Bulletin 2015
暴力美學
Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015
Contents P.1 Contents
P.3 Preface Prof. Gina Marchetti P.8 A Terrible Beauty is Born: Reflections on P.8 Aestheticization of Violence Dr. Fiona Law P.16 Red Lotuses in Snow: P.16 Wong Bik Wan’s Aesthetics of Violence and the P.16 Uncanny Representation of Homeland Mr. Gavin Tse P.27 全 P.34 Comparative Literature Festival 2015: P.34 Exhibition: “Violence or Beauty?”
1
P.43 Film Review: Django Unchained Scarlett Ng P.48 Book Review: American Psycho P.48 Violence and Beauty: American Psycho as an P.48 Aesthetic Revelation of the Horror of Capitalism Kaden Ng P.63 Acknowledgements
2
Preface
Prof. Gina Marchetti Gina Marchetti teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, at the University of Hong Kong. Her books include Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction (University of California, 1993), Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s INFERNAL AFFAIRS-The Trilogy (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), and The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012).
3
I want to extend my congratulations to the Society of Comparative Literature for putting together this stimulating collection of essays and reviews. The bulletin is an enormous achievement, and it testifies to the society’s dedication to our department and discipline. Reflecting on the relationship between beauty and violence pushes us to consider not only the aesthetic but also the moral dimension of literary and cultural studies, and this collection proves that our department responds to this challenge with keen insight grounded in our unique Hong Kong perspective on the arts. Sadly, we lost Dr. Esther Cheung early in 2015, but her spirit animates this collection, and each word pays tribute to her visionary contribution to the students she nurtured and knew so well. She often wrote on the “uncanny,” the “ghostly,” as well as the “haunted,” and these concepts resonate with the articles assembled here. Dr. Cheung also explored the concept of “crisis” in her research on Hong Kong literature and film, and this can be felt in this collection as well. In the 2014-15 academic year, many of our students, alumni, and teachers experienced violence as part of the crisis in governance growing out of demands for universal suffrage in the HKSAR. The paradox of searching for beauty within the pain, horror, and hardship of the protests demands all the intellectual rigor and academic strength we can muster to attempt some modicum of understanding. Before the September 28 teargassing of protesters occupying Central with “peace and love,” one of our Comparative
4
Literature students, Alex Chow, wrote a blog post on the police response to a sit-in, part of the now-annual demonstrations on July 1, in which he says: There were tattoo artists, massage therapists, construction workers, engineers, teachers, photographers, retired civil servants. I really felt sorry for them… In the past 30 years, the democracy movement has been too slow and too painstaking. The power of civil disobedience lies… in the blood and tears of everyone who is behind the struggle. Many
people
experienced
“blood
and
tears”
last
fall.
Counterdemonstrators zeroed in on women as objects of sexual assault. Joshua Wong of Scholarism, and Lester Shum, the deputy secretary-general
of
the
Hong
Kong
Federation
of
Students,
complained that police targeted their groins when they were arrested. Sadly, violence against students extends beyond Hong Kong. The horror of the kidnapping, disappearance, and presumed death of university students in Iguala, Mexico, rivals the regular campus slayings in the United States (recently at Umpqua Community College, Northern Arizona University, and Texas Southern University). The beauty of Malala Yousafzai’s face accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 speaks to her resilience as a survivor of misogynistic violence against young women. However, it cannot erase the horror of being shot in the head for wanting to go to school.
5
Our own students know the “beauty” and “violence” of civil disobedience and political activism, but they also understand the aesthetic use of violent imagery in the cultural texts at the heart of our discipline. Here in Hong Kong, Comparative Literature has a particular responsibility to critique the “beauty of violence” in all its forms by contemplating its moral and ideological dimensions, its ethical boundaries, as well as its artistic utility and cultural provocations. We have a duty to analyze the links between the violent world in which we live and the “beauty” cultivated by the creative arts. Hong Kong pays tribute to the beauty of the martial arts in literature and film, for example. Its artists celebrate the elegance of a well-executed kick or punch, the intricacy of a takedown or efficiency of a grab, lock, or hold, the spiritual power of qigong and the balletic grace of taijichuan. Hong Kong filmmakers, writers, and businessmen have proven their mastery of the aesthetics of violence. Stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Donnie Yen, touch the world through the beauty they bring to the display of violence on screen. The world marvels at the expertise of Hong Kong’s action stars and the ingenuity of our great martial arts directors and novelists such as Jin Yong (Louis Cha). We live off the largess of the Shaw Brothers and take classes in the Run Run Shaw Tower, where our departmental office is located.
6
However, celebrating the “beauty of violence� when HKU students are being gassed, assaulted, and sexually harassed highlights the paradox of our discipline and our encounter with the creative arts and industries. Beauty provides no safe haven for scholars, and our studies violently shake us in unexpected ways as the essays here show. Exploring this theme forces us to confront the beautiful violence of human creation, and all students of Comparative Literature must forge a path in this turbulent world by considering the perils and promises of the arts.
7
A Terrible Beauty is Born: Reflections on Aestheticization of Violence
Dr. Fiona Law Dr. Fiona Law is currently a lecturer of the Department of Comparative Literature in the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include Hong Kong cinema and cultural studies, Asian cinemas, global cinematic circulation, cinematic nostalgia, visual cultures, animal studies (animal rights, posthumanism and zoopoetics), affect and aesthetics.
8
“Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” -- W. B. Yeats, “Easter 1916”
I. To begin with, let us look at the end.
Yeats’ oxymoronic phrase
“terrible beauty” poetically addresses to the seemingly paradoxical combination of violence and beauty as the poem comes to its end. The Irish poet wrote this political poem to commemorate the traumatic Easter Rising, when the increasing nationalist demand for home rule among the Irish Republicans resulted in a rising during the Easter week in 1916. The insurrection for an independent Ireland was quickly put down after six days; surrendered leaders of the rising were precipitously executed, leaving the disturbed hearts such as that of the poet in sentimental troubles as the uprising was deemed unsuccessful. However controversially responded to and insufficiently supported among the populace in Dublin, the bloodshed and ruthless action of the British troops had stimulated their hearts, resulting in the emergence of Sinn Féin in the parliament election in 1918 and Ireland’s independence afterwards. The poetic form generates and aestheticizes the poet’s ambivalent reflection on violence related to
9
politics.
“Terrible beauty” could be read as his sympathy for the
revolutionaries and critique of violence as a means to a just end.
