Beloved - Carnival
Bahktin – ‘Carnivalesque’ • Russian philosopher – 1895 – 1975 • The ‘carnivalesque’ is a description of a historical phenomenon and the name Bahktin gives to a certain literary tendency. Historically speaking, Bakhtin was interested in great carnivals of Medieval Europe. He saw them as occasions in which the political, legal and ideological authority (church and state) were inverted — albeit temporarily — during the anarchic and liberating period of the carnival. • As a result, he says, the public spirit of the carnival metamorphosed into the ‘carnivalesque’: which usually displayed elements of the grotesque, abundance and excess. As a result boundaries between performer and audience become blurred. Source: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cajsa/eurodrama/Carnivalesque
Examples of Carnivalesque in modern day… • Reality TV • Girls Gone Wild • Costume parties • Saturday Night Live • Halloween • Mardi Gras Can you think of any other examples?
The Carnival • Origins in Egypt – Pagan festival • Carnival means farewell to the flesh (carne vale – put away the meat) • Link to historical Catholic tradition of a wild feast before Lent
• After emancipation in 1834, the white planters abandoned the Mardi Gras Carnival and the streets were taken over by the former slaves. Carnival was now a celebration of the end of slavery and included all the elements of the Canboulay (burnt cane, or harvest festival) with a masquerade that mocked the antics of their former masters as well as being a reminder of the evils of slavery. (Michael La Rose, Carnival origins) Source:http://www.carnivalineducation.com/node/29
Carnival and ‘Beloved’ “In the context of Beloved, this is significant because it anticipates the novel’s attempt to reverse the terms of slavery shifting attention from the spectacle of the oppressed Black body to a Black viewer whose gaze implicates ‘whitefolks’ as the architects of that institution… One of the most important features of Bakhtinian carnival, the ritualistic inversion of hierarchies and unsettling power relations. ” (Adams, R.) Source: http://www.racheladams.net/articles/TheBlackLook.pdf
Group task • Read through the carnival section in your group (p 56-59) • Choosing one of the characters (Sethe, Denver, Paul D) create visual representations to reflect what they see, hear and feel. • Choose quotations to surround your images and analyse your choices before presenting your ideas back to the group.
Beloved Read and annotate the extract given: •What is the significance of the shadows in the text? •How are the roses presented? What are they symbolic of? •Identify images that reflect exploitation. •Identify any stereotypical images – what are the effect of these?