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Home > English > Extension 1 > Module B: Texts and Ways of Thinking > Elective 3: Navigating the Global > Navigating the Global

Navigating the Global

This material was written by John Turner, Concord High School

Understanding the Syllabus
Elective Rubric from the HSC 2009-2012 Prescriptions document
Understanding the ‘global’ and the ‘local’
Unpacking key phrases from the Syllabus rubric
Definitions
Texts of your own choosing
Prescribed Texts

Understanding the Syllabus

Module B

This module requires students to explore and evaluate a selection of texts relating to a particular historical period. It develops their understanding of the ways in which scientific, religious, philosophical or economic paradigms have shaped and are reflected in literature and other texts, various representations of events, personalities or situations. Students evaluate how medium of production, textual form, perspective and choice of language influence meaning. The study develops students’ understanding of the relationships between representation and meaning.

In this Elective students are required to study at least two of the prescribed print texts and one other prescribed text as well as other texts of their own choosing. In their responding and composing they explore the relationships between the global and the local and the significance of these relationships to the life of the individual and their community.

Elective Rubric from the HSC 2009-2012 Prescriptions document

Elective 3: Navigating the Global
In the late 20th century and early 21st century, the development towards a global culture has blurred traditional concepts and boundaries of time and space. Knowledge, values and culture have become at once global and local through the globalisation of communications. Choice and circumstance have created a range of individual and community responses to this changing reality: some have embraced or warily accepted it, while others have challenged or retreated from it. The ideas, language forms, features and structures of texts may reflect or challenge ways of thinking during this period.

In this elective students are required to study at least three of the prescribed texts, two of which must be print texts, as well as other texts of their own choosing. In their responding and composing they explore, analyse, experiment with and critically evaluate their prescribed texts and a range of other appropriate examples. Texts should be drawn from a range of contexts and media and should reflect the relationships between the global and the local and the significance of these relationships to the life of the individual and their community.

Analysis of the Elective rubric for key ideas

• Globalisation as a movement that has made the construction of social and cultural identity an increasingly complex and challenging reality.
• The necessity of navigation through difficult and challenging terrain where the ‘local’ signs have been obscured or erased by the globalism of 21st century capital/technology.
• The centrality and importance of a sense of place: spatially, psychologically, linguistically, culturally.

Analysis of the links between the Module and the Elective

• The particular historical period – from the publication of Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Lost in Translation (2003)* – which is covered by Navigating the Global demonstrates a significant and complex shift in historical, cultural and economic forces that are related to cultural imperialism.
• The values that are inscribed in these particular texts demonstrate the complexity of responses to a world where locally engendered meaning has almost completely collapsed, but paradoxically becomes more important and significant.
• The elective points towards the artistic negotiation and compromise necessary for the possible maintenance, survival and continuation of culturally significant beliefs in the face of a world driven by – and understood through – the postmodern collapse of meaning.

* although texts of own choosing may be even more recent

Outcomes covered in this Elective

1. A student distinguishes and evaluates the values expressed through texts.
2. A student explains different ways of valuing texts.
3. A student composes extended texts.
4. A student develops and delivers sophisticated presentations.

Understanding the ‘global’ and the ‘local’

In traditional pre-modern societies, people lived in local homogenous communities that were often isolated from each other and were characterised by a distinctive – and at times exclusive – culture. This isolation was often characterised by geographical isolation, ensuring that the encroachment of the modern world often took much longer to reach them. Their religion, beliefs, system of government and general social organisation drew their rationale from, and were reflected in, that culture.

With the advent of the modern world in the Middle Ages local, more discrete and indigenous cultural systems began to make way for the global. The Renaissance and Age of Discovery, which saw the collapse of feudal organisation and the rise of individualism and the capitalist state, heralded the beginnings of what was to become – and what is still evolving – Western European cultural domination of the globe or, in other words, western cultural imperialism.

The Industrial Revolution, the European Enlightenment and twentieth century rationalism (which promised a universal human culture built upon a foundation of rational thought), United States hegemony after World War II and the technological revolution which has made possible the proliferation of media and communications networks have all accelerated the erosion of traditional boundaries, destabilised traditional notions of ethnicity and nationhood and provided a never ending series of culture shocks to local communities.

In the late twentieth century the collapse of communism has led some to trumpet the triumph of western liberal democracy. The Marxist notion that history is a struggle centred on the divisions – political, social and economic – between the classes is the ideological underpinning of communism. The reasoning (logical or otherwise) here is that if the practical application of Marxist theoretical discourse fails then the ideological assumptions themselves are flawed. The notion of western liberal democracy erasing all divisions through economic prosperity is predicated upon the myth of continual economic growth and expansion: the most recent events of the Global Financial Crisis demonstrate the fragility of the myth of capitalism as a stable and secure world order.

The American political theorist, Francis Fukuyama, has written that as a result of this triumph, history has reached its logical conclusion and therefore has ended: ideological conflict need never occur again, and Western liberal capitalism can be seen as a benign global order. Critics of Fukuyama suggest that we have a new global political paradigm that is a system of exploitation and suppression by a greedy capitalist class masquerading as benign liberal democrats. The notion that individual entrepreneurialism and market-oriented competition are ‘good’ for the world’s populations at large has been widely rejected and has even resulted in militant opposition such as occurred on the streets of London in 2009. We are seeing an increasingly organised opposition to the claims that a free-market global economy is fair and equal.

Globalisation, then, as a late twentieth century and early twenty-first century phenomenon can be defined by an increasingly unified world market, assisted by new technologies, that transcends national boundaries and creates a world-wide culture as opposed to a culture based on localities or nations. It also reflects the confident embrace of a scientific, rationalist world view that reduces human culture to a set of observable, empirically verifiable and predictable facts. As Vaclav Havel puts it: ‘man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as being.’

Globalisation has also revealed that borders (both physical and metaphysical) are merely social constructs – and as such can be easily reconstructed or even erased. Perhaps even more crucially and disconcertingly for some, because there are so many versions of reality or ‘truths’ out there, truth itself has become a social construct. ‘Truth is’, as Richard Rorty puts it, ‘made rather than found’.

The quest for universal understanding – and the work of creating a global culture – goes on; however, the scale changes and the perspective shifts. What’s happening now is in many ways similar to what happened a few centuries ago when people were exploring the planet: they kept discovering they lived in a wider world and had to continually re-draw their maps. The world that had once been flat became round; then it became larger, and old world views were regularly discarded. People invented new structures of reality to help them comprehend the world; the art of cartography made great strides during this period of exploration, and the fictitious lines of latitude and longitude became as important to navigators as the oceans and the winds. This navigational exploration and cartographical mapping of the earth’s surface played an utterly central role in the imperial expansionism of Spain and England (to name a few).

In terms of what humans are discovering now, of how we set about mapping and understanding the borders and limits of the modern world, it’s useful to take into account Ernest Becker’s statement that we are discovering ‘the fictitious nature of the action world.’ He argues that we are developing eyes to see that ‘flimsy canopy’ that hangs over human life. Others say we are discovering the symbolic universe, the socially constructed nature of reality/realities/culture. We construct subjective maps and legitimate various discourses that enable them to find something new and different about the powerful symbolic structures that shape our lives. We are beginning to see all manner of things – values and beliefs, rituals, ideas about childhood and death, traditions, interpretations of history, ethnicity, even the idea of culture – as inventions. This discovery itself – something that is becoming central to how we understand our role in the modern world – is becoming part of our common ground. It is central to an emerging understanding of the human condition, and also a central part of a new global culture which is, in a sense, a culture about cultures.

Unpacking key phrases from the Syllabus rubric

Note: Where possible students should regard the following comments as discussion points.

