A Call for Help

To be frank, I've been avoiding repurposing/ rewriting my paper. And here's why: I feel almost like I have to start from scratch.

My first argument: The church's condemnation of the Elizabethan stage was because of Shakespeare's use of powerful folklore (part 1) which is similar to educators' condemnation of "the Internet" because of it's use as a powerful vehicle for folklore (part 2).

But now, I want to focus on the audience of folklorists and aim more for getting them to study folklore on the Internet which is something that is just not common in the field, that prefers to study the weird and archaic over folklore that the majority of people participate in because that feels more like popular culture or something (still trying to understand why people don't study folklore forms on the Internet when they're so obvious). But it's not like anyone is outright condemning or fearing the Internet or even saying that it isn't a valid vehicle for folklore. They're just plain not heeding it. Most of the studies are about folklore transmitted face to face but they're missing out on this rich world of new folklore genres and forms.

If Only Ophelia had had a Social Network

Throughout this post, I've included images of Ophelia I've found on Flickr that were creative-commons licensed. I've linked back to the artists page in the captions underneath. 

  photo courtesy of  Woflgangfoto

Gosh, I've gotten distracted looking at artwork (and movie clips) of Ophelia for at least an hour! Ashley's blog gave me a spring board and I dived right in. These portraits of Ophelia are absolutely mesmerizing! And how disturbing is that!? What is it about a suicidal girl that has so captured the imagination of artists for centuries that they cannot stop recreating her?

  photo courtesy of  andypowe11

I think Ashley's paper is very significant in this respect and boy does she ever have an audience to draw upon! Ashley does great character analysis of Ophelia, a character who's personality is not her own but is made up of the intents and wishes of others. Ashley quotes an article in her paper that sums it up rather well: “Indeed with her identity constructed always in reference to another, Ophelia is, in essence, nothing, an empty cipher patiently waiting to be infused with whatever meaning the particular mathematician should require.  Lacking personal ego boundaries of her own, Ophelia seems compelled to absorb whatever psychic identity is thrust upon her (Dane 410-411).”

  photo courtesy of  Ло

But Ashley, I don't think you need to draw stretched allusions to identity theft on the Internet to find an authentic audience for your ideas. You have one! Our culture is obviously obsessed with the idea of dead females (or I might argue the loss of the feminine). Just take a look at some popular movies that have captured the public imagination in the last few years: Inception (dead wife), The Dark Knight (dead fiance), Harry Potter (dead mom)... In just the last year, Hugo (dead parents), The Descendants (seriously injured wife), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (missing woman), Breaking Dawn (girl who essentially dies/ gives up life? by becoming a vampire - ok maybe that's a stretch), etc.  People are really obsessed with this idea of the missing or dead feminine. "Frailty, woman is thy name!" - yes, but only because we keep killing her off!

  photo courtesy of  Kevin H

It might be interesting for you to look into this idea more - is the loss of Ophelia's identity significant for the other characters in the play. Music and flowers are feminine-infused objects and so the fact that Ophelia uses them once there is no hold or pressure on her is interesting. Also, in folklore and mythology, the ocean and water is associated with the womb and so the mother or the feminine. So Ophelia dying in water is like returning to the feminine because the world was too masculine and violent for her to remain there.

  photo courtesy of  mydearDelilah

I think Ashley is absolutely correct that this paper is incomplete without artwork and movie clips to back it up. There are hundreds of paintings, photographs, etc that have been created around Ophelia and they say so much more than you can in a ten page paper! Ashley, I think you could have the most impact on potential audiences by creating your own artwork perhaps and writing short blurbs about it.

photo courtesy of Temari 09

Wouldn't it be wonderful to show Ophelia's loss of identity through artistically set up photographs that suggest Ophelia's loss of identy by either not having her whole self in the frame or just having items that suggest her floating on water or something? How eerie would that be?! Or show how she is just a cipher into which others pour their own identities by a photo of Ophelia looking into a mirror and seeing the men in her life or a basin with a woman painted on it with men inside.  I've been just obsessed with checking your blog just to see the photos of Ophelia that you post. They are positively chilling. I think you could really make an impact by creating your own artwork and linking back to what you've written. You can find audiences on flickr and other photo sharing sites. There are social networks for artists like SANe and artists2artists.

Paper Reflections

Here's the link to what I would call my final paper, but I know I'll be editing, changing focus, and taking it in new directions before April comes around.

My writing process: 

With this paper, in contrast to so many others I've written in college, I wrote slowly. A lot of the information I gathered while writing blog posts ended up in my final paper (some of it word-for-word from my blog). I wrote in hour or two hour chunks, because that's all that was afforded to me with little Bracken needing my attention. I ended up really enjoying writing this way. I was not to worn out from sitting down and writing an entire day and a half and staying up all night the day the paper is due, which is how I usually write. I feel like I really benefited from being able to roll my topic around in my head for so long and articulate my thesis to so many people during social proof. My thesis changed over and over, and I foresee it changing again.

Some things Dr. Burton commented on while reading my paper:

I didn't really ground my paper in a good, solid close reading of the text. My focus was on contextual evidence, and my paper may have benefited from a good character or thematic analysis. But as it is, I believe my argument really does center around context, so I may not go back and add this in.

This has a lot to do with my intended audience for the paper, which was another thing Dr. Burton asked about. He said my paper seemed divided in its function and purpose: was this a Shakespeare paper with a little application to modern times or an argument focusing on its audience as academics with a little history to back it up. I'm thinking, ironically I know since we're in a Shakespeare course, that it is actually more of the latter.

DONE!

Finally finished my rough draft! 

If anyone has time today before my interview at 2 p.m to edit, I'd be happy to exchange for taking a look at your's as well!