The Wonder Years: Gilbert and Gubar

In this episode of The Wonder Years, Kevin’s mother (Mrs. Arnold) is fitting into the stereotype of the housewife. In the first part of this clip (1:16-1:47) the family is sitting down for breakfast, she is serving everyone while simultaneously situating their lives. She hands her husband coffee when he comes in, responds in rhythm to a multitude of questions like, mom can you, will you, do you know where… etc. She doesn’t miss a beat, but she also seems to be lacking any other identity other than “housewife” at this point. Her role in the family is to be the caretaker, as Gilbert and Gubar state, “ shine like a beacon in a dark world, like a motionless lighthouse by which others, the travelers who’s lives do have a story, can set their course” (599). Each member of the family (the travelers) presents themselves with having “external events”. She is the “lighthouse” that sets them in the right direction. She is the selfless character, nurturing her family while loosing her own identity.
In the middle of this clip (4:25-5:40) Kevin’s friend Paul is upset about his glasses. While he is complaining about them, Mrs. Arnold comes in with a load of laundry and asserts her role as housewife/ nurturer to make him feel better. About this sympathy role Gilbert and Gubar say, “She has no story of her own, but gives advice and consolation to others, listens, smiles, sympathizes…” (599). She is the embodiment of “advice and consolation” as she makes the boy feel better and soothes his ego with hot cocoa.
In the last part of the clip (7:10- 7:50) the boys are playing basketball and Paul starts talking about Kevin‘s mother and the life she had before her family. Because Kevin see’s her in this housewife/ mother role as far as he‘s concerned she is leading and has lead “a life without external events” (599). Gilbert and Gubar also say “a woman of right feeling should devote herself to the good of others… silently, without calling attention to her exertions because all that would tend to draw away her thoughts from others and fix them on herself” (601). In her failure to expose a life outside her family, Mrs. Arnold plays into the theory of the “angel” and therefore continues the cycle of her housewife ideology.
One could also say the character of Mrs. Arnold also embodies what Gilbert and Gubar define as the Angel with qualities of, “Submissiveness, modesty, selflessness; reminding all women that they should be angelic” (600). This character is angelic not only by action but appearance: with her golden hair, smiling face etc. When the family is at the table during the beginning she asks her husband about going to a play to which he essentially says no. She doesn’t respond but with only a look of dismay, “if Woman owes her Being to the Comfort and Profit of man, tis highly reasonable that she should be careful and diligent to content and please him” (600). Mrs. Arnold does not question her husband or refute his decision, she simply says nothing.
The character of Mrs. Arnold is the stereotypical housewife. She plays up themes from Gilbert and Gubar while reinforcing that women should be silent keepers of the house. For this character her identity becomes the angelic eternal feminine and continues having no story.


Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. “The Madwoman in the Attic.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 812-825.

Foucault and Faulkner

In As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the omniscient narrator Darl can be analyzed with Foucault’s theory of Panopticism. The story is as follows, Addie Bundren in an attempt to get back at her husband for making her conform to society with multiple children and a loss of freedom, requests that after her death be buried in the town she was originally from, Jefferson, which is a week’s trip. With decaying body in tow, Addie’s husband and her children make the journey to fulfill her desire. The narrator, Addie’s second eldest son, is all knowing, all seeing, much like the supervisor in Foucault’s Panopticon. The family are very much in their cells, being watched until the tide changes ultimately reversing the roles. Darl becomes even more so, the outsider of the family and once this happens, he is sent away for mental help. The Panopticon idea encompasses two areas of focus. According to Foucault, “ The first is that of a pure community, the second that of a disciplined society” (Rivkin, 468). The need in society to categorize with binary division labels people as productive members of a society or parasites. For example those that are crazy as opposed to sane, those that are dangerous as opposed to harmless, and those that are normal in society as opposed to those that are abnormal (469). In Faulkner’s novel, Darl Bundren seems to threaten the pure community and disciplined society of the family. He is the least favorite of his deseased mother, hated by his half brother, despised by his sister, and also ultimately replaced by his brother as omniscient narrator. In looking at the Bundren family as a society, he becomes undisciplined and eratic as implied in some of his behavior. The family begins to view him as crazy and not in compliance with their norms. They use binary brandings dubbing themselves normal, where Darl is the abnormal one, although in my opinion he is the most sane. Because Darl is “abnormal” he is sent away to the hospital on the basis of insanity. At the beginning of the novel, Darl starts out as the supervisor in the middle of the panopticon. He watches everyone in their “cells” and thus is the all knowing narrator. However, once his family see’s that he is not acting like them in relation to determination in transporting his dead mother for burial, he breaks the normalcy’s of the family and therefore becomes himself in a cell, being watched. Foucault says, “ Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (470). This causes a change in power as Darl having power over the reader, is replaced by Cash. Not only is Darl sent away, but it is at this point the reader may question Darl’s reliability as a narrator.



Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 549-566.