All references to Notes from the Marking Centre contained below have been taken from points where I understand that the ideas/concerns of the 2001-2008 elective (Retreat from the Global) and the 2009 elective (Navigating the Global) will overlap.

‘the late 20th and early 21st century’

• The 2004 Notes from the Marking Centre state: It was interesting to see some candidates using, or indeed challenging, some of the insights of postmodern thinkers and writers to inform their understanding of the ways of thinking underpinning this elective.
• The 2006 Notes from the Marking Centre state: In general, better responses on ‘Retreat From the Global’...showed an understanding of the ideological influences in the latter decades of the 20th century and the early 21st century and discussed the texts within this social and historical framework.
• The 2007 Notes from the Marking Centre state: Stronger responses revealed an understanding of relevant theoretical frameworks such as postcolonial theory…they were also mindful of the historical periodisation of relevant to the ways of thinking.
• In order for students to establish a context for this elective they need to have a knowledge of the cultural experience of postmodernism - what Francois Lyotard refers to as ‘the postmodern condition’ and ‘incredulity towards grand narratives’.
• You should understand what is meant by Frederic Jameson’s term ‘late capitalism’ and its emphasis on consumption and commodification.
• How has postcolonial theory influenced the way we think about the cultural conditions of the various societies depicted in the prescribed texts? How has postcolonial thinking and theory influenced scientific, religious, philosophical and economic paradigms in the late twentieth and early twenty first century?
• Does postmodernism celebrate the global and threaten the local? In what ways does postcolonial theory re-capture the local? Is this possible? At what points do postmodern theory and postcolonial theory intersect? At what points do they prove to be divergent?
• What do we mean by universal truths? Can there such things as universal truths in the late 20th and early 21st century? And if there are no universal truths, what role do personal, subjective truths play? If there is no grand narrative to attach our subjective beliefs to, what then of the self?

‘blurred traditional boundaries of time and space’

• Traditional boundaries which used to separate people in terms of time, space and culture have been dismantled, broken up and/or significantly re-negotiated. The notion of hybridity is central to an understanding of how various cultures and/or peoples navigate an omnipresent and potentially destructive ‘global’.
• Globalisation has revealed that borders (both physical and metaphysical) are merely social constructs, and as such are easily reconstructed or even erased. This results in alienation and desire for integration – themes which students can explore in all texts. Place and displacement are important concerns: the sense of place and how each composer creates a sense of significance around a specific geographical site is crucial in understanding how the texts operate.
• Examine Levi Strauss’ structural model of culture which states that cultural artifacts and practices have both a functional as well as a symbolic dimension (discuss cultural icons in each text).

‘the globalisation of communications’

• Communication technologies have made fast, extensive mass communication extremely affordable. Such things as cheap air travel and media such as radio, television and the internet have brought the previously alien and unknown outside world into our homes. You should think carefully about whether this globalisation of communications has made the world a smaller or a larger place. Certainly, we can communicate much more rapidly with others who are geographically distant, and this (possibly, arguably) makes us feel more connected to them. Another function of this explosion in communications technology is that there is literally more of the world that we can discover – the territory (in both literal and figurative senses) we have to navigate is impossibly huge; this has a direct impact on our ability to negotiate the world itself.
• This is regarded by some as threatening the local resulting in the erosion and destabilization of traditional forms of culture and identity. However, you must be aware that this is not a simplistic dichotomy which positions ‘local = good, global = bad’: this kind of simplistic argument is something that the Notes from the Marking Centre emphasise as a deeply flawed approach to the elective.
• Put simply, globalisation tends to standardise, whereas local emphasises difference. However, students should be careful here. When defining our contemporary world and ways of thinking, we should remember that Postmodernism celebrates diversity and localisation, as well as hybridity.

‘knowledge, values and culture have become at once global and local’

• What is the effect of global knowledge on local culture? How does local knowledge become global knowledge and what is the effect of this on the local?
• Examine the role of language. Control over language translates into cultural control; examine the influence of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas about cultural capital and see how they apply to the different forms of knowledge that are posited in global and local cultures. What are the implications for local languages, and consequently local cultures, in the face of the globalizing hegemony of English (and other dominant languages)?
• What is the function of myth, memory and history in the global and in the local?
• If the breaking down of cultural and social barriers results in hybridity, is this a positive or negative thing? Is it the inevitable result of differing cultural forces? In what ways can you see this as contributing to the conflicts between fundamentalism and progressivism?
• Who has the authentic voice? Does the flux and hybridity of the cultural forces that shape previously ‘pure’ local societies render the possibility of authenticity a hopeless quest? Is this loss of ‘purity’ always strictly a lament for a forgotten way of life?

‘a range of individual and community responses to this changing reality’

• Socio-economic realities often result in a mood of despair and resignation as traditional ways of thinking and living are eroded. Is it possible that traditional ways of thinking can be re-negotiated and navigated to accommodate the pressures of the modern world?
• Several of the prescribed texts deal with communities or cultures that are navigating the breakdown of traditional values and structures and searching for certainties in ritual, home, family and belonging. This is most obviously evident in MacLeod, Heaney and Theroux; however, in what ways does this manifest itself in Lost in Translation?
• A strong theme of disintegration, return and integration runs through all texts as does a dark sense of irony.
• In what ways is it possible to navigate the global? You should thoroughly explore this question.

‘some have embraced or warily accepted it while others have challenged or retreated from it’

• Refer to discussion of next dot point

‘the relationships between the global and the local’

• The influence of global and local cultural forces in all areas of the life of the individual and his/her community is a feature of late twentieth century living.
• There are those who welcome the influence of the global on the local as they see access to technology, information, services and markets benefiting local communities. Then there are those who resist this influence on the grounds that it is a form of domination in which individual distinctions of culture become erased by a homogenizing global culture.
• The main argument used by the resistance is that global culture does not have its origins in a spontaneous eruption, but is rather a function of western liberal imperialism perpetuated by the centres of capitalistic power. Global culture is seen as ‘a continuation of an imperial dynamic of influence, control, dissemination and hegemony that operates according to an already initiated structure of power that emerged in the sixteenth century in the great confluence of imperialism, capitalism and modernity’. (The Empire Writes Back - Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin )
• In the elective Navigating the Global we can map two dominant cultural camps: those who embrace the global and those who resist the global. There are many shades and degrees of acceptance and resistance in between the two extremes of these poles.
• Lyotard’s ‘small- scale narratives’ vs his ‘grand narratives’.

‘significance of these relationships to the life of the individual and their community’

• Navigating the Global should not be seen simply as a conflict between the individual and society or the individual and the corporate. The Notes From the Marking Centre make this clear: ‘The Retreat from the Global responses tended to oversimplify the relationship between the global and the local’ (2001); ‘Again this year the…weaker responses still tended to oversimplify the relationship between the global and the local, with many candidates still considering this elective only in terms of ‘global – bad’ and ‘local – good’ (2003); ‘Students’ avoidance of a simplistic dichotimisation between the local and the global, in terms of positive and negative valuation, was a feature of higher range responses’ (2007).
  
