Return to Roster
Danielle Rosni
drosni@ltu.edu
Major: Mechanical Engineering
LLT1223 Section 09
Great painting!
JOURNALS
Journal 1:
1. A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen
Summary: http://www.shmoop.com/dolls-house/summary.html
2. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez
Summary: http://www.shmoop.com/love-in-the-time-of-cholera/summary.html
3. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly
Summary: http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/summary.html
Journal 2:
Napalm, 2004
Bansky
The anonymous street artist Bansky has garnered his fame through his unique style of satire, political awareness, and dark humor. Though he is based out of the United Kingdom, Bansky's work is often found internationally, where his stenciled work frequently carries themes of anti-establishment and anti-consumerism. In Napalm, Bansky pairs two of the most famous faces in American consumerism with the image of a young, naked, and screaming young girl. The image of the girl is taken from Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-photograph Napalm Girl, which was featured on the cover of the New York Times to demonstrate the violence being used in the Vietnam War and the effect it was having on the people. By combining the smiling Mickey Mouse and the jovial Ronald McDonald with a terrified and tortured girl bearing the effects of war, Bansky poses an obvious critique of America's consumerism obsession and how easily distracted this culture gets from the more pressing issues. In a way, it also reflects the way the rest of the world perceives Americans: as though they are completely ignorant and unforgiving when it comes to international warfare and the state of humans outside of its borders.
Journal 3:
Bansky's use of color is particularly interesting in Napalm, where the only usage of shading is the present in the clothes of the consumerism icons. Both Mickey and Ronald are dressed in a soft yellow color, a tone that is typically associated with brightness and happiness. The Vietnamese girl, the actual focus of the commentary, is in black and white, thus reflecting that the audience's attention is expected to be pulled elsewhere. Space is also a huge factor in the visual rhetoric of this piece. The only images present are the three bodies; there is not any scenery in the background or any kind of additional details present. By only including the three forms in this commentary, Banksy exclusively wants the focus to be on the social issues. His use of space to encourage this is very drastic with the solid gray background. Lastly, the human body plays a significant role, especially considering the only images available are bodies. All three persons present wear a similar expression and hold a similar pose: arms out, legs bent in a shape implying motion, and mouths open in some kind of exclamation. Though these details would seemingly combine the characters together, they actually isolate them. The girl's open mouth is reflecting an exclamation of terror while Mickey and Ronald look excited and cheerful. Their arms are wide and inviting, but the girl's hand are turned down and she is clearly in pain.
Journal 4:
For the Final Paper, I'm considering writing about the role of women and their place/status in society as culture evolves. I'm very intrigued by the progression of women and the movement of feminism, so writing about women in history is very appealing, especially considering how many things have and have not changed over the years. I have not yet decided which piece I would like to focus on, as I believe out upcoming ventures are more female-centric (Mrs. Dalloway, A Doll's House).
Virginia Woolf's essay "Professions for Women" - This is a pretty famous essay by Woolf about women's work (and their rights). It might be helpful if you explore this theme in Mrs. Dalloway.
Journal 5:
1. Susan Bennett Smith
Reinventing Grief Work: Virginia Woolf's Feminist Representations of Mourning in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse
Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter, 1995), pp. 310-327
2. Andrew Finch & Heebon Park-Finch
A Post-feminist, Evolutionist Reading of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House
Kyungpook National University
3. Joan Templeton
The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen
Vol. 104, No. 1 (Jan.1989), pp. 28-40
Journal 6:
ROUGH THESIS:
Henrik Ibsen’s portrayal of female characters in A Doll’s House demonstrates the feminist movement and the pursuit of the individual in the 19th century.
Journal 7:
Long denied the rights owed to them, women have persistently ensured that feminism and the issue of women’s rights were prevalent topics in society and the political spectrum. I'm not sure you want to make a sweeping historical statement like this. And did women ensure this issue would be present in Ibsen's work or was it his own observation of gross injustice? Just a though. In A Doll’s House, playwright Henrik Ibsen places his protagonist in a situation where she must compartmentalize her life into factions. This choice of style focuses the play on the issue of how women were not allowed the freedom and cohesion of individualism in the 19th century. I like this idea - the fracturing of female life/identity/self.
Ibsen brilliantly places Nora Torvald in a doll house to portray her struggle and journey to self-realization (your use of the term "doll house" in this paragraph is metaphorical - you may want to explain that term/metaphor before you use it). The dramatic genre allows the audience to see Nora in the single setting of this doll house of hers, with her doll family and her doll dresses. In doing so, Ibsen blatantly displays the gender roles and norms applied to women. Nora dances when she’s told and she only spends time with her children when they’re playing and laughing, ensuring that she is always perceived to be the perfect housewife and mother. However, this persona is not true to her identity, because in actuality Nora’s love for her husband has driven her to develop a business persona as well. These conflicting characteristics lead to a crisis of identity through which all humans undergo, regardless of gender.
ROUGH DRAFT:
A Doll's House (Rough Draft).docx
A Doll's House (Rough Draft).doc
FINAL DRAFT:
A Doll's House (FINAL).docx
Comments (8)
Abigail Heiniger said
at 9:44 pm on Sep 3, 2014
Good list of texts and summaries, I like shmoop a lot!
Abigail Heiniger said
at 12:48 pm on Sep 12, 2014
Wow, what an interesting image (and disturbing). You could do a lot with this!
Abigail Heiniger said
at 8:46 pm on Oct 13, 2014
Great theme! And either text will be great to analyze. If you do "A Doll's House" you may want to compare the text with performances (and their visual rhetoric). Between the two, you can make an argument about the way the same narrative can be used to give different messages about feminism.
Abigail Heiniger said
at 8:47 pm on Oct 13, 2014
Happy to talk with you during office hours if you want to find sources for this topic!
Abigail Heiniger said
at 2:25 pm on Oct 18, 2014
These look like great sources. If you need help finding more, let me know.
Abigail Heiniger said
at 11:15 pm on Nov 4, 2014
Good thesis! What artwork are you considering pairing with this? "Napalm"?
Danielle said
at 4:19 pm on Nov 6, 2014
I actually found a bronze statue at the DIA called "Filatrice (The Spinner)" that was of a young woman spinning thread. The description of the piece discussed the parallels between spinning thread in the ancient Greek era and nineteenth-century America, and how it was typically a woman's duty. I think it would be interesting if I compared the gender roles that Nora breaks free of with the traditional gender roles this statue represents.
Abigail Heiniger said
at 8:38 pm on Nov 29, 2014
I don't see your rough draft here.
You don't have permission to comment on this page.