ENG 325 Week10 Unit A: Cocteau essay

ENG 325 Week10 Unit A: Cocteau essay

ENG 325 Week10 Unit . Discussion board (200 words)

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 Reading:20th Century Fairy Tale

Movie Review

By Roger Ebert:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beauty-and-the-beast-1946

Discussion question:

Roger Ebert says that fairy tales deal “with what we truly dread and desire.”

1)  What themes does this story (this film) introduce that are dreadful?  Desirous?

2) How does Cocteau convey this theme visually throughout the film?

 Write responses for other three student’s work. (50-75 words Each)

 First student:

From the ferry, to the limo, to the flat, to the resturant, and everywhere in between I never felt like the girl wasn’t in control of the relationship with the older gentleman.  The girl was just diving into this relationship, wide-eyed, as an explorer.  Exploring this relationship, her freedom, her lack of reliance on her mother.  This man was enthralled with the girl. Completely submissive to her every whim. Though toward the end of The Lover, we start to see a shift in the feelings of the girl.  Those feelings become further developed and don’t still have the reckless abandon that she started out with. Towards the end we start to see this kind of balance of power between the two.

I did notice some fluxuations of power when the girl’s family was present.  More specifically her eldest brother.  She’s just reduced to something much lesser in that presence.  That also goes for that of the Chinese man as well. In the presence of the socially elite white family, he loses that magnitude. Though affluent, the family would never directly address him. All refering to the racial constructs of the enviornment.

Second student:

It is difficult to tell who has more power, because both parties exercise their powers very intelligently. Moments of power exchanges can be seen between the 15-year old European girl versus the Chinese man. The girl has power because she is European, thus considered of higher status during French-Indochina period and taboo to intermarry with people of low status, Chinese.  In addition, she is young, almost half the age of her lover (15 years) and she knows that Chinese man loves her, thus capable of using that as a source of power to manipulate the young man.

In contrast, the Chinese is a business magnate, as he is bound to inherit a fortune and is wealth. This is his greatest source of power, as he can manipulate the girl, who comes from a poor family and is living with her manic depressive and bankrupt mother.  This gives him so much power because he can treat the girl, as he likes, as a prostitute. Nonetheless, because the girl knows that he loves her, she seems to have more power because she controls the relationship, dictating the terms, including when or how the relationship ends.

Exchange of powers can also be seen between the narrator and her mother. Her mother, responsible for parenting her bows her parental rights to allow the narrator continue the relationship with the Chinese man so that she can get money. The narrator on the other hand can silence her mother to avoid sabotaging her relationship, because she can get money to help the family sail through poverty. In this case, parental power is exchanged for money derived from the Chinese man.

Nonetheless, I would say that the Chinese man’s power status changes, when his father threatens cutting him off from inheritance unless he ends the relationship.  This is to imply that his power/money, which is critical for controlling the girl is at risk. This is to say that the father is the power powerful, when it comes to power exchanges. He can control the young man to end the relationship to turn the events around; bring to a stop the relationship.

Third student:

The title of the navel written by Duras is the Lover, but readers can find out that the relationships are based on power exchanging. I think the main exchange of power is the girl’s freedom and the wealth from the Chinese guy. In the novel, we know that racial discrimination is full of the world in that era. So, the girl’s family is quiet opposed to the relationship between them. However, the girl’s family is hard to live, that is why, her family acquiesce their love eventually by the money offensive from the Chinese guy. Also, her mother even helps her to persuade her school to let her off.

So, we see the Chinese guy has more power, which help their relationship transcend races, cultures, and regions. If the girl’s family is comfortably off and not so hard to stay, the power will not be so obvious. However, their love makes her marginalized in the school.

Also, the Chinese guy’s family is very centralized by his father. He does not have enough freedom to resolve his life, which make them do not have future. Because his father support his payment, and Chinese culture gives his father more authority to control him. So, he marry a woman that he does not recognize, and his love with a white girl has to break up in the end.

ENG 325 Week10 Unit A: Cocteau essay

ENG 325 Week10 Unit A: Cocteau essay