Lit Hum 13

Don't know if it's too late to post, but here's a trailer for 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, obviously a reference to the last author we read. It's an adaption of a play by Edward Albee and it's directed by Mike Nichols, the same guy who directed The Graduate (1968). Check it out!

This picture is from the theater adaptation of Crime and Punishment by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus. In this version, there are only 3 characters, and the play begins after the murder has occurred, in the police station where Raskolnikov is getting his things. The play focuses more on the relationship between Sonia and Raskolnikov, and uses this relationship to discuss the theme of extraordinary vs. ordinary.

"Mr. Jobs’s conduct is a reminder that the difference between genius and potentially criminal behavior can be a fine line."

 Mr. Jobs “always believed that the rules that applied to ordinary people didn’t apply to him,” Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography “Steve Jobs,” told me this week. “That was Steve’s genius but also his oddness. He believed he could bend the laws of physics and distort reality. That allowed him to do some amazing things, but also led him to push the envelope.”

"Mr. Jobs was certainly brazen. Testimony in the e-books case suggested that Mr. Jobs was eager, even frantic, to have an e-book agreement in place in time for his announcement of Apple’s latest product, the iPad"

"Mr. Isaacson said that he couldn’t comment on specific cases, but noted that “over and over, people referred to his reality distortion field.” Mr. Isaacson added, “The rules just didn’t apply to him, whether he was getting a license plate that let him use handicapped parking or building products that people said weren’t possible."

Steve Jobs... modern day Raskolnikov?

In this cover from this series of comic books, we see an interesting twist on the classic tale of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. There are several elements that really stick out. First, Raskolnikov is portrayed as Batman, who usually is the symbol of justice, so it is ironic that Justice is committing the murder. Second, Batman is committing the murder in the middle of town and not in the privacy of a home; though no one is on the streets, everyone could potentially have seen the murder. Third, St. Petersburg is portrayed in a very open and clean and spacious manner, very different from the cramped and smelly description in the book. And, finally, a huge figure head of Dostoyevsky looms over the city of St. Petersburg and writes it into being with his feather, like some omniscient and omnipotent being, and the moon behind him has given him a halo behind his head, further instilling him with a sense of divinity. There's a ton in just this cover, and I encourage you to peruse the rest of the comic book here! Enjoy!

Bedazzled is a movie that came out in 2000 with a very similar-although modernized-plot structure to "Faust." In the movie, a young man who is longing after a girl strikes a deal with the devil, who grants him seven wishes of his choosing. The wishes all involve him being transformed into someone he's not, such as a basketball player or a drug dealer, and are made in an attempt to woo the young women. Like Faust though, he soon faces many difficulties along the way and realizes that selling one's soul to the devil may not help the love life.

The lighthouse on Godrevy Island, depicted above, is widely regarded as the inspiration for the in Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse". Here, we can understand why the lighthouse is depicted as both a physical as well as a symbolic focal point. As its only defining characteristic, the lighthouse embodies all of Godrevy island, becoming more important than the land on which it was built.

A number of the scenes and the general attitude of the narrator in “Time Passes” of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse reminds me of the last scene in Our Town by Thornton Wilder. In both texts, there is a rather nonchalant attitude towards death, which, though tragic, brings to mind the inevitability and the typicality of such an event in life. 

This painting depicts the murder from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It illustrates the scene when Raskolnikov is about to smash the blunt end of the axe into the pawnbroker's head while she's trying to undo the knot in his cigarette case. It's interesting to note that the entire painting is the same color except for the pawnbroker's clothing. Her red dress represents her imminent death and the blood that she's about to spill. On the other hand, Raskolnikov's ordinary coloration signifies his normality, directly undermining the idea that he is an "extraordinary man."

The Musee d'Orsay had an art exhibition on "Crime and Punishment" four years ago. In the exhibit, the included artworks showed themes of murder and representations of crime.

Depicted is a painting by Russian artist Mikhail Petrovich Klodt showing Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov and Marmeladov speaking at the bar. In the illustration, Marmeladov, a drunkard, is likely communicating his alcohol abuse and its corresponding damage to his family to Raskolnikov. As Marmeladov states, his alcoholism stems from his pain surrounding his grossly irresponsible actions’ harm to his wife and children: “[Katerina Ivanovna] works day and night…and she has a weak chest and is inclined to consumption, and I feel it…the more I drink, the more I feel it. It is for this I drink, that in drinking I may seek compassion and feeling. It is not joy I seek, but sorrow only…I drink, for I wish doubly to suffer!” (Dostoevsky 16). Created in 1874, the work would serve as a cover for Dostoevsky’s novel. The painting is currently housed in the Russian State Library in Moscow.

This is the cover of Pride and Prejudice comic book adaption. I found this funny because the illustrator, by throwing Faux-Cosmo texts all over, points out that the complex, renowned novel can be boiled down to a story of gossipy, shallow women asking the timeless question of whether a guy is boyfriend/husband material.

bride and prejudice takes pride and prejudice and puts a modern bollywood spin on it. I found this interesting because not only does it make the story a musical but it also shows how the importance of a man being in need of a wife pervades throughout time and culture.