• The maintenance, protection, survival and navigation of social and cultural identity is at the heart of the relationship between the individual and his/her community. The relationship between the individual and the group is dynamic in that both depend upon and interact with each other. You should think very carefully about the ways we can see language (poetic, filmic, fictive) as something that composers use to ‘navigate’ their way through the knowledge, values and culture of an increasingly ‘global’ world – all the while attempting to retain something of their original cultural context.
• Language, religion, ethnicity, place, cultural myths, conformity, shared community values, family, language, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual preference, age, occupation, wealth, political affiliation, social values, educational qualifications and entertainment interests are all components of local identity. The cultural context in which this occurs is what distinguishes one society from another.
• You should consider the role of diasporic communities and their cultural and political allegiances. The cultural practices of diasporic communities are not necessarily restricted by loyalties to nation states – indeed they illustrate the fact that cultural practices are NOT tied to a specific place but might be said to exist, as Graham Huggan says, ‘within the hybrid spaces opened up by cultural translation’. And as these spaces become increasingly connected in a global web they constitute the new emergent global culture which has an authenticity of its own. You should think carefully about this concept while studying and researching Lost in Translation. When researching texts of your own read diasporic writers; many are being widely acclaimed for their exploration of the challenges facing local identities in an increasingly global culture.
• The impact of globalisation on local culture is intense and often irrevocable. Thus the retreat from the global, the desire to retain roots and traditional structure, the preference for autonomy and local authority and the belief in a cohesive value system is an obvious consequence in many local communities.
• All texts prescribed for this elective deal explicitly with these issues.

‘Students explore the ways that values are inscribed in particular texts and how they are reflected by the texts They consider whether and why texts are valued in their own time They also consider why and by whom those texts are valued today’. (Module Rubric)

• Each composer assumes a particular perspective, defends certain values and defines cultural allegiances. Thus it is important that students explore the political context as well as the cultural (including literary/filmic) context of the prescribed texts.
• Students should consider the notion of culture, and implicit in culture are things such as values, beliefs, practices, customs, morals, art and laws. You should expand the narrow view of culture as localised and pertaining to a specific society to a more all embracing ‘cultural camp’ i.e. a cultural position or point of view. This implies a specific cultural outlook with its own valuing system.
• Consider the proposition that local myth resists the global metanarrative of Modernity (reason, progress, legitimization of dominance over ‘primitive’ and ‘uncivilised peoples’, Euro-centricism). When thinking about the term ‘Modernity’, it should be understood ‘as a discourse rather than an epoch’ (Ashcroft et al). Thus you should explore what is valued and how this is translated into individual and social behaviour and beliefs.
• You should examine the respective composer’s choice of textual form (novel, short story, poetry, film and whatever the texts of their own choosing are), textual features (such as structure) and the language of the text. How do these influence meaning?
• There is a strong sense of place and landscape in all the prescribed texts and students should explore the language and techniques employed by the composers in evoking local and global values through these representations.
• All texts deal with displacement of character which is representative of the displacement of the local. Students should examine how language is used to portray character, both the character’s sense of displacement and the character’s reaction to this situation.

‘The ideas, language forms, features and structures of texts may reflect or challenge ways of thinking during this period’

• One of the most common pitfalls for students in this elective is an exclusive focus on the ideas in texts that reflect or challenge the ways of thinking associated with the concept of Navigating the Global. Generally speaking, this particular aspect of the elective has been very well covered in examination responses – and will again going on the evidence presented over the last eight years of the previous elective.
• One of the exciting challenges of the Extension 1 course is that you are required to demonstrate, evaluate and analyse how the ‘language forms, features and structures’ (techniques) underpin the ideas about Navigating the Global that are contained within your prescribed and additional texts. Of course, you must know that it is not enough to identify the language forms, features and structures of texts: merely pointing to them and stating that they exist is not enough at this level of English. What you must do is argue how these various features of the texts reflect and/or challenge the dominant ways of thinking during the historical period that encompasses this elective (broadly speaking 1966-today).

The long piece underneath presents one method of examining various aspects of the prescribed texts; especially how you might go about linking ideas with detailed technical discussion.

Navigating the Global: Mapping the area

Definitions

Navigating
Navigate: from the Latin navigare (navis ship, agere drive).
Also: Navigating, navigator, navigable, navigability, navicular.

This key phrase is essentially one which in concerned with direction and steering a course, in all the literal and figurative senses. It seems to provide for a much more fluid sense of agency in its applicability to this ‘way of thinking’. The idea that the modern, globalised world is something that can be successfully navigated, mapped and/or negotiated is – perhaps – a positive way of approaching the difficulties of globalisation as a whole. There is most certainly the sense of having to make one’s way through the modern world and all its contingent difficulties; as well as the sense of having to re-map one’s localised place and identity: this is to be balanced against the sense of being able to find one’s way.

Notions of hybridity and fluidity are central to our understanding of the conditions under which this kind of navigation may successfully, or otherwise, take place. The drawing and re-determining of boundaries (physical and metaphysical), cartography, discovery, exploration are all central to colonising, expansionist enterprises – cultural, political and economic. And these concepts are all central to the prescribed texts.

Global
‘Globalisation is the process whereby individual lives and local communities are affected by economic and cultural forces that operate world-wide. In effect it is the process of the world becoming a single place. Globalism is the perception of the world as a function or result of the processes of globalisation upon local communities’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, London: Routledge, 1989).

Local
A distinct community sharing certain values and beliefs.

Retreat
Negative – rejection, resistance
Positive – reassessment, renewal

Value
Noun: worth or importance of something to the individual or the community or the thing of importance itself (friendship, honesty, tradition, co-operation, loyalty, wealth, etc)
Verb: involves a judgement, assumption or belief that something is worthy or important

Paradigms
‘A pattern, exemplar, example.’ – The Shorter Oxford Dictionary.
The way that the word should be read for our purposes is that it describes a pattern or set of assumptions through which one views the world. There is no general, objective agreement about what is true, what is important, or what should be valued. Things such as these are negotiated – or indeed navigated – within social or cultural contexts. And of course different societies and cultures often share paradigms. When the syllabus states that ‘the ways in which scientific, religious, philosophical or economic paradigms have shaped and are reflected in literature and other texts’ you should understand that you are not grappling with notions of ‘absolute truths’ but rather exploring particular ways of viewing, or interpreting, these things. A very good discussion of paradigms can be found in Stephen Bonnycastle’s book In Search of Authority (chapter 4).

Texts of your own choosing

The issue of ‘other texts of your own choosing’ – or what the Notes from the Marking Centre refers to as ‘additional texts’ – continues to cause problems. Please be careful when citing texts, whether non-fiction or fiction. You are encouraged to refer to theorists in order to support your arguments BUT be careful when using the same material in the same manner as your classmates.

One of the Extension 1 Course Objectives is to ensure that ‘students will develop skills in extensive independent investigation’ (Syllabus, p. 91.): you should not rely solely upon your teacher to provide you with additional texts. Indeed, they may only provide you with a model of the kind of thing to look for. Markers want to see evidence of your own ‘extensive independent investigation’ – independent of your teacher, that is. Comments in the 2006 Notes from the Marking Centre should be taken very seriously as their repetition attests to the importance of this aspect of the elective rubric:

• The additional texts were of crucial importance in this module as they attested to a capacity to apply concepts derived from their mentored study of prescribed texts to their own textual exploration. The analysis of additional texts allows a demonstration of conceptual complexity through the opportunities provided by the integration of parallel or divergent ideas.
• Whole classes utilising the same additional texts often presented theses which were formulaic and failed to engage with the terms of the question.
• The selection of texts of the candidate’s own choosing was important. It was evident in the more sophisticated responses that candidates had individually and carefully selected ‘other texts’ that would develop their argument in an effective manner. These responses displayed diversity and freshness in their originality and a truly personal engagement with the elective.
• In all electives the stronger and more insightful responses showed evidence of research, investigation and wide reading/ listening/ viewing and ‘ownership’ of the elective. This resulted in a personal, confident tone and individual voice used to articulate the response and interpretation of texts and elective. The practice of whole classes using the same ‘other texts’ in the examination proved to be a great disservice to many candidates, as it prevented them from engaging in independent textual investigation that could have enhanced the sophistication of their responses. Too often when candidates used the same ‘other texts’ they also had similar perceptions about the texts and regurgitated very generalised ‘dominant’ readings of them. These responses lacked personal engagement, critical insight or analysis.

