[lit-ideas] Re: Literature as a reflection of life
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 23:52:03 -0400
What is the question about Dirty Harry Lawrence? That we should do like Dirty
Harry because then all the bad guys get what's coming to them? On what
evidence are you basing this? They, and you, claim this is a war. Dirty Harry
was one guy in one city with an ending written before the movie was filmed.
It's likely Clint Eastwood may even have filmed the ending first. Where is the
connection to this real live conflict? The fact that you offer so much
literary support for your war strategy is, to me, evidence that indeed this
"war" is just a fantasy, life imitating art. In fact, Gore Vidal calls this a
metaphorical war, like a war on dandruff. Gore Vidal writes literature, does
he not?
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 4/7/2006 10:33:57 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Literature as a reflection of life
An interesting response Irene. Someone with a literary background on the other
hand would know that literature can reflect issues in society and life. Upton
Sinclairs?s The Jungle drew attention to the scandal of the meat industry. His
novel was fiction but it resulted in the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act
of 1906. In The Brass Check he was critical of the Press.
Sinclair Lewis? Babbitt painted such a vivid and critical picture of the
American social landscape that the term ?Babbitt? entered the American
vocabulary in the same way that ?Philistine? did after Matthew Arnold?s Culture
and Anarchy. And who wanted to live in a tract house after reading his Main
Street?
Thomas Hardy?s Tess of the D?Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure painted powerful
pictures of the inequities in the British society of his day.
Dostoevski as a result of such novels as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and
The Brothers Karamazov is sometimes said to evince a better understanding of
psychology than any scientist (including Freud) could claim.
The symbols of Ahab and The White Whale have entered our common vocabulary as a
result of Melville?s Moby Dick.
H. G. Wells The Time Machine created a very negative prediction of man?s future
which was heavily influenced by Darwinian anthropological thinking.
I could go on. Approaching the matter from a slightly different direction we
can observe that much literature and many movies during the Cold War were very
pessimistic about the chances of man?s survival. In the 1951 movie, When
World?s Collide, the close pass of a planet will destroy human life and so
scientists scramble to find a way to preserve life by sending the best people
off in a space ship.
In the 1959 movie On the Beach, The residents of Australia after a global
nuclear war must come to terms with the fact that all life will be destroyed in
a matter of months.
In the 1962 movie The Day of the Triffids a shower of meteriorites blinds
everyone watching it and soon plants shoot up that can walk and have a taste
for human flesh.
The 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned how to stop worrying and love
the bomb was indicative of the common concern of the day: Plot Summary: ?U.S.
Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his
bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are
conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. The
U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador tells him
that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a "Doomsday
Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. Peter Sellers
portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain
Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S.
President Merkin Muffley, whose best attempts to divert disaster depend on
placating a drunken Soviet Premier and the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove,
who concludes that "such a device would not be a practical deterr
ent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious". Will the
bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack Ripper succeed in destroying
the world ?? [We could do a tangent on Dr. Strangelove: Many Liberals have
learned how to quit worrying and love the idea of Iran having ?the bomb.?]
Again, I could go on here as well. To return to the movie under discussion,
Dirty Harry symbolizes the perception of a liberal predilection for coddling
criminals at the expense of ordinary citizens. The perception of many is that
Liberals worry more about the rights of criminals than they do of the
protection of innocent civilians. Dirty Harry is a rather heavy handed
presentation of this perception. This perception is popular and Dirty Harry
was brought back in several sequels. Paul Kersey in Death Wish goes after the
sort of criminals who murdered his wife. He sets himself up as a victim and
then kills the criminals attempting to victimize him. Kersey was brought back
in Death Wish II, III, IV, and V. Lots of people like the idea of someone
dealing violently with those who victimize innocent civilians. And this liking
hasn?t stopped. Witness 24.
Now you are either horribly stunted in your understanding of literature or you
are simply refusing to answer a very reasonable question about Dirty Harry.
Which is it?
Lawrence
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