Uncategorized – Page 4 – ENGL 25640 The Problem of Fictional Character

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Self-Awareness in “Blade Runner”

February 19, 2018 / Hana / 0 Comments

Analyzing characters in this film is slightly difficult, as the whole story is centered around who (and what) should be considered as “characters” in the sense of being human, and which should be dehumanized to the level of being able to kill (or retire) them. I find it interesting that the Voigt-Kampff test used on replicants relies on identifying emotions that humans can relate to. I found this odd, as being aware of the emotions you are expected to produce in itself hinders producing those emotions, and that a dichotomy is created between being emotional and rational that essentially defines your status. We see this in the character of Rachael, who is made aware of the state of her memories and emotions. She is able to withstand the test for much longer duration due to her conviction that she is human, and produce the same feelings. It leads me to question whether being able to have emotions is an adequate way of distinguishing replicants from humans, as the test can only see the results of such emotions and not the process of producing them. Ultimately, I think that the process of trying to systematize emotions is contradictory, and creates an interesting-yet subjective- basis for the entire plot of the movie.

Personal History, Emotion, and Interiority in The Blade Runner

Blade Runner sets up a world where humans live alongside replicants—AIs almost identical to humans and lacking only in emotional response and personal history. These beings are therefore considered distinctly not-human, though in every-day life they function in much the same way humans do. When replicant-hunter Deckard meets Rachael, an advanced replicant who believes she is human, his concept of what is and isn’t human is thrown into question. Though Rachael fails the Voigt-Kampff test, she is by no means devoid of emotions, and though her memories are transplanted, she truly believes that she has a personal history. When she confronts Deckard about whether or not she is truly a replicant, and he callously recites a few of her transplanted memories for her, we see genuine pain in her eyes, and she even begins to cry. This begs the question of what make a person human — and whether the delusion of memory is really all that different from real personal history. I find it especially interesting that we are given almost no backstory for Deckard himself, and he is never portrayed as having deeper emotions than any of the replicants he is hired to kill. For me, this called to attention the position that we, the viewers/readers of media, are placed in when it comes to judging the interiority of fictional characters. There is really no tangible difference, in the eyes of the viewer, between characters like Rachael and characters who are presented to us as human in Blade Runner. Both have constructed memories/personal histories, and we can interpret the true interiority of neither, because we only see portrayals of interiority through exterior expression of emotion.

The Importance of Memory

February 19, 2018 / ingoldjr / 1 Comment

I was most intrigued by Tyrell’s belief that if you gift a replicant with memories, you “create a cushion or pillow for their emotions” which allows for these androids to be more easily controlled. This statement, of course, becomes more complicated as Rachael slowly realizes that the majority of her memories are artificially planted into her consciousness, and actually belong to Tyrell’s niece. As she plays the piano, she can’t remember if the piano lessons are her own, or if her ability to play is merely a byproduct of another’s experience. What I find so fascinating is the assertion that memory and control are linked through their development of a character, as the existence of one allows for the exertion of another. While these memories create an interiority and independence for the characters, they also reveal an artificiality behind this construction. This got me thinking about how the development of any fictional character is similar to that of the replicant, as memories and experiences are projected onto a character via a second-party. It also seems that the presence of these “memories” within a character allows for a more genuine, controlled relationship between reader and character, much like the way in which memories within a replicant provide a “cushion or pillow” through which emotion can be understood.

Fictional Characters, Fictional World

February 19, 2018 / s_cohen / 2 Comments

To viewers, the world presented in the opening scenes of Blade Runner is a chaotic future, technology-infested but also run-down, hyper-corporatized and desensitized, and populated by a heterogeneous mix of cultures, languages, people, and images. There is some text to help us make sense of this foreign world, and later on Deckard receives instructions to retire the remaining Replicants that serve to orient us in the plot that unfolds. By the time we meet Rachel’s character, we are acquainted enough with the logic of Blade Runner’s world to understand where she fits within it.