The 2007 Notes from the Marking Centre highlighted another significant and important issue with regards to the choice and use of additional texts, noting that weaker responses ‘dealt with texts of own choosing more superficially than prescribed texts’, with a distinct inability to engage with or ‘examine techniques in the texts of own choosing.’ Clearly, you should spend as much time engaging with and discussing the context, ideas and techniques of your additional texts as you do with the prescribed texts.

Students should acquaint themselves with the views of various theorists such as Jean-Francois Lyotard. He attacks many of the modern age traditions, or what he calls the ‘grand narratives’, such as The Enlightenment belief in progress, Darwinian evolution, Marxist political and economic history, and Freudian psychology for their limiting effect on human expression and endeavour. He argues for a politics of ‘small-scale’ narratives working from the immediate and the local and without aspirations to any totalising grasp of the whole or global. Modern societies which are committed to improving living standards and promoting technological innovation are based on the grand narrative of Progress. Lyotard would appear to be saying that a consequence of this worship of Progress is an authoritarian system that suppresses the individual and local cultures. Environmentalists would say that it is this worshipping of Progress that has led to environmental degradation and even placed our survival as a species at risk. Lyotard also comments on global communications and says because of our increasing capacity to bring fragments of the ‘far’ near and to incorporate fragments of the ‘past’ in the present, all knowledge thereby becomes at once global and local, timeless and timely. (See The English Studies Book, page 129.)

There are many ethnographers, economists, sociologists, philosophers, cultural theorists etc who can provide you with a theoretical framework for the elective. Remember Extension 1 requires that you employ a conceptual approach to your studies of the texts. The 2006 Markers’ Report states, ‘Stronger candidates revealed an understanding of relevant theoretical frameworks’. Other theorists you might like to research are: Ihab Hassan, William Ashcroft, Frederic Jameson, Homi K. Bhabha, Francis Fukuyama, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Linda Hutcheon, Helen Cixous, Terry Eagleton, Mikhail Bakhtin, Emily Apter, Helen Tiffin, Epifanio San Juan, Helen Gilbert, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and James Clifford.

Prescribed Texts

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood by Alistair MacLeod

These short stories all explore life among the migrant community in the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia. This isolation provides a setting for the exploration of loss and personal grief as well as providing a context for the lament of a passing way of life. This sense of geographical isolation is important as it underpins the value of purity, harmony, human dignity in the face of adversity, physical hardship and the uncertain elemental forces of nature.

MacLeod refers to this localised or regional setting as ‘the landscape of the heart’. And in this way, these stories demonstrate an attempt to understand the world that is beyond rational comprehension; it is through narrative, symbol and structure that we can go into these ‘landscapes of the heart’ which are at once specific and universal.

MacLeod’s writing is not a cultural rallying cry in the way that Seamus Heaney’s poetry is, but rather a memorialising of a vanishing culture. He also portrays cultural commodification and/or hybridisation as unavoidable in the face of global forces. However, he also portrays the centrality of family, culture and tradition in the face of an ever-encroaching globalisation.

These stories underline the value of music, rhythm and harmony: these things transcend time and the laws of mutability. Local histories, myths and rituals are juxtaposed with global imperatives of progress and economic necessity.

The stories deal with the tensions that are a result of socio-economic realities of the modern globalised world and the local ties of family, community and culture.

MacLeod also articulates the pathos of social reality when people are caught between inherited responsibilities of validating and perpetuating the values of their local community and pursuing personal fulfilment within global contexts. Notions of longing and belonging and themes of return are typical issues addressed in postcolonial literatures. You will be able to explore these issues in all the prescribed texts.

]Like in all the texts set for study in this elective there is a powerful sense of place in MacLeod’s stories. This is typically a postcolonial concern and students should explore the intimate relationship between character and physical environment in these texts. A sense of place is important to MacLeod in geographical, psychological and linguistic terms – and this holds true for all of the prescribed texts in Navigating the Global.

You should engage in research which gives you a thorough understanding of the context of MacLeod’s stories, particularly the setting of Nova Scotia (New Scotland). The sense of displacement here comes through from the ‘Clearances’ in Scotland (by the British) which took emigrants to Canada (and other countries); this sense of displacement is continued as the modern world effects changes on their Canadian world: MacLeod’s stories deal with this sense of the characters being ‘doubly displaced’.

Look carefully at the prescribed stories and the way their chronology details the gradual passing of a way of life: ‘The Boat’ was published in 1968, while ‘Island’ appeared in 1988. The world that MacLeod writes about alters in many significant ways in that twenty year period – not the least in terms of his choice of characters, settings, plot; along with the values that underpin these authorial decisions.

Seamus Heaney

Before reading the poems of Seamus Heaney students should acquaint themselves thoroughly with the history of Ireland as well as the contemporary context in which Seamus Heaney is writing.

In Preoccupations, Heaney’s collection of prose pieces, he confesses that instead of breaking new ground he is ‘reclaiming old ground’. He quotes from William Wordsworth’s Preludes:

the hiding places of my power
Seem open; I approach, and then they close;
I see glimpses now; when age comes on,
May scarcely see at all, and I would give,
While yet we may, as far as words can give,
A substance and a life to what I feel:
I would enshrine the spirit of the past
For future restoration.

Heaney sees these lines as a confirmation of his own role of the poet as diviner:

Implicit in these lines is a view of poetry which is implicit in the few poems I have written that give me any right to speak: poetry as divination, poetry as revelation of the self to the self, as restoration of the culture to itself; poems as elements of continuity, with the aura and authenticity of archaeological finds, where the buried shard has an importance that is not diminished in the importance of the buried city; poetry as a dig, a dig for finds that end up being plants.
(‘Feeling into Words’ in Preoccupations, p. 41).

Heaney’s poetry does seem to be informed with this idea of ‘digging’. He appears to be digging to excavate and reveal not only his own personal past, but the past of his own language and culture itself. Heaney has said of The Bog poems that he ‘began to get an idea of bog as the memory of the landscape, or as landscape that remembered everything that happened in and to it.’

Heaney concludes ‘Feeling into Words’ with an affirmation of his ‘responsible tristia’

I began by suggesting that my point of view involved poetry as divination, as a restoration of the culture to itself. In Ireland in this century it has involved for Yeats and many others an attempt to define and interpret the present by bringing it into significant relationship with the past, and I believe that effort in our present circumstances has to be urgently renewed. But here we stray from the realm of technique into the realm of tradition; to forge a poem is one thing, to forge the uncreated conscience of the race, as Stephen Dedalus put it, is quite another, and places daunting pressures and responsibilities on anyone who would risk the name of poet.

Heaney, it must be remembered, is first and foremost a poet: he is ‘in love with words themselves’ (Preoccupations, p. 45) and takes delight in ‘summoning the energies of words’ (Preoccupations, p. 36) and sees his poetry as ‘self delighting buds on the old bough of tradition’ (Preoccupations, p. 134). From these utterances it would appear that Heaney is valuing the intrinsic meaning of poetry as ‘art for art’s sake’ rather than art as an agent for political change. He does, however, recognise the inevitability of writing within a particular cultural and wider political context. Heaney sought to explain the political nature of his poetry in an interview:

Poetry is born out of the watermarks and colourings of the self. But that self in some ways takes its spiritual pulse from the inward spiritual structuring of the community to which it belongs: and the community to which I belong is Catholic and Nationalist. I believe that the poet’s force now, and hopefully in the future, is to maintain the efficacy of his ‘mythos’, his own cultural and political colourings, rather than to serve any particular momentary strategy and his political leaders, his para-military organisation or his own liberal self might want him to serve. I think that poetry and politics are, in different ways, an articulation, an ordering, a giving form to inchoate pieties, prejudices, world-views, or whatever. And I think that my own poetry is a kind of slow, obstinate, papish burn, emanating from the ground I was brought up on. (Interview with Seamus Deane, ‘Unhappy and at Home’, in The Crane Bag, No. 1, 1977)

The ‘ground I was brought up on’ features prominently in Heaney’s poetry. There is a sense of linkage between the land, the history and the self.

