of science, philosophy and religion. For instance, the Marxist ideal
of an emancipatory agenda and aim for communism or the Christian narratives of
redemption are totalizing narratives because they ignore levels in favour of an
overaching universal programme or explanation.
2 These knowledge and explanations are
therefore tyrannical and oppressive because they ignore differences in order to
impose a false unity on knowledge and reality. These knowledge also conceal beneath
an apparent objectivity; their tactics of ‘terror’. Lyotard suggests that
scientists and scientific discourses
are not employed to disseminate Truth but to argument power. That is,
scientific discourse seek to legitimize certain kinds of knowledges and
actually suppress oppositional knowledges in order to retain their
stranglehold.
Postmodernism
acknowledges that all knowledge is fragmentary, partial and incomplete. One can
only utilize local knowledge to know a part of the truth. Thus the individual’s
experience, knowledge and voice is to be retrieved as a resistance and
delegitimation towards grand narratives that simply pass off one version of
knowledge and reality as universal.
Jean
Baudrillard and the hyperreal
Baudrillard’s
central argument is that in the age of perfect reproduction (the photography,
the digital copy) and endless repetition of images, the distinction between the
real and the illusory, between original and ‘copy’, between superficiality and
depth has broken down. What we now have is a culture of ‘hyperreal’.
Baudrillard
suggests that a sign merely refers to other signs. The entire system is constituted
by such signs that are ultimately empty because they only refer to other
similar signs rather than ‘Truth’. ‘Truth’ is truth a simulacrum of the real
image/model becomes more real than real. It is the generation of copies and
models of the real without origin or reality, or what is called the
‘hyperreal’.
Virtual
reality, global communications, the infinite reproductions of data banks and
holograms are examples of the redundancy of the distinction between real and
imagined, between ‘Truth’ and copy.
In
a consumer society objects are not simply consumed. They signify a status
rather than satisfy a need. In a consumer society objects become signs and what
we consume images, and the exchange value is transformed into sign-value.
For Baudrillard, then, the postmodern is characterised
by the hyperreal, by the collapse of distinction between the private and the
public (home, office, and now homeoffice). This is the ‘implosion of meaning in
the media: where signs without referents enchant us.
About ‘The
Guest’ by albert Camus
The Guest
follows the story of Daru, who is a schoolteacher in a remote plateau region.
The area has gone through a draught, but recently a blizzard has passed
through, leaving everything covered in snow. This has kept away Daru's pupils.
The
narrative opens as Daru watches two men approach his schoolhouse. He watches
them climb the hill. One of the men, a gendarme named Balducci, is very
familiar to Daru. He leads an Arab prisoner who has been accused of murdering
his cousin in a family squabble. Balducci has been ordered to bring the Arab to
Daru, and then return immediately to his post. Likewise, Daru has orders to
turn in the prisoner to police headquarters at a town approximately twenty kilometres
away. Daru refuses this task, considering it dishonourable. Balducci agrees
with the schoolmaster, but insists that in war men must be prepared to do many
different jobs. The gendarme is insulted by Daru's stubborn refusal, and leaves
in anger.
Daru feeds
the Arab and spends the night sleeping in the same room as the prisoner. During
the night the Arab gets up for water, and Daru mistakenly thinks he has
escaped. The next day Daru leads the Arab to a point on the plateau, and equips
him with money and food supplies. He points him in the direction of
imprisonment, and then also points him in the direction away from police
headquarters, where he will find shelter with the native people. He leaves the
Arab with the choice, but when he looks back, he is upset to see the Arab
ultimately chooses the direction leading towards imprisonment. The story ends
with Daru looking out the window of his schoolhouse.
Daru
He watches Balducci and the Arab approach
the schoolhouse at the start of the narrative. The schoolhouse is his home,
although with the sudden snow none of his pupils attend anymore. He spends the
blizzard in his room, only leaving it to feed the chickens, get coal, or go to
the shed. The administration has given him wheat to distribute to his pupils.
During the draught he felt like a lord in his crude house because he was
surrounded by complete and utter poverty. He is from this region, which is
described as cruel, but he feels exiled anywhere else. Daru argues against
delivering the Arab to Tinguit, and is plunged into a state of moral despair at
the end of the narrative when he realizes that the Arab has chosen certain
imprisonment.
Balducci
Balducci is the man on the horse who leads
the Arab up the hill to Daru. He holds the horse back so not to hurt the Arab.
Once within earshot he shouts a greeting to Daru. He is an old gendarme and has
known Daru for a long time. He looks upon Daru as a son, but is insulted by
Daru's refusal to turn in the Arab. It is Balducci who first speaks of a
revolt, and speaks about the obligations that men face during war. He clearly
longs for a peaceful retirement, but is resigned to his duties.
The Arab
The Arab is being led by Balducci. He walks
while the gendarme rides a horse, and his hands are tied. He keeps his head
bowed, which fascinates Daru, and does not raise his head once during the
ascent. He wears a blue jellaba, sandals, and a cheche on his head. He is very
timid and fearful throughout the narrative, and even does not try to escape
despite many opportunities. At the end, he decides to walk towards
imprisonment, and in this way symbolizes the absurdity and despair of the human
condition.
This perfectly represents the most-modernism
in itself. The writer belong the pioneers of post-modernism. Camus has worked
for absurdist literature the most. His contribution is remarkable. This is very
important aspect to be studied.
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