The process of sense-making that the viewer undergoes to become familiarized with the fictional world feels natural, but in reality is the direct and calculated product of a methodically constructed system that the movie builds. As recurring symbols (ex: origami) and images (the geisha ad) prompt viewers to recall earlier scenes, or voiceovers reiterate words to convey Deckard’s recollection, the film ingrains a class of “memories” for the viewers in relation to the fictional world.

When Rachel discovers that Tyrell implanted her memories, she begins to question herself and all of the preexisting knowledge she holds. At the movie’s final scene, the viewers find themselves in a similar position, implanted strategically with memories of a distinct world, and disoriented by the sudden collapse of this epistemology through the film’s abrupt ending. In truth I am not quite sure what to make sense of this haunting mimetic structure, just as I am not quite sure what to make of what I just watched…

Identity as emotions associated with memories

February 19, 2018 / hyunahn / 0 Comments

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Perhaps one of the most famous quotes in sci-fi film, Roy’s soliloquy reveals the interiority of the artificial beings. A robot may be capable of achieving great feats, but what would differentiate it from human beings is not only that humans can feel emotions but also that they can identify themselves with memories and endow meaning to those memories. Until this part of the film, there are only indirect indications of how Nexuses are human-like. This soliloquy is the climax of the protagonist identifying with the Nexuses, the protagonist is also but a mortal being with limited time and only one truthful collective set of memories. The soliloquy shows that Nexuses are able to endow meaning to their personal memories, and that they recognize their mortal destiny. At the end of the day, the blade runner is left with a realization that human beings are no different from the Nexuses, not because they are born differently, but because both entities are bound to have similar perspectives in treating life. On another note, the phrase “tears in rain” does seem to indicate the mortality of dying beings but induces an especially sorrowful emotion, since their (and our) emotions associated with memories will also perish altogether. This expression is especially significant since the style and content make a congruence.

Becoming human through identity crisis

February 19, 2018 / Ashley / 1 Comment

The movie never mentioned if Rachael was a Nexus 6 or a more advanced version of replicant, but while it usually takes “20, 30 cross-referenced” (21:47) questions to detect a replicant, it took more than 100 for Rachael. Deckard’s immediate reply: “she doesn’t know” (21:53) seems to provide the reason for the difference in Rachael and other replicants if they are of the same technological level, and then Rachael’s self-awareness as a person actually made her more human, at least according to the test. However, her facial expression more or less remained the same, and several instances of her burst of emotions actually happened after she realized that she was a replicant, for example, her tears while she learned that her memory was implanted, and her fear and shaking hands after shooting Leon. It seems almost ironic that the challenge to her identity as a human being infused emotional responses in her so that she was closer to human beings as if it were the internal conflicts, the self-doubting, that made a human. Probably it’s her unique experience to live a life of a human as a replicant, not completely one or the other, that enabled her to doubt the reliability of the text, asking Deckard if he had taken that test himself, and by doing so, challenging the line between a replicant and a human, which was delicately vague for her.

The Curse of the Stereotype

February 19, 2018 / caitlin24538 / 1 Comment

In the beginning of Blade Runner, Deckard’s boss shows him pictures of the four Replicants and gives short descriptions of each. Of the two women, he says, “This is Zora. She’s trained for an off-world kick-murder squad. Talk about beauty and the beast, she’s both. The fourth skin job is Pris. A basic pleasure model. The standard item for military clubs in the outer colonies.”

These two descriptions struck me in the very different way they presented the two female Replicants. Zora is described as a woman, as a human. The pronoun “she” is used twice. Zora was “trained” (a word that suggests an acquiring of skill through practice, something that occurs within one’s lifetime) rather than “programmed” or another word that would imply she was not human. Pris, on the other hand, is described as an object, as something that was created by man to serve a purpose, and is therefore disposable. Pris is called a “skin job,” a “basic pleasure model,” a “standard item”. Pris is never given the pronoun “she.” In fact, all these nouns used to describe her imply that she is an “it”.

The difference in the level of humanity implied by this use of nouns and pronouns is further exacerbated by the functions or expected roles of the two female Replicants. Zora worked for a kick-murder squad. She is therefore dangerous and capable. The description of Pris, on the other hand, makes her sound like a glorified sex toy.