Students should be on the look-out for examples in Heaney’s poetry of a desire to protect and preserve traditions that are under threat. Early in his career (1963), when referring to the violence in Northern Ireland, he wrote that, ‘the artist is the custodian of human values, of sanity and tolerance and these are the qualities most needed in the North of today’.

So although Heaney was born and raised in the midst of sectarian violence, he has refused to be identified wholly as a political poet. Whilst there is a theme of violence that has plagued Ireland in his poetry; and the relationship between the Irish and the land is a central theme in his later poetry, many commentators have found a certain detachment in his poetry.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

‘I like it,’ said Quoyle, ‘ that the rocks have names.’ (Page 161)
In an interview with E. Annie Proulx (A Visit with E. Annie Proulx by the Canadian Broadcasting Company) Proulx discusses the rural and the local and describes the changes that are taking place in these communities:

I am very much attracted to social change, where things are beginning to shift and tip out of balance and roll into another form, reshape themselves – communities, outlooks, attitudes – and what I saw in Newfoundland… was a lack of choice in the ways to make a living.
She says this trend has gathered momentum since World War II as many farms and local industries have started closing down.
There is always a lament for the vanishing culture; there is always a feeling of a need to preserve what is disappearing, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. There are places… where people have set up farm vacations, bed and breakfasts – come stay on the farm as a guest, as a tourist and you can shovel manure, pitch hay and so forth and do farm things and go back to the city refreshed by your rural experience. And I think a lot of what country and rural living is turning into is a collectible experience. It is putting a whole different, almost foppish, aesthetic value on landscape when you begin getting…entire reproduction villages…there is a period – an era - that is no longer extant, just the illusion of it, or the tools of it, the artifacts of it, so you have whole towns that are museums and at the far end of this is something like Disneyland which plasticises a number of cultures and jams them all together so that you get a sort of a culture sampler, a little bit of music, a little bit of food, a little bit of architecture. This certainly has not happened in Newfoundland yet but it could. There could be ye old fishing village with plastic cod being tossed into plastic bins. It has not happened yet but I suppose it could.

1. Read the extract on pages 199 and 299 where Quoyle and some of the residents of Killick-Claw are in a local restaurant talking about the ruination that has been caused by logging and oil drilling, and the extract on pages 291-3 where Jack reminisces about the good old days. How are the relationships between the global and the local represented by Annie Proulx in these two extracts? How has this contributed to your understanding of these relationships?
   
   Annie Proulx very perceptively comments on the desire for many people to retreat from the global while at the same time maintaining a ‘presence’ in the global, albeit it in a ‘virtual’ sense:

   Who says it is noble? Is it the fisherman who says it is a noble calling? Is it the folklorist? Is it people from away who have invested the fishing life with a kind of romanticism? We have to ask, ‘Who is saying it is noble?’ Fishing is hard, hard, hard work… If it is full of effort then it must me noble right? Then why don’t we elevate the trash man to a position of nobility? That is hard work too… the label comes from afar. It does not come from within.
   People from other places are moving into rural regions that have great natural beauty and also for the ambience of … traditional values, whatever they are, romanticising a hard life, keeping some part of it with all the hardness drawn out. This is attractive to a lot of people. Because people are beginning to earn livings in some very different ways that make exactly that kind of life possible, and that is the computer connection, cyberspace, telecommuting, fibre-optic networks…A lot of people who are informationally wealthy are going to be looking for places to live that are clean and beautiful. Certainly Newfoundland fits that picture. You could indeed have some hardy souls who like fog and rain and black-flies moving to Newfoundland with their computers and working and earning a living and being in contact with far-flung corporations outside of national borders - a truly global set-up. This is beginning to grow …and happen in of all places in rural places… There has been a shift. The new people in the rural community… do not wrestle with the elements, they do not need the land or the sea to make a living…They are not of the land in the sense that the older rural people were. People who deal with knowledge, information, that sort of thing - these are portable occupations… That kind of social mobility is something that we have not known before. It is a new thing and it has a direct relationship to the rural economy and to who lives where…
   The weather lore and so forth – that stuff is being lost because it is not being learned by newcomers and that is sad. This is the real loss that we are getting, that kind of specialised regional place and landscape and seascape knowledge being able to read the place…that is real loss. It is change but it is also loss. I am sorry to see it go. There is no way to write that stuff down. It is in someone’s head, it is in their bones, it is in their eyes. All these things are exquisite fine tunings so that the human body becomes an instrument and an instrument that measures the things that must be known in the pursuit of making a living. That is indeed becoming rarer in this world.

2. ‘Billy knew his way by a rhyme pulled from the old days when poor men sailed by memory, without charts, compass or lights.’(p. 175)
   
   Find examples in The Shipping News which illustrate the sentiments of the author as expressed in the final paragraph above beginning, ‘The weather lore…’, and comment on how particular ways of thinking have shaped and are represented in the book.
   
   
3. Home and belonging are important themes in the book, as are family and community. And although the home is portrayed; realistically, with all its cruelty and blemishes such as betrayal, infidelity, incest, abuse and neglect, Proulx does seem to be saying that it is in the warmth of a caring, supportive family that positive values such as happiness, self confidence, self knowledge and a strong sense of identity can flourish.
   
   How are these values represented in the book?
4. ‘Annie Proulx evokes the warm, supportive and generous sense of community that can develop as a result of a shared struggle against adversity and such hardships as the harsh and hostile environment of Newfoundland and the misfortune and grief of losing loved ones to this struggle.’
   
   Examine this statement in the context of the novel and other texts of your choice that reflect similar values. How has context affected the presentation of these values? In your answer you should identify and analyse the techniques used by the writers in presenting these values.
   
   Culture can vary according to the context in which it is used. For the purposes of our way of thinking it can be defined as the social relations, practices, beliefs and values which prevail in a community of people. (Literary Terms: A Practical Glossary, B. Moon.)
   
   The Newspaper is a cultural artifact. It reflects values through its reporting, letters and entertainment sections as well as shaping views through its editorialising and opinionative sections. These functions are informed by a particular political or ideological slant: i.e. the newspaper represents a particular version or particular versions of reality. Just as the relationship between the individual and his or her culture is a complex set of relationships, so is the newspaper inextricably embedded in that culture: both the individual and the newspaper determine the culture and are determined by the culture.
   
   The Gammy Bird is a salacious little rag with its formula of a car wreck on the front page, several sexual abuse stories, a restaurant review, the shipping news, and gossip column. It represents life as an exaggerated version of disaster or disaster about to happen.
   
   How do you reconcile this view with its owner’s, Jack Buggit’s, wise and generous belief in human potential, and his positive sense of family values?(You should also read the conversation between Quoyle and Nutbeem on pages 221-2.) Students should consider other cultural artifacts and practices and their interrelations, and explore how they function and what they symbolise in the local Killick-Claw Newfoundland community (clothing, cars, boats, gestures, activities, houses, food, festivals, crafts, music, folklore, language).