II. While the poem reminds us of the ambivalence of violence in political movements, “terrible beauty” can also be used to describe the tradition of visual violence in Hong Kong cinema. Screen violence has been a prominent feature of Hong Kong cinema – from Cheng Che’s heroic carnage to John Woo’s romanticized gunfight, the aestheticized bloodshed has sprayed the cinematic canvas crimson enough to make us feel fascinated by and unforgettable about it. As film scholar Linda Williams suggests in “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” (1991), violence is one of the three crucial elements of sensational effects (the other two are sex and emotion); it contains its own special form of beauty and generates attraction to audience. Despite the fact that film violence challenges one’s tolerance to visualized aggression and pain of the others, it is one of the most travelable elements for action cinema in general. While destruction and pain are universal as the sensational results of violence, how do we understand the use of visualized violence while they are stylized, quantified, and becoming abstract? Moving our lens from Hong Kong cinema to the global film scene, one recent example of such troubling sight of violence could be the climax explosion sequence in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: the Secret Service (2015), during which human bodies are blown up --
10
heads are exploded, and blood spreads out like multiple fireworks in a massive scale.
This creates a visual feast of carnivalesque-like
bloodshed in a weirdly celebratory mood, which is further decorated by Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in a heroic, processional tone. On one hand, the means of film violence could be a dramatized approach to expose or critique the problematic socio-political phenomenon or reexamine historical events, like the documentary-like depiction of both the FLN guerilla insurgency and French army in Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966); on the other hand, film violence is more likely to simply serve as an eye-candy to feed the audience’s hunger for excessive sensation like those in Kingsman. Maybe we should introspect on the meaning of violence before we come to understand what film violence brings to us.
III. Violence is related to power, destruction, emotional extremity, and physical devastation. Acting violently also means acting impetuously. Such haste is a sign of authority, domination, and suppression. In Keywords (1983), Raymond Williams explains the multifarious aspects of violence: 1) physical assault, 2) the use of physical force, 3) dramatic portrayals of violent physical events, 4) violence as threat, 5) violence as unruly behavior, 6) violently in love, 7) to be wrenched from its own meaning or significance (329-331). Taking into consideration the meanings of violence and its apparent connection to physical
11
damage, we also find that there has been “obvious interaction between violence and violation, the breaking of some custom or some dignity” (330). Sometimes violence does not necessarily take its material form, it can be a destruction of ideas, rules, identity, and senses. Violence contains its own self-annihilation, so that it is always on the verge of self-referential deconstruction. This is also why one should not simply understand violence as being equivalent to cruelty.
IV. Although many acts of violence induce a terminological connection to cruelty (such as animal abuse), which means unnecessary painful and distressful quality or condition as well as an emotional indifference to this condition, cruelty does not always invite violence into play – take the example of what Susan Sontag writes about people’s mediatrained reception of images of atrocities, pains, miseries, and horror. In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Sontag condemns people’s automatic, almost instinctive ways of transforming other’s images of suffering into fictionalized and sentimental drama, as people are “citizens of modernity, consumers of violence as spectacle, adepts of proximity without risk, are schooled to be cynical about the possibility of sincerity;” they “will do anything to keep themselves from being moved” (86).
Instead of feeling the pain of others and trying to
understand the cause of such visualized pain, we claim our superior position as the spectator-consumer by preserving a distance from the
12
image.
Maintaining this distance seems to be a cruel response to
violence. In fact, the lack of empathy, the distancing effect, and even the pleasure induced by the condition of cruelty is that which makes violence most powerfully destructive and self-destructive. Stylization or aestheticization of violence is therefore one of the means to create this alienation. How do we deal with the possible emotional distance and obsession when we come to the beautifully expressed and stylistically represented scenes of violence? Can there be any critique of violence via its aestheticization?
V. Perhaps one should also distinguish the difference between beauty and aesthetics. Literally, beauty seems to be all that is the reverse of violence – it is usually regarded as possessing a constructive, creative force that magnifies the splendor of life. Beauty provides pleasure to the senses; it takes time to appreciate, understand, and get overwhelmed by the awe-inspiring sight or sensation generated by the phenomenal perfection in beauty. The sublime beauty comes from this alienating familiar feeling toward the creature of beauty: from material things such as an object, a person, and a view, to immaterial ones like an idea. The pleasing attraction of beauty also lies in its balanced harmony with nature.
Aesthetics therefore emerges as the
philosophical study of beauty and art. It inquires into thinking about art with a stress on the sensory cognition of beauty, as the word
13
“aesthetics” comes from the Greek word aisthêtikos, which means “relating to perception.” On the other hand, anesthesia refers to the opposite emotional response, or that which is without sensation. It might be interesting to note that aestheticization of violence actually requires an absence of sensation to bear its manifestation. This is another instance when violence is expressed in a self-violating process known as aestheticization.
VI. Let us reflect on the topic all over again. There are at least four ways to (mis)read the combination of violence and beauty: 1) beauty as violence; 2) violence as beauty; 3) beauty of violence; and 4) violence of beauty. At the same time, to read violence and beauty ideologically, we should study both the beauty behind violence and the violence behind beauty.
Since episodes of violence in the everyday context
are singular events that have been invisible and unseen by us until they are aestheticized via visual mediums, the act of aestheticizing violence might warrant a political gesture of hailing the ethical question about the dynamic and dialectics between violence and beauty. The end of this reflection is inviting you to start thinking about this pair of seemingly contrasting concepts not only more critically -- in face of the world
of
“terrible
beauty,”
shall
we
continue
the
project
of
aestheticization, or to what extent shall we regard violence without being obscured by the façade of beauty?
14
Works Cited Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003. Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 4, 1991. PP. 2-13. Williams, Raymond. Keywords. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Yeats, W.B. “Easter 1916.” 1921. W.B. Yeats: Selected Poems. Ed. Timothy Webb. London: Penguin, 2000.
15
Red Lotuses in Snow: Wong Bik Wan’s Aesthetics of Violence and the Uncanny Representation of Homeland
Mr. Gavin Tse Having completed his MPhil degree in 2013, Gavin Tse is currently working as a teaching assistant in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include Asian cinema, literary and cultural studies, with a predominant focus on Hong Kong culture.