The Boiler Room for Marxist Theory

Karl Marx’s theory is described as “how the normality of our everyday world, with its quiet routines and rituals, its workaday habits and its working day, its monetary stresses and pressures on one end and its leisure and freedom on the other, is riven from within by… class struggle”( Rivkin 231). In this clip from Boiler Room, we see a couple examples of Marxist theory. Not only are the separate class systems showcased, but the driving force behind them: capitalism. In the first portion of the clip, the narrator is describing the values of what we see in society today, how to make the money and live the American dream. It states, “Culture may seem the least important of capitalism’s instruments of social control, but for Marxists, it is quite important, for if everyone is simply trained from birth to think alike and to think alike especially that it is a gift to be free, to seek one’s own rewards in a more or less open economy… they force will not be required” (Rivkin 232). The narrator in the clip goes on to talk about a large corporation (Microsoft) that made its employee’s large amounts of money by giving them stock. He proceeds to say that he saw a picture of a grounds keeper with a Ferrari, now if that’s not living the American dream, then what is? The point though is that this character, like Marx says, thinks his values are his own. However, he has been raised to idealize the aspects of wealth, because that is what society projects; that’s the culture. By pushing this capitalistic view point, a system is locked in place where people will work not only to live, but strive to live well. This is exactly what we see in the first half of the clip. Rivkin also states, “The ideas that prevail in a culture tend by and large to be ones that certify as legitimate the shape of that society and to reinforce the hegemony of the ruling elite” (Rivkin,237). In other words, the people with money are the ones that influence what the rest of us think we want, or need. They shape the values of society.
In the second portion of this clip, the interview, Ben Affleck’s character plays the wealth card to not only entice the men to work hard, but to disguise the inner workings of management and worker relationships. Affleck plays a top recruiter for a brokerage firm. He brings the interviewees in, sits them around a long table and proceeds to tell them how wealthy he is, how he drives a Ferrari, and how he owned a huge home. Not only does this play on the societal values, but it mask’s the fact that one class will always be dominated by another. In this instance, Affleck is higher on the chain than the men at the table; who will more than likely never reach his status. “Marx argues that this appearance conceals the relations of domination and subordination between owner and worker that allow the capitalist owner to extract from the worker more value… that he paid the worker for” (Rivkin, 235). This “value” is the time the laborers put in to the job. Affleck is motivating, to get the men to work harder, therefore making him more money. In the beginning of this clip the narrator says, “honors in the dollar, kid” and that in itself is the basis of Marxist thought.




Rivkin, Julie and Ryan,Michael. Introduction: "Starting With Zero: Basic Marxism. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 549-566.

Defamiliarizing Liberty Leading the People

In the background of Liberty Leading the People there is a yellow cloud of smoke that you can vaguely see men coming out of, their swords and guns drawn. A man in a top hat looks unscathed by the surrounding war scene. He holds a gun while looking at lady Liberty. She is holding a flag and gun, leading the men while she tromps past bodies fallen by the war. One body is half clothed wearing only a white shirt and one blue sock, the other is fully clothed in army attire. One man, on his hands and knees in a blue jacket with a red sash, is looking up at her as if only she can save him. A young boy stands beside her holding two pistols looking ready to march on. The light in the picture is around lady liberty while there is also a spot of light on the half clothed fallen soldier. While defamiliarizing this picture it could be questioned: at what price does liberty and freedom come? In this painting there is no liberty without death, as the focal points of light show. While the eye is immediately drawn to lady liberty and the positive outcome of the revolution, the underside to this that people die for freedom.

Aristotle, is that you?

While I was trying to find a video on you tube that encompassed all the points that were made by Aristotle, I found myself noticing his theories in commercials. In fact, in most commercials I watched his theories were threaded throughout. I then started thinking about the purpose of commercials and what the aim is: selling products or ideas.How does one sell a product or idea? By striking the chords that are Pathos,Logos, and Ethos. I came upon this recent clip from the past election that advocates NO on prop 8:



In this video all of Aristotle’s devises are present: Pathos (emotions), Logos (logic, reason), and Ethos (community). The arrangement of the video begins with Pathos as the women are immediately told “we are here to take away your rights.” This followed by the removal of their wedding rings evokes emotion in the viewer. The viewer feels bad for these women, who appear to be just as upstanding citizens as any. These women are your everyday people, average people, thus emotion is evoked.
Ethos is also at work here while the wedding rings are being removed the fade in facts about the percentage of same-sex couples that will be affected by this as well as the dollar amount the Mormon church has put into their YES on 8 campaigns. This brings in the community aspect and states the issue at hand,that too much money is being spent on taking peoples rights away. This leads us into Logos. Part of the argument is that it is a violation of rights which is projected in the video when the men enter the house, sifting through purses, drawers, and even undergarments. This strikes the Pathos emotional chord even further because these women are being violated in their own home. The video ends by one of the men saying “what should we ban next?” This is an effective end because it makes the viewer feel unsafe, as if anyone’s rights at any time could be taken away. I envision someone pointing their finger saying "it could happen to you" which is an effective scare tactic.
Regardless of what belief one subscribes to on this matter, it is clear that Aristotle's theory is still being used today.