I’m interested in how this early description given to us by a different fictional character within the narrative affects our understanding of those two female Replicants for the rest of the film. Deckard’s boss essentially gives us a stereotype for each of the two women. When we see Zora, we expect someone capable, with excellent fighting skills. When we see Pris, we expect someone pretty, sexy, and incapable of doing anything. This is what we expect. So what do we get? Zora, the supposed fighter, is portrayed in an overly-sexualized outfit, first wearing only glue-on scales, and then leather lingerie. While she shows some impressive fighting technique, she ends up running away at the first sign of people despite the fact that she is winning the fight. Not exactly the ruthless murderess we were expecting. Pris, the supposed sex toy, is de-sexualized in her costuming, covered in grime with her hair unattractively disheveled. She covers her eyes in black paint, in effect marring the beauty of her face, and her clothing never shows skin. When it comes to capabilities, she has many more than Zora. Her acting was superb, first in manipulating Sebastian, and then in hiding from Deckard. Her acrobatics were distinctly impressive, and she fared at least as well, if not better than Zora in her fight with Deckard.

So, my question is, if we were never told at the beginning of the movie that Zora was the trained murderess and Pris was the sex toy, would we have been able to determine which woman was supposed to fit which stereotype?

Exterior Internalised in Pecola’s Collapse

February 14, 2018 / michelleli / 0 Comments

Morrison describes what happens to Pecola as a “collapse” in the Foreword. In the last section of the novel, Pecola’s collapse, the result of her destruction, is revealed through the first and last instance of first person narration from Pecola’s point of view. Collapse means falling down or in. On one level, Pecola collapses into herself, she lives within herself, only conversing with another voice in her head (a split in herself, indicating the destructive aspect of collapse) . However, this collapse has a darker implication, when we take into account how Pecola was constructed as a character before in the novel. (The voice of her friend is a manifestation of the part of her that has internalized the exterior which hates her).

In class, we had briefly touched upon the space Pecola occupies in the narrative. For a major character, readers never see her interior from a first person perspective, until the end when her first person has become a “two” first person. Throughout the story, the narration is constantly drawn back to Pecola, especially in the Summer portion where Mrs. Breedlove/ Pauline, Cholly, and Soaphead Church’s stories end with their interaction with Pecola (and with their backstories, we gain some insight into why they (terrible) act the way they do).

Pecola is constantly defined through those that surround her, and damagingly so, as she internalises the messages of the racist society she lives/exists within. And through this relation with a hostile and toxic external, Pecola is destroyed, and thus her selfhood collapses. The darker implication I suggested earlier, is that during her collapse, she internalised what she loves (the blue eyes) but what she loves hates her (as mentioned in class last time). During her collapse, what collapses in with her is the external too, the voice of society, manifested through the voice of her “friend” (italics).

Pecola is separated from the external world/ society on the physical level (limited interaction on that plane) BUT she is constantly interacting with the external world internally. What happened to Pecola was not a peaceful retreat from society, but a continued internal torture where the internal now contains the external.

The clearest evidence to the external following into her internal is Pecola’s constant fixation upon her possession of blue eyes, which represent the poisonous external standard of beauty and her internalised self-hatred. It dominates the conversation she has with her “friend.” Her psyche constantly cycles around this thing that hates her, but that she loves, and it tears her further apart.

The dark side of her “friend” is seen in how she (or really a side of Pecola that hates Pecola) brings into doubt whether she will have blue eyes forever (“You scared they might go away?“) which feeds Pecola’s fixation and then bolsters it by reassuring her about the blue eyes again. Most tellingly that the “friend” takes on the voice of society is when she asks “Really? The second time too?” in reference to whether Pecola found her rape horrible. This mirrors the conversations Claudia overhears when selling Marigold’s when adults question whether Pecola might have some of the “blame” (189).

The part I see Pecola rejecting the external is in “So there’s no use talking about it. I mean them” (201) them being Cholly and Sammy, and her limited interaction with others. She has rejected the external, but while that may brought peace, the peace is disrupted by the external incorporated into her internal (as discussed so far).