16
Wong Bik-wan’s (
) incongruous portrayal of beauty at
moments of extreme and horrendous violence in “Losing the City” exemplifies her unique literary vision and style characterised by a preoccupation with death, destruction, bloodshed and mutilation. Wong Bik-wan's aesthetics of violence invariably hinges upon the notion of the uncanny – the unhomely – in its representation of violence and homeland; at a deeper level the short story can be read as a metaphor of Hong Kong’s unique postcolonial situation, a projection of the fate of the protagonists' motherland Hong Kong vis-à-vis its imminent ‘return’ to China. Wong Bik-wan is reputed for her grim and unrelenting portrayal of human suffering that delineates the darker side of humanity. Her oeuvre contains a dazzling and horrifying range of violence depicting irreparable evil and anguished human suffering. Thus violence serves as important pivot in in understanding Wong Bik-wan's works, not only as a form of content, but, more crucially, a form of aesthetics on its own that informs and governs the grim world in Wong Bik-wan's work. As Dung Kai-cheung (
) notes in his reading of Wong Bik-wan,
I can only see violence, violence, and violence. What is socalled tenderness is also violence. We can see this as Wong Bik-wan's unique style of aesthetics of violence. There is no binary opposition in Wong Bik-wan's world; no endless ruminations of 'to be or not to be'. To be is not to be, not to be is to be; being is nothingness, love is hatred. In this monologic
17
world, violence is only replaced by a new (or the same?) violence. (199)
1
Dung Kai-cheung's insightful comment highlights the profundity and peculiarity of violence in Wong Bik-wan's work in constructing a unique world in which violence is perceived as the norm. This echoes Joseph Lau’s (
) observation concerning the uniqueness of violence in
Wong Bik-wan's work. Lau contrasts Wong's work to the works of her predecessors and argues that “what must be pointed out is that although strategies of their [writers of the May Fourth] representation might differ, they never lose sight of the moralistic value in the politics of violence. The same cannot be said of Huang Biyun's [Wong Bik-wan] 'esthetics' of violence" (151). As Lau rightly identifies, the uniqueness of Wong Bik-wan lies in the absence of moralistic critiques of violence; instead, she presents violence as a natural and inevitable part of the universe. Yet the presentation of violence should not be confused with violence itself. As Wong Nim-yan (
) notes, aesthetics of violence
is an "exploration of the re-presentation of violence in literature and how it impacts upon the readers as an aesthetic experience, and to systematise this aesthetic experience into a unique principle and
1
My own translation. The original is as follows: " 間 周⾼ ‘ ’, 美 周⾼ to be or not to be To be is not to be, not to be is to be 好 ”
18
帶什 次 話
也
也
2
ethos" (39). Central to this re-presentation of violence as an aesthetic experience is the notion of the uncanny. The etymology of the word ‘uncanny’ foregrounds the ambiguous nature of the notion: ‘uncanny’ comes from the German word unheimlich which is the opposite of heimlich (homely). Yet the word heimlich itself is contradictory and ambiguous as it involves what is familiar and agreeable on the one hand and is the hidden and unknown on the other, thus the word unheimlich already connotes the ambiguity of heimlich (Ashley 156-9). Developing upon this semantic base, Freud construes the uncanny as exemplifiing a peculiar condition in which the familiar returns as the unfamiliar (qtd. in Ashley 156). Andrew Bennet and Nicholas Royle build upon Freud’s idea and argue, "the uncanny is not just a matter of the weird or spooky, but has to do more specifically with a disturbance of the familiar" (34). This idea of the uncanny as the disturbance of the familiar is prominently discernible as we use it to scrutinise and interrogate the concept of "aesthetics of violence": a sense of uncanny or displacement is already apparent when violence, something normally perceived as abhorrent and deviant, is rendered in an aesthetic form, as can be gleaned in Wong Bik-wan’s characteristic aestheticisation of violence through the use of colours : "I left a bloody trail
of
footprints
behind
me,
like
red
lotuses
in
snow"
(Wong Bik-wan 209).
2
My own translation. The original is as follows: “ ⽔麼 條 ⾞ 覺 明 死節 也 ”
19
受 ⾞
覺說主得
⼤
Under the pivot of “violence as aesthetics” and the uncanny, the grotesque and horrendous murder scene in which Chan Lo Yuen brutally slaughters his family merits close scrutiny. The scene is pivotal in creating the sense of uncanny in two ways. Firstly, a sense of the uncanny is created through the ironic juxtaposition of the horrific and the mundane.
The readers gain a sense of this uncanny form of
violence as they witness the murder scene focalised through the perspective of Jim Hak Ming, the naïve and innocuous neighbour of Chan Lo Yuen: The scrawny woman’s eyes were still open, as if she was watching television, and there was a child-like look of absorption on her face. She was sitting them prim and proper, her head had been smashed and the brains were trickling down her forehead, the track suit she had on was also drenched with blood, as if she was drenched with sweat. (Wong Bik-wan 208) The horror of this uncanny violence stems from the fact Chan Lo Yuen's family members are murdered during their daily routine; their postures suggest to readers that they are still continuing their everyday activities while they are rendered brutally into lifeless corpses. This effectively highlights how the home, a familiar domestic space of love and warmth, can also be defamiliarised into an uncanny sphere of brutality and horror. The blurring of sweat and blood points to this
20
uncanny obfuscation between the horrific and the mundane, and also to the banal nature of violence in Wong Bik-wan's world. Another form of uncanny violence in this scene can be extrapolated via the perspective of what Joel Black calls the "aesthetic hyperreality" (169).
According to Black, the state of mind of the
murderer can be regarded as a form of "aesthetic detachment" (170); that is, a condition in which the murderer is absorbed within a state which exists outside the real world and the confines of morality. The murderer experiences a sense of rupture from his normal world and enters this state of "aesthetic hyperreality" similar to how Chan Lo Yuen cold-bloodedly murders his wife, his four children and his white mouse out of love as he “couldn’t carry this love-cross anymore” (Wong Bik-wan 212). Thus Chan can calmly offer Jim Hak Ming a cup of Blue Mountain coffee after the murder and also listen to Bach's 'Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, No. 1 in G' with a "look of peace and radiance on his face, like a Christian" (Wong Bik-wan 208). The description of a murderer, Chan Lo Yuen, as a Christian connotes a sense of other-worldliness which intensifies the uncanny feeling of this scene. More crucially, the reference to Bach highlights the religious connotation of the murder scene which exemplifies Black's notion of "aesthetic hyperreality": how the murderer feels elevated and cleansed after murdering his family and listening to Bach: "[i]t lifts the spirits, higher and higher - life is over in a flash" (Wong Bik-wan 208). According to Dung Kai-cheung, the reference to Bach also has another
21
important function in highlighting the banal nature of violence in Wong Bik-wan's work: I think the crux of Wong's artistic achievement is her restraint. Among all the Hong Kong writers I have read, Wong Bik-wan is the one who exerts herself for rationality, and how rationality can reign over chaos. Bach is an important point of reference for Wong Bik-wan. . .Bach represents rationality, logic, causality, contrast, and the beauty of form. What Wong is search for is this form of rationality as an imaginative sustenance against chaos and fortuitous fate (139-40).
