Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Group 1: Power/Danger of Writing and Representation

"Think about Carwin as a figure of the novelist, gaining access to people's inner thoughts and feelings and stealing them as raw material for his own pleasure in 'creating a mysterious dread.' Also think about Clara as a writer and the problems of unreliability that BB draws our attention to in various ways throughout the novel."

How does BB develop the theme?
-huge dependency on what was written (the Wieland family almost idolized the written works....Clara --> her father's memoirs)
-the possibility of greater distortion lies in the events happening (the more confusing, the higher the possibility for a more detrimental act)
-for Clara, writing seemed to be self-therapy, she was able to release her emotions on paper and say things that she hid through her confidence

How do these pieces of evidence unify throughout the novel?
-each and every written item, whether it be a letter or a book, had separate connections to each of the character; however, when unified it gave Carwin the ability to conquer all that he did. By collecting and reading everything that the other characters had written, Carwin had access to some of their most vulnerable moments (Clara's diary for instance). Through understanding their greatest weaknesses his was able to exploit each and every one of them. However, if you think about it, if they had never written some of the things they did, he would have never been able to do such a thing to their family.

Significance & Meaning:
The separation of knowledge between the writer and the reader allows one party to exploit the other.

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