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux

This 1981 novel by Paul Theroux is written in a chronological, episodic manner; the fictional realism evident throughout guides our responses to the novel – it provides a barometer for the accurate depiction of a series of events. Indeed, the dedication at the beginning of the text frames the novel that follows as something being positioned as semi-biographical:

To ‘Charlie Fox’, whose story this is, and whose courage showed me that the brave cannot be killed. With grateful thanks for many hours of patient explanation and good humour in the face of my ignorant questioning. May he find the peace he deserves in this safer coast. Naksaa. (p. 5)

Although the novel’s dedication is to Allie Fox, students should think carefully about the narrative strategies that are employed to position the reader to sympathise more closely with the narrator, Charlie Fox. Theroux’s decision to narrate the novel through Charlie’s perspective opens up several important and interesting questions.

The most obvious of these questions that students should immediately address regarding Theroux’s narrative strategies and how he positions the characters and the text as things readers are required to navigate seem to be: who exactly is navigating the global here? Is it Charlie or Allie? What role does ‘mother’ play in all of this? How is Theroux ‘navigating the global’ through various textual strategies? Remember, you should not just be thinking about the ideas that are being presented in The Mosquito Coast (which obviously deal with how a family navigate the global), but should also be engaging with how the various techniques that Theroux employs reflect and underpin his values.

The setting and historical context of the novel is interesting and well worth further investigation and research. Honduras has long been a disputed and contested site of imperial interest: the Spanish conquest of Central America included Honduras until independence was granted in 1821. The CIA website states that two and a half decades of military rule ended in Honduras in 1982 – one year after The Mosquito Coast was published – when a freely elected civilian government took office. Ronald Reagan became President of the USA in 1981; the history of the USA’s involvement in Central America is inextricably entwined with his Republican administration. Honduras was a haven for (American-funded) Contra fighters who launched anti-communist raids against the neighbouring Nicaraguan Sandinistas (representative of a democratically-elected government).

You should use this important, contextually significant information to further your understanding of how post-colonial societies interact with their ex-colonial cultures. You should consider how, or indeed, if, Allie Fox is symbolic of US imperialism in Central America. His explicit rejection of mainstream Western consumer values complicates this, but you should also remain aware of his rejection of many of the indigenous cultural practices in Honduras. In what ways is Allie Fox Theroux’s symbolic of the failed US military and political intervention in the Central Americas? You should look at this American military imperialism in Central America in a post-colonial sense: what is this novel saying about American values and the sense of localising these in a Honduran context?

Through Allie, Theroux clearly details the many problems that Western civilisation has: However, does Theroux position the reader to empathise and agree with this set of values? As narrator, Charlie seeks and gains our empathy and understanding with his access to greater narrative clarity. You should examine the text as a bildungsroman, with an emphasis on Charlie’s growing adolescent and psychological freedom from the controlling force of his father. As you think about the text in this manner, examine the importance of the knowledge that Charlie will bring back to America. Also, consider the sense of how Charlie is navigating the more global sense of masculinity and how he negotiates the western values associated with this.

Allie Fox in several ways represents the failure of older, more traditional American values; and thus his son is left to rebuild with the residue of these older values, he will carry them through into a newer, more stable and resolved society. Consider how Charlie very closely associates the inside of his father’s head with the inside of the ice-box ‘Fat Boy’. In what ways does this view of Charlie’s contradict or confirm how his father operates in Honduras?

Allie is the outsider, the outdoorsman who shuns the trappings of a junk culture. However, he is essentially racist (look at the pre-Honduran shopping expedition), although this is complicated by the relationships that he has with the Honduran farm workers who admire and respect him. Once in Honduras he (attempts to) replicates the hierarchical conditions – gender and class-based – of western society. He is the mercurial genius who badgers, cajoles, leads and inspires others. The nuclear family is replicated; religion, however, is vigorously dismissed as a rarer form of stone-age superstition by Allie. What value does Theroux ultimately place upon organised religion? Look carefully from Chapter 28 until the end of the novel.

Allie is a deeply flawed genius; he doesn’t reject Western civilisation, it is perhaps more that it rejects him. Our sense of him as a reliable and stable source of information about mainstream cultural values, among other things, is complicated by the revelation that he has undergone Electro-convulsive Therapy (or Electro-shock therapy) at some stage in the not so distant past. Theroux positions Charlie as a more effective and trustworthy source of narrative information at an early stage of the novel:

For a while, Father would not eat, and he was taken to the hospital. He called it ‘The Buzz Palace’, but came out smiling and said, ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’ He was healthy again, except that now and then he forgot our names. We drove to Hatfield with nothing. He liked starting from scratch. (28)

Theroux provides us with a very clear sense of what is wrong with modern consumer culture through the depiction of Allie’s verbal rants – the sense of Allie’s voice being his most powerful, vindictive and elucidatory weapon is portrayed strongly throughout the novel – and the final symbolic image of the birds ripping his tongue out is the acknowledgement of his destruction. Theroux gives us a sense of Allie’s navigation of modern consumer culture, but for most of the novel we are positioned to see Allie as a kind of monster who brutalises his children; he is someone who is driven and possibly recurrently insane. As readers we are positioned with the narrator, Charlie, to accept that his father goes gradually insane. This sense of navigating the global is complicated: this novel clearly directs the reader away from the simplistic and incorrect view of local = good, global = bad; a position such as this is most clearly understood by examining Theroux’s narrative strategies (most prominently with Charlie as first person narrator) and the structure of the novel (whereby the resolution points us towards accepting the inevitability of western culture as saviour). Charlie’s relief at the very end of the novel, such as when he is in the taxi-cab and it is ‘glorious’ (384) is complicated by the fact that this resolution has been provided by a religious force; this is further complicated by Theroux positioning this within the context of the narrator’s post-pubescent attraction to Emily Spellgood.

The novelistic structure builds towards the explosion of ‘Fat Boy’ and the cataclysmic results that this has upon the society/civilisation that the Fox family has built up; Allie destroys the machine he has built and implicates Charlie in the death of the three ‘guerrillas’. An interesting note is that ‘Little Boy’ was the code name for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, while ‘Fat Man’ was the code name for Nagasaki bomb, both of which were responsible for untold destruction in 1945. Theroux’s conflation of the two names is potent in its symbolic portent for the sense of destruction the explosion causes.

You should think carefully about what Theroux is arguing here. Is religion presented as a salvation to the problems of the modern world? If religion is no salvation and provides no way of negotiating the modern world – if it is too inextricably implicated in promoting, protecting and underpinning the values of trash/consumer culture, and can infiltrate even the most geographically distant locations – then what do we look towards to place our hope in? Capitalism is a culture that has inbuilt obsolescence, and outsources labour to countries that can provide a cheaper alternative: what then is the alternative? What alternative does Allie Fox present? Does Theroux present this as a realistic, rational and practical alternative to the modern world?

Importantly, Allie Fox is presented as a deeply patriotic American, and this is one of the main reasons we are told as to why he is leaving the United States. When he tells his children and others – later in the novel – that America has been destroyed in some version of apocalypse, he is only lying in a literal sense; for him the America he loves has been destroyed. This apocalypse symbolises the destruction of his personal world and mind, as well as his hopes for rebuilding civilisation in Honduras. Theroux’s sense of the failure of American (cultural/imperial) value systems in the Central Americas also has implications for your reading of the novel in a postcolonial manner. Theroux links the values that Allie takes with him to Honduras back into an older sense of American ingenuity and inventiveness that is perhaps best expressed in someone like Benjamin Franklin.