3
Thus, for Chan Lo Yuen, Bach represents "permanence and peace" (Wong Bik-wan 208), echoing his calm, detached and seemingly rational state of 'aesthetic hyperreality' in which he kills his family members in order to alleviate them from their suffering. The mixing of death and peace adds to the uncanny nature of violence in Wong Bikwan's world. The sense of uncanny and violence is also inextricably linked to the shifts in geographical locales which give the protagonists a sense of dislocation and displacement. Although fictional in nature, Chan's migration journey resonates with the actual experience of a
3
My own translation. The original is as follows: " 去 間 回 ⾞ ⽔ 成 間 回 ⼆天 真 相 主者 間 回 家然 … ⼼ 節 節 節三此節 這節國⼗ 真 ⾞ 不 真 相 有快新
22
還 節排國
large proportion of Hong Kong people at that historical juncture, the period when a migration wave was precipitated by the anxiety and uncertainty over the imminent 'return' of Hong Kong to china. As Wong Nim-yan argues, “Losing the City� is one of the few stories in which Wong Bik-wan consciously uses Hong Kong as a backdrop to interrogate
the
interdependent
and
interconnected
relationship
between geographical locale and violence (46). The oscillation between homeland and foreign places creates an imbalance within the minds of the characters, such as Chan Lo Yuen and his wife Mei. The shifts in geographical locales create a sense of the uncanny (the unhomely) for the characters as the Chan family migrates from Hong Kong to Calgary, Toronto, Calgary, San Francisco, and finally, back in Hong Kong, yet never unable to settle in comfortably and pinpoint a particular place as 'home'. Through utilising the point of view of Chan Lo Yuen, readers gain privileged access to his mindset and understand the series of incidents during his 'exile' which trigger his long-mediated intention to exterminate his family in order to grant them 'peace': "Soon, I'd be lost in thought and sometimes I'd see Mei's purple face and the two scrawny babies - their faces also purple, like cherries. I wanted to crush them, crush them hard, and splash the ground of snow with the purple red juice (Wong Bik-wan 214). Chan Lo Yuen's family's aimless drift across the States and Canada brings the family a sense of displacement and dislocation, as Chan Lo Yuen remarks, “out of the frying pan into the fire, and out of the fire back into the frying pan. And
23
we
don’t
know
what
wrong
we
have
done”
(Wong Bik-wan 221). With each relocation the burden on the family increases, foreshadowing the inevitability of the tragic and brutal event that obliterates the whole family. As Wong Nim-yan notes, “the repetition of conflicts resembles the structure of a myth, making readers realise the 4
inevitability of a tragic event at the end” (50). Thus this failed story of emigration, of fleeing from the home city, signifies “the impossibility of 5
escape and return” (Wong Nim-yan 50) that conjures up the uncanny image of the homeland. The idea of 'impossibility of escape and return can be gleaned from how every different locale creates the same sense of entrapment for Chan Lo Yuen: “we’d thought we’d find freedom in Canada, only to be trapped in a prison bounded on all sides by snow” (Wong Bik-wan 214), foregrounding a fatalistic view that Chan Lo Yuen is doomed to fail in his search for a safe haven. This sense of fatalism is also encapsulated in the opening lines of the short story: "[n]ow that I think about it, I realize that things had to be so" (Wong Bik-wan 205). This profound sense of fatalism that pervades the entire story crystallises the predicament of the protagonists when they 'lose' the city; at a deeper level it also symbolises the predicament of Hong Kong people when Hong Kong is forced to ‘return’ to China. In delineating the grotesque and tragic story of Chan’s family Wong Bik-
4
My own translation. The original is as follows: “ 玩玩 你 裝感 條 品⽔麼 5 My own translation. The original is as follows: “
24
裡 可
” 路
處 ”.
wan presents a very bleak outlook for the city: for Chan Lo Yuen's family, the future generation is slaughtered; Oi Yuk and Jim Hak Ming's son, the only surviving descendant in the story, is an imbecile. While critics respond to the story's ambiguous ending differently, Dung KaiCheung vehemently argues that the ending is fatalistic and pessimistic, and that the motto of "love, care and concern" that resonates throughout the story is definitely ironic (201). Thus Wong Bik-wan’s paradoxically grotesque and aesthetic representation of violence in “Losing the City” serves as an uncanny metaphor of Hong Kong’s peculiar postcoloniality to explain how history, Hong Kong’s political fate, personal tragedy and violence are intertwined. Works Cited Ashley, Bob. Ed.
Reading Popular Narrative. New York: Leicester
University Press, 1997. Print. Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory: Key Critical Concepts. London: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheastsheaf, 1995. Print. Black, Joel. The Aesthetics of Murder: A Study in Romantic Literature and
Contemporary
Culture.
University Press, 1991. Print.
25
Baltimore:
Johns
Hopkins
Dung Kai-cheung. [ Criticism. [
.] Book-teller: Anthology of Reading and :
.] Hong Kong [
Kong Publication [
]: Hong
], 1996. Print.
Lau. Joseph S. M. “The ‘Little Woman’ as Exorcist: Notes on the Fiction of Huang Biyun.” Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 2.2 (January 1999): 149-163. Print. Wong, Bik-wan. “Losing the City.” Trans. Cheung, Martha. Hong Kong Collage: Contemporary Stories and Writing. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print. Wong, Nim-yan. [
]. A Study of the ‘Aesthetics of Violence’ in
Wong Bik-wan’s Novels. [
.]
The Graduate School of the Chinese University of Hong Kong[
] . Department of Chinese Language
and Literature, MPhil Thesis. [ ], 1999. Print.
26
全 和要
27
得
1. 本
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進 時 每
受
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麼
也
最
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的
拿
⾞
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們
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Leni
The Gate of Heavenly
Peace, 1995 理 ⼩
果
好
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合微
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也從 轉
感
樣 相
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份 們
28
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死⼼
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相視
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進
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2. 受
光
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通
才
包提
場
⽇
Michel Foucault 都
終 也
代
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什
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關東得 微
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光 光
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29
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30
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打⾥安
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開 ⼤
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物
只加
再⼿
明
我
其
關
⼼
真
接 持
⼼
名
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物
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我
百
想拿
死就總
錯⾝ ⼦
笑
流兩很⾒
找
⾳ 即
中
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計
笑
最
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清
個
找 ⼤
會 件
計 打
易⾵ 元
個
即 哈
件時聽
笑兩 過情
31
直
也花
實 的
件
⾞
我合
太 計
保
像 ⾵
時 打
原
安 件
⾼
有
我合
死網
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分
吧⾨度座
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做理
我合真
最
現 抱
取
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條
⼿獲
周
覺
我合
當收
傳
或內
世品拿
物
⼝題
個 ⼝題
公
⼒
玩
Kill Bill, 2003 – 2004
微 我合
最
排
⼤別
百
Quentin Tarantino
分
明分不
深
⻑
光
解此
4. ⽣ 把帶 ⼿獲
⼦
suspension of disbelief 年
現
⼿獲 光
味
覺 幾關東
32
有讓
把帶
⼿ 次
⼦
⼿
他 想
注系
制
⼿獲
⼿獲
現
把帶
⾥ 們個
電本每
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向
同
求
果 得
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百
想拿們百
世品拿
幾處
所 ⼼
幾需
們
量
很
部 最
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因 品
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把帶
有
Marquis de Sade
Sadomasochism, S&M
神
喜完與東
最
公 幾
S
從 些放 放
更
法 ⽚
dystopia
明
拿
1785
道
載
些
次
可
常條才
放
才
⾵
性 了
幾
光
但
幾
第
Pier Paolo Pasolini 120
Sadism
任
將
⻑
⽚
最放
到
關東
國
到
下
超
問
強
幾
幾
所
幾
百
Les 120 journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage, 百⽩
們
120
拿
Salò o le 120 giornate di
Sodoma, 1975 ⼦
節 三
世 ⼿
33
明 也
Comparative Literature Festival 2015: Exhibition: “Violence or Beauty?”
Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015
The Comparative Literature Festival is an annual academic event of the Society. The theme of this year is “Violence as Beauty” ( ). We aspired to explore how violence is represented in different forms of texts stylistically and aesthetically. We also aimed to reflect upon the moral use of aesthetics of violence. The exhibition, entitled “Violence or Beauty?”, had explored how violence can be represented aesthetically, questioning the use of it as a form of art. The exhibition also displayed the debate between scholars to provoke viewers to think further about aesthetic violence in various perspectives.
34
Introduction What instantly pop up in your mind when you witness violent act? The cruelty and inhumanity of abusers on sufferers? The bloody and dripping scenes? The insulting and offensive verbal attacks? Or the ugliness of man? Violence can be represented in a series of forms, such as physical, spiritual and verbal ones. In the face of all these, will you get overwhelmed by a strong sense of resistance against violence? Indeed, violence can be represented in an artistic and stylistic way in which violence transcends into a breathtaking art. Not only can it be presented in the visually irritating movies, but it can also be presented in form of paintings, songs, and literature. This year, our annual Comparative Literature Festival will be launched in the theme of “Violence as Beauty”. We are going to explore how violence is represented stylistically and aesthetically in different texts, evoking audience’s reflections upon the use of aesthetics of violence in different art works.
地 太麼
節
邊邊 感⽇
35
章地
⾵
結
麼
始放
時
只
真
⾥
節
也公
樂
地 得
⾞
因 節
還 都
國得
精
明
⼿獲三
為
How could aesthetics of violence be defined? Aesthetics of violence is an expressive art form which portrays violence in a stylistic and aesthetic way. The intersection of beauty and
36
violence can be found in many texts, including plays, literature, films, music and paintings, etc. It is a new term which came into vogue in the 1990s in America. Yet, the concept has been being applied in many artworks for centuries, for example, Jacques-Louis David’s paintings on French Revolution and avant-garde fictions in China. According to “Beauty, Violence, Representation” of Dickson and Romanets, aesthetics of violence is explained as “the beauty that collapses various boundaries, annuls convention”. The use of aesthetics of violence can eliminate audience’s panic and discomfort when perceiving works related to violence. Apart from it, in accordance with Sigmund Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory, violence is human’s natural instinct. In order not to repress and suppress the desire of violence, human should find some means to relieve it. Through viewing the works of aestheticized violence, audience can easily have the sense of relief and sublime from their repressed and suppressed violent desire easier.
國得 節
得
節
⾞ 嗎
37
只
⾞⽇ 獲 快
⼼
在
⾞
看
·
笑
發影位 學 精
⾃
題
如⼿
麼
拿
”
百
種下
節
關 出
打越
單
⼿獲⼿ 才
電本
作 國業幾·
何
幾 所
是
正
⼿
⽔麼
會
麼
Should artists consider morality in their art creation? This has been a long debate among philosophers. Nietzsche: “A true artist should not consider morality. Artists need to be cruel so as to be creative.” Nietzsche’s “The Will to Power” (1901): “The moral man is a lower species than the immoral, a weaker species; indeed - he is a type in regard to morality, but not a type in himself.” Plato: If we use aesthetic means to construct immoral behaviour, the work will corrupt the youth minds and the influence would be
38
devastating and irreversible. “What goes on in theatre, in your home, in your fantasy life, are connected to what you do in real life”. Thomas De Quincey, who was an English essayist, wrote an essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts”, in 1827. In the essay, he claimed that murder should be an aesthetic act, regardless of ethical and sociological concerns. Since then, over the decades, many people have been arguing whether his argument is valid or not. The following is Quincey’s arguments 1) Murder itself is an artistic act that is both amoral and aesthetically accessible 2) Murder can be by a rational grasp of aesthetic design – Murderers have their own style and taste.
39
Joe Black, a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia, also reveals his views that: The acts of human violence are not usually considered as art might nevertheless be treated aesthetically because there is a difference between artistic and aesthetic. “Artistic”: artist’s production of an artefact “Aesthetics”: exclusively to the beholder’s subjective experience, regardless of whether or not the object of this experience was intended as a work of art.
運
戰於
界書
⾞
幾早
後
所
四經 界
百
拿書
幾
正
⾞
幾
如公
平
幾 ⼜
: 今
們
晚
條
幾
卻服
特 年
40
為 ⼦被節
很
取
元⼿
獲
·
·
第
1827
但
情
但
⼒
⽚ 太
現
些
懂 1.
但
2.
但
⼒ 道中
聽品
於
可
說
⾞
近更
主結得
現
懂
獲
學
“Artistic”懂獲
現
獲
獲
⽐
“Aesthetics”懂 現
獲
好好
⽅
Reflective Questions 1. What does art mean to you? Do you agree with Black’s differentiation between “artistic” and “aesthetics”? 2. Is violence intrinsically bad? 3. Does beauty harmonize radical disorder, confer meaning and help violence receive an appropriate or even positive response?
41
4. Can the anesthetization of beauty enable us to see what would normally remain taboo, such as killing? Can we still rationally make moral judgement?
動
1.
獲
⼩
2.
更
⽔
回 間
4. 載起
但
獲
⽐ ⽐
3.
主
微 被
都
42
事沒
⽚
Film Review: Django Unchained
Scarlett Ng
Currently a Comparative Literature and American Studies student at the University of Hong Kong. Academic Secretary of the Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015.
