SECTION 1: Choose three of the following four quotations. Identify the excerpt (author and text), then state the significance of the quotation (10 points each; 3 X 10 = 30 points).

Suggested Time: 22 minutes

A) "all narrative posits, if not the Sovereign Judge, at least a Sherlock Holmes capable of going back over the ground, and thereby the meaning of the cipher left by a life."

1. Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot. The differences between life and fictional narrative are distinct in that the latter requires circular closure. Brooks maintains that a narrative is a form of mechanized life, that narrative therefore only chooses the dramatically satisfying moments in life, just as Sherlock Holmes would search for only the most relevant facts regarding his case. An example we examined in class is the Star Trek universe. While the episode "Cause and Effect" thrust us into the mundane and daily routines of its crew, we realize that the other episodes never show any of the crew using the bathrooms. Hence narrative avoids these mechanical details to offer a heightened reality that chooses to display only the most dramatically satisfying elements. Life may not offer a closure and reality dictates that we spend much of our time participating in sterile activities. Narrative just chooses to, just like the detective, go to the relevant clues.
   

GRADE: 10

   

B) "This is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood."

1. This quote is from the narrator of La jetée. La jetée is a postmodern film about death and repression. The opening and closing images in La jetée, the Jetty, are both the place of birth and death, the beginning and ending of the story. The main character is fixated on two images from his childhood, that of a woman and the death of a man. The entire narrative tries to make sense of these images. This relates to Freudian theories of trauma, regression, and repetition principle. The young child in the opening scene sees the death of a man (his own death) which is highly traumatic. Freud says that we repress trauma or constantly repeat it until we are able to make sense of it and move on. The main character is driven by the death drive (his own death) and the sex drive (the woman he sees on the jetty). Throughout the narrative, he moves into the past trying to make sense of these images and access the woman, his object of desire. As soon as he gains access to the woman, his desire (the brief moment of moving film), his sexual desire is filled and he has nothing but death left to face. This is also seen in the match cut of the grave yard and the jetty, a metaphor that the jetty is where his death will be.
   

   

GRADE: 10

C) "Truth is as subjective as reality."

1. Jose Chung, the author of the first ever "non-fiction, science fiction," says "Truth is as subjective as reality" in the X-Files "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." He makes this comment to Scully to explain why he has so many different stories of the same events. This line could be the theme of the episode, which leaves us without any closure. At the end of the episode, where Jose Chung finally meets Fox Mulder the audience expects Fox to give us the "real" story, as in a typical frame narrative. But in true Post-Modern fashion, Fox refuses to satisfy the audience with his response “How the hell should I know?" The whole episode is geared to make the viewer question what really happened, with conflicting 1st-person narratives, and the Men in Black who make us doubt that seeing is believing. This episode contrasts the mantra of the show and in doing so keeps the viewers watching by using the hermeneutic code. How can the "truth be out there" if "truth is as subjective as reality"?
   

 

GRADE: 10

 

D) "Who are the gentlemen?"

1. This quote is from the Buffy episode, "Hush." This quote comes from a scene in which Giles tells Buffy et. al. about the Gentlemen. This scene shows the episode's self-awareness through Giles adding discursive music. Giles also uses a projector which itself mimics film frames and a television screen. The slides are much like a silent film with pictures and words in between. Giles has slides to answer the characters' questions which emphasizes the scriptedness of the show. The quote itself represents the hermeneutic code in that the episode is driven by wanting to find the answer to the questions such as who the gentlemen are. This statement enacts the hermeneutic code in that it presents a problem or the who/what and then looks to solve the problem like a detective story. Also you can look at the gentlemen as both sides of name-of-the-father and father-of-enjoyment or père-version. On the one hand, the gentlemen are the idea of politeness and perfection. They are within the law, dressed to a 'T', constantly smiling, and acting according to what is considered 'right'. On the other hand, they are outside of the law and more toward enjoyment or père-version. This is seen with the psychos in straight jackets following the gentlemen around. Also in that they carry doctors bags just to rip the hearts of people out. They are out of the reality of the world and in the 'real'. They have no language so they lack symbolic order. The gentlemen are children's story goblins who truly do not exist. They are not part of reality [rather, the real] but a fantasy come into life b/c of the lack of language in the episode and loss of reality.
   

GRADE: 10

SECTION 2: Choose three of the following four terms or names and explain the significance of each (10 points each; 3 X 10 = 30 points).

Suggested Time: 22 minutes

A) Proairetic and hermeneutic codes

1. Proairetic and hermeneutic code are two of the codes Roland Barthes named to explain the structure of narrative; these two in particular explain narrative progression and why a reader keeps reading or an audience keeps viewing. The proairetic code is concerned with actions (proairetic meaning"choose before"): if a man draws a gun, we feel suspense, excitement; will he kill his opponent? Will his opponent kill him? Will someone interrupt the two? By contrast, the hermeneutic code is concerned with questions (hermeneutic meaning "interpret"). In the first five minutes of the Star Trek: the Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect," we see the Enterprise blow up. While sitting through the opening credits and commercials, fans are left to wonder "What happened? How did that happen? Did it really happen? How will my favorite character survive?" As we want all our questions answered, since a narrative must have proper closure and must make sense, we continue watching in order to glean our answers. This usually happens at the end of the narrative such as when Hero Wolfe or Sherlock Holmes gathers everyone in a room to explain the entire plot of the story to them.
   

GRADE: 10

B) Metaphor

1. A metaphor is the use of 2 disparate objects together to show a connection between the two. This term is closely related to match cut which places 2 scenes on top of one another to create a connection between 2 disparate scenes. The use of metaphors is very important in this class in allowing us to fully understand the plot of our stories. Examples of metaphors used in works we have examined include the scene in La Jetée where a match cut is used for a scene of a graveyard and the jetty, thus indicating that the jetty was the main characters graveyard or place of death. Another example is found in "Clyde Bruckman" in Chantilly lace. At first the lace is shown as a squiggly line symbolizing the dilation of the story/plot, while the final shot of the lace is a full circle indicating that the story has completed its loop and was thus ending the narrative.
   

 

GRADE: 10

C) Repetition Compulsion

   

1. The thanatotic/death drive, so Freud put it, is the most primal, perhaps, of all human psychical drives. It is the need to go back to a time before the trauma of birth: quiescence. To repeat it then, being driven by Thanatos, is to try to inoculate oneself, deaden one's nerves to the shock and pain of trauma. For real world trauma, a man may compulsively rpt. it in his mind to ease his pain. If we extend this notion to the theory of narrative, its purpose is clear: the rep'n comp. is mirrored in the repetitive nature of the whole enterprise. If the end of story, the realization, coming circular of the metaphor (replacing trauma in the real) is the end of the person, we can say its repetition is a calling up of that dead thing, a resurrection.
   

GRADE: 10

D) Discourse

      

1. Discourse is the way a chronological story is portrayed, through camera angles, order of events, narration. As with X-Files' "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," discourse is presented through a frame narrative.... La jetée tells its story as a long analepsis—showing us "photos" of the past. Few times are discourse and story shown as they would actually be: in real time. Even if presented this way, though, discourse—like film—is a sort of time machine. It can bring us forward (prolepsis—flash forward) or take us back in time (analepsis). It can also change space/position to show us different perspectives, point of views, or connect seemingly random, unrelated events. Sometimes, as with X-Files' "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," discourse may completely cover up the actual story, leaving us viewers wondering what really happened.
   

GRADE: 10