Theroux’s presentation of Allie Fox as a rugged individual, as some kind of Harvard-educated outdoorsman is deeply embedded in the myth of exploring and pushing at the frontiers of America which stretches back to the Pilgrims and later in the ‘wild west’. Fox, like many other real and fictional Americans, idealises breaking free of society’s grasp, battles the unknown/wilderness and carves out a new society based on his on own moral code. Ultimately, this is destructive and life-threatening – Allie is deeply insane by the end of the novel and carries the potential to destroy the lives of his family. Perhaps Theroux’s position is that it is impossible to fully escape – even if we are equipped with skills, seeds, visionary potential and imagination. We have become so conditioned into accepting the values of mass-consumer culture as normative values that to retreat as far as Allie Fox does can be nothing but destructive. It is an initial navigation away from these global values, but is also a navigation through them – Allie takes what he needs from mass-consumer culture to rebuild society (also gives us a sense of the hybridity of his value system). Also, Theroux’s positioning of religious values as pervasively intruding throughout the novel questions the possibility of (re)building a society/civilisation which is not based on a system of religious belief.

It is important for you to think about this novel in terms which are broader than the simplistic ‘Allie Fox and his family navigates away from a morally bankrupt and corrupt USA and retreat to Honduras and live in the jungle’ because this is only deals with the first set of ideas in the novel. One way of avoiding this would be to engage with the resolution of the novel: certainly Allie rejects global values, but his family are in the process of re-navigating these values at the very end of the novel. Charlie’s tone of relief and joy is unmistakable, and it what we are left with when they arrive back at La Cieba: ‘It was glorious even here, in this old taxi-cab, with the radio playing’ (384). What then, is Theroux’s position at the end of the novel?

Think of the global in terms of those older, mythical frontiersman values that have been bastardised, cheapened, diverted and perverted in the modern world: Allie is a more pure version of that older America, an America which cannot be sustained in the modern world. Despite his best intentions his charisma and rugged individualism cannot hold it all together – the strength of the self is not enough: the destructive elements of human beings encroach upon their ‘Eden’ and it implodes. Also, perhaps you could examine the notions of masculinity that are explored in the novel, and how Theroux narrates, navigates and interrogates the global discourse of patriarchal values embodied in the relationship between Charlie as narrator and Allie as narrated.

Other texts certainly provide some rewarding parallels with The Mosquito Coast.Mark Twain’s characterisation of Huck Finn as someone who ‘lights out for the territory’ has deep resonances with Allie Fox; as does our sense of Huck – and Jim – being free on the raft, yet heading into more and more dangerous territory as they drift downstream. There are also parallels with texts such as Herzog’s Aguirre, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (and the Swiss Family Robinson) and the myth of Prometheus; Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will also provide you with a rich and rewarding source of comparative study. It should be noted, however, that these texts are outside the period set for study and are not suitable as ‘texts of own choosing’.

Lost in Translation, directed by Sophia Coppola

This 2003 film examines the desire for connection and something beyond the surface textures of late capitalist culture, here epitomised by Tokyo. Two ‘fish out of water’ Americans seek refuge in one anothers’ yearnings. Contextually speaking, students should think about this as a post-9/11 film which locates itself within a city that has risen out of a post-Hiroshima Japan (that grew from that apocalyptic vision into one of the world’s economic super-powers). However, there is beauty and tranquility to be found within this culture, and this gestures towards Coppola’s belief in the ability of the transformative self. The city of Tokyo itself is obsessed with surface and Coppola explores how this manifests itself in language; desire, lust and love; fame, appearance, wealth; freedom and entrapment.

This series of questions is in the chronological order of the film. Some questions refer explicitly to film techniques, but implicit in each question is that you should be explaining the role that cinematography/sound/lighting play in the construction of meaning. Do not simply answer in terms of plot and character. When answering, think carefully about how these individual scenes contribute not only to the film as a whole, but also how the film itself demonstrates how Coppola navigates global discourses concerned with late capitalist culture, dislocation and alienation.

While answering these questions you should also think carefully about how to locate this film within the ‘Navigating the Global’ rubric: where are we positioned in terms of the ‘local’ here? How is the global being embraced or accepted? In what ways does Coppola navigate the discourse of modern film and the genre of ‘romantic comedy’? How does Coppola use the characters of Bob and Charlotte to examine the difficulties of navigating modern codes of language, sexuality, and connection in a dislocated/alien culture? How does Coppola position language at the centre of the film? How does she explore the relationship between the signifier and the signified through the clash of cultures and realities? How does she present modern Tokyo as the epitome of postmodern culture? Look carefully at the predominance of reflected surfaces and mirrored realities throughout the film – and then examine carefully if Bob and Charlotte are able to discover something that exists beneath that surface.

Think carefully about how Coppola’s film – as fitting reasonably clearly into the ‘romantic comedy’ genre (with some exceptions) – uses various forms, features and structures of film language to reflect and reinforce (or challenge) this way of thinking about the relationship between the global, the local and a defined sense of place.

Chapter One: Welcome to Tokyo

1. Explain Coppola’s choice of the opening shot of Charlotte’s see-through underpants and bottom. Why does the camera linger here? What is mood or tone is Coppola establishing at the beginning of the film? How does it position us as viewers?
2. How is Bob’s dislocation emphasised in the opening shot of him in the taxi? How does the shot operate/function to emphasise this alienation and dislocation? Where else in the film are there shots of characters in taxis?
3. As Bob walks down the hotel corridor and he is greeted by several staff, the camera stops as he continues and we see several young Asian men: describe their appearance. Explain what you think Coppola is showing us about contemporary Japanese culture and its influences.
4. Sitting in his hotel room the first time we see him, what is Bob watching on TV? What comment is Coppola making about the natural world and contemporary civilisation?
5. What is significant about the exchange that the two ‘businessmen’ have with Bob at the hotel bar? Why does Bob leave?
6. How does Coppola initially connect Bob and Charlotte (ie. before they actually physically see one another)? How are their respective partners presented in the initial stages of the film? Does this representation alter at all throughout the film?

Chapter 2: Charlotte Can’t Sleep

7. Why does Coppola show us several machines that operate seemingly by themselves? What comment is she making on modern society? What does the scene in the shower demonstrate about Bob's place in this culture?
8. How do Bob and Charlotte communicate in the lift? Why? Explain the mis-en-scene and how it works to position the characters in terms of their other-ness.

Chapter 3: Suntory Time

9. How does the manner in which Bob questions the interpreter continue throughout the advertisement shooting alter? Why do you think this is so?
10. What does Bob’s impassivity in the face of the director’s tirade tell us about his character? What is Coppola suggesting about the function and role of language in the film? Comment on the scene here – paying attention to Bob’s costume and set and how it compares and contrasts with the constructedness of the film crew/director/set etc.

Chapter 4: Charlotte Wanders

11. Why does Charlotte’s visit to the shrine upset her so much? Examine the dialogue she has with her friend and explain how this works to establish Charlotte’s character and continue her trajectory.

Chapter 5: Premium Fantasy

12. List the four shows that Bob flicks through as he watches TV in his room. What is the significance of each of these shows for Bob’s character? Focus closely on the film of himself that he watches. Coppola’s use of doppelganger/the mirrored self is developed throughout the film to comment on character in terms of self-knowledge: how is it developed here? What comment is Coppola making about Bob’s life? What is his reaction to seeing himself? Take note of the several other occasions that this technique occurs and comment on the significance on each occasion.
13. What does the arrival of the ‘Premium Fantasy’ call-girl indicate about how Bob is perceived by the Japanese company he is working for? How is language used to confuse the situation and create humour here?
14. Coppola uses alternating scenes of Bob and Charlotte throughout the film to compare and contrast their characters, it’s an interesting structural device. What symbolic function do the dinosaurs and elephants have for Charlotte and Bob, respectively?
15. What comments does John make about the people that he is working with? How do they compare with what we see of the people who are directing Bob?