Also of interest, is how Pecola rejects the traditional form of narration, the readers too. Her portion of narration is not really narration, Pecola isn’t telling a story like Claudia does in her portion of first person narration. It’s not a story meant for anyone but Pecola herself, a direct record of her interior. There is no concern for plot, or coherent development of one.

My final thoughts on this passage: when the friend “leaves” she promises “I’ll be back. Right before your very eyes“. The “your” seems menacing, when placed in reference to eyes. Pecola’s actual own eyes, or the eyes she believes she has taken on/ the eyes that hate her? If I continue my reading of the text, it is referring to her “blue eyes”. Pecola begs her “friend” not to leave her, and asks if she will come back if she gets the “bluest eyes”, to which her “friend” responds with the quote before. Although her conversations with her friend has an undercurrent of torment, Pecola clings to this friendship, because while it is tearing her apart, it feels comforting. In this friendship, she has blue eyes, what she has always wanted, and (seemingly) has detached from the painful external world. However, the “friend”/ the Pecola-hating-Pecola’s last words “I’ll be back. Right before your very eyes” reminds the readers of the reality: that this friendship/ this “friend” exists only “before”/in the “bluest eyes” in the hateful society that has been incorporated into her self and dominates.

The impact of narrative authority on character in The Bluest Eye

February 14, 2018 / jenayang / 0 Comments

I found the chapter on Pauline Breedlove particularly interesting to consider in relation to the following chapter on her husband. The narration in the chapter on Pauline is comprised in part by her own reconstruction of her memories, which are set apart from the voice of the narrator in italicized direct quotes. It feels almost like an interview, in which Pauline is given the opportunity to talk about her past. The very explicit use of italicization and quotation marks to separate her words from those of the narrator seem to function to remind the readers that these memories are only her recollection and representation of the past. However, the narration in the following chapter on Cholly does not quote him and instead relies on free indirect discourse to embed his interiority into the voice of the narrator to imbue Cholly and his story with a sense of narratorial authority that Pauline was not given. We learn that Cholly hated Darlene only because his subconscious knew that directing his hatred towards the white men would have consumed him, and while having an explanation does not make the action any less inexcusable, we are told the emotions and thoughts that lead him to rape his own daugther. This is in contrast to how Pauline tells us that sometimes she would catch herself beating her children and feel sorry for them, but she “couldn’t seem to stop.” (124) The narrator does not allow for the same level of immediate sympathy as she does for Cholly, as we are never told explicitly why Pauline can’t stop beating her own children. The difference in how these two chapters lead us to think about their protagonists raises an interesting question as to how character is constructed in the novel and, more broadly, in fiction. We can only understand characters to the extent that the narrator understands them, so how can we realize characters as individuals of their own?

Dual Personas in Internal Monologue

February 14, 2018 / michelleshim / 0 Comments

Even before the reader encounters Pecola’s italicized conversation with her imaginary friend, the introductory lines at the top of the page already set this section of the book apart. Unlike for previous paragraphs, it fully ends with “…PLAYJANEPLAY” (195). This definitive ending mirrors how Pecola, in her mind, has reached her desired end: the attainment of pretty blue eyes. However, by the end of the book, Pecola has fractured into two distinct voices, a tragedy considering how she never truly had a voice to call her own in the first place. Although portrayed as a conversation between her and her imaginary friend, this part of the novel can also be read as an internal monologue that portrays Pecola’s deterioration, but also the sheer velocity with which Pecola herself drives this deterioration. Even within a conversation of her own creation, Pecola fails to stop ruminating upon her worries considering Cholly and Sammy, but especially her blue eyes and whether they are the bluest eyes of them all. She accuses the voice of being jealous, and promptly apologizes, questioning how she never saw this friend when she was “Right before my eyes” (196), to which the friend responds, “No, honey. Right after your eyes” (196). In some ways, this dual, splintered persona is more knowledgeable than Pecola herself, almost reminiscent of Bechdel’s relationship with Alison. However, she does little to aid Pecola in reconstructing her sense of self and her narrative; rather, she further propels Pecola’s deterioration, playing the “good game.”

ENGL 25640 The Problem of Fictional Character

University of Chicago