Director: Quentin Tarantino Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio Year of release: 2012
43
Django Unchained is a 2012 American movie directed by Quentin Tarantino. The story is set in 1858, two years before American Civil War. Dr. Schultz, a German former dentist purchases Django, who is a black slave from the white men for the sake of his bounty hunter job. Django helps Dr. Schultz to identify the man he wants to kill while Dr. Schultz frees Django as a protégé in return. In his journey with Dr. Schultz, he seeks to rescue his wife, Broomhilda from the brutal and unscrupulous Mississippi plantation owner, Calvin Candie. Django is no longer a caged man, but a “master” who can be his authentic true spirit and soul and possess the authority and liberty to have the revenge. The film becomes extremely controversial after it has been released. Most of the people debate about Tarantino’s use of aestheticization of violence in the film. For those who appreciate the movie, they see the representation as “a love letter to spaghetti westerns and an outcry against the institution of slavery” (Killian, 195). This can be well explained in the use of music, color, dialogue, character
background
as
well as
the
setting. Some
of the
characteristics of spaghetti westerns are: 1. The background is usually during or after the Civil War 2. The protagonists (heroes) have bizarre name, like Django (The name, Django, actually comes from the 1966 Italian Spaghetti Western movie, Django filmed by the Italian director, Sergio Corbucci)
44
Apart from the above, it is Tarantino’s style to incorporate fragmentation in his film production. As we can observe from the movie poster, there are 3 colors, including red, white and black. The use of black and white has created a sharp contrast between the good and evil, truth and falseness and also the “black and white” races. The red color symbolizes flesh blood and in the poster background, the spitting of blood like the blossom of rose can represent violence in a visual appealing manner and leave the audience not a frightening sense but a memorable impression at the first sight. There is one significant scene in the film that can truly demonstrate Tarantino’s style to represent violence. It is Django’s return to Candice’s house in Candyland to get his wife, Broomhilda (the female black slave of Candice’s) back and take his revenge to kill shoots Candice’s family and henchmen at the end of the movie. Django who wears a leather black cow boy hat, wine red color suit with a glamorous yellow vest inside suggests that he himself being a aristocratic-like killer is truly free and have his self determination and selection to do anything as he pleases. He does not see himself as a black slave or an inferior party but he has a strong sense that he is having the same equal status like the white bourgeois and aristocrats. Tarantino expresses the Django’s “massacre” in a funny and entertaining way. Every time when he fires, he slowly tortures his
45
“victim” by teasing and shooting each part of the body. The dialogue in between the torturing makes the whole shooting scene hilarious while building the heroic image of Django and villain image of Candice fellowmen. In addition, the use of fast motion in the killing scenes has indeed dramatized the action of murdering and eliminating seriousness and terror of dying. A victorious music accompanies Django and his wife’s leaving so as to celebrate Django’s successful slaughter. Due to the excessive use of violence as well as glorifying violence as a stylistic art, some audience comment Tarantino being irresponsible in dealing with the ethical and historical matters. Jenny McCartney, a columnist in the Telegraph comments that Django and the film places no emphasis on and concern about “the history, chronology and geography” but “the brutality”. Besides, Moon Charania, a Sociology Professor at Spelman College comments Tarantino is “romanticizing violencfe as a form of redemption in a sensitive historical moment” (58) in the United States of America. The whole film has constructed the notions of killing in a visual and aesthetical manner and brought an exciting and entertaining th
enjoyment to the spectators. It is the 8 movie of Tarantino while some people also argue that this is the 2
nd
movie of Tarantino twisting the
history after Inglourious Basterds (2009). The Hateful Eight is the coming Tarantino’s Spaghetti Western movie which will be released in December of 2015. At that period of time, will more audience
46
appreciate the art of Quentin Tarantino in representing violence or will more condemn his unethical, irresponsible filmmaking? Works Cited Charania, Moon. “Django Unchained, Voyeurism Unleashed” Contexts, 12(3) (2013): 58-60. Web. Killian, Kyle D. “Django Unchained.” Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 26.3 (2014): 195-197. Web. McCartney, Jenny. “Django Unchained, review” The Telegraph. 18 Jan 2013. Web
47
Book Review: American Psycho Violence and Beauty: American Psycho as an Aesthetic Revelation of the Horror of Capitalism
Kaden Ng
Currently the Publication Secretary of the Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015, Kaden is now spending his second year in the University of Hong Kong majoring in Philosophy, with an avid interest in Comparative Literature.
Author: Bret Easton Ellis Publisher: Picador Year of release: 1991
48
“The ax hits him… straight in the face, its thick blade chopping sideways into his open mouth, shutting him up… Blood starts to slowly pour out of the sides of his mouth shortly after the first chop, and when I pull the ax out - almost yanking Owen out of the chair by his head - and strike him again in the face, splitting it open, his arms flailing at nothing, blood sprays out in twin
brownish
geysers,
staining
my
raincoat.
This
is
accompanied by a horrible momentary hissing noise actually coming from the wounds in Paul's skull, places where bone and flesh no longer connect, and this is followed by a rude farting noise caused by a section of his brain, which due to pressure forces itself out, pink and glistening, through the wounds in his face. He falls to the floor in agony, his face just gray and bloody, except for one of his eyes, which is blinking uncontrollably…” This is the manner in which Patrick Bateman, a young and well-educated investment banker, ruthlessly rips his colleague - Paul Owen into pieces. American Psycho, which is written as a memoir of Patrick and narrated in a stream of consciousness style, mirrors the mind of the homicidal psychopath. Throughout American Psycho, this Wall Street maniac repeatedly preys on people around him, committing all sorts of atrocity such as rape, torture and murder. This makes readers wonder where is the beauty, if there is any, behind all these
49
horrifying narratives. After all, fictions, like all other works of arts, purport to be appreciated aesthetically. In light of this, this paper investigates the aesthetics of American Psycho. Appearances can be deceiving. This paper will show that it is erroneous to treat disturbing narratives, our revulsion and moral dismay as prima facie evidence of judging a work to be aesthetically unworthy. This paper also reveals that beneath all these portrayals of atrocities that send shiver down our spines, American Psycho is a daring critique of capitalism, inviting the readers to reflect upon urban alienation and reification in a materialistic world. Literature is not judged to be worth appreciating on the basis of the pleasure they brings, but on the ability to induce meaningful reflection among the readers. This paper analyzes how Patrick’s pathological mind and the stylistic narratives couple to produce a dark satire on the yuppie culture, and how the inhumane way in which Patrick’s mind operates resembles the way in which the capitalistic society dehumanizes people. Violence, Aesthetics and Morality The publication of American Psycho has enraged the general public because of its outlandish violence and its portrayal of atrocity towards women. The public outcry was so extreme that the book was condemned before it emerged in bookstores, and the publisher withdrew from publishing at the last minute. The sales of the book were
50
