search soleil (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
searchsoleil) wrote2008-12-12 04:52 am
searchsoleil) wrote2008-12-12 04:52 am
Entry tags:
I curse a lot when I am very frustrated.
I think the general problem here is that I've forgotten how to write papers. I'll have had to write five this semester, that is insanely little for an English major taking two graduate level classes.
Anyway, my dilemma at present is this: I've decided to write my Victorian Literature paper of morality in Dorian Gray. The reason I decided this was because my teacher brought up this argument that although Oscar Wilde preached art for art's sake and hedonism and all that lovely rot in the Preface of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray is actually a very moral novel with a clearly moral ending. From there we sort of vaguely discussed whether that made Oscar Wilde vaguely hypocritical or if he was just being his usual contrary self, or what, and the whole time this was going on, the only thing in my head was that this whole argument was wrong:
That Oscar Wilde doesn't use morality in Dorian Gray as a means to an end like other books with a moral would. That each character has their own conflicting sets of morals, and that it was the play between these morals and not the results of them that Oscar Wilde wished to explore. That what makes Dorian Gray so disquieting to the reader is that no character is condemned--they just hurt each other in multifarious ways without the reader ever really knowing where the hurt and the evil originated. That the moral play and the moral conflict and that ultimately directionless moral disquiet is art as Oscar Wilde would define it, useless and unethical and beautiful as it is.
And that I'd had the whole thing explained to me perfectly before in Death Note meta.
Fucking Death Note, which, I'd like to qualify, I never even fucking finished.
But anyway, I thought it would be interesting to re-tailor all that meta-angst about a gay serial killer into a real paper about a book about agay serial killer queer serial life-ruiner(?). However, trying to reconstruct what went through my head during this discussion is proving damn near impossible. This is what I get for trying to mix fandom and academia.
I blame this entirely on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bookshop, especially since, when I sat down to write this paper about seven hours ago, I went to go find a link to this meta on her journal and couldn't. Argh.
But anyway, if there are any Death Note fans on my FList. The meta I'm looking for was a basic commentary that each of the characters in Death Note represented a differing moral standpoint, that they and the reader each brought their differing sets of ethics to the table and the resulting death match was what made Death Note so interesting. I already found another meta/analysis bybookshop that talks about Light's morality in particular, and how the inconsistencies therein which make him a sociopath, and that was interesting, but not the article I was hoping to find.
This is extremely frustrating and more frustrating because I know I am being OCD and tangential, but this is BUGGING ME SO MUCH GUYS. WHERE IS THE MASTERLIST OF DEATH NOTE META ON THE INTRANETS?
Anyway, my dilemma at present is this: I've decided to write my Victorian Literature paper of morality in Dorian Gray. The reason I decided this was because my teacher brought up this argument that although Oscar Wilde preached art for art's sake and hedonism and all that lovely rot in the Preface of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray is actually a very moral novel with a clearly moral ending. From there we sort of vaguely discussed whether that made Oscar Wilde vaguely hypocritical or if he was just being his usual contrary self, or what, and the whole time this was going on, the only thing in my head was that this whole argument was wrong:
That Oscar Wilde doesn't use morality in Dorian Gray as a means to an end like other books with a moral would. That each character has their own conflicting sets of morals, and that it was the play between these morals and not the results of them that Oscar Wilde wished to explore. That what makes Dorian Gray so disquieting to the reader is that no character is condemned--they just hurt each other in multifarious ways without the reader ever really knowing where the hurt and the evil originated. That the moral play and the moral conflict and that ultimately directionless moral disquiet is art as Oscar Wilde would define it, useless and unethical and beautiful as it is.
And that I'd had the whole thing explained to me perfectly before in Death Note meta.
Fucking Death Note, which, I'd like to qualify, I never even fucking finished.
But anyway, I thought it would be interesting to re-tailor all that meta-angst about a gay serial killer into a real paper about a book about a
I blame this entirely on
bookshop, especially since, when I sat down to write this paper about seven hours ago, I went to go find a link to this meta on her journal and couldn't. Argh. But anyway, if there are any Death Note fans on my FList. The meta I'm looking for was a basic commentary that each of the characters in Death Note represented a differing moral standpoint, that they and the reader each brought their differing sets of ethics to the table and the resulting death match was what made Death Note so interesting. I already found another meta/analysis by
bookshop that talks about Light's morality in particular, and how the inconsistencies therein which make him a sociopath, and that was interesting, but not the article I was hoping to find. This is extremely frustrating and more frustrating because I know I am being OCD and tangential, but this is BUGGING ME SO MUCH GUYS. WHERE IS THE MASTERLIST OF DEATH NOTE META ON THE INTRANETS?