Chapter 6: The Photo Shoot

16. What is Bob’s attitude to the second advertisement shooting? Why is he asked to mimic Sinatra/Moore etc? What comment is Coppola making about the role of fame and the mimicry of gestures and attitudes here?
17. Why are the clips still attached to his dinner jacket when he is in the hotel bar? What is Coppola’s point here? How is this juxtaposed against the discussion at Charlotte’s table? How do Charlotte and Bob first make contact?
18. Describe the function of the scene with the exercise bike.

Chapter 7: Kelly!

19. How does Coppola position us to perceive the characters of John and Kelly as similar? How does Coppola use costume to contrast the characters of Kelly and Charlotte?
20. Explain what resonance the CD Charlotte listens to has in terms of the overall purpose of the film? In what other scene is the CD referred to? What happens then?
21. What kind of connection is stressed between Kelly and Keanu Reeves in the press conference she gives? How are we positioned to more readily accept Charlotte’s view of Kelly?
22. What is being emphasised through the juxtaposed scenes of the ‘Midnight Velocity’ press conference and the Japanese flower arranging scene? How does Coppola achieve this? What aspects of Japanese culture does it portray?

Chapter 8: Jet Lag

23. What is the symbolism of the movie that Bob is watching (with an old samurai warrior dying a painful death)?
24. How does Coppola achieve the connection between Bob and Charlotte in the bar? What role does the barman/waiter play in this? What does their dialogue reveal? Focus particularly on the lives they want to lead and the actual lives they lead.
25. Comment on Coppola’s use of sound when Bob is in the pool. What does this decision reveal about what is attempting to be conveyed about Bob’s life at that point? Compare and contrast this scene with the next one involving Charlotte and her excursions in to that zany world of Japanese arcade games.

Chapter 9: Drinks With Kelly

26. How does John react when Charlotte wants to join him and Kelly for drinks? What does Kelly’s conversation reveal about her character?
27. Examine the dialogue between Bob and Charlotte here, particularly Bob’s talk of a ‘prison break’ and the ‘accomplice’ he’s looking for. What is happening between the characters here? What is Coppola demonstrating about the power of language and human connection?
28. As John leaves he tells Charlotte that he will be back on Sunday and that he loves her. How does he say this? What does it reveal about his character and his attitude towards Charlotte in particular and love in general?

Chapter 10: Night Out With Charlie

29. Explain the symbolism of the white dressing gowns and the swimming that takes place in this scene. What does the dialogue demonstrate about their connection? How else is this connection established?
30. Explain the significance of Coppola naming the Japanese friend/go-between Charlie Brown. How does this fit into earlier comments Coppola has made about the current state of Japanese culture?
31. Describe the costume that Bob is dressed in for the night out with Charlie – what is Coppola suggesting about youth and how culture that is founded on youth underpins modern global culture? What role can an ageing movie star such as Bob play in this culture?
32. Describe Bob’s karaoke performance. In what ways is it similar or different to Charlotte’s performance? Explain the significance of the lyrics in the songs they sing to their current situation/s.
33. Describe the exchange of looks that occurs between Bob and Charlotte. Why is the scene outside the karaoke room shot in silence? What is Coppola emphasising about the developing relationship – particularly with regards to language – in this shot?
34. Examine the symbolic significance of Bob and Charlotte crossing back over the bridge in the taxi, heading towards the Park Hyatt after their first night out together. In what ways is the scene similar to the first scene we see Bob in? Why do you think Coppola has arranged this similarity? What is the significance in showing Bob asleep? In what ways can we see Charlotte as a figurative bride that Bob carries in his arms across the threshold and into her bed?
35. Compare the uses (or silences) of language between Bob and Charlotte, and Bob and his wife Lydia. What does Coppola suggest about the efficacy of language as a tool for communicating emotion? Examine Bob’s ‘I love you’ to his wife (who has already hung up) in the context of other professions of love during the film. What is Coppola suggesting about the ability of language to express feelings and love?

Chapter 11: Black Toe

36. What is the function of the scene here with Bob and Charlotte and the sushi chef? What is the role of language here?

Chapter 12: At the Hospital

37. What is the significance of their hospital visit? Look carefully at the interactions that occur between Bob, Charlotte and the Hospital Registrar, Charlotte and the surgeon, Bob and the elderly lady in the waiting room in terms of how language operates.
38. How does Coppola convey Bob’s nervousness at Club Orange? How does this scene contrast with the relationship between Bob and Charlotte? What kind of attitude towards sexuality is articulated here?
39. How does Bob react when he sees an image of himself on the moving billboard? What kind of language is he using as he dodges across the traffic?
40. Why do Bob and Charlotte avoid Kelly – who is singing at the bar – when they come back to the hotel? What does their body language tell us about their relationship?
41. In the Bob’s hotel room they are watching ‘La Dolce Vita’. Research this movie on imdb.com or wikipedia (or better still, get a copy and watch it) and articulate why you think Coppola chose this film. What resonances does it have for Bob and Charlotte?
42. Examine the sequence of scenes from when they are mirrored/reflected in the window and the city skyline to when they fall asleep. Explain the directorial choices here, particularly with regards to cinematography and dialogue.
43. What do they reveal about how they are perceived by their partners in the scene referred to above?

Chapter 13: Kyoto

43. Describe how Charlotte is presented as she watches the wedding procession.
44. At the entrance to the shrine in Kyoto, Charlotte writes on a piece of paper and attaches it to a tree covered in these small pieces of paper. What wish do you imagine she writes on this piece of paper? Explain your choice.
45. Why does Bob avoid the advertising people he’s working for? Why does he agree to go on the chat show?
46. What does the mobile phone conversation with his wife (while he’s in the bath) reveal about Bob’s state of mind?
47. Examine the sequence of scenes 48-51. How has Coppola structured this sequence to provide some context (or justification) for Bob sleeping with the jazz singer? What is she suggesting about the disconnectedness of modern life?

Chapter 14: The Jazz Singer

48. Why do you think Bob sleeps with the jazz singer from Sausilito? How does he feel about it in the morning? How does Charlotte react? Examine some of the scenes leading up to this point for points of contrast and comparison with Charlotte.

Chapter 15: The Worst Lunch

49. Describe the tone and mood of the scene in the sushi bar. Apart from dialogue, how does Coppola create this mood?

Chapter 16: Fire Alarm

50. When Bob and Charlotte see each other downstairs during the fire drill/alarm scene, they meet in a place that is neither completely inside nor completely outside, more of a liminal space. What symbolic purpose do you think this plays in the context of their relationship? The film itself?
51. Why do you think that Charlotte smiles at Bob’s feet? What does it display about Bob?
52. Describe the tone and mood of the scene at the hotel bar. Explain the significance of the new house band and the song they’re singing. Look carefully at the cinematography used to portray this last intimate scene between Bob and Charlotte. How does Coppola use Charlotte’s dialogue to undercut her perhaps more serious intentions?
53. Examine the chaste, clumsily delivered/received kiss they exchange in the lift. What effect is Coppola striving for here?

Chapter 17: So this is goodbye

54. In what ways does Coppola juxtapose the emotional significance of the two men in Charlotte’s life at this point? Look carefully at the fax that John sends and the phone call that Bob makes to her room.
55. What is the function of the ‘sexy businesswoman’ (her title in the list of characters) in the lobby? She introduces herself to Bob, shakes his hand and then Charlotte exits the lift. At this late point in the film, what is the purpose of this short scene?
56. Look carefully at the shot of Charlotte entering the lift, the doors closing and giving us a reflection of Bob’s luggage. What does this sequence suggest about their relationship?
57. In the scene where Bob chases Charlotte and embraces her, his whispering is indistinct – although it obvious that it comforts Charlotte in some way. What do you imagine that he says? More importantly, why do you think that Coppola has chosen to exclude the audience from listening to Bob’s words?

1 It is also a derogatory comment about the importance of ‘surface’ in postmodernism