heavily restricted in several countries. On the other hand, serial killer Paul Bernardo claimed that he read it as his bible. Texts that depict extreme violence raise aesthetic questions that are not altogether easy to answer. How can narrative on savagery be aesthetical? The brutality that Patrick perpetuates is something that people condemn and the misery that the victim suffers is something people want to avoid. How can values be extracted from such an outraging spectacle? How can pleasure be derived? If texts like American Psycho can be considered to be a work of art, then prima facie, there is an apparent conflict between aesthetics and morality. Before digging deep into the text, I would first like to have a brief philosophical treatment on the tension between arts and morality. The relationship between aesthetics and ethics has sparked off intense philosophical debate since ancient Greek, in which Plato infamously denounces the value of arts, accusing the epic poets of corrupting men’s souls because they endlessly romanticize the war of gods. Plato’s argument rests on the assumption that exposure to the artistic representation of immorality makes people act immorally. The fact that a serial killer was inspired by this book seems to add weight to this objection. Apart from violence’s apparent conflict with ethics, it also seems unclear how violence and ugliness be incorporated into a beautiful work of art. Plotinus, a major philosopher in ancient Rome,
51
asserts that beauty cannot be composed of elements that fall short of being beautiful. He says, “it is necessary, if the whole is beautiful, for the parts also to be beautiful; for beauty cannot arise from ugly things, but all its consistent elements must have their own beauty also.” (“Ennead”) If Plotinus’s aesthetical view holds, then the very existence of the abhorrent atrocities in crime novels will render the works themselves unaesthetic, regardless of what literary devices the author has adept, and how well the text has proved to be provocative in empowering us to ponder about the world around us and ourselves. This raises the issue of whether a worth appreciating work of art must be composed of beauty elements. After all, it is quite counterintuitive that the compositions of elements that arouse repugnance can create aesthetical value. Hence, there is a prima facie case against American Psycho as a worth appreciating work of art because of moral and aesthetical grounds. However, these two intuitive objections seem to miss the point. The raison d'être of art is neither to send moral messages nor to arouse the feeling of pleasantness. Arts, unlike propagandas, are not designed to achieve a specific end. And their worthiness should not be measured in terms of their practical effects. As Kant puts it, arts have the feature of “purposiveness without a purpose” (Culler 33). The
52
purpose of art is solely about the art in itself, provoking aesthetical appreciation and interpretations. Furthermore, the view that beauty must not arise out of unpleasant
sensations
and
ugliness
illegitimately
conflates
pleasantness and aesthetical value, beautiful elements and beautiful compositions. It is erroneous to make a necessary connection between aesthetical worth and the pleasant sensation. To be sure, the incorporation of violent elements will make the readers feel uneasy. But it does not follow that such distressing feeling can deny the aesthetics of a work, or else any portrayals of unhappy events cannot be counted as unaesthetic, which obviously contradicts the ways in which arts have been operating. Hence, although many good works of art are accompanied by pleasant sensations, they are not unique features of aesthetic experience (Lorand 250). As Culler points out, an aesthetic object is a “combination of sensuous form and spiritual content� (33). Merely focusing on our sensational response of an artwork seems superficial. This lead to another reason why exaggerating the influence of the ugliness of an element in a work of art entirely misses the point. It is because the object of appreciation is not the ugly elements themselves, but the interpretation of the artwork offers to the ugliness of the object (Lorand 245). In the case of American Psycho, its aesthetical value lies not in the atrocities, but the interpretation and stimulation that the work as a whole offers.
53
Upon rebutting the accusation that violent narratives cannot be objects of aesthetic experience, I will proceed to analyze the way in which
America
Psycho
is
structured
to
stimulate
provocative
contemplation. Materialization in American Psycho Any understanding of American Psycho can hardly be separated from its capitalistic context. In fact, materialism is the leitmotif of the novel. Its influences permeate every aspect of the text. The stylistic way in which the novel is written unveils the repugnant capitalistic logic that lurks behind its glamorous appearance. Bateman is an exemplary embodiment of capitalist ideology, except he is a perverted psychopath. Unlike those typical lunatics whose psyches are so alien to us, the objects present in his psyche is familiar to us, resonating the advertisements that are omnipresence in this capitalistic world. Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Armani, and Rolex to name but a few, all these are what occupied Bateman’s mind from time to time. In the eyes of Bateman, everything has an inextricable relationship with consumer goods. When he starts making love with his lover, Courtenay, he suddenly has a strong feeling that something is missing. “Oh shit”, he exclaims, running around the house to search for the water-soluble spermicidal lubricant (98). Meanwhile, Courtenay stops Patrick in the middle of their sexual intercourse, asking whether Patrick is using a condom with a receptacle tip, because only with a receptacle tip will she be able to
54
"catch the force of the ejaculate” (99). “It is a plain end” (99), Patrick replies. Courtenay immediately refuses to carry on until Patrick compromises. This comical scene vividly illustrates the fact that materialism has even invaded every aspect of modern people’s life. Even when he has fallen asleep, he wakes up immediately when he feels the prostitutes touch his wrist accidentally, warning not to touch his Rolex. Endless description of excessive details of consuming goods around Bateman is ubiquitous in American Psycho. Such repetition and tedious proses invoke a sense of absurdity of Bateman’s obsession in material. Murphet calls this the aesthetics of boredom (24). Not only Bateman, but also the peers around him focus superficially on the surface of people - the material surface in particular. People are being identified by the consumer goods with which they adorn themselves. And probably also because they are people with extremely self-centered mentality, mistakenly identifying another person happens from time to time. For instance, Owen repeatedly confuses Bateman with Halberstam, who also “has a penchant for Valentino suits and clear prescription glasses” (86). And Bateman utilizes this chance to kill Owen without being caught. Even when Bateman admits his crime to his lawyer, his confession has been treated as a joke because his lawyer claims that he has met Owen twice ten days ago. Some people suggest that this opens up the possibility that Bateman simply hallucinates his crime. Nonetheless, I
55
believe that by taking account into the context of the yuppie culture, there is stronger textual evidence supporting the reading that this is a mockery of the extreme self-absorbed culture of capitalism. This is why Bateman can always get away with murders even though he is terribly poor in concealing his crimes. The Violence of Capitalism But Bateman is not just a big capitalist. He is a capitalistic maniac. Apart from ridiculing the absurdity of the materialistic mentality, the text also reveals its dangerousness. As Marx characterizes, the big capitalists are almighty beings that can transform anything into its opposition (Tanner 98). On one hand, they can profit without labour, generating tremendous gain out of nothing. On the other hand, they can reduce something into nothing, denying the subjectivity of human, reducing them into mere materials. Similarly, Bateman also plays the role of the omnipotent “God� in this novel. What his memoir shows is not just his violent behavior, but also a blatant denial of subjectivity of all the people around him. Hence, he perpetuates violence not merely as a serial killer, but also as a narrator. The violence that he has perpetuated, and his indifference towards it signify dehumanization in contemporary society. He treats human being merely as a means, but never as an end. Standing at the apex of capitalist hierarchies, Bateman can purchase anything he wants, not only luxury goods, but also human bodies. And he can even purchase his chance to perpetuate violence. When he
56
meet a prostitute to which he has previously inflicted upon grievously bodily harm, the girl is horrified by his present and resists his attempt to get her into the car. But when she sees the irresistible amount of money, she succumbs willingly to Bateman’s capitalistic dictate. The Violence of the Narrator As Tanner points out, Bateman has the ability to “reduce human will and subjectivity to material that he is free of manipulation” (98). Many of his victims are nameless. Even when his victims have names, it is only because Bateman assigns names to them, as if he was naming different products.
