This blog was created for the English 590.04H class (Honors Seminar in Romantic Literature: Gothicism and Dark Romanticism) at The Ohio State University, spring quarter 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Team Guess: "The Penitent"
Please comment on our comic page here! comic found on carmen: https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=10294553&tId=4783892
I really enjoyed this kind of interpretation. I think it adds a very enriching layer to bring in the Biblical connotations of Adam and Eve, because Eve really is the ultimate penitent- bearing the burden for the creation of sin throughout recorded history. I also think you guys did a fantastic job working in the sublime, which is something I think we've gotten away from a little bit this quarter. The almost-blank, dark panels really convey the sense of oppression and terror that someone in that position would face. It definitely took me a few readings to hash out what I really thought and felt about it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot more going on here than initially meets the eye. Well done
I think this is a really interesting representation of the Gothic. The dark panels and the brick walls create an intense trapped and hopeless feeling. Add this to the closeups of Eve's teary eyes and her disjointed thoughts, and the comic is propelled forward by emotion, bringing experience and feeling to the forefront. The comic was as much about the experience of reading it as the message presented by it because it invokes confusion through the disjointedness. I think that it works really well in conjunction with everything we have read and learned about the Gothic. Nice job!
What I really like about this piece is the religious twist you took from Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". I've never read this poem so I'm not sure what religious symbolism and imagery is in it to begin with, but since religion was such a major Gothic theme in our class it was appropriate that you made this you interpretation for "The Penitent". The dark, sublime, surrealist feel that is conveyed by the panels here keep us from feeling a truly "happy" ending--Eve is freed in the end but the audience is not left with an overwhelming sense of conclusion and happiness. I think we all got a similar experience from most of the Gothic literature we read this quarter. In The Monk for example, something we talked about in class was the reversal of male and female roles: the men win in the end but they are debilitated and effeminized by their experiences (Don Ramirez has to submit to his wife, Ambrosio is slave to his lust once he starts sleeping with Matilda); meanwhile the women, who are potentially then the true winners, are similarly stripped of their femininity (Agnes is removed of her ability to be a mother, the powerful and evil Matilda is initially presented to us disguised as a man). The lack of heroism and redemption leaves the reader with the dark, unchangeable, almost languid feel of the world conveyed in this novel. For me, a similar sense was conveyed at the end of “The Penitent”—the entire piece up to the end was so dark that the ending didn’t really offer a complete resolution. Very eerie—great job!
I really enjoyed this kind of interpretation. I think it adds a very enriching layer to bring in the Biblical connotations of Adam and Eve, because Eve really is the ultimate penitent- bearing the burden for the creation of sin throughout recorded history. I also think you guys did a fantastic job working in the sublime, which is something I think we've gotten away from a little bit this quarter. The almost-blank, dark panels really convey the sense of oppression and terror that someone in that position would face. It definitely took me a few readings to hash out what I really thought and felt about it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot more going on here than initially meets the eye. Well done
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting representation of the Gothic. The dark panels and the brick walls create an intense trapped and hopeless feeling. Add this to the closeups of Eve's teary eyes and her disjointed thoughts, and the comic is propelled forward by emotion, bringing experience and feeling to the forefront. The comic was as much about the experience of reading it as the message presented by it because it invokes confusion through the disjointedness. I think that it works really well in conjunction with everything we have read and learned about the Gothic. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteWhat I really like about this piece is the religious twist you took from Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". I've never read this poem so I'm not sure what religious symbolism and imagery is in it to begin with, but since religion was such a major Gothic theme in our class it was appropriate that you made this you interpretation for "The Penitent". The dark, sublime, surrealist feel that is conveyed by the panels here keep us from feeling a truly "happy" ending--Eve is freed in the end but the audience is not left with an overwhelming sense of conclusion and happiness. I think we all got a similar experience from most of the Gothic literature we read this quarter.
ReplyDeleteIn The Monk for example, something we talked about in class was the reversal of male and female roles: the men win in the end but they are debilitated and effeminized by their experiences (Don Ramirez has to submit to his wife, Ambrosio is slave to his lust once he starts sleeping with Matilda); meanwhile the women, who are potentially then the true winners, are similarly stripped of their femininity (Agnes is removed of her ability to be a mother, the powerful and evil Matilda is initially presented to us disguised as a man). The lack of heroism and redemption leaves the reader with the dark, unchangeable, almost languid feel of the world conveyed in this novel. For me, a similar sense was conveyed at the end of “The Penitent”—the entire piece up to the end was so dark that the ending didn’t really offer a complete resolution. Very eerie—great job!