And the chapters of the scenes of
atrocities are entitled “Girl”, “Girls” and “Try to Cook and Eat Girls” etc. Moreover, the way in which Bateman perceives girls is also highly materialistic. This can be reflected by his depiction of girls such as “a totally tan bleached-blond hardbody with a perfect ass and great full tits” (94), and “a totally bleached-blond little hardbody with a perfectly trimmed blond pussy” (94). This is what Tanner calls a “literal process of commodification” (101). Commodification has been manifested most startlingly through the
manner
in
which
Bateman
narrates
his
atrocities.
The
commodification of victim is most apparent in the following scenes, in which Bateman disfigures a homeless beggar, “I pull out a long, thin knife with a serrated edge and, being very careful not to kill him, push maybe half an inch of the
57
blade into his right eye, flicking the handle up, instantly popping the retina… His eye, burst open, hangs out of its socket and runs down his face and he keeps blinking which causes what's left of it inside the wound to pour out like red, veiny egg yolk. I grab his head with one hand and push it back and then with my thumb and fore finger hold the other eye open and bring the knife up and push the tip of it into the socket, first breaking its protective film so the socket fills with blood, then slitting the eyeball open sideways, and he finally starts screaming once I slit his nose in two…” (Ellis 126) As Tanner succinctly observes, the complete negation of the immediacy of the victim's pain diminishes the victim’s subjectivity. He portrays his merciless murder as if he was performing an anatomy, focusing meticulously on the biological structure of the victim without any awareness towards the victim’s agony. The closest thing that Bateman does which depicts the beggar’s pain is his cold remark - “he finally starts screaming”. Bateman’s violence behaviors are acts of dehumanization. He does not simply take away his victims’ lives. He even deprives his victims of their subjectivity. Furthermore, the way in which Bateman portrays the aftermath of his crime further degrades his subjects. Bateman gruesomely describes the crime scene the other day after he tortured and murdered two prostitutes.
58
“In the morning, for some reason, Christie's battered hands are swollen
to
the
size
of
footballs,
the
fingers
are
indistinguishable from the rest of her hand and the smell coming from her burnt corpse is jolting and I have to open the venetian blinds, which are spattered with burnt fat from when Christie's breasts burst apart, electrocuting her, and then the windows, to air out the room. Her eyes are wide open and glazed over and her mouth is lipless and black and there's also a black pit where her vagina should be… and her lungs are visible beneath the charred ribs. What is left of Elizabeth's body lies crumpled in the corner of the living room...” (Ellis 279) As Tanner remarks, by acknowledging that these unrecognizing body parts belong to Christie, Bateman conveys his ability to transform human subjects into gross objects, femininity into “burnt fat” and “black pit”. The Style of Violence In The Aesthetics of Serial Killing, Allue compares American Psycho with The Silence of the Lambs, pointing out that rather than employing aesthetics means to make the murder scenes arousing, Ellis deliberately portrays them gruesomely, stimulating an emetic effect (16). American Psycho aims at arousing repugnance. The fact that no attempt had been made by Ellis to describe the violence in a “tasteful manner” makes it a controversial work. But it is also necessary to startle the readers to reconsider the ideology that
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operates invisibly behind capitalism. Such bombardments compel the readers to behold the capitalistic ideology that they were once familiar with in a new light. Another major difference between American Psycho and other classical serial killer novel is in terms of killing patterns. In the classic serial killing texts, there are certain to the way in which killers select their prey. In particular, they usually target at victims who possess specific traits. However, for Bateman, there is none. He preys on basically everyone. And the driving force behind seems to be envy and hatred. He murders his business colleague out of jealousy, and his exgirlfriend out of his egoism and resentment. He mutilates a beggar out of class hatred. He kills the “old queer” out of his contempt of the homosexuals, and also partly because the guy possesses a precious dog. He attempts to murder a Japanese because of his envy of Japan’s blossoming economy, only to discover that he kills a Chinese instead, lamenting that he has killed the “wrong type of Asian” (173). But above all, the manifestation of misogyny is most conspicuously shown by his constant preying on women. The reason behind such peculiarly random and hate-driven killing pattern can be explained by virtue of his other identity – a yuppie. The yuppies are ready to dehumanize absolutely anyone as a vehicle to profits for their greed. They are also embodied with class, racial and gender prejudices. The popular yuppie culture within capitalism clearly resonates Bateman – the serial killing maniac. And his act of violence
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seems guided by his yuppie mentality. Thus, the murder pattern by which Bateman follows seems to reflect the concealed yet appalling aspect of the society. The text suggests a strong parallel between the insane and capitalism. Such a maniac that our contemporary society condemns operates precisely with the kind of ideology that this society brews. And such ideology is manifested in the most elitist sense by Bateman. Americans’ greatest dream is also their worst nightmare. American Psycho offers a radical interpretation of capitalism and starling revelation of the cruel ideology that lurks behind. The outraged feeling that the text provokes is precisely what the people surprisingly lack in their everyday life. American Psycho reminds us of horrific side of capitalism to which we numb our feelings. It unveils the well-concealed dark side of the modern world. It is to Ellis’ credit to piece together the endless tedious details and horrifying narratives, offering a unique interpretation that help the readers to see the world afresh. Such are the aesthetic values manifested through all these violent atrocities. Such is the beauty of this horrifying piece of art. Works Cited Allué, Sonia Baelo. ‘The Aesthetics of Serial Killing: Working Against Ethics in The Silence of The Lambs and American Psycho.” Atlantis 24.2 (2002):7-24. Print.
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Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print. Ellis, Bret Easton. American psycho. London: Picador, 1991. Print. Lorand, Ruth. Aesthetic Order: A Philosophy of Order, Beauty, and Art. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. Murphet, Julian. Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho: A Reader's Guide. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2002. Print. Plotinus. Ennead. The Shrine of Wisdom. The Fintry Trust, 1955. Web. 3 Sep 2015. Tanner, Laura. Intimate Violence: Reading Rape and Torture in Twentieth-Century Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Print.
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Acknowledgments
Prof. Gina Marchetti Dr. Fiona Law Mr. Gavin Tse ĺ…¨ Scarlett Ng Kaden Ng
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Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015 Executive Committee Chairperson Internal Vice Chairperson & General Secretary External Vice Chairperson Financial Secretary Academic Secretary & Student Representative Publication Secretary Social Secretary Welfare Secretary
Janice Cheung Angela Lai Amanda Hui Edmond Li Scarlett Ng Kaden Ng Joyce Ng Beverly Leung
Violence as Beauty Bulletin 2015 Editor: Kaden Ng (email: nyc318@hku.hk) Published by Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015 Address: Room 2A01, Fong Shu Chuen Amenities Centre, the University of Hong Kong Email: scomplit@hku.hk; hkuscomplit@gmail.com Website: http://www.scomplit.hkusu.hku.hk Date of issue: 30th October 2015 Pages: 64 64
Society of Comparative Literature, A.A.H.K.U.S.U., Session 2014-2015